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Movies & Television
If you haven't heard about the Preschool Prep DVD series, you are in for a real treat! This series began back in 2004 with "Meet the Letters" and "Meet the Numbers" using colors and graphics to familiarize children with letters as they begin to talk. Since then, they have branched out into colors, shapes and phonics. You can find this series in our Parenting collection, that is when they aren't checked out!
Nominations for the 84th annual Academy Awards were announced January 24. Several of the nominated films and performances are already available in the Library's collection. Among the nominees for Best Picture ready to check out are:
2011 North American Hammett Prize nominees have been announced by the International Crime Writers Association — North American Branch. The organization will name the Hammett Prize winner, during the Bloody Words Conference, in Toronto, June 1-3, 2012. The winner will receive a bronze trophy, designed by sculptor Peter Boiger.
Feast day of fools: a novel by James Lee Burke
Set in an Edwardian country house in 1912, the popular PBS series Downton Abbey centers on the Crawley family, their servants and their life at their grand country home. However, the death of the Crawley heir aboard the Titanic, sets in motion a succession of changes for both the family and the servants. The second season — which began on PBS on January 8 — has moved forward to the years 1916-17 and portrays the effect that World War I has on all of their lives. This Emmy Award winning series is written by Julian Fellowes and stars Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, and Elizabeth McGovern. If you enjoy this period of history try some of the following titles.
The American heiress: a novel by Daisy Goodwin — Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England.
Below Stairs — The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir That Inspired "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Downton Abbey" by Powell, Margaret — The remarkable true story of a woman who served in one of the great houses of England as a kitchen maid.
The past year saw several popular books made into movies. The Help, Moneyball, War Horse, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Extemely Loud & Incredibly Close were just a few of the titles that were made into successful films. And 2012 is shaping up to be just as full of books-into-film productions as 2011. Listed below are only a few of the titles to be released in theaters this year. Get a head start on your reading and stay tuned for more in the coming months!
Abraham Lincoln: vampire hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith — Starring Rufus Sewell and Dominic Cooper. Release date: June 2012
Breaking dawn by Stephenie Meyer — Part 2. Starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. Release date: November 2012
- 10:00 AM — Winnie the Pooh (G)
- 1:00 PM — Kung Fu Panda 2 (PG)
- 3:00 PM — Mr. Popper's Penguins (PG)
- 6:30 PM — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (PG-13)
The American Library Association has joined the National Institutes of Health promoting Go4Life. Go4Life, an exercise and physical activity campaign from the National Institute on Aging at NIH, is designed to help individuals fit exercise and physical activity into their daily life.
Older & wiser workout [videodisc]: for active older adults by with Sue Grant; produced by FitFlix Productions
Looking for a film to ring in the New Year for your kids? One that you can show early? Like around 8? Look no further than CPL! Here are some options:
Winnie the Pooh [videodisc]: a very merry Pooh year by Walt Disney Home Entertainment — Winnie the Pooh and friends make New Year resolutions not to bother Rabbit
Year without a Santa Claus [videodisc]: Nestor the long-eared Christmas donkey, Rudolph's shiny new year — Rudolph helps Father Time locate a missing New Year baby
ITV in partnership with Agatha Christie, LTD has announced they will film 5 new Hercule Poirot stories for release in 2012.
Dead man's folly by Agatha Christie
The big four [Large print]: a Hercule Poirot mystery by Agatha Christie
Elephants can remember [by] Agatha Christie by Christie, Agatha, 1890-1976
Acclaimed actor and Michigan native Harry Morgan passed away on Wednesday, December 7 at the age of 96. Morgan might be best known as the beloved Colonel Potter in the long-running series M*A*S*H. If you wish to honor his memory but haven't seen M*A*S*H and his other works, or even if you have, we have many on our shelves for your choosing:
Inherit the wind [videodisc] by Metro-Mayer-Goldwyn Studios, Inc
High noon [videodisc] by Republic Entertainment, Inc
If you have read Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, the 2011-2012 Great Michigan Read try David Halberstram or Branch Taylor or one of the many documentaries about Civil Rights in America produced over the years.
Faith in the city: preaching radical social change in Detroit by Angela D. Dillard; with a foreword by Charles G. Adams
Race and remembrance: a memoir by Arthur L. Johnson
A Christmas carol — You know the holiday season has arrived when we receive another copy of A Christmas Carol for the collection. The original version starring Alastair Sim as Scrooge is celebrating its 60th Anniversary with a special edition, which includes an introduction by Leonard Maltin. So take time out from the holiday shopping, gather up the family and make some popcorn and enjoy this holiday classic.
The upcoming weeks will see several new films released that are based on, or inspired by popular books. Here are some of the most anticipated:
The adventures of Tintin: the chapter book by adapted by Stephanie Peters — Directed by Stephen Spielberg
Extremely loud & incredibly close by Jonathan Safran Foer — Starring Tom Hanks & Sandra Bullock
Every year in December a bumper crop of new Holiday Kids Movies makes their debut. This year is no exception with many of the new films starring characters kids recognize from their favorite movies. Many of these movies are available at CPL now, with more on the way in the coming weeks. These are great solutions when you need some down time to make dinner (or squirrel away to wrap some gifts). Here are some of this year's offerings:
Merry Madagascar [videodisc] by DreamWorks Animation LLC
Christmas with the chipmunks [videodisc] by Bagdasarian Productions LLC
Are you in the Thanksgiving mood? While you'll have to look elsewhere for the greatest Thanksgiving-themed TV episode ever, we have a number of movies from Moviefone's list of 21 Films About Turkey Day:
Planes, trains and automobiles [videodisc] by Paramount Pictures
Pieces of April [videodisc] by United Artists and IFC Productions present an InDigEnt production in association with Kalkaska Productions
Unfortunately, fans of this popular new DVD will have to wait an extra 28 days to check out a copy from the Library due to a new policy recently instituted by Warner Home Video:
Warner Home Video will no longer distribute theatrical releases to libraries or home video rental stores until 28 days after they release the movies for sale at retailers. This Warner Home Video policy applies to all public libraries and video rental outlets such as Redbox, Netflix, and Blockbuster. In addition to being released 28 days after the retail version, Warner's rental version DVDs will not contain bonus features or extras. Please note that Warner’s new policy will only impact titles that have a theatrical release, perhaps amounting to about 12 titles per year. Non-theatrical Warner releases will not be affected by this policy.
