text
stringlengths 211
22.9k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| dump
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 14
371
| file_path
stringlengths 138
138
| language
stringclasses 1
value | language_score
float64 0.93
1
| token_count
int64 54
4.1k
| score
float64 1.5
1.84
| int_score
int64 2
2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
"Our number one priority remains, and needs to remain, improving our economy," Congressman Tom Reed said today. "Recent economic data showing continued high unemployment across the country and even higher unemployment here in the Southern Tier reinforces to me that we have much more work to do."
Last Friday, the Department of Labor released its January 2013 unemployment report, showing the unemployment rate increased to 7.9 percent. That number is even higher in the Southern Tier, with a 9.8 percent unemployment rate in Chemung, Schuyler and Steuben counties in December 2012.
The Department of Commerce reported last week GDP shrank in the final quarter of 2012, further illustrating the country's lack of economic growth.
Reed also voiced his concern over the White House's decision to shut down the President's Jobs Council. "Eliminating the Jobs Council sends the wrong message to the more than 12 million Americans still looking for work in our country. Jobs remain a top priority for Americans and yet the President's Jobs Council hadn't met in 12 months when he announced it would be shut down. We need the White House to keep working we can't give up on those still looking for work."
"Private-sector job growth is the area we should be focusing on," continued Reed. "Tackling our debt, reducing burdensome regulations, reforming the tax code to make it competitive and developing an "all-of-the-above," comprehensive energy policy are key components to growing our private sector."
Reed says putting pressure on the Senate and White House to produce a budget is a good first step in securing some economic certainty in the coming year. The House voted late last month to require the House and Senate to pass a budget by the April 15th deadline to have their pay withheld and will vote this week to put pressure on the President to submit a balanced budget of his own.
"With so much uncertainty surrounding our nation's debt and complexity in the tax code, families and businesses alike are having trouble planning their own budgets. Congress and the President need to pass a budget so that families and small businesses can plan for their own." | <urn:uuid:e97c7d99-bbb5-4dbf-a655-36154b161ef4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/581325/Reed--We-can-t-take-focus-off-jobs-and-economy.html?nav=5007 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967531 | 430 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Israel and Hamas agree to Gaza cease-fire
CAIRO — Israel and the Hamas militant group reached a cease-fire agreement Wednesday to end the fiercest round of fighting in nearly four years, promising to halt attacks on each other and ease an Israeli blockade constricting the Gaza Strip.
Egypt's foreign minister, Mohammed Kamel Amr, said the deal was set to take effect at 9 p.m. local time. (2 p.m. EDT), capping days of intense efforts that drew the world's top diplomats into the fray. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood next to Amr as he announced the breakthrough at a news conference in Cairo.
The agreement will "improve conditions for the people of Gaza and provide security for the people of Israel," Clinton said. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he agreed to the cease-fire after consulting with President Barack Obama.
If you have any technical difficulties, either with your username and password or with the payment options, please contact us by e-mail at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:39206f05-47df-4993-82dc-0d92165016d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nwherald.com/2012/11/21/israel-and-hamas-agree-to-gaza-cease-fire/a4pvfl6/ | 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 | 0.949552 | 222 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Since the beheadings of three Christian girls in Poso last Saturday, international Christian groups have condemned the attacks and expressed deep concern over the safety of Indonesian Christians.
"This is a sickening and horrific attack on innocent schoolgirls. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who have lost their loved ones in such a brutal attack," stated Tina Lambert, Advocacy Director of Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a UK-based Christian human rights watchdog.
The Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also condemned the attacks and ordered the police to track down the perpetrators under the pressure of local churches. Although no individuals have been accused of the crime thus far, Christians and the security forces apparently blamed Islamic extremists for a series of attacks, according to the Associated Press.
The three Christian high school students from the Byuym Boyo village near the Poso city in the province of Central Sulawesi were attacked by men on their way to school with machetes and beheaded at around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 29, CSWs report stated. They were Ida Sambue and Theresa, both 16, and Alfita aged 18. The fourth girl, Noviana, 16, was also left injured in the attack.
The heads of the three were later found inside plastic bags near a church and a police station, with a warning written on them that another 100 Christian teenagers would be killed, CSW reported.
In the midst of rising tension between Muslims and Christians, 1,500 Indonesian troopers are on high alert fearing a new wave of violence and revenge may break out, AP reported especially when Muslims were preparing to greet the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan last Thursday.
Regardless, "some Indonesian Christians are doubtful about how much will be achieved, given the security forces' record of reluctance to protect Christians or to bring their attackers to justice," according to a statement released by the UK-based Christian organization Barnabas Fund.
The Barnabas Fund recalled that Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, Moderator for the Central Sulawesi Christian Reform Church and Chairmen of the Central Sulawesi Churches Crisis Co-ordination Center, was imprisoned for two years simply for trying to bring attention to the anti-Christian violence in Central Sulawesi. He was released in November 2004.
Christian residents said yesterday to AP that they were afraid to leave their homes. "We are really scared," said Noldi, a Christian who lives in the same village as the three murdered girls.
Until individuals responsible for Saturdays attacks are found, Muslim and Christian leaders are calling on their followers to remain calm and to resist from revenge. According to CSW, even though Damanik is currently on a speaking tour of the UK with CSW, the central Sulawesi Chief of Police and local churches have asked him to return to help calm the situation.
Damanik said in the CSW statement, "I would like the international community to encourage the Indonesian government to take action to bring peace and stability to the Poso region of Central Sulawesi."
Lambert of CSW added, "CSW will continue to support the reconciliation process and all the more so in light of this recent violence. We call on the Indonesian authorities to bring those responsible to justice and to take appropriate and expedient measures to restore calm to the region."
Meanwhile, Barnabas Fund called on Christians to pray for the devastated families of the slain Christian girls as well as for the Christian community, that God will give them comfort and peace. Barnabas Fund also urged prayers for 16-year-old Noviana the sole survivor of last months attack that she can recover soon physically and spiritually.
Moreover, Barnabas Fund urges prayer that "the Indonesian government and security forces will follow through their verbal promises by actively pursuing the murderers and ensuring real justice is served" and that they will also "act to protect Christians in Indonesia from further violence." | <urn:uuid:c3918f3b-77d0-4e42-b42b-13551bacea36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-groups-call-on-prayers-for-indonesian-christians-after-beheadings-1437/ | 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 | 0.968722 | 815 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Posted by Dawn-Ann on June 27, 2010
We all dream big dreams when we’re young, don’t we? Things are black and white and man, we’re going to change the world.
But life often jades us. We get caught up in the day-to-day and lose our dreams along the way. We start to second-guess ourselves and wonder how we were foolish enough to think we could change anything.
That’s the premise of Pamela Slim’s moving blog entry, Note to younger self: you were right. In it, she reflects upon the big dreams of her college days. Surely, she says, “with compassionate hearts and some really good slide shows, we could fix everything.” After struggling with discouragement, years later Pamela discovers you can change the world – if not in grandiose ways, then one tiny corner at a time.
Her article gives me hope. Read the rest of it here.
Leave a comment, and if you'd like your own picture to show up next to your comments, go get a gravatar! | <urn:uuid:1c3530d0-f17e-40c0-afd5-7e0476a848ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dawnann.com/blog/maybe-you-were-right-all-along/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951541 | 233 | 1.632813 | 2 |
St. Louis is Tops in Postal Carrier Dog Bites
|It's up to you to prevent this.|
OK, it's not actually that funny. The U.S. Postal Service today released data on the nation's top cities for dog attacks on postal carriers, and St. Louis tied for fifth (along with San Antonio) with 39 attacks in 2010. Houston was the top dog, with 62 letter carriers bitten last year.
"People laugh, ha ha. It's not funny," says Mark Saunders with the postal service. "Until you've experienced it, you can't imagine." Saunders himself recalls being attacked by a pooch while riding his bike as a kid.
The data were released to coincide with Dog Bite Prevention Week, which runs from May 15-21. The USPS was out $1.2 million last year in medical care for carriers who looked cross-eyed at Fido. And according to the Insurance Information Institute, more than a third of homeowners' insurance payouts were related to dog bites, to the tune of $413 million.
So it's serious business, and dog owners need to be aware that even though of course darling FiFi is a perfect angel, dogs' protective impulses can and do kick in. Any dog might interpret the friendly lady coming to the door with a box full of Internet shoes as a threat, and switch into defense mode. Saunders says postal customers should put their pet in another room, behind a closed door, whenever they open up for a carrier.
Postal carriers are trained to maneuver rain, snow, sleet and hail, of course. But they're also trained to avoid dog attacks, and they pack heat.
"We give them extensive training," says Saunders. "They're trained to place their satchels between them and an animal. And they carry a little can of pepper spray -- it's been approved by the Humane Society."
How to Avoid Being Bitten· Don't run past a dog. The dog's natural instinct is to chase and catch you.· If a dog threatens you, don't scream. Avoid eye contact. Try to remain motionless until the dog leaves, then back away slowly until the dog is out of sight.· Don't approach a strange dog, especially one that's tethered or confined.· People choosing to pet dogs should obtain permission from the owner first and always let a dog see and sniff them before petting the animal.· If you believe a dog is about to attack you, try to place something between yourself and the dog, such as a backpack or a bicycle.
How to Be a Responsible Dog Owner· Obedience training can teach dogs proper behavior and help owners control their dogs.· When a carrier comes to your home, keep your dog inside, away from the door in another room.· Dogs can be protective of their territory and may interpret the actions of letter carriers as a threat. Please take precautions when accepting mail in the presence of your pet.· Spay or neuter your dog. Neutered dogs are less likely to roam and bite.· Dogs that receive little attention or handling, or are left tied up for long periods of time, frequently turn into biters. | <urn:uuid:39ded0f8-4181-444a-80e8-531429ffa72a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2011/05/postal_service_dog_bites.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967171 | 655 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Why do I need one?
You need a Social Security number to get a job, collect Social Security benefits and receive some other government services. But you don't often need to show your Social Security card. Do not carry your card with you. Keep it in a safe place with your other important papers.
How to Get a New or Replacement Card
All documents submitted must be either originals or copies certified by the issuing agency. We cannot accept photocopies or notarized copies of documents.
Get a certified copy of a document showing a birth, marriage or divorce that took place in the U.S.
If you are filing an application on behalf of someone else, you also must show us evidence of your relationship to, or responsibility for, the person for whom you are filing. You must also show us proof of your identity.
Free Social Security Services
Some businesses advertise that they can provide name changes or Social Security cards for a fee. These services are provided free by Social Security, so do not pay for something that is free. Social Security is the best place to get information about Social Security. | <urn:uuid:4a8bb630-8b31-403c-afc7-12b7802dae96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ftp.ssa.gov/ssnumber/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942531 | 226 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicine in treating liver fibrosis
Source: http://7thspace.com/headlines/406858/effectiveness_of_chinese_herbal_medicine_in_treating_liver_fibrosis_a_systematic_review_and_meta_analysis_of_randomized_controlled_trials.htmlThe studies on the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicines (CHM) in treating liver fibrosis (LF) were not consistent. This study aims to systematically review the effectiveness of CHM on treating LF patients.
Methods: Databases including MEDLINE, AMED, EMBASE, The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, TCMOnline, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and Chinese Medical Current Contents were searched up to March 2011.
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving LF patients receiving CHM, Western medicine, combined CHM and Western medicine compared with placebo, Western medicine or no intervention were included. LF markers including serum hyaluronic acid (HA), laminin (LN), procollagen type III (PC-III), type IV collagen (IV-C), matrix metalloproteinase (MMP), and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase (TIMP) were measured as primary outcomes.
Liver biochemistry, including alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartarte aminotransferase (AST), and improvement of related clinical symptoms were measured as secondary outcomes. Risk of bias of allocation sequence, allocation concealment, blinding, incomplete outcome data, selective outcome reporting, and other biases were assessed.
Results: Twenty-three RCTs with 2123 participants were analyzed in subgroups of types of comparison and study quality.
Fifteen studies were graded as good quality. CHM alone and combined with Western medicine showed significant improvements in HA, LN, PC-III and IV-C compared with Western medicine alone.
However, there were no significant differences observed between CHM and placebo treatments.
Conclusion: The current inconclusive results in determining the effectiveness of CHM treatment on LF, due to the poor methodological quality and high heterogeneity of the studies, suggests that large RCTs using standardized Chinese medicine syndrome diagnosis and CHM formulae with longer follow-up are required for further evaluation.
Author: Fan CheungYibin FengNing WangMan-Fung YuenYao TongVivian Taam Wong | <urn:uuid:67fddee7-b18d-4594-83b4-91da8e976de3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinesemedicinetimes.com/article.php/38/effectiveness_of_chinese_herbal_medicine_in_treating_liver_fibrosis/10f63006e3ce4bab8d550d4fbbb294c0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930228 | 521 | 1.617188 | 2 |
July 26, 2011
Stand Up America Now condemns the attack that took place in Norway. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of violence. These types of acts are perpetrated by misguided individuals, and could continue out of a desperation to bring attention to the growing threat of radical Islam.
As long as our governments continue to ignore the radical element of Islam and as they continue to justify its violent actions by adapting to a policy of political correctness, there will be a great danger.
Hopefully this event will not be used as a type of smokescreen to cover up the violent activities of Islam that take place worldwide. Since the 9/11 attack in 2001 there has been over 18,000 Islamic terrorist attacks injuring and killing many people. The threat of radical Islam needs to be addressed by our governments and necessary measures must be taken to stop it.
- Dr. Terry Jones
Founder and President, Stand Up America Now | <urn:uuid:91ab653f-4503-4d35-b2e6-3af902efad9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://1389blog.com/2011/07/26/dr-terry-jones-response-to-developments-in-norway-attack/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962129 | 185 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Pagan Radio Network
Mystic sounds of Norway and Iceland
Steeped in culture and rich with history, Volva Songs EP strikes a chord for anyone who has ever been interested in the northern countries like Norway, and Iceland. Have you have ever wondered what kinds of songs the early Vikings might have sung around a campfire? In my opinion, I don't think you can get much closer than Volva Songs EP. Volva is Old Norse for “Staff Carrier”, what we could consider a bard or storyteller. Kari uses the staff as a rhythm instrument, a method she calls “Volva Stav”.
She explains: “My work as Volva gently pulls the threads of our indigenous European tapestry, mends them to our immigrant memories, and spins a new thread for our children that is true, restores identity, and creates cultural healing. ”
The acoustic guitar is used in some of the pieces to add a warmth to the songs. The ambiance created by these songs drips with the essence of the “old ways”. Even if you aren't fluent in Norse or Icelandic (neither am I), this is a rich and wonderful album to enjoy, it truly transcends words and relies instead on the emotions that it stirs.
"Dromte Mig", the fourth song on the album is by far my favorite. I'm reminded of a video that I had seen of one of Kari's performances in which she sings this song. Throughout the song, she is spinning thread with an old fashioned drop spindle. As I listen to this song, I can vividly see a group of women sitting around singing and spinning their thread, carrying on a tradition that was passed from mother to daughter. This song relates that bond of passing tradition down through a family or community. The song starts off slow and soft and builds to a wonderful crescendo.
Number three on the album, "Oppi Li" is one of those songs that is, in my opinion, pure unadulterated fun! The only musical accompaniment is a drum and of course Kari's ever-present Stav. No other instruments are needed as Kari's wonderful voice could easily carry this song a capella. This piece has a wonderful tempo that will have you wishing for a bonfire to dance around.
"Svarterabben", the last song on this album, coming in a close second, is another favorite of mine. It combines a beautiful melody, wonderfully played on an acoustic guitar, along with Kari's powerful and wide-ranging voice. I love the tune to this song, whenever I hear it, I want to join in and sing along. . . if only my voice had the range.
This is an album that I have wanted to write a review about for some time. I have always been fascinated in the histories of the various peoples of the world. There is so much that was once known, but through the passage of time has been lost, it's exciting to see someone actively working to recover some of that history. I applaud the work of Kari Tauring and hope to hear more of her work in the future.
If Volva Songs EP sounds like something you would like to experience for yourself, you can get it here. Kari has a number of videos on her site in which she not only performs, but also explains in greater depth, her use of the Volva Stav.
~ Reviewed by Chris "Thaskalas" Madison:
Pagan Radio Network | <urn:uuid:04884ae2-47d1-4d04-9d8b-f5e8345827a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/kari3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970117 | 734 | 1.59375 | 2 |
NEW DELHI: Global financial services firm Moody's today said Indian economy is facing stagflation, where growth is slow and inflation high, and cautioned that the Reserve Bank cannot be too aggressive in cutting interest rates.
"India's economy is in stagflation, with notably weaker growth but inflation still stubbornly high," said Glenn Levine, Senior Economist, Moody's Analytics.
Amid wholesale price-based inflation ticking up to 7.5 per cent year-on-year in May due to supply-side factors, the agency said it will cause further "headaches" at the RBI.
"Yet with the inflation numbers now being driven by supply-side factors, and with the currency being pushed downwards...and India's weaker growth prospects, we think that the RBI could cut rates without it putting too much upward pressure on inflation," said Moody's Analytics.
However, it said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cannot be "too aggressive" while inflation remains a problem.
The RBI is scheduled to review mid-quarter monetary policy on June 18.
Moody's said the recent plunge in the rupee is pushing up the price, especially imported of goods and commodities priced in US dollar.
It further said with the rupee now sitting 15 per cent below its peak of late-February, this will ensure that WPI inflation remains in the 7 per cent to 8 per cent range for another six months.
"Indeed, with the growth side of the economy slowing, the risks have shifted sharply towards growth and they (the RBI and other policy makers) should just grin and bear the higher inflation numbers," it added.
Stagflation is a situation when economic growth of a country stagnates while inflation is rising.
Moody's Analytics is a part of Moody's Corp that provides expertise in economic and consumer credit analysis, credit research and risk measurement, among others. | <urn:uuid:0b98f6bb-636b-40b6-a3d8-02e869314ce7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-06-14/news/32236076_1_supply-side-factors-wpi-inflation-stagflation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961991 | 383 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Let me say that I am not a technophobe - I cannot be since my income comes from writing about new computer technology. However, in my day job I tell people how best to use the new technology, rather than simply fawning over the latest offering from big software or hardware manufacturers. My approach, which is to tell my readers when a product is not worth using (or how to get the inferior product to work), has not always made life easy for me - a few years back I was told by a product manager at Microsoft that I would never again be invited to test a Microsoft product, but in spite of that, I have.
I do think that technology has a role to play in managing chronic conditions, (in particular, in my own case with type 1 diabetes) but we have to be careful about what we use technology for, and don't simply replace common sense with a new gadget. As a born cynic, I usually regard the introduction of a new gadget to be simply a way for a company to make profits from the sick, so the gadget manufacturer has to try hard to convince me otherwise. Here are a few thoughts about telemedicine in our new NHS.
The first thing we have to bear in mind is that any telemedicine solution should be available to all. There is no point in choosing an extremely expensive piece of kit - even if it has all of the bells and whistles on it - because few people will be able to own the kit and benefit from the technology. There is an argument that the price of the kit will come down eventually, but you have to make sure that the starting point is low enough to get enough people initially using the kit. For this reason I reject solutions like the iPhone, iPad (and other tablets), Windows phones and Android phones. Smartphones in the region of £300 or more are simply too expensive: people won't buy them, and if the NHS buys them then there is the problem of patients losing them (or worse) generating a black market in "mislaid" smartphones.
If the device is to be used all the time then it has to be one which you, personally, can afford to lose. I have an £80 Samsung touch screen phone, I can afford to lose this, so I am happy to have it in my pocket all the time; I cannot afford to lose a £400 HTC Windows phone or a £600 iPhone, so I do not carry one. If the device is so expensive that I have to leave it in a padded case at home, then it will not be used regularly. Even the bargain basement phones available now are significantly more powerful than the first generation PCs, and yet without the first PCs we would not be where we are now.
The application should only be regarded as useful if the patient finds it difficult to live without it, but this also means that the application (and the device) must be freely available so that if they need to get a replacement they can. For example, a few years back I forgot to take my blood testing kit on holiday. These days blood sugar testing is a vital part of controlling diabetes, so a week away (and one when I was expecting to do a lot of hiking, as well as eating out in country pubs) from my blood sugar meter would be catastrophic. So, as soon as I could, I went into a local chemist where there was a display of meters and bought one for about £25. Blood sugar meters are usually sold at a loss (in fact, most are given away) because the manufacturers make their money from the test strips (in my case, each strip costs about 30p), so in this situation I chose the meter that came with the most number of "free" strips. Similarly, if I lose my insulin pen, I can go into any chemist and purchase disposable insulin syringes. The extra cost on me is acceptable - I don't want to have to pay for syringes or blood test strips all the time, but it is important that the cost is low enough (disposable syringes, a meter with "free" strips) for a one-off purchase, if necessary. So a device used for telemedicine must be freely available, and simple to set up.
The next thing to consider is features. The device has to be usable by as many people as possible. We are talking about telemedicine here, so the people using the device will be patients and many will have poor eyesight, poor co-ordination or impaired touch. A diminutive phone may fit nicely in your shirt pocket, but it is useless if a patient consistently presses the wrong button because they are too small.
I'm in my mid-forties and I have had cataract replacement, so that means that I have less than perfect eyes. I get extremely irritated when I am asked to evaluate some software written by a 20somthing with perfect eyes who's chosen to use 6pt light grey text on a slightly darker grey background. I get even more irritated when I find that there is no way I can change the colours or text size. I am not unusual, and whenever I bring up such complaints with colleagues who do similar work, they always agree with me. Yet the software vendors still seem to insist on only employing 20somthings with perfect eyesight who write software with small text and low contrast.
As far as I am concerned LCD displays are useless, the contrast is too low, but in the past all blood sugar meters have had LCD displays so I have always chosen the ones with the largest display to give me some change of reading what it says. Recently I bought a Bayer Contour USB, not because I can plug it into my computer, but because it has an OLED display. It is the most readable of any meter I have ever used, but even it has its faults. When the meter first displays the results it uses the full height of the display, shown here (more or less life size):
This is readable, but this figure only shows for a few seconds before the device quickly zooms the figure down to half height because, well because some trendy 20somthing thought that it is "cool" to do that. Well fine, you be "cool" if you like, but please give me the option of only displaying results in the large font. The smaller display is shown here, and this is the size of the font when displaying stored results:
The extra data at the top of the display (and at the bottom when viewing stored results) may be useful, but surely I should be given the option to only display it when I press one of the buttons? So my perfect device is only perfect for the few seconds that it shows the large figure. This is an example of a device with a great feature that has been spoiled by over-egging that feature (adding the extra info on the display) or by not allowing me to choose how I want the display to work.
The final thing I should mention is development. Developers should recognise that although they may have one good idea, they do not have a monopoly on them and that others may have better ideas. Windows became an important platform for business not just because of the way that Microsoft sold the operating system, but because it was so easy to write applications with Visual Basic (and to a lesser extent, with C++ and MFC). Not only could you write applications in a matter of minutes, but you could also access the features of other applications (like Word or Excel) and use them in your application. The result was a large number of hobbyists developing applications, which resulted in a large number of free applications and a large pool of people from which the commercial software houses could employ, at a relatively low rate.
It is important, then to target a platform which has the largest number of users, and also to make your application and its data as open as possible. So if you develop some innovative way of presenting data, or using the hardware of the device, provide that through an open library so that other developers can use the library and provide additional features that you do not.
However, I have already discounted smartphones because they are too expensive. These days most phones will run Java in some form or another. Thus it makes sense to develop a telemedicine application using Java. Java allows you to develop libraries that can be distributed compiled (so you can allow others to use your functionality without disclosing how you do it).
So in summary. A telemedicine application should target a cheap, freely available device, one that can be used by as many patients as possible. The application should be configurable, and allow patients to change the screen fonts, colours and even the buttons that are used. It should also be as open as possible, allowing other applications to use the data your application generates, and use your functionality through an open library. | <urn:uuid:c18298e9-5bdd-4bb4-9d4b-be10238b3164> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nhsvault.blogspot.com/2011/05/telemedicine.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959819 | 1,822 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the 20th century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
Now, many years after the end of World War II, it may seem incredible that our most valued institutions and way of life were threatened by the menace that Hitler and the Third Reich represented. Shirer’s description of events and the cast of characters who played such pivotal roles in defining the course Europe was to take is unforgettable.
Benefiting from his many years as a reporter, and thus a personal observer of the rise of Nazi Germany, and availing himself of some of the 485 tons of documents from the German Foreign Office, as well as countless other diaries, phone transcriptions, and other written records, meticulously kept at every level by the Germans, Shirer has put together a brutally objective account of how Hitler wrested political control of Germany, and planned and executed his six-year quest to dominate the world, only to see Germany go down in flames.
This is a richly rewarding experience for anyone who wants to come to grips with the mysterious question of how this menace to civilization ever came into being, much less was sustained for as long as it was. The answer, unfortunately, is that most of Germany, for a whole host of reasons, embraced Nazism and the fanaticism that Hitler engendered.
©1990 William L. Shirer (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
“One of the most important works of history of our time.” (The New York Times)
”A splendid work of scholarship, objective in method, sound in judgment, inescapable in its conclusions.” (The New York Times Book Review)
I always buy a long volume with trepidation wondering how many "dry spots" or "dry epochs" will be contained therein. This volume was amazing in that I was fascinated and interested every minute. The story focused on the characters while the overall picture was interwoven in their interactions and lives, particulary Hitler of course. The details added to the interest rather than extend it unnecessarily. This is a book that I will very probably savor again.
I enjoy history and military history and this is probably the best I have read.
In the 1990's I listened to the older BOT cassette version of this work read by Larry McKeever. He did a good job. To have this redone by Grover Gardner is a HUGE gift to us all (Thank you Grover). He does a much better job and his European pronunciations are very competent. I have read that Shirer's work is not liked by many historians in this field (especially by the Germans) but I find his writing to be on par with the great narrative historians (McCullough, Caro, Chernow, etc.). I am also listening to Richard Evans's Third Reich trilogy and, although its more thoroughly researched, his writing is not near Shirer's in elegance. And the reader is not near the quality of Mr Gardner. One of the lessons learned from this tragic story is that numerous and fractured political parties can lead to disaster for everyone.
Of all the books I have read covering the Nazi era this is simply the best book of its type. Nothing else comes close to its readability and scope, and Shirer's presence in Germany as a reporter at the time allowed him to add many personal observations that add greatly to the authenticity of the book. While the book is now about 50 years old, research since its publication has changed few of its conclusions. It is less academic and detailed than Richard Evans triology of the period, but I found Shirer's book both more complete in its observations and much more readable. The quality of this book is evident from the fact that in all of that time, and with all of the books on the period that have been written, this book has never been out of print.
And though it needs nothing else, Grover Gardiner's flawless reading only makes the book even better. This is easily one of the 10 best books I have ever read from Audible and I recommend it without reservation to anyone with an interest in World War II in Europe.
A word of caution - this is not a dispassionate book. Shirer had definate opinions and those are not hidden. His distain for many of the primary players is clearly evident in his descriptions and that may offend some readers. This is not an academic book (See Richard Evans' Nazi trilogy for a dispassionate academic telling of the period), but no other book comes close to its readability and comprehensiveness. It covers the political events and there is no concentration on the war (see Richard Atkinson's WW II military trilogy for that).
I am an avid listener. I listen between 75-100 hours per month on my iPhone: 60% fiction to 40% non-fiction.
Never before had I read a firsthand account, from primary sources, as damning as this book. All of the negative superlatives that one could pen I have not the number of commas in my repertoire to string them together. You get a striking picture of Hitler, who he was, what he did and how he failed. As grotesque as he may be, the intellectual flyweights he surrounded himself with defy understanding. How, intelligent and gifted military leaders allowed themselves to be led into the manifest slaughter of innocent people – well I have no words. Read the book and you too will be speechless.
The book is built on primary reference materials and hence, I confess, unless I had listened to it, I would not have been able to get through it. It is essentially a 50 hour audio documentary. Although I could not listen at my usual three to four hours a day because I was so disturbed and depressed by the subject matter, I had to finish. And, to think, how close Hilter came to winning on at least four occasions makes me breathless about what evil he would have wrought and what the world would have been like today.
Hitler came to power and in twelve short years of rule and conquest - five of them in war - caused over 30 million people to be killed, not mention the number of people forced to kill on his behalf or to fend off those trying to kill them. It is a testament to how a single perverted point of view with power to influence the masses can spin lies and deceit that move ordinary people to be puppets. Looking to today’s world situation, you have to ask yourself whether parallels exist. You must listen to this book! I also highly recommend the Winds of War and War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk which is a true story set with fictional characters. For a Japanese view of history, read Flyboys by James Bradley.
This is must read for a serious historian. Do not expect to find gruesome details; expect to find a documented story that causes you to reconsider history and today’s world.
It might be 50 years old, but William Shirer's book is just as gripping and just as important today as ever. It is amazingly well researched and the perspective of someone that was a close and personal observer to much of the Nazi period.
Yes, it is long. At 57 plus hours, my wife reckons I've listened to Grover Gardner more than I've listened to her in 15 years of marriage. But Mr Gardner stays claim and steady throughout and never gets upset at my "what?" His narration is absolutely first class. One can't imagine a better combination than Shirer and Gardner.
My reading and listening tastes are eclectic.
Mr. Shirer wrote this book in the '50's, while the second world war was still very fresh in everyone's mind. While some of the advantages to examining the events that occurred after many of the principles involved had passed are clearly evident, I was very enlightened about the events that led to the rise and fall of the Third Reich. It is very evident that Mr. Shirer has certain biases that were widespread during that period. However, even that frames the events in a way a more open acceptance would not be able to do. This was a great listen, and I found it captivating.
Grover Gardner is a good choice as narrator for this long, disturbing, and important book. As he did in Shelby Foote's three-volume history of the Civil War, Gardner shows himself a master of keeping the narrative going and keeping the details clear. William Shirer apparently got a lot of grief when the book was first published (some 50 years ago) -- a journalist trespassing on the domain of historians -- but he seems to have read every Nazi document that had been made public at the time, and combined with his razor-sharp eye-witness accounts of several key events, the book has an immediacy that few other histories are able to convey. I'm sure many of the facts have been refined, and I hope to finish listening to Richard Evans' recent history of the Third Reich as well, but I doubt that later volumes will have the same visceral impact this one did.
I've spent my life hearing important WWII stories, but never managed to have quite the sense of context needed to understand how they all fit together. This book analyzes the most important factor of the war -- Hitler's Third Reich -- in minute detail from the beginning to the end. And in so doing, provides the reader with a amazingly thorough understanding of exactly how the world landed in the mess it did.
This work of exhaustive research, beautifully composed and narrated, should be required reading for anybody who values democracy and peace.
I rarely read historic works, but I'd heard that this was THE book on the subject and was compelled to find out what the fuss was about. I had to go back and relisten to sections quite often, but it was worth every rewind to make sure I had the players straight. The minor failings for me are: Shirer is quite biased against Germans in some statements. If I were German I would find it a bit patronizing. Also, Shirer, a man of his times, makes no bones about his homophobic leanings. But, it is a book of its time and these biases situate the reader more firmly in that time with Shirer, who lived it as an observer. I found that I was discussing the book with my partner, who was also listening to it, quite a lot. We were making comparisons to other, more recent political happenings and finding that quite a disturbing prospect. The audio book is also masterfully read. This reader is gifted and the absolute perfect, grave and strong voice for this.
Avid reader until vision impairment set in. Now an avid listener!
A detailed, compelling, and haunting account of the rise of Hitler and the infliction of his satanic will on humanity. Shirer's great strengths are his personal familiarity with the Third Reich (he was a correspondent based in Germany for many years) and the massive amount of research he did into the then-newly released primary documents. I thought I was well versed in this period, but some of the revelations in the book made me gasp out loud. It is so immediate that the listener feels as if he's an eyewitness to the often harrowing sequence of events. And the narrator, Grover Gardner, is perfect, in my opinion. Kudos to him for the sense of gravitas he gives to the reading, the apt pacing, and the excellent pronunciation of German, French, and Italian names and places.
Report Inappropriate Content
If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action. | <urn:uuid:aed14f7e-02a1-4ca0-ad85-2f113cd33d5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=cat_10?asin=B003VWJAPA | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979527 | 2,483 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Research and discussion paper
Priests and gender in South Sulawesi, Indonesia
Sharyn Graham, University of Western Australia
Copyright Sharyn Graham to whom requests for reproduction and dissemination falling under copyright laws must be made
Sharyn Graham is a PhD candidate in the Departments of Asian Studies and Anthrpology at the University of Western Australia studying with Dr Greg Acciaioli and Dr Lyn Parker. At October 2002 she is on a 6-month Huygen’s scholarship to study at the KITLV in the Netherlands with Dr Roger Tol and Sirtjo Koolhof.
The bissu are imagined to be hermaphroditic beings who embody female and male elements. For anyone interested in the study of sex and gender, the Bugis offer an exceptionally rich canvas for research.
For the past few years I have been conducting anthropological research into ideas and forms of gender in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. While initially I was concerned with men and women, upon arrival I realised that gender in South Sulawesi is much more complex.
Among the Bugis of South Sulawesi, possibly four genders are acknowledged plus a fifth para-gender identity. In addition to male-men (oroane) and female-women (makunrai) [categories similar to those in Australia], there are calalai (masculine females), calabai (feminine males), and bissu. In this article, I will focus on bissu, who act as priests.
The Bugis, the largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi, have an incredibly rich oral history, as well as an extensive history of written material. If you were to ask someone in South Sulawesi how they imagine their world came to be, you would probably be told a narrative in which bissu play a central role.
You ask how this world came to be? Well let me tell you. Up there in the heavens, the gods decided they would bring life to this lonely planet. They therefore sent down one of their most aspiring deities, Batara Guru. But Batara Guru was not good at organising things. To do all of this, two bissu were needed. So the gods sent down two bissu who flanked Batara Guru as he descended. And when they arrived, the bissu set about making everything blossom; they created language, culture, customs [adat] and all of the things that a world needs if it is going to blossom. That’s how the world began, you see [Haj Bacco’]
In addition to the rich oral tradition of the Bugis, origin narratives have been recorded on lontar palm leaves since around the sixteenth century. One such recorded narrative tells of Sarawigading and WeCudai, the marriage of whom resulted in the birth of the first human on earth.
Sarawigading desperately wanted to marry with WeCudai but she lived on an island in the middle of the lake. Sarawigading had no way of getting to the middle of the lake but he knew he must. Sarawigading decided he must make a boat and paddle out to WeCudai. But how to make a boat? If only he could cut this massive tree down. But try as he might he was not powerful enough to do so. Sarawigading burst into frustrated tears and cried long into the night. He would never be able to cut down this tree and make a boat and he would never reach WeCudai. But there was a bissu in the heavens above heard Sarawigading cry. The bissu descended and said, "Please don’t worry, I will cut down the tree and help you make the boat." And the bissu cut down the tree because s/he had the strength of both man and woman, and mortal and deity.
What these origin narratives serve to demonstrate is that the bissu have a primary position in the minds of the Bugis in their imaginations of the past. Recourse to such important roles allows the bissu to assert and maintain a revered position in contemporary Bugis society.
