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This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
The huge and famous Archduke Joseph Diamond, an internally flawless diamond from India's fabled Golconda mines was sold at auction in Geneva on Tuesday night for a record US$ 21.4m.
Geneva (PRWEB) November 18, 2012
While the buyer requested to remain anonymous, it was revealed that Fred Mouawad offered the last bid before the buyer secured the flawless Golconda diamond on Tuesday night at an auction in Geneva, Switzerland. The rare, colorless stone—weighing 76.02 carats and roughly the size of a large strawberry—once belonged to Archduke Joseph August of Austria (1872-1962), a prince of the Hungarian line of the Habsburgs.
It should come as no surprise that with Mouawad’s legacy of purchasing and collecting some of the world’s most important and finest diamonds in the world, that they would be interested in adding the famous Archduke Joseph August diamond to their world-class collection. “This is the type of diamond we like to set in our Haute Joaillerie pieces,” said Co-Guardian Pascal Mouawad.
François Curiel, director of the international jewellery department at Christie's, said that “Historical diamonds originating in the Golconda mines of India, virtually exhausted by the 18th century, include the famous Koh-i-noor, now in the British crown jewels, and the blue Hope Diamond, part of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.”
Records show the Archduke deposited the stone in the vault of the Hungarian General Credit Bank in 1933.
"Three years later it was sold to a European banker, and kept in France, locked away in a safe deposit box, where fortunately it remained undiscovered during the Second World War," the auction house said.
It surfaced at auction in 1961 and again at Christie's in November 1993, netting US$ 6.5m at the time. The stone was subsequently slightly recut and did not appear again until Tuesday, where it fetched a world record price per carat of US$ 280,000 for a colorless diamond." The Archduke Joseph Diamond is the finest and largest perfect Golconda diamond ever to appear at auction, and the largest ever graded by the GIA", Rahul Kadakia of Christie's said.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prwebarchduke-joseph-diamond/mouawad-11-2012/prweb10147271.htm | <urn:uuid:10690441-7dcb-491a-adf0-5d227e81c55d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kwqc.com/story/20128866/mouawad-the-underbidder-on-the-archduke-joseph-diamond-in-geneva-which-fetched-a-world-record-price-for-a-colorless-diamond-at-us-214m | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939454 | 570 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Raging Texas wildfires destroy 1,000 homes
Four killed since outbreak began
The Associated Press
Posted: Sep 6, 2011 10:12 AM ET
Last Updated: Sep 6, 2011 10:49 PM ET
One of the most devastating wildfire outbreaks in Texas history left more than 1,000 homes in ruins Tuesday and stretched the state's firefighting ranks to the limit, confronting Gov. Rick Perry with a major disaster at home just as the GOP presidential contest heats up.
More than 180 fires have erupted in the past week across the rain-starved Lone Star State, and nearly 600 of the homes destroyed since then were lost in one catastrophic blaze in and around Bastrop, near Austin, that raged out of control Tuesday for a third day.
Whipped into an inferno by Tropical Storm Lee's winds over the weekend, the blaze burned more than 116 square kilometres, forced the evacuation of thousands and killed at least two people, bringing the overall death toll from the outbreak to at least four.
"We lost everything," said Willie Clements, whose two-story colonial home in a housing development near Bastrop was reduced to a heap of metal roofing and ash. A picket fence was melted. Some goats and turkeys survived, but about 20 chickens and ducks were burned to death in a coop that went up in flames.
On Tuesday, Clements and his family took a picture of themselves in front of a windmill adorned with a charred red, white and blue sign that proclaimed, "United We Stand."
"This is the beginning of our new family album," the 51-year-old Clements said.
Governor cuts short campaign trip
Perry cut short a presidential campaign trip to South Carolina to deal with the crisis. On Tuesday, he toured a blackened area near Bastrop, which is about 40 kilometres from Austin.
"Pretty powerful visuals of individuals who lost everything," he said. "The magnitude of these losses are pretty stunning."
The governor would not say whether he would take part in Wednesday evening's Republican presidential debate in California, explaining that he was "substantially more concerned about making sure Texans are being taken care of." But campaign spokesman Mark Miner said in an email later in the day that Perry planned to be there.
Perry, a tea-party favorite who has made a career out of railing against government spending, said he expects federal assistance with the wildfires, and he complained that red tape was keeping bulldozers and other heavy equipment at the Army's Fort Hood, 120 kilometres from Bastrop, from being putting to use. Fort Hood was battling its own fire, a 1,500-hectare blaze.
"It's more difficult than it should be to get those types of assets freed up by the federal government," Perry said. "When you've got people hurting, when you've got lives that are in danger in particular, I really don't care who the asset belongs to. If it's sitting in some yard somewhere and not helping be part of the solution, that's a problem."
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the Obama administration has approved seven federal grants to Texas to help with the latest outbreak, and "we will continue to work closely with the state and local emergency management officials as their efforts to contain these fires."
1,200 firefighters battle blaze
About 1,200 firefighters battled the blazes, including members of local departments from around the state and crews from such places as Utah, California, Arizona and Oregon, many of them arriving after Texas put out a call for help. More firefighters will join the battle once they have been registered and sent where they are needed.
Five heavy tanker planes, some from the federal government, and three aircraft capable of scooping approximately 5,600 litres of water at a time from lakes also took part in the fight.
"We're getting incredible support from all over the country, federal and state agencies," said Mark Stanford, operations director for the Texas Forest Service.
The disaster is blamed largely on Texas' yearlong drought, one of the most severe dry spells the state has ever seen.
The fire in Bastrop County is easily the single most devastating wildfire in Texas in more than a decade, eclipsing a blaze that destroyed 168 homes in North Texas in April. Texas Forest Service spokeswoman April Saginor said state wildfire records go back only to the late 1990s.
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- Tim Hortons being circled by Wall Street hedge funds | <urn:uuid:b54c6ec6-3328-4019-8478-c1cfd1c45340> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/09/06/texas-wildfire.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96353 | 1,499 | 1.625 | 2 |
These pages are dedicated to helping prospective and current Monmouth University students apply for financial assistance and maintain their current financial aid. Our financial aid office is committed to helping you and your family understand the process of financial aid.
Financing a college education is one of the most important investments a family will ever make. Monmouth University is affordable through various financial assistance programs. While Monmouth is a private university, Monmouth is also committed to helping you find solutions that will enable you to enroll, graduate, and capitalize on this important, once-in-a-lifetime investment. We will work with you and your family to establish a financial partnership and develop options that will make Monmouth a reality for you.
Detailed information about all of our financial aid programs can be accessed through this Web site. Using the links to the left and above, you can access useful information about Monmouth’s financial aid application process and programs, including additional resources, forms, loans, and bill calculator.
To help you navigate through our Web site here is a brief description of what you can find under each section. Through understanding the process, you can obtain information regarding satisfactory academic progress, withdrawal information, the application process, information regarding financial aid packages, as well as Stafford and Perkins Entrance and Exit Counseling. While under the Undergraduate or Graduate sections you can find the appropriate grants, scholarships, and loans available for each. Our forms can be downloaded and printed by going to the forms page. If you would like to calculate approximately how much your monthly student loan payments will be, you may try our calculators that we have made available for you.
Have an enjoyable year!
The Monmouth University Financial Aid Office | <urn:uuid:78e3168e-f61d-4050-b5cc-2ff934c2bb11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.monmouth.edu/financialaid/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942653 | 344 | 1.617188 | 2 |
One of America’s most influential evangelicals, Brian McLaren talks about his shifting views on homosexuality, including presiding at his gay son’s marriage commitment ceremony.
Named one of TIME Magazine‘s “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America” in 2005, Brian McLaren has been a personal and theological journey that has made him a lightening rod of the evangelical movement, especially regarding politics (he supported Obama) and “social issues” such as LGBT equality.
In 2006, McLaren famously suggested in Christianity Today, the news outlet of the evangelical movement, that, “Perhaps we need a five-year moritorium on making pronouncements [about homosexaulity]. … Being ‘right’ isn’t enough. We also need to be wise. And loving. And patient.” The mere suggestion of a “five-year moritorium” caused an uproar among the right and holy.
Last year, it was announced that McLaren had presided at a commitment ceremony for his son Trevor and Trevor’s partner, Owen Ryan.
Now, in a new interview, McLaren has opened up more about his personal and theological journey on the subject of homosexuality, including his relationship with his son: | <urn:uuid:3409dd40-3203-4157-9dd8-5ac4c06064d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goodmenproject.com/in-good-faith/an-evangelical-changes-his-views-on-homosexuality/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964849 | 258 | 1.546875 | 2 |
If you have a bunch of broken gold chains and necklaces and want to try selling them to a jewelry store, it’s important to know how much they’re worth first. Here’s how to calculate their value like the pros do.
1. Weigh it with a gram scale.
2. Get today’s price of gold from a place like Kitco.
3. Divide that price by 31.1 to get the gram weight. (The price of gold is listed in troy ounces, which is 31.1 grams)
4. Divide the karat by 24
5. Multiply the result of step 4 by the result of step 3 by the result of step 1.
6. Congrats! Now you know how much your piece of gold is worth if it was melted down.
Armed with this information you’ll be a lot better equipped to get a good price when you comparison shop selling your gold at several different jewelry stores.
How to Calculate the Value of Scrap Gold [WikiHow] | <urn:uuid:b9392266-882a-4f0f-8e81-a9bf0676cd33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://consumerist.com/2010/11/19/figure-out-how-much-your-scrap-gold-is-worth/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940305 | 222 | 1.75 | 2 |
I just finished reading a new book that I think will be of great interest to many of the readers of this blog. The Survivors Club: The Secrets & Science That Could Save Your Life (Grand Central Publishing), written by Ben Sherwood, examines the questions of human survival in crises — Who survives and who doesn’t? Who bounces back and who collapses? Who keeps fighting and who surrenders? Sherwood is a former network television producer and the best selling author of two novels, The Man Who Ate The 747 and The Life & Death of Charlie St. Cloud. (He’s also a college classmate of mine.)
Through compelling, well-reported true stories, the author’s first-hand experiences, and interviews with experts, The Survivors Club explores what it takes to overcome life’s unavoidable challenges. In pursuit of the secrets of the survival, Sherwood even undergoes genetic testing to find out if he possesses the so-called Resilience Gene.
Though I would have been interested in The Survivors Club anyway because of my work on disaster preparedness and response, it had even more resonance to me now that I am dealing with leukemia (and in fact I read it this week in the hospital while getting chemotherapy). Sherwood writes something early on in the book that I now find true about my own situation, but it is also how I believe the nation collectively should think about and deal with the potential of unexpected major disasters in the future:
“The best survivors understand that normal is just a fleeting state of mind. Indeed normalcy may seem steady and constant, but it’s the intermission between the chaos and messiness of life. Survivors accept that life probably won’t ever return to the way it used to be. So, they let go adapt, and embrace the “new normal”.
The Survivors Club does not find one magic bullet or formula for survival in a crisis situation. Luck plays its role. But there are some things one can do. As Sherwood writes:
Clearly, no single theory can encompass who lives and who dies. No common denominator applies to every person or struggle. In some cases, the cosmic coin toss accounts for everything. Alzheimer’s patients don’t pick their DNA. Trauma victims don’t choose the drunk driver swerving down the streets. Still, survival isn’t entirely out of your hands. In fact, you control much more of your destiny than you may have imagined. Above all, your mind-set makes the difference. You can take care of yourself and pay attention to your surroundings. You can make your own luck in the worst situations. You can pray, too, if it suits. And you can persevere with willpower.”
The Survivors Club also offers readers the opportunity to discover their own Survivor Profile; each book comes with an access code to an internet-based test, which generates a customized report on one’s unique survivor personality. In fact, as part of his work in this area, Sherwood has founded a new web-based community devoted “to helping people in crisis live longer and better lives” which can be found at www.TheSurvivorsClub.org. | <urn:uuid:093399bc-076a-475c-b754-16ffc40d7dbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://incaseofemergencyblog.com/2009/02/13/new-book-the-survivors-club/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940862 | 663 | 1.695313 | 2 |
My recent review of "The World Is Flat" on Amazon.com:
Over 833 people have written a review on Tom Friedman's "The World Is Flat" on Amazon alone. This does not include the hundreds who have blogged or got their reviews published in magazines and journals. So, I began musing on why I should add to this list. Well, being a part of the flat world, I think it is worth my time to add to the list, so here it goes.
Friedman sets the context in the first half of the book by elaborating on factors that (he argues) are causing flattening of the world:
1 - The fall of the Berlin wall and what it represents.
2 - The internet
3 - Workflow software
4 - Open source
5 - Outsourcing
6 - Offshoring
7 - Supply Chain Management
8 - Insourcing
9 - In-forming
10 - "The steroids" digital, mobile, personal and virtual
Though Friedman may or may not have intended the list to be techno-centric, it is. Six or seven of the flattners are directly attributable to Innovative uses of Information Technology....a fact that made me reflect: it takes a non-techie journalist well versed in globalization to sift through the technologies to succinctly summarize the key drivers.
Perhaps the most profound question Friedman asks in the book is "Where Were You When the World Went Flat?" To answer this one would, of course, have to agree to the fact that the world is indeed flat...and also go along with his list of top ten flatteners
As an Indian born technologist who has lived most of his working life in the flattening world my work was initially aided by a passport, visas and green card from western nations. The impact of visas and passports is starting to mitigate as the world flattens further...aided by technologies such as collaborative workflow tools and advances in telecommunication and videoconferencing.
Having extensively used tools including the Internet, workflow software, I can buy into how the world is flattening around us. It also helps that I currently work for a blue-chip Offshoring organization, Infosys, that is quoted extensively in the book [I also wrote the book "Offshoring IT Services", a guide for managers and executives looking for insights into the practice of technology offshoring].
To Friedman's question, I can answer :: I was right here when the world went flat.
Can the world flatten further? You bet it can.
Can the world flatten further? You bet it can.. Review of The world is flat
Follow me on Twitter, you can also friend me in Facebook or on linkedin. I am always looking to have more conversations with people, feel free to join up and say hello. The opinions of this article are the opinions of this writer. They are not the opinions of my employers, nor in any way does this blog, these entries, or any information on this site reflect the opinion of my employers or people associated with me.
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Legislation that would eliminate the requirement of annual inspections for vehicles less than two years old is getting mixed reaction from local service station owners.
Senate Bill 1451 would lift the annual inspection requirement for two years from the date of manufacture.
“For purchasers of today’s new cars, the annual inspection is a pointless ritual that serves no purpose,” said state Sen. John Wozniak, D-Cambria County, the bill’s sponsor. “Owners of new cars have already paid dearly for a vehicle equipped with the latest safety technology. Requiring a state inspection is overkill.”
Only 12 states — including Pennsylvania — still require annual inspections for all vehicles. Neighboring New Jersey, Maryland and Ohio have ended automobile inspections, while Delaware does not require inspections for vehicles less than five years old.
“For new cars, I absolutely think they should be exempt from initial state inspection, maybe even for two years, and I’m an advocate for doing state inspections.” said Hal Lewis, owner of H&R Auto in Kennett Square. “It’s a financial burden and unnecessary.”
Lewis said he’s never had to fail a new car brought to him for inspection. “We check the new cars just like it’s a 1978 Chevy,” Lewis said. “We look at them, but they usually don’t need anything.”
Bob Blittersdorf, who owns Blitz Automotive on State Street in Kennett Square, said yearly inspections keep vehicles safe.
“This is a safety issue,” he said. “A state inspection is one of the cheapest things you can get for your car and costs $25 to $30. You can’t even go to the doctor for $25 or $30. I don’t see how people can balk at a $30 state inspection when they just spent $30,000 on a new car. I think it’s a good investment, and we can catch something before it does any further damage.”
Wozniak said the cost of driving continues to rise dramatically and new car owners shouldn’t have to pay twice for a safety inspection. In January, Wozniak sponsored a resolution seeking permission from the federal government to waive emission tests required in 25 counties since 1990. Since 1990, there has been just a 4 percent failure rate for the emissions tests, he said.
Lewis said he hopes the new vehicle inspection proposal gets support in the legislature.
“Most people don’t’ even drive new cars enough in the first two years to need brakes or tires,” Lewis said. “They have to pass inspection at the dealership before (vehicles) are released as new.”
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter: | <urn:uuid:f242fe61-1fe6-448c-8725-5b2fa99af539> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesherald.com/article/20120407/NEWS01/120409659/1004/LIFE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949026 | 604 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Senator Arlen Specter to Be Honored at AACR Gala
October 14, 2005
Field(s) of Research
: Carcinogenesis, Cellular and Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Clinical Research, Endocrinology, Epidemiology, Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics, Immunology, Prevention Research, Tumor Biology
PHILADELPHIA -- US Senator Arlen Specter (R- Pa) will be honored with the AACR Public Service Award for his tireless efforts to strengthen the nation’s biomedical research capability. The Award ceremony will take place at the “One World, One Quest” gala at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on November 13, 2005.
The American Association for Cancer Research, the nation’s oldest and largest cancer research organization, headquartered in Philadelphia, established the Public Service Awards to recognize significant and sustained contributions to the fight against cancer by individuals who work in the public arena.
In his past position as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Senator Specter staunchly advocated for increased appropriations for biomedical and cancer research. His leadership and collaboration were a driving force for accomplishing the five-year doubling of the budget of the National Institutes of Health that was completed in 2003.
As a cancer survivor, the Senator has brought a powerful voice and remarkable leadership to the fight against this terrible disease. His personal strength in battling cancer while carrying on his critical duties in the United States Senate is a tribute to his courage and dedication to public service. Senator Specter’s past advocacy in support of life-saving medical advances, stem cell research, and legislation to strengthen cancer research, prevention, and treatment has truly made a difference in the lives of millions of cancer survivors across the nation.
Senator Specter’s commitment to support biomedical research funding has resulted in making Pennsylvania – and the Philadelphia area in particular – home to several of the most advanced and well-respected cancer research and treatment institutions in the country. His impressive recovery from treatment at our local institutions is testimony to the incredible advances in cancer care that have been made possible thanks to continued federal support for cancer research.
The “One World, One Quest” gala will take place on Sunday evening, November 13th, from 6-10 PM, at the National Constitution Center, 6th and Arch Streets, in Philadelphia. All proceeds will benefit the AACR Foundation’s Fund for Translational Cancer Research. This Fund will also provide a special research grant to the 2005 local beneficiary--Fox Chase Cancer Center.
Scheduled on the eve of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, this gala will bring physicians and scientists – both from the U.S. and Europe – together with celebrities and philanthropists for an evening dedicated to the fight against cancer. For further information on the gala please visit, www.aacrfoundation.org.
Founded in 1907, the American Association for Cancer Research is a professional society of more than 24,000 laboratory, translational, and clinical scientists engaged in all areas of cancer research in the United States and in more than 60 other countries. AACR's mission is to accelerate the prevention and cure of cancer through research, education, communication, and advocacy. Its principal activities include the publication of five major peer-reviewed scientific journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. AACR's Annual Meetings attract nearly 16,000 participants who share new and significant discoveries in the cancer field. Specialty meetings, held throughout the year, focus on the latest developments in all areas of cancer research.
David Goodman, Ph.D.
(215)440-9300 ext. 133 | <urn:uuid:817840dd-f22a-497e-8fb4-2544b98e8c04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aacr.org/home/public--media/aacr-press-releases.aspx?d=519 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934837 | 792 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Will I be Fast Enough?
Will you be fast enough to take part in a track day? Is your car suitable?
Speed is the Creed....or is it?
A common misconception with track days is that you need to be on a par with Michael Schumacher or Fernando Alonso before you go on a track day, otherwise you will end up looking like a wally. This is simply not true. So long as you and your car are adequately prepared, you too can come along and have a go. You do not need any prior motorsport or track experience to participate.
But I’ve Got a Crap Car!
It does not matter if you drive a Lamborghini Gallardo or a Trabant. So long as your car has a valid MOT or could pass MSA race scrutineering, you are more than welcome to attend any Circuit Days event.
All Circuit Days track days are non-competitive events that enforce overtaking by consent only regulations. This means that it does not matter how fast or slow you or your car are, everybody has to overtake on the straights and with both cars’ consent.
If anybody is found to be driving in an intimidating fashion, i.e. driving too close to the car in front, flashing headlights excessively, etc they will be given a warning by Circuit Days staff.
Conversely, if anybody is seen to be not obeying the overtaking regulations, i.e. not checking their mirrors, not allowing faster cars to pass easily, etc they too will be given a warning.
As well as theoretically eliminating the risk of car-to-car contact, adhering to these simple rules also serves to remove the competitive element that can be inherent on this type of event.
Therefore it simply does not matter how fast you are, everybody is free to enjoy themselves - and at their own pace! | <urn:uuid:61777e2e-d269-4620-ba1e-ce3fdbc30b09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.circuit-days.co.uk/fastenough.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951292 | 386 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Copyright of Sherlock Holmes and Other Conan Doyle Works
From time to time parties unrelated to the Conan Doyle family have claimed to own literary or other rights in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, including Sherlock Holmes. Because of the confusion this has sometimes created, we have provided facts on two of the more well-known claimants below.
One Andrea Plunket has for some time claimed to administer the “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate.” Ms. Plunket’s late former husband, the producer Sheldon Reynolds, did at one time own United States copyrights in certain Conan Doyle works. In 1981, however, Dame Jean Conan Doyle, the last surviving child of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, exercised her right to recapture the copyrights under the United States Copyright Act.
Since that time, Dame Jean and her successors have been the exclusive owners of United States copyrights and related rights in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. Dame Jean’s heirs formed Conan Doyle Estate Ltd to hold and manage these rights.
After Dame Jean’s death in 1997, Ms. Plunket began making her claims. Every federal court to consider Ms. Plunket’s claims has rejected them, and more than one has imposed sanctions against her.
Plunket v. Doyle, 2001
In Plunket v. Doyle, 2001 WL 175252 (S.D.N.Y. 2001), a New York federal court dismissed Ms. Plunket’s complaint and ordered her to pay Dame Jean’s estate’s attorneys’ fees.
Pannonia Farms, Inc. v. USA Cable, 2004
In Pannonia Farms, Inc. v. USA Cable, 2004 WL 1276842 (June 8, 2004 S.D.N.Y.) Ms. Plunket claimed that her entity Pannonia Farms owned the Conan Doyle rights, but the New York federal court held that Pannonia did not “own the copyrights, trademarks and related rights in the works of Sir Doyle.” This decision was upheld on appeal in a published decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Pannonia Farms, Inc. v. USA Cable, 426 F. 3d 650 (2d Cir. 2005).
The federal trial court went on to conclude that Pannonia’s claims were “objectively unreasonable,” “frivolous,” and “outrageous,” and required Pannonia to pay the defence’s attorneys’ fees. The Court also fined Pannonia’s lawyers $25,000 for bringing baseless litigation.
Pannonia Farms, Inc. v. Re/Max International
When Ms. Plunket tried to assert Pannonia’s claims in another federal court in Washington, D.C., the court held that “Pannonia Farms has had every opportunity to pursue and litigate this very issue in court and has lost every time.”
Pannonia was consequently barred from re-litigating the issue of ownership of the Conan Doyle rights. Pannonia Farms, Inc. v. Re/Max International, 407 F. Supp. 2d 41 (D.D.C. 2005). Again, the court ordered Pannonia to pay the defence’s attorneys’ fees and costs.
The Sherlock Holmes Memorabilia Company Limited
More recently, a company calling itself The Sherlock Holmes Memorabilia Company Limited, with its related company Sherlock Holmes Company Limited (together, SHMC) has claimed to own trademark rights in the name and image of Sherlock Holmes.
CDE has taken steps to extinguish these claims in the United States and to register its own trademark rights with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The law firm that initially defended SHMC’s trademark claims in these ongoing proceedings has now withdrawn.
For more information, see United States Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Cancellation Proceeding No. 92052090 and Opposition Proceeding No. 91192738. | <urn:uuid:7708f2d0-3e28-4ce7-a5c0-2fdbfece7b6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conandoyleestate.co.uk/index.php/copyright/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930168 | 846 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Sales in the last six months have gone up 89% compared with sales for the same period a year ago, according to the California Assn. of Realtors. Despite a worsening economy and a media and government afflicted with a bad-news disorder, something strange is happening in the California housing market. There is strong evidence that basic economics is addressing the housing meltdown in a direct manner, which might set the stage for stability and give a hint as to what policies work best.
Resales have been booming in the worst foreclosure markets in the state. Declining prices, severe job losses and pervasive foreclosures are supposed to stifle the market, yet we see record sales and significantly reduced listings in the foreclosure areas. For example, in Stockton, seasonally adjusted resales in December 2008 were up more than 440% from September 2007, according to MDA DataQuick, the definitive source for tracking California home sales. That December sales rate was a record for this market. By March, stories continued to abound of strong sales and multiple offers.
Similarly in Moreno Valley/Perris, the heart of the foreclosure badlands in Southern California, resales rose 720% to a record high. After steep home-resale declines in 2006 and 2007, the snapback in volume can be observed in the California interior from Chula Vista near the Mexican border to Sacramento.
Although this may all still abate, this is a cyclical novelty in California, where in the past it could take three, four or even five years after a housing recession before a vigorous resale volume recovery occurred.
Despite waves of foreclosures, resale listings have actually declined. The months it takes to burn off the inventory on local multiple listings in the last year have fallen from about 30 to 40 months down to three or four months in Stockton and the Moreno Valley/Perris area. Brokers now complain about the lack of foreclosure listings. In Stockton, 71% of foreclosures in the last 18 months have already been sold; in Riverside County, it was 67%; and in California overall, it was 66%, according to MDA DataQuick.
Although no one likes foreclosures, they are serving a number of valuable purposes, which are barely cited by the media or politicians. They are establishing a sustainable and affordable pricing floor, albeit low, in many markets. And before we label the prices as unduly low, we should note that they are returning pricing to the 2000-2002 pre-bubble levels. Foreclosures are also letting some borrowers out of very bad contracts, which often committed them to crushing monthly payments on loans unsupportable in the post-bubble pricing market.
Fortunately, government policy has already done the most important thing to maximize sales of foreclosure properties. It has made FHA and GSE (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) loans readily available to those who qualify under new and more sustainable standards. And gathering from the amount of demand we're seeing in the California interior, lending doesn't seem to be a problem.
Given the speed and volume of the resale sector's comeback -- aided by market forces -- getting the government more involved in housing could actually slow things down. And there can be no housing recovery -- and maybe no general economic recovery -- until the resale market stabilizes.
So what does the government need to fix at this point, when the market has almost completed its pricing adjustment work? Sometimes, simple solutions can have a big impact, more so than big government foreclosure bailouts or having bankruptcy judges reduce -- "cram down" -- the principal on mortgages. More elegant would be if mortgage servicers and consumers facing foreclosure could freely negotiate loan modifications. They are often hampered because mortgage servicers do not have a liability shield against investors.
We have a simple suggestion: Congress or the states could pass laws that protect mortgage security servicers from lawsuits, giving them the freedom to negotiate new terms with the borrowers if that's what both parties want. That way we leave the question of "to foreclose or not to foreclose" to the wisdom of thousands of voluntary micro-decisions rather than the forms of coercion that have become de rigueur lately.
Economists, politicians and pundits, left, right and center, all want something "done" about the mortgage meltdown. The fact is that some very important things tend to get done by tens of thousands of individuals who are already dealing with a huge range of individual situations: repricing housing, investing in the future and clearing the decks for an eventual recovery. It's called Economics 101 at work, and it's setting the stage for stabilization of housing in California.
Douglas C. Neff is president of an Irvine-based firm specializing in housing investments, and Gerd-Ulf Krueger is principal economist with an L.A. real estate consultancy. | <urn:uuid:f120b4c6-769a-45a5-8fd4-e87f1280ab27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wkoa.com/wkoa/lifestyle/do-it-yoursef/la-oe-krueger28-2009mar28,0,2223787.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961318 | 987 | 1.507813 | 2 |
So, why is eugenics wrong? I mean, from a rational perspective?
I can see how I would argue that it is bad if you make a broad based claim, like white people are better than black people, so black people should not be allowed to breed. I imagine I can show evidence that runs contrary to the basic premise that white people are 'better' than black people. The problem I run into is when you make eugenics smaller and more focused.
Say we outlaw breeding for certain very bad genetic traits, things like that.
In a first world country, I would say that if the parents/families are willing to take that risk, it might bring them more happiness to move forward with the birth...and since it is a first world country, they probably have resources available to support the resulting child.
But what about the third world? Rationally, does it make more sense to push draconian population control / eugenics when the alternative is starvation and the death of healthy, due to resources consumed by the 'bad'?
I can also make a rational argument for not allowing eugenics stuff on existing people because it seems risky to myself in the long run. Who decides who is 'fixed', etc...I might end up on the chopping block. And I can argue against wide-spread eugenics by showing how genetic diversity is a good thing. So I suppose my overall point is about eugenics practices being employed before conception and at the fetus level, especially regarding non-wealthy societies.
I'm not sure if I was very clear, feel free to ask questions so I can clarify my own, hardly understood, question.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing. | <urn:uuid:b41f237e-2452-4498-a0b4-ebf25d45bf4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/18452 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963509 | 353 | 1.804688 | 2 |
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The lights were expected to be back on at all of the city's public housing buildings overnight, but some residents say that's not the case.
The city shut down power to all public housing the day before Sandy hit, along with heat, hot water and elevators.
Although the city announced Tuesday night that the remaining 402 New York City Housing Authority properties without power had their electricity restored, those visited by NY1 Wednesday in Red Hook showed otherwise: Hallways and lobbies were lit, but some apartments still remain in the dark.
Some residents NY1 spoke to in Red Hook say their power is spotty at best, while others say they still have no electricity.
The housing authority said this is because there's a delay between power restoration and its actual return due to damaged circuits.
Speaking on "The Call" Wednesday night, NYCHA General Manager Cecil House said that the authority had to take down electricity to about 95 apartments to make repairs to improvements put in place over the last few days.
Residents are growing impatient.
"We have elderly people, my mother one, she's hospitalized, she can't come home. She's on oxygen. We don't have the proper electricity for her oxygen tank," said one resident. "My granddaughter has bronchial asthma. We don't have the proper electricity for her nebulizer. Housing is going around saying everything is fine, but it's not, sir."
If you live in public housing and were affected by the storm, what has it been like living without power or elevators the past two weeks? What issues are still affecting your neighborhood, wherever you live? Join the conversation on "The Call" at 9 p.m. with NY1's John Schiumo, or email your thoughts.
Roughly 18,000 residents in 92 buildings still have no heat or hot water.
In Brooklyn, the buildings without heat or hot water by Wednesday afternoon were:
- 4 buildings in the Carey Gardens development.
- 5 buildings in the Coney Island development.
- 1 building in the Coney Island I (Site 8) development.
- 2 buildings in the Coney Island I (Sites 4 and 5) development.
- 6 buildings in the O'Dwyer Gardens development.
- 4 buildings in the Surfside Gardens development.
- 7 buildings in the Red Hook East development.
- 13 buildings in the Red Hook West development.
In Queens, the buildings without heat or hot water by Wednesday afternoon were:
- 1 building in the Carleton Manor development.
- 14 buildings in the Hammel development.
- 24 buildings in the Ocean Bay Apartments (Bayside) development.
The mayor's office has not given a timetable for when heat will be back in those buildings.
House said they expect to provide 14 temporary boilers over the next two days, and says those boilers should bring the total of residents without heat down to zero.
NYCHA officials also said that by Wednesday afternoon, power was restored to 632 of 699 elevators that were affected by Sandy.
Meanwhile, the governor is advancing his probe into the state's utility providers as thousands remain in the dark.
The governor is forming a commission under the Moreland Act to investigate their response, preparation, and management during major storms that have hit the state over the past two years, including Sandy and Hurricane Irene.
The 10-member commission will look at how power companies handled the emergencies and make recommendations for what needs to be done better in the future.
Back on Monday, Consolidated Edison announced it had restored power to more than one million customers affected by Sandy and last week's nor'easter.
Con Ed says it looks forward to working with the commission conducting the investigation. The utility says it is always working to improve service to its customers, including reviewing new technology and infrastructure.
The utility says it has restored power to all remaining customers in the city whose equipment could be restored.
Con Ed says the one million restorations do not include approximately 16,300 customers in flood damaged areas of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.
The utility says those customers will not see the lights come on until their own internal equipment is repaired, tested and certified by an electrician.
Con Ed's figures do not include the hard-hit Rockaways in Queens, which are served by LIPA.
LIPA also responded to the announcement of the commission in a statement, saying, "Given the extreme weather patterns we have seen, a statewide study is appropriate."
LIPA announced Monday it has 67,000 customers throughout the region without power, including 29,000 in the Rockaways whose homes are too damaged to be re-electrified.
Meanwhile, the state attorney general's office will reportedly investigate Con Edison and the Long Island Power Authority in connection with their response to Sandy.
Sources tell NY1 that Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpeoned both utilities Wednesday.
He will reportedly investigate their performance while restoring power in the aftermath of Sandy, as well as their preparation leading up to the storm.
The attorney general will also reportedly look into how Con Ed and LIPA communicated with customers without power.
NY1 is told the subpeonas are not related to the commission created by Governor Cuomo to investigate utilities involved with Sandy.
More than two million New Yorkers were in the dark following the storm.
To report an outage or downed wires, call 1-800-75-CON ED or by going online to coned.com.
Con Ed says it will NOT pay residential claims for food and medicine that spoiled as a result of Sandy.
The utility says because the hurricane was beyond its control, it is not responsible for property damage and other losses, like food and prescription medicine.
Con Ed's website does say you can file a claim if you lost items as a result of a power outage, but a disclaimer at the top of the page states the company is not responsible for items lost during Hurricane Sandy.
The company says that while it did pre-emptively shut down some power networks, it was in the interest of minimizing damage.
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Tuesday that one of the last remaining traffic hurdles of Sandy is being cleared while also outlining plans to investigate the preparedness and response of utility companies serving New Yorkers.
The governor said effective immediately one lane of the eastern tube of the Hugh L. Carey-Brooklyn Battery tunnel will be open for cars traveling in peak directions during rush hours.
Manhattan-bound cars and buses will be allowed from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and for Brooklyn-bound cars and buses from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
One lane will remain dedicated for express buses.
No trucks will be allowed.
The western tube remains closed for repairs.
Cuomo joined Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman and CEO Joseph Lhota and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on a walk-through before the reopening Thursday.
At the height of the storm, Cuomo said the tunnel was flooded with an estimated 43 million gallons of sea water, causing heavy damage to its electrical, lighting, communications, surveillance and ventilation systems.
Cuomo said no timetable was set for when the western tube will reopen.
Meanwhile, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said Tuesday that the 1 Train is now running to Rector Street.
The only stop it is still not making is South Ferry, as that station was completely flooded by the storm. Lhota says there's no timetable on when it will reopen.
He also said it could be a while before R train service between Manhattan and Brooklyn is restored. The tunnel which carries the line across the East River is finally dry, but signals and other systems have to be repaired.
Lhota said the Rockaways will have A train service to the rest of the city as soon as LIPA can get the power on in that section.
Without subway service from the Rockaways, temporary ferry service is up and running to Manhattan.
Seastreak ferries are running regularly from Beach 108th Street and Beach Channel Drive to Pier 11 near Wall Street where commuters can get a free transfer to the East 34th Street Pier.
The ferry costs $2 each way and boats will be running regularly throughout the morning and evening rush.
Free parking will be available for Rockaways ferry riders starting on Thursday morning at a lot on Beach Channel Drive, across the street from the ferry landing.
PATH train riders are also getting additional service.
Service between Manhattan and Newark-Penn Station in New Jersey resumed Monday morning, with trains stopping at Journal Square, Grove Street and Newport stations and at the 14th, 23rd and 33rd Street stations in Manhattan.
PATH service remains suspended at the badly damaged Hoboken, Exchange Place and World Trade Center stations.
Alternate-Side Parking Suspended In Certain Neighborhoods
Alternate-side parking resumed in most parts of the city on Wednesday, but the city Departments of Transportation and Sanitation say it is suspended indefinitely in parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
On Wednesday, DOT officials announced that alternate-side parking is suspended in two more areas, Brooklyn Community Boards 6 and 18.
Brooklyn Community Board 6 covers Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Gowanus, Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill.
Brooklyn Community Board 18 covers Canarsie, Bergen Beach, Mill Basin, Flatlands, Marine Park, Georgetown and Mill Island.
Previously on Tuesday, city officials announced alternate-side parking is suspended in three other areas: Brooklyn Community Board 13, which represents Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Bensonhurst, Gravesend and Sea Gate; Brooklyn Community Board 15, which includes Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach and Gerritsen Beach and Homecrest; and Queens Community Board 14, which covers the Rockaways.
Staten Island does not normally have alternate-side parking.
Response and Relief
Licensed contractors and inspectors began fanning out across some of the hardest-hit areas of the city Tuesday as part of an effort to speed up repairs for homeowners affected by Sandy.
View a list of ways to help local Sandy relief efforts.
The Rapid Repairs program is designed to speed up the repair and permit process.
Contractors will choose the electricians, plumbers, and other subcontractors to do the work.
Under the typical process by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, homeowners have to arrange their own repairs. However, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the Rapid Repairs process will get New Yorkers back into their homes faster.
To take part in the program, homeowners must have a FEMA ID number which can be obtained at disasterassistance.gov or by calling 1-800-621-3362.
Homeowners can also get a FEMA ID number at one of the city's restoration centers.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg described them as "one-stop shops" where people affected by the storm will be able to get a wide range of emergency and long-term assistance services all under one roof.
They are located in Coney Island at Our Lady of Solace, in Gravesend at the SSA Building, in Far Rockaway at 10-01 Beach 20th St, and on Staten Island at 1976 Hylan Boulevard. The centers are open until 8 p.m.
View the full list of city restoration centers.
FEMA has approved more than $400 million in storm aid for housing and other aid for Sandy victims in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.
To find a FEMA disaster recovery center near you, visit fema.gov.
Residents who applied for emergency assistance after Sandy may not need to move to a temporary shelter while crews repair your home.
Governor Cuomo said FEMA will send in contractors to do basic electric and structural repairs.
Those repairs will make it safe for residents to stay in their homes, even while crews do large-scale repairs later on.
The program only applies to those living in federally declared disaster zones.
Residents can register your home for disaster assistance by contacting 1-800-621-FEMA.
Meantime, the City Council unanimously approved a $500 million emergency plan Tuesday to pay for repairs to schools and hospitals.
It will allocate $200 million for the Department of Education and $300 million to the Health and Hospitals Corporation.
Work will include structural restorations, new boilers, new electrical systems and roof repairs.
Bloomberg said he will still seek federal reimbursement but the city cannot afford to wait for approval.
"As you know New York City has never been one to sit back and wait for the funding," said the mayor. "When we something that absolutely has to be done, we do it and then we figure out afterwards how to pay for it. It's just the difference between us I think and everybody else. We do things, we get them done, we understand we're in this together, and we're not gonna wait for anybody. Hopefully they will come through but regardless we still have to make sure every child gets a good education and that everybody when they need emergency care can get it."