The first three Warner theatrical titles affected by this new policy are Crazy, Stupid Love, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pt.2, and The Hangover, pt.2. If you would like to express your opinions to Warner Home Video you can call toll-free at 1-866-373-4389 or by email. | <urn:uuid:7f272657-0b10-490c-9e6b-0491fc3c52c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cantonpl.org/term-format/movies-television?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942418 | 1,800 | 1.59375 | 2 |
I’ve already been figuratively (if very politely) spanked for this by one earnest official from the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority during a dinner in Chicago, and I certainly understand GCRTA defending its “need” to opt for buses as political cover, as a need to offer something to its riders and taxpayers.
My question stands, and not just because I can counter with data on operating costs, environmental impact, or some such. I ride the bus. As a passenger, a customer, I know what buses can do, and what they cannot. I often wonder whether bus advocates (and you can find them) have the same background.
In New Orleans last October, attending the APTA 2011 Expo, I rode the streetcar once (round trip) to dinner with other attendees, predominantly pro-rail types. They knew their mode, even to the point of aiding the operator with disabled-rider options. The Big Easy’s streetcar system has grown since I last visited, and it was gratifying.
But APTA thoughtfully provided shuttle bus service to and from various hotels and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, so one morning, instead of walking, I rode the bus. It worked well enough, the driver was courteous, the bus was clean, and if trip time wasn’t particularly speedy, neither was it outrageous. All in all, all OK.
Except: Numerous other APTA attendees—and I mean many—boarded, rode, and departed from the bus with the aura of slight confusion strongly suggesting that they don’t—or seldom—ride the bus. I was startled, and quickly revisited most of the huge APTA display showcase that, in all fairness, was dominated by buses, including—yes, indeed—buses trying real, real hard to look “just like light rail transit, only cheaper.”
By extension, one could rightfully conclude that most APTA attendees and members and associated entities are bus-oriented; rail’s presence, while enhanced by streetcar debuts, was comparatively small. So in essence, it was a bus crowd in New Orleans, myself included, with some rail thrown in. No knock on APTA for that; its job is to promote public transit in various modes and options—a good thing.
But I’m still wondering: I ride the bus. Do the others?
Feel free to react or respond to this; reach me at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:20fa56c1-0ef6-4e91-88fc-545258226bc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/doug-bowen/it-helps-if-you-ride-your-mode.html?channel=62 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96625 | 516 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The embattled president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is outlining new economic proposals during a broadcast Sunday that observers say is aimed at boosting his poor standing with voters ahead of April's general election.
Though Sarkozy has yet to announce his candidacy, he is widely expected to face Socialist Francois Hollande, who is polling ahead in public opinion surveys, as he seeks a second six-year term.
Sarkozy's plan calls for an increase in the value-added tax on goods and services while employer's payroll contributions would be cut. The French leader's proposals are aimed at addressing the country's rampant unemployment with nearly three million people are out of work.
The French leader is also proposing a tax on financial transactions in France that he wants other European Union (EU) nations to adopt.
Sarkozy's television appearance comes two weeks after France lost its top triple-A credit rating and just a week after Hollande launched his presidential campaign with a speech attacking what he termed "the world of high finance."
Also Sunday, in Athens, the Greek Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, met with the leaders of the country's three main political parties and later in a statement said there was complete agreement on the austerity measures needed to reduce Greece's debt and save it from bankruptcy.
The deal, due to be finalized later in the week, would qualify Greece for a new bailout from the EU and the International Monetary Fund.
Greece must secure a new $169 billion loan package within the next few weeks to avoid defaulting on financial obligations due in March.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP. | <urn:uuid:fb3fa235-071a-4df9-8d1a-5c4adc93995c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/sarkozy-outlining-new-economic-plans-138286604/151288.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97024 | 328 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Financial Aid: Available Loans
This program uses both federal and state funds. Annual loan limits are established at $4,000 for undergraduate students and $6,000 for graduate students. Aggregate borrowing limits are set at $20,000 for undergraduate students and $40,000 for graduate and professional students. Students must provide their driver's license number at the time of application. The monthly minimum repayment is set at $40. There will be no repayment of principle or interest until nine months after the completion of the grace period.
Note: There are a variety of reasons why Perkins Loan payments may be deferred such as, economic hardship, military service, etc. For more complete information please refer to the promissory note that is a part of your loan agreement.
Direct Loans are low-interest loans for students and parents to help pay for the cost of a student's education after high school. The lender is the U.S. Department of Education (the Department), though the entity you deal with, your loan servicer, can be a private business.
- Student must be a citizen or permanent resident.
- Must have a complete financial aid file in the Office of Student Financial Services.
- Loan is awarded on the basis of financial need.
- Low interest rate.
- No interest accrues while in school and in grace period.
- Six-month grace period upon graduation or termination before repayment begins.
Note: This is an unsubsidized loan. Interest accrues while in school and in grace period.