So who are bissu? Bissu are imagined to be intersexed beings who embody female and male elements. While it is enough that one’s body is imagined intersexed, while often being anatomically male, bissu consciously dress in ways that highlight male and female characteristics. A bissu may carry a man’s badi’ (knife) but wear flowers in hir hair like a woman. Not only, however, do bissu have to combine female and male attributes, they must also combine human elements with spirit elements. It is essential that bissu have good connections with the spirit world in order to make contact with the gods. To do this, bissu must be part spirit (dewata). In order for them to be possessed by spirits – so they can thus bestow blessings – bissu must also be part human (manusia). In essence, then, bissu are female/male, deity/mortal beings, who can be, and often are, possessed by spirits in order to give blessings.
The main role of the bissu, then, is to bestow blessings. And blessings can be for just about anything. A bissu blessing is performed before planting rice and before harvesting; bissu consecrate marriages; and - what may seem ironic, but actually is not - bissu give blessings to people before they on the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. And the reason that this is not ironic is because of the way in which the Bugis have managed to syncretise pre-Islamic beliefs with Islam, which forbids transgendered behavior. For instance, before Islam the Bugis honoured a god called PaTotoe. Some Bugis believe that Allah is actually PaTotoe but by a different name. Moreover, while bissu still call to deities to possess them, they always begin by seeking the blessing and advice of Allah. Bissu have altered some of their practices, though, such as walking on fire because it is believed to be contrary to Islam.
How do bissu bestow blessings? In order to bestow a blessing, a bissu must be possessed by an appropriate deity. Only bissu can become possessed because only bissu are the required mix of mortal and deity, feminine and masculine. To awaken the deities, bissu first perform and elaborate ritual involving chanting, music, and the offering of ritual foods. Once the deities have been awakened, they select from among themselves which one is best able to offer the requested blessing. This deity will then descend and possess the bissu. The bissu will awaken from trance and their entire demeanor is different; they become irritable and aggressive. This change in demeanor is not enough, however, to convince the people gathered around, and more importantly, the person who has requested the blessing, that the bissu has now been possessed. Proof of possession is sought. In response to this challenge, the bissu must then perform the ma’giri, or self-stabbing. To perform this, a bissu will take a sacred kris (knife) which has been passed down through many generations of bissu, and attempt to penetrate their skin with the kris. Bissu will even go to the extent of lying on the floor with the kris pressed into their throat. Other places where the kris is aimed are the palm and temple.
If the kris does not penetrate the skin, the bissu is said to be kebal (impenetrable), and thus has proved hir invulnerability – a sure sign that the bissu has been possessed by a powerful spirit. The bissu host, and the deity who has possessed hir, are then able to offer blessings. If, however, the kris does not penetrate, the bissu is said to be possessed by a weak, impotent spirit, or no spirit at all, and is therefore not allowed to bestow blessings.
How do you become a bissu? It is believed that you are born with the propensity to become a bissu. Most auspiciously, this is revealed in a baby whose genitalia is ambiguous. Ambiguous genitalia is not enough to ensure that you become a bissu, however. Moreove, ambiguous genitalia need not be visible; a normative male who becomes a bissu is believed to be female on the inside. By the age of about twelve, if a child demonstrates a close connection with the spirit world, they are groomed to become a bissu. In the past, such a child would be apprenticed to the royal court. Nowadays, a child will become the apprentice of an individual bissu. After many years of training, an apprentice bissu will undergo a number of tests in order to become a bissu. This includes, among many other tests, lying on a bamboo raft in the middle of a lake for three days and three nights without eating, drinking or moving. If the apprentice survives this and wakes from the trance fluent in the sacred bissu language Basa Bissu or Bahasa Dewata (language of the gods), they are then accepted as a bissu.
A study of the bissu and their role and position in Bugis society has the potential to make some substantial contributions to our understanding of how different societies organise and interpret gender. Not all societies assert that there are just two genders, woman and man, attached respectively to two biological sexes, female and male. Some societies, such as the Bugis, acknowledge possibly four gender categories, in addition to a fifth para-gender group – the bissu. It is from Bugis that we can learn much about acceptance and respect for a panoply of gender identities. | <urn:uuid:1b657103-07b9-4236-90d8-4f1df048f49f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://web.hku.hk/~sjwinter/TransgenderASIA/paper_priests_and_gender.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955443 | 2,074 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Q1 – How do I keep the channels of communication open without my daughter thinking I am neurotic?
A1 – It is important that your daughter knows how to communicate with you and for you to know the best ways in which to communicate with her. Talk to your daughter about what she would prefer – whether you should check in with her in person, by phone or by text. Try to do it in an unobtrusive way, but remind her that you are checking up on her as you are concerned about her personal well-being and safety. It may also be useful to have the mobile phone numbers of some of her friends so you can drop them a brief text if you are unable to get hold of your daughter. However, be careful only to use these numbers in an emergency.
Q2 – Why is it that my daughter is always so horrible to me, yet can wrap her father around her little finger?
A2 – The relationship between mothers and daughters is probably both the most fruitful and the most fraught one there is. The daughter often over-identifies with the mother and the feelings of hate and love are often intertwined. The mother is fully aware of the perils and pitfalls that may occur during their daughters’ teenage years and she feels deeply protective of her daughter. Fathers on the other hand see their beautiful daughter emerging and are charmed by her. Both parents (whether living together or apart) should agree ground rules for your daughter (and of course other children) and stick to them. Giving your daughter a consistent message and setting realistic boundaries is vital and she will thank you for it.
Q3 – How do I handle my daughter’s mood swings?
A3 – Show an interest in your daughters schooling, friends and hobbies, but not to the extent where it is smothering. Communication is vital, spend time listening to her and try to be flexible over some things and aim to avoid confrontation. If she continues to shout and rant and rave, try not to shout back, remember you are the adult in the situation, even if your daughter knows how to push all your buttons! Walk away if you can and try to re-start the conversation when you both are calm. Try to think of teenage tantrums in the same way as toddler tantrums, it may make it easier.
Q4 – What boundaries should I set for my daughters regarding curfew/time to be home at night?
A4 – Teenagers need boundaries. They may not like being told to be home by a certain time but as responsible parents you are showing that you care and ultimately your teenager will value this and feel secure. Agree a time and then ask her to text you so that you know that she is on her way home. This is less intrusive than a phone call, but can be equally reassuring. If your daughter is travelling by public transport ensure that she is travelling with others even if it means having a couple of additional teenagers staying over for the night. Alternatively agree where and when you will collect your daughter, and make sure that you are always there on time. Try to ensure that you are discreet when you collect your daughter. Don’t cross examine her about her evening, wait and allow her to tell you what she has been up to! It is helpful to do a rota with some of your daughter’s friends’ parents if possible as this takes the pressure away from you.
Q5 – How do I know to trust my daughter when she tells me where and who she is going out with?
A5 – You have to build a relationship of trust and mutual respect. You need to be aware that trust has as much to do with your relationship with your daughter as it does with her behaviour. When extending trust you need to make it clear that when giving her trust that you require the truth. Your daughter needs to know for certain that you can survive the truth – even if some times it is ugly, and so can they. Talking to her regularly about concerns regarding school work, friends, social situations and potential pitfalls lets your daughter know where you stand and why. All relationships in life are predicated on trust and honesty. Your daughter needs to know that actions have consequences, but if she is honest your relationship will survive.
Q6 – How do I respond when my daughter tells me the “ugly truth”?
A6 – If your daughter has the guts to tell you that, for example, she has got drunk at a party at the age of 13, the fact that she has told you means that she has been frightened by this and is asking you for your support to help her make better decisions. It may not feel like this at the time, but if you severely punish your daughter then why would she continue to confide in you? You need to help your daughter move on from unfortunate incidents and ensure that she knows how to be safe and secure next time. It isn’t easy, but keep the doors of communication open and she will confide in you. Always remember that you are instilling in your daughter a moral code for her future. If your daughter tells you that she thinks she may be pregnant, take a deep breath and remember that she has told you as she wants you to help her. Take her to the doctor and try to support her through the situation. | <urn:uuid:ff04b06a-9895-4be4-915e-491f70a16451> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mydaughter.co.uk/raising-your-daughter/relationships/faqs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981537 | 1,089 | 1.8125 | 2 |
well this regulation deadline is drawing ever closer and was hoping someone might have suggestions as the best way forward to implement these regulations.
It's not about tracking cookies by the way, it's about ANY cookie dependent on what it is used for!
So how do you go about implementing this in a sensible, user friendly manner?
How do you get your site to work that depends on cookies for shopping carts, user sessions, to stop constant annoying popup add or other authentication methods without cookies?
Here is a link for reference and it also has a link to the guidance PDF http://www.alberon.c...new-cookies-law
All suggestions much appreciated.
below is the guideline for exemption.... (It's not clear where session cookies lie - any ideas?)
Edit-> as a side thought regarding exemption
There is an exception to the requirement to provide information about cookies and obtain consent where the use of the cookie is:
( a ) for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network; or
( b ) where such storage or access is strictly necessary for the provision of an information society service requested by the subscriber or user.
Is a session cookie to authenticate a logged in user or validate a download equivalent to (a) ?
Plus where does this leave members accessing extranet services from 3rd parties, to use these systems can it be implied by the provider that consent has been given by the fact they want to log into your system?
The unbelivable irony of this is astonashing... here is what it says on the ICO website, regarding their cookies....
I accept cookies from this site.
This is a civil servant organisation paid for via taxation, yet they seem to think they can discriminate against those who do not wish to accept their own website cookies!
All services they offer the public should be availabe to all members of the public regardless as to whether they wish to accept their cookies or not, failure to do so is unacceptable and illegal discrimination in my book, what's your take on this?
Edited by 1dmf, 12 January 2012 - 07:23 AM. | <urn:uuid:a3169904-9229-424b-b40a-1b547284fe35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php/topic/45577-eu-cookie-ruling-goes-into-effect-may-25thany-body-see-this/?p=317282 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941148 | 440 | 1.578125 | 2 |
You can view the current or previous issues of Diabetes Health online, in their entirety, anytime you want.
Click Here To View
Latest Diabetes Articles
Popular Diabetes Articles
Highly Recommended Diabetes Articles
Send a link to this page to your friends and colleagues.
Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc. of La Jolla, California, and Smith & Nephew PLC, of London, England, announced the FDA approval of Dermagraft, a treatment for foot ulcers resulting from diabetic neuropathy. Advanced Tissue Sciences is the first company in the United States to receive FDA approval for a skin treatment that is engineered from human cells.
Dermagraft is a skin substitute that contains active, living cells. It comes in the form of a thin sheet of human tissue that must be applied by a clinician. Once the foot wound is cleaned, the sheet of tissue is placed on the wound, measured to fit the area and cut from the sheet. Then, the tissue is implanted into the wound by a doctor.
For more information on Dermagraft, call Smith & Nephew's Wound Management Division at (800) 876-1261.
Diabetes Health is the essential resource for people living with diabetes- both newly diagnosed and experienced as well as the professionals who care for them. We provide balanced expert news and information on living healthfully with diabetes. Each issue includes cutting-edge editorial coverage of new products, research, treatment options, and meaningful lifestyle issues. | <urn:uuid:0119bf5a-162c-45c5-b82a-cce205b23541> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://diabeteshealth.com/read/2001/12/01/3452/that-special-touch/?isComment=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934809 | 303 | 1.5625 | 2 |
About the Photographer
Adams, Shelby Lee
All the while my mind was racing. I wanted to convey both the intimacy of a child's curiosity within a vast family landscape and to capture the beauty of the Appalachian mountain's evening light.
—Shelby Lee Adams, Artist's Statement, 1990
The influence of classic photographers and Southern writers and others who have documented the Appalachian region is clear in the work of Shelby Lee Adams. An image such as The Home Funeral, however, crystallizes the familiar shacks and extended families into something unexpected. Using multiple strobes and an 8×10 view camera, Adams achieves both a special quality of light and a depth of field that keeps everything, from the wall-calendar in the foreground to the stark bulb on the ceiling to the ferns above the coffin, in focus. Adams's composition – marked by sharp division of space and clarity of detail – places the viewer in the role of omniscient visitor to this otherwise private moment. Adams himself, having grown up in Kentucky and familiar with the mountain culture, is both an insider and an outside observer – a dichotomy the documentary photographer must frequently confront. He takes on this role once again in Leddie and Children, conveying a juxtaposition of both the claustrophobic familial closeness and the wide open space of the landscape itself.
Shelby Lee Adams was born in 1950 in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. He now lives there as well as in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts. Appalachia is not only Adams's birthplace, but the subject of his photographs as well. His images, focusing on the lives of the people of Appalachia, have been shown in one-person exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art; the International Center of Photography, New York; Light Work, Syracuse, New York; and the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York. His work is also included in the collections of many major museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others. Adams's photographs have been published in two volumes: Appalachian Legacy (1998) and Appalachian Portraits (1993). | <urn:uuid:773818cb-cb00-4484-826c-a7cb15010779> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mocp.org/detail.php?t=objects&type=tag&f=1988&s=&record=0&tag=funeral | 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 | 0.937151 | 449 | 1.648438 | 2 |
New Photos of Tiger Cubs at Play
The Milwaukee County Zoo’s two new Amur tiger cubs are some of the most fun and engaging animals around. They love to run, jump and play in their exhibit in the Zoo’s Florence Mila Borchert Big Cat Country. Check out the photo slide show below for examples. You might see the cubs trying to play with Mom Amba’s tail! Or you might spot them trying to outrun Mom when they venture too far into the exhibit for her liking. The cubs are just as cute when they take a break: “If they are nursing they will eventually just fall asleep in that position,” says zookeeper Val Werner. The cubs go on exhibit daily 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., but the best time to see them is between 10:30 and 11 a.m., say the keepers. Visit them often! They alternate playing with sleeping and resting behind the scenes.
Looking for the "Purr"fect holiday gift? Sponsor the tiger cubs this holiday season!
See the tiger cubs in action
We've added new videos on our YouTube channel starring these two active additions to the Zoo.
Photos by Dale Gray. | <urn:uuid:63b2f61d-eaa8-4576-bb55-1bc43c74fd0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zoosociety.org/MultiMedia/PhotoGallery/TIGERCUBS09/115/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961192 | 260 | 1.585938 | 2 |
We nearly missed the lovely profile of astrophysicist Carolyn Porco that appeared last week in The New York Times. Porco trailblazed was part of the team that analyzed data from the Voyager spacecraft in the 1980s, making her one of the young up and coming "rock stars" of space science.
Mentored by Carl Sagan, among others, Porco now heads the camera team for the Cassini spacecraft, currently orbiting Saturn (as it has been for the last five years), which recently released some gorgeous new images of the ringed planet. Porco has a colorful background. The daughter of an Italian immigrant who drove a bread truck, she went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook and spent two years as a chanting Buddhist, complete with a pilgrimage to Japan to be a majorette in a Buddhist marching band. She moved on from Buddhism, but not from music: she played guitar and sang with fellow scientists and science writers in the Titan Equatorial Band.
She caught her first glimpse of Saturn at age 13 through a neighbor's rooftop telescope and went on to earn graduate degrees from Caltech, writing her thesis on how the gravitational effects from tiny moonlets helped shape Saturn's rings. She "demonstrated a knack for picking out important things," according to her thesis advisor, Peter Goldreich.
Porco is also actively involved in science communication and outreach, both through the usual channels, and via Hollywood. She was a consultant on the film Contact, and more recently, for J.J. Abrams' summer blockbuster, Star Trek. Remember when the Starship Enterprise materialized inside clouds around Titan? That was Porco's contribution, and it made the cover of Cinefex, a publication devoted to special effects in the movies. "She helped us feel connected to what [series creator] Gene Roddenberry had been trying to do. This is our future," Abrams told the Times. Her favorite movie, though, is Stanley Kubrick's classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
"To my mind, most people go through live recoiling from its best parts," Porco told The New York Times. "They miss the enrichment that just a basic knowledge of the physical world can bring to the most ordinary experiences. It's like there's a pulsating, hidden world, governed by ancient laws and principles, underlying everything around us -- from the movements of electrical charges to the motions of planets -- and most people are completely unaware of it. To me that's a shame." | <urn:uuid:050bb11f-d33a-41c5-a81c-3f56f8b879de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scienceandentertainmentexchange.org/blog/eyes-saturn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96925 | 513 | 1.773438 | 2 |
AMI Magazine and the importance of the Blogs?
By Harold Herskowitz
Once again Ami Magazine has shown that it is willing to speak out for truth and justice. A recent article written by the editor, Rabbi Frankenfurter strongly stated how Jewish Orthodox blogs are providing an outlet for free speech, in order to prevent people in powerful positions from using Judaism as a shield for their improper behavior. He compares Bloggers to Pinchos, a Jew that alone stood up to stop the desecration of G-d's name, even thought the person he killed was a powerful, supposedly holy, person. R' Frankenfurter, and his Ami Magazine, are working hard to stop the abuse of those that pretend to be working for the good of our communities, while engaging in self promoting, self enriching acts with the help of so called Jewish publications that promote their organizations and political puppets. Ami magazine and the bloggers are an integral defense against those publications that weekly promote an unsustainable lifestyle that combines dedication to Torah learning, while running the perfect home, and eating all the latest must have gourmet foods. Ami magazine is more than just another magazine that gets paid to put people on the cover to promote a business or political agenda. It is a partner with all the bloggers in revealing those that hide under the prohibition of Loshon Hora(slanderous speech), while they themselves destroy people that simply question them. Rabbi Frankenfurter, you are why all the bloggers say "we wish we could be like Rabbi Frankenfurter, that is what we truly want to be. Because if we were like Rabbi Frankenfurter all the world would be in love with me". Thank you Rabbi Frankenfurter for once again being brave enough to stand up and speak the truth. | <urn:uuid:7899e493-e03d-43b8-bb0c-b98a58da5110> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thelakewoodview.com/opinion/ami-and-bloggers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964057 | 363 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Not An Easy Decision
The US Supreme Court has set aside 5 1/2 hour for discussion of the constitutionality of Obamacare. The JS editorial writers say this is a no brainer, don't even bother making the arguments, because of course, we think it's constitutional.... but Ann Althouse, a law professor at UW, has a different take on the scheduling.
The argument for upholding the law rests on a facile application of an existing line of precedent: Look quickly and see that this case is another one of those cases and stamp the law constitutional. Characterizing the case as easy is thus part of arguing for upholding the law. That's what Tribe and others have been doing. Many of the lower court cases have, unsurprisingly, taken that route.
The Supreme Court, which controls the precedents, has to choose between that easy course and drawing a line. If it draws that line and takes down the individual mandate — and perhaps the entire health care reform — it will need to inspire our belief in the truly judicial nature of its exertion of power. To set 5 1/2 hours of oral argument is to command a dramatic performance in the Theater of Law. That will help us see the result as the product of genuine legal process.
Now, our belief in the truly judicial nature of its exertion of power is important whether the Court strikes down the law or not. All that has happened so far is that the Court has rejected the presentation of the case as easy. That doesn't mean the Justices are not perceiving the case as easy. It only means they don't want you to see it that way | <urn:uuid:1a4f6c34-d5e3-4089-809b-10378737d949> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.620wtmj.com/blogs/charliesykes/133948138.html?viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&action=quotecomment&action=quotecomment&cid=77022122&cid=77022122&sort=most+thumbs+up | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960391 | 330 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Pacific Gas links customers, competitors to enterprise network.Pacific Gas Transmission--the largest natural gas pipeline company west of the Rockies--is giving its customers, competitors and suppliers new access to its corporate databases. The purpose: to speed end-to-end planning associated with moving some 500 billion cubic feet of natural gas annually across the country.
For the first time, PGT's new bulletin board service gives everyone equally direct access to capacity and reservation information, and marks the beginning of an electronic market mechanism for natural gas supplies.
This streamlaines customers' administrative planning by allowing them to reserve, book space and release already committed space on natural gas pipelines that stretech from Canada through Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California. They dial into an 800 number, communicating at speeds of up to 57.6 kb/s.
"We're supporting 64 lines coming into the bulletin board," says Larry Levitt, manager of computer services for PGT PGT Public Guardian and Trustee
PGT Procuradoria Geral do Trabalho (Brazil general attorney's office of the work)
PGT Pistol Grip Tool
PGT Post Graduate Training
PGT Princeton Gamma-Tech, Inc. , headquartered in San Francisco. ? About 30 or 40 users are typically on-line at a time. Users include about 200 producers of natural gas, and 250 potential customers, known as shippers.
"The bulletin board is also accessed by our five major competitors, who can review how much capacity we have available. And, of course, the federal regulatory agency regulatory agency
Independent government commission charged by the legislature with setting and enforcing standards for specific industries in the private sector. The concept was invented by the U.S. also has access. In fact, we can't exclude anyone from having access, as long as they have a legitimate purpose."
The bulletin board is based on fairly simple and inexpensive technology. It runs on a single 486-based Compaq Computer SystemPro single processor server on a Novell SFT SFT Statens Forurensningstilsyn (Norwegian Pollution Control Authority)
SFT System Fault Tolerance
SFT Secure File Transfer
SFT School Food Trust (UK)
SFT Societe Francaise des Traducteurs III network. The bulletin board software, The Bread Board System (TBBS TBBS The Bread Board System
TBBS The Big Blue Sky (website) ), from eSoft Inc., of Aurora, Colo., runs under DOS. It's linked to a customized database application developed with dBASE III that includes a color graphical interface with drop-down menus and pop-up lists.
The cost, including application development, was about $400,000.
"The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the United States federal agency with jurisdiction over electricity sales, wholesale electric rates, hydroelectric licensing, natural gas pricing, and oil pipeline rates. required every utility to create a bulletin board service by the end of 1993," says Levitt. "Some put up multi-million-dollar mainframes. Our strategy was to see how much functionality we could cram into a PC-based architecture that was compatible with our overall enterprise technology goals."
Aftger investigating client/server architecture, Levitt concluded that comparable functionality would have cost nearly $750,000. PGT's system integrator, International Micronet Systems (IMS (1) See IP Multimedia Subsystem.
(2) (Information Management System) An early IBM hierarchical DBMS for IBM mainframes. IMS was widely implemented throughout the 1970s under MVS and continues to be used under z/OS. ) of San Francisco, designed the network and hardware solution. The Novell Platinum integrator had also designed the WAN installed two years earlier, which now incorporates 20 LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. networks. Hamamersly Technology, of San Francisco, designed and implemented the application system.
"IMS gave us a pool of expertise that allowed us to respond quickly to changing requirements," says Levitt "It would have been prohibitively expensive to maintain that level of skill in-house."
"The bulletin board is part of PGT's long-term corporate strategy to provide information to those who need it, regardless of where it resides," says Stephen Yap, the network engineer who supervised this project. "We complemented PGT's resources by recommending the hardware configuration and ensuring that the bulletin board would communicate with other servers on the network, including an IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) AS/400 in San Francisco, and a dedicated reservations server in Spokane."
Transactions are communicated across the WAN, to the Spokane server, via Novell IPX/SPX See IPX. . IMS recommended using SPX (Sequenced Packet EXchange) The transport layer protocol in the NetWare operating system. Similar to the TCP layer in TCP/IP, it ensures that the entire message arrives intact. SPX uses NetWare's IPX as its delivery mechanism. to ensure delivery, because it automatically resends packets until receipt is acknowledged.
They also developed a Lotus Notes-based database for PGT's bulletin board help desk. Notes' design is ideal for distributing information among diverse work groups; the support application allows PGT's help desk staff to readily track users' requests for technical assistance, and to pool information for quick problem resolution.
In the next year, Levitt anticipates significant expansion of the bulletin board service as users become accustomed to booking their own space.
"Bulletin boards are far better suited to electronic commerce than Electronic Data Interchange See EDI.
(application, communications) electronic data interchange - (EDI) The exchange of standardised document forms between computer systems for business use. EDI is part of electronic commerce. ," says Levitt. "Our customers want to know what's been bid, and what capacity is available. A bulletin board lets you quickly see the results of your transaction--you don't have to wait for hours, like you do with EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) The electronic communication of business transactions, such as orders, confirmations and invoices, between organizations. Third parties provide EDI services that enable organizations with different equipment to connect. ." | <urn:uuid:3f13cd7d-8b4d-4c9e-952a-e7491f827480> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pacific+Gas+links+customers%2C+competitors+to+enterprise+network.-a015055661 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932371 | 1,391 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Greenspan says late '90s strategy was 'only option'
Published: Monday, January 5, 2004 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, January 5, 2004 at 5:26 a.m.
WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan defended himself Saturday against a criticism of his tenure, saying policy-makers would have damaged the economy in the late 1990s had they tried to burst that era's speculative stock market bubble.
"The notion that a well-timed incremental tightening could have been calibrated to prevent the late 1990s bubble while preserving economic stability is almost surely an illusion," Greenspan said in a speech to the American Economic Association's annual meeting in San Diego. A copy of his remarks was distributed in Washington.
Greenspan previously has defended the Fed's handling of the high-flying stock market late in the Clinton administration. In Saturday's speech, he said the Fed correctly focused policies on trying to mitigate probable damage from the eventual bursting of the bubble of stock market speculation.
"There appears to be enough evidence, at least tentatively, to conclude that our strategy of addressing the bubble's consequences, rather than the bubble itself, has been successful," Greenspan said. "Despite the stock market plunge, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we experienced an exceptionally mild recession" in 2001.
Some critics have argued that the central bank made a major policy mistake by failing to curb stock prices as they soared. The bubble finally collapsed in the spring of 2000, wiping out trillions of dollars in paper wealth.
For the Fed to have influenced the level of stock prices significantly during the boom, Greenspan said, short-term interest rates would have had to have been ratcheted up high enough to risk severe damage to the economy.
Greenspan did not address in his speech the future course of short-term interest rate policy or the direction of the U.S. economy.
"Essentially I think this speech says `We have learned much about monetary policy-making, and we have applied our lessons well,' " said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
Greenspan, in answering questions after the speech, downplayed the potential risk of a new stock price bubble emerging now that the economy is getting stronger.
"My own sense is that we don't have to worry too much about the emergence of real bubbles again for a while because I think it takes a number of years for the trauma of the collapse to wear off," Greenspan said.
Amid signs the economy is gaining traction, economists believe Fed policy-makers will hold a key short-term rate at a 45-year low of 1 percent at their first meeting of this year on Jan. 27-28. Some analysts believe the Fed could begin to nudge rates upward as early as June. Others believe, however, that rates will stay where they are into 2005. Many economists also believe the Fed's credit-easing campaign that started in January 2001 and saw the last cut in June 2003 probably has ended.
Greenspan said the Fed had been able to cut short-term rates so aggressively because inflation posed no threat to the economy. In fact, as the economy struggled to recover in the first half of last year, Fed policy-makers worried more about prices moving down, into deflation, rather than up, into inflation.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
Comments are currently unavailable on this article | <urn:uuid:8eb54a01-6ffc-468f-a64d-8f5b3fe50679> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20040105/NEWS/401050329?Title=Greenspan-says-late-90s-strategy-was-only-option- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974552 | 735 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Two Navy ships were damaged in a collision in the Pacific Ocean 120 miles off the coast of California—but there were no injuries or fuel spills, according to military officials. The amphibious assault vehicle USS Essex hit the USNS Yukon oiler as it was approaching the Yukon to be refueled, reports AP. The steering on the Essex, which was carrying 982 crew members on its way to San Diego, apparently failed, according to a 3rd Fleet spokesman.
The Yukon has been involved in at least two previous collisions during its 19 years in service, including one during a refueling maneuver off the coast of Hawaii. This is the first collision involving the 844-foot Essex—nicknamed the "Iron Gator"—but the Essex has experienced problems in the past, notes the San Diego Union-Tribune. The 20-year-old warship, which is due for a major overhaul early next year, failed to meet a commitment at sea recently for the second time in seven months because of mechanical or maintenance issues officials attributed to "wear and tear." | <urn:uuid:6bec63e6-a681-4fd5-8742-4d5c109bac9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newser.com/story/146180/2-navy-ships-collide-off-california.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977569 | 217 | 1.835938 | 2 |
2013 Inauguration Highs and Lows
From Michelle Obama's style to a controversial poem to a presidential smooch, here's the best and worst of the historic day.
High: Chief Justice John Roberts Doesn't Flub the Oath
By some counts, President Obama has enjoyed four inaugurations, to most other presidents' one or two. The reason? Four years ago a mishap on the part of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warranted doing the whole thing over in another private ceremony after the public swearing-in. This year, Jan. 20 (the designated official Inauguration Day) fell on a Sunday, so although the official ceremony was held then, the public ceremony took place on Monday. While the president hesitated a little during his oath, overall it was smooth sailing this fourth time around.
High: Myrlie Evers-Williams' Invocation
When the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers took to the stage, many were wowed by her youthful appearance. It simply didn't seem possible that this face had lived through some of the darkest days of America so many years ago. But when she spoke, the audience were also wowed by her eloquence, her courage and the spirit with which she imbued the entire ceremony. She set the tone in an extraordinary way.
Low: The Inaugural Poem
Unbeknownst to many younger Americans, a poem is not a standard part of the official inaugural ceremony. Initially introduced by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the inclusion of poetry was revived by President Bill Clinton in 1993 with Maya Angelou's "On the Pulse of Morning." While President Obama's selection of Richard Blanco, an openly gay Latino poet, was historic, the most memorable parts of Blanco's poem (among them his reference to the Sandy Hook elementary school tragedy) read more like a political speech, which raises the question, do we really need more speeches at the inauguration?
But the larger question Blanco's poem raised is, how important is it to include an increasingly unpopular art form (poetry readership in America is at a 16-year low) in the festivities of such a historic day? The question is certainly being pondered by some of Monday's inaugural audience, but probably by no one as much as one of the president's most vociferous foes, whose facial expression during the poem spoke volumes.
High: Kelly Clarkson Performing for a President She May Not Support
American Idol winner-turned-pop star Kelly Clarkson wowed many with her rousing rendition of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" at President Obama's inauguration. But the biggest surprise of her performance is that it happened at all. Clarkson sparked controversy by professing her adoration for Republican candidate and avowed libertarian Ron Paul during the 2012 election.
Though she claimed to have supported President Obama in 2008, her appreciation of Paul seemed to represent a political transformation on her part. Yet on Inauguration Day, she set aside her own politics to help the country celebrate the second term of a man whose policies she may not entirely agree with but who represents all of us, regardless of our party affiliation, politics or policy positions.
High: Michelle Obama's Bangs
How could they not make the list? The most-talked-about participant in this year's inauguration festivities was not the president but his wife's new do. Proving yet again what a smart man he is, the president commented during his official Sunday swearing-in: "First of all, I love Michelle Obama. And to address the most significant event of this weekend, I love her bangs."
High: Michelle Obama's Side-Eye
Much has already been written about the first lady's amusing reaction to being seated near one of her husband's greatest political adversaries, Republican House Speaker John Boehner. Some call it a "side-eye." Some call it an "eye roll." We'll just call it pure magic. Watch it here.
High: The Weather
Four years ago the weather for the first Obama inaugural left a lot to be desired -- namely some sun, or at the very least some heaters and hot cocoa. The temperature was a frigid 28 degrees, leading the president to remark this year, "This one is going to be warmer."
This one was. It was still chilly, but nothing compared to the last inaugural. The sun even came out in time for the parade, making it a beautiful day. Proving that the president, and the crowd, clearly had more luck on their side than four years ago, practically as soon as the inauguration ended, the temperatures dropped to below freezing, and it was announced that a snowstorm was expected later in the week. | <urn:uuid:23d45ad6-efbb-44b4-9cbe-c737da140cea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theroot.com/blogs/2013-inauguration-highs-and-lows?page=0,1&wpisrc=root_more_news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975446 | 964 | 1.796875 | 2 |
There is a lot of information flowing around today about the debt ceiling deal that has been struck in Washington. The headline is a $2.5 trillion cut in government spending for a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling, which will cover expenses in 2013. But there is a lot of smoke and mirrors play going on. Here are three things that you won't hear get covered by the mainstream press this week:
1) Government spending is going up over the next 10 years, not down. The cuts in federal spending are from the projected growth of spending over the next 10 years, not a reduction in current spending rates. Yes, the growth of federal outlays is slowing (a good thing), but the ultimate outcome is that spending levels stay about where they are right now 10 years out. To understand the fallacy here, consider that we could project government spending to increase $100 trillion a year for the next years, and then cap spending at just $1 trillion in annual expansion and call it a $99 trillion cut.
2) According to the CBO, only $25 billion of the cuts from the 2012 budget, and just $47 billion will come from the 2013 budget. So in exchange for this two-year, $72 billion reduction in projected spending, the debt ceiling will go up $2.4 trillion over the same time frame. That is no dollar for dollar cut. The fact is that the debt ceiling hike is a two-year consideration and the spending cuts are spread out over 10-years. The cuts could be spread out over 50-years and Congress might claim the same thing as today, but that is not fiscal responsibility in the slightest.
3) The debate has not changed and is not over. President Obama will want to move past this by saying the debate is done and we can go on to new things. But, how this committee to find more cuts works will be very important, particularly a comparison to what they determine vs. the last debt commission (Simpon-Bowles) and their findings. Beyond that, the GOP will try to say that this is a win because taxes didn't go up and they weren't even considered at the end. But Democrats didn't abandon their desire for tax increases, instead they shifted to language about "saving" Medicare and Social Security... from cuts. The tone didn't change at all. Only when Washington decides to talk about reform for entitlements, include spending cuts to programs, as the means of saving them—and saving us from them—will the conversation have shifted.
Overall, I will praise the deal for including a cut to military spending, but in terms of dealing substantially with our long-term debt, this does little to nothing at all. Maybe that wasn't the goal, but if the conversation is over then we are in real trouble.
Here are a few more ways to look at the debt ceiling deal in its raw form that shine some light on its dark spots:
- Spending cuts from the guaranteed $917 billion are heavily back-loaded, 2.4% come in FY 2012 ($25 billion), 5.1% come in FY 2013 ($47 billion), and 36.3% come in the last three years ($333 billion). This also means that only about 1 percent of the cuts from the total $2.5 trillion package of cuts will come in the next fiscal year. This is a positive outcome for the President since he doesn't risk a slow down in government spending causing a slow down in economic growth. And it is a false win for the Republicans who get their headline figure of trillions in cuts, but subject them to being changed by future Congresses.
- If you consider the end of the Bush tax cuts on Dec. 31, 2013 as a part of this conversation (and why not, since the cuts we're talking about are in part for military spending that wasn't going to happen in the first place), then this deal is actually $2.5 trillion in cuts, $2.4 trillion in borrowing authority, and $2.8 trillion in new tax revenue. In their 10-year projections the CBO assumes the Bush tax cuts will end so when we talk about cuts from a 10-year baseline we are including that tax hike in the conversation. That is the balanced deal the White House wanted.
A big question going forward will be how the super-Congress operations and finds it $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction. It is unlikely that any proposal will include tax cuts (because the House GOP will balk), but cuts of $1.5 trillion for entitlements by Thanksgiving are not exactly a very likely outcome.