Bloomberg said the city previously earmarked $134 million for storm-related emergency relief.
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that the state Department of Financial Services disaster hotline will now be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help residents who recovering from Sandy damage.
New Yorkers can call 1-800-339-1759 for insurance-related questions and to file complaints, according to the governor's office.
The deadline for New Yorkers who lost their job or income due to Sandy to apply for federal disaster unemployment assistance is extended from December 3, 2012 to February 4, 2013.
In addition, according to Cuomo, claimants now have up to 90 days to submit proof of employment or self-employment and will be provided an IRS link to expedite the retrieval of lost or destroyed tax documents.
A city health official says the storm-damaged Bellevue and Coney Island Hospitals won't be fully running until early next year.
Both hospitals were evacuated after being inundated by Sandy.
Coney Island is currently running outpatient services.
The president of the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation says the hospitals can only reopen their emergency rooms with state permission, especially since Bellevue's ER would have to run on generator power for awhile.
He says the operating rooms, critical care units, and other facilities could be open by January 1 at Coney Island and the first week of February at Bellevue.
Meantime, the storm cleanup is also presenting health hazards, and state officials are suggesting that New Yorkers get a tetanus vaccination.
People who have not had a tetanus shot in the last 10 years are especially urged to get one.
The New York City Fire Department is helping with the clean-up effort in the Rockaways.
Firefighters hosed down Beach 59th Street in Arverne Wednesday, where sand was still covering the road.
The Rockaways was one of the areas hit hardest by the storm.
More City Schools Open
Meanwhile, more storm-damaged city schools re-opened their doors Tuesday.
Fifteen schools serving 6,000 students are back online, though some are still running on generators.
The New York City Department of Education says 33 schools, serving approximately 15,000 students, remain in their relocated sites.
The DOE says that students at I.S. 211 John Wilson will be able to return to their regular building Thursday.
According to the DOE, water was pumped from and fuel oil was cleaned from the building. A temporary boiler was also installed at the school.
Shuttle buses are being provided for all kindergarten through eighth grade students.
City officials say they are hopeful that 31 of those locations will be up and running by the end of the month.
Repairs at the other six locations may not be complete until next year.
For more information, visit schools.nyc.gov.
Gas Rationing End Date Unclear
Bloomberg said the city's odd-even gas rationing seems to have eased the post-Sandy pain at the pump, but it's not clear when it will end.
The rationing system took effect Friday after the storm disrupted the area's fuel distribution network.
Wait times for gas have diminished from hours to minutes in many places.
The mayor says he plans to leave the system in place for now.
New Jersey ended its rationing Tuesday. | <urn:uuid:7b5397d1-640b-4ef6-99dc-c44546a83568> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/172299/city-housing-buildings-back-on-grid-after-lengthy-storm-outage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963845 | 3,428 | 1.648438 | 2 |
On the whole, Google Maps is a great service. The interface is clean, ads are unobtrusive, performance is generally very good, and its ability to parse abbreviations and incomplete names is top-notch. But after a spate of less than ideal driving directions from Google, I decided to step back and look at some of the other popular online mapping services to see if any competitors offered higher quality directions or a better experience.
I’ll touch on a number of services in upcoming posts, but first, some background on my recent experiences with Google Maps that spurred this comparison.
Go-go Gadget Map
Sometimes Google’s driving directions appear to favor minuscule improvements in distance or speed over more sensible directions, e.g. a number of small turns on side streets saving 0.1 mile or less, rather than reducing the number of turns or continuing on a single arterial road. Perhaps Google assumes that your smartphone or sat-nav gadget is holding your hand the whole way and thus it doesn’t much matter if the directions make more sense to robots than to humans.
That choice, however, leads to some odd directions. For example, when heading southbound on the Berlin Turnpike (US-5/CT-15), just south of the CT-9 overpass there is a turnout to the right which loops around to cross the Turnpike perpendicularly to allow for an easier left turn across traffic. However, when heading southbound without needing a left turn, Google Maps still suggested taking this turnout and then merging back on the Turnpike in the original direction of travel. This diversion may have saved a few feet at best (though even that seems doubtful) at the expense of adding two entirely needless steps to the directions.
Or in Oregon City, Oregon, when traveling southwest from Washington Street onto Center Street. The Google directions suggest a slight diversion onto 8th St (a minor sidestreet) rather than continuing on Washington St until 7th Street (a sizable throughway). Google’s own color-coding shows Washington, 7th, and Center streets in yellow and 8th Street in white, indicating that 8th St is a comparatively minor road, but still suggests the 8th St route due to the route being 1 metre shorter.
A potentially more dangerous tendency of Google Maps is to consider distance and time traveled more heavily than road type and remoteness. When driving from Rapid City, South Dakota, to Jackson, Wyoming, Google suggests taking WY-50 over WY-59, WY-259 over continuing on WY-387, and WY-134 to WY-133 over continuing on US-26. In all of these cases, Google’s directions favor roads which are considered by AAA to be “local” over “through” roads. Opting for alternatives to Google’s suggested roads does increase travel time and distance (by a measly 19 minutes and 24 km on a 9+ hour drive), but in remote stretches such as these, a slight increase in travel time is well worth it if the road is poorly maintained, there are no gas stations on the lesser-trod road, or the local roads are sparsely signed.
So, it looks like Google’s directions could use a few improvements. So let’s see what else is out there …
(Continued in part 2)
- Indeed, while drafting this post a BBC News item about Google and robot cars popped up in my news reader.
- This particularly odd suggestion appears to have been corrected in the interim since my original query a few months back.
- Yes, a difference of less than 40 inches.
- I’m not from eastern Wyoming, but AAA’s “local” and “through” labels seemed appropriate to my own eyes as I drove through the area.
- Google’s unique features and capabilities will be covered in a follow-up post after all of the other services have been picked apart. | <urn:uuid:dbd4b055-b2c2-485a-a9da-96378a4dab76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carrythebanner.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939528 | 835 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Prove that the Image of a Continuous Function on a Dense Set is Dense
I've been working on this for days and have made no progress, so any advice would be appreciated.
Definition: Let be an ordered field, and . is dense in iff for any in there is a such that .
Prove that, for any function continuous on a metric space and a dense subset, then is dense.
So far what I have is hardly more than setting the problem up. Let . Thus (for now, lets assume ), and by density of , such that . I know that I will be basically done if I can show that and . I also know that the inverse map must also be continuous. But that's all I got.
Thanks in advance. | <urn:uuid:fb07f776-a5b3-4013-ab22-a94c706809b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mathhelpforum.com/differential-geometry/148983-prove-image-continuous-function-dense-set-dense-print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976121 | 158 | 1.679688 | 2 |
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Response to Dr. Kofahl
Dr. Robert E. Kofahl's critique does correct a minor error I made, although my main argument still stands. The main point of my article was this: If Dr. Gish is careless where I can check up on him, then how can I trust him where I cannot? In addition, I did try to show that Dr. Gish had failed to prove that a pre-bombardier beetle could not have survived, though this was an afterthought in order to make the article complete.
As the bombardier beetle information trickled from Kofahl to Gish to Thwaites and Awbrey to me, somewhere along the line someone forgot about Schildknecht's 1961 article which was quoted by Kofahl. When I wrote my article, I found no reference to any inhibitor in Schildknecht's 1968 article, but Kofahl is correct that Schildknecht, in 1961, did speculate that some chemical or physical-chemical process prevents the hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone solution from reacting and turning dark. On that issue I stand corrected.
However, even after this point is granted, my case against Dr. Gish still stands. Dr. Gish maintained that the hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone explode unless prevented by an inhibitor long after it was pointed out to him that these chemicals do not spontaneously explode. Even if Schildknecht's speculation is correct, all the inhibitor prevents is slow oxidation. Kofahl was gracious enough to admit an error, and I admit mine; but Gish's failure to admit his error supports the main thesis of my article.
Dr. Kofahl spends more than half of his critique trying to prove there is no way the bombardier beetle could have evolved gradually. All I can say is that Kofahl does not really try very hard to solve the problem. There are several weaknesses in his critique.
The main weakness is that he asks me to explain how the beetle could have evolved the mechanical apparatus after it got through evolving everything else. However, as I already explained in the article, the bombardier beetle is not the only carabid beetle to have this apparatus.
In 1968, Schildknecht said:
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Since carabids generally have such poison glands, we may justly reject Kofahl's evolutionary scenario and begin ours with a nondescript carabid beetle that already has the physical apparatus, even though the apparatus does nothing more than secrete poisons such as quinone and hydroquinone. The hydroquinone stank, and the quinone (which forms from hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone) burned; so this beetle survived quite well. It had a valve to hold the chemicals in the collection bladder until it was attacked by an enemy, and it had enzymes in the outer chamber to make sure the reaction of hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone was complete.
All it would need to become a bombardier beetle now is an inhibitor to make sure the chemicals did not react at all until used in a counterattack. If the chemicals did not react at all until forced into the outer chamber, then the enzymes there would force them to react very rapidly, and the oxygen coming from the reaction would spray quinone out of the beetle's rear end. Later on, the mechanism would become refined as the beetle obtained the ideal proportion of hydroquinone to hydrogen peroxide. (Despite what Kofahl says, there may well be more than one chemical mechanism for producing hydrogen peroxide; Schildknecht suggested one possible mechanism, but scarcely insisted that this is the only one.) Thus, we have seen how a carabid beetle could evolve into a bombardier beetle with little problem.
At this time, I shall not try to explain the "rifle barrels" of the bombardier beetle, since I don't have enough information on the matter. I don't have the anatomical details to determine how the barrels and turrets evolved or what previous organs they evolved from.
The present discussion, however, answers Gish's original argument that a half-formed explosion mechanism would be harmful and that the bombardier beetle's very existence proves evolution is impossible. But, creationists will no doubt object that I have not directly proved my scenario. True enough, but they should consider a few facts before dismissing it out of hand as pure speculation.
The evidence of geology makes sense if the earth is billions of years old, but is puzzling if creationism is true. The evidence of taxonomy makes sense if some sort of descent with modification took place, but is puzzling if creationism is true. If you want to believe in miracles, I can never prove you wrong, any more than I can prove that bad luck gremlins did not produce the incriminating evidence that got Bruno Hauptmann convicted of kidnapping and murdering the Lindberg baby or prove that the earth was not created five minutes ago. However, the most natural interpretation of this evidence is evolution-the theory that living things
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change over time, one lineage often branching into several lineages, some lineages changing more rapidly than others. I certainly don't deny that catastrophes have occurred or that the mechanism of evolution is still being debated, but the overall picture of occurrence of evolution seems clear.
So, given this background, isn't it reasonable to start out with the working hypothesis that the shooting mechanism of the bombardier beetle evolved gradually, then find out what evolutionary scenarios would work? Starting with creationism is to start with a refusal to search further. Think about it.
Eisner, Thomas. 1970. "Chemical Defense Against Predation in Arthropods." Chemical Ecology, pp. 157-215.
Kofahl, Robert E. and Segraves, Kelly L. 1975. The Creation Explanation. Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw Publishers, pp. 2-3.
Schildknecht, H. and Holoubek, K. January 7, 1961. "Die Bombardierkafer and ihre Explosionschemie." Angewandle Chemie. 73:1:1-7.
Schildknecht, Hermann, Maschwitz, Eleonore, and Maschwitz, U. 1968. "Die Explosion schemie dier Bombardierkafer (Coleoptera, Carabidae)." Zeitschrift fur Naturforschung. 23:1213-1218.
Weber, Christopher Gregory. Winter 1981. "The Bombardier Beetle Myth Exploded." Creation/Evolution. III:1:1-5.
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I went to the Wikipedia SF Hackathon this weekend at Parisoma! Neil and I coded a phone gateway for the English Wikipedia on Twilio. You send it a text with your search query (like “Barak Obama” or “Seattle”) and it calls you back in a few seconds and reads you the entire text of the article. =D
CODE: https://github.com/judytuna/SMS-Wikipedia — it calls the Twilio API, in Ruby, using Sinatra, hosted on Heroku. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this if Twilio (the amazing Sasha is the best developer evangelist ever), Ruby (sfruby.info like woah), and Heroku (who sponsored one of my early wwcode-rails meetups, and also sponsors Blazing Cloud sponsorships!) didn’t have the community presence that they do. Seriously, I can’t believe I get to live in San Francisco where all of this is happening RIGHT NOW. Look at this technology! Look at what it’s enabling us to do!
Romy wrote super-comprehensive notes on our product and process and drew pictures here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Hackathon_January_2012/Teams#Wikipedia_SMS_.2B_IVR_on_Twilio
On Thursday, I had gotten an email urging us to check out the project ideas, and came up with the SMS gateway idea and added it to the project page.
Why did I want to do this so badly?
- I didn’t have a smartphone until December and always wished I could look stuff up on Wikipedia when I wasn’t near a computer.
- When we get phone tree stuff working, this could be used by illiterate or blind people.
- In areas where access to tech is low but phones (not smartphones) are ubiquitous, this could be a way for people to look stuff up on wikipedia. This is mind-blowing.
It was an amazing experience and I learned so much from Neil and our team won first place!!!!!! The prize: flight and hotel to another wikimedia hackathon. The next one will be in Berlin in May!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve never been to Berlin! I’ve been to Europe once–London and York, with my high school choir, in 2000.
We have lots of ideas for the next steps of this app. I am considering setting up a kickstarter (as long as it’s okay with the wikimedia foundation??) to pay twilio for the app (actually I have no idea about this…)… It’s still in the “twilio sandbox” for now so I can’t show it to you yet (because your number has to be a “verified number” for MY twilio account in order for it to call you back I think). But I’m about to put my credit card info in so I’ll be able to show it off to the world soon.
The app definitely works =)
At the Hackathon, I REALLY enjoyed the PhoneGap demo. Tomasz and Yuvi showed us the Wikipedia app that they just pushed to the Android store last week, and guided us through adding a menu item. js! css! wow!!! I think the tutorial that they used would be ideal for a Railsbridge-style workshop (it starts with “how to get stuff installed” and it was surprisingly fast and easy).
So PhoneGapBridge is incoming. I’ll plan it 2 weeks off of a Railsbridge. =D
I’m learning so much. I met so many amazing, amazing people. I got interviewed by Wikimedia Foundation Storyteller Victor–how cool is his job title? I got my picture taken with leaves. I told him that I had serious class issues and loved online communities and want everyone to have access to information and nothing scares me more than loss of free speech and was generally completely incoherent but I kept banging on my knees the whole time because of HOW EXCITED I AM.
I wondered where I’d seen
Toki Wartooth Brandon and then realized this morning that it was the fundraising banners! I basically couldn’t believe I was there all weekend. They’re right here in San Francisco!
I told everybody who would listen about Lukas and Elsa’s Occupedia, which is an initiative to create meetups that encourage underrepresented groups to contribute to wikipedia. Lukas wrote about the first event and I showed everybody haha.
I fucking love wikipedia. I love the wikimedia foundation. I want more. I was talking to Daniel from Germany, who said “I want to see a separate mobile app for a different set of users — the ones that spend a lot of their idle time patrolling new edits. There should be an app that lets them to it easily at the bus stop.” PHONEGAP HOOOOOOOOO
Sumanah was amazing and kept things going and was crazy and enthusiastic and welcoming. I met Leslie, a network engineer, who knew someone else that I knew from Railsbridge. I talked to Danielle (women in tech!), Elizabeth (Android!), and Rosemarie (who I’d met at wwcode-rails!). Phil asked me how I was going to pay Twilio for it D: I learned about Microsoft’s bridges with open source from Ben and Doug and it was fascinating and I tried asking them about openkinect/k4w, but their department doesn’t interface with xbox stuff =) I met Rupa of CodeChix and there are machinations afoot.
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Thanks to organizations like the Hybrid Truck User's Forum (HTUF), Florida Power and Light is one of the many utility companies to incorporate hybrid technology.
George Survant, director of fleet services for Florida Power & Light, is gearing up to place three diesel electric hybrid utility trucks into service between September and December.
"Depending on the duty cycles, the boom will run up to two hours on the stored electric power, without any noise at all. This same truck will produce 25 kW of export power with 27,000 pound GVWR. We know that this represents excellent potential for other uses while we are working. Right now, we don't know how it will best be used. But in additional to the boom operating and the tools operating, it will produce 25kW of export power," he says.
"This hybrid power comes to us through the hard work and the expertise of our friends at International. They are partnering with Eaton Corporation to bring us the hybrid trucks this fall."
TESTING, TESTING, H-E-V
Florida Power & Light began testing hybrid technology by purchasing Toyota's Prius. Now as they step into the next class of hybrid technology in medium duty trucks, "We haven't really had any difficulties. The trucks we are introducing now are fairly sophisticated trucks, and they are all now beginning to come with telematics," he says.
Telematics is ability to extract data from the truck while it is on the road to find out what the issues are. If every truck in the future has the capability to do diagnostics remotely and monitor the truck's performance, this kind of advancement could not only cut back on service downtime, but also promises more wireless capabilities in the future.
"The ability to go to an environment where we don't have to carry large paper maps to keep track of the distribution pathways--because now all of those things are integrated into our wireless work stations and global positioning networks--will not only reduce our customer response time, but also has helped us make this conversion to hybrid technology," Survant says.
Fuel savings is unquestionably another huge benefit. Survant says that a modest fleet like Florida Power & Light's will burn over four million gallons of fuel annually. "Generally speaking, every nickel spent at the pump translates to about a $200,000 annual impact," he says.
Throughout the process of testing for the best options, there were a few surprises for Survant and his crew. Survant says that when he first started testing HEVs, battery packs literally weighed thousands of pounds. "That sharply curtailed how far you could go because it took a substantial portion of energy used to drive the vehicle around just to haul the weight of the batteries.
"When we weighed the total package to adapt a medium duty truck, it weighs less than 350 pounds--batteries and motor generator included. We were stunned at how much the technology has leaped forward," he says.
MAKING IT WORK
"It is essentially the same truck. We have already gotten a very good service history with it," says Survant. "What is different is the motor generator, and the automated manual transmission that Eaton is providing. Although that is an off-the-shelf product that Eaton is providing, it already has a long successful service history."
Making sure the truck can be serviced is just one maintenance concern. Knowing how long maintenance managers can expect hybrid trucks to last is another.
"We normally would keep one of these trucks 11 -- 15 years, and we have no reason to believe that these hybrids won't be as durable. This truck had to be as reliable as or better than the ones we are buying today," Survant says.
WHY ADOPT NOW?
Despite advantages like fuel savings and emissions, the cost of actually implementing hybrid technology still may seem like a huge risk. Why should maintenance managers choose hybrid technology over other options? | <urn:uuid:d529c243-e5c6-4dbf-9d19-916eee6f1d1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vehicleservicepros.com/article/10335096/easier-being-green | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969495 | 799 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Share ideas that matter on the social web and experience
the benefits of curating the world's best content.
I don't have a Facebook, a Twitter or a LinkedIn account
Brand equity measurement is a core discipline of The Blake Project.
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
On Christmas Day last year a group of independent filmmakers released a five part series that had been in production for more than two years. The Underwater Realm was very ambitious - shot largely underwater and across five different periods in history. It gained attention in 2011 when it raised $100,000 on Kickstarter, making it one of the most successful crowdsourced film projects at the time.
Adam Westbrook is proposing a new idea for visual storytelling on the web.
As technology becomes more pervasive and immersive, artists are sensing limitless possibilities on the horizon. Adam invites developers, designers, artists and storytellers to engage in a conversation around new ideas.
Visual Storytelling as a web-native form. An inspiring thought.
Let's face it. Many social media "gurus" would be obscure if it weren't for an ability to create content. Content is creating celebrity on the web.
Creating new value is fundamental to the healthy functioning of our free-market economy. Like the natural law of gravity, creating new value is the natural law of increase.
Search engine optimization has not been dependent on a minimal number of factors for a long time now, such as number of times a keyword appeared on a page, and it continues to become a more complex web of on and off-page factors every month.
Ken's Key Takeaway.This sources says that tweets can cut index time by Google Bots from 2 hours to 0:02seconds!
Accuracy is fundamental to journalism, but it’s a challenge to verify information when it flows at digital warp speed from so many sources. This presentation
Some useful tips on how to rebalance the Timeliness vs. Accuracy and Quality equation for information dissemination. A must-read for any user of social media!
Could be used when teaching evaluation of online content / critical thinking skills.
While we can measure the degree to which technologies transcend physical and physiological boundaries, we can merely speculate about the ethical consequences of these developments and about their effect on human self-perception. The merging of human consciousness and technology changes not only the latter, but also the former. And the question is whether technology will become more human in the long run, or whether humans will become more technical.
The human body sits squarely at the center of this debate. Until today, we have largely conceived of technology as a collection of external objects. Now, technology enters the body, merges with it, becomes a constitutive part of its host. This presents us with a unique moment in evolutionary history. The biggest drivers of change can be found in the military and the pharmaceutical sectors of the economy. And the big unknown is whether we will be able to put the new possibilities to good use.
New ideologies have emerged that frame the techno-narrative and justify its propagation. The most influential among them is the ideology of transhumanism, a worldview predicated on the notion of transcendence. By merging man and machine, transhumanists hope to open up new avenues of human development. A core group of transhumanist thinkers has found a home at Oxford University, from where they fight against the humanist desire to protect and examine humanity in its current form...
This changes everything: Not only our human self-perception (which has always been important for our conception of present and future) but also our definition of civilization. Some of these developments proceed at a breathtaking pace, and it’s only justified to ask whether members of the transhumanist vanguard and advocates of “inversive” technologies actually grasp the consequences of their work.
Hence the following assertion: The emerging global neuro-technological industry is more significant than all current political uprisings and military conflicts. Experiments are good. Careless tinkering with human nature is not.
The crucial point is that we simply don’t know enough about ourselves to speedily abandon our current view of humanity and to turn ourselves – as some transhumanists desire – into cyborg creatures. Our confusion starts at the fundamental level: For example, what does it mean to “know”? Is it possible to transfer all knowledge online if we can develop algorithms with adequate levels of sophistication? Can knowledge become de-corporealized?
Technology will become more human in the long run!
Executives are still dead set on building Private Clouds. The true reason for this stubbornness is the battle over control.
It is not all that surprising, in a way IT have wielded power that cloud might take from them.
In today’s hyper-connected world, the winners of the content wars will be the brands who have created and shared exceptional content. The best brands recognize that people – not ads or messages – are the new voice of their companies. In a crowded digital landscape, it has become harder than ever to ignite and connect with a community of loyal advocates for your brand by engaging them with good content – and here's why.
Before you map your content plan, you need to know what topics really generate traction with your audiences. Listening is how you garner this intelligence
Content marketing is gaining significance with every passing day, as companies are trying to develop the content that is profitable not just in the monetary terms, but also to get good ranks at major search engines.
Good article to help you build a plan for your content marketing.
Who - What - Where - Why
Content marketing isn't for the faint at heart ;)
Great article if working from the ground up with a company
Google Panda and Penguin algorithm changes have a secret implication - that content is truly and finally KING. Not all content is equal. Some content has higher engagement potential. Storytellig Is The New SEO discusses how leading online storytellers such as RIE.com and Patagonia.com weave stories into their website, communication and marketing. Developing a gamification layer is key to making stories resonate over time. SEO is the New Storytelling discusses how to create three types of gamification: Active, Passive and Real Time. Presentation was created for Raleigh SEO Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/RaleighSEO/ on Tuesday 3.26 and will be broadcast live via a Google Hangout.Join Google Hangout here: https://plus.google.com/events/c46hqgi89ig21oef90qafggoiho ;
And yes, SEO is the great white whale :).COOL, tendingn on SlideShare with over 2,000 views in a day! LIVE tomorrow night.
I'm a huge fan of this Slide by Marty Smith.
This short presentation looks to explore the increasing value of digital assets as we move towards the next iterations of the web and beyond, and boy is it a tongue twister. As we move closer to the internet of things, the machines will gain deeper meaning of what it is to be human in digital worlds. So, we have to make sure the data we assign to these assets is a true representation of our human meaning.
What will the next fifty years bring in the world of social media, mobile, robotics and more? Our fifty year timeline shows you just what could be in store
Technology is growing at such an exponential rate, it can be difficult to visualise what the next five years will look like, let alone fifty. We wanted to see just how the future is going to shape up for us. So we compiled all the best predictions for digital technology, mobile, social media, and big data over the next fifty years into a timeline so you can see exactly what’s in store.
The timeline covers expected growth in key markets including spend on digital and mobile, as well as big data so we can start to see exactly where this emerging industry will head. Data for the timeline has been gathered from a wide range of sources, in specialist areas to give as wide a view as possible of what’s coming up....
Las mejores predicciones sobre tecnologia digital, mobiles, redes sociales, ... para los próximos 50 años (Infografia)
Fantastic look at how technology will develop, drive new advances, interact, and push the development of business and society in the medium future.
Advertising and marketing are often met with cynicism, probably for good reason. Brands have a long history of lying or massaging the truth to put their products or services in a better light. Advertising has a reputation for deception.
Showing a little behind the scenes in your business as part of your marketing message can help you connect with your customers.
Marketing is Everything and Everything is Marketing!!!
Author Brian Solis explains who Generation C is, and how "experience is everything" to them.
My article in response to Yu and Robinson's recent paper on open data has just been published in the UCLA Law Review Discourse: The Uncertain Relationship Between Open Data and Accountability: A Re...
Brielleariana: "Transmedia is such a new concept that I had to physically add it to my Word document dictionary to avoid the stupid red lines" ...
A great way to teach using trains edit storytelling.
I love Word dictionary updates as tiny markers of substantive change--I had to add 'cocreation' and 'cocreator' to mine along with transmedia. Interestingly, it already knew 'prosumer.'
An audience centric content strategy begins with a well defined persona analysis prior to keyword search as part of your discovery process.
Primary objective in this exercise is to define an audience-centric content strategy. Understanding the relationship between themes that are advertorial, industry informational and highly relevant to your targeted audience’s interests will help you stay focused.
Web developing professional with diversified experience in advertising, marketing & SEO.
Though I am often deriding the role of infographics in the history of information, this one I actually like.
The following visualization was adapted from PewInternet.com, of a keynote address for the 2012 State University of New York Librarians Association Annual Conference
Given that things change so fast, I wonder how long it will be before these roles change again.
A meaningful social signal can deliver a whole lot more than just marketing exposure. Integrating social media into multiple functions of your organization can benefit operations and yield a distinct competitive advantage.
Television has thrived on bundling, which offers a way of protecting things but also tends to obscure the weaknesses within. Now those flaws are becoming more apparent.
Quote "The second screen experience slowly replaced the first — I barely looked up at the television. CBS’s reverent, almost whispered coverage took a back seat as I programmed my version of the Masters. The function that would have allowed me to throw the Internet coverage to my big-screen television was not enabled, but that’s only a matter of time. Change often comes very slowly, but then happens all at once.
CBS paid dearly for rights to the Masters, marketers ponied up to advertise in limited spots and my cable provider paid a hefty toll in terms of retransmission fees, but there I was, staring at the device on my lap, looking at a bright future — no cable, no commercials, no bundle required.
It's important to know the future of content marketing so that you can anticipate the upcoming trends. When you anticipate and prepare, you have an advantage over your competitors.
The Relativity Of Everything Social media is the most relative of media. The more territory social media captures the more relative things become. Relative in the sense that it is impossible to really KNOW anything. There are simply too many variables now. Patterns that seem so convincing may be worth a double down, but those patterns may have so many interconnections you are betting on a horse you may never see or fully understand. This is NOT to say we can't trust or use our metrics as maps to help create greatness. It is to say that our zero sum habits, this OR that, need to be replaced with AND. This AND That are impacting our metrics and Internet marketing. Great infographic that speaks to the value of a single social signal. | <urn:uuid:cf64c443-f9c4-4a1b-b0b6-ccc81545c7c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scoop.it/t/digitalassetman/p/3029784826/measuring-your-brand-equity-branding-strategy-insider | 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 | 0.934849 | 2,556 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Jakarta belonged to the students today as traffic stopped and security forces fell back to allow two large processions to mourn 16 students killed by gunfire last week.
To the sad notes of an anthem called ''Falling Flowers,'' and in the shiver of a sudden evening breeze, members of one procession stepped through a line of stolid riot policemen to lay red paper flowers at the gates of the Parliament building.
This had been the destination of a student demonstration that was halted a mile away on Friday by volleys of gunfire, tear gas and beatings. A second procession today laid wreaths outside Atmajaya University, where most of the killings took place.
The gunfire on Friday has shocked Indonesia at a time when hopes were rising for a less repressive government after President Suharto's resignation in May.
And the anger of the students has challenged a dawning consensus between the Government and its political opponents to move slowly toward democratic reforms and general elections next year.
While the killings have shaken the reputation of the already-unpopular military, they have raised the moral standing of Indonesia's politically restive students.
Having helped force Mr. Suharto out, the students are gaining momentum in their demands for more political change, in particular a reduction of the pervasive political role of the military.
''This is the one force the Government cannot control,'' said Daniel S. Lev, an expert on Indonesia at the University of Wisconsin, speaking of the students. ''They are dangerous because everyone understands that they are the one group that is not out for themselves, and they seem to have the fate of Indonesia in mind. The army is afraid of them. In a sense, the whole elite is afraid of them.''
In full retreat now, Gen. Wiranto, the chief of the military, placed an advertisement of ''sincere condolences'' in several newspapers today over the Friday killings.
''We hope that their souls are accepted at God's side,'' he wrote of the student victims, ''and for all the families that they left behind, may God give them patience and strengthen their souls to face this hardest of situations.''
But for all its momentum, the student movement remains an enigma here. With no unified leadership, without a clear agenda, without allegiance to any political faction, it seems an undirected, unfocused force of nature, like a typhoon.
After years of quiescence under Mr. Suharto's repressive rule, the student movement was only beginning to coalesce on Indonesian campuses in May. Perhaps, some people say, it succeeded too quickly in pushing him from office and its gales have yet to blow themselves out.
Some people see the students now as spoilers of Indonesia's fragile stability, with their insistence on rapid, disruptive change at a time of emerging tentative consensus within the political establishment.
One foreign diplomat spoke with exasperation of the students' ''myth of purity'' in which no compromise of ideals is acceptable.
Some of the students, on the other hand, speak passionately about the need for true reforms in a nation where the only concrete change so far is the removal of one man, Mr. Suharto. His entire Government structure has been left in place, promising to reform itself.
''That was not a real victory, only an illusion of victory,'' said Ki Joyo Sardo, 22, a political science student at the University of Indonesia. ''The old system is still here. The new regime is still controlled by the old regime.''
Dewi Astuti, 20, a history major at the university, said she had joined the demonstrations because ''I see that our political system is not right; I don't see any democracy.'' | <urn:uuid:35b80d7b-0888-428c-a7a1-a8d07f4567f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/19/world/as-army-bows-its-head-jakarta-s-students-grieve.html?src=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963622 | 754 | 1.75 | 2 |
When can I go to sleepaway camp?
Kids older than 8 may be interested in this kind of camp, where you stay away from home for a week or longer. It can be quite an adventure, making new friends and enjoying the great outdoors. But it's also something you want to think about and talk over with your parents. Maybe you want to try it out by spending one week at camp before you commit to staying for a longer stretch.
Some kids wait until they're a little older — like 11 or 12 — before taking this step. Older kids may be more ready to be away from their homes and parents. At camp, some kids will feel homesick and some won't.
If you decide to go to camp, you can stay in touch by emailing and phoning your mom and dad. And if you're feeling sad or lonely at camp, talk to a camp counselor. They're in charge of keeping you safe and happy.
Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: May 2010 | <urn:uuid:bf12f19f-23ec-4296-bd43-0c312af6360a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidshealth.org/PageManager.jsp?lic=175&dn=GirlsHealthDotGov&article_set=59596&cat_id=20643 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974596 | 210 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The sudden outspokenness of musicians has inflamed emotions on both sides of the war divide. Radio stations have dropped controversy-stirring artists from play lists and promoted pro-war rallies. Angry fans have denounced and publicly trashed CDs of the biggest-selling country band, the Dixie Chicks, for speaking out against President Bush's war strategy. And a Web site begun by a group calling itself Citizens Against Celebrity Pundits has signed on more than 100,000 citizens protesting movie and recording stars who use their status to speak out against American policy.
As the nation girded for war, songs protesting Bush's threats to invade Iraq proliferated on dozens of Web sites across the world: New York hip-hoppers the Beastie Boys ("In a World Gone Mad") and Chuck D's Fine Arts Militia ("A Twisted Sense of God" Pts. 1 & 2), Mexico's Molotov ("Ferocious"), Indiana's John Mellencamp ("To Washington"), London's Billy Bragg ("The Price of Oil"), Ireland's Luka Bloom ("I Am Not at War With Anyone"), Pakistan's Junoon ("No More"), Nashville's Nanci Griffith ("Big Blue Ball of War") and San Francisco's Spearhead ("Bomb the World") issued instant musical commentaries that were downloaded by tens of thousands in recent days. The songs span several generations of songwriters -- symbolized by a collaboration between Peter Paul & Mary's Peter Yarrow and his daughter Bethany Yarrow on a haunted version of the folk ballad "The Cruel War" -- and are mushrooming at such a rapid rate that Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore is building a Web site, protest-music.com, to house them all.
Artists are speaking out in other ways, as well. Sheryl Crow posted a long commentary on her Web site denouncing the war, and hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons issued an open letter to President Bush urging, "War on Iraq now is not the solution." System of a Down's new video, "Boom!," includes footage shot by filmmaker Michael Moore at a Feb. 15 protest march. Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour canceled what would have been his most ambitious U.S. tour, a 38-city trek that would have brought him to the College of DuPage on April 5, because "coming to America at this time would be perceived in many parts of the world -- rightly or wrongly -- as support" for the war on Iraq. And Madonna has been playing clips on her Web site from her forthcoming single, "American Life," a song about materialism that will be accompanied by a graphic anti-war video. "I hope this provokes thought and dialogue," she said in a statement. "I don't expect everyone to agree with my point of view."
The burst of songwriting has mirrored the rise of protest rallies from San Francisco to Rome. "It's an exhilarating feeling to see so many people" rising up in opposition, said John Sinclair, former White Panther Party leader who served as the manager of agit-punks the MC5 at the height of the Vietnam era. Tens of thousands were killed in Vietnam before a significant protest movement developed in America, he said. "We're ahead of where we were as a society in the '60s" in terms of building awareness about and opposition to the war.
Artists are also paying more quickly for their outspokenness. Dozens of stations have pulled Dixie Chicks' songs from their play lists because one of the band members, Natalie Maines, criticized Bush from the stage at a London concert.
A few days earlier, the Chicks had sold $49 million worth of concert tickets for their upcoming North American tour. But Maines' remark -- "We're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas" -- has caused the band's stock to plummet, even on the band's Web site, which has been flooded with posts from irate fans. "I have been a big fan of the Chicks as I love country music and the sound that you bring, although I cannot and will not be a part of anything that supports the ideals of anyone who makes remarks such as that," one fan posted on the Chicks' message board. "Personally, I will not support the Chicks in any way, shape or form in the future."
Crushed by criticism
A Louisiana country station rented a 33,000-pound tractor to crush Dixie Chicks' CDs and merchandise, a Missouri station held a "chicken toss" party where irate listeners were encouraged to dump the group's recordings into garbage bins, and programmers from San Antonio to Nashville pulled the band's songs off their play lists.
Meanwhile, the hottest song in the nation the last few weeks has been Darryl Worley's "Have You Forgotten," which essentially reads like a Bush position paper for entering Iraq with guns blazing ("We vowed to get the ones behind Bin Laden/Have you forgotten?"). Another country star, Clint Black, has posted a pro-war song, "I Raq and Roll," on his Web site.
Worley's song is getting widespread airplay on commercial country stations nationwide, while most of the anti-war songs have been reaching listeners via the Internet, but programmers insist they're not biased.
"You take them, pro or con, on a case by case basis," John Ivey, vice president of programming at Clear Channel, told the Los Angeles Times, "but I don't think anybody is looking to fill up the airwaves with songs about the war."
Rather than playing songs protesting the war, Clear Channel stations in Atlanta, Cleveland, San Antonio, Cincinnati and other cities have sponsored rallies endorsing Bush's strategy for ousting Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Clear Channel owns 1,200 stations nationwide, by far the largest radio conglomerate in the nation, and owners of the San Antonio-based conglomerate have close personal and financial ties to the Bush administration.
"The corporations that own radio have a vested interest in not rocking the boat," said REM's Mike Mills at a panel on activism [moderated by this writer] at the just-completed South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas.
"Thank God for the Internet, because we're fighting against a corporate culture that makes it practically impossible to get a protest song on the air."
Other media corporations are pulling back from overt anti-war programming. VH1 didn't air Neil Young's anti-war remarks, made while inducting former Warner Brothers executive Mo Ostin to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, during its recent replay of the New York ceremonies.
And the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences reportedly urged artists to tone down the rhetoric during its recent nationally televised Grammy Awards; the ceremonies went off with nary a whimper from the artists, save for Fred Durst's off-the-cuff remark about anti-war "agreeance."
Artists weighing whether or not to speak out against the war face other public-relations obstacles. Lori Bardsley, a North Carolina homemaker, has begun an organization called Citizens Against Celebrity Pundits "where the average American like myself could come out . . . and stand against wealthy Hollywood celebrities abusing their status to speak for us." A petition on her Web site (www.ipetitions.com) denouncing the outspoken stars has drawn more than 100,000 signatures.
Nonetheless, at South by Southwest, rockers made small but pointed gestures that suggested they would not be intimidated. New Jersey punk rocker Ted Leo duct-taped the words "No War" on the guitar he played at several appearances. A handful of bands, including Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers, performed at an art gallery's "Play for Peace" concert. The conference was punctuated by a 7,000-strong protest rally in front of the state capitol, which blocked traffic for several hours and was briefly led by the 24-member Dallas rock band the Polyphonic Spree, which traipsed down Congress Avenue dressed in the white gowns they wear for their typically celebratory concert performances.
"We wanted to make some kind of contribution, if only to inspire people to think about what's going on around them," said singer Tim DeLaughter.
In addition to covering the protest rally, Austin newspapers, radio stations and panels were abuzz with news about the Dixie Chicks' Maines, an Austin native.
"When the Dixie Chicks made their statement, I went to their bulletin board and became a fan club member so I could say, `Way to go,'" said singer-guitarist Britt Daniel of the Austin rock band Spoon. "The reaction to these sorts of statements seems to have gotten worse in recent weeks. Celebrities or not, they should have the right to say what they want without fear of getting busted."
Yet not all musicians were so sympathetic. At a South by Southwest panel, Texas singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett said, "I absolutely trust President Bush's sincerity, and at the same time trust there is more information" yet to come out. "Just because [pop musicians] have the forum to speak out doesn't mean they should."
Whereas the months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon had artists feeling skittish about exactly what to say and how to say it, leading to a dearth of substantive topical music, the onset of war is starting to harden beliefs, and steel courage. Mills said REM resisted writing topical songs after gaining a reputation as a "political band" in the '80s for lyrics addressing U.S. involvement in Central America. But he says the band is writing songs that "are very overtly political."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," he said.