- Borrowers who do not qualify for Subsidized Stafford Loans and those who do qualify for Subsidized Stafford Loans but have not reached the established Stafford Loan limit.
- Must have a complete financial aid file in the Office of Student Financial Services.
- Low interest rate.
- Non-need based loan.
- Six-month grace period upon graduation or termination before principle repayment begins.
Borrowing Limits for Subsidized & Unsubsidized Student Loans:
Loan limits are determined by a student's status or the number of completed credit hours he/she has:
First Year Student (0-29 credit hours completed)
Second Year Student (30-59 credit hours completed
Other Undergraduate (60 + credit hours completed)
Graduate & Professional (undergraduate degree requirements completed)
Loan Limits are as follows:
For Dependent Students:
$5,500 First year ($3,500 may be subsidized)
$6,500 Second year ($4,500 may be subsidized)
$7,500 Other undergraduate ($5,500 may be subsidized)
$20,500 Graduate/Professional ($8,500 may be subsidized
For Independent Students:
$9,500 First year ($3,500 may be subsidized)
$10,500 Second year ($4,500 may be subsidized)
$12,500 Other undergraduate ($5,500 may be subsidized)
$20,500 Graduate/Professional ($8,500 may be subsidized)
Aggregate Limits for FFEL Loans
$31,000 as a dependent undergraduate student
$57,500 as an independent undergraduate student ($23,000 may be subsidized)
$138,500 as graduate or professional student ($65,000 may be subsidized)
Entrance Interview Requirement
First time borrowing students are required to complete an entrance counseling session. Included in this session is comprehensive information on the terms and conditions of the loan and of the borrower's responsibilities. Upon acceptance of this loan students must complete their entrance interview at www.studentloans.gov . By completing this exercise, you will have familiarized yourself with the Stafford Student Loan program. This requirement needs to be fulfilled prior to disbursement of the loan.
Exit Interview Requirement
Students who have borrowed under the Federal Stafford Student Loan program during their academic career at Western Connecticut State University and have stopped attending based on graduation, withdrawal, or less than half time registered status must complete an exit interview. This counseling session will provide information on terms and conditions concerning repayment or forgiveness or deferment of the loan amounts that the student has incurred while attending Western Connecticut State University. Upon ceasing enrollment please complete the exit interview process provided at the following website: www.studentloans.gov .
- Parents of dependent undergraduate students
- Minimal credit check is required
- Low interest rate
- Minimal credit check
- High balance loan program
- Repayment term: up to 10 years
- Borrowing Limits:
- Cost of attendance per student minus other aid.
If you would like additional information about the Federal Student Loan Programs please visit http://federalstudentaid.ed.gov/federalaidfirst/.
Borrowers who have loans under the FFELP (Federal Family Education Loan Program) may consolidate these Federal loans through a Direct Consolidation Loan if they are unable to negotiate satisfactory, income-sensitive repayment terms with their current loan services. The borrower determines whether or not he or she is satisfied with the repayment terms offered by the loan servicer. The toll free number for loan consolidation information is 1-800-557-7392. For all other information on student financial aid, call 1-800-4FEDAID.
Borrowers who have Direct Loans and other Federal Student Loans (such as FFELP, Perkins and those administered by the Public Health Service) may consolidate all of their loans into a single Individual Education Account, leaving the borrower with one affordable monthly payment.
Defaulted borrowers may also consolidate their loans and benefit from the Income Contingent repayment Plan.
Direct Consolidation Loans are subject to the same terms and conditions as regular Direct Loans. The interest rate for student loans is variable and cannot exceed 8.25 percent. The interest rate for parent loans cannot exceed 9 percent. There are no fees charged.
Borrowers may consolidate any or all of their student loans and take advantage of the range of repayment options available under Direct Loans.
There is no limit on the loan amount that may be consolidated through a Direct Consolidation Loan.
Alternatives for Financing
Students may choose to borrow private funding through a wide variety of lenders. Students may search and compare lenders and their benefits by visiting ELM Select .Western Connecticut State University highly recommends that students first apply for Federal Title IV loan programs before considering alternative loans. The reason for this recommendation is that the federal loans may posses more favorable terms and conditions that the private alternative loans.
Western Connecticut State University offers students the ability to defer half of their bill by applying for WCSU's Payment Plan. If eligible, you may elect to participate by paying half of the balance due plus a $35 enrollment fee. The remaining balance is due in two equal payments on Sept. 15 and Oct. 15. WCSU also offers a monthly Automatic Payment Plan with a $25 enrollment fee per semester that students can sign up for using their Westconnduit account. WCSU Payment Plan information is available in the Office of Student Financial Services.
Borrowers may choose from among a variety of repayment plans for Loans administered under the Federal Family Education Loan Program:
- Standard plan- a fixed annual repayment amount (generally, $50 per month) paid over a fixed period of time, not to exceed 10 years.
- Extended repayment plan- a fixed annual repayment paid over a period longer than 10 years. The borrower must still pay a yearly minimum (usually at least $600 a year as specified in amended Section 428 (b)(1)(L) of the Higher Education Act), but has a longer time to repay.
- Graduated repayment plan- annual payment amounts at two or more levels paid over a fixed or extended period of time. Payments must be at least half, but not more than one-and-one-half of what the payment would be if the loan were repaid under the standard repayment plan.
- Income contingent repayment plan-varying annual repayment amounts based on the borrower's adjusted gross income (and that of the borrower's spouse if a joint return is filed), paid over a period not to exceed 25 years. Note: PLUS borrowers are not eligible for this plan.
Payments will vary in relation to the "appropriate portion" of the borrower's (and spouse's) annual income. The Guarantor will determine the appropriate portion.