Rep. Ron Paul wrote a piece for The Hill that summarizes my first point in a different way:
the "cuts" being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.
See the whole piece here. | <urn:uuid:a1311425-4e43-4a7a-8556-08bd9d93fea1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.org/blog/show/what-you-wont-hear-about-the-debt-c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969271 | 1,077 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The White House has said it continues to support the legislation and is moving forward with implementation, scheduled to take full effect in 2014, after the Supreme Court upheld its individual mandate last summer.
Among other things, the measure provides increased funding for low-income Americans to obtain insurance, will eventually require all citizens to purchase insurance and mandates health insurance companies to maintain certain levels of coverage. The Obama administration has argued it will hold down health care costs, and although growth has slowed on that front, insurance premiums for many have still increased in recent months.
- Storm Brings Hail, Tornadoes to East Coast
- President Obama Makes Broad Case for Immigration Reform
- Photos: American Kennel Club Releases List of 10 Most Popular Dogs | <urn:uuid:2845ee34-ead8-4b91-b158-7467b9c1ac66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/30/obamacare-repeal-still-top-conservative-goal-despite-improbabilty?s_cid=rss:obamacare-repeal-still-top-conservative-goal-despite-improbabilty&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950971 | 146 | 1.84375 | 2 |
February 11th, 2007
Apple has finally unveiled the iPhone
- potentially one of the most revolutionary consumer products in history. It will act as a catalyst for change, stimulating a host of mobile-enabled services that will change the way we work forever. mCommerce - mobile commerce has truly arrived!
Whether this becomes a threat or an opportunity to your business is largely down to how you react over the next 18 months. But let’s start by validating the facts. First, the numbers are huge. The Economist recently published a report into mobile phone usage in the UK, indicating that there are 102 phone contracts for every 100 people. It anticipates that Smartphones will outnumber computers by 2008 and that internet access via mobiles will exceed home broadband access by the end of this year.
Second, the major limitations of mobile commerce to date - small screens, bulky handsets, low speeds, unproven security and unreliable connections - should be obliterated by the iPhone. It is well designed, functional, intuitive and can capitalise on the hugely successful iPod. (www.apple.com/itunes) View an online demonstration of the iPhone.
It will provoke a flood of web-enabled devices into the market, providing businesses with access to a far wider audience than the PC-enabled internet. This is a compelling proposition for various sectors, significantly reducing distribution costs and bringing to bear the real opportunity of “on demand”.
Many companies are working on technologies to exploit this market, while several have already registered .mobi domain names in preparation. The first tier of products will be service driven, updating customers on schedules, flight departures and arrivals, and providing traffic and weather reports etc But once these services are established, it is anticipated that there will be huge demand for transactional-based services.
Location-based m-commerce services will follow. It is possible to determine the location of a switched-on mobile within about 500 meters. This will allow users to search for local hotels and restaurants, with live availability and pricing.
The delivery of commodity products through hand-held devices will create a new marketplace. Consumer expectations will rise, while there will be less reliance on human contact and an empowerment that will far outweigh that created by the internet.
The growth of the wireless revolution is inevitable. Companies must start to think how it will affect their businesses and how they will service this new channel. Mobile must become part of every company’s distribution strategy - and the time to act is now.
How will you adapt? Please do add your comments.
Entry Filed under: News | <urn:uuid:3c9c5feb-7b84-48da-8bbf-7881dd822004> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.objective-marketing.com/news/apple%E2%80%99s-iphone-will-bring-mcommerce-mobile-commerce-to-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930378 | 528 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Latin Mass? Ho-hum, majority of Catholics say
Saw this yesterday, but USC contributor J. Peter NIxon, who wrote our August feature on the coming changes to Sunday Mass (which drew a robust 71 comments), brought it to my attention again this morning, and it's worthy of note. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate released a study yesterday noting that a solid majority of U.S. Catholics (63 percent) have no opinion about Pope Benedict's expansion of the Latin (Tridentine) liturgy. And, contrary to popular perception, the group with the least amount of interest in the Latin Mass is younger Catholics, with only 16 percent of those born after 1982 supporting its return.
Overall, only 25 percent of respondents favor the wider permission; that's down from 40 percent in 1985. Those opposing it dropped to a mere 12 percent from 35 in 1985. In other words it looks like the big battle over the liturgy initiated after Vatican II is over--with 63 percent opting out. Smaller and smaller percentages are actually interested.
I'm sure there are a lot of ways of reading this date--and you can read the whole study here--but I think one thing is clear: There is no great groundswell for a liturgical return to the past. Most Catholics have moved on, despite all the heat generated by our August Sounding Board about the return of the old liturgy. | <urn:uuid:0860a972-83b3-472e-9957-a4006228b5c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/2009/08/latin-mass-ho-hum-majority-catholics-say | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940023 | 290 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Protest of the Year When Senate majority leader and Princeton alum Bill Frist threatened to go nuclear in the battle over judicial appointments, students at his alma mater responded by staging the mother of all filibusters. It began quietly enough, with eight students in cheap suits gathering in front of the Frist Campus Center to give dramatic readings of the campus phone book. The filibuster soon took on a life of its own, attracting a stream of students, professors, and a Nobel laureate, who ran down the clock reading Waiting for Godot and reciting pi to 3,500 digits. Within a week, the phenom had gone national, with copycat protests on 50 campuses in 35 states, from UCLA to Bates College. Even the theatrically challenged Democrats were quick to recognize the value of a good publicity stunt. The 384-hour gabfest wrapped up with a "fili-bus-tour" to Washington, D.C., where guest bloviators Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) joined in.
Student Activist of the Year Appalled at the Bush administration's foot-dragging in the face of genocide, last September Georgetown junior Nate Wright cofounded Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) and quickly launched a movement. By February there were 80 STAND chapters in 24 states, with thousands of students raising relief funds and lobbying Congress to pass the Darfur Genocide Accountability Act. After traveling to Chad to make an MTV documentary on refugees fleeing Darfur, the 21-year-old history major is confident that STAND's combination of political pressure and direct aid will save lives. "It doesn't take a whole lot," he says, "to really make a difference."
Victory of the Year A penny a pound was all they asked. After a four-year, nationwide boycott in which the University of Chicago, Notre Dame, and 19 other schools forced Taco Bell off their campuses, the "Boot the Bell" campaign declared victory in March as the fast-food chain finally agreed to boost the sub-poverty wages of the Florida laborers who pick its tomatoes. The 3,000 members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers will now receive an extra cent for every pound of tomatoes picked—pocket change for the chain but a big boost for the pickers. Coalition leader and Mother Jones' July/August 2004 Hellraiser Lucas Benitez called off the boycott that had targeted Taco Bell's core consumers, officially freeing socially conscious college kids to eat MexiMelts guilt-free.
Kicking the Can Things got shaken up at Coca-Cola's annual shareholders meeting in April when 15 students from Hofstra, Smith, Rutgers, Union Theological Seminary, and other schools challenged the company's human rights record. Speaking as shareholder proxies, the students demanded that Coke CEO E. Neville Isdell address a recent lawsuit linking the company to the murder and harassment of union leaders at its bottling plants in Colombia. Hofstra junior Vanessa Cudabac spoke for several minutes over Isdell's protestations. "And there was nothing [he] could do about it," she recalls. Like "Boot the Bell" before it, the "Killer Coke" campaign aims to get colleges to kick their Coke habits. Rutgers and UTS have already canceled their contracts; more campuses are expected to follow suit.
Thanks a Million In early April, 20 students at Washington University in St. Louis launched a small protest against low wages for the school's food-service and janitorial workers. This morphed into a five-day hunger strike, a three-week occupation of the admissions office, and a series of rallies that brought administrators to the bargaining table. The school agreed to commit $1 million to improving hourly employees' wages and benefits over the next two years. "It's a lot of money to raise in 19 days," said 21-year-old organizer Danielle Christmas.
That's Why They Call It the Blues University of Michigan students gave new meaning to their school's rallying cry, "Go Blue," by registering 10,000 voters in a monthlong registration drive in the lead-up to the 2004 presidential vote. The effort produced record youth-voter turnout in Ann Arbor, keeping Michigan in Kerry country, even though unprecedented numbers of college-aged voters across the nation failed to turn the crimson tide.
Home Court Disadvantage George W. Bush's public appearances are usually tightly scripted love fests for the prescreened faithful, so he probably anticipated a warm welcome when he went to evangelical Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to deliver a commencement address in May. Instead, respectfully defiant students turned out wearing buttons declaring: "God is Not a Democrat or a Republican." And 800 students and faculty signed an open letter telling Bush, "Your deeds, Mr. President—neglecting the needy to coddle the rich, desecrating the environment and misleading the country into war—do not exemplify the faith we live by."
Invisible Freshmen Last November, 250 African American UC Berkeley students staged a daylong "Blackout" to protest the precipitous decline in black student enrollment since Cal banned affirmative action a decade ago. Out of last fall's 3,600 incoming freshmen, only 3 percent were African American. Dressed in black, the protesters silently interrupted classes to distribute fliers demanding the school step up its efforts to recruit black students. "It's hard being the only black person in the class," said senior Raniyah Abdus-Samad. "It's not a good feeling."
Violent In-Tent A peaceful protest took a nasty turn on April 18, when a couple hundred University of California-Santa Cruz students staged a camp-in at the university's main gate to protest education cuts and rising tuition costs. That night, cops stormed the tent city, forcibly disabled resisters with painful neck holds, and arrested 19. Happy ending: "Tent University" was back up the next day, and no charges were filed against those pinched by the fuzz.
Unjust Desserts This year witnessed a rash of on-campus pie-ings of notable conservatives. At the Quaker Earlham College, an unpacifistic religion major pied William Kristol and issued a manifesto, "Why I Threw the Pie." Pat Buchanan got gooped at Western Michigan University and David Horowitz was handed an excuse to decry "fascists" after he was splattered at Butler University. A University of Arizona student claiming membership in the tastelessly titled "Al Pieda" nearly hit Ann Coulter with a cream pie, making the half-baked claim that he was "throwing the pie at her ideas, not at her."
The Thought That Counts Last fall, Stanford sophomore Quinn Wilhelmi and grad student Kai Stinchcombe were looking for a way for campus progressives to get out of the postelection doldrums. Their solution was to found the Roosevelt Institution, a student-run think tank modeled after their campus' own Hoover Institution, but without all the right-wingers or buckets of cash. They soon found they weren't alone: Fellow wonks on other campuses were putting together their own DIY policy shops, and by spring more than 20 campuses had opened chapters of the Roosevelt Institution. The budding brain trusts' first assignment: getting beyond the drawing board | <urn:uuid:1134c6c0-d539-475e-99c5-5ee09b6eead5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/09/conflict-studies | 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 | 0.95169 | 1,508 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Thu October 4, 2012
Recreating Indiana Jones' Boulder Run In D.C.'s 'Alley Of Doom'
Originally published on Thu October 4, 2012 9:19 am
At a back alley in Washington, D.C., an innocent bike rider came upon a Prius driving right at him head-on. The Prius, in turn, was being chased by a 10-foot boulder.
The bike rider had accidentally stumbled into "The Alley of Doom."
For one day, anyone who showed up to this alley in the U Street neighborhood of Washington, D.C., could take a free turn at playing Indiana Jones — donning a fedora and whip and fleeing from a gigantic, rolling boulder.
Laurenellen McCann came up with the idea — in her day job, she works for the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit in D.C. This activity is entirely unrelated. [Note: Laurenellen McCann was also an intern at NPR in the fall of 2009.]
"The biggest hindrance to the idea was figuring out how to make the boulder," she said. "I went through everything from decoupage to weather balloons, but it was always a problem thinking about how someone would roll it. Then I remembered some random YouTube clip I saw about Zorbing."
Zorbs are giant, inflatable plastic balls that people can climb into to roll down hills. McCann figured she could cover a Zorb with brown bedsheets and turn it into a makeshift boulder. To make it happen, she obtained a grant from the Awesome Foundation — a group that gives $1,000 grants to people with quirky ideas like this.
The day of the event, folks trickled in from all around D.C. — a mix of parents and kids, 20-somethings and Indiana Jones superfans. Some heard about it online; others stumbled across the alley accidentally.
Different runners put their own spin on the iconic scene. (You can see lots of pictures on Flickr.) One group donned Mexican lucha libre wrestling masks. One man used a unicycle and grabbed onto a rope to swing away before the boulder could hit him. One couple staged a dramatic scene in which the man bravely sacrificed his life to push his partner out of harm's way.
Heidi Debeck filmed the boulder runs, and came away with a newfound respect for one of Indiana Jones' particular skills.
"Watching these gives you so much more appreciation for the fact that Indiana Jones never leaves his hat behind, because it falls off all the time," she said. "Pretty much every time somebody's run, I think it's fallen off — unless the person has held it to their head."
For Joel Finkelstein, who showed up with his kids, ages 7 and 4, this game was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
"I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark my whole life. It came out when I was 6, and I saw it every weekend that summer when it was in the theater, 16 times," he said. "Every time I went to a playground for 10 years as a kid, I would run from an imaginary boulder, absolutely. It's pretty cool to have a real one."
McCann, who organized the event, doesn't describe herself as an Indiana Jones superfan. She said for her, it's more about creating a space where neighbors and strangers can come together and play.
"There's a couple of grandmas out here, just hanging out, smiling," she said. "People can tap into that feeling."
McCann said she's especially interested in finding different ways for grown-ups to cut loose.
"As adults, we think we play because we go to bars, but that's different. And I'm not hating on the bar experience, but there's a big difference between going to a bar and having a beer and running around in an alley dressed as Indiana Jones."
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now to another iconic movie and a memorable scene that came to life on a recent afternoon in a Washington D.C. alleyway.
NPR's Travis Larchuk, another T, brings us this postcard.
TRAVIS LARCHUK, BYLINE: Step one: Inflate a 10-foot high plastic ball.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
LARCHUK: Step two: Cover it with a bunch of brown bed sheets. Now you've got yourself a giant makeshift boulder.
Step three: Start the boom box.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "RAIDERS MARCH")
LARCHUK: This is The Alley of Doom. For one day, anyone who showed up to this alley in Washington D.C. could take a free turn at playing Indiana Jones. Grab a fedora, a whip, and run for their lives from a huge boulder rolling right at them.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: One.
LARCHUK: All right.
But first, sign the release form.
LAURENELLEN MCCANN: We're getting release waivers, because nobody is getting sued from this.
LARCHUK: That's Laurenellen McCann. She created The Alley of Doom. She did it with a grant from the Awesome Foundation, which is a group that funds quirky projects like this.
Five runners showed up in wrestling masks. One family hopped into a Prius to drive away from the boulder.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: Our car is going to run from...
LARCHUK: Joel Finkelstein brought his kids, but he was clearly the most excited.
JOEL FINKELSTEIN: I loved "Raiders of the Lost Ark" my whole life. Every time I went to a playground as a kid, I would always be running from an imaginary boulder, absolutely. It's pretty cool to have a real one.
LARCHUK: Creator Laurenellen McCann isn't as much as a Jones super fan. She says The Alley of Doom is really just an excuse to get people to come out and play.
MCCANN: You know, there's a couple of grandmas out here, just hanging out here, smiling. Their kids aren't even running but people can tap into that feeling.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Well it wasn't the bulls, but we did all right.
LARCHUK: McCann plans to publish step-by-step instructions so every city can create its own Alley of Doom.
Travis Larchuk, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "RAIDERS MARCH")
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News, I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:a52e7317-3e9a-4da0-90a8-1fbd0a96fe66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://krvs.org/post/recreating-indiana-jones-boulder-run-dcs-alley-doom | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961796 | 1,428 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Evidence in Plain Sight
Evidence in Plain Sight
There I was, walking along
"Dad," she said, giggling uncontrollably. "The sign on that store over there said 'We carry frozen snails'." Before I had more than a millisecond to appreciate how easily and quickly Cool Kid was able to read the sign while walking past, her dad turned to her.
With comic timing that would make any Vaudevillian drool, he replied: "I bet their hands are cold." (insert rimshot here) And dig this: Cool Kid got her father's pun. She was laughing her little head off the rest of the way down the block.
Slapstick aside, the tragic realities of the standard American diet are unavoidable yet often as invisible as a frozen snail. As I continued my way down
Essentially nobody noticed the crimson splatter and those that do, well, they won't even flinch.
Behind the butcher, sheep carcasses hang from large hooks in the window...their bulging lifeless eyes seemed to stare accusingly at the butcher's back. He didn't appear to notice. Essentially nobody noticed and those that do, well, they won't even flinch.
The next block brought me in contact with the fish store. Wet cardboard boxes filled with marine corpses piled in front...the street smelled like death. Beyond the stench, essentially nobody noticed and those that do, well, they won't even flinch.
Looking into the fish store window, I saw a tiny aquarium tank. At least a dozen doomed lobsters were piled atop one another...their claws taped.
Essentially nobody noticed and those that do, well, they won't even flinch.
Do you know what happens when a writer points all this out, refuses to participate, and urges others to do the same? You can be sure plenty of folks will notice and, ladies and gentlemen, the flinching will begin.
When asked what he'd want people to believe, British biologist Richard Dawkins replied, "I would want them to believe whatever evidence leads them to; I would want them to look at the evidence, judge it on its merits, not accept things because of internal revelation or faith, but purely on the basis of evidence."
But what happens when evidence is doled out on a need-to-know basis?
"We act according to the way we experience the world," writes Derrick Jensen in Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos. "We experience the world according to how we perceive it. We perceive it the way we have been taught."
How we've been taught helps to cultivate our beliefs. Or should I say McBeliefs?
The news about McDonald's "brainwashing" broke in Summer 2007. A study showed that children prefer food-any food, in fact-that comes in a McDonald's wrapper. Identical foods were served in name brand and unmarked wrappers and the children were asked which tasted better. The food adorned with the Golden Arches won every time. Even a hated veggie like carrots tasted better to the kids when served in a McDonald's wrapper. "You see a McDonald's label and kids start salivating," said childhood development specialist Diane Levin.
"Advertisers have tried to do exactly what this study is talking about-to brand younger and younger children, to instill in them an almost obsessional desire for a particular brand-name product," said Dr. Victor Strasburger of the
I'll bet even Cool Kids find it hard to resist the branding.
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net. | <urn:uuid:71b4fd6f-5633-484d-bd23-bbf6d1735271> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/evidence-in-plain-sight-by-mickey-z | 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 | 0.968186 | 754 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Susan Swan, What Casanova Told Me (Bloomsbury, 2005)
I keep finding interesting examples of contemporary historical fiction in my Green Man mailbox! What Casanova Told Me is one of these. I am writing this review from the Advance Reading Copy, which Bloomsbury/Holtzbrinck sent us several weeks ago. I think it fell behind the package-sorting table and languished there until one of the brownies found it while she was cleaning. The hardcover is readily available in the usual places.
Like Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, which I'll be reviewing later this summer, What Casanova Told Me utilizes journals and letters from an earlier period in history to tell a story that is embedded within a story set in the present time. The principal character in present time is a young, single woman named Luce Adams, descendent of the second and sixth Presidents of the United States (John and John Quincy Adams). Trained as an archivist and based in Toronto, Luce travels to Europe with her late mother's lover, Lee Pronski. The trip has two major purposes: Luce is delivering some primary historical documents to a library in Venice and both women are attending a memorial ceremony on the island of Crete for Luce's archaeologist mother, who died there in an auto accident. For most of their shared journey, the relationship between Luce and Lee is, well, strained. I think it would be safe to say that each woman is jealous of the other, albeit for different reasons.
The primary historical documents form the story inside the story. They include a journal written by Luce's great-great-great-great-great aunt, Asked For Adams (fictitious second cousin of John), while she was traveling in Venice with her father in 1797 (around the time that Napoleon's army invades that city); a packet of letters written by Jacob Casanova (yes, that Casanova) to his friend Isaac Bey in Venice; and a leatherbound book written in an Arabic-style script. Swan interleaves narrative relating the present-time experiences of Luce and Lee with Asked For's journal entries and Casanova's letters. These tell of a deep friendship that over time becomes a sexual union. (Seriously, how could anyone resist the notorious Casanova, even at his advanced age?) The leatherbound book remains an unsolved mystery until fairly late in the novel, when Luce finds someone in Istanbul to translate it.
I found the historical characters quite engaging, in part, I think, because their writing is in the first person. Asked For comes across as a resilient, resourceful young woman---perhaps a little too modern in her behavior, attitudes and language for the period. Swan's portrayal of Casanova is very sympathetic---while he is a bit of a rascal, he is also gracious and courtly and seems to provide his female companions with an appreciation of their own physical pleasure that many would appreciate. The historical Casanova would have been 72 in 1797. I imagine him to resemble the John Neville portrayal of Baron Munchausen in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, an elderly gentleman who seems to grow younger when he's in the presence of female beauty.
I had a lot more trouble getting engaged in the present-time story of Luce Adams and Lee Pronski. Swan writes about them in the third person, usually from Luce's viewpoint, but occasionally from Lee's, in an apparent attempt to help the reader see each woman through the other's eyes and to present each in a somewhat sympathetic light. Although Swan's descriptions of Venice and Athens and the Cretan countryside provide a rich and entertaining backdrop, the real journey here seems to be one of mutual discovery and appreciation. These women scarcely knew each other before making arrangements to travel together. Their common link is Luce's late mother Kitty, whose research interests concerned matriarchal cultures and religions. Both women appear to have significant unresolved issues about their relationships to Kitty and feelings of guilt about her death. Alas, I found Luce to be sulky and immature, a little too hung up about finding romantic love (she uses a pendulum for the first time ever to find out if one male she meets finds her attractive). Lee actually made more sense to me as a character, although I didn't need to know quite so many details about her experiences with menopause.
Susan Swan is an associate professor of Humanities at York University in Toronto. She's written three other novels. All of them seem to incorporate themes of friendships and other relationships between men and women (or women and women). All appear to have a historical component, if we can agree that the 1950s and 1960s are historical.
What Casanova Told Me strikes me as the kind of novel a reader might carry around in her shoulder bag while traveling or commuting. It's relatively short and would lend itself to reading in short pieces punctuated with life's various interruptions. | <urn:uuid:4633cc6a-d93b-47a0-a638-338db3b65ff0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://greenmanreview.com/book/book_swan_casanova.html | 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 | 0.965988 | 1,029 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Reviewed by Tirique W. (age 9)
I like this book because it reminds me of school. In school there are always rumors going around. You never know if they are true! My favorite character is Hubie. I like Hubie because he is scared to see the principal. I also thought the illustrations in this book were great because they look very real. My favorite picture is of the principal holding a coat rack and the coat rack is really a kid!
I would recommend this book to second grade students because I think they would enjoy hearing about a scary principal. Every school has a principal, so most elementary school students might like this story. | <urn:uuid:69fe9862-68c5-4645-abe0-bfe42023c6da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spaghettibookclub.org/review.php?review_id=11243 | 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 | 0.986357 | 133 | 1.585938 | 2 |
From: Edward Hobbs ([email protected])
Date: Mon Feb 17 1997 - 13:00:31 EST
From: LUCY::EHOBBS "Edward Hobbs" 17-FEB-1997 12:53:15.85
Subj: RE: 1st year Greek grammars & workbooks
--A few glosses to your excellent response.
>>>The most important factors in learning Greek are (1) not the textbook, but
the instructor! One needs to hear the explanations VIVA VOCE with adequate
examples to make the explanations clear. (2) SITZFLEISCH, as my mother used
to say. (Look it up) There is no easy, effortless way to learn any
language, not even the child learning English, who learns over years of
observation and correction.
*** [=sign of a gloss] These two utterances are exactly my first two! I
first began teaching college/university/seminary-level Greek in the fall of
1947, almost 50 years ago. (Carl should note that I used Rife's textbook,
because he had recently gotten his Ph.D. from Chicago, my own school!--
and I never used it again.) I had a phone-call yesterday from one of those
students in that class, praising my (rank-beginner's) teaching back then.
(I'm sure the student was not praising my choice of Rife.)
>>>There is no perfect beginner's grammar.
***No, there absolutely is not. (But, bad as Rife was, it was better than
Machen, which [pace Carl] teaches English, not Greek.]
>>> If I could (but I cannot) I would insist that
seminary students begin with either Homeric or Attic Greek.
***Absolutely right! I never had that power, either. But coming to
Harvard and Wellesley 15 years ago, I had the wonderful good fortune to be
privileged to teach students the Greek NT AFTER they have had a year of
Attic Greek, plus at least a semester of Plato, and often Euripides and/or
Homer. It is a wonderful experience; and they quickly come to see the
simplicity of the Koine, and most of all they can readily learn to
recognize the various styles of the various writers. (This is true at
Wellesley; at Harvard, alas, most learned their Greek solely from the NT;
but at least our weekly "Graeca" sessions, reading other Hellenistic-period
writers, helped them grow a bit.) In recent years, my Wellesley students
have studied 1st-year Greek with Carol Dougherty, who has done a wonderful
job; Carl Conrad and his university tried to steal her from us a few years
ago, and I am most grateful that they failed to do so.
>>> When I taught elementary Greek, I never followed the structure of any
textbook entirely, since they all do things differently than I would.
***This, too, was my experience. In the end, I wrote my own reference
grammar (from a T-G position), and used Goetchius mostly for forms and
exercises (in the workbook). Unfortunately, it was written from a
structuralist position (as was Funk's), just after structuralism suffered
>>>The more one can read quickly, the more vocabulary one will have....
No matter what grammar is used, the instructor can begin opening the NT
early on and do it consistently. It does NOT depend on the book selected.
***Again, I can confirm the wisdom of Edgar's remarks. KEEP THAT GNT OPEN,
AND USE IT OFTEN, POINTING OUT EXAMPLES, EVEN JUST READING ALOUD FROM IT.
>>>If you really want to learn NT (or classical or hellenistic-Roman era)
Greek, teach it. Then you really learna the language.
*** That's how I learned NT Greek; I never had a course in it, since they
didn't teach it at Chicago in those days. My Jesuit colleagues had a
little saying which I like: "I don't know anything about it; I've never
even taught it!"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:06 EDT | <urn:uuid:be913dd0-edd3-4ba0-b22f-eddb296835e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1997-02/17225.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955137 | 938 | 1.8125 | 2 |
For the last year or so Eye-Fi SD cards have allowed users to wirelessly upload photos straight from their digital cameras to their hard drives and photo sharing services like Flickr and Webshots. Now Eye-Fi is applying its technology to videos and YouTube.
At CES this week, Eye-Fi, inc. announced that it is developing a way for users to wirelessly upload their videos straight from their digital cameras to YouTube. There will be no need to dock your camera or even turn on a computer before millions of users are watching a video you probably had no intention of showing to anyone except the person you filmed it with. Well that's my fear anyway. Not that I shoot inappropriate videos...I'm just looking out for all you folks that do.
The company plans to implement the feature the same way it has for photos: through an SD card. Eye-Fi says it is designing the service to fully support HD video, which YouTube now also supports.
Eye-Fi, Inc will be demoing the feature this week at CES. | <urn:uuid:6554ec0e-8154-4547-9028-053eaaf1e75e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10134327-100.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956053 | 211 | 1.742188 | 2 |
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Gov. Rick Snyder says lawmakers should keep aiming at job-related issues that will improve the state's economy and not gun legislation that includes exempting Michigan-made guns and ammunition from federal regulations.
The Republican governor told The Associated Press Wednesday that the GOP-led Legislature should focus on economic issues and improving mental health treatment to solve larger problems related to gun violence. He spoke after a Senate committee approved the package of bills and sent it to the full chamber for consideration.
This bill comes after a New York newspaper published the names and address of local gun owners.
Another measure calls for gun purchases and licensing information to be confidential.
Supporters say the legislation protect states' rights and the privacy of lawful gun owners. | <urn:uuid:d94a6117-b73e-49d6-9ada-5610c66c8539> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/Snyder-Economy-Not-Guns-Should-be-Top-Priority-188082881.html?site=full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946079 | 154 | 1.75 | 2 |
By: Clive Longbottom, Head of Research, Quocirca
Published: 22nd January 2013
Copyright Quocirca © 2013
Quocirca recently had an interesting discussion with an off-shore hosting and cloud company. Jersey-based (as in the UK Channel Islands, not the US New Jersey) Calligo is positioning itself as the right place to be for data—and for running the applications that create and consume the data.
Why is this important? Well, organisations are beginning to wake up to the fact that even when a data centre is in a 'friendly' country, there is still potentially high risks to the intellectual property (IP) held within the data.
The US Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) make those European companies that have looked into their possible impact shudder. That a foreign power can demand—and get—access to their data just because it is hosted by a company in the US—or is in a facility anywhere in the world that is owned by a company in the US—means that many are looking for alternative arrangements with companies that can still offer a broad range of services, but backed with better data security agreements that cannot be ridden roughshod over by the regional government.
Calligo’s view is that Jersey is highly controlled from a data viewpoint. Although it is nominally 'in' the UK, it is actually a separate British Crown Dependency. This means that it is autonomous, makes its own laws and operates outside of the reach of other country’s legal systems— including the UK. Sure, EU laws will still apply when push comes to shove—but a European customer may be happier with a Jersey/EU escalation than a /EU/US three-way battle.
This means that data can be stored in a country where the legal system is subject to fewer overall laws, is overseen by fewer people and can be targeted to specific needs. Jersey has pedigree here with the way it has dealt with financial services in its country.
Jersey is also well connected from a data viewpoint to both the UK and the European mainland through multiple cables, and from these to the rest of the world. Therefore, placing applications and data in a commercial, secure facility on an island that is part of the EU but is autonomous has many things going for it.
But, however well Jersey is connected to the rest of the world, it cannot overcome its relative geographic isolation. When super-fast response is needed—e.g. for financial trading in the US or in Japan—the underlying latency can still be an issue. Calligo recognises this, and is looking at where else in the world it can set up similar facilities and meet the needs of organisations that want to be assured of greater security for their data and therefore their intellectual property.
The Cayman Islands are one option—they are well placed for the south of the US, for Central America and for the major markets of the top of South America. Although the Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory with their own legal system, they come under the overall control of the UK and have a Governor appointed by the Queen—but can still enact and follow laws that make sense from a commercial viewpoint to the islands.
Calligo also includes a data ownership clause in its agreements—the data always belongs to and is owned by the customer. Many cloud providers make no statements about this, which can cause issues for the actual data owner. On top of this, Calligo says that it has a special clause in its agreements, which make it clear that should the untoward happen, the data has to be turned over to the customer (even by a business administrator)—so making it easier for a customer to regain access to the data and move it to another provider.
Similar approaches in other parts of the world could give Calligo an interesting footprint for a global offering. With small, autonomous island states being more likely to provide laws that are data friendly while still retaining strong audit and overall data security capabilities, Calligo’s offerings of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS (for example, it hosts SugarCRM and other applications) combined with the capability to use external cloud offerings where it makes sense (such as Google Maps) will make sense to many organisations.
Overall, Calligo looks like an interesting company. For those who have worries about how their data is secured not just from the baddies out there, but also from the governments who are enacting ever more threatening laws around data access, the use of Island nations as a home for data could be just as good as using them for financial affairs.
We have not received any comments against this entry. Why not be the first?
All fields must be completed to submit a comment. Email addresses are passed through to the author so they can contact you directly if needed.
Published by: IT Analysis Communications Ltd.
T: +44 (0)190 888 0760 | F: +44 (0)190 888 0761 | <urn:uuid:30e7fea5-7dec-4eca-88b3-b8b5b4c7992a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.it-director.com/blogs/Quocirca/2013/1/does_where_trump_how_.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963636 | 1,029 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The day represents popular civil disobedience starting in 2001
Yet another 4/20 is upon us at CU, and the climate seems to be urging students to smoke marijuana on the Norlin Quad.
Earlier this week, a sidewalk chalk spread the message, “4:20. 4/20/2007. Norlin Quad. Be there!” Graffiti in one of the bathroom stalls in the Norlin Library reads, “4/20 in the Quad this year. Don’t get shut out.” And a spray-painted “Defend 420″ lurks on the ground for passers-by.
The 4/20 celebration has been going on at CU since at least 2001. The Campus Press made a reference to it in an article, written in 2002, titled “Up in smoke.” Prior to 2001, coverage is scarce in both The Colorado Daily and The Campus Press. Needless to say, the event has become very popular in recent years.
Farrand field used to be the designated spot to participate in the 4/20 celebration. The sprinklers were turned on, but the event continued. Last year, Farrand field was closed down. However, at about 4 p.m., the field was rushed.
Little did anyone know the police took photos of people on the field. The police later posted the photos on the Internet and offered $50 to anyone able to identify smokers.
Farrand field is closed this year because of construction, so the Norlin Quad may end up the new spot for a student gathering.
With the university cracking down on the 4/20 ritual, it opens the door for protest from students and community members.
“Go into it with the proper mindset,” said Paul Danish, who served as editor of the Colorado Daily when it was CU’s school newspaper. Danish worked with the school newspaper in 1964 when the University made its first big drug bust and has served as a Boulder County Commissioner.
“If you’re doing it, think of it as civil disobedience,” Danish said.
Sanho Tree is the director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and served on several panels during the Conference on World Affairs.
“You know, there are more effective things for kids to do to fight drug prohibition than go out and smoke pot in public,” Tree said during a CWA panel discussion.
- Trotting tradition
- Farrand construction rubs freshmen the wrong way
- Officials gear up for 4/20
- Tradition, food and wearing red all part of Chinese New Year
- Looking to the past: King's legacy | <urn:uuid:36662731-593f-4243-86a3-0d51d4ef6a0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cuindependent.com/2007/04/20/420-at-cu-marked-by-past-pattern-of-defiance-tradition/1337 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969286 | 558 | 1.742188 | 2 |
declined for the second year in a row in 2010, according to new findings by the nonpartisan
Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
Data from the 2010 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey show that the
percentage of workers who reported that their employer contributed $1,000 or more to their
account-based health plan declined from 37 percent in 2008 to 28 percent in 2010.
The study found the drop in employer contributions may have been due to the weak economy.
However, workers with employee-only coverage responded to the decrease from employers by
increasing their own personal contributions; workers with family coverage did not increase their
The analysis is based on the 2008, 2009, and 2010 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health
Care Survey and the 2006 and 2007 EBRI/Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Care
Surveys. It examines the availability of health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) and health
saving account (HSA) eligible plans (consumer-driven health plans, or CDHPs), as well as
employer and individual contribution behavior. The full report is published in the March 2011
EBRI Notes, "Employer and Worker Contributions to Account-Based Plans, 2006-2010," and is
available online at www.ebri.org
Employment-based health benefits are the most common form of health insurance in the United
States, but skyrocketing expenses have forced employers to seek ways to control their costs. In
recent years, employers increasingly have turned to account-based health plans--a combination
of health plans with deductibles of at least $1,000 for employee-only coverage and tax-preferred
savings or spending accounts that workers and their families can use to pay their out-of-pocket
health care expenses. There were 22 million people enrolled in a CDHP or in a high-deductible
health plan (HDHP) in 2010.