Works of art
Not all of the new protest songs are works of art, but several are, notably Spearhead's "Bomb the World," which evokes one of John Lennon's anthems with its mix of anger and yearning: "We can chase down all our enemies/Bring them to their knees/We can bomb the world to pieces/but we can't bomb it into peace."
It is likely just the beginning. As Billy Bragg, one of the few artists who has consistently been writing politically conscious songs for the last two decades, said in an interview from London, "I think September 11 cast a long shadow, made artists hesitant to put pen to paper for fear of being deemed anti-patriotic or not being fully respectful of the dead. But that hesitation is quickly dissipating, and it will be gone completely when young American men and women start coming home in body bags." | <urn:uuid:d9810602-3b00-43bf-a39d-d91b849813b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0303230396mar23,0,4479291,full.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968026 | 2,203 | 1.640625 | 2 |
THOMAS SCOTT SANDERS, clerk of Island Creek township, was born in Washington county, Penn., May 8, 1836. He is the son of George E. Sanders, a native of Washington county, Penn., born July 7, 1809. He was married to Maria Scott, a native of Cecil county, Md., born June 18, 1813, and married December 24, 1833, in Washington county, Penn., and resided there until 1839, when he and his family removed to Morgan county, Ohio, where he resided eight years, and thence to Jefferson county, Ohio, in 1847, where he occupied his time in milling and farming for seventeen years, or until 1864, when he removed to his present place of abode, Marion county, Iowa. Ten children were the fruit of this union, six of whom are still living. Thomas S. Sanders was reared as a farmer, and to this vocation and carpentering he has given his attention through life. In 1861 he was married to Jane E., daughter of John Carr, of Jefferson county, but their home had hardly been established before he was called into the service of his country in 1864, as a member of the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Ohio volunteer infantry, stationed first at Relay Barracks, Md.; then they were assigned to duty at Fort Delaware. He was orderly sergeant of COmpany H during his enlistment. Mr. Sanders is well educated, and has capably and satisfactorily filled the office of township clerk for about fourteen years. In politics he is an ardent republican, and his religious affiliations are with the Presbyterian church, of which he and his wife are members. By this marriage above mentioned he has had thirteen children: Nancy J., John C., Ella M., Justus S., Edward G., George R., Hettie V., Wesley, Vincent H., Boston C., Mary O. and two that died unnamed; Wesley is also deceased.
Copyright © 2006 Danice Ryan. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:72854575-76d6-4c2e-af87-5f6c967888e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohjeffer/1890bioindex/tssanders.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992265 | 419 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Wednesday's crash of a firefighting tanker in northern
California was a double tragedy for the family pilot Paul Cockrell.
You see, Paul's brother died in a 1995 mid-air while fighting a
forest fire in the Anza-Borrego State Park, according to the Los
Members of Congress are watching very carefully safety issues
surrounding America's dwindling firefighting tanker fleet, down to
a mere 32 aircraft now in the wake of Thursday's mishap in Northern
California. This, as the assistant director for aviation at the US
Forest Service stood solidly behind the company that owned the
ill-fated Lockheed P-3 Orion.
Bombardier Aerospace says it's reached an important milestone
with the entry into service of the first completed Bombardier
Global 5000 business jet. The aircraft departed Montreal on Monday
and is now in service with a corporate operator based in the Middle
The keys to the 1,500th Caravan (file photo of type, below) were
presented to customer Radoslav Miskiewicz of GEMI Ltd. Thursday at
Aero Friedrichshafen. GEMI Ltd., a trading company in the
ferroalloys industry, is headquartered in Poland and will use the
aircraft for private and business travel. | <urn:uuid:70907081-a358-4446-b148-2e8a7d3e03fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.archive&catid=3&month=4&year=2005&day=22&pagetitle=Commercial%20Biz-Av | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933888 | 267 | 1.578125 | 2 |
In the aftermath of the Newtown shootings, the national conversation on gun control is supposedly getting serious. To me, it looks like both sides are sticking to their familiar entrenchments. Still, there are glimmers of hope that some common-sense gun law reforms can squeak through our dysfunctional political system.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed what he termed "the toughest assault weapons ban in the nation" in a plan that would also ban all high-capacity magazines and require background checks even in private-party gun sales.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden has taken the helm of a White House task force on gun violence and has suggested policies much in line with Cuomo's. He has met at the White House with survivors of gun violence and gun advocacy groups, such as the National Rifle Association. Attorney General Eric Holder has met with a number of gun sellers, including Walmart, the nation's largest.
One troubling aspect of the public discourse on gun violence is the failure to acknowledge — and to solicit the opinions of — the group of Americans who are the vast majority of the victims of gun violence. They are not the tiny bodies of Sandy Hook Elementary School, not statistically anyway. They are not middle- and upper-middle-class white children, whose parents are now weighing the loony idea of arming the teachers who take classroom attendance.
No. Everyone who listens to nightly local television in America knows where the most likely victims of gun violence live and die. In Kansas City, where I live, it is the predominantly low-income east side of town, with only occasional reports from other neighborhoods.
In 2011, half the victims of homicide in America were African American, the vast majority of them male. The FBI's national crime database recorded 12,664 murders (which doesn't capture the actual number, as Florida and Alabama don't report figures to the bureau.) In nearly 68 percent of the homicides, a firearm was used.
Here are more useful tidbits from the FBI data: The vast majority of murders happen between people who know each other, 54 percent. Only 260 deaths in 2011 were considered justifiable homicides by private citizens, cases where armed people rushed to save the day, as so many gun proliferation advocates envision.
The homicide figures are just one measure of guns' toll. For every death by gunfire, at least another three people are shot, just not fatally. And because this violence tends to cluster in poorer neighborhoods, the impact is heightened. By the time some children complete high school, they will have lost as many classmates to violence as died at Columbine High School.
Yet few of those voices are being invited to comment in the national conversation, not in meaningful ways. To the extent that young black men are considered, it is as a rationale for flooding society with more guns. Read between the lines of what Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said in a heated exchange with Piers Morgan on CNN. Attempting to rebut Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assertion that assault weapons are unnecessary outside the military, Pratt argued that "the general and his troops are not going to be there to protect the average American, the military nor the police, after social order implodes, after a hurricane, after an earthquake, during riots."
This is paranoia, and it is the predominant motif of the gun lobby, whose unwillingness to compromise is the major obstacle to adopting effective measures to curb gun violence. Background checks on gun purchases, in the eyes of the NRA and other advocacy groups, is tantamount to "blaming" lawful gun owners for gun crime.
The fact is that handguns were used in 73 percent of the murder and non-negligent manslaughter incidents in 2011. Even if you believe that guns don't start out destined for use in crime, obviously that's how many of them end up. After they roll off an assembly line and go to a Walmart or local gun shop, how do they get into the hands of a criminal? Tracking the trajectory of those weapons is imperative.
The commerce in guns — perhaps trafficking is a better word — is shockingly unregulated in this country. Amassing an arsenal outside the scrutiny of the law is a prerogative gun enthusiasts have jealously guarded — and in so doing, they have extended it to criminals as well.
The typical NRA supporter — white and suburban or exurban — does not feel the consequences of this, and does not care to contemplate them. The people we need to listen to now are those who are trapped in the world the gun nuts have made.
Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Her email address is [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:1b04ff2a-a28d-4e27-bc5c-bd21e31b0fa0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyamerican.com/topic/hc-sanchez-gun-debate-must-include-poor-americans--20130111,0,3205275.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968075 | 953 | 1.71875 | 2 |
January 23/12 17:06 pm - Cycling BC Visits King David School
Posted by Editoress on 01/23/12
With start up in the new school year we headed out to King David School with Tim, Jeff, and Boris. Boris hyped up the classes with accounts of travelling the world to race and train, then Jeff presented ways to get involved as youth in cycling as a sport for any level.
Jeff and Boris talked about skills training, while Tim took the other half to try out the Wattbikes. Two bikes connected with the image up on the wall got students competing in 200 metre to 2 kilometre race simulations. There were outstanding efforts with cadences up over 180 rpm. All in all, 80 kids took part and were introduced to cycling. Some of the students are interested in taking part in the Spring Break Camp, and the school is investigating taking a field trip to the velodrome in the coming weeks.
We will be back when the weather is better to have some outdoor skills follow up!
Photos from Cycling BC camps and school visits
The coaches got to give some individual tips and inspiration to get the students putting it all into the pedals. - The students are naturally competitive at this age, they all really enjoyed racing against their friends.
Mountain Bike Training Camp in Whistler
Supervised training session in the gym
Peak power testing on the Cycling BC Wattbikes, so riders can monitor their progression in the future
BMX Testing and Training Camp in Abbotsford
Skills session at the Abbotsford indoor BMX track, with Cycling BC and National Coach Adam Muys
Courtesy Cycling BC | <urn:uuid:9c429035-80b1-425c-a7b9-d370d8801c21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://canadiancyclist.com/cycling4women_news.php?id=23274 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96375 | 339 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The Herberger Business School recognizes that extra-curricular campus activities can serve as an important component of your educational experience and personal growth. The School strongly encourages students to join one or more student clubs and become an active and contributing participant within that organization. Student clubs provide excellent opportunities for professional, personal, and social development.
The St. Cloud State University Husky Growth Fund is a university owned portfolio managed by a team of select students. The portfolio was started in 1999 with a beginning value of $100,000. The purpose of this fund is to give selected students the opportunity to research, analyze, invest, and track financial assets for the betterment of the portfolio. This experience will help students prepare for the challenges they will face in their future careers. http://web.stcloudstate.edu/huskygrowthfund
Investment Club is a group of students who gather to learn about investments,manage a portfolio of stocks, attend socials, take trips, and listen to speakers explain their profession.
Real Estate Association
The SCSU student Real Estate Association gives students interested in real estate an opportunity to come together on a weekly basis to hear guest speakers discuss some aspect of real estate. In addition the group gets together for social purposes and also charitable fund raising purposes. Once a year the student group takes a spring trip, usually to Chicago, to visit real estate companies and see how they differ from firms in Minnesota. The past three years SCSU Real Estate Association members have participated in the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP) University Challenge. In this challenge students compete with similar student organizations from the University of St. Thomas and the University of Northern Iowa. The challenge is a case competition in which students analyze a site and decide if developing that site would be feasible given current market conditions.
General Business Student Organizations
- Beta Gamma Sigma
Beta Gamma Sigma is the honor society for students enrolled in business and management programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. Election to lifetime membership in Beta Gamma Sigma is the highest honor a business student anywhere in the world can receive in an undergraduate or master's program at a school accredited by AACSB International.
- BSEC (Business Student Executive Council)
Our purpose is to advance all organizations within the Herberger Business School and to facilitate interaction between business organizations and Herberger Business School faculty, staff, and administration.
- Delta Sigma Pi
Delta Sigma Pi is a professional fraternity organized to foster the study of business in universities; to encourage scholarship, social activity and the association of students for their mutual advancement by research and practice; to promote closer affiliation between the commercial world and students of commerce, and to further a higher standard of commercial ethics and culture and the civic and commercial welfare of the community.
- Entrepreneurship Club
The Entrepreneurship Club is a student run club, devoted to bringing students closer to the business environment. Members help organize and run actual businesses and contribute to being an important part of the organization. All majors are accepted.
- Global Horizons Club
The Global Horizons Club promotes the international business program and provides support for students returning from the business education-abroad program and to those going in the future. The club also helps to recruit students for the programs, informs the campus about global education, and supports the international business students who come to St. Cloud State every fall semester. Contact Diane McClure at [email protected] or 320.308.3892 for more information. | <urn:uuid:39e15fd5-3a4f-4b9a-9782-988165a69600> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stcloudstate.edu/fire/studentorganizations.asp | 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 | 0.930033 | 717 | 1.5 | 2 |
Obama Administration Announces More Than $16 Million for Energy Projects in Iowa
June 22, 2009
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu today announced more than $16 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to support energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in Iowa. Under DOE's State Energy Program (SEP), states have proposed statewide plans that prioritize energy savings, create or retain jobs, increase the use of renewable energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This initiative is part of the Obama Administration's national strategy to support job growth, while making a historic down payment on clean energy.
"This funding will provide an important boost for state economies, help put Americans back to work, and move us toward energy independence," said Secretary Chu. "It reflects our commitment to support innovative state and local strategies to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy while insisting that taxpayer dollars be spent responsibly."
"Iowa has been and will be a leader in alternative energy, which has meant thousands of good jobs across our state," said Governor Culver. "The support of President Obama and Secretary Chu will help Iowa do even more. State Energy Program funds will lead to more renewable energy technology for public and community facilities, greater energy efficiency throughout Iowa, and in the process new construction and manufacturing jobs to help us work our way out of the economic recession."
"Iowa is a national leader in alternative energy production and we worked hard to include significant investment in this industry in the stimulus package for job creation and business opportunities in our state," said Congressman Leonard Boswell.
With $16,218,400, Iowa will expand the Building Energy Smart Iowa Program under the Iowa Office of Energy Independence (OEI). The program is focused on increasing energy efficiency—the quickest, most effective means of reducing fossil fuel dependence. Iowa's plan provides for workforce training and public information projects, with the goal of increasing the state's capacity for energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy projects. Iowa plans to make grants of up to $100,000 to public, private and non-profit entities for energy training across the state. OEI will work with Iowa Workforce Development to monitor projects to be sure they are successful. Today's announcement represents 40% of Iowa's funding for the State Energy Program under the Recovery Act. The initial 10% of total funding was available to states to support planning activities; the remaining 50% of funds will be released when states meet reporting, oversight, and accountability milestones required by the Recovery Act.
The Recovery Act appropriated $3.1 billion to SEP, giving priority to achieving national goals of energy independence while helping to stimulate local economies. States use these grants to address energy priorities and to adopt emerging renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. SEP will invest $3.1 billion from the Recovery Act to help the nation weather the ongoing economic downturn and meet key energy goals. The national program funding is intended to be spent at the local and state level for immediate economic impact. Transparency and accountability are high priorities of all Recovery Act funding on local, state, and national levels. | <urn:uuid:e9f686dd-3e5e-4e45-bc44-9c67d62ee7ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.eere.energy.gov/wip/news_detail.html?news_id=12590 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938879 | 622 | 1.65625 | 2 |
John and I had the opportunity to volunteer on Sunday at the VIDAS Animal Spay & Neuter Clinic in Playa del Carmen. As always, it was an amazing experience!
This clinic is completely free to pet owners who would not otherwise be able to afford sterilization for their pets. It is said that just one female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 puppies in 6 years!! So, this annual clinic definitely makes an impact on the pet overpopulation problem here.
We started off our day by transporting three pups from the Peanut Pet Shelter to the clinic. Say adios to your huevos, boys!
The clinic was held at a public secondary school in the Colosio neighborhood. School was out this week, so unlike past clinics, there were not many children around to help out and learn about pet care and safety. I definitely missed that aspect of it.
Andy from the Peanut Pet Shelter and John wait to register some of the dogs.
Here are some of the dogs I found waiting for their surgeries.
The operating room was set up in a classroom. The volunteer vets from VIDAS bring down all the equipment and medications! They had 6 surgeons plus vet technicians/assistants.
Over 80 sterilizations were performed the day we were there! That’s a huge jump from last year, when about 50 were done each day. The clinic is really growing from word of mouth. Participants from past years encourage their friends and neighbors to attend, and some even round up dogs and bring them in themselves.
In addition to the sterilizations, all the dogs receive an examination and are treated for any conditions when possible. One dog I know of even had a tumor removed! Many dogs are sent home with much needed medications.
When a surgery is completed, the animals are brought to the recovery room. They’re still pretty drugged up, so it’s the perfect time to clean their ears, check for ticks and trim their claws/nails.
Some pictures from around the recovery room. Click any of the images on this blog entry for a larger image.
John’s made a new friend!
Over the four days of the Playa del Carmen clinic, more than 350 dogs and cats were sterilized! What an incredible success! A big thanks to all the people who made this possible!
Sherry Stevens, the Organizer, makes this whole thing come together. She arranges the vets’ transportation to and from the airport, their accommodations and the clinic. She solicits free accommodations for the vets. She coordinates meals and drinks for the vets during clinic hours. And many other things. She has donated countless hours of time and her own funds to make this work.
VIDAS (Spanish for lives) is a Boulder, CO non-profit organization made up of veterinarians dedictaed to improving the lives of animals. Each year, they organize clinics in Quintana Roo, not only in Playa. Later this week, they will be in Puerto Morelos.
The Vets volunteer their vacation time to work! How many of us would be willing to do that?! They work hard in hot and humid weather, less than ideal conditions for 10-12 hours a day, and I’ve never heard them complain! Many of them keep coming back for more year after year!
Sandra Valdez, Director of Animal Control for Solidarid, for coming in and performing sterilizations along with the vets from VIDAS.
Recovery Room Volunteers – Quite a few locals make time out of their busy schedules to help in any ways they can. Amazingly, volunteers from abroad also come during their vacations to help! Marilyn and Bruce have been doing this for several years!
Mexico Vacation Villas for donating accommodations for the vet volunteers.
Blue Parrot for providing lunches to all the volunteers.
Contributors- Vet clinics in the states and animal lovers have donated equipment, medications and cash to make this clinic possible! | <urn:uuid:1833653c-d97a-4a05-87cd-eac88f24bba6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ourmexicanadventure.com/2008/08/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971249 | 821 | 1.703125 | 2 |
You can't stop thinking about ice cream. You go into your room and try to read, file your nails, text a friend - anything to distract yourself. Your brain is insistent: Ice cream. Ice cream. Soon, you're telling yourself that you deserve ice cream - after all, you've had a crappy day. And before you know it, you're heading to the freezer, pulling out a litre, and going at it straight from the tub. Mmmmmm. Until you hit the cardboard the bottom. The litre of ice cream is gone and you're totally full - of regret. "Why did I do that?!" you moan. "I'm starting a diet tomorrow." Then you head to bed, making sure to avoid the full-length mirror when you pull off your now snug skinny jeans.
[Related article: Clinical food addiction could affect as many as one in 200 people]
Sound like addiction? According to a 2011 report in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, your behaviour qualifies as worthy of an addict's if (and I'm paraphrasing here):
1. You engage in an activity to satisfy an appetite. (Check)
2. You're preoccupied with the behaviour. (Check)
3. You feel satisfied after you do it - temporarily. (Check and check)
4. You feel out of control. (Um, check)
5. You suffer negative consequences. (Triple check.)
I'll admit it. When it comes to food, my behavior occasionally kicks me into the addict category - and that's also the case for Taffy Brodesser-Akner, whose essay in this month's SELF chronicles her stint in a 12-step program to get her eating under control. The mother of all 12-step programs, Alcoholics Anonymous or AA, was founded in 1935, followed by Narcotics Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous. These days, there are practically as many types of 12-step programs as there are diets, including Workaholics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Neurotics Anonymous and even Underearners Anonymous.
[Related article: 7 surprising things that make you fat]
Clearly, 12-step is trendy, but does it work? Well, it did for Taffy (she lost 40 pounds in a year), but what I find so surprising about her story is that she is not a big advocate of the regimen. In fact, despite her amazing success, one day she up and quit. Why? As she writes in the piece:
"These days, everything's a disease: If you like porn, you're a sex addict; if you've forgotten to apply sunscreen, you're tanorexic. I'm not saying food addiction isn't real. But I would say that the pleasure centers of the brain light up when we eat not because we're addicted but because food is pleasurable - and maybe that's okay."
In other words, Taffy didn't want to be defined as an addict for life. "Maybe I had been sick, but I wasn't anymore, and I refused to forfeit my right to redefine myself," she writes. Nor did she want to adhere to a rigid diet plan forever. The trouble is, most 12-step programs aren't what you'd call loosey-goosey, and Taffy's program - Compulsive Eater's Anonymous - was no exception. Flour and sugar are forbidden. Protein and veggies are allowed, but in strictly defined amounts. (e.g. There's lots of meticulous weighing of food.) That kind of control can be comforting, but it can also be confining. And while it might be necessary for someone trying to swear off booze or pills, it might be overkill for someone trying to balance their eating habits.
[Related article: The Office’s Lucy Davis reveals secret bulimia battle]
A rigid diet can also backfire and make you fatter, something I've experienced personally. I've battled with my weight since the age of 13, see-sawing between a high of size-14 to a low of size-8 and everywhere in between. My weight has gotten in the way of my love life, how comfortable I feel in my skin and my day-to- day happiness. But the only time I've been able to break free of the demoralizing cycle of binging and dieting, dieting and binging, is when I adopt a less-rigid approach to food.
Research confirms that for most people, very strict diets only lead to backsliding. A 2011 study in the journal Appetite shows that the more rigid the regimen, the tougher it is to resist cravings. And a 2002 study at Louisiana State University found that people who are very controlled about their eating (read: rigid) are more likely to show signs of mood disorders.
Which is not to say that 12-step programs are a bad idea - for booze, or even for food. Some people thrive on strict limitations. Me? I tend to be an instant gratification kind of girl. The secret to keeping myself at a steadyish size 10, where I am these days, is to have a bowl of ice cream when I'm tempted, then get on with my life. | <urn:uuid:088d6ecb-a53c-49ee-a912-fc9f541d3212> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/could-you-be-a-food-addict-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966044 | 1,088 | 1.578125 | 2 |
No matter what type of business you are preparing to start, one of the first decisions you need to make is what you’re going to name your business. Choosing a name is often something that business owners don’t realize needs more research than just finding a name that is memorable and will appeal to both them and their clients.
Why go to all this effort? You’re opening your business with plans of success, knowing you will be investing yourself, your time, and your effort into growing your business. Generally, you won’t be notified of any disputes related to your name until your business has grown and become successful, after you have spent time and energy getting your name known. Don’t lose this valuable piece of your business when it really means something to you because you didn’t research whether you could use it at the beginning. Trademark litigation is costly; a search determining whether you name will be rightfully yours is not.
1. Type and Scope of Your Business
The type and scope of your business will normally define how much work needs to be put into research surrounding your proposed business name. For example, if your new business is going to be the local diner branding your name, with no plans to expand outside your neighborhood, that should justify sticking to just your city and county. If you’re planning on selling party supply goods through a mail-order or internet catalogue, that may call for a full scale search of local and national usage since you’re be selling nationally.
At a minimum, your search should include every county in which you plan to do business. At the other end, your search may end up involving a complex multi-jurisdictional search of other business names in various jurisdictions of trademarked or protected intellectual property interests.
2. Fictitious Business Names Registries
If your business is going to be a local one, check the fictitious business name registry with the county clerk for each county your business is likely to do business in. This includes counties you may expand to if your business will be a success.
3. Business Name Search with the Secretary of State
The California Secretary of State maintains a listing of certain business names. You can check their website with their search function to see if there is already a corporation, limited liability company, limited partnership or limited liability partnership with a name that is confusingly similar to what you are hoping to use. Picking a name that is confusingly similar to another registered name may lead to a protracted tradename dispute down the line.
4. Federal and State Registrations
Filing a fictitious business name required by California Business & Professions Code Section 17910 establishes a rebuttable presumption that the registrant has the exclusive right to use that name as a trade name in the county where the statement was filed.
What happens when there are two of you using a similar name? If you have a fictitious business name registration (a “dba”) and there is a corporation or limited liability company in the same county with a name similar to yours, whichever one filed first and is actually engaged in a trade or business using the name is entitled to the presumption of priority against the other.
5. Specific Entity Name Requirements
Q: If I’m not a corporation, can I put an “Inc.” or “Incorporation” or “Corp.” or “Corporation” after my name? A: No. You’re not allowed to use a name that may be confusing to the general public.
Q: What about “LLC” or “Limited Liability Company” for my sole proprietorship? A: No. Only a limited liability company can use “LLC” or “Limited Liability Company” or “LLC.”
You’re not allowed to pick a name for your business that will end up confusing people who look at your business name.
6. Reserve Your Business Name if There Will be a Delay in Filing Your Formation Documents
Reserving your name with the Secretary of State is a simple and inexpensive matter. Ideally, when you decide on a name after conducting the research I’ve described above, you should go through the effort of reserving with the Secretary of State. If you anticipate doing business in states other than California, reserve your name there as well. The Secretary of State will issue a certificate of reservation which should provide sufficient time to finish your business formation.
7. Will a Fictitious Business Name Statement Be Required?
A fictitious business name statement must be filed with the county clerk if you are regularly doing business under a fictitious business name (or a “dba”). You can file a fictitious business name statement in the county that your business has its principal place of business, within 40 days of the date you first began conducting business under that name. You may also wish to file a fictitious business name statement in other counties where you will transact business now and in the future.
Once you filed the fictitious business name statement with the county clerk, you must publish the name with a newspaper in the same county within 30 days of filing the statement, once a week for 4 consecutive weeks, with five days between each date of publication. Most metropolitan areas have papers that do this for a nominal sum. Afterwards, you must file an affidavit of publication with the county clerk within 30 days after completing your publication run. A fictitious business name statement will expire five years after the date you first filed it in the county recorder’s office, at which point you’ll need to refile.
We’d love to hear from you. How was your experience in filing your business name? Any other tips you can share?
-Elena Rivkin Franz, Business & Real Estate Litigation Attorney | <urn:uuid:1d14932f-a6f6-482c-b52a-f68a8cc1453d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mlnariklaw.com/blog/law/tag/business-formation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943554 | 1,206 | 1.679688 | 2 |
New Years Day consistently ranks as the year's deadliest day for alcohol-related fatalities. According to AAA, most drivers who choose to get behind the wheel don't think they've had too much to drink. Yet, after a 6 pack of beer, drivers have a 44% chance to get in an accident.
And if you don't think you'll get caught, think again. More than 2/3 of DUI convictions are first time offenders.
Local authorities say they will have increased patrols out on the roads for the holiday. | <urn:uuid:37fa3e7d-10b6-415d-961a-478958411e53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bigcountryhomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=559292&nxd_237113_start=35 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985278 | 107 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Nov 26 2010
Is it a bird, a ufo, or a camera glitch?
Interesting finds on the Oregon coast these past days; including something I noticed when I uploaded the pics I took on the beach. Not the first time a person caught something strange when snapping away at the sky. Hard to tell what this is; anything from a glitch within the digital camera to an actual object — unseen by us, and believe me, we’re always looking! — in the sky.
I had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday on the Oregon coast. While there, took photos on the beach. Was privileged to see a pelican hovering, swooping and fishing the sea for food. Among all the gulls, one lone pelican. I’ve seen pelicans before of course, but usually they’re in a flock, just sitting around. This was the first time I’d seen one going solo (no other pelicans in sight) and so active.
We saw another odd thing: several dead birds on this same beach. Not unusual to see a dead bird or two on the sand; we often see that. But this time, there were five dead birds; four gulls, one crow, all in a curved line, about five feet apart from each other. (And later, we had to swerve to avoid hitting a gull that just wouldn’t fly off; it was on the highway, pecking away at a gull carcass. On the way back, we saw what we assumed was the once live gull, now dead by the side of the road, near the bird corpse it was cannibalizing earlier. This about a quarter mile from the place on the beach where we saw the dead birds.)
Dead gull found along with four other dead birds in Yachats, OR 11/10
When I uploaded the photos of the gulls and pelican, I noticed this weird “object” — I don’t know if it’s a camera/computer glitch, or something that was really there in the sky. From a distance, without zooming in, the object appears different than the birds; sharper. It’s pixelated and becomes more so as I zoom in. We didn’t notice anything odd when we were out there, but then again, we were watching the pelican. I get the feeling that it’s an object, and probably man made (not an alien/outer space UFO, but some kind of military object.)
Yachats, Oregon 11/25/10
The sharp, dark object just about in the upper middle of the photo: glitch or object?
There were weird electrical glitches during that trip, including one odd thing with the camera earlier the day before. I went to turn off the camera, and vertical colored stripes appeared, and a strobing effect. Then it turned off; but seemed fine after that. No problem since. Object in the sky, or camera glitch?
I had hoped to explore Stonefield Beach, which, according to local lore, is a hotspot of weirdness, including UFOs and aliens. But when we drove down the drive we found this:
Stonefield Beach Park, Oregon coast, 11/26/10
Stonefield Beach Park closed. Blobs aren’t aliens or ghosts, just raindrops.
(Stonefield Beach is roughly eight miles from the beach near the Silver Surf motel discussed earlier.)
For more coastal oddness, visit my blog Animal Forteana.
- Related News Stories:
- Robo-Bird »
- Costa Rica: UFOs and Volcanoes »
- Chupas & Winged Things »
- Sky Monsters »
- It’s the Leprechaun-Alien! »
- Put UFOs In Your Cel Phone Pics…INSTANTLY! »
- Blogging the Mothman »
- Uruguay: Alleged UFO Over Atlántida »
- Face on Mars Unmasked? »
- More Structures On Mars? » | <urn:uuid:a9033cb6-0291-4857-ad73-0506a7872336> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ufomystic.com/2010/11/26/is-it-a-bird-a-ufo-or-a-camera-glitch/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94059 | 836 | 1.664063 | 2 |
For details of our latest events please visit www.futurelab.org.uk/what-we-do/events.
Futurelab will be showcasing its SPARK exhibition at The Ideas Lab: New Technologies conference. The conference is designed for teachers and and creative practitioners involved in Bright Space's Creative Partnerships Programme.
Futurelab will be launching its SPARK exhibition at this free-to-attend Becta research conference which aims to bring together practitioners, the research community and policy makers to engage in dialogue about the ways in which technology can support learning in the 21st century and enhance your understanding of the ways technology-enabled practice can make learning better.
The 2009 Futurelab conference explored the opportunities and challenges for young people in becoming 'digitally active', and the implications for the professionals who work with them. The event included young people presenting initiatives that have supported them as creative media producers and active citizens.
This 'facilitated networking' event will support managed introductions and conversations between educators and their peers from industry, and provide an opportunity to hear from inspirational speakers from both sides.
This event is an opportunity to find out more about the work that we're doing under three of our current themes - teachers and innovations, learning spaces, and informal and family learning - as well as details of the Beyond Current Horizons project.
Part of the Bristol Think Tank Workshop series (hosted by the University of Bristol Graduate School of Education, in partnership with Mouchel Management Consulting and Futurelab). This event will focus on student engagement and learner voice.
It's the world's biggest educational technology show - all the key UK ICT organisations, agencies and companies are there. At our stand (J11), and through our programme of seminars, Futurelab inspired visitors at BETT 2009 to engage learners by taking an innovative approach to teaching and learning. | <urn:uuid:dfffb62c-3391-4d20-9eff-6ef89746a36e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.futurelab.org.uk/events?custom:filteryear=2009 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946487 | 375 | 1.601563 | 2 |
C.A. Bradenburgh's Museum, 9th and Arch Streets
View of the corner of the museum with both sides of the building covered with signs. Narrow side has the main, columned entrance. Other side has steps leading to the second floor and a separate set leading to the fourth floor and joins the fire escape. People on the sidewalk, streetcar tracks on both cobblestone streets, and numerous electrical wires running along streets. Some of the signs on the sides of the building: "C.A. Bradenburgh's 9th and Arch Museum", "Come when you want", "Go when you please", "One dime admits to all", "Curios and vaudeville", "No other place like this in the city",
"Continuous performance", "Superior in appointments and attractions", "The family resort", "Dime museum", "Annual
championship contest of the female basket ball players", "9th and Arch Dime Museum", "Concluding championship contest of the young woman basket ball players: novel, exciting, exhilirating [sic]", "The people's amusement palace". | <urn:uuid:e62e57b7-57cf-4b4e-8a77-52b75813d760> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phillyhistory.org/photoarchive/Detail.aspx?assetId=98008 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941533 | 235 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The blog of Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) is a constant source of surprises.
Recently, Adams evoked the nonsensical nature of the lyrics of many popular songs, including those of the Beatles. He went on to suggest a collective experiment in song-writing. To start the ball rolling, Scott proposed two delightful lines of nonsense:
She had runaway eyes and marshmallow kittens.
My heart heard a dream like ten thousand mittens.
Then he asked his blog readers to submit similar couplets of amusing gibberish, to complete the lyrics for a song. Scott weeded through all the stuff that reached the blog in the form of comments, and ended up with plausible lyrics [display]. A few days later, a German group named Rivo Drei composed music for these lyrics, and recorded the song. As of today, there's even a music video:
Personally, I'm highly impressed by the style and outcome of this amazing song-writing experiment... even though it's imperfect. I'm convinced that it proves something, but I'm not quite sure what. | <urn:uuid:67fb010b-ace7-467e-9129-99ed8ee1fcad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://skyvington.blogspot.com/2008/01/amazing-song-writing-experiment.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969259 | 219 | 1.625 | 2 |
No matter how visually attractive (or complex), a picture is still a static representation of an event. A written story takes the reader through time and space, but lacks visual appeal. A wordscape combines the best of both worlds – a compelling visual image attached to a gripping story.
Urban or city centers have always been places of excitement, of energy. They are centers for culture, business, art. They are melting pots for people and ideas.
Urban Wordscapes takes from these concepts and provides an exciting setting for visually compelling stories. | <urn:uuid:792d123d-4b1a-48a2-b89c-4d4cb566dcbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://urbanwordscapes.com/about/ | 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 | 0.934052 | 109 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Too many dollars are being left on the table by U.S. companies because of poor sourcing strategies. How do yours measure up?
Estimates show that mid-sized U.S. companies miss the opportunity for supplier savings in excess of $134 billion due to inadequate sourcing competencies . This much money left on the table could mean the difference between profitability and bankruptcy. That's where Strategic Sourcing comes in.
There are two ways to view Strategic Sourcing.
The Strategic Sourcing Model (as shown in Fig. 1) is based on a series of activities that must take place for the model to be successful. Without following through all the necessary steps to discover where the spending trends are and where opportunities lie, we are simply purchasing in traditional ways. Companies that have implemented Strategic Sourcing policies report a reduction of inventories between 50% and 70% . This six-step model links the entire process together from Data Collection, and leveraging that data, through Supplier Management & Monitoring. Each step has very specific needs and requirements.
Step 1. Data collection & analysis
In this step, the entire inventory is evaluated for similarities and broken down into commodity categories. There is significant "Data Scrubbing" at this initial stage. Part numbers must be accurate; part descriptions must be "Smart" coded for easy search criteria; obsolete materials must be identified and disposed of. Once all of this is completed, a listing of commodities is agreed to and the inventory is then broken down and placed in those "Buckets." In effect, the CMMS or ERP system must be cleansed before any other step.
After the "Data Scrubbing" is complete, a history or baseline can be developed. This is crucial in order to allow for the making of informed and intelligent decisions going forward. The data can be examined to determine buying patterns, one-time purchases, high-volume buys, what volume is with what supplier, etc. From this baseline, the needs can be determined-needs being where the biggest or greatest opportunities lie.
Fig. 2 can be used to decipher the data and make decisions on where to concentrate efforts. In the first cut or wave, certain criteria are used to determine the largest opportunities, including whether enough data is available to make a business decision and if used across divisions or departments, can a business case be rationalized to move forward, etc.
So far, we've identified the commodity, baseline data and opportunity and made a business case to support our efforts. The final step in this process is to clearly identify the specifications for each item in that product category. If we are to leverage our spending and negotiate preferential contracts, then we better understand what exactly we are buying. For instance, health and safety laws differ from county to county, state to state and, absolutely, country to country. If the decision is made to purchase safety equipment from an offshore source, it must meet all country, state and local laws.
Step 2. Develop a sourcing strategy
After all the research, data analysis, specification development and commodity classifications, the next step is determining the sourcing strategy that will be used. The decision as to what to buy, where to buy and how to minimize risks is next. It's not as simple as finding a supplier with the lowest price. We need to consider total cost of ownership (TCO) as well.
Offshore sourcing is becoming a necessity in today's global economy. Companies must look at opportunities outside of traditional borders to maximize margins and profitability and assure no interruptions to the supply chain. If the decision is made to go offshore for sourcing, it is crucial to know the supplier and the risks involved, including current technology knowledge, communication, government stability, currency fluctuations, etc. Included in the total cost of acquisition and management of risks are:
Step 3. Leverage consolidation
Leverage consolidation is simply taking the data that has been collected, analyzed and commoditized and identifying trends for family product lines, substituting like products for less costly ones, reducing the supplier base, etc.
Fig. 3 depicts the traditional purchasing model, with many suppliers specializing in one focus area. Having multiple suppliers provide what otherwise could be classified as a commodity is NOT Strategic Sourcing.
Performing Steps 1 and 2 would yield this information. Data analysis would track how much we're spending on electrical componentry and amount spent with each supplier. By combining all electrical purchases across all divisions and/or departments, we would begin to see the benefits related to leveraging aggregate pricing discounts, transaction cost reductions, preferential payments terms, etc. Moving toward a single source supplier (as illustrated by Fig. 4) begins the process of true partnership. As they say: What's good for the goose…
Step 4. Relationship restructuring
We've done the research, data analysis, specification development and commodity classifications, determined the sourcing strategy and consolidated family products lines. Now we're ready to move into the bidding, supplier selection process and negotiations for a successful relationship.
Successful strategic assessment will develop an understanding of the market. Strategic professionals will, therefore, understand the true importance of the supplier, the balance of supply and demand, new entrants into the marketplace, consolidations, alternatives, supplier capabilities and overall strategic alliances. Once this is embraced, the ultimate "Lowest Total Cost of Ownership" will be achieved.
The package can be put together for any specific commodity. It is time to send out for bidding. Today's electronic E-commerce opens the door to a whole new world. The marketplace is no longer defined by geographic constraints. With the help of the Internet, an operation in East Littletown, USA can now compete successfully, on a level playing field, in global commerce just like any other company. Do your research and find the appropriate portal or B2B Website for your specific needs. The following links offer some useful starting points:
The identification of suitable suppliers is as critical as any other step. You can negotiate the best price, delivery, payments terms, etc., but if the supplier isn't stable or in partnership, what good will great pricing do for your company? When seeking suitable suppliers, look for the following:
At this point, we've nearly completed a full 5S Strategic Sourcing exercise. All the steps have been taken to Sort, Standardize, Strategize and Study.
Now we're ready to select the best Supplier. The first step is to negotiate the total cost of product. Using the previous steps, we should have a clear understanding of what we want at what price and when. Before the meetings between customer and supplier even begin, some basic negotiating skills must be assured.
Step 5. Best practice evaluation
One of the key steps companies fail to take is trying to renegotiate prices and payment terms. There is no harm in asking. You don't get what you don't ask for.
Remember, though, that your suppliers are in business to make money-squeezing the last nickel from them is not a best practice.
There are other options that benefit the operation. Negotiate preferential payment terms. Change from FOB shipping point to FOB dock. Look at capitalizing on deliveries that best suit the operation-not supplier convenience. Measure total inventory value and break it down by costed inventory vs. consigned or vendor-managed inventory (VMI). The higher the consigned or VMI is, the better your managing of inventory.
Look at freight costs-which can be a very big expense these days. Negotiate with your carriers on fuel surcharge percentages. Clearly document the baseline cost the freight company is using for a gallon of diesel. Negotiate percentages from that baseline and discuss rebates. Have an open conversation with your carriers and ask if they have other customers using the same lanes as you are, then negotiate a "piggyback" fee instead of an LTL charge (less than truckload).