A borrower who has defaulted may be required to repay the loan according to an income contingent repayment plan.
If the borrower does not select one of the four repayment plans, the Guarantor will choose a standard, extended or graduated repayment plan for the borrower.
The borrower may change the type of payment plan he or she originally chose under terms and conditions the Guarantor will establish.
On a case by case basis, the Guarantor may approve an alternative repayment plan if the borrower can demonstrate that one of the plans above cannot accommodate the borrower's exceptional circumstances. The alternative plan may not exceed the cost of any of the four plans discussed above.
The borrower may accelerate his or her payments without penalty.
The Department will specify in the regulations what acts or omissions on the part of a school a borrower may assert as a defense against repaying a Federal Family Educational Loan. However, a borrower may not recover from the Department an amount that exceeds what he or she has repaid on the loan.
During deferment periods, payment of principal will be postponed.
Deferments may be granted for:
- at least half-time study at a post secondary institution
- study in an approved graduate fellowship program or in a rehabilitation
- training program for the disabled
- unemployment (up to three years)
- economic hardship (up to three years)
A Deferment is not available for a medical internship or residency, for Direct PLUS and Direct Consolidation borrowers.
The limits that currently exist in Section 532(a)(6) of the Bankruptcy Code to prevent the discharge of FFELs in bankruptcy also apply to Direct Loans. (The limits specify that student loans will not be discharged except in cases where the loans first became due more than seven years before the date the borrower and his or her dependents incurred hardship. These provisions apply to both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases).
An institution is required to notify potential borrowers that if they receive Federal Student Loans or Grants that their information will be reported to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS). The National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) is the U.S. Department of Education's (ED's) central database for student aid. NSLDS Student Access provides a centralized, integrated view of Title IV loans and grants so that recipients of Title IV aid can access and inquire about their Title IV loans and/or grant data. For more information please view http://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds_SA/. | <urn:uuid:2bd9ec58-3774-440b-ae77-c63c538cdc0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://[email protected]/finaid/loans2.asp | 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 | 0.939622 | 2,227 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Part of what our faith believes is that. When you've been -- even -- -- happen need to give back that it's not just about that it's the bus to bend community and you have certainly an example of that.... See More
Part of what our faith believes is that. When you've been -- even -- -- happen need to give back that it's not just about that it's the bus to bend community and you have certainly an example of that. With your philanthropy which have done. I was intrigued by -- school via the school that you know they'll write in your hometown that's right. Tell me about the school and tell me why it's not a Roman Catholic school church and school yeah absolutely. -- live in a small southern town. -- -- you know and and private schools. You have to have customers we only had one very small private Catholic school. And there was simply no way that we could've ever had a school more than. You know six or eight kids per class if we -- to be -- Roman Catholic high school for instance. And I just doesn't work the numbers -- -- -- we can't pay your teachers you can do the kind of things you -- -- with the school. So we -- all right. Lately it's been very inclusive here we won't teach any doctrine at all we win and so we're not affiliated -- -- -- we consider ourselves a Christian school but we're not quite Christian enough to be in our. Christian conference because we don't make our students sign a statement of belief which is a very Protestant southern which -- -- Why is that a lot of our borders Catholic to be quite frank so we say it is your family's role to bring -- now what we're gonna do -- bring the lessons. Of Christ. To you should strive to live your life in the example of Christ -- that's that's really what we say and so. That the slogan on our on our wall is what Jesus said the greatest commandment was that love god. And your neighbor. As yourself. As -- breast you don't have to be Christian to go there are for students were Jewish we would welcome a Muslim student we have a Mormon student we have Catholic students we have. Baptist students and I think it's a really good education because guess what in the real life. You're going to be surrounded by these people. -- to be tolerant of -- -- and -- look at how they leave so it's a Christian school the second -- -- like that the best of Catholic schools we try to keep our tuition because we want it to be. Accessible not just. A rich. Kid's school we wanted to be very accessible so we try to keep the price right around daycare. What what does that mean to 6800 year which is very inexpensive. The third it's college prep 100% of arson -- college -- it's. Rigorous they probably averaged 90000 academic scholarships per student. By the time they graduate because -- -- already very well regarded -- curriculum and things. And finally. The other the other aspect of schools that it's very international but its international way that's experiential. If you -- -- -- a fresh we think that the world -- I believe it's my belief that. World's becoming more global. -- a global trade but now information is global. The students who. Really understand this will be best served in the next thirty to 4050 years of the coming century's other schools have been very slow to adapt. -- this they'll say they're trying but we really bring it to a different level we require fluency in Spanish. We teach all sorts of introductory a month here month there -- all these topics in. International relations so that if their interest -- in this. They'll go lawn and maybe studying in college and most importantly we actually immersed these kids in these other cultures if you come in as a freshman. By the time you graduate you'll probably visited sixteen to twenty countries on six continents you'll spend close 200 days abroad. And again you know we don't only do educational trips we do service trips to. Here we start our school going back to this Christian element first week is -- service until community service the last month before you graduate. I don't -- -- all of our senior class that built homes for habitat for humanity. Because it's about compassionate service and faithful -- ship him peaking -- kind of kind of person to really. Strive to be that's them. Principle behind the school to me that's not. -- -- Catholic or not Carrick it is if you're Catholic and your parents are raising -- but it's also Jewish. Parents or reason to it its okay to. We know raises an interesting point for me as you know in this political season and -- has become a down