"The recession had a profound effect on employers, and they are continuing to look for ways to
cut health care costs while empowering their workers to make cost-conscious decisions about
their health," said Paul Fronstin, director of EBRI's Health Research and Education Program and
author of the report. "Individuals with employee-only coverage also responded to the need to
take control of their health care cost by increasing their contributions in a poor economy."
Other findings in the report:
? Income Differences: Not surprisingly, lower-income persons with HSAs are less likely
to make a contribution to the account than higher-income persons. One-fifth of persons
in households with less than $50,000 in income did not contribute to the account in 2010,
compared with 12 percent of persons with $50,000 or more in household income who did
not contribute. For the lower-income group, the percentage contributing $1,500 or more
increased between 2009 and 2010 from 21 percent to 31 percent, but among the higherincome
group, the percentage contributing $1,500 or more fell from 54 percent to 47
? Health Differences: Persons with a health condition were slightly more likely than those
without one to contribute to an HSA. Those with health problems contribute slightly
more than those without health problems. Among persons without health problems,
40 percent contributed $1,500 or more in 2010. Similarly, 51 percent of those with a
health problem contributed $1,500 or more in 2010.
EBRI is a private, nonprofit research institute based in Washington, DC, that focuses on health,
savings, retirement, and economic security issues. EBRI does not lobby and does not take policy | <urn:uuid:bd790190-950c-44c9-89f6-e639f7d25cc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.treasuryandrisk.com/2011/03/28/employer-contributions-to-accountbased-health-plans-drop- | 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 | 0.95528 | 762 | 1.765625 | 2 |
By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service
By Mike Hughes
"American Masters: George Gershwin: Remembered," 9 p.m., PBS. George Gershwin seemed to absorb all the forces of a vibrant society. The son of Jewish immigrants, he grew up in a Brooklyn filled with new Americans. He wrote for Broadway and Hollywood. He did light pop, complex jazz, even classical music. He blended them all together, doing some of his best work in an opera ("Porgy and Bess") filled with black dialect. He did it all, then died of a brain tumor at 38. His story is richly captured in this documentary, which includes clips from Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and the "Porgy" cast. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, "American Masters" is doing what PBS doesn't do enough — bringing back great moments. This month, the show's emphasis is on songwriting genius, with Gershwin tonight, Cole Porter on June 14, and Bob Dylan on June 28 and July 5.
"Gameshow Marathon," 7 p.m., CBS. Tonight, the celebrities — well semi-celebrities — try Beat the Clock.
"The George Lopez Show," 7 p.m., ABC. George decides he should inspire his son by taking some college classes.
"Freddie," 7:30 p.m., ABC. Freddie and Chris are both in the running to be named Chicago's top bachelor. Both really want the honor — and a spot on a magazine cover.
"Lost," 8 p.m., ABC. Inside the hatch in this rerun, Locke, Kate and Jack face a dangerous figure; also, Locke begins working with the odd demands of the hatch numbers. Meanwhile, the rafters face their own dangers. We also get flashbacks that show Michael's break-up.
"Law & Order," 8 and 9 p.m., NBC. The first episode has a teen runaway killed by his suburbanite mom. The second has a man killed after he defiled a treasured Torah.
"So You Think You Can Dance," 8 p.m., Fox. It's time for a new round of Las Vegas auditions, featuring people who got callbacks.
"CSI: NY," 9 p.m., CBS. An assistant district attorney is found dead in a cemetery, but there's no sign of the bullet. It turns out that some dangerous game playing was involved.
"Commander in Chief," 9 p.m., ABC. In a new episode, a hostage crisis breaks out in Turkey. Mac faces that while juggling political concerns as she chooses a vice president. | <urn:uuid:5ca416a0-277a-430b-be27-267fe63d1d09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Jun/07/en/FP606070317.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965004 | 549 | 1.507813 | 2 |
March 30, 2010
The web is a great place for gathering information and doing research. I find though, that reading big chunks of content on screen leads quickly to eye fatigue. So often I’ll copy and paste the text of say, a New York Times article into a Word document and then print it out to read away from my computer. This isn’t a very ‘green’ way of consuming prose.
Now there’s another option: Readability from arc90 Labs. You just drag the icon from their web page on to the top of your web browser and it installs a bookmarklet. Then when you come across an article or post you want to read, just click on the Readability bookmark and it places your text on a white background with several configurable options.
You can change the style of presentation (newspaper, novel, eBook and more); the size of the text (extra small, small, medium, large, extra large) and the margins (extra narrow, narrow, medium, wide and extra wide).
Once you start using it you wonder how you ever did without it. And I think you’ll find that, like me, you’re printing out less and reading more — comfortably — online, on screen.
March 23, 2010
He’s intelligent and articulate and what he says has broad application for anyone presenting themselves or their business online. Read the Top Ten things he’s learned here.
March 19, 2010
I know that the above image looks like a classic Photoshop-manipulated picture but according to Reuters these are actual roses created by Dutch grower Peter van de Werken by injecting natural dyes into their stems. For more photos and video go here.
March 15, 2010
If only there was a site that specialized in offering high quality, high resolution brushes for Photoshop that were totally free. . .If only it was just a click away. . . that would be so cool. If there was such a great resource like that, I’d probably link to it right here.
March 9, 2010
If you use PDFs like I know you do, you need the information on this web site. From their home page:
The Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG) is an international assembly of industry associations, vendors and experts; whose goal is to establish and share process specifications for best practices in graphic arts workflows. We are pleased to offer here, at no cost; specifications, setup files, test suites, white papers, and other educational information that support the efforts of the international graphic arts community.
March 3, 2010
Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant.
I found this account of the Harvard study fascinating, though I believe there’s no universal answer to the question posed, as you may find suggested here. For example, the answer for me includes a liberal application of Labrador which may not work for you. Still, this piece is well worth reading. | <urn:uuid:c99e4ead-f140-4ded-b2f0-51793d91ca67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://premiumblend.net/2010/03/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94205 | 735 | 1.546875 | 2 |
US cautions its nationals from travelling to Pak
Washington: The US cautioned its citizens from
travelling to Pakistan on Monday, noting that the presence of
al Qaeda, Taliban elements, and indigenous militant sectarian
groups poses a potential threat to Americans throughout the
Terrorists and their sympathisers regularly attack
civilian, government, and foreign targets, particularly in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the State Department said in
Observing that the Pakistan government has heightened
security measures, particularly in major cities, the report
said threat reporting indicates terrorist groups continue to
seek opportunities to attack locations where US citizens and
Westerners are known to congregate or visit, such as shopping
areas, hotels, clubs and restaurants, places of worship,
schools, or outdoor recreation events.
"Terrorists have disguised themselves as Pakistani
security personnel to gain access to targeted areas. Some
media reports have recently falsely identified US diplomats
and to a lesser extent US and other Western journalists and
workers for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as being
intelligence operatives or private security personnel," the
State Department said.
Visits by US government personnel to Peshawar, Karachi and
Lahore are limited, and movements by US government personnel
assigned to the Consulates General in those cities are
severely restricted, it reported.
"US officials in Islamabad are instructed to restrict the
frequency and to minimise the duration of trips to public
markets, restaurants, and other locations. Only a limited
number of official visitors are placed in hotels, and for
limited stays," the report said. | <urn:uuid:acc6660e-2803-4e96-b105-9308c10adf98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://zeenews.india.com/print.aspx?nid=725135 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936988 | 339 | 1.757813 | 2 |
, June 6, 2009 (ENS) - Peruvian Special Forces staged a violent raid early Friday on a group of indigenous people who were sleeping at a road blockade outside of Bagua in the remote northern Peruvian Amazon. At least 25 civilians are confirmed dead and over 100 were wounded and nine police officers are confirmed dead in the raid.
For the past two months, indigenous people have blocked waterways and roads across the Amazon, demanding the repeal of legislative decrees issued last year to bring Peru into compliance with the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement, which took effect early this year. The protesters claim the decrees will allow deforestation and privatization of their traditional lands and natural resources.
Peruvian Police break up a roadblock by indigenous people near Bagua. June 5, 2009. (Photo © Thomas Quiryen courtesy CATAPA)
More than 600 police attacked several thousand unarmed Awajun and Wambis indigenous peoples on the Fernando Belaúnde Terry road, including many women and children and forcibly dispersed them using tear gas and live ammunition.
Demonstrators refused to move from the roadblock as police in helicopters fired teargas grenades and live ammunition. Eyewitnesses report that police also attacked from both sides firing live rounds into the crowd as people fled into surrounding steep hillsides, where many were trapped.
As the demonstrators were being killed and injured, some wrestled with police, fighting back in self-defense, which resulted in the reported deaths of the nine police officers.
Peruvian Police take a demonstrator into custody. (Photo © Thomas Quiryen courtesy CATAPA)
Protests, which have involved more than 10,000 men, many of them in war paint and armed with bows and arrows, are being coordinated by the Peruvian Rainforest Inter-Ethnic Development Association, AIDESEP, an umbrella group that represents most of the country's approximately 50 Amazonian indigenous ethnicities.
"This is a struggle to defend our rainforest, to defend our natural resources, to defend the territory we live in," said Daysi Zapata, vice president of AIDESEP.
In local radio reports, the chief of police claimed that the indigenous demonstrators were armed and fired first. This claim has been rejected by dozens of local eyewitnesses including local journalists who confirm that Amazonian demonstrators have been entirely peaceful and only bear traditional spears and in no way provoked any violence.
Gregor MacLennan of Amazon Watch who is in Bagua gathering testimonies from blockade participants, local journalists and residents said, “All eyewitness testimonies say that Special Forces opened fire on peaceful and unarmed demonstrators, including from helicopters, killing and wounding dozens in an orchestrated attempt to open the roads."
"It seems that the police had come with orders to shoot," said MacLennan. "This was not a clash, but a coordinated police raid with police firing on protesters from both sides of their blockade."
Peruvian Police beat an unarmed protester. (Photo © Thomas Quiryen courtesy CATAPA)
"There have been many accounts of atrocities committed by the Special Forces," MacLennan said. "Some have reported seeing the police throwing liquid on the cadavers and burning them. Also local residents have given accounts of having seen police throwing bodies of dead civilians into the river in an apparent attempt to underreport the number of dead."
"We’ve also received accounts that some of those injured were being detained by security forces and denied medical attention leading to additional deaths," he said. "There are many people still reported missing and access to medical attention in the region is horribly inadequate."
"I have with my own eyes seen people been kicked and beaten by groups of police until they stopped moving," said Marijke Deleu, a Belgian volunteer with CATAPA, a Belgian NGO that focuses on mining problems in Latin America.
"Still today the police are looking for indigenous people to take into custody," said Deleu. "In Bagua and Utcubamba people are not allowed to leave their houses."
Deleu and fellow volunteer Thomas Quiryen also saw that the police took away corpses. This is "a way to decrease the official death count," says Deleu.
On May 9, the Peruvian governement declared a state of emergency in seven Amazon provinces, which means that "the constitutionally provisions on freedom and security of persons and the immunity of accommodation are temporarily suspended, and that there is a ban on gathering."
Officially imposed to safeguard access to roads and airports, and to prevent production losses due to the actions of the indigenous people, on Friday the state of emergency appeared to be used as an excuse for violence, said Deleu, who has been evacuated to safety by CATAPA.
Indigenous Peruvians protest decrees that facilitate taking of their traditional lands. (Photo courtesy AIDESEP)
Negotiations between the Peruvian government and the representatives of the indigenous communities broke off May 15, whereafter the indigenous people announced that they would continue their protest blockades. Ever since, the protest and the reactions of the government have hardened.
Criticizing the actions of the indigenous people, President Alan Garcia referred in a statement by the government to the contitution that “the State retains the ownership of sub-surface resources" and that “all Peruvian people have to profit the natural resources in the country."
The indigenous people do not claim the ultimate ownership of the Amazon forest, but ask for a voice in the decision making process in the development of the region.
Alberto Pizango, leader of the umbrella indigenous people's organization AIDESEP, explains, "We do not fight development, but we ask for development from our perspective."
Pizango said today that AIDESEP "laments the deaths" of the indigenous people, civilians and the National Police and called the killings, "indictable acts before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights."
Pizango said the indigenous people will continue protesting to defend their rights to traditional lands and resources, and that in spite of what happened at Bagua will not be defeated.
For earlier ENS coverage of this issue see:
Amazonian Indigenous Protest Provokes Peruvian Government Reprisals May 25, 2009
Peruvian Indigenous Blockades Extract Government Promise April 23, 2009
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.
|International Hydropower Association accused of excluding indigenous peoples and supporting Taib’s corruption USCC Releases Model Rule for Composting Operations ADA Carbon Solutions Announces New Hire of Vice President of Sales and Key Executive Promotions| | <urn:uuid:e1f9e39d-1ea5-4780-adf8-af54f1ea534f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2009/2009-06-06-01.asp | 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 | 0.965906 | 1,355 | 1.625 | 2 |
Updated 04/23/2012 08:02 PM
Supreme Court To Not Hear NYC Rent Laws Appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it will not hear a case brought forward by a Manhattan couple who claimed the laws forced them to rent apartments at rents 59 percent below market rate, meaning that the city's rent regulation laws will stay in place for the foreseeable future. NY1's Zack Fink filed the following report.
To view our videos, you need to
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
There was relief for tenants in nearly one million rent stabilized apartments citywide Monday, as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to wade into the thorny issue of the city's longstanding rent protections.
"This is a great victory. And it will keep New york affordable to those who wouldn't be able to afford to live here otherwise," said Manhattan Councilwoman Jessica Lappin.
The court was petitioned by Jim Harmon, who owns this brownstone on manhattan's upper West Side. The current rent laws prevent him from taking back any of his three rent-stabilized units.
In a surprise move, the Supreme Court asked the city and state to respond to the petition, but in the end the justices declined to hear the case, which centers on the city's housing crisis, which is defined as a vacancy rate below 5 percent.
In a statement, Harmon said, "Right now, there are 68,000 vacant apartments in the city. That is not an emergency by any definition. Because of rent stabilization, it will now continue to be difficult for us to keep our home of five generations."
"We understood that it was an uphill fight for the judges to accept to hear the case. We thought it was the right time for them to evaluate it," said Joe Strasburg of the Rent Stabilization Association. "We had rent regulation that was always deemed to be temporary in new York. 'Temporary' is defined over 50 years of permanency."
Tenant advocates welcomed the decision. They are pushing for a package of bills in Albany that would strengthen tenant protections.
"We fought a really hard fight last year to make sure that the laws were not allowed to sunset, when they were scheduled to sunset. And we now basically have the road cleared ahead to pursue strengthening tenant laws," said Maggie Russell-Ciardi of Tenants And Neighbors.
"To the extent the Supreme Court is saying the rent regulations will stand, I think that is good news for the State of New York. Rent regulations are very important to the tenants of New York, as you know," said Governor Andrew Cuomo.
For those who were hoping the Supreme Court would intervene, the Harmon case really did represent the last, great hope.
On the flip side, tenants and advocates are now confident that rent regulations will remain in place for at least a generation or more. | <urn:uuid:a7a28eb4-155e-4068-a819-fefe9eb2fe79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://origin.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/real_estate/159880/supreme-court-to-not-hear-nyc-rent-laws-appeal?ap=1&Flash | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968788 | 605 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Archive: January, 2010
A week or so ago I proposed the following question: what is the place for traditional culture in an industrializing society? And in particular, how is culture affecting Kenya’s progress? Kenyan Entrepreneur has pushed a bit further to claim that Africa has a culture of “non-progress” in which people fail to recognize or act on opportunities:
“I tend to agree with Brook’s commentary that culture has a lot to do with a country’s progress. I’ve said before that Africa’s poverty can be attributed to the fact that Africa does not have a culture of production. If something cannot be extracted from the ground (e.g. oil, gold, etc, etc) – we simply will not create or make it and this culture of non-production is the main cause of Africa’s poverty. That’s why foreign aid hasn’t worked. It’s because the do-gooder’s of the world have refused (out of fears of being labeled “racist” – have refused to confront this underlying question of culture).”
I think he’s right, but recognizing this fact is just one piece of the puzzle. Why is there such a culture of non-production? And what can be done to change it? For one, people are used to the idea that others (the government, NGOs, credit institutions) should swoop in and provide help. God knows they need it, but ingenuity can do a lot more than government can, trust me.
Second, the institutions that have meant to transition Kenya from a subsistence to a market economy have flat-out failed. The ideas for developing Kenya are there! The implementation has foundered time and time again due to corruption, politicking, and poor coordination by the government, parastatals, and privatized institutions.
Third, there is a reliance on imports: capital and consumer goods from abroad are viewed as a better (if not the only) option than building up capacity locally. Domestic products are seen as low quality, perhaps because people know how things are made locally and think the process is somehow better or more professional abroad. The country could use a “Buy Kenyan” campaign.
Lastly, there absolutely are people and institutions who are “progress oriented.” There are many of them and I’ve met them. For example, look how Dominic is making innovative use of the Fab Lab or how tirelessly countless entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid are working to grow their businesses, like Daniel who has expanded from electronics repair to a cyber cafe in just one year and now wants to start a computer training school. I heard a retail shop owner in Kisumu (where even those in Nairobi say dreams go to die) tell me she submitted a business plan to a VC firm abroad and is hoping to receive an investment to open an eco-lodge. She doesn’t want charity, she wants business. Tell me that’s not progress-orientation!
These innovators need to be cultivated. I’ve heard too many stories of talented individuals who have been shot down for loans, intellectual property, or any kind of support (even emotional). The government and formal institutions have too little faith in the micro and small enterprise sector, but that’s where the drive and progress will—nay, must—come from! So make loans more accessible, promote the development of new technologies, make intellectual property a reality, and craft linkages between the formal and informal, e.g. sub-contracting and investment, so that capital can flow to the little guys.
Jikos, Swahili for cook stoves, are used in just about every household in Kenya. Traditionally, they use large quantities of firewood and heavily pollute indoor environments. Luckily, the jiko also happens to be one of the biggest success stories in Kenyan appropriate technology. Dr. Maxwell Kinyanjui, Founder of Musaki Enterprises, invented an energy-saving stove called the Kenyan Ceramic Jiko (KCJ) in 1982. The idea was to change the shape slightly and add a clay insert to the scrap steel housing to insulate the jiko and use less firewood. Great design, true, but so many great appropriate technologies have been developed and rusted. Here’s what was so brilliant about the Kenyan Ceramic Jiko:
- It was a very simple switch from the traditional metal jiko (see photo, back) to the clay insert (front)
- Kinyanjui educated artisans on production of the housing and community groups on the ceramic insert
- Kinyanjui also educated consumers on the cost savings that would accrue over time from reduced energy
The verdict is in: Gikomba is the center of the jua kali universe. Almost every informal sector product has roots in Gikomba—the design, the materials, the tools, the inner frame, or the finished product itself. In sofa production, according to Lilac Osanjo, the frames of all jua kali sofa beds, from rural roadsides to formal furniture shops, originate in Gikomba. The area churns out 1,400 sofa frames per day! Even more interesting, nearly all design decisions, says Osanjo, are made by the time the frame is complete. Of the 33 sofa making enterprises in Gikomba (disaggregated into many specialized shops with 1,400 workers), only five are said to determine new designs, largely by copying furniture from Nakumatt or European catalogs.
Following Lilac’s presentation, a debate arose among the audience on whether Gikomba was a “nightmare” or a “thriving organism.” No doubt it is the latter, but just try doing research there. I dare you.
Today I was invited to a PhD dissertation presentation by Lilac Osanjo at the University of Nairobi, who is investigating “The Product Design Practice within the Micro and Small Enterprise Sector in Kenya” and specifically focusing on the case study of sofa makers. Her goal is to extract the design process that the jua kali go through to develop the sofa design choices that diffuse throughout the sector.
A few points of contention arose among the audience. If the jua kali are just copying designs from Nakumatt or catalogs, is that really a design process? Others suggested that Lilac compare the artisans’ process to academic processes or international design standards. “What can we learn from Japan?” a professor asked. But Lilac was steadfast in her belief that the whatever the jua kali’s process of design was, it should be taken for what it is, not for what it’s not. What she hopes to come up with resembles a pie chart: what percentage of the design is influenced by customer preference, affordability, copying, artisans’ skills, artisans’ imagination, etc?
Understanding the existing design and thought process of the jua kali—however they define design—will be incredibly valuable. Not to mention how massive a challenge Lilac is already facing digging through the many layers of Gikomba to uncover patterns and reason.
The informal sector runs on scrap. This introduces several interesting dynamics into the sector. First, it links microenterprises to the big guns, some of which supply a steady stream of factory waste, while others scoop up the materials for recycling. Second, it minimizes the ecological footprint of an otherwise sprawling phenomenon by encouraging reuse and repair. Note that this is not intentional: many jua kali would prefer to use higher quality materials. Others, though, find that using cheap materials actually works well with export markets, particularly in art. Of course, relying on scrap forever isn’t necessarily sustainable, judging by the clouds of black smoke trailing behind most vehicles.
Sam runs an electronics supply shop in Kawangware called Saphy Electricals that happens to have a “thorough” selection of electrical wire (look after the jump to see what I mean). He stocks both new wire and used wire, which he buys from local workshops as scrap. If a new wire costs KSH50 (USD0.67) per meter, the same quality wire used would cost about KSH40 (USD0.53) per meter.
The reason the economics are so crazy here is that traditional woven rope can cost up to KSH350 (USD4.67) per meter, so many customers actually buy this wire to use as clotheslines!
I told my guide Barry that I hadn’t seen any electronics workshops yet, and he knew just where to go. The first stop was Modern Electronics in Kawangware, where entrepreneur John repairs TVs, radios, and amplifiers. He was trained informally by a friend and has been running this business for four years. He also offers battery charging services.
The culture of reuse and repair is alive and well in the electronics sector.
Why are these banks labeled 2010? I asked the same question myself. Kenyans at the BOP tend to save money on an annual basis. Banks do well at the start of the year.
Kawangware is one of the largest slums in Nairobi with a population of about 200,000, but has a thriving commercial market center with a manufacturing area situated just behind the market sheds. My trusty guide and translator Barry, a talented scrap sculptor, was born in Kawangware and knew it well.
Leonard (shown) runs a furniture shop in Kawangware. He says one of his greatest strengths is his ability to work with customers. He knows many of them have tight budgets, so he judges the quality based on what people can afford. Want something cheap? You’ll get a cabinet like the one on the left, which might take two days to complete. Want something nice? You can get something more carefully crafted and finished like the cabinet on the right, which could take up to four days.
While the Kenya Bureau of Standards might frown upon such a practice, it is this type of quality and price matching that make the jua kali sector so appropriate.
Making Do is an investigation into systems of innovation in Kenya's informal economy. Learn more and read the book online or in print here.
I'm Steve Daniels. I study the transformative impact of technology on individuals and societies. I am the founder of the Better World by Design conference at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design and Analogue Digital, a publisher of content related to global cultures of technology. Currently, I work at IBM Research, where I study mobile social computing in emerging markets.
I am particularly interested in how people create, adapt, and use technology in resource-constrained environments, which I have written about in Making Do: Innovation in Kenya's Informal Economy.
- Emerging Futures Lab
- Future Perfect
- Information Aesthetics
- Maker Faire Africa
- Smarter Planet
- Timbuktu Chronicles
- White African | <urn:uuid:0f10883b-ac8c-4308-b63a-2e04ce995ff0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://makingdo.analoguedigital.com/blog/2010/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949209 | 2,308 | 1.789063 | 2 |
My name is Amanda Reyes. I am a second year Master’s student in the University of Alabama’s Women’s Studies program and an instructor of Introduction to Women’s Studies. Throughout my career as a feminist, women’s studies student, and university instructor, I have always been passionate about reproductive and sexual justice and eager to engage anyone on a discussion of these topics. Though their notion of “access” is generally limited by assumptions of affordability, legally documented immigration status, and personally-owned transportation, many individuals can understand the need for women to have access to basic preventive health services, sexually transmitted disease testing and counseling, annual well woman exams, and contraception. However, attitudes can quickly change when the topics of emergency contraception and abortion services are mentioned.
Because of misinformation spread by politicians, organizations, and individuals hostile to the notion of reproductive and sexual justice, many individuals do not understand the difference between emergency contraception and abortion. Emergency contraception works by keeping a woman’s ovaries from releasing eggs, or ovulating, so that there is no egg to join with sperm. Furthermore, an individual can only use emergency contraception to prevent a pregnancy up to five days after the unprotected sex occurs. An abortion terminates an already existing pregnancy. Even at this juncture, there are still many individuals who question women’s need for abortion services. Frequently, I’m asked “How would you feel if your mother had decided to get an abortion?” and, fortunately, I can answer that question quite well.
My mother, Jeanne, is the reason I believe in reproductive and sexual justice. At seventeen years old, my mother had unprotected sex that resulted in my conception. Because abortion was a legal and accessible option for my mother, she had the personal power to make a decision concerning her pregnancy. My mother elected to not have an abortion, marry my father, and start a family because she felt that she was ready and had the familial support to do so. While my conception was unintended, my birth was eagerly anticipated and brought joy to my mother, my father, and our family.
Things weren’t always easy. My family experienced financial hardships throughout my childhood that might not have been issues had my mother elected to have an abortion. It also took the support of both of my parents’ families to enable my parents to further their individual educations and careers to become professionals in their respective fields. Because my mother and father had a supportive familial network and truly desired to raise both their intended and unintended children, my younger brother and I were always loved and cared for. Some people respond to this by saying or thinking that my mother’s story proves that having and raising unintended children is something that all women are able to do and that, for this reason, there is no need for abortion services to be legally, medically, locally, and affordably available. However, my mother was only able to successfully raise two children in a loving household because she wanted to and had support from her partner, her family, and her career. My mother made the decision based on her own abilities and desires, and I would have never wished for her to care, bear, or raise me if she would have felt that these duties were overwhelming. Access to comprehensive and medically-accurate sex education, contraceptive services, emergency contraception, abortion services, and comprehensive prenatal care, should be available to all women so that they can make empowered decisions concerning reproduction.
My mom has also helped to empower me to make my own decisions concerning my health and reproductive life by sharing knowledge with me and supporting my reproductive choices. Even before I got my first prescription for birth control, my mother did not shy away from explaining to me how one became pregnant. Though she didn’t get into all the details, I knew from a young age that pregnancy occurred as a result of unprotected sex. Instead of discouraging me from premarital sexual activity like my school and my church, my mother urged me to use condoms and request medical contraception when I decided to become sexually active. My mother urged me to be healthy and smart no matter how she or others might feel about my sexuality. She also encouraged me to feel comfortable talking to her about any questions I had about sex and my sexuality. Though I never needed to ask my mom many questions thanks to our reliable internet connection, she supported my ability to make decisions for myself by trusting that I could make these decisions and by encouraging me to be comfortable asking her questions or looking things up on the internet. My mother also took me to her undeniably-feminist gynecologist for my first well woman exam. I wasn’t sexually active at the time, but my mother wanted me to be comfortable talking with a gynecologist about my reproductive capabilities and undergoing the annual exam, breast exam, and PAP smear. She also wanted me to have the opportunity to inquire about and request a prescription for regular contraception from my gynecologist. Because of the conscious steps that my mother took to educate and empower me, I have been able to live a healthy sexual life and accomplish my educational and career goals without worrying about contracting HIV or STDs or having an unintended pregnancy. Though she would never describe herself as a feminist and no matter how our politics may differ, my mother’s life experience and her strength, courage, and trust will always form the bedrock of my commitment to feminism and reproductive and sexual justice for all people.
- Amanda Reyes | <urn:uuid:dc600c45-f105-4acd-ba11-a11319b1f3c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latinainstitute.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/poderosa-profile-amanda-reyes/?like=1&_wpnonce=13170383b7 | 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 | 0.976231 | 1,112 | 1.75 | 2 |
Safe Options Services
One of the agencies supported by United Way of Vermillion is the Domestic Violence Safe Options Services – formally known as the Council Against Domestic Violence.
Domestic Violence Safe Options Services (DVSOS) is committed to building a community that works together to serve and empower victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking, and to the eradication of such acts of interpersonal violence. This is done through the provision of support services and public educational programs that challenge the traditional norms, beliefs and behaviors that may lead to violence.
The most important activity DVSOS is to provide confidential, free of charge services for victims and survivors. DVSOS services include 24-hour hotline, permanent and temporary shelter, transportation, clothing, food, medical services, counseling, emergency deadbolts, cleaning supplies and toiletries.
Women Rising is an ongoing support group meeting weekly with free childcare available. DVSOS recently obtained an office space in the community to provide victims and survivors with a safe and confidential environment for appointments and referral services.
The bridge across the Missouri River has made the Vermillion area accessible to Nebraskans from a sparsely settled area. Clients utilize medical services at our local clinics, attend the University and are employed at businesses such as Wal-Mart and Hy-Vee. DVSOS is seeing victims who were assaulted in Nebraska and seeking guidance about leaving the perpetrator to start a new life, likely in the Vermillion area.
United Way funds are more and more valuable as across the board cuts from federal and state grants are realized. DVSOS has developed and in-depth strategic plan to incorporate numerous goals including:
- DVSOS seeks to raise community awareness through educational activities including: senior citizens, international and disabled populations, elementary, middle school, high school and college aged students and community service agencies.
- It seeks to provide long-term case management by offering supportive services to survivors.
- Increase the visibility of DVSOS through comprehensive community training opportunities, develop and maintain a Web site and provide materials in appropriate languages.
- Enhance the support group by incorporating healthy lifestyle educational pieces such as: recognizing the red flags in relationships, stress management and self- defense training.
- Enhance and extend partnerships with service providers and community agencies in Clay, Union and Turner counties.
For additional information about the United Way of Vermillion, please contact the office at 24 East Cherry St., Vermillion, SD 57069 or call 605-624-5354. The e-mail address is [email protected] or visit the United Way Web page at www.unitedwayofvermillion.org. The mailing address is Box 216, Vermillion, SD 57069. | <urn:uuid:541b47b4-cdb3-4a05-b936-fdf92d2b9b6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plaintalk.net/2008/03/united-way-supports-dvsos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938625 | 555 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Which president had the first telephone? Which commander in chief gambled away the White House china? Or who loved jelly beans? Discover some fun facts about some of the men who've been president.More >>
Do you know which president was the first to have a telephone? Which commander in chief gambled away the White House china? Or who loved jelly beans? Discover some fun facts about some of the men who've held the highest office in the United States.More >>
The 2012 election may be over, but not all may be lost for Republicans looking for love. Thanks to chemistry.com, you can find your political equal in these cities.More >>
Republicans lost the 2012 presidential election, but not all may be lost for members of the GOP looking for love. Chemistry.com lists the cities they are most likely to find their political equal.More >>
The final debate before the 2012 presidential election provided an endless amount of viral internet memes as well as the inspiration for some creative fictional Twitter hash tags.More >>
The final debate before the 2012 presidential election provided enough memorable moments - one in particular about the Navy - to create an endless amount of viral internet memes. It also was the inspiration for some creative fictional Twitter hash tags.More >>
(RNN) - Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney tightened the race for the White House with a resounding win over President Barack Obama in their first debate, setting the stage for an increasingly important, winner-take-all showdown between the vice presidential nominees.
Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan will take the stage at Centre College in Danville, KY, at 9 p.m. ET Thursday for their only debate. Obama saw his projected lead in Electoral College votes diminish and his small lead in the nationwide pre-debate polls evaporate, leaving a dead heat in some polls and a small Romney lead in others.
Biden and Ryan will discuss their campaigns' policies on foreign and domestic policy issues. Like the presidential debate, the event is expected to last 90 minutes.
ABC News chief foreign correspondent Martha Raddatz will moderate the debate. Unlike last week's domestic policy event moderated by Jim Lehrer, Raddatz intends on dividing the debate into nine segments instead of six.
Each segment will last approximately 10 minutes and open with a policy question. The candidates will have two minutes to respond and can use the rest of each segment to discuss the topic.
Raddatz is no stranger to the politics surrounding the White House. She previously served as ABC's chief White House correspondent during the second term of the George W. Bush administration.
She joined ABC News in 1999 as the State Department correspondent but also covered the Pentagon for NPR from 1993 to 1998. With her extensive knowledge of foreign policy, the debate has the potential to focus on international issues.
National security and the war in Afghanistan are the two most likely topics, but viewers should expect the candidates to follow up on domestic policy points made in the presidential debate.
Ryan, who has extensive experience in finance and budgeting, will likely tout the Romney campaign's stance on healthcare, corporate tax reform and capping federal spending.
Biden may bring up the administration's success in passing healthcare reform, Wall Street reform, private sector job growth and withdrawing troops from the Middle East.
Danville and Centre College was a surprise selection as the debate site, but Centre also served as the site of the 2000 vice presidential debate featuring former V.P. Dick Cheney and Sen. Joe Lieberman. Wednesday's debate has electrified Centre's campus of 1,350 undergraduates and the 16,000 residents of Danville, where the event is being called "The Trill in the ‘Ville," with tongue firmly in cheek.
A far cry from Denver, the site of last week's debate, Danville and Centre were chosen in part because of the previous success as a host location, according to election officials.
"First, Centre did an outstanding job of hosting the 2000 vice presidential debate," said Debate Commission executive director Janet Brown in a news release. "Second, Centre's principal players from that debate are still at the college, and we value that experience. Finally, Centre's facilities, as good as they were in 2000, are vastly improved now."
Though Centre specifically planned the school's fall break to coincide with the debate, the school does not expect student participation to suffer. Aside from having an opportunity to volunteer during the event, students are encouraged to attend Centre's debate festival, which includes live entertainment, various political programs and a live outdoor broadcast of the debate.
The third presidential debate will take place at 9 p.m. Oct. 16 and will follow a town meeting format that includes foreign and domestic policy questions. Candidates will field questions from the audience at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY.
CNN chief political correspondent Candy Crowley is scheduled to become the first woman to moderate a presidential debate.
Copyright 2012 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:d9263bef-ff80-4c79-bdd3-b5f9ef098b7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/19741742/biden-ryan-to-back-their-presidential-frontmen-during-debate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961944 | 1,019 | 1.5 | 2 |
Ever since we tested the Sony SLT A77, we’ve been very curious to see how the soon-to-be released Sony NEX 7 would compare. And today we have the answer: as we expected, the absence of a mirror gives the NEX7 some advantages. Below is a detailed look.
The Sony NEX-7 has the same sensor as the Sony A77 and Sony A65, but it’s not a single-lens translucent (SLT) camera — that is, it doesn’t have a partially-translucent mirror — and that makes all the difference, because it doesn’t have to contend with mirror-related light loss. Let’s take a look at how the NEX-7 fares against different kinds of cameras, starting with its Sony SLT relatives.
So it is not surprising to see the A65 come in lower (at 74 points) than these other two cameras, given that it has no ISO 50 (advantage: A77) and a translucent mirror (advantage: NEX-7).
We applaud the Sony for succeeding in matching its competitors’ image quality scores. This was not a foregone conclusion despite having a significantly higher resolution than either the Pentax and the Nikon, because of its smaller pixel pitch on a sensor of nearly identical surface size.