Issue credit cards for small MRO purchases instead of issuing a PO for each order. It makes good business sense to process one check for many low-cost items as opposed to many checks for many orders.
Use online or E-commerce B2B portals to obtain best pricing and research a broader assortment of suppliers. More and more companies are using the Internet to do business. E-commerce decreases the cost of processing purchase orders and, ultimately, overall costs. Fig. 5 reflects the trend of Internet usage for online purchase orders.
Step 6. Supplier management and reporting
Track results and restart assessment (continuous cycle)…
The six major steps to implementation of Strategic Sourcing have been highlighted here, but you still have some work to do before the benefits are realized. Once captured, however, these benefits can have a significant positive impact on your bottom line.
Successful implementation starts with data collection and categorizing the products lines. After that has been completed, a business decision can be made based on facts as to where the greatest opportunities are.
Selecting and negotiating with the identified suppliers is an integral part of supply chain management that offers unique opportunities. Today's marketplace is not based on who offers the lowest cost, but, rather, who delivers the lowest Total Cost of Ownership.
After your sourcing strategy decision has been made, including where to go and with whom, the management of that decision must be tracked. Measuring the supplier based on performance benefits both parties and clearly defines the expectations of each.
It is vitally important for companies to elevate the awareness and criticality of sourcing across their organizations. Implementing the six steps of Strategic Sourcing will assure that those organizations are proactively managing their operations. | <urn:uuid:9230556f-e0f6-4594-9d78-010a5f02990c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mt-online.com/april2007/strategic-sourcing-implementation?Itemid=90 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940268 | 1,962 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Millstream QLD 4888, AustraliaHistory
10 older records found on this numberPhone Type
Local ServiceLatest Holder
Telstra Corporation LimitedNumbering Area
Innot Hot SpringsLast found
April 2012Other Formats
0740970281 / 4097-0281 / 40970281 / (07) 4097 0281Statistics for Millstream
In 2006, there were 2,967 persons usually resident in Millstream: 52.5% were males and 47.5% were females. Of the total population in Millstream 9.9% were Indigenous persons, compared with 2.3% Indigenous persons in Australia. more
There were 774 families in Millstream: 37.7% were couple families with children, 46.4% were couple families without children, 15.0% were one parent families and 0.9% were other families.
The most common responses for occupation for employed persons usually resident in Millstream were Managers 20.1%, Labourers 16.2%, Machinery Operators And Drivers 13.4%, Technicians and Trades Workers 12.6% and Professionals 10.1%.
87.4% of persons usually resident in Millstream were Australian citizens, 12.1% were born overseas and 1.4% were overseas visitors.
* statistcs taken from the 2006 Census for postal area 4888 conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics | <urn:uuid:772fd3de-5e21-49e3-baa7-640f0b36ccc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reverseaustralia.com/lookup/0740970281/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972343 | 286 | 1.726563 | 2 |
CCA thespians go “Up the Down Staircase”
TIFFIN— In the late 1960s a former New York City school teacher wrote a novel titled “Up the Down Staircase.” In it, she told the often humorous, sometimes dramatic, trials and tribulations of an enthusiastic, optimistic and idealistic new teacher in her first year in an under-staffed, over-crowded NYC school. The book, chronicling her battles with apathy, self-doubt and bureaucracy, became a best-seller and was turned into a movie and play.
On December 1, 2 and 3, the Clear Creek Amana (CCA) Drama Department will present Christopher Sergel’s theatrical adaptation of Bel Kaufman’s novel.
Charlotte Small plays Sylvia Barrett, “a teacher in a school where not much learning has been going on,” as director Pete Huch describes her. “She’s trying to make a difference; she’s put into awkward situations.” Barrett is helped by veteran teacher Bea Schachter (played by Reily Barkhoff) and close friend Ellen (Alex Erlewine) as she copes with rebellious student Jo Ferone (Mia Kuehn) and love-struck Alice (Sarah Ritchie) to name but a few of the colorful characters filling her classroom to standing room only. Barrett also has to comprehend and comply with an ever more bizarre set of policies and procedures from the school’s administration.
“It has a little bit of everything,” Huch said. “There’s a love story, comedy and drama.” Huch likened the show to the movie “Dangerous Minds.” Although set in the same era as the original book, Huch says the message still resonates today. “Kids aren’t always willing to learn, but teachers are always trying to reach them.”
“It’s pro-teacher and pro-education,” Huch added.
The curtain goes up at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center. | <urn:uuid:539e8cfd-1dda-4ccd-8415-a58f7f977717> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northlibertyleader.com/content/cca-thespians-go-%E2%80%9C-down-staircase%E2%80%9D-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966053 | 454 | 1.617188 | 2 |
“When I do my work and I'm exposed to the suffering of others - their loss or, at times, their death - I feel I am surviving as a witness; that my role and responsibility is to create a record for our collective memory. Part of this, I believe, has to do with notions of accountability. Perhaps it is only in their moment of suffering that these people will be noticed, and nothing erases our excuse of saying one day that we did not know.
But I also feel that in this very delicate and fragile space that surrounds death, the space that I sometimes have both the privilege and burden of entering, there exists the possibility of an encounter with the other in a way that goes beyond words and culture and differences. It is about being exposed for a moment in front of each other and in front of the act and mystery of dying.
In that moment I feel I am looking at something that I can't completely see but that is looking at me.
It is in exchange that something simultaneously universal and deeply intimate can be found; in the death of the other there is a loss that belongs to everyone.”
Edition of 1,000
This catalogue is published in conjunction with the retrospective
Kunstfoyer, Maximilianstrasse 53,
Versicherungskammer Bayern, Munich
October 12, 2011 - February 20, 2012 | <urn:uuid:24993d5f-263c-40ac-b4a0-cd6a38004d45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.magnumphotos.com/c.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.BookDetail_VPage&pid=2K1HRGQ2O81 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969723 | 284 | 1.5625 | 2 |
A. Your brother is wrong. It will not improve his credit score at all. As an authorized user, he is not the owner of the debt. There’s a high likelihood that it will affect your credit score in a negative way because there’s a good chance he’ll do some dumb things with your card.
Look at it this way: Why would someone give him credit or raise his credit score just for using your credit? It doesn’t make sense. Your credit score is affected by things like whether or not you pay your bill on time. The card isn’t in his name, so really all this amounts to is him having fun with your card, and you’re the one who’s liable for the damage. The truth is that authorized users shouldn’t show up on a credit report.
It sounds like your brother has some financial problems. While I admire the fact he wants to fix things, this is not the answer. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying; chances are he’s not trying to con you. He probably got some bad information. But the hard truth is this: If you go along with his idea, it’s not going to help him and it’s going to hurt you. Don’t do it.
Q. In terms of a family’s financial plan, when is it OK to purchase something like NFL season tickets? Is this the kind of thing that should wait until you’re debt-free and can afford to pay cash for them?
A. Absolutely, you should wait until you’re debt-free and can pay cash. That kind of thing is a prime example of an expensive, luxury purchase.
I’m an NFL season ticket holder for the Tennessee Titans. But I’ve been debt-free for years, and my family’s financial future is secure. Whether the Titans win or lose, or whether I watch the games in person or in front of the television has no impact on our security.
However, if you’re sitting with credit card debt, a car payment and living paycheck to paycheck, you’ve got no business buying season tickets. Get yourself out of debt, build an emergency fund and make sure your family is taken care of first. Then you can have some fun. Live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else. And then, if that includes season tickets to your favorite football, baseball or hockey team, have a blast.
Remember, this kind of thing is entertainment. I know a lot of silly people act like whoever wins a football game is a matter of life and death, but it’s just a game. Your life and your financial future are not games, and they’re not things to be taken lightly. First things first. There will be plenty of time for that kind of fun when you can afford it.
Follow Dave Ramsey on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com. | <urn:uuid:6b88cc81-5651-4014-86a7-30ab8fe9e35a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://djournal.com/pages/full_story/push?article-DAVE+RAMSEY-+Authorized+users+don%E2%80%99t+help+your+credit%20&id=20874391 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960337 | 637 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Posted at: 01/14/2013 6:50 PM
By: Brittany Lewis
(ABC 6 NEWS) -- It’s been one month since the deadly Sandy Hook shooting and outcries over gun control have been loud ever since. While there’s a voice for new gun laws, there are as many people exercising their gun rights.
The Southern Minnesota Sportsman Club says they have 100 new members in just the past month. Permits are also increasing.
Olmsted County has seen about a 50% from this time last year. In the first two weeks of the year, 90 permits to purchases have been issued.
Mower County had 250 permit to purchase applications through the end of December. The last three weeks they have had 47. Experts say concern over new guns is driving this recent surge.
"More people are concerned that their rights are being taken away. When your rights are being taken away, you generally show more interest in that thought of that they're gonna be taken away and hey we wanna exercise our rights,” said Paul Glowacki, a board member at Southeastern Minnesota Sportsman Club.
Gun shops said it’s pretty much business as usual, but do add that gun control talks, might be their best seller. | <urn:uuid:681b5838-c3ea-4583-83f1-2ac515bb4e1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hbispace.com/printStory/kaal/index.cfm?id=2896279 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97988 | 261 | 1.5625 | 2 |
25th July 2012, Bhagalpur
Dr. K.D. Kokate, Deputy Director General (Agril. Extn.), ICAR visited Bihar Agricultural University, Bhagalpur and participated in a ‘Kisan Chaupal’ organized by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bhagalpur at village Jichho. Dr. M.L. Chaudhary, Vice-Chancellor, BAU, Bhagalpur, Dr. A.K. Singh, Zonal Project Director, Zone-II, Kolkata, Dr. R.K. Sohane, Director of Extension Education, BAU, Bhagalpur, Dr. S.K. Roy and Dr. P.P. Pal, Senior Scientists of Zonal Project Directorate, Zone-II and staff of KVK were also participated in the programme. Dr. Kokate addressed a gathering of nearly 300 farmers and farmwomen in the occasion and urged them to take the benefit of KVK and University in improving their economic condition through agriculture. In interactive session with large number of farmers and farm-women, solution to the problems raised by the farmers and farm-women on crop cultivation, insect-pest incidence, mushroom cultivation, women empowerment, marketing and other areas was provided by the KVK scientists on the spot. Earlier, Dr. Kokate visited the farm of BAU, IFS model of KVK and deliberated with senior university. Dr. A.K. Singh requested the university for regular updating of district-wise technological inventory and developing training manual.
(Source: ZPD, Zone II, Kolkata) | <urn:uuid:013124fa-9bdb-499e-85c3-2bd7af0028e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icar.org.in/en/node/4939 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93724 | 337 | 1.515625 | 2 |
A difficult spring season for firefighters has come to an end.
The Virgina Department of Forestry lifted the temporary burn ban at midnight on Tuesday morning.
Between February 14th and the end of April, Virginia's weather conditions make it easier for fires to burn and spread. During that time, you cannot start a fire until after 4 p.m. The ban has expired, but officials still ask the community to use caution when sparking flames. The Department of Forestry says fires scorched more than 43,000 acres across Virginia since January 1st.
As a reminder, outdoor fires are always prohibited in the city of Charlottesville. | <urn:uuid:486c6c1c-b6ff-49ff-a11e-96e35f608795> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whsv.com/weather/headlines/149657745.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960467 | 127 | 1.53125 | 2 |
University adopts award winning mobile technology
A new mobile information service is now being offered to staff, students and visitors of the University of Newcastle.
NUinfo is a web-based mobile phone application that provides quick and easy access to key University information.
Users can search the library catalogue, view campus maps, key semester dates and transport timetables.
The application was developed by Central Coast company Blink Mobile Technologies, who recently won the prestigious Innovation in Communication Award from the Australian Telecommunications User Group.
The initial development work for the software in 2005 was by a University of Newcastle student, Ben Thomas-Brigden, who was studying under a Williams Foundation scholarship.
University Chief Information Officer, Mary Sharp, said the technology was cutting edge and provided real information in real time.
"Nearly 5,000 unique page views have been recorded since the service commenced on 1 March.
"NUinfo is simple to use and allows people to access up-to-date information instantly on their mobile phone while walking around campus or away from a computer.
"This is an innovative tool that makes University information more accessible for students, staff and the community."
NUinfo can be accessed at http://nuinfo.uon.edu.au/
Media contact: Mary Sharp is available for interviews on Tuesday 23 March between 1pm and 2pm. Darren Besgrove, Director Blink Mobile Technologies, is available for interviews.
For further information please contact: | <urn:uuid:65098aa1-17fb-4d09-b286-f5288bf72105> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newcastle.edu.au/news/2010/03/23/university-adopts-award-winning-mobile-technology.html?mobile=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931011 | 297 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Civic engagement is integral to Westminster College's mission:
- to apply our knowledge to contemporary issues
- to demonstrate moral and ethical commitments to neighbor, society, and the natural world
- to demonstrate commitment to lifelong learning and the acquisition of skills for careers and responsible service as world citizens.
Westminster students have many opportunities to get involved in our community through student organizations, Greek life, Chapel programs and its twice annual VISA fair, athletics, Career Center programs, and opportunities through the Drinko Center. In addition, many Westminster faculty offer service-learning courses where service is academically integrated into the content of the course.
The Drinko Center, along with Lawrence County Community Action Partnership (LCCAP) sponsors Make-a-Difference Day (Fall semester) and Global Youth Service Day (Spring semester). | <urn:uuid:0d08c0dd-283a-43ab-91a2-982422cc7573> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.westminster.edu/acad/drinko/ce/ce_overview.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930537 | 166 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Townies is a series about life in New York, and occasionally other cities.
When my husband and I began mentioning to friends and family that we were thinking about moving from Providence, R.I., to New York City, everyone’s first question was not about what career opportunities awaited us or which borough we wanted to live in, but: “What about J?”
J, our 12-year-old son, has serious medical challenges and developmental disabilities, autism among them. He’s prone to violent tantrums that can be triggered by something as simple as catching sight of a dog 100 feet away, which makes our everyday life often messy, always unpredictable. But in Providence, we had the help of in-home aides and respite care provided by Medicaid, as well as a close-knit group of friends. Whenever we had an emergency, there were plenty of people to call. Whenever J had a meltdown, we could just jump in the car and go home. What would this scenario look like in New York?
During a visit last spring, we found out. My husband and I were looking at an apartment uptown when we came across a crowd.
“She should let him go in!”
“She needs to let him out of that chair!”
“She should — ”
An older woman (the grandmother?) was trying to control a husky elementary-school-age child in a flimsy stroller meant for a toddler. Though restrained by the straps, the boy could easily plant his feet on the ground and push the stroller in circles while the woman struggled to hold on. I had assumed New Yorkers, who pride themselves on not even looking up when a celebrity walks by, might have had more sang-froid, or at least tolerance. But the unhelpful busybodies were out in force.
I shoved through the crowd. “My son’s like that,” I said to the woman, quietly. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to help you.”
“He’s mad because he wants to go into Chuck E. Cheese,” she told me, panting. For a good 20 minutes, the boy pulled us in figure eights. I tried to talk to him, hold his hands, put his feet back on the footrest — all to no avail. I’d manage to hold one hand, but the other would slap me; one foot would come back down as soon as I put the other up. Bathed in my own sweat, I couldn’t help thinking: was this our future? Exactly what we were used to, but with larger crowds to witness our humiliation, and no car to jump into and drive away?
The boy finally allowed me to put his feet up and the woman quickly wheeled him off. I wondered if she had any people to help her at home, or if it was just her and the boy. I worried about what she would do as he became bigger and stronger — and what I would do.
But that boy was that boy on that particular day. J is J. After growing up in rural Minnesota, I had always been drawn to the exploding diversity of New York. I lived there for a dozen years after college, and missed it terribly when I left. I felt ready to go back; my husband and I had rare career opportunities that had suddenly presented themselves. Could it be possible that New York City might be good for J, too?
And so, midsummer, we made the move. That first night in our new apartment, across the street from a park that had been a crack users’ haven during my first New York iteration decades ago, everything felt a little tentative and awkward, as if we were on an extended camping trip. There was nothing in the fridge beyond what we’d brought with us from Rhode Island. Back “home,” we would have made a quick trip to Whole Foods, minutes away by car. In New York, we made a sortie to the cramped bodega nearby. J then declared he wanted to go on a drive. I asked where. He said, “To Providence.”
The next morning, we went on a walk, and happened upon a farmers’ market one block from our apartment. A few blocks more, and we found an Asian grocery where I bought seaweed, kimchi and rice — staples that I used to have to drive 20 minutes down the highway to find. J actually wanted to linger, despite the narrow aisles and precariously piled shelves; down the street, a shoe store display caught his eye. While I feared New York would be overstimulating for him, at the same time, there was so much interesting stuff to look at; even the park was newly charming, filled with strollers and bikers. Plus, we passed so many dogs that by the time we got back home, it seemed J had experienced some kind of speed-therapy, becoming almost inured.
After a few weeks, I began to notice an even bigger change in J. He has never had a sense of “stranger danger” — he’ll usually say “Hi! Hi! Hi!” to everyone we meet. But on one early morning scooter ride in the park, we approached a disheveled man, clearly down on his luck, but muttering under his breath in a threatening way and wearing a tutu. One or a combination of these factors lit up some neurons in J’s brain. Very deliberately, he scootered to a park bench and sat down until the man had passed us by, and did not offer him his usual greeting.
As a writer, I have always loved New York for its eccentric characters, even its menacing ones. I never dreamed one would prod J to make that cognitive leap, to figure out that human beings are unique and need to be treated accordingly. I’ve noticed J starting to people-watch from his bedroom window, observing the pedestrians on the street.
In a place famous for its anonymous crowds, J has been learning about people.
Granted, his tantrums are even more unwieldy in the unbending city. The other day, simultaneous noise from a jet, a motorcycle and a street sweeper caused him to scream and bite me in the middle of the crosswalk as a mom and her toddler looked on in horror. But the din of the city is constant, and here there are no leaf-blowers or lawn mowers, sources of tantrum-inducing sounds that were ubiquitous in our Providence neighborhood. Noise can be relative. So can peace. In the mornings, J boards his Lego-shaped school bus, which arrives so promptly, the driver and aide in their crisp uniforms, and the children go speeding downtown. I’m in awe of the chutzpah of this metropolis that decides, every day, that it’s going to go ahead and actually do this, that it has room for everyone of every kind.
After school, on a recent family walk in the park, we happened upon huge clumps of purple pokeweed, a plant I recognized from the rural areas of Rhode Island. Like it, we have found our way here, set down roots, and we’re beginning to thrive.
Townies welcomes submissions at [email protected].
Marie Myung-Ok Lee teaches writing at Columbia and is working on a novel about the future of medicine. | <urn:uuid:62f3cbdd-6cd2-43a4-9f8c-c5fdaf686573> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/my-son-and-the-city/?emc=eta1&ir=Parents | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984307 | 1,571 | 1.523438 | 2 |
“Stressed Athlete” recently sent me this question: “I called and left a message for a college coach asking him to call me back because I have some questions about their program, but he has not returned my phone call. Does this mean they are not interested in me?”
Answer: If the coach has already called and spoken to you or one of your parents that week, the NCAA rules do not permit him to call again during that week. For example, if the coach called and spoke to you on Sunday evening and you called back and left a message for him with some questions on Tuesday, the coach is not permitted to return your phone call until the following week. However, you can try to call again to reach him at his office or send him an email with your questions.
For information on recruiting, please go to http://www.informedathlete.com/recruiting/recruiting-info/and you will find recruiting calendars for most sports. These can serve as a reference for when and what type of contact that coaches are allowed to have with prospective student-athletes. | <urn:uuid:ca238223-f26f-44b4-b04f-54573f7bad00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.informedathlete.com/college-recruiting-why-doesnt-the-coach-call-me-back | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982867 | 230 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Class rooms are acoustically designed.
Class room consists of curtains for less noise. Big class rooms are equipped with speakers and microphones. Podiums are provided in each and every class for lecturers. Class rooms are equipped with comfortable seats and benches. Classrooms have been provided with Wi-Fi facility. Class rooms are also equipped with projectors and big screens. Windows are provided for good ventilation. Good quantity of fans is provided in each and every class room. Classes have enough size to accommodate all the students of a particular year.
Each and every PC is connected to Internet via LAN cables. High Speed Internet is provided via BSNL Broadband. Student volunteers take care of the Computer Center after the Faculty In charge leaves. Computer Center is also equipped with Wi-Fi. Students have access to both LAN as well as Wi-Fi. Students can use PCs anytime they like, provided it is under the timeline of the Computer Center.
Students can download any useful content in the lab and get to learn a great deal of new stuff while in lab, as In-charge and his coordinates are always ready to tell new things to learn. | <urn:uuid:6a78039d-5041-48a5-bddb-97f8b6c7e666> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iitmandi.ac.in/campus/students/labs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967 | 232 | 1.632813 | 2 |
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama Republicans who pushed through the nation's toughest law against illegal immigrants are having second thoughts amid a backlash from big business, fueled by the embarrassing traffic stops of two foreign employees tied to the state's prized Honda and Mercedes plants.
The Republican attorney general is calling for some of the strictest parts of it to be repealed.
Some Republican lawmakers say they now want to make changes in the law that was pushed quickly through the legislature.
Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the law, said he's contacting foreign executives to tell them they and their companies are still welcome in Alabama.
"We are not anti-foreign companies. We are very pro-foreign companies," he said.
Luther Strange, the attorney general who's defending the law in court, this week recommended repealing sections that make it a crime for an illegal immigrant to fail to carry registration documents and that require public schools to collect information on the immigration status of students. Both sections have been put on hold temporarily by a federal court.
Two foreign workers for Honda and Mercedes were recently stopped by police for failing to carry proof of legal residency. The cases were quickly dropped, but not without lots of international attention that Alabama officials didn't want.
One of the groups challenging the law in court said the auto workers' cases turned public opinion.
"Suddenly the reality of what the state has done hit people in the face," said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Before 2011, Republicans tried repeatedly to pass an immigration law but were always stopped by the dominant Democrats. That changed when Alabama voters elected a Republican legislative super majority — the first since Reconstruction. The result was a law described by critics and supporters as the toughest and most comprehensive in the nation.
It requires a check of legal residency when conducting everyday transactions such as buying a car license, enrolling a child in school, getting a job or renewing a business license. After the U.S. Justice Department and other groups challenged the law, the federal courts put some portions on hold, but major provisions took effect in late September.
Alabama suddenly found itself at the center of the nation's immigration debate, ahead of other states with tough laws, including Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina.
Within Alabama, much of the debate is within the business community that helped fund Republicans' new strength.
The Birmingham Business Alliance this week called for revisions in the law, expressing worry that it's tainting Alabama's image around the world. The group also said complying with the law is a burden for businesses and local governments, but did not offer specific changes.
James T. McManus, chairman of the Alliance and CEO of one of the state's largest businesses, the Energen Corp., said revisions "are needed to ensure that momentum remains strong in our competitive economic development efforts."
In Thomasville, a town of 4,700 about 80 miles southwest of Montgomery, Mayor Sheldon Day worries about recruiting industries.
He said about 25 foreign companies have visited the town to consider possible plant sites since Thomasville recruited a Canadian steel company in July 2010.
"Up until a few months ago, nobody raised the immigration issue," he said. But in the last few months, it's been brought up regularly. Day suspects competing states are portraying Alabama as hostile to foreigners even though he says that is not the truth. Based on the questions he gets from industrial prospects, he also believes competing states are recounting stories from Alabama's civil rights past.
"It's bringing back old images from 40 or 50 year ago," he said.
The governor says he's declined many national TV interviews about the law because he doesn't want to fuel comparisons with what he sees as Alabama's long gone past. "It's going to take us a long time to outlive those stereotypes that are out there among people that Alabama is living in the '50s and '60s," Bentley said.
The Republican sponsors of the immigration legislation promoted it as a jobs bill that would run off illegal immigrants and open up employment for legal residents. That was an easy political sale in a state suffering from nearly 10 percent unemployment. Even some Democrats voted for the law.
Since the law took effect, Alabama's unemployment rate has dropped a half percentage point. Economists and state officials who compile the statistics say it's too early to say whether to credit the immigration law.
But one of the sponsors, Republican Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale, said neighboring states without a similar law haven't seen the same drop. "There is nothing else to attribute it to," he said.
If there has been any damage, he said it's the fault of inaccurate portrayals in the news media. He said the media ought to be reporting: "This law establishes a safer, more secure environment for people to come here and invest their money."
Republican House Speaker Mike Hubbard of Auburn said no industrial recruiters have complained to him about the law, and he will only support "tweaks" that make it more effective without weakening it.
Some Democratic Party leaders have called for repeal, but the party is now so weak in Alabama that the real debate is among Republicans.
The governor says the law is "very complicated" and needs to be simplified. He hasn't recommended any specifics, but he says Alabama won't abandon its goal of ensuring that only legal residents get jobs.
Strange, the attorney general, says his recommended changes "don't weaken the law, they just make it easier to defend."
Beason, however, said Strange's proposals would weaken the law by repealing two sections that allow private citizens to sue state and local officials to enforce it. Beason said that's needed because some officials are already saying they won't follow the law.
Other Republicans say the law is causing unnecessary problems for legal residents. Senate Republican Whip Gerald Dial of Lineville said legislators hear complaints from people about digging out documents to prove their legal residency when renewing professional licenses and buying car tags.
"I made some mistakes in voting for this bill, and I want to step up and fix them," he said. | <urn:uuid:9e737854-8a5a-419a-a7ba-00270c9ebaf2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.yahoo.com/ala-gop-leaders-2nd-thoughts-immigration-191341807.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97308 | 1,252 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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How can short-range forecasts be developed to respond more quickly to market changes? How can the performance of a company?s top five suppliers be monitored? What will it cost to shift to a new supplier in a particular product line? To get at this information, managers and analysts often have to spend days, or even weeks, cobbling together aging or obsolete information on spreadsheets. Measuring forecast accuracy and supplier performance is still a hit-or-miss proposition. Supply chains are becoming increasingly complex, growing from linear arrangements to synchronized, multi-echelon, outward-facing networks of distributed servers.
Most companies lack the tools that can quickly sift through and present data coming in from supply chain partners and systems. Gartner Group (Stamford, CT), a leading IT consultancy, estimates that less than 1% of companies today are capable of monitoring and measuring online supplier performance. A study conducted by the University of Texas for Dell Computer Corp. found that only 11% of the 1,000 companies studied have some form of online transactional and information-sharing capabilities with their suppliers.
Building an information sharing and analysis capability will be critical to sustaining competitive advantage during the next few years. "The movement of supply chains in the 1990s was powered by optimization, but in the 2000s, the trend is toward workflow and analytics," says Lora Cecere, analyst with Gartner.
Achieving visibility across a supply chain means not only being able to track the performance of a supplier, but also that of a supplier?s suppliers. Such visibility enables a more agile level of demand planning, in which production and quality issues can be addressed within days, or even hours.
Supply chain analytics, which is the process of extracting and presenting supply chain information to provide measurement, monitoring, forecasting and management of the chain, forms the foundation of such an effort.
Consider the role of the network administrator, who needs to monitor, in real time, a company?s servers, networks and interfaces. The administrator needs to be alerted when bottlenecks appear or if a system is underutilized or stressed. He also needs to be able to run and review reports to spot developing trends in system use, and be able to plan for acquisitions or upgrades of future system resources. If a network administrator is kept in the dark about the performance of a corporate computer system, the system would be in sad shape. Likewise, a business manager trying to optimize a large supply chain network needs to be able to monitor the system on an end-to-end basis.
A supply chain analytics system will enable a company?s analysts and executives to view the performance of their supply chain over a secure extranet and alert them to problems. Predefined thresholds, fed into the system by users, trigger these alerts. A new generation of monitoring tools not only provides monitoring and alert capabilities, but also enables end-users to drill-down, visualize and analyze trends in real time.
Processes that can be tracked by a supply chain analytics system include production, materials management, procurement, manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, inventory, supplier management, fulfillment, customer relationship management, demand management, order fulfillment, product development and returns management.
Once implemented, supply chain analytics can help companies achieve more surplus?or economic profit?from their supply chains. Analytics also can help drive down costs, increase productivity and increase market opportunities across a supply chain.
The formal return on investment for a supply chain analytics effort is significant. Gartner Group calculates the potential return on investment on supply chain analytics at about 40% after five years. However, supply chain analytics can deliver value in a more profound and immediate way?by actually increasing cash flow. That?s because these analytics can help companies reduce their inventory levels, which means more cash on hand, rather than money tied up in inventories. Typically, manufacturers are forced to overproduce inventories to meet unpredictable demand, only to be followed by forced markdowns of excess items.
The most likely end-users of analytics tools are those involved in key processes in the supply chain, such as transportation, procurement, or manufacturing managers and analysts. Ideally, a group made up of representatives from each affected process should be enlisted to determine what metrics make sense in this new supply chain and be able to look at continuous improvements against their goals.
As analytics capabilities mature, the end-user base will grow to include managers from supplier and trading partner firms. This information sharing is where the value of an analytical infrastructure begins to be seen. Because the analytics involve monitoring and measuring data from suppliers, manufacturers, planners, sales and marketing, logistics and customers, this information needs to be shared with these partners. Historically, businesses have been reluctant to share such information. However, there is a growing recognition that by sharing analysis of business process data across the supply chain, the overall profit "pie" will grow, as partners become more responsive to the market. A number of companies in vertical industries are already collaborating online with such initiatives as vendor-managed inventory and collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR).
Technology: tying it all together
Information from supply chain management processes must be collected, measured, analyzed and continuously monitored. This requires integration of data coming out of enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and all other systems supporting these business processes. Increasingly, applications supporting these processes also are supporting common standards such a XML, UDDI and WDSL, so new releases are moving closer to the interoperability required to support collaboration between partners.
Each process has its own set of metrics that can be analyzed. Information streaming in from various points on the supply chain?from back-end mainframes to Web servers?is consolidated in a centralized database, data warehouse or data mart-type of environment. Data from transactional systems is summarized in an analytical database, which should be able to scale to large sizes, and can be continually updated. Because most organizations have a wide array of packaged or custom-built applications, a data warehouse approach, which can store information from these various data silos in one place, is often the best choice. "Enabling seamless navigation of data requires a common, unified data model that ensures a ?single version of the truth? about the business," according to Henry Morris, analyst with International Data Corp. (Framingham, MA).
A key component of an analytical database is a rules engine that links to agents running within key applications. The rules engine alerts managers of problems based on predefined tolerance parameters. The information contained in this database must also be easily accessible to the partners in the network in a cost efficient manner?any time, any place and via any device.
The front end of an analytics system needs to be speedy, accessible and user friendly. While supply chain analytic systems may employ sophisticated tools running against data stored on high-end systems, it is important that the end results are user friendly and accessible either through PCs or browsers.
Alerts, for example, should be presented in a familiar format, such as a grid or checklist. Historical data should be rendered in a graphical format, such as a bar or line chart. If end-users have difficulty using a system, or cannot pull up the data they need within a few seconds and navigate down through the information toward a solution, they will abandon the application and its benefits will not be realized. Final presentations to end-users need to be in the form of a graphic presentation that can quickly illustrate the business implications of the trend being measured.
Whether the results are made available on a thin-client browser or as a Windows PC application depends on the way the data will be used. For some companies, it pays to support "power users," typically analysts, who can access and conduct custom analysis from their workstations. For users from the operational side of the business, a browser that accesses predefined reports is sufficient.
Accelerating data delivery
To pull supply chain logistics reports for customers, end users at a major transportation and logistics company had to pull down numerous reports from back-end mainframes and load them into spreadsheets. Often, it took up to four days to get an answer to a customer?s question. As the company sought to grow its supply chain management business, it knew it had to speed up this process. The company?s business goal was to support, on an outsourced basis, customers? supply chains, including product movement between manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
The solution was a supply chain analytics system that ran against an operational data warehouse that mirrors its mainframe database. The company opened up its online systems to customers over an extranet, including analytical tools to help them track shipping and logistics transactions, and, as a result, the three days of lag time was reduced to almost instantaneous feedback to inquiries. Information is sent between the company?s data center and its vehicles by satellite, providing faster response times for customers. Shipping bottlenecks or other issues can be fixed quickly. Customers also are provided an interface to view historical data.
Supply chains are rapidly evolving from linear arrangements to real-time, customer-facing networks. With analytics, companies that share information about their supply-chain management processes throughout the supply network will be able to capture more surplus than companies that do not. "The world of supply chains is probably changing the most around latency, time to market and agility," says Cecere. "Being able to carve out the key metrics in these areas is essential."
In the years to come, analytical capabilities will increasingly be facilitated by continuing improvements in application and user interface design, particularly as enterprise information portals become the leading gateways to relevant applications and content.
Real-time monitoring capabilities will play a greater role in analytics. These capabilities are already necessary for internal operations, such as manufacturing. An analytical tool that sits on top of a manufacturing execution or ERP system can monitor real-time events as they happen. For example, a manager in the consumer products industry can monitor daily data to see which products were sold, and replenish these products the following day. An e-commerce firm can monitor sales from hour to hour to gage spikes in demand.
These are still the early days of supply chain analytics, and most companies have only begun to start leveraging information from inside their company, let alone outside the firewall. The challenge is identifying key processes for measurement among top suppliers or trading partners. Over the next few years, companies will be developing these capabilities and bringing out this visibility to trading partners.
• Supply chain analytics is the process of extracting and presenting supply chain information to provide measurement, monitoring, forecasting and management of the chain.
• Information sharing and analysis capabilities are critical to sustaining a competitive advantage.
• Achieving visibility across a supply chain means not only being able to track the performance of a supplier, but also that of a supplier’s supplier.
• A supply chain analytics system enables a company’s analysts and executives to view the performance of their supply chain via a secure extranet. Benefits of Supply Chain Analytics
• Reduce costs. Supply chain analytics help centralize production and purchasing operations by identifying processes that can be consolidated.
• Increase working capital. Supply chain analytics help companies manage and anticipate spikes in demand. By keeping inventory levels low, companies free up cash that would otherwise be tied up in inventory.
• Improve business partners’ decision-making. Trading partners or suppliers have access to new information, to enable them to more quickly address cost overruns, distribution bottlenecks and customer complaints. All supply chain members will also have access to the same customer questions or complaints.
• Open new markets. Supply chain analytics provide visibility to the final customer and help companies track purchasing patterns by profitable customer segments. For example, a manufacturer that only sells through distributors and retailers and has no direct contact with end-users will be able to analyze how its products are being used. To take the concept one step further, companies with analytic warehouses and tools could turn these areas into profit centers by offering these tools on a fee basis to suppliers and customers.
• Address channel profitability. Supply chain analytics can help sales and distributor networks better target customer segments. For example, a boat manufacturer can provide its dealers with information about sales, inventory and deliveries. Dealers can measure quarterly performance against those of other dealers, which ultimately helps the manufacturer sell more boats and accessories.
• Address quality issues. Supply chain analytics can help track product quality issues to the original source. In addition, production problems can be identified as soon as they crop up. The back-end costs of customer returns can be avoided.
• Retain customers. Sharing supply chain analytical data with channel partners and customers helps build a relationship with them and gives you a long-term advantage over competitors that do not provide this capability. | <urn:uuid:5ed323c2-661c-43ca-bf12-883fffbc1ba5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.qualitymag.com/articles/84432-build-supplier-metrics-build-better-product | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944787 | 2,633 | 1.734375 | 2 |
India is a land of stark contrasts, and that's reflected in the vehicles of Tata Motors, the country's biggest auto maker. Tata makes trucks, buses and a lineup of cars ranging from the tiny $2,900 Nano to luxurious Jaguars and Land Rovers that can cost more than $100,000. But while the Jags and Rovers are cruising nicely at home and especially abroad, the Nano is stuck in first gear, and won't be able to hit top speed without the injection of a lot more cash. And that, along with worries about the immediate outlook for truck sales and the potential for dilutive share-rights offerings, has been putting pressure on Tata's stock this year.
Tata's American depositary shares (ticker: TTM), which trade on the New York Stock Exchange, have been hammered. The ADSs, each of which represents one India-traded share, change hands around $22—25% below where they ended 2010 and 40% under their 52-week high. The shares could slide a bit more, but the decline has already made them enticing for long-term investors.
TATA, THE WORLD'S THIRD-LARGEST bus manufacturer and fourth-largest truck maker by units sold, is part of the tea-to-steel conglomerate Tata Group, various units of which are publicly traded, although the parent company is not. With its mix of commercial vehicles and high- and low-end cars, Tata Motors offers a play on both the developed and developing worlds.
During the global auto depression that followed the 2008 financial crisis, the Mumbai-based outfit bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor (F), in a deal that now looks like a steal. For $2.3 billion, Tata got two well-known luxury marques into which the U.S. auto giant had poured billions of dollars over the previous decade. Now, Tata is reaping the benefits of Ford's model-development and factory-improvement programs.
The combined Jaguar and Land Rover operations have quickly become the linchpin of Tata Motors' global auto ambitions, and now account for 80% of its earnings, with commercial vehicles accounting for much of the rest. Much to everyone's surprise, "JLR has helped transform Tata from an Indian auto firm to a global luxury-car maker," says Ashvin Chotai, director of Intelligence Automotive Asia, a London consultancy.
In late April, Jaguar Land Rover, as the unit is now known, began showcasing its newest and smallest model, the $44,000 Range Rover Evoque, at motor shows around the world. The sport-utility vehicle, which will go on sale in some markets in September, is the first major model launched by the venerable British car group since it joined Tata.
The car's relatively small size makes it ideal for the congested roads of China, whose auto boom is driving Tata. Demand for luxury cars there ballooned to more than 750,000 units last year, and could more than double by 2015, as more of the nation's huge population becomes affluent. The "luxury-car market in China is red-hot, and profit margins of BMW (BMW.Germany) or Jaguar Land Rover are far higher in China than in any other market in the world," says Michael Dunne, a veteran auto analyst with Dunne & Co. in Hong Kong. "In China, the propensity to spend on cars goes way beyond function. Affluent Chinese are buying cars principally to project their social status, not just as a mode of transport. Over 90% of the people buying luxury cars in China are paying cash."
JLR's global sales grew nicely last year on the back of 95% sales growth in China, now its second-largest market. China already makes up some 13% of JLR's sales, and analysts expect it to be its biggest single market by the end of 2012. Sales in Russia and other emerging markets are also helping boost profitability. In China, the company has a backlog of 20,000 Range Rover orders.
By focusing more on emerging markets than on developed ones, Tata has shrewdly let Jaguar Land Rover capitalize on the comeback in global luxury-car sales over the past two years. As their new owner, Tata has also kept a very tight leash on costs, which has helped improve margins. JLR's cash-flow margins—as measured by earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda)—rose four percentage points over the past year, to 15.8%. Tata Motors' earnings are likely to advance 9% in the current fiscal year, which ends next March, to $3.45 per ADS ,from $3.17 last fiscal year. In fiscal 2013, a gain of at least 12% is likely, aided by JLR's momentum, especially in China.