major issue sir candidates and then going back and forth and some -- saying. Someone can't be a certain phase and we would never let somebody that -- -- and don't talk about their faith. Has the whole discussion of faith and politics in this election cycle affected your impression on all. Now you know not involved in it I really don't -- Yeah I'm I'm of their -- I I work in -- world of course I mean I -- entertainment you know one that deal and money -- -- -- and I'm. Some of my best friends. That they expand the -- buddhists. Muslims Jewish Christian. Evangelical Protestant Mormon and I do what all of these people and you know and in the end I kind of -- him the same way that we we -- -- Our school -- you love god and your neighbor as yourself when are you doing the right thing are you kind of people. Are you do do you -- service you know are you. Committed you know these are the things are important I mean. If you're good person. He can be whatever -- -- you want or no religion at all if you're living your. If you're living your life in the example set by Christ and maybe god has come through you even if you -- everything about religion. But you live your life that way. In my opinion that comes from some more. So the real. With some of our special -- like you yeah. I'd like to do something -- call eight lightening rounds. Soldering guns. It's short -- first to mind sensors as you go through great great great might image of god is most polite. The sky. My favorite religious feast or celebration is Christmas. The holiest person and I knew or no news. -- -- -- -- Raised and educated Catholic considers -- Catholic and yet. It's also an American Indian police and one can conquer this kind would too bland present very spiritual mystical person who. Is endlessly. Generous. And genuinely kind this kind of guy you meet -- like. On be like you one day and I don't know how to get there. When I pray eyes. Often -- yell. Like that. When I stumble or fail it helps -- him. Talk to god and try to figure out what's going on here because I'm available for -- help. Obviously he's -- out here but -- that if I weren't Catholic I'd probably be Buddhist. If I could ask god to do one thing that I know certainly He would do. It would be. -- The feeling of -- to its. -- -- make the world a better place -- You do too and thanks and -- -- Thanksgiving we got. The book is called the best of me undoubtedly another best -- -- Nicholas Sparks and it's a great story of something it internally. -- --
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
Florence Henderson on Love
Florence Henderson on Love
Focus on Faith: Actress tells Fr. Edward L. Beck about marriages and new book. | <urn:uuid:9e01e164-a892-4441-8c65-1c93519c77bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/nicholas-sparks-giving-back-14773638?tab=9482930§ion=4806329&playlist=4806330 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972755 | 1,575 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Reinventing A War Criminal [Tony
by Stephen Lendman
www.zmag.org, July 2007
Britain's most despised and discredited
man ended his 10 year reign June 27 when he stepped down from
office transferring his ruling Labor Party's leadership to successor
Gordon Brown. He had no choice because of seething public displeasure
over his allying with George Bush's illegal wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most Brits oppose them, yet the vast majority of Labor and Conservative
MPs, including new prime minister Gordon Brown, supported them
early on, now may have second thoughts, but are constrained by
close relations with Washington making them reluctant to back
down from what they once disingenuously trumpeted as a noble cause.
That's an open question, however, the
London Guardian's Jonathan Steele posed and answered June 29 if
Mr. Brown was listening. Steele's message to "The new man
in No 10" is "seize the day....break with Bush now....signal
a fresh start by taking Britain out of Iraq." Don't bet
on it. Steele says Brown is a committed "Atlanticist."
He's likely weighing the proper way to begin engaging his US
ally. Steele tells him how, pointing to other loyal NATO members
as examples. France and Germany sent no forces to Iraq, and Italy,
Spain and the Netherlands withdrew theirs. It caused no rupture
in relations with Washington for any of them after some name calling
at first. Why not Britain now? Steele stresses how refreshing
a policy change at "No 10" would be "after the
subservient Blair years."
Tony Blair began his tenure May 2, 1997
with a formidable approval rating as high at times as 90% but
ended it in the mid-20% range or lower. The same is likely for
George Bush already at 26% in the latest Newsweek poll suggesting
it's even lower than that. Immediately post-9/11, he was compared
to Lincoln, FDR and Churchill combined. It was laughable then
and seems ludicrous now for a hated man barely hanging on and
trying to avoid what growing numbers in the country demand - his
removal from office by impeachment along with Vice-President Cheney.
The feeling of many in Britain is that
by allying with George Bush, Mr. Blair left a legacy of "dashed
hopes and big disappointments, of so much promised and so little
delivered." That's in spite of helping advance the Northern
Ireland peace process, begun before he took office, and that leaders
in Ireland had lots more to do with than him.
Just hours after standing down, the announcement
everyone knew in advance came, surprising no one but angering
most. Referring to the so-called Quartet, the BBC reported June
27: "Tony Blair is to become a Middle East envoy working
on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU." The London
Guardian called him "the Quartet's fifth horseman,"
an appointment that "beggars belief." In his new capacity,
he'll replace former World Bank president James Wolfensohn who
resigned last year for lack of progress he never had a chance
to achieve in the first place.
Neither will Mr. Blair, nor will he try
to, as Alvaro de Soto, former UN Special Coordinator for the Middle
East Peace Process and envoy to the Quartet, explained in his
leaked End of Mission Report. It noted Wolfensohn was originally
to cover the entire peace process, but what emerged for him was
a narrowly constricted role. De Soto said he was "highjacked....by
US envoys and (Secretary Condoleezza) Rice." As a result,
Wolfensohn stepped down from his job in April, 2006 with "a
more jaundiced view of Israel (and US) policies than he had upon
Based on his sordid war criminal record
post-9/11, Tony Blair won't likely have the qualms that got James
Wolfensohn to resign his job. He's taking it to reinvent himself,
but that's no more likely than convincing carnivores to become
vegetarians. He'll first visit Ramallah in the West Bank, showing
up as a Trojan horse fooling no one about what's behind his slick-tongued
In its effort to obscure more than enlighten,
BBC omitted this explanation and could barely go beyond saying
Mr. Blair "faces an uphill task to address Palestinian misgivings
over his ties to Israel and the US." Left out as well were
the reasons why. How can a war criminal reinvent himself as a
peace envoy to the region he waged war against and have any credibility
or hope of achieving anything. Further, how could he do it when
his brief is quite opposite public pronouncements about it.