What’s more, the NEX-7’s minimum ISO of only 100 put it at a disadvantage compared to the K5’s ISO 80, and indeed the NEX-7’s low-light results are noticeably lower than its competitors’ (1016 points vs 1162 and 1165, respectively).
No surprises here: the NEX-7 is by far and away the leader with a DxOMark score of 81 points — 30 points ahead of the Olympus and 27 points ahead of the Nikon. All these cameras are ergonomically similar, compact and lightweight, but the NEX-7’s larger sensor gives it a clear advantage over its rivals.
In conclusion, the NEX-7 is a success in terms of sensor image quality. In light of its current results, it’s hard to resist thinking about the kinds of scores a future “NEX-X” could achieve were it to add ISO 50 to its mirror-free advantage.... and about the kind of score a full-frame DSLR would achieve with the same sensor technology as the Sony NEX 7 or Sony A77. | <urn:uuid:d097a5ee-2b17-4c34-b477-754c19ef218d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/en%C3%A0%C2%B9%EF%BF%BD%20%C3%A0%C2%B8%EF%BF%BD%EF%BF%BD/Publications/News/DxOMark-news/Sony-NEX-7-comparisons-and-review | 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 | 0.944887 | 517 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The others laughed at that.
“Oh, you girls!” said Walter. “To hear you talk, one would think you were hounded like slaves at Lakeview Hall. You should have such a strict teacher as my tutor, for instance. He’s the fellow for driving one. He says he’ll have me ready for college in two years; but if he does, I know I shall feel as stuffed as a Strasburg goose.”
“This learning so much that one will be glad to forget when one grows up,” sighed Bess, “is an awful waste of time.”
“Why, Bess!” cried Grace Mason, “don’t you ever expect to read or write or spell or cipher when you grow up?”
“No more than I can help,” declared the reckless Elizabeth.
“And yet you’ve always talked about our going to college together,” said Nan, laughing at her chum.
“But college girls never have to use what they learn—except fudge-making and dancing, and—and—well, the things that aren’t supposed to be in the curriculum,” declared Bess.
“Treason! treason!” said Nan. “How dare you, Elizabeth? Pray what do girls go through college for?”
“To fit themselves for the marriage state,” declared Bess. “My mother went to college and she says that every girl in her graduating class was married inside of five years—even the homely ones. You see, the homely ones make such perfectly splendid professors’ wives. There’s even a chance for Procrastination Boggs, you see.”
“You ridiculous girl!” Nan said. “Come on! Who’s going down town with me? I can find my way around now, for I have studied a map of Chicago and I can go by the most direct route to Mother Beasley’s.”
“And find that cunning little Inez, too?” asked Grace.
“Yes. If I want to. But to-day I want to go to see if Sallie and Celia went back to Mrs. Beasley’s. I heard from Sallie’s mother by this morning’s post, and the poor woman is dreadfully worked up about the runaways. Mrs. Morton had a bad dream about Sallie, and the poor woman believes in dreams.”
“She does!” exclaimed Grace. “I suppose she looks at a dream book every morning to see what each dream means. How funny!”
“Goodness!” cried Bess. “Come to think of it, I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that I saw myself in the looking-glass and my reflection stepped right out and began to talk to me. We sat down and talked. It was so funny—just as though I were twins.”
“What an imagination!” exclaimed Walter. “You don’t lack anything in that particular, for sure.”
“Well,” declared Bess, “I want to know what it means.”
“I can make a pretty close guess,” said Nan, shrewdly.
“‘Vell, vas ist?’ as our good Frau Deuseldorf says when she gets impatient with our slowness in acquiring her beloved German.”
“It means,” declared Nan, “that a combination of French pancake with peach marmalade, on top of chicken salad and mayonnaise, is not conducive to dreamless slumber. If you dreamt you met yourself on Grand Avenue parading at the head of a procession of Elizabeth Harleys, after such a dinner as you ate last night, I shouldn’t be surprised.” | <urn:uuid:2b6929c1-9463-4bdd-86f2-b6c87a8e9429> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/12610/52.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966336 | 865 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Fulbright scholar, new La Sierra prof takes education to India's 'untouchables'
Aug. 25, 2010
By Darla Martin Tucker
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – (www.lasierra.edu) Just four weeks into her new faculty position at La Sierra University’s School of Education, Dr. Margaret Solomon took off for her native India armed with inspiration and a wealth of knowledge she aims to use to uplift the country’s impoverished children.
A recently awarded Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Scholar, Solomon is launching a four-month education project aimed at helping India’s so-called ‘untouchables,’ children at the lower end of India’s caste system who frequently do not attend school or complete primary education. Her Fulbright project, titled “Educational Justice for Underprivileged Students,” seeks to boost the educational level of Indian children through a movement of professional learning communities comprised of teachers and educators of teachers.
Solomon flew to Delhi on Aug. 1 to meet with the United States-India Educational Foundation director and a foundation team to go over procedures. The foundation administers the Fulbright program in India.
She plans to hold lectures for teachers for two months each at Lowry Memorial College near Bangalore and at Spicer Memorial College in Pune. Both colleges have teacher-training programs and are owned by the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Solomon earned dual bachelor degrees from Spicer in 1968 and served as a teacher at both institutions.
Solomon will instruct the teachers and student teachers as well as teachers from nearby colleges in the organization of forums dedicated to increasing the education levels of impoverished children. She will use a ‘systems’ approach to the process, first instructing educators of teachers, then principals and finally the teachers. “My first objective is to bring awareness of the enormous challenges in India,” she said.
She held her first lecture the second week of August for teacher educators at Lowry. On Aug. 22 she began teaching pre-service teachers in the teacher training division. The college’s president has also asked Solomon to evaluate the program of the on-campus high school and train administrators and teachers, she said in an e-mail interview from India.
Additionally, she will travel next month to work with teachers at two schools in the city of Varanasi/Banaras and another near Bombay. The schools serve underprivileged children. She will interview and observe teachers, administrators and students and collect qualitative research data in case studies of the schools.
After training the teacher groups Solomon will call for volunteers and organize leaders of groups to form the learning communities. Solomon’s approach involves gleaning information from journals teachers will keep as they implement culturally responsive instructional strategies used to teach India’s ‘untouchables’. Teachers will also learn to hold “instructional conversations” with students after they teach a concept or an idea, asking students if they understood what was taught, she said. They will also learn to engage in conversations with other teachers about the process of teaching used in relaying a particular concept or idea.
Solomon plans to draw from studies conducted of teachers of underprivileged and tribal children in Indian government-sponsored schools. But her biggest obstacle may be in changing the perspectives of some of the teachers themselves. Most of the children come from very poor homes, she said. Some live on the streets, some in shacks and others in huts and mud houses. “The teachers have very negative attitudes toward them [children from lower classes],” she said. “My whole focus is to work on changing those world views.”
Thus far she’s had a positive response to her efforts, Solomon said Aug. 19. India’s government has created a law called Education for All, similar to America’s No Child Left Behind, but implementation is limited, she said. “Although there is a sense of duty toward teaching those children, there is not much commitment to do a thorough job. The system does not seem to have a thorough process to monitor the work toward educational justice,” she said.
Solomon and her husband have two grown sons. The couple lives in Yucaipa, Calif. She began her new position July 1 as a professor of educational leadership at La Sierra University. Solomon considered a position at a local state university before electing to teach at LSU.
“Dr. Boyatt [former School of Education dean] talked to me a lot. They really made me feel wanted. That really touched me,” Solomon said.
She believes the new job is the result of providential direction. While she was the top candidate for the more lucrative state university job, the institution delayed its decision to giver her a contract. She had prayed for direction based on which school came forward first with a contract proposal. Meanwhile, Boyatt continued to impress upon Solomon the need for her skills at LSU. “It was so obvious it was La Sierra, so I could not resist that anymore,” she said. “I began to feel that God really was directing me to LSU and I must contribute to my church institution the skills and knowledge I had developed all these years.”
The four-month Fulbright project is just the kick-off for Solomon’s cause. She plans to morph the program into a long-term research project with pre-surveys, process surveys and outcomes. “The surveys will be given to teacher educators to find out their worldviews about teaching the target students of the study,” Solomon said. “Pre and in-service teachers also will do the worldview survey and the teaching style survey to measure their instructional style to determine how much of student centered instruction is followed. Principals also will be given the survey to identify their leadership style and their worldviews about educating those students.”
Once the kinks are worked out and the India educational project gets solidly underway, Solomon dreams of building a similar grant-funded program in California based on the same model. The goal: to aid underprivileged California children whose first language is not English. “It’s a dream. Let’s see what how Lord leads,” said the Seventh-day Adventist educator.
The India education project jelled for Solomon while typing the application for the Fulbright scholarship, she said. “The ideas just flowed and flowed. I myself couldn’t believe I wrote that. I’m so grateful the La Sierra administration is letting me go and do this,” she said.
The Fulbright program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs sponsors the program which operates in more than 155 countries and awards approximately 7,500 new grants annually.
Fulbright officials contacted Solomon in April announcing the selection of her project for a scholarship grant. “I just cried when I found out I got it,” she said. “I said ‘Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you.’”
Solomon is from the southern portion of India where she attended the first Seventh-day Adventist church established in that country in 1906. In 1978 she and her husband immigrated to the United States where Solomon pursued a master’s in curriculum and instruction at Andrews University while her husband entered Andrews’ seminary. Solomon was hired by the Grand Rapids public school district as a special education teacher in 1980. Her 23-year public school teaching career included five years as vice principal of Union High School in Grand Rapids, the largest high school in that district.
In 1999 she completed a doctorate in K-12 educational administration at Michigan State University and in 2003 accepted a faculty position at Redlands University in Redlands, Calif. She taught there as an assistant professor for seven years and developed doctoral and master’s program courses.
In addition to her broad teaching experience, Solomon has published numerous articles, co-authored two books, conducted extensive research and made numerous conference presentations at the state and national level.
She completed research this year that examines implementation issues of the federal government’s No Child Left Behind policy and is continuing cross-cultural studies begun in 2007 on identity development issues of recent Mexican immigrants attending California high schools. The latter study compares with immigrant issues in Hong Kong, Australia and Canada. Solomon in April submitted her research for consideration of publication in the National Association of Professors of Educational Administration Journal.
Solomon is shifting her research to focus on transformational leadership and its impact on the education of underachieving students. Much of her past analysis has centered on the needs of English language learners. “In the U.S. and especially in California they are the ones not having success,” Solomon said.
PR Contact: Larry Becker
Executive Director of University Relations
La Sierra University | <urn:uuid:86d852bd-56ae-4d2f-a1d6-d34e21032b35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lasierra.edu/ue2013/news/2007/2007/jun/index.php?id=3548 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966499 | 1,857 | 1.757813 | 2 |
In modern times, and all this progress, we read a lot about free eco power generator scam where a lot of people who say that this energy source will not be able to succeed and to fail to make a lot of people who later became hesitant to try to make it. And a lot of experiments that they do but they can not succeed, it is because they do not know how to make eco power generator properly, so as energy generator system that did not work they make, then they will immediately make comments that This energy system will not be able to succeed with repaired.
But if you read a lot of reliable sources and buy a manual then you do not need to waste a lot of money to make eco power generator so that you will be able to say that the free eco power generator scam is not true and that the energy system by using a generator that can be used well so that it can provide the supply of electrical energy that is not limited to your home. Eco power generators are built and fitted with photo voltaic panels contained within the property you have is to make your own so you can “build-it-yourself” generator of low-cost with materials easily found around us and especially environmentally friendly. Read the rest of this entry
Eco power generator many reviews that we know and say that this power generators will not work for and would give better result. Eco power is a secret that you can learn how to generate and then use an energy resource which will you use to turn the flow of electricity in your home for free. The device generator will provide a continuous motion using magnets to produce large amounts of electrical energy that can then be used in your home as a source of power. When the generator is fully implemented, it will help you to reduce and can even help you to remove your electric bill on the spot for once and for all. Read the rest of this entry
Green energy products is one solution for getting healthy life for most people which live in big city, because in big city we have familiar with many polution in every where and we can deny that polution will give us toxic and not healthy life like many company said when they release their product. Actually we can found green energy product in around us as long as we can see with clear and not jugde that product as not good product, because we have to try the product and then we can say that product is good or not.
Clean energy can be interpreted as an energy that does not affect the environment and make dirty and comes from renewable sources. It is also referred to as continuous energy. Green energy products generally involves technology that can improve energy efficiency. Examples of green renewable energy sources wind, sunlight, water, geothermal, hydrogen, biomass, and waste materials. The following are some of the benefits of green energy: Read the rest of this entry
Magnetic free energy generator is one solution for home owners who have difficulty in getting a stable power source where they still use the same power source with other people around them. This is a controversial topic among the people out there where some people who say that it is a condition that must be experienced by people who still use an electrical power source that will be very limited for various circles. Magnetic free energy generator is very effective for home and for commercial purposes because this type of generator is simply utilize the resources of a magnetic field to generate electrical power source that would be an alternative source of electricity in the homes of everyone and this generator can keep the environment needs more green and will be a different way of alternative power sources that utilize clean energy. Despite the sun, wind, tidal and geothermal are a good choice, but so far only solar and wind power that can be utilized by us. Read the rest of this entry
Power generators for home use is also known as a generator that could provide a source of electrical power to your home if a home when you experience a power outage. So the point is if you lose electrical power supply source in your home, then you have a backup power source and therefore you should not experience discomfort during a power outage. A power generators for home use will be installed in your home in such a way as to supply electrical power source can you monitor all the time. When the power source you are using fails, the ATS (automatic transfer switch) and disconnect the utility feed is connected to a standby generator that feeds electricity in your home will remain lit. But remember that this will not apply the same for portable generators, since this should not be manually connected it will automatically switch itself.
If a signal in power generators for home use is sent through an automatic transfer switch, then start the generator for use at home and this means that the power circuits of your home will remain on standby and replace the power source that you use everyday. Automatic generator will continue to monitor the electrical power source and turn it in your home by switching automatically when power outage ends. Generator will then automatically return to standby mode, waiting for the next power outage if it almost every day of electricity in your home to crash. Read the rest of this entry
Maybe you want to using generator to power home if you want to Reduced or cut off your electric bills so you can thousand dollars in a month and you can save your money for another needs. By using generators, you can use it for your home and you can easily maintain the generator by yourself and beside That you can make another one generator for your friend if They want to. In addition, the generator that you create a source of electrical energy that are environmentally friendly so you do not need to bother thinking about how to deal with pollution which may arise as a result of these generators.
By using generator to power home, you can start saving your money, otherwise you will get the resources for electricity in your home with unlimited and you do not need to think about how to pay the electric bill, because the generator that you make very good and suitable for use in your home. Many experts say that it’s time we look for alternative resources to spare, so we will not find it difficult if someday have the resources we use are running low. In addition, by using a generator, we can choose the kinds and types of generators which we will use so that we can arrange it easily.
When using generator to power home, perhaps you will think how to make it while you do not have any expertise in terms of dealing with or making a generator. But with so many clues in the form of articles, magazines, or other media that will assist you in making these generators, then you will not find difficulty in making and merangkainya from start to finish and you will be able to assemble all components of the generator alone. In addition, if you can already make a generator that, then if someday your friends need help to make a generator, then you will easily be able to make for your friends. Read the rest of this entry
Many of the experts mentioned the possibility of energy we can get the free energy generator magnetic and it continues to be questioned, whether it’s possible or not to apply to see the resources that are now very limited and can cause more pollution in the earth. We must look for alternative options to still be able to maintain the current energy by trying to use other energy options, while if we look around us then in fact there are so many that we can use to try to find new energy sources that could be an alternative option for us so we are not dependent on one or more of the energy which would have limited resources.
So whether you want to save on your energy costs with an environmentally friendly way? If so you have several options. We know some alternative energy options that are often used by others is by using solar power system is the choice of the most popular alternative energy. As for specific areas, generating electricity with wind turbine system is a realistic solution. This is caused by lack of sunlight can be a source of energy, so we have to find other solutions. However, besides the two energy sources mentioned earlier, there are potential new sources of energy that has emerged. This energy source is the free energy generator magnetic which is now being promoted as an alternative energy future. The experts stated that after the initial fee is paid, you will receive that energy and that energy will be free to be used as energy in life. Usefulness of magnetic generator is that once the generator is turned on, it will continue to produce more energy than we consume and the generator that will do it for onwards during generatos still in good condition. Condition of perpetual motion is known as over-unity. Read the rest of this entry
Free Eco Power – Do you want to generate electrical power source that will be the power you need for your own home or you want to continue working with power companies to pay the electric bill? It would be easy if we make a generator that works with the sun, or wind power generators using fuel. But what if right now there is no sun, like when it rains? Or, when it’s just cloudy? Or, how about at night? No solar power moments, it was given. Now, what if you live where there is very little wind or no wind on a daily basis? So there will be no wind generators.
Currently existing methods to generate electricity for your home by just using a generator which is run by the magnetic power source. What is the magnetic power source that? When we talk about the source of magnetic energy, we must understand about magnetic itself because we will use as a source of energy is something that can exist around us and it could be something that is free because it’s just about the closest thing to perpetual motion motor that you will be looking for. Read the rest of this entry
You can build wind power generator using low-cost wind turbine. Electric wind generators are made commercially available, but there are many tools that are very expensive. By making your own then you will save lots of money and to make it pretty easy. How to manufacture wind power generators already widely available and instructions on how to make it from start to finish is also widely available. You can try to use some auto parts that could still good and can be used so that you can build wind power generator which is very good and reliable. You can build a wind generator electricity to charge a commercial turbine and sell excess power to your power company in many areas.
For the future it is now clear that the electric power generated by wind turbines is the best way to move forward. It will provide convenience for many cities and can be used as an alternative energy in the big cities. Many major cities around the world who already produce some or all of their power supply by using wind power generators requirements of this. So this will help many people who want to save our environment and now it is available an easy way to do this is to build one or several smaller wind turbine to generate its own power source. Not just for ourselves but we can help the earth to reduce the level of damage in a way to get free electricity from the wind generator to the panel. Besides, if we use diesel-fueled engine can indeed help as an alternative to the other but the engine power output was limited and very expensive machine. Read the rest of this entry
Free Eco Power Generator is a secret so you can learn how to use electricity in your home for free using a device. This device works by using motion of a magnet on a continuous basis to produce a large amount of electrical energy that can then be used in your home as a source of power. When the device was already used automatically and continuously then that would eliminate the burden of electricity bills in your home.
We do not need a permit to know a secret that the power companies would continue to trap us with electricity bills will go up every month. However, we can not do anything if there is no electricity for our homes, then we will truly live in the dark ages. Without electricity we would not be able to use our lights, our refrigerators, or any other electrical equipment that will make our lives easier. Read the rest of this entry | <urn:uuid:e4705eb3-4b64-4b84-be96-521ca64c52fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ipanks.com/free-echo-generator/ | 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 | 0.953809 | 2,449 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Chocolate, made locally
Published: Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 9:15 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 9:15 a.m.
By Lynn Haggerty King
For the Argus-Courier
Today, Valentine's Day, chocolate is one of the most sought-after items in town. Luckily for Petalumans who love the delicacy, locally owned and operated businesses are providing an array of artisanal chocolates to choose from.
This reporter was first introduced to Bert's Desserts when two Casa Grande students sold her peppermint bark that they were producing and marketing as part of their senior project. They explained that Bert had agreed to mentor them through the project, so that they could learn how to run a small business.
Petaluma native Bert, short for Roberta, Smith has been making and selling her own cream-filled truffles and chocolate cups from a commercial kitchen in Petaluma for the past 10 years.
While candy making started as a hobby, she became a professional about 14 years ago when her husband asked her to produce 100 boxes of chocolates for his clients during the holidays, after his original distributor was unable to fill the order. So many people asked him where he got the delicious chocolates, and how could they get more, that Bert eventually decided to change careers, leaving a high paying position in the financial industry and setting up her own small business.
Smith produces her own chocolates and is self-taught. She specializes in cream-filled truffles but also makes peppermint and raspberry bark.
She has also developed a port and wine reduction process, allowing her to create wine-flavored fudge, which she sells at winery events, using products specific to the winery. Her wine-flavored fudge is much in demand, and only available at events since it doesn't last past two days. She will give you the recipe upon request.
She also makes wine- and port-flavored cream truffles, as well as many other flavors, including her signature peanut butter cups.
Bert is proud to have been born, raised and educated here in Petaluma and is very interested in giving back to local schools, both through donations and through mentoring programs. Last month, she hosted the entire Petaluma High School Future Business Leaders club and taught them how to make chocolates. On March 9, she will be part of the Petaluma Host Lions Food Festival, which benefits Project Graduation for all high school seniors.
Lynn Wong, meanwhile, is the sole proprietor of Viva Cocolat, located at 110 Petaluma Boulevard North. She makes some of her own artisanal chocolates and sells others based on their reputations for excellence and the use of quality ingredients, which she taste tests to make sure they are suitable for her clientele.
She also serves desserts produced by area bakers Sweet Things, John & Jill's, and Galaxy, and has a cappuccino bar where she makes espresso and chocolate drinks.
She has been open for five years as of Feb. 9, after deciding that Petaluma needed a world-class chocolate shop.
She confesses that she is a chocoholic and has a passion for both chocolate and Sonoma County.
(Contact Lynn King at argus@ar guscourier.com.)
(NOTE: WE CAN CUT SIDEBAR IF NEED BE)
Where to find locally made chocolates
You can find Bert's Desserts at G&G Market and Powell's in Petaluma. You can also order by phone at 707-762-5695 or visit her website at www.bertsdesserts.com.
Every Friday and Saturday evening, Lynn Wong of Viva Cocolat hosts a chocolate fondue, reservations recommended. For Valentines Day, there will be a special dessert buffet from 5 to 9 p.m., reservations required.
Viva Chocolate can be reached at 707-778-9888, and on the web at www.vivacocolat.com. Hours are 11am-6pm Sunday through Thursday; 11a.m. to 10p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
You'll find a number of new technology features available from this site. With personalized news sent straight to your mobile device.
post your stuff
Petaluma360.com is here for you to post your comments, photos, news and events with the community. Post it now!
Have something to say? Join the conversation!
Upload your photos of community events, holidays, pets, cute kids, breaking news and more, and vote for your favorites!
Submit your area events to encourage others in your community to attend. | <urn:uuid:2543615d-16d2-47ea-b966-4580567f3fea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petaluma360.com/article/20130214/COMMUNITY/130219796/0/news08?Title=Chocolate-made-locally | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968033 | 1,021 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Washington: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was admitted to a New York hospital on Monday after doctors discovered a blood clot related to a concussion she suffered early this month.
"In the course of a follow-up exam today, Secretary Clinton's doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago," her spokesperson and the Deputy US Assistant Secretary of State, Philippe Reines, said in a statement.
"She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at New York-Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours," Reines said.
"Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required," he added.
Clinton (65), who suffered a stomach infection early this month, and was working from home for most part of the December, was expected to return to work next week. | <urn:uuid:fd500ea6-3352-4d54-b6b2-b132c3eb0f9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsbullet.in/world/52-more/38032-clinton-admitted-to-ny-hospital-with-blood-clot | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976644 | 194 | 1.65625 | 2 |
If you’re hosting an Edcamp, a major conference, or even just a birthday party … there’s a free app that can help you increase awareness and get people more engaged. I could see this being useful at just about all education conferences and events held around the world.
The free service is called Yapp and it’s a drag-and-drop app builder for iOS and Android that lets you conceive, build, and launch your very own branded event app in a very short period of time. If you have absolutely zero web design / development skill, Yapp is for you. If you’re hosting an event and need people to sign a virtual guestbook, view detailed information about the event on the go, or just browse some images of past events … it’s simple enough to do.
We created our very own Yapp and it was a snap. By creating the fake Edudemic Conference 2013 app, we went from start to finish in about 10 minutes (give or take … the dog was barking). While I have plenty of web skillz (with a z), it is still a daunting task to consider building an entire app for just a single event.
Or really just building an app in general. That kinda thing usually takes months or the better part of a year.
I was impressed with the ease of use with Yapp and would recommend it to anyone looking for a basic app. It may not be a super-customized thing you want but hey, it’s better than having no app … I think.
There’s a lot of drag-and-drop app developers out there hoping you give them a try. We wanted to call out Yapp because it just seems so useful for education conferences. We know there are hundreds of these events every year so education event organizers should pay attention. But, building an app is not for everyone. Even if it’s as simple as Yapp. So here’s a couple alternatives event organizers could consider:
You can sell your tickets through Eventbrite and then attendees can download the dedicated app for event guests. It lets them do many things including access a QR code for their ticket (you can scan said QR code with a separate Eventbrite app). | <urn:uuid:d416e31d-4e0f-495d-81b0-a3fdc136b33b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edudemic.com/2013/02/yapp-build-your-own-app/ | 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 | 0.964241 | 467 | 1.578125 | 2 |
By Tony Bracegirdle.
Royal National Rose Society. National Champion. 1996-2009
It is an acknowledged fact that numbers of amateur rose exhibitors are in decline. Each year we see less and less entries on the show bench. It is a problem that the Royal National Rose Society Shows Committee are mindful of and they are always looking for ways to attract novice exhibitors.
With this in mind, I thought I would do my bit to try to stimulate interest and enthusiasm with Society members, who without doubt, grow superb roses, but who have not previously thought to bring them along to one of our shows, displaying them on the show bench for the visitors to admire.
I’ll begin by giving you my system for growing exhibition roses. It is not the only way to do it, but it is a tried and tested system that I have used for over forty years. It obviously works for me, so why not give it a try.
The best position for growing successful roses is one with a south facing aspect with some shading from the west, so that the full heat of the sun is diffused in the afternoon. Most gardens will not have anything like this ideal situation, but do not despair, the rose-being such a tolerant plant-will succeed in almost any kind of growing area, with the exception of heavy shade and boggy soil. On the subject of soil, which soil is the most ideal ? A good rose soil is one which is of a good quality loam, not waterlogged or sour, but well supplied with plant foods and stiff enough to allow the roots to really get a firm hold. Most of us will find that the soil in our garden falls short of this ideal. The beginner who feels he ha little chance of success because his garden is not composed of just the right sort of soil, should take heart from the fact that many rose growers, myself included, started with a soil that was far from perfect. First obtain a soil test kit to see if the soil is acid or alkaline. Slightly acid is best, about pH 6.5 (pH 7 being neutral). Good roses can be grown on chalky alkaline soil by applying plenty of organic material. At the other extreme, a heavy sour clay soil needs lime or any kind of gypsum added to make it more alkaline. Whatever the soil type, and whenever new rose beds are being created, remember that we only prepare these beds once and so a bit of effort is essential, once planted we expect roses to remain in the beds for years. The soil must be dug 2 spades deep, at the same time incorporating plenty of organic material along with blood, fish and bone at a rate of 135 grams per square metre. Whe finished allow the beds to stand for at least a month before planting the roses. When planting, prune the rose roots back to about 20cms, this will encourage the fine feeding roots. Plant them with the node (the swollen part where the rose was grafted) level with the soil surface. Prune new bushes quite hard in their first year, about 3 eyes (dormant buds) from the base in the month of March. In future years, prune them down to about 50cms, making sure each cut is about 6mm above an eye and sloping slightly away from it. This hard pruning applies only to modern roses (repeat flowering) , you can be less severe with old garden roses (once flowering), climbers and ramblers. After pruning the surrounding soil should be sprayed with a proprietary winter wash to see off black spot spores that may have over-wintered. The beds should then be mulched with a blanket of organic material, well rotted horse manure is my favourite. Cover the entire bed to a depth of 10cms, this will help to conserve the moisture in the soil. In really dry periods of drought it is advisable to apply about 9litres of water to each bush per week. After pruning, I apply my first feed of the season which is Vitash Q4HN. The HN stands for high nitrogen and it helps to get the bushes moving quickly. I apply a second feed of blood fish and bone at the end of may. The third and final feed of the season—Vitax Q4 (without the high nitrogen) at the end of July coincides with the end of the first flush of bloom. All the above feeds are applied at 135 grams per aquare metre. Do not feed the roses after this date as it will only encourage soft sappy growth that will not survive the winter.
I usually start to spray with insecticides and fungicides as soon as the foliage is mature enough to accept a spray, when the leaves turn from red to green. The products I use are Provado Bug Killer and Systhane fungicide, applied every 14 days until the end of September. It is a good idea to ring the changes from time to time using different products as both insects and spores can build up an immunity to a product if the same one is constantly used.
To obtain better quality blooms, growers of exhibition roses usually dis-bud their large-flowered roses to ane bud per stem, removing all the side buds and only retaining the terminal bud. With cluster-flowered roses they do the opposite, removing the terminal bud and retaining all the others. Throughout the summer the faded blooms need to be removed (dead heading), don’t cut the blooms off just below the flower but instead count down five eyes from the flower and cut it off just above the fifth eye. This kind of summer pruning will give better growth and blooms from this lower cut. That is my system which has been tried and tested over the years but will only work if you are prepared to stick with it throughout the season. When deciding which roses to plant it’s a good idea to visit other rose gardens in your area and see which varieties are doing well. Of course during the summer months you can buy them in containers already in flower.
Having decided which shows to attend study the schedules well in advance. Check if the schedule gives vase height and sizes, and if it does, make sure that the ones you plan to use conform. It can be very annoying to be told “not as schedule” by the judge just because the blooms are in the wrong size of vase ! Obtain a box or bag (i find a briefcase ideal for the job) in which to carry all your exhibiting equipment including essentials as secateurs, scissors, pens, paper, florist’s wire, tweezers, small brushes and cotton wool buds. The more time and preparation spent on blooms prior to the show will give you a better chance of winning against exhibitors who, although they may have slightly better roses, don’t spend that little extra time in the preparation.
Cutting The Blooms
Roses take up moisture at night and lose it by transpiration during the day. Early morning is the best time to cut blooms. I cut my blooms with long stem, two days before a show, placing them in deep plastic buckets of water, to which i add a couple of drops household bleach. Keep them in a dark place such as a garage or cellar.
Selecting The Blooms
The evening before the show is the time to select your blooms. Discard any with split, disarranged, or damaged petals or poor colour. Choose only fresh blooms of a sparkling colour, cutting them with stems about 45cms in length. Refer to the show schedule and decide which blooms are to be used and in which classes they will be entered. Place them in your carrying crate in the order that they are to be used. This will save time when you get to the show. The crate could be an old beer crate, into which you put clean washing-up liquid bottles with their tops sliced off. Fill the bottles with water and place a stem in each. It’s wise to cover every other bloom with a thin polythene bag, which ensures that none are touching, eliminating bruising of the petals.
Presentation is a very important aspect of exhibiting roses. Points for presentation can be as much as 33% which can mean the difference between winning and losing. Exhibits should be artistically arranged with even spacing between the blooms, they should be neither gappy nor crushed together. The whole exhibit should be a balance of blooms, stems and container. The blooms should predominate and be of good form, fresh and with good colour. They should be sparkling in appearance, with stems which are neither too thick nor too thin in relation to the blooms and with clean, undamaged foliage. In the box classes, only the blooms are considered, these should be slightly larger, but not at the expense of quality and freshness. If pellets are used to make younger blooms appear more open and to the standard required (half to three quarters open) they should be put into place the evening before the show. Pellets are small pieces of cotton wool pushed down between the petals to make the bloom more open and larger in appearance. At the show, make sure all the pellets have been removed. Any that have been missed could lose up to three points per bloom if spotted by the judge.
The dressing of blooms os the art of reflexing the petals and bringing them down to make the bloom circular in outline. Don’t reflex the petals to excess as this can make the blooms look artificial, and overdressing is considered by judges as a serious fault and marked down.
If the above appears a little daunting, then use it as a guide and start off with some of the easier classes. The Society has rose classes for non-winners, the schedule is available from HQ. The novelty class section (fun classes) are extremely easy and enjoyable to do. There is a class for a collage of floating blooms in a dish (trifle class) and also one for a miniature bloom floating in a small bowl. There is another for a vase of three stems of one variety which is judged purely for scent. If you want to try something a bit more ambitious, then how about two blooms of large flowered roses in a vase, of one variety, to be judged as a matching pair ? Or a picture frame with one bloom mounted in it ? Just bring your blooms to the show, as all the containers for the classes will be provided. All these classes are well within the scope of the novice exhibitor.
Your Society Needs YOU
So come along all you shy rose growers—make a pledge this summer to exhibit your wonderful blooms at one of our national shows. The one fear that many new exhibitors have, is that their blooms are not good enough for exhibition and that they may be ridiculed by more experienced exhibitors . This is simply not the case; you will no doubt find that your blooms are equal to others. Rather than ridicule, most exhibitors will be only too glad to help, giving you the benefit of their knowledge and experience. We need you and your blooms on the show bench if RNRS Shows are to survive.
This article was re-produced from the Spring edition of the Rose Magazine by kind permission of
Mr Tony Bracegirdle.
If you have any tips on showing roses, let us have them as we will be only too pleased to post them on our blog/website.
Send your tips to
Full details of Royal National Rose Society Shows can be obtained from the
Chiswell Green Lane
Tel 0845 833 4344
For full details of all our roses please see our web site.
Over 1000 varieties to choose from. | <urn:uuid:52e09d60-eb30-412a-9846-55a184f489cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.countrygardenroses.co.uk/2011/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954342 | 2,423 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Home > Best of Nanotechnology > 2003 > Best of the Best
Best Of The Best
For the past six years the team at Nanotechnology Now
has tracked the thousands of websites, individuals, businesses, and government and educational institutions that exist in the nanospace. We read about and report on them every day, 365 days a year. By interviewing them, and covering their news, opinions, discoveries, triumphs and failures, we have come to appreciate a few above the rest.
The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology™ (CRN) A non-profit organization, formed to advance the safe use of molecular nanotechnology, CRN was founded by Chris Phoenix and Mike Treder in December 2002. The vision of CRN is a world in which nanotechnology is widely used for productive and beneficial purposes, and where malicious uses are limited by effective administration of the technology.
Neither Chris or Mike stand passively on the sidelines. They went into this venture knowing that now is the time to prepare for the road ahead (*), and eagerly accepted the challenge. While there are an infinate number of possible futures, our best bet is to understand the implications of nanoscale science, nanoscale engineering, and molecular manufacturing, and then make intelligent decisions regarding their use. Chris and Mike help us do just that.
In 2003, Chris and Mike opened the year by telling us - in simple terms - what nanotechnology is all about, (1) then they explained to the world how a nanotech future may be here sooner than we think. (2) They also debated nanotechnology with a sceptic, and forced him to "reconsider my position that the nanoassembler cannot be achieved in principle." (3) For those of us unable to find the time to read it, they condensed the 556 page Nanosystems into a 5-minute overview, so that we could all get a handle on it. And to close out the year, they even told us how gray goo is not going to eat us! (when most of us thought it would). (5)
I asked them where they were headed in 2004, to which Mike replied: "CRN will continue working hard in 2004, applying what we've learned and breaking new ground where we can. Nanotechnology offers the most wonderful benefits and the most serious risks we've ever faced -- the human race can't afford to get it wrong." (6)
For their efforts to help insure the safe use of nanotechnology-enabled products, we present to CRN the "Best Advocate" and "Best of the Best" awards for 2003.