THE OVERALL CHINESE AUTO MARKET has climbed from 2.5 million units a year in 2002 to more than 17 million now, and some analysts had held it out as a template for India. But "though demand for automobiles will be fairly robust over the next five years, investors shouldn't bet on India seeing a China-like steep growth curve," warns Chotai. While there are favorable economic fundamentals, good demographics and ample financing, India's motoring infrastructure is poor. And with car prices already low, India is unlikely to get the huge boost that China did a decade ago, when car prices there dramatically slid after the industry's tax structure was simplified.
Little wonder, then, that Tata's fledgling mass-market passenger-car division—which sells a variety of autos, but mostly subcompacts—is struggling.
Particularly disappointing has been its biggest home-market bet, the Nano. Aimed squarely at lower middle-class Indians who until now could afford only low-powered motorbikes, the Nano is selling fewer than 10,000 units a month. In May, sales plunged to just 6,515; in June, to 5,451. The breakeven point—above which Tata would start making money on the car—is estimated at 250,000 to 300,000 a year, or 20,833 to 25,000 a month.
At $2,900, the minicar is cheap, but maybe not cheap enough. (It originally was supposed to sell for $2,500.) "You can buy a low-end Maruti Suzuki for just 30% more than a Nano, and that's a real car," says Amit Mishra, an auto analyst with Macquarie Securities in Mumbai.
Chotai, the London-based consultant, says that the Nano really isn't just a car, but rather, a part-philanthropic emerging-markets social experiment, and part audacious long-term gamble by Tata Chairman Ratan Tata (who declined to speak with Barron's).
AS INDIAN MASS-MARKET car sales have softened in recent months, auto makers there have aggressively cut prices and offered discounts and add-ons, further dampening the Nano's near-term prospects. The minicar also garnered bad publicity early on with engine fires and other widely publicized safety problems. In addition, "Nano's target segment–rural India–has lacked easy financing, or roads; there is also shortage of gasoline fuel pumps and a lack of a service network," adds Kapil Singh of Nomura Securities.
Moreover, the lower down the affordability chain you move, the more significant is the cost of maintaining a car, particularly when fuel costs are rising. "In the Nano segment, even a small price hike can force potential owners to walk away," Singh observes. With higher wages, higher costs for materials like steel, rubber and components, plus rising costs for developing new models, as well as for marketing, Singh wonders how long it will be before Tata is forced to hike prices.
"Nano is not this year or next year's story," asserts Amit Kasat, Standard Chartered's Indian auto analyst. "It will take Tata five years to get critical mass."
Even then, Tata would need to target export markets like Sri Lanka to hit the 250,000-to-300,000 mark. One positive factor: Despite the recent boom, India still has among the lowest car densities in the world–8 cars per 1,000 people, compared with 34.5 per 1,000 people in China and 427 in the U.S.
TO REALLY PUT ITS AUTOMOTIVE OPERATIONS on solid footing over the next few years, Tata will have to keep investing to improve and market the Nano, introduce new models at JLR, and boost its commercial-vehicle business—all of which will require huge capital expenditures. "Tata Motors needs to generate a lot more cash flow, or raise money from existing shareholders through rights issues, which will be very dilutive," says Singh. That worries some investors.
In May, JLR raised 1.5 billion British pounds ($2.4 billion) through a bond issue. Another $500 million bond issue for Tata Motors is in the cards, and more cash calls are likely over the next 18 months. Carl-Peter Forster, CEO of Tata Motors, said recently that the company had budgeted £5 billion in capital expenditure over next few years, as it seeks to become a leading, global luxury brand.
One wild card: There are rumors, denied by Tata, that it might seek to list Jaguar Land Rover independently in London or New York as early as next year, to help raise more funds for its mass-market and luxury vehicles.
Right now, Jag and Land Rover appear to be pulling in lots of money.
In fiscal 2011, ended in March, Jaguar Land Rover sold 243,621 vehicles, up 26% from fiscal 2010's total. In April and May, the first two months of fiscal 2012, JLR sold 41,732 cars and SUVs, up 13% from the total in the comparable fiscal 2011 stretch. (June numbers will be released in a week or so.)
For fiscal 2011, Tata Motors reported net profits of $2.05 billion, or $3.17 an American depositary share, on sales of $ 27.5 billion. That was more than three times the $481.4 million, or 52 cents, it made in fiscal 2010 on sales of $19.8 billion. Overall vehicle sales soared 24.2%, to 1.1 million units. This year, profits of $3.45 per ADS seem likely.
Says Nomura's Singh: "JLR is highly profitable, because Tata has leveraged the heritage brands, and is aggressively selling into China, Russia and other emerging markets," something Ford had been slow to do.
The Bottom Line
Tata Motors' U.S.-traded shares have slid to the low 20s. But bulls argue that they could be at 33 to 35 in a year, and that Tata is a good long-term play on the global auto market.
Elaborating on that point, Mishra says that the biggest challenge for Tata Motors is "to keep coming out with competitive luxury cars, year after year. JLR is a niche player in the global-luxury segment, and they need to continuously invest in the brand, as well as in product development."
Management is astutely shifting some production to India to reduce costs, and taking other measures to boost efficiency. The integration of JLR with Tata's existing vehicle-manufacturing operations also has gone surprisingly well.
So has its venture in South Korea, where in 2004, it bought control of Daewoo's truck plants, giving it heft in commercial vehicles outside its home market. Macquarie Securities sees slower growth in the truck, bus and pickup division over the next two years—6% to 8% annually, versus 27% over the past two years. That figure was boosted by favorable comparisons with the immediate post-global-financial-meltdown era. Still, any projected slowdown worries some investors.
WHILE ANALYSTS WHO FOLLOW Tata's stock say that it might fall further in coming weeks, the company's long-term fundamentals are sound. It is trading at 6.5 times current fiscal year's expected earnings, and 5.8 times next year's.
Citigroup's Jamshed Dadabhoy sees 58% upside for the stock over 12 months. If he's right, that would boost the American depositary shares to above 35.
Macquarie's Mishra sees a more modest, but still impressive, gain: 46%. That would put the ADSs, which offer an annual dividend yield around 2%, at 33. "A lot of the concerns are already priced in," Mishra contends, noting that the stock has corrected sharply in the past month. "Long-term investors will do very well in Tata Motors."
ASSIF SHAMEEN covers Asian markets from Singapore. | <urn:uuid:08121c7f-2c62-492e-8651-467402f6e549> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111903937204576375460327084194.html?mod=BOL_twm_fs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959612 | 2,663 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Want to Guess What Will Win World Press Photo of the Year?
The announcement of the World Press Photo of the Year 2012 winner is now less than 24 hours away. Speculation is ripe: Which international news story will be depicted in the photo that wins the top prize? The conflict in Mali, or Syria? Protests against austerity measures in Greece? Political unrest in Egypt? Hurricane Sandy?
The other question is: How will the news story be depicted? Since 1955, most of the World Press Photo winners have shown lone individuals who symbolize a larger story: a single grieving or injured or dead individual standing in for many who were left grieving, injured or dead by a conflict or natural disaster. Only twice have the winning images shown groups of people in danger. The number of winning images that depict women in moments of grave danger, distress or overwhelming grief have far outnumbered the number of photos that show men in similar situations. Women, alone or in groups, are usually shown as the passive bystanders to conflict or disaster.
That trend shifted in the past three years. The women subjects of the last three World Press Photo winners are depicted not as victims but as survivors. Take for example, photographer Jodi Bieber’s 2010 World Press Photo of the Year, the portrait of Bibi Aisha, the Afghan woman whose nose and ears were cut off as retribution for fleeing her husband’s home. Aisha looks calmly into the camera lens. In the 2009 World Press Photo of the Year, taken by Pietro Masturzo of AP, a woman shouts from a rooftop in Tehran, Iran, after the results of her country’s disputed election results were announced. This defiant woman is a stand-in for the many citizens from all walks of life who took to the streets to protest the election. Last year’s winning image, by Samuel Aranda, shows a woman in a hospital – not an uncommon motif among World Press Photo winners – but the Pieta-like composition shows a woman, her face covered by a veil, giving comfort to a family member injured in the violence in Yemen.
So will the winner announced tomorrow depict conflict, disaster or triumph, through a single person – maybe a man? –or a group? What’s your guess for what story – and what kind of symbol – will win?
Samuel Aranda Wins 2011 World Press Photo of the Year | <urn:uuid:8605a6ad-fdaf-420d-be9f-c6fc818d533c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pdnpulse.com/2013/02/want-to-guess-what-will-win-world-press-photo-of-the-year.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95203 | 486 | 1.804688 | 2 |
April 26, 2013 |
NEW DELHI: Despite the government assuring a smoother ride on the bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor with strict implementation of the dedicated bus lane, the 5.8km-long Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand stretch is a chaotic jumble of traffic as vehicles continue to use any lane. Cars, autorickshaws and trucks can be seen using the dedicated bus lane even as marshals posted at the intersections turn a blind eye. Adding to the chaos is the signal length. The maximum signal length, according to DIMTS (Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System)
September 21, 2012 |
KOLKATA: The absence of traffic on bandh day proved a blessing in disguise for residents living in Salt Lake and further east in Lake Town, Baguiati, Dum Dum as Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) seized the opportunity to restore the damaged stretches of the EM Bypass. The perilous condition of the speedway had led to a spate of accidents and at least two deaths in the past week. Urban development minister Firhad Hakim and KMDA chief executive officer Vivek Bharadwaj supervised the repair job till Wednesday midnight.
July 17, 2012 |
NEW DELHI: After examining various scenarios on the Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand bus rapid transit corridor, the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) has pronounced that "the no BRT option yields better benefits for this corridor". It submitted its final report on Monday to Delhi high court and the transport department of Delhi government. Over a month ago, the high court had asked the state government to get a fresh, "scientific" study conducted on the stretch by an independent agency.
April 10, 2013 |
AMRITSAR: Guru Ramdas School of planning of Guru Nanak Dev University conducted a study on various aspects of traffic of holy city of Amritsar on Wednesday. On the occasion, a presentation on traffic aspect was made by Balvinder Singh, Head of Department and Sunanda, Assistant Professor. They apprised about the various problems related to traffic in the city. A PowerPoint presentation related to critical junctions such as Chhehertta near Guru Nanak Dev University, Putlighar Chowk, Railway Station, Queens Road Junction, SSSS Chowk and Bhandari Bridge as internal junctions of the city as well as the India gate Junction, Ram tirth junction, Ajnala Road Junction were made on the basis of traffic volume surveys done by the students of BTech Urban and Regional Planning in the study of the city of Amritsar.
December 4, 2012 |
GHAZIABAD: The Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad authorities didn't seem to take traffic snarls into consideration while opening two lanes of the link road between Holland Factory in Greater Noida and NH-24 earlier this month. The under-construction T-point where the link road meets NH-24 has become a site of major chaos with commuters trying to wedge past their vehicles to use the road to travel between Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Delhi. Peak hours have been witnessing major jams due to lack of traffic personnel being posted there to monitor movement of vehicles.
October 9, 2012 |
NEW DELHI: The right turn from Nehru Place towards Moolchand at Chirag Dilli, into the BRT corridor, has become an ordeal for commuters. The signal length is just 30-35 seconds and most people have to go through at least three and at time even seven cycles to clear that bottleneck. The road next to the flyover is narrow and the wait agonizing, day after day. The reason is quite simple - believe it or not, the signal lengths do not take into account this traffic volume! According to the final report submitted by CRRI on the corridor, an average of 50,000 vehicles (moving in three directions)
August 12, 2010 |
NEW DELHI: While most other projects might be behind schedule, Delhi seems to have things under control as far as pollution levels during the Games are concerned, at least for now. What works for the city is that unlike China for instance, Delhi had already put into place pollution mitigation measures before it was decided to hold the Games here. It also has an elaborate plan to ensure that pollution levels come down further by October. However, experts say that October is a difficult month for Delhi with pollution levels starting to rise with the onset of winter and it is essential that it has a back-up plan, preferably with regard to its vehicular population since it is single-handedly undoing the benefits that have been derived from other pollution control methods.
October 7, 2012 |
NOIDA: Two people were arrested on Saturday after they allegedly roughed up an Amity University student in a road rage incident. The student was returning home after his classes around 4pm on Friday when his car scraped past an autorickshaw on the stretch between Amity University in sector 125 and Noida-Greater Noida Expressway. "An altercation broke out and a few auto drivers gathered and beat up the student," said G P Yadav, SHO of Sector 39 police station. The auto drivers were booked after an FIR was lodged by the student's family.
May 12, 2012 |
NEW DELHI: Making ITO signal free is the latest proposal floated by the Delhi government to decongest the stretch. This is at least the fifth plan in recent years to improve traffic flow at one of the city's busiest intersections. All previous proposals were shelved for various reasons. The conceptual plan aims at merging the existing two-way lanes at Vikas Marg to make a four lane one-way road going towards Laxmi Nagar. For traffic coming from Laxmi Nagar towards ITO, the plan suggests construction of three loop shaped flyovers - first to connect Vikas Marg with Tilak Marg, second connecting Tilak Marg with Deen Dayal Upadhya (DDU)
May 11, 2012 |
NEW DELHI: With trial runs scheduled to start from Saturday on the Ambedkar Nagar BRT corridor, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) on Thursday started dry runs of the proposed signal phasing on the stretch. As part of the trial run, which will go on from May 12 to May 17, vehicles will be allowed to move freely on any lane including the dedicated bus lane. Dr S Velmurugan, senior scientist at CRRI heading the BRT study team said, "The signal cycle that will be in operation during the trial run will be different from the usual cycle. | <urn:uuid:9726b542-7846-40ef-9ef3-dca0f23661e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/keyword/traffic-volume/featured/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961403 | 1,378 | 1.75 | 2 |
In life it's usually feast or famine. In "The Hunger Games" it's both a feast of cheesy spectacle and a famine of genuine feeling, except for the powerful—and touchingly vulnerable—presence of Jennifer Lawrence as the 16-year-old heroine, Katniss Everdeen. That's a significant exception, but not a decisive one, since there's only so much this remarkable young star can do in the benumbing, big-budget surroundings. The first book of Suzanne Collins's prodigiously popular trilogy has been brought to the screen with a Jumbotron sensibility, a shaky camera to emphasize the action and a shakier grip on the subject's emotional core.
The action, of course, involves kids killing kids. In a dystopian future that bears some resemblance to the here and now—a public besotted by celebrity and drowning in entertainment—a repressive government stages nationally televised games in which 24 teenagers, a boy and a girl from each of 12 districts, are designated Tributes, and must fight one another in the wilds of a computer-controlled artificial environment until there's only one survivor.
The concept is hardly an original one. Older audiences with a sense of movie history will recognize more than trace elements of "The Most Dangerous Game," "Spartacus," "Battle Royale," or "The Running Man." But "The Hunger Games" wasn't intended for older audiences. The trilogy was written for adolescents absorbed with their own turbulent history. The unsecret ingredient of its rampant success was turning a dog-eared, dog-eat-dog premise into a coming-of-age story about a strong, resourceful girl, then widening it into a fable of star-crossed lovers. Young readers—girls in particular, though not only girls—saw themselves in Katniss's struggles to discover herself; to accept her own beauty and physicality without exploiting it; and, above all, to survive the savagery while keeping her humanity intact. Young audiences are sure to embrace Katniss on screen—the movie is off to an epic start—and all the more so because Ms. Lawrence is the perfect choice for the role.
The first time I saw her in a feature film, as the fiercely indomitable Ree Dolly in "Winter's Bone," I would have bet that the filmmakers had found her in the Ozarks, where the story was set, and simply asked her to play a version of herself; such was the beauty and flawless simplicity of her performance. She was, in fact, already a professional actress, and she's doing it again in "The Hunger Games"—not playing a version of herself, though that could also be so, but playing another version of the same character with the same sort of calm and grace.
Like Ree, Katniss comes from hardscrabble surroundings; hunts wild animals for food, though with a bow and arrow, not a gun; and copes with her unconcealed fears by pushing through them. (Josh Hutcherson plays Peeta, a boy from her hometown who, drafted as a co-Tribute, has become one of her adversaries and sees himself doomed as one of her possible victims.)
But "The Hunger Games," which was directed by Gary Ross—the script is credited to him, Ms. Collins and Billy Ray—takes a painfully long time to move Katniss and Peeta out of their town to the garish sophistication of The Capitol. Once it does, her life is transformed into that of a killer-in-training with star potential, and the movie is transformed into a frantic mash-up of surreal game show, lethal reality show, fevered Roman spectacle and, starting around the second hour—the full running time is 142 minutes—a string of action sequences staged at a relentless pace with that maddeningly twitchy camera and a singular lack of imagination. (Because the rating is PG-13, the killing scenes are not as graphic as they might have been, but they're harrowing enough, thank you very much.)
A few affecting moments stand out. In one of them, a televised conversation between Katniss and Stanley Tucci's madcap, blue-pompadoured interviewer, Caesar Flickerman, we see the power of her beauty and honesty, and, at the same time, the ease with which she might be corrupted in the pursuit of celebrity. In another, Katniss shares a quiet interlude of compassion and sisterhood with Rue, a younger Tribute played by Amandla Stenberg. (The cast includes Elizabeth Banks as the heroine's grotesquely costumed escort, Effie Trinket; Lenny Kravitz as her personal stylist and confidant, Cinna; Woody Harrelson as her—and Peeta's—bibulous mentor, Haymitch; and Donald Sutherland as the suavely brutal President Snow, who has a wonderfully pithy response to someone who says he likes underdogs: "I don't," Snow replies.)
On the whole, though, this sprawling, sometimes sluggish movie is most notable for its heavy touch—the sudden change of game rules is handled even more ineptly than in the book, while the ending is downright amateurish—and for its emotional remoteness. Apart from Peeta and Rue, the other Tributes remain shadowy ciphers. Cool tones dominate Tom Stern's cinematography. The book's territory is covered dutifully, with no evidence of a distinctive style, but never explored in ways that might have given the audience access to the workings of Katniss's mind, or the stirrings of her soul. I hadn't read the book before seeing the movie, so I wasn't prejudiced against the adaptation. Reading it afterward, though, I was struck by the intelligence, eloquence and subtlety of the first-person narrative, qualities that the screen version, in its mania for hurtling action, manages to bland out.
All hasn't been lost; hurtling action is a pivotal part of the mix. But this movie about kids being manipulated—literally unto death—manipulates its audience clumsily, and shortchanges it shamelessly. There's a paradox for the books.
'Jiro Dreams of Sushi'
At the age of 85, the subject of this fascinating documentary not only dreams of sushi but still drives himself to make it better. Jiro Ono has had some practice. A sushi master at the pinnacle of his profession, he presides, sometimes glaringly, over Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat restaurant in a Tokyo subway station that's become a gastronomic shrine since it earned a three-star rating in the Michelin Guide.
As sushi scarfers might guess, David Gelb's film is a study in perfectionism, monomania or both. Making better sushi is all he has ever wanted to do, Jiro says. To that end he has been merciless on himself, and only slightly less so on his two sons: Yoshikazu, the elder, who, at the age of 50, works at Jiro's restaurant—he won't take over until his father retires, or otherwise absents himself from the fishy scene—and Takashi, the younger, who opened his own restaurant with his father's blessing. (With his hedged blessing: Failure was not an option, Jiro warned him.)
Refreshingly, Jiro has no secrets to reveal, or none that he's willing to reveal. His success, he insists, is that of a shokunin, a craftsman who does the same thing over and over; nothing has changed in the last 40 years, except that he stopped smoking. But repetitive sushi syndrome is only part of the story. The open secret that governs Jiro's working life—i.e. his whole life, since he interrupts his work only to sleep—is his dedication to an abstract notion: "Each ingredient has an ideal moment of deliciousness."
It's what guides his choice of fish and rice vendors, colleagues in monomania; what prompts him to insist on his apprentices massaging an octopus for 40 to 50 minutes so that its flesh will be tender; what leads him to favor leaner cuts of tuna, rather than fatty toro, for their more complex taste; and what allows him to charge astronomical prices for diners who've booked seats as much as one year in advance.
One of the film's best moments of deliciousness comes with the revelation that Yoshikazu, rather than his father, made the sushi that won the Michelin inspectors over; so much for working humbly in the old man's shadow. And one of its surprises comes when Jiro speaks with admiration bordering on reverence for the French chef Joel Robuchon: "If I had his tongue and nose…" he says wistfully. If he did, then what? Would his sushi taste like sushi at all?
In Gary Ross's debut feature, teenage fraternal twins played by Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon are magically transported from present-day suburbia to a picture-perfect town in the black-and-white world of 1950s television. Spiffy Studebakers and Packards stand on driveways next to spotless split-levels. Fathers always know best, and every player sinks every shot during high-school basketball practice. For a while I thought Mr. Ross would sink every shot too; instead, he sinks his premise by turning it into a leaden political parable. Until then, though, "Pleasantville" sparkles with poetic notions as color spreads throughout the town.
'The Truman Show' (1998)
Like the battling kids in "The Hunger Games," Jim Carrey's Truman Burbank is trapped in an artificial environment, but he doesn't know it, even though his whole existence is being played out on a vast television set, which he mistakes for the real world. "The Truman Show," directed by Peter Weir from a script by Andrew Niccol, has been oversold as a master metaphor for our media-mad age. Its essential strengths are more dramatic and emotional than topical or satirical. Truman is a touchingly gallant creation, the hero of someone else's existential burlesque.
'Big Night' (1996)
Gastronomic perfectionism is the subject—and fateful curse—of this small, stirring drama that Stanley Tucci co-directed with Campbell Scott. Tony Shalhoub and Mr. Tucci are brothers, Primo and Secondo, who run a failing Italian restaurant in New Jersey in the 1950s. Primo is an artist, a master chef, but he's also a tortured purist. Secondo would sell his soul for the success of Pascal's, a pasta palace across the street where happy feeders pay top dollar for carbo-swill. The superb cast includes Ian Holm, Isabella Rossellini and Minnie Driver. Mr. Scott plays a flaky Cadillac salesman.
Write to Joe Morgenstern at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:099108ff-9741-45e5-8517-8d3d92dfa752> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577296011819867778.html?mod=rss_Film_Review | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967818 | 2,291 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Rolling Wilderness Huts in Washington by OSKA Architects
By Inthralld on Jun 18, 2012
Taking a more refined approach to camping the design team at Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects introduced their Rolling Huts.
Completed back in 2008 the project is located in Mazama, Washington. The Rolling Huts were created to help facilitate the owner’s need for space to house both family and friends that would visit. Each hut is constructed from an offset steel clad box on a steel and wood platform, all resting on a set of wheels to make transportation simple. The weather resistant exterior are comprised of material that are durable and require no maintenance which includes plywood along with car-decking. The huts are grouped together on a former RV campground, and feel more like a cabin in the woods than anything.
Rolling Wilderness Huts in Washington by OSKA Architects was originally posted at: Inthralldblog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:dde556f3-b312-4a67-b83f-fe656c949c50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bobvila.com/nation/post/rolling-wilderness-huts-in-washington-by-oska-architects | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955082 | 196 | 1.554688 | 2 |
You need to figure out your total cost first.
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.
If you've ever tried to buy a car or a house, you've probably faced the monthly payment math trick. It's a psychological trick salespeople use to get you to buy something you couldn't afford or to pay an amount you weren't originally comfortable with.
A salesperson will try to convince you to purchase something based on the monthly payment you'll have to make. It frames the purchase in a way that lets you begin integrating the purchase into your life, before you've actually made it, and may even make it more likely you'll make the purchase.
Does your family really need multiple cell phones?
Here's a concept we can wrap our mind around: A Bankrate article talks about 12 "new necessities" of modern living that are actually "entitlements" we can do without.
The article quotes psychotherapist Olivia Mellan by way of explanation:
A lot of us in wealthy, overspending America are either born or raised with a tremendous sense of entitlement. We say to ourselves,"I work hard or, I work at a job I hate -- at least I should be able to have a Starbucks coffee every day or eat out for lunch." But of course, those are not needs, they're wants. They're pleasures.
Here's a partial list and why we agree with the article's conclusions:
If you're looking to get hired, you need to stay connected.
What's the best way to use the Internet when you're looking for a new job?
The answer these days is different than it was just a few years ago, observes Steve at bripblap, who's been in the job market recently. Sites like Monster and CareerBuilder list lots of jobs, but he's having better success with LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
He said in a post called "Internet job boards -- wasted effort?": "The future of work will be connectivity -- networking, in person and online -- and not the traditional advertise-submit-review pattern. It's another one of those culture shifts that's happened slowly enough that we won't notice it -- but it will happen."
Maintaining a shared financial vision is key.
My wife and I never fight about money. I used to claim this was because we keep separate finances, but now I know it's because we share similar financial goals and dreams. Even during those years I was deep in debt, I never did anything that might jeopardize our financial future.
Our shared vision has helped us to maintain a successful marriage. We're not alone, however. Writing recently in The New York Times, Tara Siegel Bernard says that the key to wedded bliss just might be marrying someone who shares your attitudes about money.
Trying to 'wing it' is not the best strategy for getting hired.
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.
I have conducted a substantial number of job interviews. Although the jobs I usually hire for are technical in nature, most of the truly telling -- and thus truly valuable -- questions I've asked are nontechnical questions. A great interview question reveals the nature of the person you're hiring -- honesty, reliability, ability to communicate intelligently and quickly.
Over time, I've collected a pretty good pile of questions I use in almost every interview. Here are 25 of the most reliable ones, along with a tip or two about what makes a good answer -- and what makes a bad one. If you can easily answer these questions, you shouldn't have much to worry about in an interview.
Lousy attitudes don't discourage some generous tippers.
Hardly a personal-finance topic provokes strong opinions like the question of how much to tip, particularly after the waiter treats you like a case of scurvy.
A special dinner out for Bob of ChristianPF and his wife lost its luster when their waiter became rude and unresponsive. And yet, after all that, Bob left a 20% tip.
That's more than we would have done, and we aren't alone. However, some of his readers offered other opinions when he asked, "How much should you tip a bad waiter or waitress?"
So what! We're saving money and they aren't.
There's been many a time I've been picked on for being frugal. Mostly during my prepubescent years, but even now I've been known to give a few of my friends a good laugh. I'm sure they were all just jealous (at least that's what our mothers always say, right?) but either way I say, "Who cares."
Who cares if our frugality and craftiness distract people? Are they the ones saving a few dollars? Nope -- we are. And because of that I say keep on doing your thang! As long as you're happy and not breaking any rules (*ahem* Phil Villarreal) who cares about these boring people and their spend-crazy lives. We like saving money and we're not afraid to admit it.
In fact, I'll even admit to some thriftiness right now: I used to sneak cheeseburgers into the movie theaters. I'd swing by McDonald's 10 minutes before start time and pick up some double cheeseburgers right off the dollar menu and put them in my pockets. Not only was it cheap, but it was craaaazy filling. And when that didn't work out, I'd just raid the nearest 7-Eleven instead and grab myself three assorted candies back when they were three for $1. (Remember those days?)
And after thinking about this for a bit, I wondered how many others are made fun of for similar things? There's gotta be a lot of us, right? Oh yeah, DEFINITELY right. Check out all the responses I got back after dropping the following note around the Web:
Anyone ever make fun of you for being frugal/crafty?
Celebrate National Pajama Month with free breakfast for kids.
The recession must not be over yet, because we’ve got all kinds of new food deals. Some of last week’s deals are still good, too, including kids eat free at Boston Market and buy one, get one free brunch at Ruby Tuesday.
You may have missed National Pajama Month, but Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation is on the ball. This Sunday, Oct. 18, kids 12 and under eat free with the purchase of an adult meal from 9 a.m to noon at the restaurants that serve breakfast. If they don’t want to get dressed, bring them in their PJs.
Here are the latest food deals, courtesy of our friends at Cities on the Cheap:
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ABOUT SMART SPENDING
Editor Bev O'Shea lives and works in the foothills of the Appalachians. A former copy editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Orlando Sentinel, she joined MSN Money in 2007. She's a fan of sunsets, college football and free shipping, among other things.
Having worked as a writer, reporter and editor for more than 25 years, Editor Julie Tilsner is the sort of person who can't help but correct grammar in Facebook postings and on billboards. She's written for BusinessWeek, the Los Angeles Times, Parenting, Redbook, AOL and others. She lives in Los Angeles County with her family and loves to drink wine and practice yoga, although not generally at the same time.
A writer for MSN Money since January 2007, Donna Freedman won regional and national prizes during an 18-year newspaper career and earned a college degree in midlife without taking out student loans. She also writes about smart money tactics for magazines and on her own site, Surviving and Thriving.
Mitch Lipka has been warning people about scams and shining light on questionable business practices for more than 20 years. Mitch, the consumer columnist for The Boston Globe, has also been a reporter and editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Consumer Reports, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and AOL. He won the 2010 New York Press Club award for best consumer reporting online and was honored in 2011 for his reporting on child product safety.
Marilyn Lewis is an award-winning writer with a passion for getting readers clear, straight information that helps them stay out of financial trouble. A former reporter for The San Jose Mercury News, she works from her home in Port Townsend, Wash. Contact her at [email protected].
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Determining the causes of product success has been the subject of great interest and rigorous study since the beginning of the modern marketing era, starting in the 1950s.
From academia to large companies, from consultants to advertising and public relations agencies, from businesspeople to sociologists, psychiatrists and even neuroscientists, there has been a determined march forward to discover the mysteries of why people buy the products they do.
The guesswork of the distant past has been replaced with high-quality research and well documented field experiments. It may not be physics, but important principles have emerged from this collective effort, validated time and again through decades of application.
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Last year it was revealed that ARM Holdings was in talks with Google to bring Google TV support to ARM’s chipsets. The first version of Google TV was designed to only work on Intel’s x86 chips, but a fully compatible ARM version should be available this year, according to a report by the ARM-obsessed Charbax of ARMdevices.net.
Tudor Brown, president of Arm, said last year that their latest processors are cheaper and require less power than Intel’s Atom processor. “If Google TV is to be mainstream, it must be built on a lower power system, …on lower cost technology.”
If Google TV support is coming to ARM processors, then you should expect to see someone place it on a smartphone. Any device using a CPU based on ARM’s dual-core Cortex-A9s should have enough horse power to make it work. We have seen some Tegra 2-powered devices like the LG Optimus 2X that support full 1080p output, so the next generation of mobile computers should have no problems running Google TV.
Google was supposed to show off the latest version of Google TV at this year’s CES, but it was reported by the New York Times that Google asked their partners to delay the product launches so they could refine the software.
We can’t say for sure which refinements Google is working on, but it makes sense that they would want to bring the TV experience to the mobile devices that are powerful enough to deliver an enjoyable experience. Motorola recently showed us with the Atrix 4G that a single mobile device could power a laptop, desktop, and TV and I believe that is the direction Google will take Android.
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The Parents Network >
Health & Medical >
Kaiser Doctors >
We are looking for a Kaiser child psychiatrist who understands
that early-onset (juvenile) bipolar disorder manifests differently
than adult bipolar. We need a psychiatrist for our 10-year-old
who is open-minded, smart, and keeps up on the latest research.
Willing to travel anywhere in the Bay Area to see someone who
really understands and is willing to treat childhood bipolar
disorder. Our current doctor uses the DSM-IV criteria (which were
written for adults) for bipolar in children, which has been very
I don't have a specific recommendation for a Kaiser psychiatrist, but
after spending nearly six years at Kaiser Oakland, I can give you some
advice about the psychiatrists there --stay away from them. My son saw
Dr. Gershon for anxiety and anger/depression issues and we were not
impressed. We tried to switch to another psychiatrist in that office, and
were not allowed to do so. We could never get her on the phone, as it was
always full of messages, or she was unavailable to take messages. Not a
good situation when you need a quick call-back for an urgent problem.
I want to second the previous comment to avoid Dr. Gershon,
Child Psychiatrist at Kaiser Oakland. Our experience was the
same as that of the previous responder. Our child saw her
for anxiety/ depression issues. We could never get Dr.
Gershon on the phone, and never had a call back from her to
messages we left. In addition, the Receptionist clearly
hated her job and took it out in negativity and rigidity/
unwillingness to help us at times. (This was acknowledged by
the Dr. we were seeing at the time). Interacting with this
grumpy and sometimes unhelpful person was really unpleasant.
I think you may have better luck at the Kaiser Richmond
Child Psychiatry dept.
Best of luck.
Wishing you well.
Can anyone give me a recent recommendation for a psychiatrist that is good
with pregnancy, it is about the topic of antidepressants during pregnancy.
If you are a Kaiser patient, I can recommend Elisa Rambo, a
psychiatrist at Kaiser Oakland. She does not necessarily
specialize in pregnancy, but is very knowledgeable about
depression and pregnancy. Before getting pregnant, I spent
an entire appointment with her going over the research on
anti-depressants and pregnancy/breast-feeding (she had
recently given a presentation on the topic and was
incredibly well versed in the research). The information
and guidance she provided at that point was instrumental in
me making informed decisions about my mental health care
during pregnancy, which for me meant continuing to take
anti-depressant medication. While pregnant, I worked with
her to monitor my anti-depressant dosage and adjust as
needed. Work with a psychiatrist during your pregnancy to
manage any medications for mental health issues; in my
experience, OB-GYNs and nurse midwives do not know enough
and are too quick to recommend going off necessary (and
safe) medications. SSRI-taker through pregnancy/breasfeeding with happy and
An adult person I know is on the verge of suicide. He just got coverage by Kaiser;
does anyone know of a really good psychiatrist in Kaiser Richmond or Oakland? This
person is reluctant to try therapy because he has tried several time in past and
didn't help, including meds, however, may be able to get them to try again.
Looking for a therapist who will not just prescribe pills but get to the root of
the problem, hopefully. Thanks for ANY suggestions.
There are many wonderful therapists and psychiatrists at Richmond Kaiser. I
went through a time of severe depression with suicidal thoughts and they
helped me work through it. At Kaiser, your friend would probably have both a
therapist and a psychiatrist (drug prescriber).
As for psychiatrists, I highly recommend Dr. Anne Menahemy. She's so much
more than a drug prescriber! She actually listens. She is warm, thoughtful,
conscientious and really goes out of her way to help her patients. She is not
quick to prescribe medicine. She will tell all the pros and cons of a
medication if she really thinks it could help.
I also wanted to recommend the Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). I can't
say enough about this amazing program. It meets for three hours, three days a
week and your friend will have a whole team of caring therapists to work with
him through this hard time. I realize a group setting might be too much at
first... but that high level of attention, through one-on-one visits, group
therapy and an educational approach saved my life.
The psych department at Kaiser Richmond also has great education programs
too. (not health ed - those are different)
You are good to ask about this for your friend's sake. I wouldn't be here if
a similar friend hadn't helped me make that first appointment.
I found Dr. Jeanne Leventhal at Kaiser Oakland through this list & she's the
best psychiatrist I've ever had- & I thought my past ones were excellent! I
have a chronic, genetic mood disorder that makes me very susceptible to
depression, & she recognized that I'd never been sufficiently treated for it
right off & started aggressively adjusting my medications.
I was seriously clinically depressed & suicidal when I first saw her & she
got me out of that quite quickly. The lower grade chronic depression and mood
instability I have is much trickier to treat & we're still working on that.
My particular genetic (& permanent, I'll be on meds for the rest of my life)
mood disorder is known to be difficult to treat & mine has proved to be
especially difficult. She's the first doc who's ever said to me ''I can get
you through this & out the other side'', & based on my experience so far, I
She's difficult to get in to see, she's one of the docs to whom difficult
cases are referred, & she's been out on an extended emergency leave for
several weeks so is probably going to be especially backed up when she
returns to work next weeek. I had to pretty much insist on her & then wait
6-8 (I don't remember exactly) for a first appointment. If your friend can
get an appointment with her & IF he can hold on for a few weeks, I highly
If he can get an appt with Jeanne but is so seriously suicidal that he can't
safely wait a few weeks, then he might try to get in to see Dr. Adam Travis
at Kaiser Union City while he's waiting for Jeanne. I don't know if they'd
let him make appts with two different doctors at the same time at Oakland
(each Kaiser has its own set of protocols), but I'm pretty sure that he can
make one there & one at a different facility (don't ask, just try to do it- I
Adam is a lovely person & a very competent psychiatrist, not as experienced
or creative as Jeanne is, & when I got in serious difficulty I needed more
help than he was able to give. But like I said, my case is especially
difficult. He won't be offended if your friend wants to use him as a
stop-gap, & in my experience it's easier to get in to see a psychiatrist at
Union City than in Oakland.
But- if he needs to see someone NOW, if he can't wait more than a few days
without being in real danger of killing himself, then he needs to say that
loud & clear when he calls Kaiser, and he needs to insist on seeing someone
right away. ANY psychiatrist is better than none if you're ready to jump off
He's not going to get more than group therapy at Oakland. They will probably
want him to go to their depression group which is cognitive therapy. My
opinion, from my own experience, is that although cog ther can be very useful
for people with mild to moderate depression, especially if it's situational,
it's not appropriate for someone who is clinically & suicidally depressed.
The reason I think that is because a big part of cog ther is doing little
exercises, & when a person is to the point of being suicidal they're usually
literally incapable of doing things like that, & it can become more evidence
to them that they're a hopeless failure.
Everyone's different & maybe he wouldn't feel that way about it but I'd
suggest he consider maybe holding off on doing the group until he's in better
shape. Kaiser will push him to do it right away, cog ther people are totally
convinced that it works for anyone & everyone.
Jeanne Leventhal has a very upfront personality, which I really like, but
it's possible that some people might find her a bit abrasive. Don't let that
fool you, she really cares about her patients.
I'm looking for recommendations for the following Richmond
Kaiser pyschiatrists for treatment of long-term chronic
depression: Fuensanta Botello, Christopher Eaton and Anne Marie
Menahemy. Thank you very much.
My wife has been under Dr. Botello's care for the last 1-2
months, for depression triggered by peri-menopause. I don't
know if this is normal, but she sees *3* different doctors at
Kaiser Richmond: her regular physician, a psychologist (who
does most of the counseling), and Dr. Botello, a psychiatrist,
who does most of the medication prescriptions. Her regular
physician did the initial prescription, but Dr. Botello has
taken over. My wife said Dr. Botello is pleasant enough, but
her main goal is to find you the right kind of medication,
minimizing side effects, etc., and doesn't tend to do much
counseling... her appt's can be half an hour, or even a bit
less. Viewed solely on the basis of dealing with the meds, I
think my wife is satisfied with Dr. Botello. Hope that helps a
If by any chance you have Kaiser, I work with an excellent psychiatrist there who is
very knowledgeable about alternative treatments as well as conventional ones. He is
Rafael Gray, 415-833-3181.
I take medication, which I am comfortable with and has saved my life, and I also
take some supplements that he has recommended which do have benefits for me. I
asked him once if he ever used only alternative treatments, and he said he has with
patients who were completely anti-medication. He is a non-nonsense guy who can
come across as abrupt, but from 2 years of working with him I know that he is not
only very knowledgeable, but also very compassionate. He returns my calls
the same day (or the next day that he is in his office), and he even answers his own
During long years of battling depression, I tried many alternative treatments,
including homeopathy but not biofeedback, and none of them helped me. So
eventually I got over my fears of medication, went through many trials, and finally
found a combo of drugs that works for me.