Under the false mantle of peacemaker,
he's Washington's man and the West's envoy to Israel. His job
is to continue six decades of ethnic cleansing war and repression
against defenseless Palestinians, support open conflict doing
it if necessary, ally with an illegitimate quisling Fatah government,
and outrageously claim he's there seeking peace.
Tony Blair is a war maker, not a peacemaker.
He's a criminal and, like George Bush and Dick Cheney, should
be held accountable for his crimes. He willfully partnered with
the Bush administration in its wars of aggression in Afghanistan,
Iraq and against the occupied people of Palestine. He joined
in cutting off essential aid to the Palestinian people and renounced
its democratically elected Hamas government without ever giving
it a chance to prove itself. He also supported Israel's aggressive
wars against Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, and, in short, partnered
in backing war and avoiding peace. He now has a new title in
his new job. His mission is the same. He'll bring no peace to
the Middle East nor does he intend to.
Blair's appointment sends a clear message
to the region. Peace is not on the agenda nor will he help Palestinians
get what they want most - an end to 60 years of Israeli repression,
discrimination, occupation and colonization; freedom, justice,
real peace and security; a sovereign integral independent Palestinian
state with Jerusalem as its capital; and the guaranteed right
affirmed everyone in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights that: "Everyone has the right to leave any country,
including his own, and return to his country." UN Resolution
194 mandated Palestinians that right in 1948 and reaffirmed it
in the General Assembly 130 times with near-universal consensus
except for Israel, the US and a Pacific Island state or two pathetically
going along at times.
From "No 10" to the Middle East
- A Record of Shame
Tony Blair is despised and discredited
at home, hated across the world, and the Arab street condemns
him. Appointing him peace envoy to the region he warred against
is a galling insult to its people, all others of conscience and
all humanity. Nonetheless, he has the job and started off on
his last day in office June 27 telling his Parliament: "The
absolute priority is to try to give effect to what is now the
consensus across the international community - that the only way
of bringing stability and peace to the Middle East is a two-state
The London Independent's veteran Middle
East correspondent, Robert Fisk, summed up the feelings of many
in his article dated June 23 titled: "How can Blair possibly
be given this job?" He began it saying "I suppose that
astonishment is not the word for it. Stupefaction comes to mind.
I simply could not believe my ears in Beirut (where Fisk is based)
when a phone call told me that Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara (where
British forces were defeated by the Ottomans in WW I) was going
to create 'Palestine.' " Fisk continued calling Blair "vain,
deceitful, a proven liar, a trumped up lawyer (with) the blood
of thousands of Arab (people) on his hands."
He'll not be welcomed or aided with a
brief constricting him within vaguely stated areas of Palestinian
governance, economics and security rather than letting him take
on the entire range of issues causing the Israeli - Palestinian
conflict. Unstated is what his real mission is that Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert set straight by calling Mr. Blair "A
true friend of the State of Israel." Israeli foreign minister
Tzipi Livni added: "Tony Blair is a very well-appreciated
figure in Israel," and an official Israeli government statement
said Blair "will (be) provide(d) with all necessary assistance
in order for him to carry out his duties."
Indeed he will, and it's to support Israeli
interests by denying Palestinians theirs. Governance means by
the illegitimate Fatah; economics is funding it with weapons and
materials against Hamas as well as propping it up financially;
and security is by hard line street enforcement and continued
conflict aimed at routing the elected government and installing
a quisling one over the entire Occupied Palestinian Territories
Tony Blair is the right man for the wrong
job and the wrong man for the kind of job he should be sent to
do. He has no interest in peace and a long sordid record of contempt
for Palestinian rights and justice from his committed one-sided
support for Israel. His job is to further the concocted "clash
of civilizations" against "heathen Arab terrorists"
blaming the victims for crimes he helped commit against them.
He feigns helping Palestinians by allying with Fatah's traitorous
Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank while continuing to condemn and
marginalize the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza.
Abbas conspired with Israel and the US
going back to Olso or earlier. He partnered with his western-supported
paramilitary warlord muscleman, Mohammed Dahlan, for war on Hamas
hoping to unseat it violently but failed. He then brazenly dismissed
the legitimate Hamas government June 17, appointing an illegitmate
"emergency" quisling one in its place. He's its president
and western darling and former World Bank and IMF official Salam
Fayyad was made prime minister. Writer and editor Rami Khoury
calls it a "government of the imagination." He also
said "Appointing....Blair....is something like appointing
Emperor Nero to be the chief fireman of Rome," and add to
that the notion of having the fox look after the henhouse.
He's mandated to back Fatah in its role
as Israel's enforcer and deny Palestinians any chance for freedom,
equity and justice. Tony Blair will go to the region in a limited
subservient role for Israel and the US. He's to play frontman
shoring up support for Abbas, Fayyad, and Dahlan, work against
the interests of the legitimate Palestinian government and its
people, and leave the heavy lifting undermining efforts to Washington
and Jerusalem. He's going in spite of being totally discredited
in the region by people who despise him. He did nothing for them
nor will he ever, yet this arrogant man claims he's going to bring
real peace to the region.
Fisk refers to "His unique blend
of ruthlessness and dishonesty." The Arab street understands
and despises him for it, but his agenda "go(es) down quite
well with our local Arab dictators." Fisk refers to his "slippery
use of language....with appeals for restraint on all sides....and
moderation" while backing what US State Department spokesman
Sean McCormack characterizes as a "well-governed state."