(*) At an April conference sponsored by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, Mihail Roco, the nanotech guru at the National Science Foundation, noted, "Developments in nanotechnology are going much faster than expected; in fact, development time is less than half that we expected." Roco also flatly declared, "If a company does not enter nanotechnology now -- in five years it will be too late -- it will be out of business." From The Smaller the Better | <urn:uuid:acb3aed0-d938-4a10-8db8-d9f6ab607556> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nanotech-now.com/2003-Awards/Best-of-the-Best-2003.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954241 | 631 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The Kentucky Republican's outlook on the potential ripple effects the cuts might have on a still-fragile economy differed starkly from officials in President Barack Obama's administration, who warned of dire consequences.
"This is a quite modest reduction," McConnell told reporters at Louisville's airport. "We ought to be doing a lot more than this."
The White House recently put out a news release showing that a cross-section of Kentuckians would feel the budget cuts.
McConnell said the formula used to make the cuts wasn't ideal, and he said it was the president's idea.
The senator said the reductions amount to trimming 2.4 percent from trillions in federal spending. He argued that Obama's successful push two months ago for a higher tax rate for top income earners is more likely to hurt the economy than the spending cuts.
"It's hard to argue that it won't have an impact somewhere," McConnell said of the cuts. "But on the economy at large, will the economy be adversely affected by a 2.4 percent reduction in government spending? I think not."
McConnell's hawkish tone on spending cuts comes as the five-term senator prepares for his re-election campaign next year. A group of tea parties in the state have said they are trying to line up a challenger to McConnell in next year's GOP primary. McConnell's tea party critics say the senator has supported excessive federal spending throughout his career.
McConnell, who met with Obama at the White House on Friday along with other congressional leaders, said both sides were resolved to the reality that the automatic cuts would take effect.
The cuts would total $85 billion through the end of the current budget year — Sept. 30 — half each from defense and non-defense programs. Large parts of the budget are off-limits, including programs for veterans, Social Security and Medicare benefits.
"Maybe in the coming weeks we'll have a discussion about doing it in a different way," McConnell said.
Asked how the cuts would affect Kentucky, McConnell replied that families had already curtailed their spending during the economic downturn. "Surely the federal government, out of $3.6 trillion, can find 2.4 percent to reduce," he added.
Meanwhile, the White House recently said the automatic budget cuts would have broad implications in Kentucky. The White House compiled the numbers from federal agencies and its own budget office.
The numbers reflect the impact of the cuts, set to take effect from March to September. It said the examples included:
— Teachers and schools: Kentucky will lose approximately $11.8 million for primary and secondary education and an additional $7.7 million for teachers, aides and staff who help children with disabilities.
— Military readiness: Army base operation funding will be cut by about $122 million, and approximately 11,000 civilian Department of Defense employees will be furloughed, reducing gross pay by around $54.4 million.
— Environment: Kentucky will lose about $2.1 million in funding for preserving water and air quality and preventing pollution from pesticides and hazardous waste. Another $774,000 in grants for fish and wildlife protection will be lost.
— Nutrition assistance for seniors: Kentucky will lose approximately $677,000 for meals for seniors.
— Job search assistance: Kentucky will lose about $478,000 for job search assistance, affecting about 16,690 people.
— Public health: Kentucky will lose approximately $414,000 intended to help upgrade its ability to respond to public health threats. The commonwealth also will lose about $1 million in substance abuse grants and about $92,000 for children's vaccinations. | <urn:uuid:f0da2f05-380e-4af9-88a4-cc2e732a337b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.romenews-tribune.com/view/full_story/21855910/article-Senate-Minority-Leader-Mitch-McConnell-downplays-impact-of-spending-cuts- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966883 | 743 | 1.632813 | 2 |
(Sharona Schwartz) Beyond its military operation targeting the Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, Israel is invested in an intense media campaign to make sure its side of the story is being heard overseas. But that’s not always easy to do.
In an interview with Israel’s top envoy to the United States on Saturday, MSNBC provided yet another example of how much work Israeli officials face in their effort to pass through the filter of the mainstream media and present their side of the story.
MSNBC’s Mara Schiavocampo began her interview of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren straightforwardly enough, asking “What would be the trigger for a ground operation? What’s the red line here?”
Oren answered, “You have the equivalent of what would be about 170 million Americans under bomb shelters. If Hamas continues to escalate we will take the necessary and legitimate measures to defend our citizens.”
Schiavocampo’s second question might be considered more controversial, positing the argument that long-range rockets carrying warheads weighing between 20 and 90 kilograms — 46 to 198 pounds — aren’t actually dangerous to human life. She asked:
“Living under the threat of rocket attack is certainly a psychological trauma. But what would you say to those who argue that the rockets are essentially very ineffective, they rarely do damage and that the response from Israelis is disproportional to the threat they’re under.”
Oren answered she might want to pose that question to the three Israelis killed by a rocket in Kiryat Malachi on Thursday (see TheBlaze’s story here and Glenn Beck’s segment looking at media bias and profiling the victims here). Oren suggested Schiavocampo envisage what would happen if Hamas were bombing America. He said:
“Imagine if one rocket had fallen in the United States and not now since the year 2009, our last operation, we’ve had something in the vicinity of 8,000 rockets fall on the State of Israel. That’s more than twice all of the German rockets that fell on London during World War II. And you saw how the British and Americans reacted to that.”
Schiavocampo then posited that because the number of rocket attacks on Israel has dramatically increased since 2009, Israel’s policy has been a “failure.” By way of comparison, she did not attribute the increase in attacks to other possibilities including: Hamas feeling more emboldened since its ideological ally, the Muslim Brotherhood, took control of next-door Egypt or that its ties have only grown stronger with Iran, which provides its long-range Fajr-5 missiles. She asked Oren:
“You mentioned the amount of rocket attacks that have been seen in Israel. In 2009 that number was about 200 and this year it’s been about 700 despite the fact that we’ve been down this road again that Israel has responded with military force in the past. So does this show that Israel ‘s policy towards Gaza has been a failure?”
Oren said that after 12,000 rocket attacks in the past 12 years on Israeli civilians, “We have no option and nor would any other country in the world have an option but to defend our citizens by all necessary and legitimate means.”
Watch the MSNBC interview with Michael Oren here: | <urn:uuid:fafca9b4-adc8-4414-ae08-f17b782ee9e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politics.kfyi.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=104707&article=10583924 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961388 | 706 | 1.6875 | 2 |
A huge congratulations to Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman who were nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar for the film Born into Brothels.
Ross and Zana are traveling in India and visiting the children in the film when they heard the news and are "pleasantly shocked."
Following the success of Born into Brothels, photographer and Kids with Cameras founder Zana Briski is mounting a campaign to provide a combined sustainable educational and residential facility for the children whose lives were touched by the workshops, and for children like them around the world. Starting this year working in partnership with the Kids With Cameras Foundation, Architecture for Humanity and architecture students from Montana State University-Bozeman will be developing plans and schemes for the facility.
The KWC School of Leadership and the Arts will operate under the principles of leadership, compassion, wisdom and artistic exploration. The Home and School will provide a safe space for learning and expression, away from the dangers and degradation of the city's red light district. It's aim is to empower the city's forgotten children by encouraging rigorous academic excellence, leadership qualities, participation in sports activities and studies of the arts. It will promote unity, social inclusion and environmental responsibility, and provide an educational and cultural framework for children to change their own circumstances. | <urn:uuid:87a41955-f48e-4508-bb22-4fdaad9638d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002001.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958741 | 264 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t write to me asking about patient advocacy certification. It’s confusing, because they read that there are courses that will help them become certified, and then they find other pieces I have written about the lack of a certification system.
So it’s time to clarify:
There is a difference between earning a certificate – and being certified, even if Merriam Webster might tell you those two concepts are related.
“To be certified” carries with it an assumption that there is some sort of national (even international) accreditation, recognition, or standard set of skills that someone has developed and earned. As if a national body of some sort has said “Yes – this person meets this high standard of education and capability, so we are blessing him or her with our certification.”
“To be certified” may even mean to some people that some sort of governmental recognition in the form of a license or listing has taken place.
But there are no governments, nor nationally respected, nor generally accepted groups that have determined a group of standards, nor benchmarks, nor capabilities that supply a certification that is universally recognized.
And that is the key: none are universally recognized. No such a certification exists, nor is one in the works – yet.
The confusion comes from the fact…
that there is a growing group of educational organizations, running workshops, webinars, courses and programs that culminate in a certificate. It’s great that so many institutions are teaching people to become professional patient advocates! However…
The certificate earned by taking one of these programs is only a certificate that says someone completed those programs. It does NOT say that person meets any nationally, or internationally recognized standards.
Don’t get me wrong. Most of these programs are excellent, because patient advocates are learning more about their careers and building their skills and educations. But those certificates don’t stand up to each other. Someone earning a certificate from one institution or group has not learned or developed, nor can they then apply to their client-patients, an equal skill set to those who have earned a certificate from another group. Read more about the alignment between patient or health advocate certification and educational programs.
If you are a patient or caregiver, don’t be fooled into thinking that just because someone has completed one of these programs, that they are recognized to have met any standardized set of criteria. If an advocate claims to be certified, ask about that certification to be sure you are clear on what they have achieved.
If you are a patient advocate, you should be aware that it could create a problem for you AND a problem for the profession if you actually call yourself a “certified patient advocate.”
(Watch here on the Alliance blog for updates on this form of patient advocate certification – or sign up for notices to learn more about it.)
(March 1, 2013) A group of interested parties have started efforts toward defining a credential for patient advocates. Learn more. | <urn:uuid:bd3a2c30-ae54-4c97-abc8-aa3ef2e0cc3c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aphablog.com/2011/01/03/the-myth-of-patient-advocacy-certification/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963692 | 628 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Public Papers - 1989
Address to the Nation on the National Drug Control Strategy
Good evening. This is the first time since taking the oath of office that I felt an issue was so important, so threatening, that it warranted talking directly with you, the American people. All of us agree that the gravest domestic threat facing our nation today is drugs. Drugs have strained our faith in our system of justice. Our courts, our prisons, our legal system, are stretched to the breaking point. The social costs of drugs are mounting. In short, drugs are sapping our strength as a nation. Turn on the evening news or pick up the morning paper and you'll see what some Americans know just by stepping out their front door: Our most serious problem today is cocaine, and in particular, crack.
Who's responsible? Let me tell you straight out -- everyone who uses drugs, everyone who sells drugs, and everyone who looks the other way.
Tonight, I'll tell you how many Americans are using illegal drugs. I will present to you our national strategy to deal with every aspect of this threat. And I will ask you to get involved in what promises to be a very difficult fight.
This is crack cocaine seized a few days ago by Drug Enforcement agents in a park just across the street from the White House. It could easily have been heroin or PCP. It's as innocent-looking as candy, but it's turning our cities into battle zones, and it's murdering our children. Let there be no mistake: This stuff is poison. Some used to call drugs harmless recreation; they're not. Drugs are a real and terribly dangerous threat to our neighborhoods, our friends, and our families.
No one among us is out of harm's way. When 4-year-olds play in playgrounds strewn with discarded hypodermic needles and crack vials, it breaks my heart. When cocaine, one of the most deadly and addictive illegal drugs, is available to school kids -- school kids -- it's an outrage. And when hundreds of thousands of babies are born each year to mothers who use drugs -- premature babies born desperately sick -- then even the most defenseless among us are at risk.
These are the tragedies behind the statistics, but the numbers also have quite a story to tell. Let me share with you the results of the recently completed household survey of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It compares recent drug use to 3 years ago. It tells us some good news and some very bad news. First, the good. As you can see in the chart, in 1985 the Government estimated that 23 million Americans were using drugs on a ``current'' basis; that is, at least once in the preceding month. Last year that number fell by more than a third. That means almost 9 million fewer Americans are casual drug users. Good news.
Because we changed our national attitude toward drugs, casual drug use has declined. We have many to thank: our brave law enforcement officers, religious leaders, teachers, community activists, and leaders of business and labor. We should also thank the media for their exhaustive news and editorial coverage and for their air time and space for antidrug messages. And finally, I want to thank President and Mrs. Reagan for their leadership. All of these good people told the truth: that drug use is wrong and dangerous.
But as much comfort as we can draw from these dramatic reductions, there is also bad news, very bad news. Roughly 8 million people have used cocaine in the past year. Almost 1 million of them used it frequently -- once a week or more. What this means is that, in spite of the fact that overall cocaine use is down, frequent use has almost doubled in the last few years. And that's why habitual cocaine users, especially crack users, are the most pressing, immediate drug problem.
What, then, is our plan? To begin with, I trust the lesson of experience: No single policy will cut it, no matter how glamorous or magical it may sound. To win the war against addictive drugs like crack will take more than just a Federal strategy: It will take a national strategy, one that reaches into every school, every workplace, involving every family.
Earlier today, I sent this document, our first such national strategy, to the Congress. It was developed with the hard work of our nation's first Drug Policy Director, Bill Bennett. In preparing this plan, we talked with State, local, and community leaders, law enforcement officials, and experts in education, drug prevention, and rehabilitation. We talked with parents and kids. We took a long, hard look at all that the Federal Government has done about drugs in the past -- what's worked and, let's be honest, what hasn't. Too often, people in government acted as if their part of the problem -- whether fighting drug production or drug smuggling or drug demand -- was the only problem. But turf battles won't win this war; teamwork will.
Tonight, I'm announcing a strategy that reflects the coordinated, cooperative commitment of all our Federal agencies. In short, this plan is as comprehensive as the problem. With this strategy, we now finally have a plan that coordinates our resources, our programs, and the people who run them. Our weapons in this strategy are the law and criminal justice system, our foreign policy, our treatment systems, and our schools and drug prevention programs. So, the basic weapons we need are the ones we already have. What's been lacking is a strategy to effectively use them.
Let me address four of the major elements of our strategy. First, we are determined to enforce the law, to make our streets and neighborhoods safe. So, to start, I'm proposing that we more than double Federal assistance to State and local law enforcement. Americans have a right to safety in and around their homes. And we won't have safe neighborhoods unless we're tough on drug criminals -- much tougher than we are now. Sometimes that means tougher penalties, but more often it just means punishment that is swift and certain. We've all heard stories about drug dealers who are caught and arrested again and again but never punished. Well, here the rules have changed: If you sell drugs, you will be caught. And when you're caught, you will be prosecuted. And once you're convicted, you will do time. Caught -- prosecuted -- punished.
I'm also proposing that we enlarge our criminal justice system across the board -- at the local, State, and Federal levels alike. We need more prisons, more jails, more courts, more prosecutors. So, tonight I'm requesting -- all together -- an almost .5 billion increase in drug-related Federal spending on law enforcement.
And while illegal drug use is found in every community, nowhere is it worse than in our public housing projects. You know, the poor have never had it easy in this world. But in the past, they weren't mugged on the way home from work by crack gangs. And their children didn't have to dodge bullets on the way to school. And that's why I'm targeting million to fight crime in public housing projects -- to help restore order and to kick out the dealers for good.
The second element of our strategy looks beyond our borders, where the cocaine and crack bought on America's streets is grown and processed. In Colombia alone, cocaine killers have gunned down a leading statesman, murdered almost 200 judges and 7 members of their supreme court. The besieged governments of the drug-producing countries are fighting back, fighting to break the international drug rings. But you and I agree with the courageous President of Colombia, Virgilio Barco, who said that if Americans use cocaine, then Americans are paying for murder. American cocaine users need to understand that our nation has zero tolerance for casual drug use. We have a responsibility not to leave our brave friends in Colombia to fight alone.
The million emergency assistance announced 2 weeks ago was just our first step in assisting the Andean nations in their fight against the cocaine cartels. Colombia has already arrested suppliers, seized tons of cocaine, and confiscated palatial homes of drug lords. But Colombia faces a long, uphill battle, so we must be ready to do more. Our strategy allocates more than a quarter of a billion dollars for next year in military and law enforcement assistance for the three Andean nations of Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. This will be the first part of a 5-year, billion program to counter the producers, the traffickers, and the smugglers.
I spoke with President Barco just last week, and we hope to meet with the leaders of affected countries in an unprecedented drug summit, all to coordinate an inter-American strategy against the cartels. We will work with our allies and friends, especially our economic summit partners, to do more in the fight against drugs. I'm also asking the Senate to ratify the United Nations antidrug convention concluded last December.
To stop those drugs on the way to America, I propose that we spend more than a billion and a half dollars on interdiction. Greater interagency cooperation, combined with sophisticated intelligence-gathering and Defense Department technology, can help stop drugs at our borders.
And our message to the drug cartels is this: The rules have changed. We will help any government that wants our help. When requested, we will for the first time make available the appropriate resources of America's Armed Forces. We will intensify our efforts against drug smugglers on the high seas, in international airspace, and at our borders. We will stop the flow of chemicals from the United States used to process drugs. We will pursue and enforce international agreements to track drug money to the front men and financiers. And then we will handcuff these money launderers and jail them, just like any street dealer. And for the drug kingpins: the death penalty.
The third part of our strategy concerns drug treatment. Experts believe that there are 2 million American drug users who may be able to get off drugs with proper treatment, but right now only 40 percent of them are actually getting help. This is simply not good enough. Many people who need treatment won't seek it on their own, and some who do seek it are put on a waiting list. Most programs were set up to deal with heroin addicts, but today the major problem is cocaine users. It's time we expand our treatment systems and do a better job of providing services to those who need them.
And so, tonight I'm proposing an increase of 1 million in Federal spending on drug treatment. With this strategy, we will do more. We will work with the States. We will encourage employers to establish employee assistance programs to cope with drug use; and because addiction is such a cruel inheritance, we will intensify our search for ways to help expectant mothers who use drugs.
Fourth, we must stop illegal drug use before it starts. Unfortunately, it begins early -- for many kids, before their teens. But it doesn't start the way you might think, from a dealer or an addict hanging around a school playground. More often, our kids first get their drugs free, from friends or even from older brothers or sisters. Peer pressure spreads drug use; peer pressure can help stop it. I am proposing a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar increase in Federal funds for school and community prevention programs that help young people and adults reject enticements to try drugs. And I'm proposing something else. Every school, college, and university, and every workplace must adopt tough but fair policies about drug use by students and employees. And those that will not adopt such policies will not get Federal funds -- period!
The private sector also has an important role to play. I spoke with a businessman named Jim Burke who said he was haunted by the thought -- a nightmare, really -- that somewhere in America, at any given moment, there is a teenage girl who should be in school instead of giving birth to a child addicted to cocaine. So, Jim did something. He led an antidrug partnership, financed by private funds, to work with advertisers and media firms. Their partnership is now determined to work with our strategy by generating educational messages worth a million dollars a day every day for the next 3 years -- a billion dollars worth of advertising, all to promote the antidrug message.
As President, one of my first missions is to keep the national focus on our offensive against drugs. And so, next week I will take the antidrug message to the classrooms of America in a special television address, one that I hope will reach every school, every young American. But drug education doesn't begin in class or on TV. It must begin at home and in the neighborhood. Parents and families must set the first example of a drug-free life. And when families are broken, caring friends and neighbors must step in.
These are the most important elements in our strategy to fight drugs. They are all designed to reinforce one another, to mesh into a powerful whole, to mount an aggressive attack on the problem from every angle. This is the first time in the history of our country that we truly have a comprehensive strategy. As you can tell, such an approach will not come cheaply. Last February I asked for a 0 million increase in the drug budget for the coming year.
And now, over the past 6 months of careful study, we have found an immediate need for another billion and a half dollars. With this added .2 billion, our 1990 drug budget totals almost billion, the largest increase in history. We need this program fully implemented -- right away. The next fiscal year begins just 26 days from now. So, tonight I'm asking the Congress, which has helped us formulate this strategy, to help us move it forward immediately. We can pay for this fight against drugs without raising taxes or adding to the budget deficit. We have submitted our plan to Congress that shows just how to fund it within the limits of our bipartisan budget agreement.
Now, I know some will still say that we're not spending enough money, but those who judge our strategy only by its pricetag simply don't understand the problem. Let's face it, we've all seen in the past that money alone won't solve our toughest problems. To be strong and efficient, our strategy needs these funds. But there is no match for a united America, a determined America, an angry America. Our outrage against drugs unites us, brings us together behind this one plan of action -- an assault on every front.
This is the toughest domestic challenge we've faced in decades. And it's a challenge we must face not as Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, but as Americans. The key is a coordinated, united effort. We've responded faithfully to the request of the Congress to produce our nation's first national drug strategy. I'll be looking to the Democratic majority and our Republicans in Congress for leadership and bipartisan support. And our citizens deserve cooperation, not competition; a national effort, not a partisan bidding war. To start, Congress needs not only to act on this national drug strategy but also to act on our crime package announced last May, a package to toughen sentences, beef up law enforcement, and build new prison space for 24,000 inmates.
You and I both know the Federal Government can't do it alone. The States need to match tougher Federal laws with tougher laws of their own: stiffer bail, probation, parole, and sentencing. And we need your help. If people you know are users, help them -- help them get off drugs. If you're a parent, talk to your kids about drugs -- tonight. Call your local drug prevention program; be a Big Brother or Sister to a child in need; pitch in with your local Neighborhood Watch program. Whether you give your time or talent, everyone counts: every employer who bans drugs from the workplace; every school that's tough on drug use; every neighborhood in which drugs are not welcome; and most important, every one of you who refuses to look the other way. Every one of you counts. Of course, victory will take hard work and time, but together we will win. Too many young lives are at stake.
Not long ago, I read a newspaper story about a little boy named Dooney who, until recently, lived in a crack house in a suburb of Washington, DC. In Dooney's neighborhood, children don't flinch at the sound of gunfire. And when they play, they pretend to sell to each other small white rocks that they call crack. Life at home was so cruel that Dooney begged his teachers to let him sleep on the floor at school. And when asked about his future, 6-year-old Dooney answers, ``I don't want to sell drugs, but I'll probably have to.''
Well, Dooney does not have to sell drugs. No child in America should have to live like this. Together as a people we can save these kids. We've already transformed a national attitude of tolerance into one of condemnation. But the war on drugs will be hard-won, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, child by child.
If we fight this war as a divided nation, then the war is lost. But if we face this evil as a nation united, this will be nothing but a handful of useless chemicals. Victory -- victory over drugs -- is our cause, a just cause. And with your help, we are going to win.
Thank you, God bless you, and good night.
Note: The President spoke at 9 p.m. from the Oval Office at the White House. The address was broadcast live on nationwide radio and television. | <urn:uuid:636fb411-e2c4-4559-94a3-717f78d50f7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_papers.php?id=863&year=1989&month=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961321 | 3,600 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Timber Bay Windows – Elements of Style and Function
Timber Bay Windows designs are not only functional they serve a decorative purpose as well. A well designed house with Timber Bay Windows gives the home a unique look and can become a landmark for the locality. Timber bay windows are specially designed to allow the maximum light to fill the room and provide extra space to the area where they are installed. They are typically used to highlight a nice view or to add a stylish look to your home. For most people the best nook of the house can be by the bay windows and since it is a favorite place, it is frequently designed to accommodate window seats where one can sit to relax and enjoy the outside aspect. Modern architecture can also be seen to use various bay window styles to create a stunning visual effect.
Types of Timber Bay Windows
There are two common styles for Timber Bay Windows designs. In the first style, the Timber Bay Windows juts out in a box shape and the lower area is filled with plants or ornamental decorations. This provides extra light and its exterior outline is in sync with the general shape of the home. This type of Timber Bay Windows is common in cheaper housing and is built to a standard design and model.
In the more expensive and exclusive option, which is more commonly seen in Australia, the Timber Bay Windows are of full height, from floor to ceiling. They are designed to have a polygonal shape, which creates a nook, and requires a floor plan deviation to suit. The most common shape for Timber Bay Windows is made of at least 3 angled sides with the middle glass panes parallel to the wall and usually the biggest in size for maximum light and view exposure.
Timber Bay Windows – Installation
When full length Timber Bay Windows are installed you get the extra space to either put in a window seat, display or storage cupboards if you desire. Being a larger style window and an extension of the home, this helps to capture much more light to brighten up any area. If the light falling inside is too harsh, it can be filtered or reduced by using window treatment, blinds, curtains, shutters and the like. Since full length Timber Bay Windows create an irregular floor plan, they add to the cost of the home, but if the view is great it not only gives you pleasure, it also adds to the value of your property. Take care to ensure that the orientation and location of your Timber Bay Windows is best utilized for their maximum advantage which is a place to sit and relax and/or enjoy the view. Timber Bay Windows, being highly functional and decorative, will have an elegant look, should be made of good timber materials and have a high level of quality workmanship.
Timber Bay Windows – Where to Buy
Allkind Joinery & Glass located in Brisbane, are market leaders in the manufacturing and supply of Timber Bay Windows and other similar timber joinery products. Allkind have a vast array of timber window designs, sizes and models to choose from and can custom make all timber bay windows to suit your individual needs.
You can Contact Allkind for more information or visit our showroom and view the various designs and styles of timber bay windows available. When you buy Timber Bay Windows from Allkind Joinery you are getting an outstanding product that will give years of trouble free service. | <urn:uuid:5c6dec9c-ef05-4a74-8170-93e63739dc96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allkind.com.au/timber-windows/timber-bay-windows/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940724 | 675 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Local Link Development: Building Quality Links in Local Search
Sometimes, I find it is easier to think of ecommerce as an extension of traditional, brick and mortar stores. Each business has its own piece of digital or physical real estate used to draw in customers and convert sales. Brick and mortar stores (both local/regional businesses and mass market chains) tailored everything from products to marketing materials to the local market.
With the development of gps and internet enabled devices like cell phones and tablets, this local search marketing has become increasingly important for e-commerce stores. Small, local business are able to create a website with little cost, and larger chains can create content targeted to specific customer groups. With all these sites competing in small regional/local markets, link building locally can be a competitive advantage for any business.
For example, let’s take a quick look at the screenshot below (click on it to enlarge it). It’s gardening season, and if you haven’t tilled your bed yet, then you are behind the game. To get some quick tips, I decided to enter the query “gardening.” Google has read my location as Cleveland, OH, so many of the local results below yield different small and large businesses that specialize in gardening supplies. However, notice the organic results shown in the screen shot below. A few of the results on the first page hit two key variables: the search query (gardening) and the location (Cleveland, OH).
These two pages in the results seem to derive their authority from similar sources. Both are sites about Cleveland that frequently mention phrases like garden and gardening along with related terms, but that is where the similarities end. The Cleveland.com forum can derive significant authority from its root domain, Cleveland.com, which is a one stop shop for Cleveland traffic with information on local sports, weather, and news with a variety of content from forums, blogs and articles on a variety of topics generated by staff and users alike.
However, the second page has just a few quality links. A quick examination of the various linking root domains finds multiple links from from a local blog and two different local universities, which partner with the Cleveland Botanical Gardens on various programs. There are also more links from sites with authority that do not have a local or regional tie like the Earth Day Coalition.
The success of Cleveland.com is the sheer mass of relevant content on a variety of topics. The success of the Cleveland Botanical Gardens is their importance and involvement in the local community and that translates to online success. In this case, the success is quality backlinks.
Now if you are a mass market home supply store, and you want to open a new store, you have to do your research to find the best location to effectively compete for customers. Similar detail and attention should be paid to finding the digital real estate to place a link to your business. Different pieces of digital property are going to provide varying levels of value. For instance, the Cleveland Botanical Gardens received a link on that local blog’s link list because they are both local organizations who care about similar things. In this case, both are committed to local farms, sustainability, and education. At their core, they both care about the well being of the community.
So to build some local link juice, you need to offer something in return. For instance, the Home Depot has a web app called The Home Depot Garden Club, which is a membership service that offers tips, advice, and deals to those that sign up. For local gardeners who frequently visit the local gardening sites, any bit of advice can warrant their attention, especially if it is from a trusted source. A link from a trusted local blog can transfer a certain level of credibility leading to traffic, link juice, and potential conversions.
Now, smaller businesses that don’t have the time and resources to start and maintain something like a National Gardening Club can still capitalize on their relationship in the local business community. As local businesses (both small stores and chains) cooperate with one another to increase the share of the local and regional market or work with local charities, those interactions can garner digital value by getting some online real estate whether it is through a news story, blog post, or a sponsored link from a local charity.
They primary takeaway here is that effective link building does not have to be a mysterious process. The recent updates to Google’s algorithm have sent many into a panic over suspect linking practices. Getting links is key, but the quality of those links matter now more than ever. With the rise in mobile and local search, an untapped market of small, regional sites present a vast opportunity for relevant, local links.
So do your research to understand digital real estate in local markets; change the search location on Google to find local sites for linking opportunities; and give something back to the digital community that has given you some prime real estate.
Follow John on Twitter: | <urn:uuid:81b10199-e360-4024-96bc-87e05a43541c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.intrapromote.com/local-link-development-building-quality-links-in-local-search/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941501 | 1,015 | 1.773438 | 2 |
In spite of the high-profile cameos of George Clooney, John Cusack and John Travolta in "The Thin Red Line," the real star of the film is somebody most people have never heard of.
Jim Caviezel, who plays the Kentucky idealist who weaves a stream-of-consciousness narration throughout the bloody battle on Guadalcanal, earned the role mostly because of who he is. Not from Kentucky (but from a town so small in Washington State that it's not on the map), Caviezel is a slow-talking, earnest guy who mostly dreamed of basketball when he was a kid. Along the way somebody noticed he was a deft mimic and encouraged him to try acting.
From a family of five kids (all of whom play basketball), Caviezel, 30, came to Los Angeles with the idea of studying acting.
"I was accepted at Juilliard and they gave me sort of a scholarship," he said. "Then they really gave me a scholarship when I said, `Look I can't afford your school unless you give me more money.' And they did. Right after that, maybe a month, I got `Wyatt Earp.' I wanted to do both."
But he couldn't do both. So Juilliard lost out. Caviezel doesn't regret the loss. He says earning a role in "Wyatt Earp" built his confidence and encouraged him to keep trying. But there were many times when he considered giving up the dream.
"I'm married and want to have kids," he says, in his slow drawl. "I was reading a story about Harrison Ford and admire him a lot. He had a lot of courage -- more than I would as far as wanting to hang on to the business as long and putting his kids through that. I wanted to live a life where I could pay for their college and pay for my home. It wasn't worth it to me to put my family through living one job to the next. I know what that's like."
He auditioned several times for Terrence Malick, the director of "The Thin Red Line."
"He was a real great guy, a sweet man and we went on to have several lunches and dinners and phone calls," recalls Caviezel, who refuses to change his name to something more euphonic.
"He called me at home up in Washington State. We never talked about the film, really. He asked me about baling hay growing up. Did I know the difference between a round bale and a square bale and what is the difference between alfalfa and regular grass weight? So we built up the trust."
Already there is a flurry of talk about Caviezel. But is he ready for the blast furnace of fame?
"I know if you keep connected to who you are inside, happiness is what you're pursuing. You're never going to find it cheating on your wife or in the money -- though (money is a) nice thing to have to pay for school and take your family (out) and help pay off people's mortgages and make their lives a little bit easier.
"My dad had a heart attack and open-heart surgery this last year. I'm so close to him, and that sums it up right there. When I got off `The Thin Red Line' and we started shooting `Ride With the Devil,' I couldn't think about any film. I could only think about him. He's OK. He made it through and our family's a lot closer because of it. He said to me, `If I go, it's not because I want to. I want to see your movie and your children.' "
Caviezel says he learned a hard lesson about ego when he was still in junior high.
"I was a pretty good ball player. As the stakes got higher there were bigger kids than me, and I came in with a bit of an attitude, a bit cocky. And I got thumped. It hurt but I said to myself, `I'm never going to do that again. I'm never going to be like that again.' I was blessed to learn that early in life.
"Perspective is important. There are people out there doing far better things than I'm doing and that was the hardest thing about getting into acting because it's like, This is a lifestyle? This kind of life? Whatever I do I've got to treat others as I'd want to be treated."
Caviezel has been married to Kerri, a high school English literature teacher, for 2 1/2 years. He met her through his sister and realized at first glimpse that he wanted to marry her. Kerri was not quite so sure.
"When we got married the priest asked, `Why him?' She said, `Of all the guys I've met, I knew right away it was no. When I met Jim it was a maybe.' " | <urn:uuid:9d4a1a9e-0f0f-41aa-ba57-5f6ed2c64b3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1999-01-21/features/9901210307_1_role-in-wyatt-earp-thin-red-line-bale | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991231 | 1,034 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Jesse Draper is creator and host of The Valley Girl Show, through which she's become a spokesperson for startups and helped pioneer the way of new media content distribution. Formerly a Nickelodeon star, Draper is now CEO of Valley Girl‚ where she oversees the show and runs the technology blog Lalawag.com.
Everyone defines the qualities of an entrepreneur differently. Are they creative, confident, driven or just plain insane?
See what 21 of our guests think and how they define an entrepreneur. From Mark Cuban, Sheryl Sandberg and Jimmy Wales, to the founders of Practice Fusion, Socialcam, Parkme, 99Designs, our favorite Valley Girl Show guests offer up some of this great advice.
What do you think it means to be an entrepreneur? Share what we're missing in the comments below. | <urn:uuid:d650d06d-c117-4919-9405-1279c7e3980d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mashable.com/2012/11/28/be-an-entrepreneur/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable%2FStartups+%28Mashable+%C2%BB+Startups%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93303 | 168 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Get It In Writing
Professor Bainbridge has been providing extensive coverage of the Schiavo case, including a thoughtful post on how the actions of Congress jive (or don't jive) with some of his first principles:
As I see it, Congress' act implicates four first principles I hold dear:
1. The culture of life
2. Limited government
4. The rule of law
He concludes that while he can justify the first three, he can't reconcile the fourth:
In sum, the culture of life and the rule of law appear to be in unavoidable conflict. Both are central values of a free and just society. All of which makes it extremely difficult to decide where one stands on this issue.
Today, he highlights a post from MNKurmudge&DCKid which looks at The Statute of Frauds and the Schiavo case:
So now we see the comparison of what is too morally risky to leave to one persons unsubstantiated assertion. If you are buying a used Geo for $600, you need a written contract signed by the car dealer. If the object is the life of your wife, you don't need anything in writing from her--you can just suddenly remember that she had said once, by strange coincidence not long before having a tragic accident, that she wanted you to kill her if she ever had just such an accident. And the judge, having just finished ruling that a writing is needed in a dispute regarding sale of a used drum set, will pat you on the head and say that he will do everything he can to help you starve her to death. Even though her parents have asked you to simply divorce her, give them custody to care for her, and go on with your own life. | <urn:uuid:2461d1b6-f11e-4fde-854f-f4c96216fcb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fraterslibertas.com/2005/03/get-it-in-writing-professor-bainbridge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975809 | 359 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Walker, Texas Ranger
Walker, Texas Ranger was a television show that ran from April, 1993 to May, 2001 during primetime on CBS. The show emphasized values such as abstaining from the use of drugs and participation in community service; it was also once considered to be the most violent show on television. Martial arts are shown prominently as the primary tool of law enforcement (albeit falsely) and occasionally as a tool for Walker and company to reach out to the community. Although it remained popular throughout much of its run, it was also criticized by some who found it unrealistic, melodramatic, and sappy.