I like to encourage people to stay open-minded all around- to alternative as well as
conventional treatments, but to not give up on conventional treatments. It can take
a lot of persistence to hang in there with drug trials and side effects, and you must
work with someone who you trust and can communicate well with. I have a friend
who has been experiencing terrible depression for the last 2 years as he has
bounced from one alternative therapy to another. It pains me to watch him. I have
much understanding and empathy from my own experience, and I know how hard it
can be to trust and be rational when depression has you in its grip.
I am interested in seeking psychiatric services for my 10 year
old son. Smart but unmotivated, feels inadequate, fearful,
opositional behavior at home and at school, etc. We have Kaiser
and I'd like to hear from parents who have had experience from
any of the following Kaiser psychiatrists:
While I know you're asking about a psychiatrist, if you're
interested in going the therapy route I HIGHLY recommend Larry
Liebman. My 8 year old son has been visiting him for a couple of
months and while my son still struggles, it has helped
immensely. They have developed a great repoire, and he is very
open to working with the entire family, if you desire.
Virginia Wolfe is the Chief of Psychiatry at Richmond Kaiser.
She is outstanding. I work with her and would recommend her for
your son. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Virginia Wolf used to be the psychiatrist for the pediatric
patients at San Francisco General Hospital. I work in the same clinic and my impression is
that she is very highly regarded by the pediatricians at San Francisco General Hospital,
they were very sorry to see her leave. She is a thoughtful,
compassionate type of person. She has experience with meds, of
course, but didn't seem to recommend them routinely. She also
provided on-going counseling to patients, not just medication
prescribing. I would highly recommend her based on her reputation
at the General.
We have had two visits and a few phone calls with Dr. Wymes re:
medication for our ADD daughter, so our experience is quite
limited. I found him thorough, smart and forthright, but not
hugely warm and fuzzy. He was responsive to calls and followed up
well. Good luck with everything.
We have worked closely with Dr. Wymes over the last year at Oakland
Kaiser. We agree that initially he does not come across as warm and fuzzy
but our experience has been that he has been extremely responsive to our
needs and very compassionate. He always returns phone calls even if it is
at 7pm in the evening before he goes home. He has often called on a Friday
evening to let us know what he was doing about a particular issue so that
we did not have to wonder all weekend what was going on. He has welcomed
our input into the process and is very willing to consider different
options while making good arguments for his final decision. He has not
hesitated to consult other professionals, both in and out of Kaiser, which
we find very reasssuring. He initially recommended therapy(did not go
straight to medication) and now works very closely with my child's
therapist. We had a bad experience with the Kaiser Psychiatry Department
until my pediatrician put us in contact with Dr. Wymes but we consider
ourselves lucky to have this combination of therapist and psychiatrist at
this point. Good luck!
My wife and son saw Harold Bornstein briefly. She thought he was
too brief and ready to prescribe without uncovering what was
really going on. Our son has now improved tremendously without
meds. My wife's favorite person was Kate Mountain, not a
psychiatrist but a PhD. She would be happy to talk with you about
her experience with other staff members there if you are interested.
I'd appreciate recommendations on psychiatrists at Kaiser
Oakland to do medication management. I see a therapist out of
the Kaiser network, but she is not an M.D. Modification of
antidepressent medication is not a topic I feel my Kaiser
internist would know that much about.
My husband has been working with Dr. Levitt (Kaiser Oakland) for
a number of years now and really likes/trusts him.
I worked with Dr. Harris (male) at Kaiser Oakland. He was very
responsive to my needs and knowledgable about the different
medications. I recommend him highly.
Having been a Kaiser Oakland employee, I suggest you talk to
your internist about which psychiatrist he or she recommends for
you. The psychiatrists have different personalities and areas
of expertise, and your internist might be able to point you to a
good match. Most internists now also have a good knowledge of
antidepressant treatment, so you might not need to go to psych
Re: African American therapist for teen
Dear Mom with Clashing Son and Husband: If you have a membership with Kaiser
Permanente which includes mental health benefits, I highly recommend their
family psychiatry department over in the Mosswood building at the Oakland
facility. They have two outstanding Black male professionals on staff (and
perhaps others whom I am not personally familiar with). Dr. Whitmore and Dr.
Simmons counsel both adults and children in individual sessions and in groups
organized for early/pre-teen children. You will need to inquire as to
whether your situation meets their criteria for obtaining services and of
course, they are probably already very busy. But for serious family problems
affecting our children, Kaiser members should be aware that affordable help
can be obtained. Good luck.
Rosco Simmons at Kaiser, Oakland is excellent.
One of the other therapists in my building used to be a Kaiser Oakland therapist, so I asked
him. He suggested Dr. Roscoe Simmons and Dr. Gerald Whitmore of the child and
adolescent unit. The number to call for appointments is 596-2737. Good luck.
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28th April 2007 - What's for tucker mum?
by, 23rd May 2008 at 07:51 AM (639 Views)
With the recent dog food recalls in the USA & Canada there have been an increasing number of posts from people who are considering changing their dogs to home prepared meals. Most express apprehension about what & how much to feed. As I recently switched my dogs from eating primarily kibble to home prepared, I understand their concerns. Though I am by no means an expert on canine nutrition, and am awaiting the arrival of some books on the subject, I have been feeding my dogs home prepared now for a couple of months, and my confidence is growing by the day.
So I thought that I would start posting up here in my blog, what my dogs are eating on a given day. This is not meant as an authoritative comment on what people should be feeding their dogs. Rather it is my journey upon the quest to provide my dogs with wholesome, healthy home prepared meals. If by sharing this journey with other members of the forum, someone else & their dogs can benefit, then my blogging efforts will be worth every single keystroke.
Before I write up what’s for dinner tonight, I’d just like to get a few things out of the way. A disclaimer of sorts:
1 I am not a food expert, nor do I have any qualifications regarding canine health & diet;
2 Please educate yourself and don’t take my word for it.. Buy or borrow at least 3 books on the subject of home prepared foods, preferably from authors with differing views. It pays to see all sides of the coin, which just quietly, has more than 2 surfaces;
3 My dogs do not to my knowledge have any allergies or food intolerances. Yours might!;
4 Here in Australia, few share the same fears about feeding a raw diet as is held in several countries of the Northern Hemisphere. This in part has to do with Australia’s high standard of food handling (human foods only), the rest is perhaps cultural; who knows? The choice of some of us to feed raw is not based upon lack of awareness of the existence of salmonella, e-coli et al, but rather in spite of it. As a matter of interest, Australia has quite a large Lebanese community and some of the Lebanese’ most prized dishes contain raw meat. Having said all of that, I do not feed my dogs pet quality foods. All ingredients are purchased from human shops and are sold with the intention of feeding humans, not dogs, hence in my opinion, a greatly reduced risk of nasties;
5 In general, most Australians are comfortable feeding their dogs appropriate raw meaty bones & recreational bones. As above, our choices are not based upon ignorance. Trust me when I tell you, we have all heard the horror stories about splintered bones, punctured intestines, impaction, broken teeth etc. I do however, steer clear of bones that are notorious for splintering and try to stick to the softer, less brittle bones.
6 I am not anti kibble or anti other commercial foods. I just don't want to feed it to my dogs on a regular basis. In fact it is my intention to always have a small bag of kibble in the pantry for emergencies. I respect everyone's right to choose commercial, raw, cooked or other alternatives.
Whew! With that out of the way, here is what is on my dog’s menu for the day:
Whole boiled egg (egg shells saved for later)
Full cream milk (for the puppy only)
Sliced fresh apple
Tiny piece of chicken loaf (reward for not crying at the vets during vaccination) *
Lamb, Broccoli, Yellow Squash, Potato, Sweet potato, rosemary, dill, egg shell (finely powdered), very small amount of flax seed oil. The ratios are 1 part protein, 1 part starchy veg, 1 part other veg.
* Everyone gets a treat when one dog earns it for being good & brave. | <urn:uuid:2420f81b-ed1b-45a5-81a7-72d466dd3121> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/entry.php?11-28th-April-2007-What-s-for-tucker-mum | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957996 | 851 | 1.765625 | 2 |
When Hollywood actor, and London theatre renovator, Kevin Spacey offers to give a talk on government funding for the arts just a few days before the government is planning to make cuts to the said arts, it seems sensible to pay attention.
Last week, he gave that talk, hosted by the Spectator magazine – and I was gifted a couple of tickets to the event.
I wasn’t actually that sure what sort of event this was going to be, a debate, a speech, an “in conversation” or what? As it turned out it was a speech, which usually fills me with dread, but Mr Spacey is a surprisingly good public speaker.
You might think being a top actor means you would be a good public speaker, but my limited experience is that being an actor rarely makes you a good public speaker, and even rarer, a person who can write an interesting speech.
Memo to charities and campaign groups, check if the headline celeb who supports your issues is actually any good at public speaking before asking them to open your fundraising event!
As you might expect, he focused on the benefits the arts brings to the economy, and why government support should continue to support them through taxes. That’s an issue frankly that can be argued about depending on your political/economic point of view.
Also, an audience from The Spectator isn’t one you would normally describe as being on the left of the political sphere, so applause was loudest for venues getting off their arses and lobbying philanthropists for money, and somewhat more muted for suggestions that tax payers might pick up some of the bill.
He did talk about philanthropy and why it isn’t as strong in the UK as it is in the USA – which he put down in a fair bit to the rather odd tax situation we have in the UK for charitable donations. With spooky timing, this week’s issue of The Economist looks at the same issue, and summed up some of the stupidity of the current system rather well.
However, for me the most interesting part was when he talked about using the theatre and plays as a form of education, and the importance that has in society and work.
Intrinsically, teaching people to be actors does not necessarily mean they go on to become actors, but it gives them very important skills in elocution and presentation. Learning to act can also give people a confidence they never knew they had, and he gave some good examples of where this has happened at the classes he runs.
Therefore, indirectly, acting – and some of “the arts” – offers a far greater benefit to the person than a simple certificate or exam in acting. It changes a person’s outlook and ability to interact with others.
This is the sort of thing that the government should support – although it might be argued that the cost should come from the education budget. I am less sure that really obscure contemporary dance or cutting edge modern art generates as strong a return on the investment though as it can be so niche that only committed artists would understand it, and the widespread public benefit is more limited.
Obviously, some will sit in their lofts and argue in irritating refined airs that they are Artists, and they shouldn’t have to justify their work. Well, if you are subsidised by the tax payer, then yes, you should.
I think Kevin Spacey did a good job of arguing his case, and as you might expect, he is a good advocate for Theatre in general, and explained how the Old Vic does a fair bit to try an encourage the younger people to visit by offering cheaper tickets – critically, in the good seats – and even cheaper tickets to local residents.
As a middle-aged person I seem to be left out of much of the munificence that many such venues offer, but I am busy enough with my science/history/politics stuff as it is.
He didn’t mention it, but as a sideline, it is an area of interest for me, and one that has me grinding teeth in annoyance whenever it appears in the news media – and that is on of prisoners putting on plays.
Every few years, one of the rent-a-rant tabloids (usually the Daily Mail) will scream about prisoners being allowed to perform plays in the prisons, or even (gasp, horror) in the local community.
They rant about risk, and waste of money etc – as if putting on a play is a hugely costly affair for a prison, and often ask if it is even useful to teach prisoners to become actors, due to the difficulty of making a living from such a career.
The thing is, as Mr Spacey mentioned for his students, such tabloid rants totally overlook the point of letting prisoners put on plays – it isn’t about teaching them to act – it is about developing their social skills and giving them the ability to express themselves in a confident manner.
An ex-prisoner going for a job interview already has a hard enough task in front of them, without being burdened by social skills that limit them to mumbling and looking at their shoes throughout the interview.
This is not liberal hand-wringing, but plain economic common-sense. It is cheaper to have an ex-prisoner working in a job than it is to have them unemployed, and likely as not, later back in an expensive jail.
So, even if you are dubious about the arts council grant to a provincial theatre, you should be supportive of arts grants to prisons. The return on investment is huge.
Incidentally, the Old Vic doesn’t get any government subsidy at all – although having a huge Hollywood actor as your artistic director does help a bit when fund raising!
An interesting talk, and enlivened by one questioner from the floor who was obviously totally star-struck and could barely ask her question.
Rather aptly, the very following evening, I attended the Hell’s Half Acre art event organised by the Old Vic’s sister venue in the tunnels under Waterloo Station.
Two days, and two events featuring not just arty things, but also the same theatre. I bet you wouldn’t have expected that from me! | <urn:uuid:79789398-88ba-4186-b36b-43d95923128a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2010/10/18/kevin-spacey-talks-about-government-art-spending/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980697 | 1,293 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Stonewall Jackson Papers. 1852 April 10
Jackson Papers top level
About this Document
Date: 1852 April 10
To: Laura Jackson Arnold
From: Thomas J. Jackson
Place: Lexington, Virginia (VMI)
Read the full text (below) and View the original document
V.M. Institute Lexington, Va.
April 10th 1852
My Dear Sister
I have nothing which can call for a letter from me at this time except the pleasure of writing to you and to say a word in reference to your mentioned garden seeds, & c. Tell me the precise kinds of seeds which are desirable and if you can the mode of conveyance for them to Beverly. I might possibly procure some grafts of apricots & [illegible] if they could only be sent to you.
I sent for my box sometime since, but have not yet obtained possession of it. This is a beautiful day, though the preceding few have been cold and have injured the fruit prospects, particularly the apricots and other early fruit. The plank road from Staunton to Buckhannon, which latter place is about 25 miles distance from here is now under construction, through our town. The stage travels about one third faster on it than on the dirt road.
I am anxiously looking forward to July.
When did you last hear from Cousin Margaret. She appears to have dropped me as a correspondent. I certainly gave her ostensible reason for so doing by not answering her letter more promptly. But this was occasioned by the pressure of other things.
Remember me very kindly to Mr. A., the family & to all enquiring friends and relations.
Tell Thomas and Grace I am not going to allow them to see their Aunt Nancy until they both offer to love me more than her. Tell them that their Aunt does not care about them half as much as I do.
©Virginia Military Institute Archives, Lexington, VA 24450 | <urn:uuid:cc80734c-3651-47b7-8c7b-0b40f2169f21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www6.vmi.edu/archives.aspx?id=7983 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963131 | 404 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Alright, let’s recap.
Last Tuesday, a flotilla of Taiwanese fishing boats was rumored to have set off for the disputed Senkaku islands, located near the Japanese islands of Okinawa, seeking to assert their ownership among China and Japan.
At around 6 a.m. on Sept. 25, the 50-strong Taiwanese flotilla arrived in the disputed waters. At least eight patrol ships were sailing alongside the fishing vessels and many of the boats were displaying banners reading “We swear to defend the Senkaku islands!”
Japanese coastguard patrol boats moved in to intercept the tiny fleet and warned them to vacate the area. However, the Taiwanese boats maintained their position, asserting that they were in Taiwanese waters and their presence perfectly legitimate. Tensions were running high and it seemed only a matter of time before the conflict turned hostile.
And that’s when Japan decided to bring out the big guns. | <urn:uuid:4f876f64-7a40-4dde-83d5-7a2aa65a66d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.rocketnews24.com/tag/conflict/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984131 | 192 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Ought not Christians, therefore, to receive not merely a somewhat milder treatment, but to have a place among the law-tolerated societies, seeing they are not chargeable with any such crimes as are commonly dreaded from societies of the illicit class? For, unless I mistake the matter, the prevention of such associations is based on a prudential regard to public order, that the state may not be divided into parties, which would naturally lead to disturbance in the electoral assemblies, the councils, the curiæ, the special conventions, even in the public shows by the hostile collisions of rival parties; especially when now, in pursuit of gain, men have begun to consider their violence an article to be bought and sold. But as those in whom all ardour in the pursuit of glory and honour is dead, we have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings; nor is there aught more entirely foreign to us than affairs of state. We acp. 46 knowledge one all-embracing commonwealth—the world. We renounce all your spectacles, as strongly as we renounce the matters originating them, which we know were conceived of superstition, when we give up the very things which are the basis of their representations. Among us nothing is ever said, or seen, or heard, which has anything in common with the madness of the circus, the immodesty of the theatre, the atrocities of the arena, the useless exercises of the wrestling-ground. Why do you take offence at us because we differ from you in regard to your pleasures? If we will not partake of your enjoyments, the loss is ours, if there be loss in the case, not yours. We reject what pleases you. You, on the other hand, have no taste for what is our delight. The Epicureans were allowed by you to decide for themselves one true source of pleasure—I mean equanimity; the Christian, on his part, has many such enjoyments—what harm in that? | <urn:uuid:50626ca0-72aa-45c7-b700-64ff3b139155> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030044.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977203 | 411 | 1.703125 | 2 |
20-Dec-2003 -- This was our first successful confluence visit. This is a region of small farms where catholic German immigrants and their descendants cultivate maize, bean and tobacco and also grow up chickens, turkeys and pigs. Cattle are only for domestic consumption.
The CP is about 100m from the road and very easy to reach. We got there without permission and the landowner, Mr. Marino Kunz, arrived while we were getting pictures but he was very agreeable and understood our purpose.
In the way back home we got lost but it's another story. | <urn:uuid:e2d88b3f-cd08-4ea3-9501-a8f65e17bea5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=-27&lon=-53 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977621 | 118 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Notes from Hebrews 9:22
Why does forgiveness require the shedding of blood? This is no arbitrary decree on the part of a bloodthirsty God, as some have suggested. There is no greater symbol of life than blood; blood keeps us alive. Jesus shed his blood--gave his life--for our sins so that we wouldn't have to experience spiritual death, eternal separation from God. Jesus is the source of life, not death. He gave his own life to pay our penalty for us so that we might live. After shedding his blood for us, Christ rose from the grave and proclaimed victory over sin and death.
Notes from Numbers 9:23
The Israelites traveled and camped as God guided. When you follow God's guidance, you know you are where God wants you, whether you're moving or staying in one place. You are physically somewhere right now. Instead of praying, "God, what do you want me to do next?" ask, "God, what do you want me to do while I'm right here?" Direction from God is not just for your next big move. He has a purpose in placing you where you are right now. Begin to understand God's purpose for your life by discovering what he wants you to do now!
Notes from Judges 21:25
During the time of the judges, the people of Israel experienced trouble because everyone became his own authority and acted on his own opinions of right and wrong. This produced horrendous results. Our world is similar. Individuals, groups, and societies have made themselves the final authorities without reference to God. When people selfishly satisfy their personal desires at all costs, everyone pays the price.
It is the ultimate heroic act to submit all our plans, desires, and motives to God. Men like Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson are known for their heroism in battle. But their personal lives were far from heroic.
To be truly heroic, we must go into battle each day in our home, job, church, and society to make God's Kingdom a reality. Our weapons are the standards, morals, truths, and convictions we receive from God's Word. We will lose the battle if we gather the spoils of earthly treasures rather than seeking the treasures of heaven.
Notes from Proverbs 13:6
Blameless living safeguards your life. Every choice for good sets into motion other opportunities for good. Evil choices follow the same pattern, but in the opposite direction. Each decision you make to obey God's Word will bring a greater sense of order to your life, while each decision to disobey will bring confusion and destruction. The right choices you make reflect your integrity. Obedience brings the greatest safeguard and security. | <urn:uuid:6e52f8f0-1686-40f3-8444-e8f376995cc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newlivingtranslation.com/01liveitnow/treasures.asp?topic=15&qID=32 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962727 | 552 | 1.75 | 2 |
Allerding pocket watch in case 1879-1920
F. Allerding & Son were jewellers and scientific instrument retailers who operated from 25 Hunter Street in Sydney. Friederich Allerding had been operating a shop in Hunters street from as early as 1863 and around 1879 changed the name to incorporate his son Henry into the business. The firm's name was changed to Allerding F. & Co. around 1892 and Henry continued to operate the business into the early 1900s.
Allerding was obviously well regarded by the local scientists in Sydney as he was invited by H. C. Russell, the Government Astronomer, to participate in the observation of the 1874 Transit of Venus. Allerding viewed the transit from the back-yard of his Hunter Street business and this is recorded in Russell's book on the Transit observations. This books also refers to the fact that Allerding at this time was listed as a 'chronometer maker' although it appears more likely that he was a retailer of imported chronometers. This was not uncommon for the maker whose name is on the instrument typically organised for the parts to be brought together and supervised the final stages of its construction such as 'springing' or adjusting the mechanism.
Allerding, according to Tony Mercer's 'Chronometer Makers of the World', seems to have dealt almost exclusively in Kullberg chronometers between 1877 and 1884. This is backed up by the Official record of the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879 where Allerding, who provided Kullberg watches to the judges, is listed as being the Sydney agent for Mr. Kullberg. However the company also specialised in jewellery making and were commended for the quality of their work at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879.
This watch seems to represent a combination of these two sides of the Allerding's business as it is likely that the parts and movements of the clock were imported while the adjustments and the case were completed by Allerding & Son. The watch is significant due to its relationship with Sydney's early scientific instrument makers.
Geoff Barker, Curatorial, February 2008
Davies, Alun, 'The Rise and decline of Chronometer Manufacturing', Antiquarian Horology, Number 3, Volume 12, 1980
Mercer, Tony, 'Chronometer Makers of the World', N.A.G. Press and Tony Mercer, 1991
New South Wales Government, Official record of the Sydney International Exhibition 1879, Thomas Richards, Government Printer, Sydney, 1881
Russell, H.C., Russell, H., C., Observations of the Transit of Venus, 9 December, 1874; made at Stations in New South Wales, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1892 | <urn:uuid:f39d0bfe-cf5c-4f18-b1f9-78e34ccf5e6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://about.nsw.gov.au/collections/doc/allerding-pocket-watch-in-case/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972751 | 570 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Governor Deval Patrick signs health cost-control bill
The first-in-the nation legislation is considered the second phase of the groundbreaking universal health care law that was signed by Governor Mitt Romney in 2006.
The new law allows health spending to grow no faster than the state’s economy through 2017. For five years after that, spending would slow further, to half a percentage point below the growth of the economy, although leaders would have the power under certain circumstances to soften that target. The bill also includes provisions to encourage a shift to paying hospitals and doctors for overall patient care rather than for every test and treatment.
“We are ushering in the end of the fee-for-service care system in Massachusetts in favor of better care, at lower cost,” Patrick said to applause from a stage in Nurses Hall that was decorated with the flags of Massachusetts and the United States.
In an interview, Patrick said Romney deserved credit for launching the state on the path to universal insurance coverage.
“Health care reform has done a lot of good for a lot of people in the Commonwealth, and if that’s why you serve in government then you should take credit,” he said. “If it were polling better, I bet he would take more credit.”
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Representative Steven M. Walsh, co-chairman of the Committee on Health Care Financing, and Attorney General Martha Coakley also spoke at the ceremony. They all praised the work that industry executives and advocates did in writing the bill.
“It’s law. Congratulations,” Patrick said after he signed the legislation with a series of pens that he then handed to his aides and legislators. The bill was Patrick’s top second-term priority.
Despite the backslapping and hearty talk of collaboration, no one from the state Senate showed up at the bill signing.
Senate President Therese Murray “didn’t want to attend the bill signing without Senator [Richard] Moore, who played a major role in developing the legislation,” said David Falcone, a Murray spokesman.
Moore, the Senate’s lead health care negotiator, could not attend because of a previously scheduled commitment with the National Conference of State Legislatures, Falcone said.Noah Bierman of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Michael Levenson can be reached at [email protected].
About white coat notes
|White Coat Notes covers the latest from the health care industry, hospitals, doctors offices, labs, insurers, and the corridors of government. Chelsea Conaboy previously covered health care for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Write her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @cconaboy.|
Gideon Gil, Health and Science Editor
Elizabeth Comeau, Senior Health Producer | <urn:uuid:d291ab59-6ce1-424d-9f71-0786f4271a76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/whitecoatnotes/2012/08/06/governor-deval-patrick-signs-health-cost-control-bill/eawF2bFhTF92KYLer0hjyK/story.html/?comments=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953828 | 601 | 1.609375 | 2 |
I'll spare you the actual outline, but watch Paul frame the following points around this main point: that Christ has the central role in every spiritual blessing, since every spiritual blessing is received only in or through Christ. First, Paul's own statement of his own topic from the beginning of his letter to the Ephesians:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.So plainly enough, this is about being blessed through Christ, and about how God is praiseworthy on account of blessing us through Christ. How can we be sure that this is really Paul's topic? Notice how Paul spends the follow-up section by listing spiritual blessings and showing Christ's role in each and every spiritual blessing that we receive:
- 1:4 "in him" (Christ) we are chosen;
- 1:5 God's predestination that we are adopted as Sons of God comes through Jesus Christ;
- 1:6 God's glorious grace is given us in "the One he loves" (Christ);
- 1:7 "in him" (Christ) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins;
- 1:8-10 he has made known the mysteries of his will for the fulfillment of time: to head up all things in Christ, whether things on heaven or on earth;
- 1:11-12 in him (Christ) we are chosen as God's inheritance, as he predestines for the praise of his glory those who have placed their hope in Christ;
- 1:13-14 believing in Christ, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit guaranteeing our inheritance.
The mistakes go back at least to Aquinas, who when discussing predestination, quotes Ephesians like this:
inasmuch as God gratuitously and not from merits predestines or elects some; for it is written (Ephesians 1:5): "He hath predestinated us into the adoption of children ... unto the praise of the glory of His grace."Notice the "..." ellipsis mark, which J.R.R. Tolkien aptly called the trail of the passing editor. What has been edited out is the reference to Christ's role in this.
Many have followed the same footsteps, missing Paul's point about Christ's role in every spiritual blessing. I've discussed Ephesians 1 with a number of people who consistently mentally read "he chose us before the creation of the world ... he predestined us to be adopted as his sons ... were were also chosen, having been predestined" (etc.), having become accustomed to mentally deleting all references to Christ while reading that passage. On-line, there's CARM's on-line dictionary which takes the classic Calvinist/hyperCalvinist view of "elect, election" in that it quotes this passage of Ephesians but deletes the reference to Christ's role in the spiritual blessing of election:
The elect are those called by God to salvation. This election occurs before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4) and is according to God's will not man's (Rom. 8:29-30; 9:6-23) because God is sovereign (Rom. 9:11-16). The view of election is especially held by Calvinists who also hold to the doctrine of predestination.Just a note: when an interpretation systematically deletes the references to Christ from a passage, it's not going to be the right interpretation. Paul's point is how all these blessings -- including predestination to adoption and being in God's chosen people, being forgiven and redeemed, and receiving the Holy Spirit -- are granted through Christ. You cannot understand predestination apart from Christ, or being included in God's chosen people apart from Christ, any more than you can understand redemption and forgiveness apart from Christ. Christ is how we are predestined and how we are chosen just as surely as he is how we are forgiven; none of these things can be productively, Scripturally discussed apart from Christ. This, as Paul reminds us, is God's eternal purpose, his once-hidden mysterious will which has now been made known. | <urn:uuid:4a295c18-8d13-4e93-9af6-7ecca45b5334> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/2006/03/christs-role-in-every-spiritual.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96794 | 872 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Cockermouth gallery is a picture of health 10 years on
Last updated at 20:49, Thursday, 17 May 2012
Ten years ago a derelict building with filthy floors and no staircase was transformed into a quaint gallery showcasing a wealth of Cumbrian and national artists.
Percy House, on Market Place in Cockermouth, is a building steeped in history and was taken over by friends Karen Cottier and Viv Austin.
Now the pair are marking a milestone for the businesses.
Karen and Viv were made redundant from their roles running a gallery for Groundwork Trust and a few months later decided to open their own art space.
Karen says: “We both thought ‘If we don’t give it a go we will regret it’ and here we are 10 years on.”
“We’d looked around a lot of places but we really wanted an interesting building. This one just felt right and we kept coming back to it.
“When we first saw it, it was a derelict building at the time, the floors were filthy, in fact everything was, and there was no staircase. We put that in later.”
When they first started out the pair only had 20 artists on their books and now have more than 150, including Robert Askew, Linda Ryle, Alan Richmond and Shirley Shackleton.
They also sell ceramics, photographs, metalwork and jewellery.
Viv says: “The first week we were open the gallery was packed and we were really worried we were going to sell out of everything.
“The gallery has gone from strength to strength over the years. Even after we were flooded in 2009, people commented about how much we had been missed and how good it was to see us back.”
Over the years the pair have done minor alterations to the grade two listed building, including extending out into the cottage at the back, putting in stairs and painting the outside.
However, the oak beams, which date from 1390, and the original flagstone floor remain.
The upstairs, which has a Tudor ceiling from 1598, was once lived in by the Percy Bayliff, who worked for Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland.
In the early 1900s the building was turned into three shops.
Karen added: “We’ve always had to be really careful when doing any work on the building because it’s listed.
“It is steeped in history and that’s always something we’ve tried to maintain because we think it adds to the character of the gallery.”
Viv says: “It feels great to have reached our 10-year anniversary. Running the gallery is something we both enjoy and we hope to go on for many years to come.”
The gallery is currently showcasing work by Angie Flynn called Women in Textiles until May 31.
First published at 19:20, Thursday, 17 May 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
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- Herdwick given EU protected status | <urn:uuid:6bf1aa38-61b2-4a31-a8c2-be0ec3a1c018> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/business/cockermouth-gallery-is-a-picture-of-health-10-years-on-1.955483?referrerPath=1103272 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977913 | 779 | 1.726563 | 2 |
(1) There is probable cause to believe that one or more individuals are committing, have committed, or are about to commit one or more specified crimes under the laws of this state or the United States will be obtained through interception; and
(2) There is probable cause to believe that the home where the electronic interception is to occur is being used, or is about to be used, in connection with the commission of the offense, or offenses: Provided, That such determination shall not be required where the identity of the person committing the offense and whose conduct or communications are to be intercepted is known, and the applicant makes an adequate showing as required pursuant to paragraph (ii), subdivision two, subsection (a), section three of this article that the location cannot be predetermined.
(b) Each order authorizing an electronic interception in accordance with the provisions of this article shall specify: (i) The identity of the person, if known, whose conduct or communications are to be intercepted; (ii) the nature and location of the home for which authority to intercept is granted, if necessary under subdivision three, subsection (a) of this section; (iii) a particular description of the type of conduct or communications sought to be intercepted and a statement of the particular offense to which it relates; (iv) the identity of the law-enforcement officer or officers applying for authorization to electronically intercept and of the officer authorizing the application; and (v) the period of time during which the interception is authorized, including a statement as to whether or not the interception automatically terminates when the described conduct or communication is first obtained.
(c) An order entered pursuant to the provisions of this section may authorize the electronic interception for a period of time that is necessary to achieve the objective of the authorization, not to exceed twenty days. Such twenty-day period begins on the day the order is entered. Extensions of an order may be granted, but only upon application for an extension made as provided in subsection (a) of this section and upon the magistrate or judge of the circuit court making the findings required by subsection (b) of this section. The period of extension may be no longer than the magistrate or judge deems necessary to achieve the purposes for which it was granted and, in no event, for longer than twenty days. Every order and extension thereof shall contain a provision that the authorization to electronically intercept be executed as soon as practicable, be conducted in such a way as to minimize the interception of conduct or communications not otherwise subject to interception under this article and terminate upon attainment of the authorized objective, or in any event within the hereinabove described twenty-day period relating to initial applications.
Note: WV Code updated with legislation passed through the 2012 1st Special Session | <urn:uuid:ec1b5de5-9421-44ec-843f-588727879f29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.legis.state.wv.us/wvcode/ChapterEntire.cfm?chap=62&art=1F§ion=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930766 | 551 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Cal Poly graduate fights for gender equality in Africa
The following excerpt and video comes from the The Tribune in San Luis Obispo and was originally published on July 8, 2012.
“A Cal Poly graduate who joined the Peace Corps and went to Senegal has become a key player in an effort to improve gender equality in the West African nation. Marquel Sheree Ramirez, who graduated from Cal Poly in 2007 with a degree in modern languages and literature, is an environmental education volunteer in Senegal.
However, she also has become national coordinator for SeneGAD, a group that began in the 1980s to take on gender equality as a secondary project and now works to ‘put gender and development in the forefront,’ Ramirez wrote in an email to The Tribune.
The group’s mission, she wrote, is ‘to empower Senegalese women, men and youth to effectively integrate gender equality into their daily lives, with the support of Peace Corps volunteers.’
Peace Corps Senegal is about to celebrate 20 years of supporting girls’ education through the Michele Sylvester Scholarship, which was set up in 1993 and provides financial support to girls whose families cannot continue to pay for annual registration fees and school supplies.
The scholarship provides $180 for secondary schools each of which chooses nine candidates.
Each receives $10 toward school registration fees, ‘which is often enough to cover an entire year’s tuition,’ Ramirez wrote.
For the 2012-2013 school year, Peace Corps volunteers will support 450 girls in 50 schools.”
Click here to read the full article. | <urn:uuid:959dc2b6-8c52-4d28-bf34-afddcc4532e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/media/medstories/2085/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970863 | 330 | 1.742188 | 2 |
By David Pendered
It didn’t take long for the message of metro Atlanta’s rejection of the proposed sales tax for transportation to reach an international audience.
This week’s print edition of “The Economist” magazine features a full-length story titled: “A Penny Saved: Georgia’s ambitious infrastructure plans go down in flames.”
While other major publications have reported on the July 31 sales tax referenda, this story stings. The Economist’s worldwide circulation is almost 1.5 million, counting print and digital, according to the magazine’s website account of figures by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
All the world can now read some pungent paragraphs about Georgia in general and metro Atlanta, in particular:
- “Both supporters and opponents predicted a close race. Both were wrong: 63 percent of votes in the metro Atlanta area said no, despite the strong support of Atlanta’s Democratic mayor, Kasim Reed, and Georgia’s Republican governor, Nathan Deal, and the region’s powerful business folk, who fear that the notoriously dreadful traffic is hurting the city’s competitiveness.”
- “Atlantans have the country’s most time-consuming rush-hour commute, and the region’s growth is outstripping its transportation infrastructure. Georgia spends less per head on transport than any state except Tennessee, and what it does spend goes overwhelmingly towards maintenance rather than the expansion that is needed.”
- “The SPLOST’s failure will probably mean more centralized government transport planning with less oversight and greater reliance on federal funds. Regions that rejected the SPLOST will also have to match 30 percent of state transportation funds while those three that approved it will only have to match 10 percent. Something for opponents to ponder as they sit in traffic jams.”
And all of this is not to mention the snub some Atlantans already say was inflicted by London, the city where the Economist is edited and where some think Olympic organizers disrespected Atlanta in a pre-Games video.
Of all the Olympic host cities heralded in the video, just two were omitted: Atlanta and Berlin. The 1936 Berlin Games were marred by Hitler’s refusal to shake hands with Jesse Owens, in the era leading up to Germany’s aggression that led to World War II.
London organizers told “The Atlanta Journal-Constitution” that the omission of Atlanta in the pre-Games video was a pure oversight. There was no mention of the reason for Berlin’s omission.
The Economist’s story cites several possible reasons the tax was rejected. Metro Atlanta voters may have listened to pundits including:
1) Tea Party opponents, who thought there was too much transit;
2) The Sierra Club, which thought there was too little transit;
3) Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), who thought the tax was regressive and unfair;
4) Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), who thought the tax was a “Trojan horse” for longer-lived taxes, and would not ease traffic congestion;
5) Themselves, and thinking that the $3.2 billion in sales taxes they voted for in November, to benefit public schools, was as far as they were willing to go. | <urn:uuid:df65ec84-1d40-4b37-9934-75828370bffe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saportareport.com/blog/2012/08/global-magazine-cites-regions-notoriously-dreadful-traffic-in-report-on-tax-vote/comment-page-1/ | 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 | 0.955184 | 695 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Singing in Pregnancy May Be Harder Work
"In this study, researchers followed a professionally trained singer through 12 weeks of pregnancy and for 12 weeks after she gave birth. Once a week, the singer was recorded reading and singing into a device able to measure the pressure exerted to make each sound. This data was then matched with measurements of the singer's hormone levels."
read more here
Do they even *have* pheasants on the Jersey Shore? - You know when you’re antique shopping with your husband and you pick up a dead animal and shove it around the corner of the booth while yelling a really we...
8 hours ago | <urn:uuid:605ca67f-0a5f-44d1-9bd2-8445fe8efb54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://natural-childbirth.blogspot.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971788 | 134 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Interior of the Ben Ezra synagogue, Cairo - the oldest in Egypt
It is notable that keen Arab press interest in the Israeli campaign for international recognition of Jews from Arab countries has translated into fear that 'the Jews want their property back'.
Elder of Ziyon blog has located a report that a British law firm is said to be suing for compensation for vast amounts of Jewish property in Yemen.
EoZ also points to a report in the Egyptian newspaper Shabab Ahram (rough English version). Apparently this report is based on an article by Eli Bradenstein in the Hebrew daily Maariv of 10 August (link unavailable) entitled "Israeli campaign for international recognition of Jews from Arab countries."
The Shabab article repeats Bradenstein's piece word for word, except for one important difference. It claims that on 21 September at the UN General Assembly Danny Ayalon, Israel's deputy foreign minister, will ask for the restitution of abandoned Jewish-owned land and property in Egypt worth $21 billion- including synagogues, Jewish hospitals and Cairo's entire Jewish quarter. In fact, Danny Ayalon has said nothing of the kind. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has proposed an international compensation fund be set up for all refugees.
The Shabab article quotes so-called expert on Israeli affairs Tawhid Magdi. Magdi believes that Israel wants to link the Palestinian 'right of return' with the return of Jewish assets nationalised by Nasser's decree no. 66 of 1971.
Point of No Return has learned that another Egyptian newspaper (El-Fagr) makes the uncorroborrated claim that the head of the Cairo Jewish community, Carmen Weinstein, is attending a conference on Jewish refugees being held on 10 September in Jerusalem.
It is not the first time that the Egyptian press and media have tried to smear Mrs Weinstein as a disloyal Egyptian. | <urn:uuid:8712291f-b1a7-4450-86dd-22e3772b36a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/arabs-fear-jews-are-coming-to-claim.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945428 | 383 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Vancouver 125 Legacy Books
What better way to celebrate Vancouver's 125th birthday than with the reemergence of ten classic Vancouver books. Ranging from the classic oral history of Daphne Marlatt and Carole Itter's Opening Doors to Vancouver's most notorious unsolved murder mystery in Edward Starkins' Who Killed Janet Smith? the titles in this collection are a testament to the depth of Vancouver's literary history and the vibrant writing community that now thrives in our city.
Cake is fine but books are better.
Our most recent reports
Buy the entire collection of 10 Vancouver 125 Legacy books for $125 + $10 shipping. Email to [email protected] or phone 604.684.0228 to place your order. Cheque or money order only please. **Special price only available until March 31, 2012.