That's one with hard line street enforcement and what Fisk calls
"lots of (tough) 'terror laws.' "
It's a perfect setup for repressive rule,
denying Palestinians all civil and human rights doing it. Blair's
the right frontman - from war criminal to street enforcer in the
name of peace he has contempt for. The irony is galling. Applied
to him, it's "Beyond (the kind of) Chutzpah" Middle
East expert Norman Finkelstein wrote about in his book by that
title. Watch for him later to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
for his "efforts." If it gets it, he'll join the ugly
ranks of past war criminal honorees like Henry Kissinger, Menachem
Begin, Shimon Perez, Yitzhak Rabin, and Kofi Annan in a pathetic
weak-kneed supporting role. Mr. Blair will fit right in...
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can
be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour at TheMicroEffect.com
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Last month, on an impossibly sunny Saturday afternoon, I made a pilgrimage to the rural Pennsylvania field where forty passengers and crew of United Flight 93 met their heroic, horrific end.
The temporary Flight 93 memorial -- a chain-link fence, roughly forty feet long by eleven feet tall -- lies a few hundred yards from the actual crash site, now set aside as sacred ground and inaccessible to visitors. The fence is covered on both sides from top to bottom, stem to stern, with individual tokens of love and remembrance: American flags and Fourth of July bunting, the tiny license plates kids often place on their bicycles, baseball caps, a leather jacket, a craft shop's worth of religious bric-a-brac, garlands of flowers (both artificial and real), and a black plyboard panel covered with patches from policemen and firefighters.
Several half-buried granite slabs are nearby. Most hail from regional motorcycle clubs, but one, slightly awkward in its phrasing, is from a resident of Guatemala. Forty handmade wooden angels lie on the fringe of the site, along with several small wooden crosses and a concrete statue (I did not recognize the saint) bestrewn with rosaries. A shoulder-high marble marker lists the names of Flight 93 passengers and crew -- visitors have left indecipherable medals and trinkets on top -- and a life-sized wooden cross, draped in white cloth and covered with badges, pins and buttons from ground to eye level, dominates the site.
A prefabricated storage shed, painted light grey, serves as the official visitor center, though there's nothing inside. Several benches just beyond bear the names of the heroes of Flight 93; arranged in a rough semicircle, they form a small amphitheater where volunteers tell, briefly and respectfully, the story of that fateful flight. A guest book rests inconspicuously on a brown metal podium; two metal guard rails leading to the site are festooned with bumper stickers. I notice that one sticker, which originally read "MAKE LOVE NOT WAR," has had the word LOVE ripped away.
It's impossible to conceive of a memorial to Flight 93 more deeply heartfelt, or more truly American, than the one we have at present. The tacky detritus of consumer-culture tourism, which in ordinary circumstances might signify the decay of human emotion, here suggests the very opposite: At the Flight 93 memorial, every visitor leaves something behind, and though each memento mori may be insignificant in itself, the baroque profusion and variety of these objects overwhelm any latent critical faculties, and give the sense of collective national grief -- something not imposed from above, but deeply felt from within and among us.
A permanent memorial is in the planning stages, with a wide access road, a multimedia museum-and-theater complex, long low granite walls, and a parking lot worthy of a Wal-Mart. In some ways, no doubt, it would be an improvement over the current site, but the idea nonetheless leaves me cold. No matter how well-intentioned a permanent memorial might be in theory, it will be the product of one architectural firm, one landscape contractor, one monument committee overseeing the enterprise. Our trinkets and beads -- our individual contributions and commemorations -- will be welcome, no doubt, but they will no longer serve as the main point of attention. Instead, these gifts will be integrated into a grander design, and rendered subservient to someone else's point of view.
It seems too soon to cede Flight 93 to the official custodians of public memory. True, the scars on the landscape are healing rapidly enough: The Pentagon was rebuilt long ago, and the new Freedom Tower is finally under construction. This is as it should be. But our grief and our loss are not so easily cast aside, and only at the Flight 93 Memorial can we still confront them head on. The fence and the field, isolated and forlorn, evoke the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when both our sympathy and outrage were spontaneous, our nation's wounds were fresh and bleeding, and Americans who wanted to help their neighbors sought any outlet they could find. The makeshift memorial we have performs its work of remembrance as nothing else can, and it deserves to remain as it is, where it is, for a little while longer.
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ObamaCare's moral inversion
By Robert James Bidinotto
Underlying the many practical and technical arguments about ObamaCare are clashing moral principles—a fact made unusually clear in this Newsweek essay. The author, T.R. Reid, was speaking with a Canadian who was gloating over his country's nationalized health system, and this exchange ensued:
This, then, is the ugly essence of socialized medicine: It is the envy-eaten morality of egalitarianism.
Egalitarianism does not advocate that we earn benefits (or liabilities) according to our individual actions. Unlike capitalism, it does not say, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his productivity." Instead, it advocates, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." "Need" trumps any other moral consideration— including simple justice—and entitles one to goods and services that he has not produced, but that were produced by others.
Worse: It doesn't even aim to benefit the needy; rather, it aims to humiliate the better-off. As long as nobody is permitted to exceed anyone else in economic status or outcomes, socialists are quite willing to put up with anything, even including horrific medical treatment.
That is the ethic of socialism in a nutshell: It is envy, elevated to the dignity of a political system.
The author of the Newsweek article, clearly a socialist sympathizer himself, then goes on to point out that, in one form or degree, all nations on the planet accept this ugly premise—except the United States. Rooted instead in the moral premises of individualism and individual rights, America is truly "exceptional," because it ties the rewards of life to one's individual efforts. This is the antithesis of the "entitlement" mentality, by which one is "entitled" to goods and services by "right," simply as the result of having been born.