The show stars Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger named Cordell Walker, who lives in modern Dallas, Texas. The Police Unit he works in is the Department of Public Safety. Ranger Walker shares values with the sheriffs from the Wild West, and was raised by a Native American named Ray Firewalker; Walker also fought in the Vietnam War as a part of the United States Marine Corps. He works with a partner, a former player for the Dallas Cowboys football team named James Trivette (played by Clarence Gilyard), who does things the more modern way. He works closely with the County Assistant District Attorney Alexandra "Alex" Cahill (played by Sheree J. Wilson ), whom he shares a mutual attraction with. In the past, he worked with former Ranger C.D. Parker (played by the late Noble Willingham ), now the owner of a small restaurant and bar.
"Walker, Texas Ranger" was known for formulaic plots characteristic of television shows in previous decades. Deus ex machina was used liberally and often in each episode, especially towards the climactic scenes when Ranger Walker and his posse would arrive wherever the culmination of the antagonist's plans took place just as their plans would be completed only to quickly thwart these plans. The following were notable events in the series:
- Alex Cahill, Cordell Walker's girlfriend, was often kidnapped.
- In one episode, a one-million dollar bounty was placed on Cordell Walker's head.
- After Walker could not stop a middle-school boy from committing suicide, he single-handedly drove gang violence out of said boy's school and pressured the school's administration to make sweeping reforms, including a school uniform policy.
- In one episode, Ranger Walker was murdered by weapon smugglers after being chased by them in a sting operation gone bad for an entire episode, only for it to be revealed that the whole episode was a dream.
- Walker engages in undercover operations in various episodes. Walker always goes to get evidence to convict the actual leader of the antagonists so there is no chance for that their illegal activities could start up again elsewhere.
- Walker had a crossover episode with the series Martial Law. In part 1 (on Martial Law), Walker goes to LA and teams up with Sammo Law (played by Sammo Hung) and his Major Crimes unit to take down a hate crime leader named Cliff Eagleton. In Part 2 (on Walker), after the Eagleton Crew frees their leader from custody after Walker brings him back to Texas, Sammo Law comes to Texas to assist the rangers in bringing Eagleton down.
- Every major character of Walker has been put in the hospital, including Walker himself.
- The climactic Walker storyline, containing 4 parts, involves Walker heading a taskforce to bring down an infamous criminal known as the Chairman, who has been aiding crime lords through various activities such as exposing and killing undercover federal agents and tracking down and killing witnesses in the witness protection program. The taskforce is composed of Walker, Trivette, Sydney, and Gage along with Vincent Rosetti, a New York cop (temporarily assigned as Trivette's partner), and Buzz Lee, a computer hacker.
- Only two Walker antagonists, Victor La Rue and Caleb Hooks, would come back to get revenge on Walker in later episodes.
- Occasionally when the antagonists learn that the law is on them, they try to leave town or close down their illegal operations for awhile before they are discovered.
- Walker over numerous occasions has used the same line "Yeah I Know" when he agrees with someones point or suspicion.
Changes Over the Years
Over the years the show ran, many changes were made:
- In early episodes, Ranger Walker drove a GMC truck, and in later episodes, he drove a Dodge Ram.
- After much criticism for the amount of violence shown in the show over the years, the number of violent acts in each episode was reduced.
- For the last two seasons, two young characters, Rangers Sydney Cook (played by Nia Peeples) and Francis Gage (played by Judson Mills), were added to the cast.
- In the last season of the series, Cordell Walker weds Alex Cahill and the two of them have a daughter named Angela.
The Theme Song
At the beginning of every show, the theme song basically reveals the basic nature of the show. The song, titled "The Eyes of The Ranger" was written by songwriter Tirk Wilder and sung by Chuck Norris, though sung in one episode by guest star Lila McCann. The lyrics are as follows:
"In the Eyes of the Ranger, the unsuspecting stranger,
had better know the truth of wrong from right.
'Cause the eyes of the Ranger are upon you, any wrong you do he's gonna see.
In 1999, three "Walker Texas Ranger" books were written by James Reasoner and published by Berkley Publishing Group:
- Walker, Texas Ranger (1998, ISBN 0425168158)
- Hell's Half Acre (1999, ISBN 0425169723)
- Siege on the Belle (1999, ISBN 0425171124)
These novels are out of print.
"Walker, Texas Ranger" today
In 2004, NBC merged with Universal Studios which owned the rights to Walker, Texas Ranger, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien wasted no time incorporating the Walker, Texas Ranger Lever into the show, a lever which allows Conan O'Brien to play a clip from the show any time he wants. The clips are always nonsensical and hilarious.
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | <urn:uuid:cba045a9-9c71-45cb-820d-6e762153596c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Walker%2C_Texas_Ranger | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96316 | 1,306 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Ironicly, being an introvert has become a focus of attention in the past decade. I embrace this aspect of my personality and was keenly interested in the book The Intorvert Advantage by Dr. Marti Olsen Laney when it first came out in 2002.
Several years later a second book caught my attention when I was flipping through a Psychology Today magizine when a client didn't show up for an appointment. Grumpily flipping through the pages, I straighted up when the article's title spoke of something to do with intoverts. The author mentioned a book and I wrote down the author and title of the 2006 book, Self-Promotion for Introverts: The Quiet Guide to Getting Ahead by Nancy Ancowitz and bought it in the bookstore.
Finally, I was watching a batch of TED Talks on YouTube earlier this year and stumbled across Susan Cain's talk, The Power of Introverts. (side note: Science Channel has a great new series: TED Talks Science) Her book came out earlier this year, Quiet: The Power of Intorverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking.
A trend. Being comfortable in solitude is fashionable. Just a little research on Amazon.com reveals at least 15 books available to purchase on the subject not including singleness, solitude, sensitivity, and shyness. There's a batch of blogs on this trait over at Psychology Today.
Lot's of you that have these traits and enjoy what it brings to your lives. You also work at not letting the balance tip too far while using solitude's gifts in service of your creative talents. Or work against you when the time comes to engage more--publicizing, publishing, and promoting your work.
Yet, too much help can be just as frustrating as wandering around in uncharted territory. Speaking of that, isn't wander around--seemingly unsure of the next direction part of the creative process? Indeed. Paradoxes mount when driven to create--to make meaning.
Is there too much focus on introversion? Are there benefits to helping others understand the need to be alone? Does it stop to matter? | <urn:uuid:7c3b1417-2b1c-45bb-9447-fc254934d2f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creativesblog.net/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958862 | 433 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Oracle To Buy OpenStack Fan Nimbula
Nimbula produces what It calls a cloud operating system, Nimbula Director, which orchestrates and manages the functions of a public cloud, including provisioning, tracking and chargeback of cloud workloads. One potential implication of the move is to bring Oracle into alignment with the open source cloud software, OpenStack, since one of Nimbula's most recent moves was to convert Director into an orchestrator of OpenStack components.
- Secure Cloud: Taking Advantage of the Intelligent WAN
- Dell Cloud Client Computing Solutions for Hi Ed Education
- IDC Analysis: Secure, Compliant Collaboration in the Cloud
- The Benefits of Cloud-Managed Wi-Fi for Budgets and Productivity
Exactly how Nimbula will be combined with the Oracle product line isn't clear at this point, although Oracle's announcement said it will be "integrated into the Oracle's cloud offering" and was "complementary to Oracle."
At first glance, it's hard to know exactly in what form such integration might appear. Nimbula is meant to govern a scale-out set of standard x86 servers, allow self-provisioning by users and chargeback based on hourly use. Oracle's cloud products are based on hardware arranged in a proprietary appliance with a proprietary software stack, which are sold as a unit with an upfront license fee.
[ Learn how Nimbula developed Director. Read Nimbula Tackles Cloud Identity Problem. ]
It's possible that Oracle is acquiring Nimbula as insurance that it won't be left behind by a rapidly evolving world of public cloud computing, much of which is based on open source code. Instead of integrating with Oracle's existing cloud offerings, Nimbula Director may give Oracle a bridge over which its products could connect to and communicate with a future standard, open source cloud provided by different suppliers.
Nimbula has also developed an ability for Director to recognize VMware ESXi Server workloads and import them from the VMware environment.
Unlike most acquisitions, Oracle did not put out a press release announcing the purchase, slated to take place sometime in the next several months. Instead, it issued a one-paragraph statement on the Oracle Technology Network for developers and Oracle users.
"Nimbula's technology helps companies manage infrastructure resources to deliver service, quality and availability, as well as workloads in private and hybrid cloud environments," Oracle told members of the network in a statement posted Wednesday. It also stated the intent to integrate Nimbula into its product line.
Nimbula posted a headline that it was being acquired by Oracle on its Web site Wednesday with a "learn more" link that led to the brief Oracle Technology Network announcement.
Charles Babcock is an editor-at-large for InformationWeek. | <urn:uuid:fc7f18c3-b2d7-458f-ae34-d9cc9e1cab80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.informationweek.com/byte/oracle-to-buy-openstack-fan-nimbula/240150745?cid=SBX_byte_related_news_Mobile_OS_microsoft_issues_first_surface_security&itc=SBX_byte_related_news_Mobile_OS_microsoft_issues_first_surface_security | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947914 | 573 | 1.632813 | 2 |
An animal rescue
effort succeeded in rescuing 65 dogs, 74 cats and a potbelly pig after heavy rains in Muncie, Indiana, flooded outdoor animal pens, endangering the animals, according to The Indy Channel.
The animal rescue team consisted of the employees at the Animal Rescue Fund, a nonprofit animal shelter organization, who saved the animals using a boat.
The flooding, which had reached more than four feet in height,comma posed danger of electrocution.
"They were submerged in water, so I had to get in there and get them out any way I could. I went to grab the gate to open up to get to my dogs, and I got shocked, and I flew back a little bit," Lydia Parks, an employee, told the news source.
Most of the dogs are being housed with foster families, as of Monday February 28, and the cats appear to be safe as well.
The flooding in Central Indiana has been attributed to heavy rainfall and melting snow, according to Fox 59 News. | <urn:uuid:dbc55b73-e26e-4b80-a28f-9f60f0b49891> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.animalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/ars/article/Animal-rescue-involves-dogs-cats-and-a-pig-saved-by-boat770 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969517 | 211 | 1.695313 | 2 |
By David Blair and Jack Farchy in London and Javier Blas in Washington
Published: February 24 2011 12:50 | Last updated: February 24 2011 13:58
Saudi Arabia is in “active talks” with European oil companies to meet the production shortfall left by Libya, the clearest indication to date that the leader of the Opec oil cartel is about to boost supplies to stop further rises in the oil price, which surged to near $120 a barrel on Thursday.
Riyadh is asking “what quantity and what quality of oil they [the European refiners] want,” a senior Saudi oil official said on condition of anonymity.
Oil traders said the talks signalled that Saudi Arabia realised that the political crisis in Libya was now an oil supply crisis and that the kingdom needed to act quickly and decisively to stop oil prices hurting the global economic recovery.
“You can only expect the price to go up. It is fear of the unknown. The risks are all to the upside,” one senior oil trader said. “Saudi Arabia needs to respond.”
The kingdom is considering two options for increasing supplies. The first would be to boost Saudi production and send more crude through the kingdom’s East-West pipeline, which links the Gulf region with the Red Sea port of Yanbu, for shipment to Europe.
Another possibility, which is currently only being “studied”, would be a swap arrangement, whereby West African oil intended for Asian buyers is redirected to Europe, with Saudi Arabia stepping in to supply the Asian customers | <urn:uuid:3a38d9df-4d20-4b44-8d7b-0c1c56567af6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.debatepolitics.com/breaking-news-mainstream-media/93299-saudi-arabia-talks-boost-oil-supplies.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968311 | 323 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Boston pediatrician awarded with Presidential Citizens Medal
WASHINGTON – President Obama next week will present a pediatrician from Boston with the nation’s second-highest civilian honor, honoring a man who spent his career researching babies and educating new parents about them.
Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, a 94-year-old physician, will be among a group of other Americans who will receive the Presidential Citizens Medal on Feb. 15 at the White House.
“It is my distinguished honor to award these individuals the 2012 Citizens Medal for their commitment to public service,” Obama said in a statement. “Their selflessness and courage inspire us all to look for opportunities to better serve our communities and our country.”
The medal, created in 1969, honors those who have “performed exemplary deeds of service.” Nearly 6,000 people were nominated to receive the medal this year, and Brazelton is one of a handful to be given the honor.
Brazelton is best known for developing the Neonatal Behavior Assessment Scale, which is used to measure physical and neurological responses of newborns. Brazelton has also hosted the cable television program “What Every Baby Knows,” and written books and a syndicated newspaper column.
He is currently on the faculty at the Brazelton Institute, a research and education facility at Children’s Hospital in Boston, and is Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus at Harvard Medical School.Matt Viser can be reached at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:ef9edda3-6c4b-4581-9464-efa08b294142> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2013/02/08/boston-pediatrician-awarded-with-presidential-citizens-medal/rtfYAtP1RL08vZNeF5yVoO/story.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959765 | 316 | 1.671875 | 2 |
|Home | Bookmark | Tell||Active petitions in over 75 countries||Follow GoPetition|
Save Black People in Libya
Petition Background (Preamble):
We need to speak up for this men, who are mostly from West Africa (the ones featured on Channel 4 News yesterday were Nigerians, they were quite lucky, if not for the Channel 4 News team, they would be dead by now).
The rebels see black African migrants and assume they are mercenaries, most mercenaries are from Chad, Niger and Maurtania. There are lots of footage of African Migarants bn executed on youtube, is there any chance someone can set up a page asking Rebels to stop committing these atrocities.
The Save Black People in Libya petition to Amnesty International & United Nations was written by Keji Giwa and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition. Contact author here. Petition tags: libya, back people killed in libya, rebels kill black people | <urn:uuid:66237a9d-36d4-474e-bb2a-d120e440e822> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-black-people-in-libya.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950006 | 198 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The best way to understand another culture is to experience it, to connect with it for a prolonged period. This also encourages a deeper understanding of our own cultures as we interact with and learn from others.
At the University of Denver, we strive to develop cross-cultural connections--and the new perspectives that come with them--by encouraging students to study and live abroad for at least one quarter. We want our graduates to appreciate and understand the differences and interdependencies that characterize our world.
The University of Denver strongly invests in study abroad because we believe that as many students as possible should have the opportunity to discover how education really comes to life in an international context.
Cherrington Global Scholars
To foster an internationalized campus culture, DU has developed a unique initiative that affords specific financial benefits to qualifying undergraduate students in order to encourage academic studies internationally. Cherrington Global Scholars receive benefits that help off-set additional costs associate with studying abroad. Students who do not qualify to be a Cherrington Global Scholar, but still want to study abroad, may be eligible for DU's partner programs or unaffiliated programs. All DU students planning to study abroad have a wide choice of universities and programs to choose from.
The Academic Value of Study Abroad
The Office of International Education works hard to provide high-quality international programming and opportunities that will:
- Introduce you to exciting new ways of seeing and knowing.
- Allow you to pursue special academic interests in a fresh context, including service learning or an internship.
- Help you develop a new international perspective on your major.
- Give you the opportunity to explore in-depth aspects of the history, society, and culture of the host country.
- Permit you to take electives unavailable at DU.
- Start you on the road to a new minor.
- Let you fulfill some of your general degree requirements. | <urn:uuid:c62eb290-3a7a-4fa6-89e0-930854094308> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.du.edu/intl/abroad/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930016 | 381 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Originally Posted by nyctveng
a lot of content providers have been changing from mpeg2 to 4 as the technology matures and equipment prices come down. they save money or stuff twice as much content on uplink transponder. ESPN has been the most high profile and big changovers. the re-encoding that everyone calls it is actually called transcoding and is done by the IRD. so whether u have comcast or fios, they are both using the same type IRD that ESPN or whoever provide to receive and transcode content.
It doesn't matter if you call it re-encoding or transcoding, because in all fielded products it's the same thing. All of the "transcoders" out there decode all the way to baseband and then encode the uncompressed YCbCr data just like any other encoder.
In the early days of H.264 deployment, there were folks trying to create transcoders that attempted to reuse the information (like motion vectors) in the original bitstream to avoid a complete decode and encode. None of these schemes were able to compete with a complete decode and encode architecture quality wise, and have now all been abandoned.
The Motorola DSR-6100 IRD that ESPN uses for their downlink customers contains an encoder that is almost identical to the Motorola SE-3000 encoder that FOX uses for their network uplink. | <urn:uuid:ee406f6d-4133-4f38-af5a-b0c1169d6580> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.avsforum.com/t/590208/verizon-fios-hdtv/16410 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954135 | 290 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Facts About Underage DUIBy Richard O. Middlebrook
Jul. 2, 2010 10:04a
If you or someone you know has been found drinking and driving in California, they will be arrested for underage DUI
if their blood alcohol concentration level is .01% or higher. California has in place what is called "Zero Tolerance."
Due to the strict laws for minors, you need to contact an experienced DUI attorney
as soon as possible to get help and start building a defense. Your driver's license could be suspended for a full year with the added possibility of having your vehicle confiscated and sold at a later time. The inconveniences involved with these actions can be quite extreme with a conviction.
Experienced Underage DUI Attorneys
There are common errors that can occur when sobriety tests are administered and sometimes it can appear after one of these tests that a person had been drinking when in fact they had not. At the Law Offices of Richard O. Middlebrook, we know what to look for and what questions to ask to build a defense. Many DUI charges can be reduced or dismissed altogether.
In many cases, we can even appear on your behalf in court
without your presence. A DMV hearing
is one of the first things that you will need to be concerned about if you have been charged with an underage DUI. In this hearing, the suspension of your driver's license will be addressed.
Our attorneys know how to handle these specifics and you need experienced guidance. Law enforcement officials in Kern County are strict and want drunk drivers prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We have defended many underage drivers and know what it takes to successfully create a defense in the Kern County area.
We attend and lecture hundreds of hours per year in DUI educational seminars which adds to our wealth of knowledge in this field. You want to avoid a conviction if at all possible for it will go on the underage individual's criminal record and this will have lasting negative effects on important future areas like employment, schooling and housing.
Contact a DUI Lawyer at our offices for a consultation. We are a firm that will fight aggressively for your rights and help navigate you through the criminal justice system.
Other Recent Articles
Most people equate DUI with driving under the influence of alcohol, but DUI can apply to driving under the influence of drugs as well. Whether a person is operating a vehicle after having taken an ...
More Articles »
With the holidays coming up, more get-togethers and parties will be happening and consequently, more opportunities for DUI arrests will also present themselves. Before a law enforcement officer can ...
More Articles » | <urn:uuid:7e5dcbdb-ead1-4019-9192-1d35fbf86cd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.findaduiattorney.com/Profiles/The-Law-Offices-of-Richard-O-Middlebrook/Articles/Facts-About-Underage-DUI.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961328 | 534 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The Lord of the Rings (Super Cinema Card)
The Lord of the Rings is a film memorabilia card of Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings. The card was released in Italy circa 1993-1994 in the set Super Cinema Cards by a company called Due Emme Publishing. In total, 144 cards were released.
The front of the card reproduces the poster of the film. The writing on the back of the card is in English, where is stated the director, producer, writer, music composer and cast, as well as the year of release, of the film. The card measures 4 x 3 1/4" (10 x 8 cm). | <urn:uuid:6bf9530f-70c7-450a-beb2-0d2b6679fc3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(Super_Cinema_Card) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982605 | 135 | 1.523438 | 2 |
There was an innocent spirit in the movies that Preston Sturges made during World War II. His comedy was broad and his wit could be cutting, but at their core his films recall a time when we thought we had reason to be optimistic about the innate goodness of the human spirit. Sturges’s style did not survive the cynical realism of the postwar era.
The Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, are off-beat filmmakers, but their latest movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, is the best film released in 2000. O Brother is a tall tale of three 1930s convicts who escape from a Mississippi prison road gang and begin a journey that the film claims is loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey.
Support the Christian Century
The Century's work relies primarily on subscriptions and donations. Thank you for supporting nonprofit journalism. | <urn:uuid:2e35de91-87f7-4b16-9c64-3aa823b7fdd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christiancentury.org/category/keywords/o-brother-where-art-thou | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963529 | 171 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The seer laughed and he said, “Because of this I say he is the wisest man, because only a perfectly wise man can say, ‘I do not know.’”
Ignorant people always claim knowledge. The more ignorant, the more they claim they know. This is part of ignorance. A student, a pundit, a scholar all claim knowledge. They are not disciples.
And remember, if you are a student you can become a teacher but never a master. Only a disciple can become a master. If you are a student, a scholar, you can become a teacher – never a master. Only a disciple can become a master. Discipleship means egoless surrender. And once you surrender, your innermost self is revealed to you. That is the master who is waiting for you. He has been waiting for you for lives and lives.
In any moment of surrender, the master will be revealed to you. And that master is no one. It is your own innermost self, it is your own atma. So really, this can be said: when you are a perfect disciple you have become a master. You are no longer a disciple at all. Discipleship achieved, you are transformed into a master. | <urn:uuid:5c6884d9-3554-42af-a4ee-bc1134b141df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-wisest-innermost-master-d412d749-4d0.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966172 | 263 | 1.820313 | 2 |
In addition to becoming one of the biggest exporters of technological know-how in the form of... Read More
Whistle Stop Tour Planned for National School Choice Week
2013′s National School Choice Week, looking to improve on last year’s growth, is taking the “national” part seriously. To promote the adoption of school choice policies around the country, advocates will be going on a whistle-stop train tour all over the country that will visit both coasts and everywhere in between. In addition to the [...]
2013′s National School Choice Week, looking to improve on last year’s growth, is taking the “national” part seriously. To promote the adoption of school choice policies around the country, advocates will be going on a whistle-stop train tour all over the country that will visit both coasts and everywhere in between.
In addition to the tour, over the course of the week 3,000+ independent events have already been scheduled, all with the aim of winning over more people in the fight to make the best educational options available to all American kids. The spotlight will shine especially brightly on organizations and schools that have embraced the school choice ethos and used it to start and grow a revolution in the US educational system.
The National School Choice Week Special — a historic railcar — will depart Los Angeles Union Station on January 25, 2013 and arrive in New York on February 2, 2013. Parents, students, community leaders, education organizations and elected officials of both parties will host 14 very special events along the tour’s route.
Those interested in following along, or those who wish to meet the tour at a local event, can check out the schedule and the route map on the School Choice Week website. The tour will kick off in Los Angeles, California on January 25th, 2013, and after making 14 stops including Albuquerque, New Mexico, Chicago, Illinois, Cleveland, Ohio, Erie Pennsylvania and Albany, New York, it will conclude on February 2nd at New York City’s historic Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan.
But one doesn’t have to greet the School Choice train as it pulls into the station in order to contribute to the celebration of broader academic access. Those who wish to attend a National School Choice Week event can organize one of their own. Those who simply want to contribute to the cause in some small way can get tips by following NSCW on Facebook and Twitter, advertise on the event website or even submit an opinion piece on the importance of giving parents the freedom to make the best educational decisions for their children.
With bold strokes, our generation can — and will — make its mark on the tapestry of our national experience. Social change isn’t just something we read about in history books. It’s something we can make a reality, and in the process, secure for ourselves not only a place in history books yet unwritten, but secure for our country a brighter and more prosperous future where no child is denied the opportunity to attend the best schools possible.
We will do this together, but only if we’re all on board.
Upon United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s trip to Mozambique, he was impressed with the... Read More
In Oregon, newly passed House Bill 2995 will allow students faculty and staff to identify their... Read More
More groups are saying that the time and expense dedicated to standardized testing is having... Read More
Plan your career as an educator using our free online datacase of useful information.
- Select a City Subject
- Communications Schools in Allentown
- Communications Schools in Altoona
- Communications Schools in Center Valley
- Communications Schools in Chester
- Communications Schools in Dallas
- Communications Schools in Erie
- Communications Schools in Grantham
- Communications Schools in Greenville
- Communications Schools in Jenkintown
- Communications Schools in Latrobe
- Communications Schools in Lincoln University
- Communications Schools in Scranton
- Communications Schools in Selinsgrove
- Communications Schools in Shippensburg
- Communications Schools in Slippery Rock
- Communications Schools in Summerdale
- Communications Schools in York | <urn:uuid:d8beea86-9703-4dc0-b6dd-b0fc5c11c072> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/whistle-stop-tour-planned-for-national-school-choice-week/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938201 | 856 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The Game’s the Thing. Really?
In my generation, college campuses were the loci of dissatisfaction with the status quo. College was where kids raised by even the most lackadaisical of parents learned how to care about what was going on in the world around them. We protested the Vietnam War on campus. Issues faced by women and minorities became legitimate fields of study and inquiry during my college years. Gay and lesbian alliances were added to the roster of university groups. My political views were shaped in college. It was where I became an official citizen of the world.
For years I have wondered what it is that will ignite the next generation of college students. Our country has been engaged in two wars for more than a decade. Eighteen-year-old children have been killed or scarred for life both physically and emotionally while our fortunate coeds play beer pong. Granted, there is no draft to call them to action, but still…
Then there’s the economy. There are conflicting reports about how Occupy Wall Street began. The Canadian anti-capitalist magazine, Adbusters, credits itself with sparking the idea, but according to Mother Jones Magazine, the protest against the 1% began when a group of artists, activists, writers and organizers gathered on the fourth floor of 16 Beaver Street, an artist’s space near Wall Street, to talk about changing the world. In either case, the impetus for the massive protest did not begin in a college or university setting.
But this week, we finally learned what college kids deem significant enough to riot about. Football. The riots on Penn State’s campus in support of Joe Paturno were a disgrace. Thousands of students displayed outrage that “JoePa” would not be allowed to coach one more game on his way to a record. Are our hearts supposed to bleed for those poor coachless babies? Are you kidding me? We’re talking about rape and sodomy here.
Paul Howard, a 24-year-old student told The New York Times, “Of course we’re going to riot. What do they expect when they tell us at 10 pm that they fired our football coach?”
I’m sure he didn’t mean me when he asked what “they” would expect, because I would expect Penn State students to feel disappointed that a man trusted to work with young people failed to alert authorities when very young people were victimized by his assistant. I would expect them to feel shame that their school was stained by the horrific reports coming from Jerry Sandusky’s victims, and by the fact that their head coach could have made a courageous and morally appropriate move and chose not to.
You have to wonder what would have happened if a Dean had been fired for not reporting that one of the English teachers had sexually abused children. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by suggesting the whole ordeal would have been inconsequential to the students at worst, and at best the outrage would have been directed at the Dean and not at the administration that released him from his duties. But this is football.
Tonight the students have decided to hold a candlelight vigil to show solidarity with the victims and their families. It’s a nice gesture, though a tardy one. After all the unfavorable press coverage the students’ received, it’s no wonder they decided to do the right thing.
My son is in college. I sent him there for academics, but also to mature as a person by taking the code of morality we tried to teach him at home, and applying it in real life situations. I would have been appalled had he been one of the rioters that night.
An argument can be made that there are 44,000 students at Penn State so obviously most of them did not riot. But that fact doesn’t cancel out the fact that thousands, not hundreds, but thousands of students did. I hope they someday lasso that energy and direct it in support of something good.
Follow us on twitter@thefastertimes
- 1 Amanda Bynes’s Behavior Revealed to Be Elaborate PSA
- 2 Obama Horrified by the Grammar in Our Emails
- 3 Monster Fart Prompting Management to Rethink “Open Office”
- 4 NSA Demanded Access To Un-Filtered Instagram Photos
- 5 Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Ambushed By Alan ‘The Paper’ Rubinstein
- 6 Vice Magazine Now Only Hiring Writers Who Fail Drug Test
- 7 ‘Licensed to Kim Jong Il’ Records 27th Straight Year Atop N. Korean Charts
- 8 Henry Cavill to be Replaced by Stack of Pancakes in “Man of Steel” Sequel
- 9 Taco Bell Now Just Dumping Bags of Doritos Into Everything On Menu
- 10 Stanley Cup Final One Blowout Away From “Boston Massacre” Headline Outrage | <urn:uuid:44c3d00d-3fa1-4e05-934d-513677ed8f45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefastertimes.com/grownupkids/2011/11/11/the-games-the-thing-really/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975729 | 1,035 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Rethymnon, on the north coast of Crete, lies on the island's longest sandy beach and is known by visitors as the "hidden jewel" of Crete. Since 1400 BC the Minoans, Venetians, Turks and Cretans have built their ancient cities, minarets, citadels, the hilltop Fortezza, winding narrow streets, fishing harbour and lighthouse which create an old-world charm. Situated midway between Heraklion and Chania, Rethymnon is also only a short distance from the most spectacular countryside making it an ideal centre to explore the island.
Rethymnon, the only well-preserved Renaissance town in Greece, is famous for its literature & arts. It’s a place of contrasts, boasting a long and remarkable history as well as untouched places of natural beauty and living traditions. This small Mediterranean town will enchant you with its centre dating from the period of the Renaissance, its fortress and museums as well as its beaches, not to mention a visit to the wider area of the Prefecture.
The prefecture of Rethymno even it is the smallest prefecture of Crete, it is a magnificent tourist destination for its natural beauties and its infrastructures. It is between the mountains Lefka Ori and the famous mountain named Psiloritis. The way from Rethymno City to south beaches it will not last more than 45 minutes. Visitors can walk along petrous canyons, find sandy beaches with crystal-clear waters and visit archaeologic places. They have also the opportunity to see and admire many traditional cretan villages. Some of them are Adele, Amari, Anogia, Arkadi, Armeni, Eleftherna, Zoniana, Thronos, Agios Ioannis, Koxare, Preveli, Rodakino, Hora Sfakion, Spili, Geropotamos. | <urn:uuid:7c94c640-3708-4e47-80c4-bd4d9ded8f1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grecotel.com/crete/crete-rethymno_686.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946895 | 402 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Accounting Grads Face Best Job Prospects in Years
College graduates with accounting degrees are entering the working world at a good time - recruiters are eager, jobs are plentiful and offers are attractive.
Four in five employers called the job market for new grads good, very good or excellent, according to a new survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Last year, fewer than two in five described the job market that way, the Associated Press reported.
Observers say graduates are facing the best prospects since the dot.com boom. The survey predicted college hiring will increase 13 percent over last year. Salaries are increasing as well, with seven out of 10 employers saying they will increase offers by 3.7 percent.
Accounting majors are expected to fare well. Demand for their services is way up because of new regulations spawned by corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom.
Recruiters from PriceWaterhouseCoopers plan to hire about 3,100 people off U.S. college campuses this year, up almost 19 percent from last year. Ernst & Young plans to hire 4,000 new graduates, increasing hiring about 30 percent this year, the AP reported. Jim Case, director of the career center at Cal State-Fullerton, says regional and local accounting firms are hiring, too.
Competition is such that recruiters are even demanding on-the-spot decisions on their offers.
Don Brezinski, executive director of corporate relations at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., said "We're seeing companies that, instead of looking to hire one or two, have openings of a dozen. It's when you have the big companies going really deep, then you know you're hitting stride with employment recovery."
Nursing and computer science jobs are also in demand. Experts say companies are hiring to handle new work but are also making up for years of holding back - and anticipating a wave of retirements.
Lee Svete, Notre Dame's director of career services, said, "We've seen employers that have cut back the last few years looking around the office saying, 'We've got this new work. Who's going to do the job?' " | <urn:uuid:0f4f1abb-4c69-4a70-abad-9f294763ac98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/education-careers/accounting-grads-face-best-job-prospects-years | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966182 | 449 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Want to find out some inside info about the mysterious world of publishing? Read on. Margot Atwell, author of The Insider’s Guide to Book PublishingSuccess, imparts her hard earned wisdom today on Novel Rocket...
What drove you to write this book?
Working as an editor and publisher, I see that writers have a huge hunger for information about the publishing process. Authors who are traditionally published frequently know very little about what the publisher’s job entails, which can lead to confusion and frustration. Publishers typically compound this problem by not really taking the time to educate authors on how best to work with them, so there can be friction and disappointment because of unmet expectations.
Self-publishing can be a huge boon for an author, but it’s easy to underestimate the challenges of publishing a book. As Donald Rumsfeld once said in a completely unrelated context: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” Many authors are diligent about learning the publishing process, but it’s tough to do that if you don’t even know what questions to ask. The Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing Success is meant to be a guide for authors, to teach them what questions to ask, and to answer many of those questions.
What’s the number one mistake you see a self-published author make?
The biggest problem with a lot of self-published books is that they are not edited well enough. Professional editing can be expensive, and the editorial process can be grueling. Most writers are careful about editing their own work, but it’s very important to have at least a second set of eyes on a manuscript. A good editor can point out weaknesses in the manuscript that the writer is too close to the work to see, and can help offer constructive suggestions for how to improve those areas. Working with a good editor can make one a better writer.
Another major mistake is using a sub-par cover. Finding the right cover can be very challenging, and professional designers can also be expensive, but the cover is the number one marketing tool for the book. If the cover looks shoddy or totally wrong for the author’s genre, readers will typically be turned off. Authors self-publishing ebooks will often design the cover themselves and I believe that is usually a mistake.
What’s your advice to an author who is not happy with the cover their publisher has chosen for their book (assuming, of course, they’ve gone the traditional publisher route)?
Publishers aren’t trying to make you unhappy by putting a “bad” cover on your book, but there are a lot of pressures within a publishing house, and a lot of voices in the process. If you are really unhappy with the cover, try politely talking with your editor about it. Are there other cover options that were passed over for some reason? Try to be concrete with what you don’t like about it. You can be firm, but make sure you approach the conversation constructively. Sometimes, you’ll end up with a cover that you like a lot more. Sometimes, the editor’s hands are tied, and there really won’t be much she can do. It really depends on the publishing house you’re working with. I believe some publishing contracts stipulate that authors must be consulted about cover art, so consider requesting that for your next book.
Does an author really have to market their own book? Shouldn’t that be left to professional publicists?
There is a lot a professional publicist can do for you. He will typically have contacts within the media and experience crafting a pitch to interest editors and producers in an author and a book’s subject. However, the author is the authority on her own subject, and her network is the best place to start getting the word out about the book. Her website and blog, her social media, the conferences she attends: all are great places to interest potential readers who are already interested in the subject of the book. A publicist can often help get opportunities for a book and author, but it’s the author’s passion for and knowledge of the subject that the reader will connect with. If the author isn’t the biggest advocate for her own book, it will be very hard to get attention for the project.
What do you think is the biggest ‘dirty little secret’ of the publishing industry?
I’m not sure there are really any secrets anymore—the internet has provided a place for everyone to air a lot of dirty secrets. One thing that isn’t secret, just not widely known, is that most printed books are sold returnable, or on consignment. Publishers send them to the bookstores, online retailers, and wholesalers, and the accounts can send them right back and not pay for them if the books don’t sell fast enough. It’s just one of the factors putting a lot of financial pressure on the traditional publishing industry right now, though it has been in effect for many decades.
What’s one myth about book publishing that you’d like to expose?