Along the No. 20 Line
by Rolf Knight, ISBN 9781554200610, $24.00 CAD
Using the old No. 20 Streetcar Line that ran from 1892 to 1949 between downtown Vancouver and the present–day neighbourhood of the Pacific National Exhibition to structure the book, Rolf Knight takes the reader on a tour through the working class area of East Vancouver a century ago. The No. 20 took thousands of Vancouverites back and forth from their East Van homes to their jobs along the waterfront, on the docks, in mills, factories and workshops. Knight’s own recollections of growing up in the East Vancouver waterfront squatter’s community near the Ironworkers Bridge and interviews with East Vancouver old–timers, bring the city and the era to life.
A Hard Man to Beat: The Story of Bill White: Labour Leader, Historian Shipyard Worker, Raconteur
by Howie White, ISBN 9781550175516, $21.95 CAD
This biography of Bill White (1905–2001), itinerant ranch hand and trapper, member of the RCMP and an arctic traveller, focuses on his work as the head of the Vancouver Labour Council and president of the Marine Workers and Boilermakers Union, the largest local union in Canada in his time. Known as “Bareknuckle Bill,” White was fierce and unrelenting in his condemnation of the treatment of workers by companies and governments. From the scaffolds and docks of the shipyards to the battleground of the bargaining table, White’s stories about the struggle for labour and human rights in Vancouver in the ‘40s and ‘50s make for fascinating reading. Howard White’s A Hard Man to Beat brings to life the personality of the man, Bill White, in his own colourful language.
Opening Doors: In Vancouver’s East End: Strathcona
Daphne Marlatt & Carole Itter, eds., ISBN 9781550175219, $24.95 CAD
“There was nothing but parties in Hogan’s Alley,” a black musician named Austin Phillips reminisced in 1977. The black ghetto of Hogan’s Alley was just one of the ethnic neighbourhoods that made the historic Strathcona district the most cosmopolitan and colourful quarter in Vancouver for over a hundred years. Home to Chinatown, Japantown, the Loggers’ Skid Row and Little Italy among others, it had been the city’s first residential neighbourhood but became the refuge of the city’s working and immigrant classes when better-off Vancouverites migrated westward around 1900. By the 1950s planners had declared it a slum slated for demolition, but in the 1960s residents united in a spirited defense that guaranteed Strathcona’s survival and revolutionized city planning across Canada. Between 1977 and 1978, Strathcona writers Daphne Marlatt and Carole Itter undertook to open the closed doors to some of Vancouver’s stories by collecting 50 oral histories from the area’s residents. First published in 1979 as a double issue of the journal Sound Heritage, Opening Doors has been celebrated as one of the best books about Vancouver.
Who Killed Janet Smith?
by Edward Starkins, ISBN 9781897535851, $24.00 CAD
Edward Starkins examines one of the most infamous and still unsolved murder cases in Canadian history: the 1924 murder of 22-year-old Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith. Originally published in 1984, and out of print for over a decade, this tale of intrigue, racism, privilege and corruption in high places is a true-crime recreation that reads like a complex thriller.
by D.M. Fraser, ISBN 9781551524283, $15.95 CAD
D.M. Fraser, one of Canada’s best unknown writers, was born in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, the son of a Presbyterian minister and an English teacher. He moved on his own to the west coast at the age of 20 and become part of Vancouver’s nascent literary community, specifically the motley beer-and-anarchy collection of writers, poets and misfits associated with Pulp Press (established forty years ago in 1971). Class Warfare, Fraser’s first book was published in 1974 by his friend and Pulp founder Stephen Osborne, who he had met while they were both students at the University of British Columbia. It is an extraordinary collection of stories rooted in the politics and culture of 1970s Vancouver; a gloriously written call to arms addressed to the disenfranchised about the possibilities of “the sweetness of life.” This new edition promises to shed new light on this brilliant, unsung writer.
A Credit to Your Race
by Truman Green, ISBN 9781897535868, $18.00 CAD
Longtime resident of Surrey, Truman Green wrote and self-published the semi-autobiographical novel A Credit to Your Race in 1973. In it a 15-year-old black porter’s son falls in love with, and impregnates, the white girl next door. Set in Surrey, circa 1960, A Credit to Your Race is a disturbing and convincing portrayal of how the full weight of Canadian racism could come to bear on a youthful, interracial couple.
by Betty Lambert, ISBN 9781551524276, $19.95 CAD
Published in 1979, Crossings was Betty Lambert’s only novel. It was revolutionary for its frank and unsettling portrayal of Vicky, a female writer in Vancouver in the early 1960s, an educated and intelligent woman who struggles to come to terms with herself as she navigates an emotionally abusive relationship with Nick, a violent logger and ex-con. Their physical, often violent affair offers an honest and unflinching look at relationships and female suffering. The book caused a furor when it was first published, and in fact was banned from some feminist Canadian bookstores. At the same time, it was widely acclaimed by critics and writers, including Jane Rule, who wrote: “This portrait of an artist as a young woman should stand beside Alice Munro’s Who Do You Think You Are and Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners as a testimony of the courage and cost of being a woman and a writer.” This Canadian classic will introduce this remarkable writer to a new generation of readers.
The Inverted Pyramid
by Bertrand W. Sinclair, ISBN 9781553801283, $18.95 CAD
Bertrand W. Sinclair’s The Inverted Pyramid was a best-seller when it was first published in 1924. Writing in the period from 1908 onwards, Sinclair published over 15 novels, some of which sold in the hundreds of thousands. In The Inverted Pyramid, which critics often cite as his most ambitious novel, he explores Canada’s drift during WWI from a world of production to one based on finance, with all the attendant problems that continue to the present day. The novel offers a colourful account of British Columbia during this time through the history of two brothers, Rod and Grove Norquay, who belong to an old BC family. Grove, the older brother, takes the family’s assets and invests them in finance with disastrous consequences. As the world declines into a depression, Rod is forced to liquidate much of his family’s timber holdings, but he remains hopeful that he and family, working with their own hands, will be able to make a good life for themselves — even as the rest of the world totters into the horrors of modernity.
Anhaga: Pray for Hardship & Other Poems
by Jon Furberg, ISBN 9781551524306, $15.95
At the time of his death in 1992, Jon Furberg was one of the most disciplined and exciting poets writing in Vancouver. Ten years in the making, Anhaga is Furberg’s masterly crafted retelling of the Anglo-Saxon poem “The Wanderer.” Reading into the old text with courage and imagination, letting individual lines and words resonate and build associations, listening for the cadences of the ancient bards who were the original carriers of the poem, he allows a new work to emerge. The result is a contemporary Wanderer―that lost, doomed, desperate soul who is perhaps the first truly individualized―that is, alienated―figure in English literature. Furberg was a poet of spectacular skill, a poet who could embrace ancient texts and reinvent them with creative vigour while remaining true to their original voice. First published in 1983, this new edition features an introduction by Brad Cran, Vancouver’s current Poet Laureate, and a foreword by Stephen Osborne, editor-in-chief of Geist magazine.
Day and Night
by Dorothy Livesay, ISBN 9780889822818, $18.95 CAD
Day and Night was Dorothy Livesay’s first Governor General’s Award winning title and one of the first books with Vancouver content to be awarded the prestigious award for poetry. Day and Night emerged out of the struggles of the depression and the societal changes brought about as a result of WWII. It also demonstrates the interrelationship between the city and the rest of Canada. Livesay’s notion of social justice is paramount and the struggles faced as a country are exemplified in the poems. Dorothy Livesay was a writer of journalism, short fiction, autobiography and literary criticism, she is best known as a strong, sensitive poet dealing as capably with public and political issues as with personal and intimate emotion and reflection. She was senior woman writer in Canada during the active and productive years of the 1970s and 1980s. | <urn:uuid:1a80c24b-59d8-4901-8105-bfbcb83f882c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://books.bc.ca/read-bc-books/vancouver-125-legacy-books/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939879 | 2,185 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Ottawa, Ontario (PRWEB) March 22, 2007
GenieView announces that it has successfully implemented near-real-time video streaming to a BlackBerry® Pearl™ smartphone.* Depending on the cellular network in use, time of day, and network traffic, video delay can be as low as one second. GenieView has been working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Explosive Disposal and Technology Section (RCMP EDT) on streaming near-real-time video over the cellular network to a computer or a hand-held device.
"This is a remarkable demonstration," said Gord Scott of RCMP EDT. "GenieView's real-time video streaming is now available to users not only over the computer network, but also over the cellular network. Now, remote users can take part in the decision making process by viewing events in near-real-time as they unfold, from wherever they have cellular coverage."
"We are extremely happy with this progress in video streaming over a band-limited medium such as a cellular network," said Ron Chow, CEO of GenieView. "Going forward, our development effort will be focused on improving the frame rate and decreasing video latency where possible. Based on the market indicators, there is a great demand for this kind of capability from both the government and non-government sectors. GenieView is well positioned to capture a sizeable share of this market, including multi-media wireless applications."
GenieView Incorporated is a privately-owned technology company operating out of the Innovation Centre of the Communications Research Centre of Ottawa. It specializes in digital video processing and compression to enable video streaming over band-limited channels for applications in the law enforcement, first response, homeland security, and enterprise markets.
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Even When Republicans Lose, They Still Win
Yes, Democrats made a net gain of thirty seats in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate this year, but they did it by winning nearly fifty-eight percent of the popular vote, according to Wikipedia (take it as you may). The Republican Revolution of 1994 netted them 54 seats in Congress and eight seats in the Senate, and they did it by gaining less than fifty percent of the popular vote.
So if the system wasn't rigged, there would have been a veritable landslide this year, so what happened? One word - redistricting, especially the newest computerized version that most famously produced the psychedellic-looking Texas district map (look especially at the 12th and 18th district and tell me that wasn't generated in a politically cynical way). During their reign Republicans have been busy making sure that the political facts on the ground were created to their favor, and in some ways they have succeeded. Yes I'm glad Democrats have won, but the celebration is cut short with all the problems that need to be solved. | <urn:uuid:7e42c749-f791-4612-9101-9a2652c1bf4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/onye0004/politics/061409.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98439 | 219 | 1.703125 | 2 |
An essay by Charles Lamb
A Bachelor's Complaint Of The Behaviour Of Married People
Title: A Bachelor's Complaint Of The Behaviour Of Married People
Author: Charles Lamb [More Titles by Lamb]
As a single man, I have spent a good deal of my time in noting down the infirmities of Married People, to console myself for those superior pleasures, which they tell me I have lost by remaining as I am.
I cannot say that the quarrels of men and their wives ever made any great impression upon me, or had much tendency to strengthen me in those anti-social resolutions, which I took up long ago upon more substantial considerations. What oftenest offends me at the houses of married persons where I visit, is an error of quite a different description;--it is that they are too loving.
Not too loving neither: that does not explain my meaning. Besides, why should that offend me? The very act of separating themselves from the rest of the world, to have the fuller enjoyment of each other's society, implies that they prefer one another to all the world.
But what I complain of is, that they carry this preference so undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us single people so shamelessly, you cannot be in their company a moment without being made to feel, by some indirect hint or open avowal, that _you_ are not the object of this preference. Now there are some things which give no offence, while implied or taken for granted merely; but expressed, there is much offence in them. If a man were to accost the first homely-featured or plain-dressed young woman of his acquaintance, and tell her bluntly, that she was not handsome or rich enough for him, and he could not marry her, he would deserve to be kicked for his ill manners; yet no less is implied in the fact, that having access and opportunity of putting the question to her, he has never yet thought fit to do it. The young woman understands this as clearly as if it were put into words; but no reasonable young woman would think of making this the ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a married couple to tell me by speeches, and looks that are scarce less plain than speeches, that I am not the happy man,--the lady's choice. It is enough that I know I am not: I do not want this perpetual reminding.
The display of superior knowledge or riches may be made sufficiently mortifying; but these admit of a palliative. The knowledge which is brought out to insult me, may accidentally improve me; and in the rich man's houses and pictures,--his parks and gardens, I have a temporary usufruct at least. But the display of married happiness has none of these palliatives: it is throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified insult.
Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of the least invidious sort. It is the cunning of most possessors of any exclusive privilege to keep their advantage as much out of sight as possible, that their less favoured neighbours, seeing little of the benefit, may the less be disposed to question the right. But these married monopolists thrust the most obnoxious part of their patent into our faces.
Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new-married couple, in that of the lady particularly: it tells you, that her lot is disposed of in this world: that _you_ can have no hopes of her. It is true, I have none; nor wishes either, perhaps: but this is one of those truths which ought, as I said before, to be taken for granted, not expressed. The excessive airs which those people give themselves, founded on the ignorance of us unmarried people, would be more offensive if they were less irrational. We will allow them to understand the mysteries belonging to their own craft better than we who have not had the happiness to be made free of the company: but their arrogance is not content within these limits. If a single person presume to offer his opinion in their presence, though upon the most indifferent subject, he is immediately silenced as an incompetent person. Nay, a young married lady of my acquaintance, who, the best of the jest was, had not changed her condition above a fortnight before, in a question on which I had the misfortune to differ from her, respecting the properest mode of breeding oysters for the London market, had the assurance to ask with a sneer, how such an old Bachelor as I could pretend to know any thing about such matters.
But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the airs which these creatures give themselves when they come, as they generally do, to have children. When I consider how little of a rarity children are,--that every street and blind alley swarms with them,--that the poorest people commonly have them in most abundance,--that there are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these bargains,--how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, &c.--I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can possibly be in having them. If they were young phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a year, there might be a pretext. But when they are so common--
I do not advert to the insolent merit which they assume with their husbands on these occasions. Let them look to that. But why _we_, who are not their natural-born subjects, should be expected to bring our spices, myrrh, and incense,--our tribute and homage of admiration,--I do not see.
"Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are the young children:" so says the excellent office in our Prayer-book appointed for the churching of women. "Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them:" So say I; but then don't let him discharge his quiver upon us that are weaponless;--let them be arrows, but not to gall and stick us. I have generally observed that these arrows are double-headed: they have two forks, to be sure to hit with one or the other. As for instance, when you come into a house which is full of children, if you happen to take no notice of them (you are thinking of something else, perhaps, and turn a deaf ear to their innocent caresses), you are set down as untractable, morose, a hater of children. On the other hand, if you find them more than usually engaging,--if you are taken with their pretty manners, and set about in earnest to romp and play with them, some pretext or other is sure to be found for sending them out of the room: they are too noisy or boisterous, or Mr. ---- does not like children. With one or other of these forks the arrow is sure to hit you.
I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their brats, if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be called upon to _love_ them, where I see no occasion,--to love a whole family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately,--to love all the pretty dears, because children are so engaging.
I know there is a proverb, "Love me, love my dog:" that is not always so very practicable, particularly if the dog be set upon you to tease you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or a lesser thing,--any inanimate substance, as a keep-sake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or the place where we last parted when my friend went away upon a long absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and any thing that reminds me of him; provided it be in its nature indifferent, and apt to receive whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a real character and an essential being of themselves: they are amiable or unamiable _per se_; I must love or hate them as I see cause for either 'in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and to be loved or hated accordingly: they stand with me upon their own stock, as much as men and women do. O! but you will say, sure it is an attractive age,--there is something in the tender years of infancy that of itself charms us. That is the very reason why I am more nice about them. I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them; but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs not much from another in glory; but a violet should look and smell the daintiest.--I was always rather squeamish in my women and children.
But this is not the worst: one must be admitted into their familiarity at least, before they can complain of inattention. It implies visits, and some kind of intercourse. But if the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,--if you did not come in on the wife's side,--if you did not sneak into the house in her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on,--look about you--your tenure is precarious--before a twelve-month shall roll over your head, you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered towards you, and at last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I can rely, whose friendship did not commence _after the period of his marriage_. With some limitations they can endure that: but that the good man should have dared to enter into a solemn league of friendship in which they were not consulted, though it happened before they knew him,--before they that are now man and wife ever met,--this is intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every old authentic intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old money that was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will let it pass current in the world. You may guess what luck generally befalls such a rusty piece of metal as I am in these _new mintings_.
Innumerable are the ways which they take to insult and worm you out of their husband's confidence. Laughing at all you say with a kind of wonder, as if you were a queer kind of fellow that said good things, _but an oddity_, is one of the ways;--they have a particular kind of stare for the purpose;--till at last the husband, who used to defer to your judgment, and would pass over some excrescences of understanding and manner for the sake of a general vein of observation (not quite vulgar) which he perceived in you, begins to suspect whether you are not altogether a humorist,--a fellow well enough to have consorted with in his bachelor days, but not quite so proper to be introduced to ladies. This may be called the staring way; and is that which has oftenest been put in practice against me.
Then there is the exaggerating way, or the way of irony: that is, where they find you an object of especial regard with their husband, who is not so easily to be shaken from the lasting attachment founded on esteem which he has conceived towards you; by never-qualified exaggerations to cry up all that you say or do, till the good man, who understands well enough that it is all done in compliment to him, grows weary of the debt of gratitude which is due to so much candour, and by relaxing a little on his part, and taking down a peg or two in his enthusiasm, sinks at length to that kindly level of moderate esteem,--that "decent affection and complacent kindness" towards you, where she herself can join in sympathy with him without much stretch and violence to her sincerity.
Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish so desirable a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of innocent simplicity, continually to mistake what it was which first made their husband fond of you. If an esteem for something excellent in your moral character was that which riveted the chain which she is to break, upon any imaginary discovery of a want of poignancy in your conversation, she will cry, "I thought, my dear, you described your friend, Mr. ---- as a great wit." If, on the other hand, it was for some supposed charm in your conversation that he first grew to like you, and was content for this to overlook some trifling irregularities in your moral deportment, upon the first notice of any of these she as readily exclaims, "This, my dear, is your good Mr. ----." One good lady whom I took the liberty of expostulating with for not showing me quite so much respect as I thought due to her husband's old friend, had the candour to confess to me that she had often heard Mr. ---- speak of me before marriage, and that she had conceived a great desire to be acquainted with me, but that the sight of me had very much disappointed her expectations; for from her husband's representations of me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine, tall, officer-like looking man (I use her very words); the very reverse of which proved to be the truth. This was candid; and I had the civility not to ask her in return, how she came to pitch upon a standard of personal accomplishments for her husband's friends which differed so much from his own; for my friend's dimensions as near as possible approximate to mine; he standing five feet five in his shoes, in which I have the advantage of him by about half an inch; and he no more than myself exhibiting any indications of a martial character in his air or countenance.
These are some of the mortifications which I have encountered in the absurd attempt to visit at their houses. To enumerate them all would be a vain endeavour: I shall therefore just glance at the very common impropriety of which married ladies are guilty,--of treating us as if we were their husbands, and _vice versa_. I mean, when they use us with familiarity, and their husbands with ceremony. _Testacea_, for instance, kept me the other night two or three hours beyond my usual time of supping, while she was fretting because Mr. ---- did not come home, till the oysters were all spoiled, rather than she would be guilty of the impoliteness of touching one in his absence. This was reversing the point of good manners: for ceremony is an invention to take off the uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves to be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow-creature than some other person is. It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in little points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to deny in the greater. Had _Testacea_ kept the oysters back for me, and withstood her husband's importunities to go to supper, she would have acted according to the strict rules of propriety. I know no ceremony that ladies are bound to observe to their husbands, beyond the point of a modest behaviour and decorum: therefore I must protest against the vicarious gluttony of _Cerasia_, who at her own table sent away a dish of Morellas, which I was applying to with great good will, to her husband at the other end of the table, and recommended a plate of less extraordinary gooseberries to my unwedded palate in their stead. Neither can I excuse the wanton affront of ----.
But I am weary of stringing up all my married acquaintance by Roman denominations. Let them amend and change their manners, or I promise to record the full-length English of their names, to the terror of all such desperate offenders in future.
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN | <urn:uuid:bbc5b860-f02d-4245-9b83-6e92f5aec0f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/34792/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982713 | 3,414 | 1.734375 | 2 |
State officials say 67 of Ohio's 88 counties had higher unemployment rates in December.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services says the overall unemployment rate in Central Ohio counties fell a tenth of a point to 5.4 percent last month, the lowest since May 2008. Franklin County had a rate of 5.4 percent, down from 5.5 percent in November. Delaware County had the lowest rate in Central Ohio at 4.3 percent, down two tenths of a point from November. Licking County's rate fell a tenth of a point to 5.8 percent in December, while the rate in Pickaway County remained unchanged at 6.6 percent. | <urn:uuid:5120f0e2-05e6-4fec-92f1-4f0e17d2d39b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wcbe.org/post/jobless-rate-declines-most-ohio-counties | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961836 | 133 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The perspectives of people caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s is “worthy of a show unto itself,” as Krista put it. Indeed, many of the people who wrote to us when we first released “Alzheimer’s, Memory, and Being” articulated the full range of emotions — pain, love, anger, bewilderment — that caregivers can feel. And while this week’s show references the caregiver experience, it’s not at the center of Krista’s conversation with Alan Dienstag.
He’s now in the process of developing a new therapeutic initiative for caregivers called “Ina’s Story,” which is based on the first person account of a former patient, Ina Feidelman. She spent 10 years caring for her late husband Arnie, who suffered from both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Here’s an excerpt from that account, titled “Needing Help”:
“People began to tell me that I should get help in the house. My children my brothers and friends were all concerned about me. They were worried that I was ‘killing myself.’
I put Arnie in a day program 2x a week from 1-4 PM. He hated it. He only wanted to be with me. I hired an aide to do some food preparation, to shower him and so on and it was pointless. He would not accept her, and he was angry. He only wanted me. She lasted three weeks. He told me, ‘I know it’s hard honey but I don’t want anyone to take care of me but you…I need you here with me.’
I said, ‘But Arnie, I am being worn down. I can’t do it anymore.’
I was it…
I cried a lot during this time. I used to cry in the shower, it was private time. That was when I let it hit me…
And I was very angry. Why had this happened to us? I actually had the thought that maybe we were too happy, that somehow things were too good and it had to be taken away from us. It sounds crazy now, but that is what I was thinking. I remember discussing it with my brother, he said “Ina, you were dealt a bad hand, that is it, there is no reason.” I believe that is true, but that is not how I felt then.”
Ina’s story is powerful, Dienstag says, because the trajectory she experienced, both practically and emotionally, is so typical of caregivers: “Our hope is that we can use it to help caregivers who are at the beginning of the process that she has already completed.”
He also hopes this new project will motivate caregivers to seek psychological support in greater numbers: “The truth is that many caregivers fear (and sometimes hope) that they will not survive the experience of caring for someone with dementia and, remarkably, many go through this without any help.”
Dienstag and Feidelman are seeking funding for the project while they develop more written materials. | <urn:uuid:8045620f-8888-4e1c-bd4b-fe07303bbaef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onbeing.org/comment/18896 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987568 | 677 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Film Screening and Artist's Talk
The Getty Center
Date: Thursday, May 10, 2012
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Location: Harold M. Williams Auditorium
The J. Paul Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute invite you to a special program in conjunction with the Getty's Art on Screen initiative. Featuring films and a presentation by noted film artist Tacita Dean, and a proposal to have UNESCO recognize the medium of film as a world cultural heritage. 5:00-6:30 p.m. Screening of films by Tacita Dean 7:00-7:45 p.m. FILM and Film 7:45-8:30 p.m. UNESCO proposal presented by Tacita Dean and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, followed by discussion with leading filmmakers and artists Films to be screened: (5:00-6:30 p.m.) A Bag of Air (3 min.; 1995; 16 mm.) "If you rise at dawn in a clear sky, and during the month of March, they say that you can catch a bag of air so intoxicated with the essence of Spring that when it is distilled and prepared, it will produce an oil of gold, remedy enough to heal all ailments." - Tacita Dean (narration from the film) Kodak (44 min.; 2006; 16 mm.) "I was trying to get hold of black and white film for my 16mm camera ... and ... I was told that Kodak had stopped producing it ... I found five rolls in New York and I decided on a whim to think about using it to film the Kodak factory in Chalon-sur-Saône, at this point not knowing that they had just decided to stop all film production there. The idea of the film was to use its obsolete stock on itself. The point is that it's a medium that's just about to be exhausted." (Tacita Dean) Michael Hamburger (28 min.; 2007; 16 mm.) This film about the Berlin-born British poet and translator Michael Hamburger evolved from a commission for an exhibition about the writer, W.G. Sebald. Sebald meets Hamburger in a chapter of his book, The Rings of Saturn, and focuses on him exclusively in relation to the subject of apples - fruit to outlast our days — which Hamburger cultivated in his Suffolk orchard. "Though Hamburger is said to have despaired of reviews of his poetry which declared that he was better known as a translator, we might detect a similar deprecation of his self, by himself, in the film which shares his name. Unwilling, perhaps unable, to talk of his past and his migrations, most especially fleeing Nazism in 1933, he talks poignantly, instead, of his apple trees, of where they have come from, and of their careful cross breeding. Purity is dismissed, and one senses with an awkward pathos that the poet is translating himself." –– Jeremy Millar in Waterlog, Castle Museum, Norwich. (Film selection subject to change) FILM and Film (7:00-7:45 p.m.) Tacita Dean talks about FILM, her installation at the Tate Modern in London. This work is an 11-minute, silent 35 mm film that is projected onto a 13 meter-tall white monolith. Dean also discusses her use of masterful techniques of analogue filmmaking to create FILM, a work that would not have been possible in digital format. FILM has been called "a love letter to a disappearing medium."
How to Get Here
The Getty Center is located at 1200 Getty Center Drive in Los Angeles, California, approximately 12 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. See Hours, Directions, Parking for maps and driving directions. | <urn:uuid:c27e5ae3-fa8e-4b46-8797-80205640fa9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://getty.edu/museum/programs/lectures/dean_screenings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96688 | 773 | 1.539063 | 2 |
A couple of weeks ago, Senator Rand Paul did a courageous and unusual thing by visiting Howard University in DC. Howard is what is known as a “historically black university,” founded in the wake of the Civil War to provide opportunities for higher education to African-Americans. It’s not exactly home turf for Republicans, but that’s precisely why Paul went, in order to bridge a massive gap that is hurting the GOP.
Response to his visit was mixed, but yesterday, NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous wrote a generally supportive op-ed on CNN. Although noting that Paul missed his target in most areas, there is one area that has promise:
Paul struck out when he tried to equate today’s Republican Party with the party of Abraham Lincoln, while ignoring much of the 150 years in between. (He even acknowledged his mistakes shortly after). But his willingness to step up to the plate can provide a lesson for a GOP struggling to get on top.
Republicans will not win black votes by paying lip service to party history while attacking social programs and voting rights. But they can make inroads by showing a commitment to civil rights, something Paul managed to do briefly in his remarks.
You may have heard about the recent slaying of a Texas district attorney and his wife in their home. It follows the brazen daylight killing of a prosecutor in the same county, and it has everyone on edge. This is what local law enforcement is going through:
The judge was on the phone.
“Yep, I said I’ll do anything,” Bruce Wood told the person on the other end, rubbing his forehead. “They asked me to do a eulogy. I don’t know what I’m going to say.”
Elsewhere in the Kaufman County Courthouse, a sheriff’s deputy was handing out bulletproof vests. “I brought the smallest one,” he said to a secretary, who stared at the khaki armor as he explained how to adjust the side straps should the need arise. “These have the neck for a female.”
Outside, two armed guards escorted a white-haired judge from his parked car to the mirrored doors of the yellow brick courthouse in a county where little seemed the same anymore.
“Judge! How are you doing?” shouted a reporter.
“Everybody is making do as best as we can,” he said.
Throughout this Fast & Furious mess, nearly everyone has paid attention to just Darrell Issa and Eric Holder squaring off in a Congress committee room. But there’s another thing that should be focused on, that being the agency at the heart of this disgrace. But I surely cannot have been the only person to ask this question:
Why do we even have ATF around anymore?
Well, maybe I have. Bear with me as I try to answer it.
Let’s read their mission statement:
A unique law enforcement agency in the United States Department of Justice that protects our communities from violent criminals, criminal organizations, the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, the illegal use and storage of explosives, acts of arson and bombings, acts of terrorism, and the illegal diversion of alcohol and tobacco products. We partner with communities, industries, law enforcement, and public safety agencies to safeguard the public we serve through information sharing, training, research, and use of technology.
A “unique” agency? How can unique can that be?
“protects our communities from violent criminals” – Doesn’t every law enforcement agency do that?
“criminal organizations” – Sounds more like an FBI job or something for the gang squad of a local PD
“the illegal use and trafficking of firearms” – Okay, I can sorta see this one
“the illegal use and storage of explosives” – This one too, sort of, but I would think that other agencies could also handle explosions quite readily
“acts of arson and bombings” – Two words: fire department. Okay, four more: Federal Bureau of Investigation
There’s a lot of outrage over the death of 17-year old Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, last month. Trayvon was allegedly killed by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, who is claiming “self-defense.”
I’m not really clear on what actually happened. It appears that Trayvon entered a gated neighborhood, visting his father, when Zimmerman confronted him. Trayvon ran, unsure of what was going on, and Zimmerman—apparently the guy was some sort of criminal—shot and killed him. At some point during all of this, Zimmerman spoke with a 911 dispatcher, who asked him to back down. At least, this is what I think, from my limited knowledge, happened. (It should be noted that Zimmerman has not been arrested and is still out and about, though apparently in hiding.)
There have been calls to disarm neighborhood watch groups over this. There is also a lot of criticism towards a particular Florida law, called “Stand Your Ground,” which brings the self-defense claim out of the home and anywhere the person may be. These are both charges I disagree with; I am against disarming people in general, since law enforcement is essentially useless when it comes to actual, personal defense, and it seems ludicrous to me that you can defend yourself in your home but not on the street, such as if you get mugged. Such arguments are irrational.
But so are defenses of George Zimmerman.
This week, I caught a story on the Atlanta news that immediately drew my attention. A state Representative, MY state Representative, will introduce a bill during the next legislative session that requires every suspect arrested of a felony to submit to a DNA sample. Without careful examination, along with a very friendly news report about the bill, this does not strike many everyday citizens as a “bad thing,” as seen in the first comment made about the story.
Yet again, local law enforcement, driven by the increasingly inane, stupid, counterproductive, and unethical “War on Drugs,” have shown they have no class or decency by busting in on a dying woman to confiscate her perscription drugs:
A man says Vernal police disrupted an intimate moment of mourning with his deceased wife of 58 years when they searched his house for her prescription medication without a warrant within minutes of her death.
Barbara Alice Mahaffey died of colon cancer in her bedroom last May. Ben D. Mahaffey, 80, said he was distraught and trying to make sure his wife’s body would be taken to the funeral home with dignity, when he says officers insisted he help them look for the drugs.
“I was holding her hand saying goodbye when all the intrusion happened,” he told the Deseret News.
Barbara Mahaffey died at 12:35 a.m. with Mahaffey, a Navy medic in the Korean War, and his friend, an EMT, at her side. In addition to police, a mortician and a hospice worker arrived at the home about 12:45 a.m., Mahaffey said. He said he doesn’t know how police came to be there.
“I was indignant to think you can’t even have a private moment. All these people were there and they’re not concerned about her or me. They’re concerned about the damn drugs. Isn’t that something?” Mahaffey said.
Mahaffey said he was treated as if he were going to sell the painkillers, which included OxyContin, oxycodone and morphine, on the street.
“I had no interest in the drugs,” he said. “I’m no addict.”
In my last post, I wrote about intellectual property rights, and why one position that has preoccupied many libertarians—that is, that intellectual property rights don’t exist—is balderdash and something we need to ditch. In my next post, I’m going to comment on libertarian foreign policy positions that I find completely untenable, but in this one, I’m going to focus on my pet peeve of many libertarians: anarcho-capitalism.
Seriously. It’s starting to really grind my gourd.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at an event or just talking with someone, trying to explain libertarianism, when the other person says, “Oh, you just want to privatize the entire government and just let the big businesses run amok and have nothing!” While the second point might be unfair to anarcho-capitalists—I suspect a lot of them have no real love for big business—the rest of it is more or less dead-on for this small yet highly vocal minority of libertarians. Unfortunately, their antics and rhetoric have begun to become associated with the liberty movement in general, which discredits us, prevents us from gaining any more traction with the public, and ultimately is just detrimental to the goal of maximizing individual liberty, which is what the movement is about.
Personally, I don’t really think anarcho-capitalism does that, and let me show you why.
In a story that will shock and disgust any sane American, Florida police officers went undercover into high schools and spent weeks befriending students…who they then tricked into becoming marijuana users:
Last year in three high schools in Florida, several undercover police officers posed as students. The undercover cops went to classes, became Facebook friends and flirted with the other students. One 18-year-old honor student named Justin fell in love with an attractive 25-year-old undercover cop after spending weeks sharing stories about their lives, texting and flirting with each other.
One day she asked Justin if he smoked pot. Even though he didn’t smoke marijuana, the love-struck teen promised to help find some for her. Every couple of days she would text him asking if he had the marijuana. Finally, Justin was able to get it to her. She tried to give him $25 for the marijuana and he said he didn’t want the money — he got it for her as a present.
A short while later, the police did a big sweep and arrest 31 students — including Justin. Almost all were charged with selling a small amount of marijuana to the undercover cops. Now Justin has a felony hanging over his head.
This is outrageous.
First of all, I don’t think 25 year old police officers should be dating 18-year old high school students; that’s just inappropriate in any situation. But second (and third) they are now fabricating criminals out of whole cloth, while wasting scarce police resources that could be put to far better uses.
If it were “Just the facts, ma’am,” then thousands of Florida police officers would be out of work:
Thousands of Florida officers remain on the job despite arrests or evidence implicating them in crimes that could have landed them in prison, a Herald-Tribune investigation has found.
Corrections officer Kurt Stout, already dogged by allegations he groped and had sex with prisoners, was arrested on allegations he raped two teenage girls. Nick Viaggio capped a string of violent outbursts at the Ocala Police Department by attacking his girlfriend in a crowded nightclub until bouncers dragged him away. Palm Beach County deputy Craig Knowles-Hiller, under investigation for sleeping with a 14-year old, had to explain why the girl’s DNA was found on one of his sex toys.
Even those officers with multiple offenses have been given chance after chance through a disciplinary system that has been reshaped in their favor by the state’s politically influential police unions. As a result, officers around Florida carry personnel files that are anything but heroic.
I’m certainly not the first to notice this, but can we just give up on the fiction that our police officers are actually civilians? If you needed further evidence to see that they are becoming another wing of the armed forces, take a look at this monster:
What you are looking at is the new “PitBull VX” from Alpine Armoring, a vehicle specially designed for SWAT teams.
Now, I know what you’re saying: “Cool!” Or maybe, “Actually, they could probably use one of those.” And, true, Detroit and Philly might need one of these. But anywhere else?
I thought one of the commenters thoughts best expressed my own:
Also, the whole argument, “We should do so-and-so to save lives” is the most ridiculous government argument I’ve ever heard.
The purpose of (local, state, federal) government’s is to serve their populace. “Saving lives” is surely a good application of serving your populace. No one seems to understand that money and budgetary constraints exist even when it comes to “saving lives.”
You simply cannot get 100% coverage in anything like this. First, it is probably impossible to and secondly, it would be far too expensive even if you could. It is all boils down to math and statistics. You do certain things/make certain purchases in the hope that it will “save more lives.” If this 200k purchase of a police vehicle or 750k purchase of another ladder truck will save more lives, that’s great - it’s all touchy feely. | <urn:uuid:23b830bb-0b7f-4ec5-9ca0-d24585354b19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unitedliberty.org/tags/law-enforcement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974136 | 2,841 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Local Ford Dealership to launch first ever green initiative to offset carbon footprints
Simi Valley Ford will be launching its first-ever green initiative called the Drive to Save the Environment Campaign.The dealership has partnered with the Carbonfund.org Foundation to help offset the carbon footprint for the next 2 years of every new Ford vehicle that is sold during this campaign.The two and a half month long event will kick off on February 1st and go through Earth Day, April 22nd.
For every vehicle sold during this campaign-- from compact cars like the Ford Fiesta to the larger, F-150 trucks, Simi Valley Ford will purchase 2 years of carbon offsets by making a donation to support Carbonfund.org’s carbon emissions reduction projects. Whether it’s planting trees, pulling plastic out of the ocean, recycling or investing in renewable energies, the dealership has made a commitment to help reduce the carbon footprint in CA for all of the vehicles sold over the next 80 days.
“We at Simi Valley Ford are concerned about the future of our planet, so by partnering with a green organization like Carbonfund.org, we are hoping to help raise awareness to this growing issue. We are also excited to allow our customers the opportunity to drive ‘emissions free,’ simply just by buying a car,” says Mike Shell, Fleet Manager, Simi Valley Ford.
After Hurricane Sandy, a recent survey shows that 70 percent of Americans believe that climate change is caused by our daily carbon footprint emissions. Most people are unsure of how they can do their part to help reduce emissions, so Simi Valley Ford wants to help raise awareness on climate change, while promoting Ford’s green initiatives at the same time. The dealership is working with several green organizations to help promote this campaign and raise awareness in the community.
“Simi Valley Ford is taking a real leadership position by neutralizing the first two years of carbon emissions from every new Ford vehicle sold during their Drive to Save the Environment Campaign. It’s this type of forward thinking and pro-activity in the fight against climate change that we encourage among our business partners and supporters,” explains Eric M. Carlson, President of Carbonfund.org. “We’re very honored to participate as a partner with Simi Valley Ford for this inaugural campaign.”
Simi Valley Ford has set a goal to sell 300 new vehicles between February 1st and April 22nd.They invite any and all local and national companies to join them in helping to reach their goal. This is the first time the dealership has launched this campaign and hopes that it will grow exponentially year to year, not just in CA, but also to Ford dealerships nationwide.
About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 172,000 employees and 65 plants worldwide, the company’s automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford and its products worldwide, please visit http://corporate.ford.com. | <urn:uuid:4cfd727a-879d-4737-8514-d850dead8ef0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carbonfund.org/blog/item/4789-local-ford-dealership-to-launch-first-ever-green-initiative-to-offset-carbon-footprints | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945799 | 642 | 1.75 | 2 |
Emily Jacir Wins 2008 Hugo Boss Prize
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Read contributions by curators, scholars, and art historians from South and Southeast Asia.
Palestinian-American artist Emily Jacir has won the biennial Hugo Boss Prize. Jacir, 37, is the seventh artist to win the prestigious award, which was established in 1996 by Hugo Boss and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to recognize significant achievement in contemporary art. In a statement, the jurors, comprising an international panel of museum directors and curators, said of their selection, “Emily Jacir combines the roles of archivist, activist, and poet to create poignant and memorable works of art that are at once intensely personal and deeply political. It is the refined sophistication of Jacir's art and the relevance of her concerns—both global and local—in a time of war, transnationalism, and mass migration that led us to award her the 2008 Hugo Boss Prize.”
Carrying an award of $100,000, the prize has no restrictions in terms of age, gender, race, nationality, or media, and the nominations may be young, emerging artists as well as established individuals whose public recognition may be long overdue. In addition to Jacir, the finalists included Swiss artists Christoph Büchel and Roman Signer, Americans Patty Chang and Sam Durant, and Danish artist Joachim Koester.
Jacir's work—spanning a diverse range of mediums including photography, video, performance, and installation-based work—addresses repressed historical narratives, resistance, political land divisions, movement (both forced and voluntary) and the logic of the archive. Many of her early projects involve working directly with the Palestinian community and the larger Arab community both locally and internationally through collaboration and social interventions.