It frustrates me to see readers talking about how ebooks shouldn’t cost $9.99 because there’s no cost to making them. Working at a tiny independent publishing house, that line of reasoning drove me crazy. Yes, there isn’t much of an incremental cost attached to creating one additional ebook, the way there is a difference in cost between printing 3000 and 3001 paper books. However, there are still significant origination costs that go into creating to each book, such as the advance to the writer, the editing, typesetting, cover design, proofreading, ebook file conversion, and marketing, among others. If the price publishers are charging for a book does not factor in the costs of originating a project, the whole model will be unsustainable.
What’s your next chapter in life? What will you be working on in the near future?
I’m launching an editing and publishing consulting business. For now, you can reach me at margotatwell at gmail.com to learn more. When I have more details, I’ll write about them on my blog. [http://bookpublishinginsider.wordpress.com/]
What are some parting words of encouragement for wannabe authors?
This is a very exciting time to be an author. There are an unprecedented number of ways for you to connect with readers who will enjoy your work. Whatever path you take in publishing, make sure it feels comfortable and authentic to you, work hard, and keep writing!
Margot Atwell has worked in book publishing for almost ten years, producing four national bestsellers in that time. Her writing is featured in such publications as Publishers Weekly, Publishing Perspectives, Movifone, and Five on Five. The Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing Success is her first book. | <urn:uuid:b696f0d4-a18e-44b3-8888-b727f74ef658> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.novelrocket.com/2013/03/inside-tips-on-book-publishing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962057 | 1,507 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Vietnam News Agency's (VNA) VNEWS television channel celebrated its first anniversary yesterday.
HA NOI —
Speaking at the ceremony, VNA Deputy General Director Nguyen Hoai Duong said: "The channel marks a big change on the VNA road map. Now, the entire country as well as a number of neighbouring nations can receive our service. This success is thanks to the traditions of the VNA as well as support from leaders."
It was not simple to build a large television channel in the new information age, but with our determination and unanimity, I believed we would succeed, Duong said.
On the occasion, the Prime Minister awarded the certificate of merit to the VNA Television Centre.
VNEWS, broadcast 24 hours a day, aims at delivering fast, accurate news.
DA NANG — Viet Nam's National Office of Intellectual Property has granted a licence recognising the trademark of the Non Nuoc stone and sculpture village in the central city of Da Nang.
The trade village, established in the 16th century, now has about 605 business and production households.
Its sculptural products include religious statues, animals and other souvenirs, which are exported mainly to the US, Japan, France, Spain and ASEAN countries.
Located in the Ngu Hanh Son tourist district, the site is the second trade village in Da Nang to receive the licence, after the Nam O fish sauce village.
HA NOI — The diary of fallen soldier and doctor Dang Thuy Tram will be translated into Russian.
The translated diary will be titled Dang Thuy Tram – The Diary about War, and is scheduled for completion next year.
Since the diary was discovered and published in Viet Nam in 2005, it has been translated into 20 languages, helping foreign readers understand what it cost the Vietnamese to win their liberty.
Translators from the Oriental Research Institute, under the Russian Sciences Academy, led by Anatoly Sokolov will be in charge of translating and publishing the diary in Russia.
Tram was born in 1942. She worked as a battlefield surgeon for the liberation army and was killed at the age of 28 by the American forces in South Viet Nam. The diary explains her emotional turmoil and personal aspirations during the cruel war, and describes the sacrifices the Vietnamese soldiers and people made for peace. — VNS | <urn:uuid:9783b03e-b314-4d16-abd8-2c37423c0b44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.baomoi.com/Info/VNA-Television-celebration-marks-first-anniversary/4/176391.epi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961496 | 484 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Where can I obtain a map and brochure for the Pony Express National Historic Trail?
Trail brochures may be obtained from a number of locations, including the intermountain national trails system office in Salt Lake City, Utah. The contact page has information for writing or calling the office.
Many museums and visitor centers along the trail also have these same brochures. The Links and Resources page will provide a sample of some of these sites along the trail.
Do you have educational materials for teachers?
The national trails system office has no educational staff. It is charged with administration of the trail and works with partner organizations and private land owners to preserve what trail resources remain and provide educational opportunities at those sites.
There is a series of Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guides that are being developed on a state by state basis for travelers following the trail along those highways and roads that approximate the old trail route. These may be downloaded as Adobe Acrobat PDF documents from the link in the Plan Your Visit section of the site, or from state travel and tourism centers. These guides are a work in progress, so not all states have been completed. | <urn:uuid:c8031370-110e-4705-a284-ec3bd6dddc4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nps.gov/poex/faqs.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950668 | 230 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Supreme Court on Tuesday reaffirmed a ban on unlimited contributions to political parties, rejecting a Republican Party appeal to undo a major aspect of campaign finance law.
Five months after the court ruled in favor of unlimited corporate and labor spending in federal elections, the justices on Tuesday turned down a request to consider ending the ban on the raising of soft money - unlimited donations from corporations, unions and others - by national party committees.
The soft money ban was a cornerstone of the 2002 congressional overhaul of federal campaign finance law.
Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have heard the Republicans' appeal.
The GOP said the Supreme Court's rationale in January for removing restrictions on corporate and union spending in federal elections should lead to a similar removal of the restriction on such fundraising by national political parties.
In March, federal judges in Washington said recent campaign finance rulings have left the political parties at a disadvantage relative to outside interest groups now that they are unencumbered by contribution or independent spending limits. But those judges said they lacked authority to overturn the soft money ban because the Supreme Court explicitly endorsed it in 2003.
The appeal by the Republican National Committee, RNC chairman Michael Steele, the California Republican Party and the San Diego GOP is being handled by attorney Theodore Olson, who successfully urged the court to overturn the ban on independent spending by corporations and unions. When he served as the Bush administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, Olson once defended the provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that was challenged. That law is named after two leading sponsors of the law, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.
Democrats have opposed the Republican effort, even though they, too, would be allowed to collect unlimited contributions.
The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to leave the soft money ban in place. It drew a distinction between the Citizens United case decided in January, which involved independent spending by corporations, and the current challenge to the prohibition on contributions.
The RNC said it wants to raise and spend soft money to help elect GOP candidates to state offices, finance congressional redistricting efforts following the 2010 census, and fund lobbying efforts on federal legislation.
Before the law was enacted, the two parties were raising hundreds of millions in soft money, with rich individuals, businesses and unions giving a million or more.
When the Supreme Court upheld the "soft money" ban in 2003, it said that large contributions to the parties were used to buy access to elected officials.
The GOP said the high court's Citizens United decision in January changed everything. "In Citizens United, the court made clear that the only constitutionally adequate basis for prohibiting political speech is the prevention of actual or apparent quid pro quo corruption - arrangements that exchange dollars for political favors," the Republicans said in court papers.
Access is not corruption, they said.
The case is Republican National Committee v. FEC, 09-1287.
The Associated Press | <urn:uuid:93630682-2806-4c9e-8830-fd20ad6f48ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/29/high-court-reaffirms-soft-money-ban/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958634 | 601 | 1.5 | 2 |
Reporting Tim Kephart
South Florida Crime
WASHINGTON (CBSMiami) – In a potentially historic move, President Barack Obama revealed some of the most far-reaching gun control policy reforms in more than a decade. The plans are drawing partisan support and scorn from local and national politicians.
Flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, who headed a review process of gun laws, President Obama’s policies include both executive actions not requiring Congressional approval, and other prescriptions that must be passed through Congress.
A total of 23 provisions were included in the executive actions.
- Click here to read the full plan from the White House
“This is our first task as a society, keeping our children safe,” President Obama said during his press conference. “This is how we will be judged. We can’t put this off any longer.”
The president said in a statement about the new policies: “Most gun owners are responsible and law abiding, and they use their guns safely. The President strongly believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. But to better protect our children and our communities from tragic mass shootings like those in Newtown, Aurora, Oak Creek, and Tuscon, there are four common-sense steps we can take right now.”
The statement continued, “The President’s plan includes: 1. Closing background check loopholes to keep guns out of dangerous hands; 2. Banning military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and taking other common-sense steps to reduce gun violence; 3. Making schools safer; and 4. Increasing access to mental health services.”
President Obama signed 23 executive actions on Wednesday that included: make sure information about potentially dangerous people who are barred from having guns is available to the national background check system; lift the ban on research into the causes of gun violence; make sure doctors know they can report credible threats of violence by their patients; put more resource officers and counselors in schools; and ensure millions of
Americans get quality mental health coverage, according to the White House.
Among the proposals that require Congressional approval, President Obama wants criminal background checks for all gun sales, a reinstated assault weapons ban, a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines, banning armor-piercing bullets, and instituting a federal gun trafficking statute, the White House said.
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz believes these measures will help keep Americans safe.
“What’s gonna solve this problem is a comprehensive approach,” she told CBS 4′s Carey Codd. “Universal background checks — right now 40 percent of the gun sales taking place in this country, the person buying the gun doesn’t ever go through a background check.”
The President’s plan would also call for increased access to mental health services and safer schools with more school resource officers and requiring schools to have comprehensive emergency management plans in place.
“I think that school safety is one of the biggest issues we face today and if we don’t have more security we’re just putting the kids at risk,” said Artie Leichner, with the United Teacher’s of Dade.
At Bill Boyd’s Tackle Shop in Fort Lauderdale there are strong opinions for gun rights advocates along with strong sales for guns and ammunition.
Store Manager Roy Gosley believes the president’s plan would only water down the 2nd amendment.
“More laws isn’t the solution to any of the problems,” Gosley said. “It’s enforce the laws that we have and give the police better tools to enforce them with.”
Others at the store — like certified firearms trainer Eric Reid — said he doesn’t agree with banning guns but said background checks should occur every time a gun is sold.
“It’d be a shame knowing that I teach people and thinking that there are people out there who can actually buy a weapon from someone who hasn’t done a background check,” said Reid. “It really bothers me.”
As for the President’s legislation, the chances of getting all or even any of those recommendations past Congress appear slim as Congressional Republicans have declared almost any gun control plan dead on arrival in the House of Representatives.
Senator Marco Rubio released a statement following the president’s speech which said the President was targeting the 2nd Amendment and “imposing his policies via executive fiat.”
“President Obama is targeting the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence,” Senator Rubio said in his statement. “Rolling back responsible citizens’ rights is not the proper response to tragedies committed by criminals and the mentally ill. Making matters worse is that President Obama is again abusing his power by imposing his policies via executive fiat instead of allowing them to be debated in Congress.”
Rubio’s statement and opposition to the president’s policy proposals could help him politically with gun enthusiasts. But, Rubio’s staunch opposition to any gun control the president mentioned goes against recent national polling, even among National Rifle Association members, that supported some pegs of the president’s plan.
Florida’s senior Senator, Bill Nelson, said the President wasn’t “proposing an assault on the Second Amendment.”
“Why in the world would we not want to check to see if a person buying a weapon has a criminal record?,” Senator Nelson said in a statement. “And why wouldn’t we want limits on assault weapons like AK-47s? People are buying assault weapons to kill others, not to hunt. And when assault rifles are used to kill children, it’s time for America to act. ”
Freshman Congresswoman Lois Frankel, a Democrat, offered her support for the president’s plans announced Wednesday.
“Today President Obama unveiled common-sense proposals and took action to reduce gun violence and make our communities and our country safer without infringing on the 2nd Amendment,” Congresswoman Frankel said.
“People in South Florida and across America have the right to be free from violence when they send their kids to school or go to the movies and that’s why it is so important we act now.”
The National Rifle Association, which lobbies on behalf of the gun-making industry, has previously said it would oppose the president’s plans. The NRA released a web ad earlier Wednesday that attacked the President as an “elitist hypocrite” and used the president’s children as an example.
The NRA released a statement late Wednesday that read in part, “The NRA will continue to focus on keeping our children safe and securing our schools, fixing our broken mental health system, and prosecuting violent criminals to the fullest extent of the law…Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crises we face as a nation.” | <urn:uuid:9517f168-1d4d-4941-a2bd-9ffefa458f7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/01/16/obama-reveals-sweeping-gun-control-reform/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951846 | 1,462 | 1.617188 | 2 |
SAN ANTONIO (AP) New drug combinations are helping women with early breast cancer. Using two drugs that more precisely target tumors doubled the number of women whose cancer disappeared compared to those who had only one of the drugs, doctors reported Friday.
It was the first test of Herceptin and Tykerb together for early-stage disease. They aim at a protein called HER-2 that is overproduced in about one-fourth of all breast cancers. Herceptin blocks the protein on the cell's surface; Tykerb does it inside the cell.
RESOURCE: Complete breast cancer coverage
Dr. Jose Baselga, associate director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, led a study when he previously worked in Barcelona, Spain, that tested these drugs alone and in combination in 455 patients who also were given the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel.
The patients were treated for about four months before surgery to remove their tumors and for nine months afterward. Doctors have been testing drugs in advance of surgery to shrink tumors and make the operation less drastic, and to get an idea quickly if these drugs will help a patient.
Just over half of the women who received Herceptin and Tykerb were discovered to have no signs of invasive cancer when their surgeries were done, versus only 25 to 30% of those given just one of these drugs.
Tykerb had more side effects, mostly diarrhea. But the main side effect of combo treatment is to the wallet: Tykerb pills cost $5,000 to $6,000 per month. Herceptin costs more than $4,000 a month plus whatever doctors charge to infuse it.
"The possibility that we have here is to enhance the number of patients that are cured" and avoid more treatment down the line that might cost more, Baselga said.
However, Dr. Neil Spector of the Duke Cancer Institute said cost "is a real consideration."
Yet he called the results "really exciting" and said the future of cancer care is approaches like this that use targeted drugs well matched to patients' tumor profiles.
A second study in Germany pitted the two drugs against each other in 600 women with early breast cancer also getting standard chemotherapy for six months before surgery. Herceptin won: 31% saw their tumors disappear versus 22% on Tykerb.
The studies were reported Friday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more. | <urn:uuid:6d6a145d-e2bd-4a4b-b7f5-683960a67077> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/yourlife/health/medical/breastcancer/2010-12-10-herceptin-combo_N.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962587 | 565 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Burris Laboratory School received a $2,000 grant for an eight-week program with students, teaching them to be more active and how make healthy choices.
The program started Aug. 23 will end with the annual Chase Charlie race during Family Weekend.
David Pierce, assistant professor of Sports Administration, said the program will help students grades four through six build up for their last event, where they will run a mile.
The four-day-a-week program is being run by Ball State students and faculty from the sports administration and exercise science programs.
Although the program's goal is to have students fit through running activities, the program at Burris has blocks for fitness and activities to keep students playing while running as well, Pierce said.
"The whole program does not consist of just running 15 to 20 minutes," he said. "We have blocks where students run up to one-fourth of a mile or one-half of a mile. But then we also have games like capture the flag and agility exercises."
Jay McGee, principal of Burris, said the program serves to promote fitness awareness. So far, the program has been received positively by students and parents.
"I think this has very positive effects on students," he said. "It offers positive things students can do after school other than sitting in front of a TV."
While only about 15 students are in the program, Pierce said he expects more students to gain interest and join.
This was the second time Burris applied and was awarded the grant. The academy was one of 60 schools in the U.S. that received the grant from Run for Something Better, which funds school-based running programs "in an effort to combat child obesity before it begins."
Last year, Burris was one of 50 schools selected to receive the grant.
"I think these types of efforts are definitely needed," Pierce said. "Now there are comprehensive groups and people that create these programs, because we can't expect for the government to create a program and everyone will become healthy."
After the first year of the program, the academy was more organized and had more students sign up, Pierce said.
"We have made a lot more changes. We're more organized this year," he said. "We have more equipment, a lot more resources at our disposal for training than last year."
The Ball State sports administration and exercise science programs have worked before with students on fitness programs and camps. In the summer, they had a Health and Wellness Camp at Blackford County as part of an immersive learning project.
McGee said he thinks the creation of programs like Run for Something Better will increase the involvement of children and communities.
"Finding ways to cut inactivity among children can only be done through community efforts," he said.
Article by Sharon Hernandez Monday, September 5, 2010
Copyright © 2013 Ball State University 2000 W. University Ave. Muncie, IN 47306
800-382-8540 and 765-289-1241 | <urn:uuid:c3904aa0-4604-4c30-805a-e22da87f8c97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cms.bsu.edu/Academics/CollegesandDepartments/PhysicalEducation/NewsandEvents/SPESESFacAlumSintheNews/BurrisRecGra.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980892 | 616 | 1.742188 | 2 |
On Tuesday, September 11, 2012, Living Beyond Breast Cancer will host a free teleconference, “Beyond Treatment: Understanding Your New Normal,” featuring Susan Hong, MD, MPH, FACP. The staff at LBBC often hears from survivors that getting back to their regular lives can be challenging after treatment and the creation of a “new normal” is key to moving on. Join the LBBC Blog in welcoming back Randi Rentz, as she shares her “new normal.”
Normal. What is the “new normal” after breast cancer? Four years after completing my treatment, I am at it again, launching a web site that has taken many years to get underway, working full-time as a special education teacher in the area of Asperger’s, and consulting in the evenings. Again I’m risking financial security, working long hours, and insisting on having fun.
The point is, no matter what happens, I keep going on, making adjustments that fit my life. I like my life. While I was traveling in the scary tunnel of “Cancerville,” I did what most women do—I tried to maintain the normal routine of my life as much as possible. When a friend emailed me during my treatment, she wrote I was “crazy as ever,” which made me overjoyed.
Meanwhile, the world outside my “pink bubble” was going on as it always had. It was fast paced, taxing, demanding, and it was pretty draining. I have to admit, when I was finally able to rejoin it, it was pretty liberating.
I was thrilled to be able to go back to many of the same issues I’ve been dealing with for my whole life. I can say that I do have a greater perspective on what’s really important. I still sweat the small stuff. That’s just who I am. In my life, the small stuff adds up to the big picture that is my life and existence.
Although I may be in a new, slightly modified package, I am still whole, and unwilling to waste my time. This, too, is the same attitude I had before breast cancer. I was basically a happy positive person before breast cancer, and after it. Breast cancer just spelled out who and what I am.
Like most women I’ve spoken to, I can honestly say I eat better now (although I still eat desserts). I eat organic foods whenever possible, and I don’t eat fish full of chemicals or mercury. I never touch dairy products that were produced using hormones. And I try to avoid cosmetics that contain parabens, which mimic estrogen and just can’t be good for you.
Okay, I’ll admit I still use dye to color my hair and nail polish, both of which have evil ingredients in them, but I’m doing what I can. I take vitamins, limit my alcohol intake and exercise every day for an hour.
If you know me, that last part about regular exercise, is a total fabrication. But I do take yoga and/or a barre class when I can, and I try to do cardio two to three times a week.
Shocked? Yeah, me too. | <urn:uuid:63cf217c-041a-404b-9902-4931e3b28bfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://livingbeyondbc.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/randi-rentz-getting-back-to-the-new-normal/?like=1&_wpnonce=a32b89adfa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975715 | 684 | 1.515625 | 2 |
For the first time since Medicare's inception, pharmacists are finally being recognized as health care providers. Part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 includes proposed rules to regulate Medication Therapy Management (MTM) programs that would entitle Medicare beneficiaries access to these services from pharmacists.
"This is the first time in our nation's history that the pharmacist has ever been acknowledged in federal legislation as a health care provider. After all this time, the nation's largest payor of health care services is now recognizing the vital role of the pharmacist as a medication therapy manager and is willing to compensate pharmacists for their services," Kerr Drug's Executive Vice President, Pharmacy and Logistics Ralph Petri said during the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Pharmacy and Technology Conference on August 29, 2004, in San Diego, Calif.
The purpose of MTM is to optimize therapeutic outcomes, improve medication use, reduce the risk of adverse drug events and drug interactions, and increase patient adherence and compliance with prescribed regimens. "Effectively delivering MTM services to our nation's Medicare beneficiaries will be one of community pharmacy's most effective and important ways of demonstrating the importance of the pharmacist in improving the effective use of prescription medications," Petri told conference attendees.
He stressed, however, that "if we do not effectively deliver MTM within the Medicare benefit, we not only risk losing this important opportunity but the much larger opportunity to effectively demonstrate the pharmacist's vital role in health care to the American public."
Successfully delivering MTM programs requires changes. "It means positioning our pharmacists to utilize their expertise more actively than ever before. If we are to succeed, we, as a profession, must do things differently," Petri added.
Petri also highlighted the pressing issues that will challenge the continued success of community pharmacy in the coming months. He said that community pharmacy, along with the NACDS, is hard at work making sure that the role of community pharmacy is properly recognized as a key contributor to safe, cost-effective health care. A majority of this year's focus has been on 4 fundamental areas:
Petri further pointed out that working on these areas poses 2 underlying challenges. "The American public does not fully appreciate the value of medications, nor do they understand the role of the community pharmacist in helping to maximize the safe and effective benefits of their medications."
Despite pharmacists repeatedly ranking at or near the top of the annual Gallup Poll measuring trust among American pharmacists, he said that "trusting a pharmacist" is not the same as "understanding what a pharmacist does"?or "appreciating (placing value) on the positive impact a pharmacist has on improving health care outcomes."
Petri, who has been encouraged by the discussions regarding the value message, said, "A crucial ingredient in the value message is the quality of care provided by the pharmacist." He emphasized that value messaging cannot be done single-handedly. It requires that organizations in every area of health care join together.
One vital way of working together is having each pharmacy make a commitment to educate the public at every chance. "But we must do more than simply talk about it, we must demonstrate that value, every day, at every opportunity, as we work with patients and their physicians on maximizing their health medication therapy and their health care dollar," he said.
The Sarasota Group, a coalition of community pharmacy groups and drug manufacturers, has spent the last year working to raise public awareness of the "dual value of prescription medications and the role of the community pharmacist."
Addressing the audience of pharmacy and pharmaceutical industry leaders, Petri said, "The value message, most simply communicated, is that prescription medications are the most valuable aspect of health care if those medications are accompanied by the knowledge and expertise of a pharmacist that enables one to realize their total benefit."
"Changing the American public's views about prescription medications and the value of community pharmacists is a goal of enormous magnitude that requires an industry-wide effort," he added. | <urn:uuid:9da5d495-1333-431a-a441-7a4b118812e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/2004/2004-10/2004-10-4628 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953668 | 835 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Peggy Dembicer is a mixed media artist using a variety of techniques that spring from her background in fiberarts. She began her art career as a handweaver in the early 1980s, demonstrating a fondness for tapestry weaving. In the1990s Dembicer’s work shifted to the framed and sculptural pieces that she exhibits in galleries and private collections throughout Connecticut. She exhibits her work regularly at Gallery on the Green in Canton, Artwell in Torrington, Silvermine Art Guild in New Canaan and at the West Hartford Art League.
Please visit my online gallery, click here.
One area of concentration is paperweaving. In this method she executes two and three dimensional framed constructions from paper, fiber and beads. These designs are pictorial, geometric or abstract.
Another primary concentration is Dembicer’s use of seed beads in a variety of forms. Her pictorial and patterned expressions may be woven, embroidered, applied with paints or created as intricate mosaics. Inspired by the work of the Huichol Indians of Mexico whose beaded designs are set in beeswax, Dembicer’s mosaic interpretations are formed from beads and glue. They often contain countless thousands of beads and take months to create.
Dembicer’s recent works include explorations into acrylics, polymers, beads, metal and stones in combination. Her creative and unique pieces are stimulating and appealing to a wide audience.
Peggy Dembicer currently lives in Avon, Connecticut. She divides her time between her active family life, her full time insurance career and some time each day devoted to her art.
Peggy Dembicer can be contacted at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:5d18eb2f-2a30-49c6-9e51-04c819a9550f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peggydembicer.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953026 | 356 | 1.523438 | 2 |
In a message dated 1/25/05 12:17:10 PM, [email protected] writes:
Where does one's eating habits/tastes play into the 5MM practice?Â
This is the one area that concerns me because part of my regimen is
geared towards ending my addiction to refined sugar(s). Since I work
at a desk during the week, and since said desk is located in close
proximity to several vending machines full of junk, my first priority
right now (other than completing my work) is to focus on getting this
Sugar monkey off of my back. The 5MM provides me with the framework
to visualize and create the positive eating habits I need to grow,
but what are those eating habits? What does a body need when
undergoing such a change? And what does a body need to maintain after
the change has come to fruition?
Jason in Bmore
Considered as a way to raise energy (with energy being a primary tool to facilitate growth), eating is at least 25% of the puzzle. (Eating, exercise, rest, and focus are the four tools to increase energy). The five Minute Miracle works very nicely with the "Body for Life" eating plan of 5-6 small meals a day. Your problem is that your blood sugar is set to crash every couple of hours. Then you need to eat more (processed, simple) sugars to get it back up. Which triggers the insulin response, pulling the sugar from your bloodstream (and storing it as fat), and starting the cycle over again.
The way out of this is manyfold. On a strictly dietary level, begin to substitute complex unprocessed carbohydrates for simple ones--they metabolize more slowly, and won't cause the same magnitude of crash. Eating a spoon-sized shredded wheat instead of a Twix bar is probably a sane approach. Or, you could eat a piece of fruit instead of that candy. While it's high in sugar, it also contains nutritional factors, and the TYPE of sugar (fructose) doesn't cause the insulin response as drastically. Eating a couple of orange slices after performing your 5MM might be a smart approach.
In general, no diet that you cannot sustain for the rest of your life is going to work. You have to shift to an eating pattern that is long-term. Then, of course, you have to deal with whatever emotional stuff is keeping you stuck in the first place: until you deal with the emotional needs, your subconscious will sabotage any efforts you make to change. This is where meditation, dream-journaling and quiet, focused introspection work great.
A last thought: having one day a week on which you get to break your discipline is a great idea. For me, it's Friday, and we call it "Cheat day." If I've been moderately good the rest of the week, I get to be moderately bad on Friday. But if I've been SPECTACULARLY good and disciplined the rest of the week--guess what? I get to be SPECTACULARLY bad on Friday, if I really want to be. It's a nice pressure valve!
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Posted by Steven Barnes at 12:35 PM | <urn:uuid:748a856c-4c30-4dd6-8647-102d93e69bfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://darkush.blogspot.com/2005/01/re-lifewritingdiscussionlist-5-mm-and.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957604 | 681 | 1.554688 | 2 |
She also asked people to cut down consumption of power.
"The DERC has hiked the tariff. We have nothing to do with it. There is no alternative but to increase the rate as cost of power purchase has gone up significantly...We will continue to provide Re one subsidy per unit to those who limit their consumption up to 200 unit per month," she told reporters after a Cabinet meeting here.
For the last four years, the Delhi government has been providing subsidy of Re one per unit for domestic customers whose monthly power consumption does not exceed 200 units.
Noting that power consumption has increased significantly, she said people need to change their habit to control power consumption. "People do not have control. People use four-five air conditioners (in one house-hold). We will have to change their habits," she said.
Officials said as Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) announced a new tariff order, government will have to take a fresh decision as the previous notification would lapse when the new tariff comes into effect.
Power tariff for domestic consumers was hiked by a steep 26 per cent - the fourth increase in 10 months - which came as a shock to people already burdened by high inflation and petrol price rise. It came into effect from yesterday.
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit Monday announced continuation of Re one per unit subsidy for those consumers whose monthly power consumption is below 200 units, even as she defended the recent hike in power tariff saying the cost of electricity has gone up significantly.
First Published: Monday, July 02, 2012, 14:49 | <urn:uuid:f8fa2ba2-0e78-40de-bdb8-d7e7d1738569> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://zeenews.india.com/news/delhi/dikshit-defends-power-tariff-hike_784975.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976816 | 323 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Diabetes is a serious condition, but not necessarily a debilitating one. It has the power to cause major medical problems, but it’s not guaranteed to cause any of them. It’s a “vague threat” more than it is an outright assaultive one. It’s the “offscreen” monster that might, or might not, jump out at any moment.
I remember reading a movie review a few years ago in which the author posited that all truly scary movies use tension and the threat of something happening to build up a sense of dread. The reviewer explained that this sense of dread, this unbearable waiting for something horrible to happen, was always far scarier than the sight of something bad actually happening.
There are times when diabetes can make us feel like the protagonist in a very good horror film, counting every carb and obsessing over our numbers so we don’t get caught. More than outright terror, it can evoke a sense of overriding dread, fear, and even outright paralysis when things aren’t running smoothly.
I can tell you I’ve felt that dread on a few occasions. Every now and then I’ll have a few weeks, as does anyone with diabetes, where it just seems no matter what I do, my blood glucose does not want to behave. It’s not something that happens all too frequently, but when it does it can be absolutely maddening. Nothing is more terrifying to someone with diabetes than daily high blood glucose with no rational explanation for it. Loss of control is, without a doubt, the greatest fear for people living with diabetes. If we were all part of some serial comic book, the good guy would be “Captain Predictable,” and his nemesis would be “Dr. Chaos”.
So, how do we confront the uncertainty of living with diabetes day-to-day? What do we do with the fear that can arise when our blood glucose is having a period of defiance to our commands? How can we manage ourselves when we’re falling short of managing our blood glucose?
In my humble opinion, we can do one of two things: we can ratchet up our frustration and give up (I’ve done that, and it doesn’t seem to help anything), or we can breathe, take a step back, and have a sense of humor about diabetes.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Vietnamese monk and peace activist, has given the world a number of wonderful quotes. One of his most well known is his advice to “smile, be peace.” The word peace, particularly for those of us in the Western World, translates to political, social, and world peace. But Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition is one that focuses on the inner world just as much as the outer world (if not more). So when he talks about “being peace,” he isn’t suggesting that if I start smiling more in South Philly, the murder rate in Kensington will go down, or peace will come to the Middle East. But what he is saying is that by remembering to step back, to take my own trouble a little less seriously, I can have a sense of peace in this moment, whether or not my disease is behaving as it should. And ultimately, if we extend that practice to a whole community, to a nation, and to the world, it can lead to world peace, but that’s a topic for another blog.
So then, how do we step back, take ourselves a little less seriously, and smile at our problems? Everyone has his own way. As always, I invite you to share yours in the comments below. This is a great topic to share your thoughts on, so please crash the servers with as many comments as you can post!
I have found two things that always seem to help me smile at my own struggles. That’s not to say I always remember to use them, but when I do they always seem to do the trick. The first is meditation. Twenty minutes a day of simply sitting, breathing, accepting the world as it is and appreciating each moment as a gift. When I’m consistent about it, the world is a beautiful place, even if my control is having one of its little bouts of insubordination.
The second thing I’ve always tried to remember is to see the humor in diabetes. When I was a freshman in college, I had a few euphemisms I used for taking my insulin shot. My favorites were “I’m gonna go shoot up” and “I’m gonna go stab myself” (OK, maybe slightly inappropriate). My friends all knew what these little sayings meant. Even casual acquaintances knew what they meant, as I was the only person with diabetes on our small campus. One day I managed to combine the two, announcing with a smile to the crowded table in the dining hall “I’m gonna go shoot myself.” The entire table went silent, as people tried to process what I just said, why I said it so casually, and whether they should be calling the crisis center.
There have been other humorous moments like that throughout my journey with diabetes, and I’ve always tried to notice them and appreciate them. They can help take away some of the fear and erase some of the worry that can be so hard to ignore. So, the next time you feel that offscreen monster creeping up on you, remember to stop, take a deep breath, take a step back, realize that nothing is so serious in this life that you need to give in to fear, and smile. | <urn:uuid:3ff196bf-00cd-4734-876b-ce369b64c1af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/Blog/Scott-Coulter/thats-funny/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960685 | 1,186 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Re-training as a gas engineer has provided a secure future for geotechnical engineer, Gareth Davies, after redundancy shock was set to ruin his family life.
Gareth from Cheshire had a very grim outlook when he was made redundant from his specialised career as a geotechnical engineer. Living in South Wales at the time it became clear the employment opportunities he was seeking didn't exist and making a break decided to move to Cheshire in the hope to find work.
Shocked by the lack of employment opportunities in his home town he didn't expect to be confronted with the same in a more buoyant part of the country; but unfortunately still couldn't find the specialised work he was qualified and skilled in.
"After making the move to Cheshire and still not finding employment opportunities I have to say it was probably one of the lowest points in my life. The task of getting myself back into work within the same field proved to be very difficult, especially given the current economic climate. To make matters worse I encountered a lot of resistance to the fact I was too skilled and qualified!" Gareth says.
Gareth didn't hang around; instead he decided to retrain in a career he felt would remain reasonably secure for the rest of his working life. He contacted Brookhouse Training and signed up for the Approved Certification Scheme (ACS) to become a gas engineer, facilitated at the Brookhouse Training Centre in Cleckheaton.
Gareth says: "There were many factors that steered me toward becoming a Gas Engineer and they were compounded after visiting Brookhouse Training for an open morning. The people from Brookhouse instantly gave me a good impression of themselves, and of the type of organisation they were and what they could offer me. I spoke to a few people about the state of the domestic gas industry and realising the opportunities available to me once qualified, decided to go for it."
As part of Gareth's training with Brookhouse Training he was asked to complete an essential part of his learning through a work placement with Tomkinson Heating Ltd based in Macclesfield. The company was so impressed with the standard of Gareth's knowledge and working ethic that they offered him a full-time role within the company as an installations engineer.
"I am now working as an installation engineer covering various projects involving boiler installations, thermal solar systems, ground source heat recovery systems and biomass fuelled installations. Overall, Brookhouse has provided me with a solid foundation of knowledge that has enabled me to move directly into a career I totally enjoy working in. From my contact with the management team, my excellent tutor and generally the whole staff at Brookhouse, I am satisfied I made the right choice investing in my future with Brookhouse."
Brookhouse Training is the UK's number one gas, plumbing, training and assessment specialist offering practical learning from within a bespoke state-of-the-art training centre based in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire.
Brookhouse Training is the only training provider in its field to guarantee all students a managed work placement that ensures real work based evidence is gathered.
For further information please contact:
Colette Lowe MCIPR
Mobile: 07946 508697
Office: 01924 609529
2 Yorkshire House
The Nostell Estate Yard
Recommended for Public Relations by RAR the Recommended Agency Register. | <urn:uuid:cdeba131-2829-4f21-854c-87d62604d212> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.euskills.co.uk/home/news.php?id=712 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980135 | 682 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Please select your reason for reporting this video as inappropriate from the buttons below.
If you own this video and believe it has been uploaded without consent click here to submit a copyright infringement notice.
Login to Rate This Video!
Alan is a scientist on the verge of changing the world. He has discovered the key to time travel. His equipment still needs work, but the basic equation is right. Soon after his discovery though, his wife Sarah tragically dies in a car accident. Devastated by his loss, Alan sinks into depression and uses his work to cope. His best friends Stephanie and Steven and his assistant Eva try to comfort their distraught friend, but to no avail. In his depression, he decides to travel back in time to try to save the love of his life... but things don't always happen the way you want them to. Sometimes fate can not be changed | <urn:uuid:8bd5de9e-885e-42cf-85f1-64dee6e7c320> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pornotube.com/c/17/m/1687346/Time-After-Time | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97657 | 176 | 1.5 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.