An exhibition of Jacir’s work will be on view at the Guggenheim Museum during the spring of 2009. | <urn:uuid:b803f69c-99e5-41ae-8471-2b1db50cee02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/press-room/news/2456-emily-jacir-hugo-boss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935758 | 432 | 1.609375 | 2 |
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Hennes & Mauritz, the Swedish fashion retailer with H&M stores in Atlantic Station and Cumberland Mall in metro Atlanta, is launching a clothing recycling drive next year.
Beginning February 2013, customers will be able to bring in used garments to H&M stores in all 48 markets, the company said. Any pieces of clothing, from any brand and in any condition will be accepted. In return, the customer will receive a voucher for each bag of clothing brought in. More specifics about the voucher program were not provided.
“We want to do good for the environment, which is why we are now offering our customers a convenient solution: to be able to leave their worn out or defective garments with H&M,“ said CEO Karl-Johan Persson.
The global recycling company I:Collect will sort the clothing in Germany and the material will either be reused for new clothing, rags, insulation or for other uses.
H&M, which says 95 percent of the | <urn:uuid:a7879651-b3ce-4b6e-9658-067ac6680b55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.ajc.com/business-beat/2012/12/page/3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941796 | 213 | 1.734375 | 2 |
French President Nicolas Sarkozy may come from one of the world’s culinary capitals, but it seems whenever he comes to America more simple fare awaits him – hot dogs or sausages.
In 2007 when Sarkozy visited President George W. Bush at the family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, he was offered a lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs as the leaders tried to improve relations strained by the Iraq war.
Three years later he comes to Washington and where does he stop before going to the White House? Ben’s Chili Bowl.
The casual restaurant which serves hot dogs, sausages, and chili, has been around for more than 50 years and seen its share of history along the way. Customers have included Martin Luther King Jr., Bill Cosby, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.
Sarkozy apparently had one of Ben’s famous half-smokes – a pork and beef smoked sausage — for lunch, that’s about as American as you can get without the apple pie. | <urn:uuid:b8a30e51-c889-4a0c-9ab0-692aff301e0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/tag/kennebunkport/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973734 | 214 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Round Three: Concluding Remarks - September 20, 2000
Let's start with a few necessary explanations and corrections to the Round 2 comments, and then move on to philosophies and solutions. First, Gregg Easterbrook is correct in pointing out that the Kyoto Protocol has not yet been ratified by any industrialized countries. But if one asks why, the answer is relatively obvious. Negotiations to reach decisions on some of the key remaining issues, like how the market mechanisms in the treaty would function, or how compliance and enforcement would be handled, are still underway, with some progress likely this November at an international conference in The Hague. Several European nations have said that if this negotiation works out to their satisfaction, they will ratify the treaty. Others might follow, even if the United States, which has a larger number of issues requiring resolution, does not ratify in the short term. So perhaps Gregg is assuming that Kyoto is dead when, to judge by the scores of governments participating in the negotiations, it is still very much alive.
As for Mary Gade's comments, she seems to have misinterpreted the Kyoto Protocol when she suggests that it does not bear the stamp of U.S. policy. The Kyoto framework is replete with the kind of market mechanisms and flexible approaches that Republicans usually applaud, all of which were proposed and fought for by the United States. For example, the treaty envisions emissions trading among nations, includes flexible, multi-year compliance periods, allows for joint projects between countries, and permits accounting for carbon that is sequestered in forests or soils. She is correct that the treaty enjoys little support in the Senate. But that can be ascribed in part to two issues raised by Congress prior to the Kyoto negotiations that the Clinton Administration has not yet properly addressed. Congress asked for an assessment of how much the treaty would cost to implement. It also stipulated that the United States should not agree to any treaty that does not require developing countries to undertake binding commitments at the same time as the developed world. The Administration has not provided a credible assessment of the treaty's cost. And it neither objected to the second stipulation nor was able to negotiate a treaty with binding commitments for developing countries.
Now that we have cleared out this underbrush, we can discuss philosophies and solutions. Bill McKibben wants us all to sit down and reassess our entire civilization in light of what we now know about global warming. Gregg Easterbrook is looking for a Third Way that might get us where we need to go painlessly. And Mary Gade is hopeful that new leadership will provide us with advanced technologies and cooperative approaches.
What is encouraging is that all four of us recognize that global warming is a problem that requires a serious response. I do agree with Bill McKibben that an effort beyond what the world is now contemplating is certainly required. But I am not sure that a global philosophical discussion (of which there are many already) would provide the necessary answers.
I would say that we need a second industrial revolution, in which we move away from fossil fuels (which are largely responsible for a great deal of the world's air pollution as well as our changing climate) to cleaner forms of energy. Is there a Third Way to get there? No major change, let alone a second industrial revolution, can possibly be free. Some of the most progressive businesses have already begun to invest substantial sums in new technologies, although much more is needed.
In the meantime, government leaders at the highest levels need to send a loud, clear signal to the marketplace that we must make a major change. Significant incentives must be put in place for the development and diffusion of new technologies, and efforts to reduce emissions and sequester carbon must begin now. For all of this to happen, we do need leadership. Let us hope that the people of the United States, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, elect men and women who are willing to provide that leadership.
Round Three: Concluding Remarks -- September 20, 2000
All material copyright © 2000 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:d81f8711-2516-43e6-a5b7-4f062beaeb04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/roundtable/environment/claussen3.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968591 | 827 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Simon Merlak (2011) Development of a Web-based Costumer Relationship Management System. EngD thesis.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system that provides companies with access to comprehensive information about their clients, regardless where the data is stored. It also offers users all the tools they need, to immediately use this data and findings in their activities. The 360-degree view of the customer allows users to quickly resolve their tasks and shorten the time required to process applications. In case we have a web based CRM, this also enables mobile access from anywhere at any time. In this study I tried to focus on presenting the basics of CRM systems, their features and benefits and above all, describe development, testing and implementation of a web based CRM system Boko CRM, which I was developing in the company Bokosoft, d. o. o. The thesis begins with description of normal structure and intention of CRM systems. It presents the basics of CRM and internal classification of functionality. It also describes the features related to the internet. As Boko CRM will be marketed as a service, Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing are mentioned and described as well. In the main part of diploma I specify the details of my development of Boko CRM system. I present the approach to development, planning, programming, designing, testing and introduction of CRM system. I also describe the problems and pitfalls I encountered and ways in which I solved them. Final part of the thesis describes the ongoing objectives and possible additional functionality of the system that I developed.
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:f171b8fd-23a5-4ef3-b395-a18add26b434> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eprints.fri.uni-lj.si/1292/ | 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 | 0.947922 | 329 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Our Stimulus Spot Check: Summer Wave of Projects Nears Crest
Vice President Joe Biden touted this as the summer of stimulus, a time when the Obama administration would ramp up road construction and put “shovels in the ground.”
That promise appears likely to play out – albeit a bit later than expected, according to our Stimulus Spot Check , a status report on road and bridge projects conducted by volunteers in the ProPublica Reporting Network (how to participate ).
ProPublica pulled a random sample of 520 of the roughly 6,000 approved projects to examine stimulus progress around the country. That sample is large enough to estimate national patterns with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent. ProPublica asked members of its reporting network to find out if states had advertised the projects, awarded contracts or actually started construction work.
While about 30 percent of the projects in the sample had broken ground by mid-summer, at least 66 percent had a contract and 76 percent had been put out to bid – suggesting an impending gusher of stimulus work in late summer and early fall.
In addition to the survey, ProPublica reviewed federal transportation data to determine how many stimulus projects reached a critical juncture – receipt of a “notice to proceed,” the last bureaucratic step before construction can start.
The data show some surprising trends: a wide range of progress among states, a tendency for cold weather states to have more projects under way, and a relatively bigger lag getting started in states where unemployment is highest.
New Mexico has achieved the final green light for construction on 100 percent of its approved projects, for example, while fewer than 4 percent of Florida’s projects had advanced to the same stage, the notice-to-proceed data show.
Nationwide, the data show that 44 percent of federally approved road and bridge projects had been awarded to contractors and authorized for construction.
How fast states are moving on stimulus road construction became a political flashpoint after the Democratic chairman of the House transportation committee commended some governors and shamed others for getting off to a slow start .
The Democrats’ report, based on older data than that reviewed by ProPublica, singled out states with Republican governors – including Florida’s Charlie Christ – for criticism. But states led by Democrats are also trailing other states’ progress, ProPublica’s data show, including Michigan, New York and Kansas.
Why some states fell behind
The Spot Check sought to get beyond the politicking for a closer grasp of factors that explain why progress varies among states. The evidence suggests multiple variables are at play, including whether a state began lining up projects while the stimulus bill was being drafted in January and February. Some states had more internal hurdles to climb to get projects approved or required legislative action. Cold states with a short construction window have to move faster.
Before construction can begin, states must submit projects to the U.S. Department of Transportation for review. Many states, including Florida and Michigan, took time to survey regional planning groups and the public to identify projects.
After getting a sign-off from the DOT, there’s a lag time as states advertise the projects for bid, award contracts and give contractors the official green light by issuing a notice to proceed.
More than 70 members of the ProPublica Reporting Network agreed to investigate projects in their states. Chelsey Perkins, a recent college graduate who aspires to be a journalist, volunteered to spot-check all Minnesota projects in our sample.
Perkins called the state DOT and contractors. She found that six of the twelve projects had not yet started. Of those that had, just two of the companies had hired new workers – one hired six people, the other 25 – in addition to saving jobs within their companies. Four companies told Perkins they had not hired new employees but that the stimulus allowed them to retain members of their workforce.
In Colorado, volunteer Erica Grossman checked up on a $31 million repaving and bike trail project and determined that work started July 11. The contractor, Castle Rock Construction, told state officials it has so far hired six new employees, saved 135 positions and had 250 employees working on the project, Grossman said.
But in most cases, approved projects were still in the pre-construction phase, the Spot Check reporters found. “Construction is supposed to begin the first week of August, but I have yet to see any progress beginning,’’ wrote Coulter Jones, who looked into a $3 million paving project in Luzerne County, Pa.
Reports from the field came in over a two-week period in late July, so it’s possible some have advanced in the meantime. Coulter checked back last week, for instance, and found that work had begun on the Pennsylvania project.
In some cases, construction delays appeared to be the result of contractors’ schedules rather than red tape.
Two paving projects in Missouri received notices to proceed in April, for instance, but no construction had begun four months later. Carrie Lewis, a spokeswoman for Missouri DOT, said companies are under no obligation to start as soon as possible. The only requirement is that the work be done by end of the year.
A fast start in New England
The federal Transportation Department data, listing the status through Aug. 7 of approved road and bridge projects in all 50 states, show a huge disparity in progress nationwide.
New Mexico is the furthest ahead when it comes to green-lighting projects, having issued a notice to proceed for all its approved projects. A New England contingent of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island followed in succession.
Some states receiving the most stimulus money for transportation have been among the slowest to get off the blocks. That’s true for Florida, which had received $1.1 billion for 313 projects. The state has authorized construction on 3.6 percent of them. California, getting $1.8 billion so far for 489 projects, has given the go-ahead to 8 percent.
Checking states’ progress at any one point, of course, doesn’t tell the full story. States can move up or down the rankings significantly from one week to the next, as batches of projects move from the contracting phase to construction. In addition, the data Propublica used is reported to the Transportation Department by states and may not be up-do-date with the latest state information.
For its pre-recess progress report, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee relied on DOT data from June to anoint Wyoming the “best” at spending stimulus money. The committee weighted its rankings based on the number of projects advertised, contracts awarded and projects started.
Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., scolded the governors of Hawaii, South Carolina and Florida for falling behind other states . But the committee declined to release the full set of rankings, so it wasn’t clear how other states stacked up in the panel’s list.
Some say the progress reports miss the big picture. Kevin Thibault, Florida DOT’s assistant secretary of engineering and operations, said politicians and the public would do better to consider whether projects that are moving forward have a long-term economic impact.
“If you look at Florida’s projects, most of them are adding capacity,” said Thibault. “I am widening roads. I am adding interchanges. That’s versus a resurfacing project or a guardrail project. Two or three years out, not only will the Florida region see the job creation benefit, but they’ll see the increased movement of goods and people,” he said.
If achieving those goals means it takes a little longer to get started, Thibault said, that’s an acceptable trade-off.
An added incentive: Climate
Two other patterns show up in a statistical analysis of the federal data.
Overall, states with colder winters were more likely to have a greater share of projects completed or started, an apparent reflection of the shorter construction season.
“Unlike Texas, we can’t work through the winter,” said John Zicconi, a Vermont Transportation Agency spokesman. Only Alaska, the northernmost cold state, was behind the curve.
States with higher unemployment are also spending and completing projects more slowly. Not all states fit the pattern, but ProPublica’s analysis did find a significant relationship between these variables and forward progress.
Michigan, with the highest unemployment rate in the country – 15.2 percent – had given a green light to only 62 of 325 projects, the data show. Political overhead helps explain why the state is off to a slow start, officials there said.
“We had to get approval from the Legislature,” said Michigan’s DOT spokesperson Bill Shreck. “We have about 14 metropolitan planning organizations, and we sent all of our stuff through them. It helps with buy-in in the long run.”
Jennifer LaFleur, ProPublica’s director of computer-assisted reporting, contributed to this report – as did these members of the ProPublica Reporting Network: Rosalind Alexander-Kasparik, Michael Andersen, Lisa Antrim, Lois Beckett, Rhiannon Bowman, Mary Ellen Broderick, Arnold Broomfield, Andy Bunch, Walter Card, Stacey Carmany, Andrea Chalupa, Ben Cohen, Lara Cooper, Cynthia Craft, Ian Crouch, John Crouch, Dan Crowley, Libby Desmond, Avery Diamond, Randall Downey, Haley Edwards, M.T. Elliott, Anthony Fiano, Audrey Fisher, David Fogle, Katie Foutz, Hall Institute of Public Policy (New Jersey), Sam Hashemi, Marie Gachelin, Carolyne Garcia, Erica Grossman, Robert Haider, Tanya Harned, Lillian Jackson (Georgia DOT), Sierra Jenkins, Coulter Jones, Sherrie Jossen, Joe Jordan, Susan Juetten, Steve Katz, Andrew Klein, Tom Knauer, Larry Larsen, Victor Laughlin, Dana Logan, Kirstin Michel, Carol Nicholas, Charles O’Donnell, Shelley Ottenbrite, Marge Pala, Chelsey Perkins, Nick Petitte, Mike Pouraryan, Ernesto Priego, Bruce Reeves, EJ Rotert, Jessica Roy, Andrew Skolnick, Zach Seward, Jeff Smith, Will Sommer, Jonathan Sommers, Ben Stearns, Michael Tracey, WNYC (Rachel Senatore), Ernie Wright, Jane Wylen, and David Zapencki
Tags: Stimulus , Propublica
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. | <urn:uuid:20a27035-919e-4450-bb8a-89fa41dcd8cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.groundreport.com/Politics/Our-Stimulus-Spot-Check-Summer-Wave-of-Projects-Ne/2905982 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943102 | 2,232 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The Groveton area has undergone rapid changes from sparsely populated farm land to a variety of densely populated suburbs. These changes have become the theme for Groveton High School's publication of oral history in print - Snake Hill to Spring Bank, Vol. II. These changes reflect the attitudes, traditions, jobs, wildlife, and landmarks of the community. With the help of knowledgeable residents, students of Groveton High have actively researched and recorded those changes in order to compile a second volume of the publication which originated two years ago as a bicentennial project.
Students participated in at least two interviews, one of which they followed through to the last step of sending it to the printer. This meant hours of word for word transcribing from the taped interviews. All the material was then edited with careful attention given to preserving the oral quality of the taped interview and the character of the narrator. Some students did additional research in pertinent documents or by untaped telephone interviews.
Our thanks to:
JACK ABBOTT-A birder who practices this hobby near Hunting Creek and Dyke Marsh, two of his favorite places in the community.
WALDRON ADAMS-A long time resident of the Gum Springs area.
WALTER ANDERSON-A psychiatrist at the Belle Haven medical center.
RUSSELL ALLEN-A graduate of Groveton High, now attends Groveton's games and is a member of the Groveton Boosters Club.
PAT ARNOLD-A lifetime resident of New Alexandria and the former owner of Pat's Market on Belle Haven Road.
SLADE BARNES-Came to the Groveton area in 1939. He shared his extensive knowledge of the history of the area with us.
LEONARD BARTE LS -A captain in the United States Army. His family has lived in both Bucknell Manor and Hybla Valley.
JOE BEARD - Retired, was the county agricultural agent for Fairfax County from 1937 to 1970.
VIRGINIA BENNETT-Wife of LAWRENCE BENNETT, and LENA SHERWOOD are daughters of Bert Ayres, owner of the Ayres Dairy Farm and also known as the "Knight of Groveton."
ALISON BROWN-A lawyer, he has knowledge of the changes in racial discrimination laws and is a resident of Hollin Hills.
RUBY BURDETTE-lives on Memorial Street. She worked at the Beacon Hill Airport from its beginnings in 1925.
EVERETT CLOCKER-A retired forester and resident of the community for 25 years, is interested in saving Dyke Marsh.
CHESTER CHINN-Chief of the Penn Daw Fire Department.
MIKE DESMOND-A resident of the Cherry Arms Apartment on Route 1 tells a story about a deer that fought its way to death inside his apartment.
ESTHER DEVERS-Owned the first fried chicken business on Route 1 and recalls much of Groveton's past from the early 40's.
RICHARD DODSON-A long time resident of Franklin Street who is a student of Civil War activities in this area.
JOE DOVE-The community’s first paid fireman and its first mailman.
ED EICHELBERGER-An employee of the Fairfax County Park Authority for many years. He is the resident caretaker of Stoneybrooke Mansion.
RAY GALLAGHER-A resident of the Belle Haven area and the author of several articles on local history.
DICK HAMMERSCHLAG-A member of the Park Service at Haines Point with an over view of the Potomac.
KATHERINE HECOX-lives in Bucknell Heights. Gives her views on the changes in the community during war time.
HERBERT HUDSON-Chief of Police at the Groveton substation. Captain Hudson grew up in the community.
LEONARD and SUSIE MANTIPLY-residents of the Fairhaven community and active in the Fairhaven Civic Association.
CAS NEER-An architect whose experience in the Hollin Hills development includes living there and planning additions to its houses.
KATHERINE POPKINS-Wife of Earl Popkins, now deceased, and the owner of Popkins Farm.
PENNY PROFFIT-Builds driveways and tennis courts in the community. His father, also in the building trade, helped widen Route 1.
WILLIAM RANDALL-Long time resident of Spring Bank tells the history of the Randall Estates property.
EDWARD RISEY - Active in community affairs with a special interest as a Friend of Dyke Marsh.
HARRISON ROUSE-A caretaker for the Mt. Vernon plantation and was a fireman for the Penn Daw Fire Department.
RICK SAMPSON -Director of the Social Center which meets in the old Catholic Church and one room school at the corner of Popkins Lane and Route 1.
EDITH SPROUSE -Resident of Hollin Hills and a historian of the community. She is chairman of the History Commission of Fairfax County.
ALLAN STEVENS - Director of the National Puppet Center in Alexandria and the son of John Stevens, caretaker of the Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church.
HILLCRESS STOKES - A resident of the Quander Road community all his life.
EDWARD STOOPS-Recalls the landing of lighter than air craft at the Hybla Valley airport.
CARL TAVENNER - Tells of the site for a school house that was part of Washington's estate.
E.C. TRICE - A state trooper patrolling Route 1 from Alexandria to Ft. Belvoir.
ROWENA V IAR and GARTH VIAR-The wife and son of Mr. Bill Viar who owned the horse stable where Bucknell Elementary is now.
EMI LY VOZZOLA-Was a teacher at Groveton Elementary School.
TOM VUONG and NANCY QUAN-Two students at Groveton High School whose families recently moved to our community.
BUSHROD C. WASHINGTON - A descendant of George Washington's family who maintains an interest in local history.
BUCKY WILSON – A former volunteer fireman far the Penn Daw Fire Department.
These local residents have generously shared their knowledge about the area, and without their help and patience the publication of this book would not have been possible | <urn:uuid:b61e0ed6-a1cf-490a-95f6-0a211034009a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/snakehill/volume2/introduction.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935105 | 1,347 | 1.773438 | 2 |
April 18, 2012
Tarana Akbari still has nightmares about the day a suicide bomber made her image world famous. Photo: AFP
Down a rutted dirt alley in Old Kabul, the “girl in the green dress” — the subject of AFP's Pulitzer-winning photograph — still has nightmares about the day a suicide bomber made her image world famous.
Tarana Akbari, 11, no longer wears her best dress, which was drenched in her own blood and that of her relatives who were among 70 people who died around her at a religious festival on December 6 last year.
AFP photographer Massoud Hossaini, 30, won the prestigious US journalism prize for his “heartbreaking image of a girl crying in fear after a suicide bomber's attack at a crowded shrine in Kabul,” the Pulitzer committee said.
Tarana still cries sometimes when she remembers that day, but she managed an occasional shy smile in an interview with AFP at her modest home on Tuesday, as she cuddled her sisters, who were both wounded in the blast.
That her picture has been featured on newspaper front pages around the world means little to her, she says, with a small shrug and a fleeting smile.
But when she first saw the searing image she wondered: “How come I am alive. I can see all the dead bodies around me but only I survived.”
She is still frightened at times, and that bloody day still haunts her, awake or asleep, but she says she is getting better.
One of the two spartan rooms that Tarana shares with her family of seven has a television in a corner, but what she sees there does not always help her recovery.
Last Sunday, squads of Taliban suicide bombers infiltrated the capital and unleashed gunfire and explosions in an 18-hour assault before all being killed by security forces.
“It made me frightened again,” she said. “I am not happy, because that day when the bomb went off destroyed my family.”
Of the bomber and those who sent him on his mission, she says only: “They did a bad thing. They should not have done it.”
Her unemployed father, Ahmad, 35, lifts the shirt of Tarana's four-year-old sister to show horrific scars covering her entire stomach from the shrapnel that ripped through the celebrating crowd.
Out of 17 women and children from her extended family who went to a riverside shrine near her home that day to mark the Shiite holy day of Ashura, seven died, including her seven-year-old brother Shoaib.
Tarana herself has scars on her legs and arms and walks with a limp. She no longer attends school because her legs hurt, she says, adding: “I hope I can get well soon and go back to school.”
Asked about her hopes for the future, the sweet smile makes an appearance and she says she would like to be a teacher, with the local language Dari being her favourite subject.
She spends her days playing with her sisters in the ramshackle house and in the dirt courtyard outside which leads to an alley where huddled young men openly inject heroin against crumbling mud walls.
Behind those walls, the “Girl in the green dress” nurses her pain and her fears, now dressed in a plain, baggy, shalwar khameez hiding the scars from the day her life was torn apart. | <urn:uuid:113eeb3c-ac47-415f-a834-e62529e9a2b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.theage.com.au/world/amid-pulitzer-glory-the-girl-in-the-green-dress-still-has-nightmares-20120418-1x6go.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982364 | 718 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Graham Hetrick’s concern about the elimination of the charitable deduction misses a key point: Why should all taxpayers subsidize the activities of any group receiving the donations of any individual?
To suggest the tax “deduction” is important or essential for people to give is offensive. Most people give because they want to give.
Sure there are some who would give less if the tax benefit were eliminated but look at reality. Someone with a marginal tax rate of 25 percent gives $100 but saves $25 in taxes. The net? They are out $75. So let them give $75 next time. With a marginal rate of 15 percent, the person is out $85, effectively making the donation from the lower income person a higher percent of their disposable income. (It’s the “widow’s penny” from the Gospel of Mark.)
I heard Mr. Hetrick’s argument when I was a pastor. To those who took or would now take such a position, the question is: Do you really need “Caesar” to subsidize what your faith tells you to do, i.e., give to those individuals or organizations that need financial support?
Do we really believe that people who do not itemize and do not therefore receive the deduction do not donate? Ask the Red Cross, which collected millions for Hurricane Sandy victims with $10 text messages from millions of individuals. Few add into their decisions to donate the tax deductions.
Lower Paxton Twp. | <urn:uuid:52bbf248-00e5-4879-90cc-4dbebd9e70df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pennlive.com/letters/index.ssf/2012/12/why_should_taxpayers_get_a_cha.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962237 | 313 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The property, which is located within walking distance of thousands of residences in the Pine Hills neighborhood and the densely populated Lenox Road corridor, is treed with mature stands of bamboo and has a creek running through it. Initial development will be limited to demolition of an existing residential structure, removal of debris and measures necessary to make the site safe and secure. The park will eventually undergo a master planning or visioning process, including collaboration with the community in order to map out future uses and stewardship.
“I’d like to thank Mayor [Kasim] Reed and Parks Commissioner George Dusenbury for this $1.17 million investment,” said Shook, who sponsored the legislation. “This is a huge step forward in our effort to have everyone in Buckhead live or work within a 10-minute walk to a park.”
Dusenbury added, “Purchasing the property on Lenox Road is consistent with the city’s goals of greenspace acquisition, preservation and park expansion. This acquisition also will move Council District 7, the district with the lowest inventory of parkland, one step closer to goals provided in the district’s new greenspace plan. Mayor Reed’s administration, the Office of Parks and the Atlanta City Council is committed to working with the community to collaborate on the park’s design.”
The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit aimed at saving some of America’s special places, purchased the property at 3162 Lenox Road to create a new park. The fund has agreed to sell the property to the city for an amount that does not exceed fair market value. The city’s purchase price, closing costs, environmental due diligence costs and site cleanup costs are estimated to be $1.17 million.
Funding for the property will come from the city’s Park Impact Fee North Fund. In addition to park impact fees, public safety impact and transportation impact fees will fund the additional infrastructure, including parkland. | <urn:uuid:c743a94b-06a5-4a21-b2cc-61359440495e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neighbornewspapers.com/view/full_story/21771246/article-City-acquires-2-54-acres-in-Buckhead-for-new-park | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936427 | 414 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Succeeding at Santa
Can a skinny, middle-aged Jewish man achieve fulfillment as a Rent-A-Claus?
By Robert Sward
A buxom, aspiring female Santa Claus in a quilted down jacket swaggers out of room C-1 in the Civic Center where I'm next in line for my "Rent-A-Santa" interview.
"Ho ho ho," she says over her shoulder, giving me an unnerving sidelong glance, a sort of knowing sneer tinged with holiday spirit. She's warring with me for the job of Santa Claus.
"Ho ho ho yourself," I answer, wondering what I, at age six, would have made of a big-breasted female Santa.
"Are you Santa Claus?" I might have asked.
"I'm Ms. Santa Claus. Mr. Santa Claus is home making dinner."
My own children will be away this Christmas visiting relatives. I want to be Santa because I know how much I'll be missing them. I want to be Santa so I can give love and gifts to other children. If I can't personally give these things to my own children, I can at least try to give them to other people's children. The truth is, I'm the loneliest man in town and I want to be Santa Claus so I can distract myself, so I won't feel so much pain.
I haven't practiced my "ho-ho-hos," but plan to wing it. "Ho ho ho" from the diaphragm, "Ho ho ho" from the heart.
I wanna be Santa.
My qualifications? I'm Jewish. I'm a teacher, Fulbright scholar, Guggenheim fellow and the author of 14 books. I have a beard. But mostly, for 53 years I have wanted to participate not as an envious Christmas outsider, but as a wholehearted insider. What better way than to become the plump, white-bearded, old man himself?
My shortcomings? I'm tall and skinny. I am a neurotic ectomorph. I have a lean, hungry look about me, sad hazel eyes and a slightly hooked nose.
But I do have a white beard of my own, though tinged with wiry black hairs. I like children. That is, most children. Not all. The little boy down the street who applied red enamel paint to my friend's Boston terrier puppy will be lucky to get a lump of coal this Christmas.
The door to room C-1 at the Civic Center opens and the Santa Claus personnel officer invites me inside. We shake hands. She introduces me to her assistant. The two interviewers sit at one end of a mahogany conference table and I sit at the other.
"What wonderful weather we're having," volunteers the female interviewer.
"Not at all like Christmas. This is going to be my first Christmas in five years without snow," I stammer, violating my promise to myself not to ramble.
"Robert, to start off would you give us a sample of your 'Ho ho ho'?"
I take a deep breath and summon up all the jolliness I can muster. "Ho ho ho!" I roar.
They nod approvingly and make notes on their lined yellow pads. I'm feeling more at ease.
"What are the names of Santa's reindeer?"
"Comet. Dancer. Prancer. Blitzen. Rudolph . . . Hmmm." An un-Santa-like expletive follows.
I get only four out of eight correct. I'm failing. What the hell am I doing here? I don't even know the names of eight stinking reindeer.
Again, they make notes on their lined yellow pads. This reminds me of visits to my therapist. I begin to sweat. I want the job and they know I want the job and I'm not going to get it and they know they're not going to give it to me. The humiliation of it all. I passed my orals for an MA degree, I taught at Cornell University, but I can't get hired as Santa Claus.
"There's Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Vixen, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen," the woman says. "Rudolph doesn't really count. He's a latecomer."
Next question. "What would you say if you had a kid sitting in your lap and he pulled off your beard?" asks the assistant Santa Claus personnel officer.
"Well, I'd try to control myself. I'd say something like, 'See, I have a real beard, but it's white and black because I'm young. And I wear an all white beard over my own beard so I'll look older than I really am. People expect Santa Claus to have an all-white beard. But now you know the truth. I'm younger than people think.'" What a ridiculous answer.
To my surprise, the two nod approvingly. Again, they make notes on their pads.
"Why do you want to be Santa Claus?" the assistant asks.
They're wondering if I'm a child molester or a drug addict. They obviously don't want a Santa Claus who's going to arrive at some holiday office party too ripped to climb out of the sleigh. But I'm just a straight, conventional citizen. A writer. A professor. Solid and stuffy.
I tell them about my children and how much I miss them.
"What will you say if children ask how come they didn't get what they wanted last Christmas?"
"I'd say that Santa Claus loves them and that he gives children what he thinks they need most. That he has many children to give things to—children in all parts of the world—and that some years he runs out of presents before he's finished. But that he tries to make up for it the next year."
"OK, but remember Santa Claus never makes promises," says the male Santa Claus recruiter, hiding behind his hand. "Also you may be asked to appear in some unusual ways."
Like a Rent-A-Santa-Stripper who must drag along a bag of toys while somehow jumping naked out of a cake?
To my relief, he explains, "Last year, our Santa Claus was met at the end of a deserted mountain road with a horse-drawn wagon filled with hay. You want to be prepared for anything."
"And Santa Claus does not use drugs and he does not accept drinks," the female personnel officer warns. "No liquor. No drugs."
"What if Santa is invited to stay for dinner?" I ask, hoping at some point along the way the old guy will be asked to sit down with some generous family to feast in style.
"Santa Claus does not accept dinner invitations."
Right. I should have known. He doesn't accept anything. But how in God's name is Santa going to fatten himself up if you won't feed him?
Feeling depressed, I cross my thin arms and look down at my skinny legs.
The interview ends with them asking me to make up a story. My imagination fails me. I can think of nothing to say. I've written a novel, poems, short stories, magazine articles, and I sit at the mahogany conference table with nothing to say. I bomb. I need a drink.
"OK, well, thank you, Robert. Don't call us. We'll call you Thursday or Friday of next week."
Both Thursday and Friday pass with no call from Santa's personnel officers.
So this would-be St. Nick sweats it out over the weekend. On Monday, he can stand it no longer. Can he subject himself to further mortification? He must know whether or not he's made it. He does what they asked him not to do.
"Robert Sward?" says the voice at the other end of the line. "You're Santa Claus!"
Hired as a Rent-A-Santa Claus, I immediately begin wondering if there hasn't been some mistake. Me? Santa Claus? Surely there must be a hundred aspiring Santa's out there better qualified than I. Oversized professional actors with droll little mouths and noses like cherries. Accomplished, 300-pound right jolly old elves. Reindeer ranchers whose round bellies shook when they laughed like bowlfuls of jelly.
The truth is, I'm scared. Having gotten the job, I don't know if I'm up to it. Think of the responsibility. Sinterklaas, Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas—Santa Claus is a supernatural being who brings happiness and knows the names, addresses and dreams of every child on earth. Who knows the good ones from the bad and who loves both equally. Who has unconditional love for everyone, even noisy, runny-nosed, sneezy children who whine and cry and pull his beard.
Yes, this Santa Claus worries about being too thin and believes there is nothing more obscene than the sight of some undernourished Father Christmas moving about with obvious pillows inside his oversized red polyester suit. Better no Santa at all than an unconvincing, self-conscious, tacky Santa with skinny legs.
My girlfriend—delighted, by the way, to be dating Santa Claus—tells me that, if everything goes well, I will not merely put on the cheap suit and fake white beard and "play" Santa, but I will become Santa, just as good method actors and actresses become the parts they play. She promises to help me with the logistics of costume and makeup. Maybe there's something kind of sexy about Santa after all.
Still, I ask myself, what would my parents think? A nice Jewish boy, bar mitzvahed, educated, the works—what's he doing, our son, the crazy teacher, age 53, in a red suit trimmed with rabbit fur promising Barbie and Ken and GI Joe to gentiles? Flying through the air like a peddler in a magic sleigh, a bundle of toys he had flung on his back, and he's giving them away, Gertrude. He's giving them away!
And worse, what if, even after boning up on their names, I confuse or forget some of my reindeer? Cutie, Blitzen, Bagel and Vixen. Donder, Dasher, Schwartzkopf and Prancer. It's like some New York law firm.
I buy a copy of Clement C. Moore's The Night Before Christmas, a facsimile of the original 1848 edition, and write down reindeer names in my Day Timer appointment book for reference and study. I go to the downtown library and read everything I can on Christmas.
I begin to notice that when I talk to myself, I address myself as Santa.
I try not to let it bother me.
Santa's friend tells him he'll make a great Santa. They say that Santa's "Ho ho ho" is just bravado. That that's not the real Santa Claus. That Santa is a private, loving, soft-spoken actually fairly sexy guy, who doesn't go to parties very much—only at New Year's—and that, when he does, doesn't stay very long because he's always working on his next novel.
With that encouragement, Santa goes to the Rent-A office to pick up his new suit and beard and his instructions. He also has to sign a contract. Of course there is a set of rules, some already made clear, to learn:
1. No alcohol, drugs, no smoking. Santa Claus does not smoke cigarettes, because his uniform is flammable and he wants to set a good example for children and not go up in flames or die an agonizing death from cancer.
2. Santa Claus does not accept cookies or cake to put into his big red velour bag "for the reindeer."
3. Santa is not a surrealist. He tells stories about sharing. He tells stories that have an appropriate moral message. Santa, in short, follows tradition. More Charles Dickens than Richard Brautigan.
4. Santa arrives at his gigs on time and already in uniform. He does not need to first go to the bathroom to "change" where he may be seen by children.
Santa spends a sleepless night and, at dawn, takes a shower and trims his beard.
Two hours before he is due at the community center, Santa does some yoga exercises: the sun salutation, the pose of the holly wreath. Then he meditates. Next, Santa lays out his clothes and begins to dress. He imagines himself a toreador preparing for what Hemingway calls "the moment of truth."
Santa puts on his blue fleece-lined sweat pants and shirt, to which his girlfriend pins four pillows—front, back, both sides. Then he pulls on his red velour pants and socks. He borrows a pair of Girlfriend Claus' red socks (one size fits all) to pull on over his own. He pulls on his high rubber boots with the white fur. She sews jingle bells onto his boots.
When he is at last ready, Girlfriend Claus begins to weep. She has helped create Santa, a fantasy from her childhood, and has done so in the privacy of her own home. Here he is, as real as any Santa she has known. Only this is her own Santa, seated on her sofa. He is as moved as Girlfriend Claus. He feels himself to be transformed.
"I am the happiest man in the world," Santa says, seated in GFC's car on his way to the local community center. Suddenly he hears children screaming and yelling, "Santa! Look, there's Santa Claus." A mother stops in the middle of the street, risking her own life and the life of her child to gasp, "It's Santa! Mickey, there's Santa!"
Traffic-stopping Santa waves and waves and shouts over and over, "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night."
Impulsively, he improvises. "Happy Hanukkah, too!"
Send a letter to the editor about this story. | <urn:uuid:ba70c753-f353-463c-ab4e-819aa536b674> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.metcruz.com/bohemian/12.16.09/feature-0950.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966962 | 2,981 | 1.585938 | 2 |
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In the wake of the heavily publicized fatal crash involving a Lexus ES 350 with keyless ignition in California, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing standardizing keyless ignition systems. The government regulator wants all vehicles with keyless ignition to turn off ...
The Detroit Free Press is reporting that two companies have joined forces to create a push-to-start button that can automatically sense the driver's blood-alcohol level. Takata, an Auburn Hills-based parts supplier and TruTouch, an Albuquerque-based firm, have received a $2.25 million grant from ...
Five years ago, if you owned a vehicle with push button start, you probably owned a luxury vehicle or high-end sports car. For 2011, there are 189 vehicles with push start technology, including many vehicles that retail for less than $20,000. But while the technology has proliferated to nearly ... | <urn:uuid:37a27b20-1ed7-43ef-8da5-63dc6b574093> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.autoblog.com/tag/push+button+start/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935144 | 199 | 1.828125 | 2 |
With what seems like a recent string of courthouse shootings, security is a major concern for many courthouse employees. That has courts across America re-evaluating their security measures and Brazos County is no different.
" I think for the most part this is a secure and safe environment for our court system, but that's not to say with these recent events that we aren't concerned, said Sheriff Chris Kirk, who oversees security for the Brazos County Courthouse.
He says after hearing the news of the Atlanta Courtroom shootings, which killed a judge, court reporter, and a deputy, he thought about the way things are done here.
The county jail is located inside the courthouse so inmates don't have far to go to make it to court.
Inmates go from a holding cell, to a private elevator, and then to the courtroom. Most are escorted in handcuffs by a courtroom bailiff, but when dealing with high profile or violent offenders, a sheriff's deputy may serve as an extra escort. Depending on the nature of the case, an escort may carry a gun.
It's up to the judge to decide what type of security measures they want in their courtroom. Once an inmate is here, the handcuffs are removed, but other restraint devices could be used.
" We have a leg brace that actually locks when you stand, so you can't bend your knee. We also have a rack belt and it's an electronic belt that sends a surge of electricity through the inmate and that actually stuns them until we gain control, " said Sheriff Kirk.
It's the responsibility of the jail to make sure inmates don't harbor weapons.
" We do searches both on a scheduled and on a random basis and those searches include the inmate and the cell areas to try and reduce the amount of contraband and prohibit weapons," said Wayne Dicky, Brazos County Jail Administrator.
Before you can even enter the courtroom, you must go through a metal detector and may be searched. Sheriff Kirk says he constantly assess security measures to make sure it's safe for everyone who enters the courthouse. | <urn:uuid:61a3d5f4-6f2b-4f8b-8f0f-85397d94e302> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/1365082.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967922 | 424 | 1.789063 | 2 |
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