The claim that "health care is a right" is a moral inversion, and in practice, it can lead only to economic disaster.
First of all, let's define our terms. "Health care" means: goods and services produced by doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical equipment manufacturers, medicine R&D companies, pharmacies, nursing homes, etc. To declare that one has "a right to health care" means: One has a moral-political entitlement to all these goods and services regardless of whether one pays for them. Translated, this can only mean: One has a "right" to enslave the producers of such goods and services. The latter, you see, have a boundless duty to provide all these things to the "rightful" claimants, regardless of compensation—or at compensation terms set unilaterally by the claimants (or by the government, acting in their name), without any corresponding right of the providers to say "No!" The "right to health care," in other words, denies the rights of all those who are supposed to fulfill it.
Moreover, why can't the same argument be made about all other necessities? Humans all need food, clothing, housing, transportation, exercise, education, artistic stimulation, loving relationships, a social life, jobs, etc., etc. Do we therefore have a "right" to be provided all of these things, regardless of our "ability (or willingness) to pay"? Does this mean that we also have a moral claim on the energy, talents, time, and productivity of, respectively: farmers, grocers, construction firms (and their workers), home-finance offices and banks, auto manufacturers and dealers, teachers, owners of gyms and sports facilities, musicians, painters, sculptors, dancers, museums, concert halls, dating services, private clubs, and employers?
Where does the "right to necessities" end? And, as modern life becomes more complicated, what is not a "necessity"?
This brings us to the other term in the claim: "a right." In the American Enlightenment tradition, a "right" is a moral entitlement to freedom of action—not to goods and services. A right is a moral entitlement to act on one's own behalf, without interference, to obtain life's necessities—a freedom limited only by the similar freedom of every other person. It is a moral entitlement to pursue happiness, and to gain, keep, and enjoy the fruits of one's labors; it is not a moral entitlement to happiness itself, or to the fruits of the labors of anyone else.
But the latter is what the advocates of the "right to health care" really mean. They aim to sever any relationship between work and reward. Ultimately, they are claiming an entitlement to a guaranteed existence—to a life without want, privation, or injury of any kind, regardless of one's own actions or inactions. In their socialist system, no matter how productive or lazy, how rich or poor, one is "entitled" by "right" to "equal" benefits—or privations. As an individual, you are no longer allowed to independently earn your way to buying, say, prompt or exceptional medical treatment; instead, you must endure your injury or ailment indefinitely, "so long as the rich Canadian and the poor Canadian have to wait about the same amount of time." And you'll get no better treatment than anyone else.
Of course, this moral inversion can't work in practice, and it never has. Once you destroy any link between effort and reward, fewer and fewer are willing to exert exceptional productive efforts. Why should they bother, if they gain no special benefits and rewards? Indeed, why should they bother if they are even taxed more heavily for their extraordinary abilities and output? Why not simply do what everyone else does: cut back on one's efforts and line up for unearned benefits produced by others?
But before you can "equalize distribution," you first must produce something to distribute. When discouraged producers stop producing as much, what happens to the general availability of goods and services in society? That's the practical fallacy in socialism: It encourages unlimited demand, while discouraging supply.
The reason there are long waits for medical care in Canada and other socialized states is that there are shortages of medical-care providers. Sick and tired of endless, unrewarded claims upon their productive energies and incomes, they have decided to stop being so shamefully exploited and financially cannibalized.
"The right to health care" is morality stood on its head. It proclaims a moral entitlement to live as a parasite and to make unending claims upon the medical system's productive hosts. But there is nothing in such a system for the hosts. Ultimately—and ironically—there is nothing in it for the parasites, either. As fewer and fewer medical-care providers are willing to produce and offers goods and services that patients require, the only equality will be equality in misery.
The alleged virtue of equality is cold comfort when nobody can find a doctor when he needs one—or when there is no longer a single non-socialistic medical system anywhere on earth, where desperate socialists in foreign nations can go for the treatments that their egalitarian systems no longer provide them.
That is the grim, immoral future that ObamaCare will bring us in America, too—if we allow it.
Robert Bidinotto is former editor of The New Individualist and an award winning journalist who can also be found blogging here.
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This week Bennie’s school teacher had her class consider meat – how animals become food, and some of the dynamics, processes and ethics involved.
I remain unsure of the full gist of the session, but it certainly had the lad thinking seriously about meat.
So that night, driving home, we stood back and looked at our own involvement with and consumption of meat.
I cooked Bennie and I steaks once, but it’s so long ago I can only dimly remember the event.
Lamb or pork chops happen in our home about once a year.
Overwhelmingly, our meat use is very much in the spirit of the places we eat out at and the shopping we do and the food traditions that inform them.
Whether it be a meaty ham bone for red beans ‘n’ rice or black-eyed peas; chorizo or Polish sausage for soups or stews; or chicken bones for stock, our meaty habits are all about flavour rather than hunky chunky slabs of flesh.
Not that we’re averse to such, but our homecooking habits have just naturally evolved.
We eat good-quality franks or classy Italian snags about once a week, roast chicken bits with rosemary, garlic and lemon about once a year … and I’ve never ever cooked a roast.
Indeed, our use of pulses, fresh fruit and vegetables and cereals and their byproducts so greatly outweighs that of meat that we actually adhere – albeit by accident – to the good food pyramid.
OK, we both have sweet tooths and we use pastrami and mortadella and so on for our school/work lunches.
Nevertheless, our routines are a long, long way from those of my own meat-heavy Kiwi childhood.
For that we are undoubtedly indebted to rainbow of food traditions that surround us.
I had a reminder last week that those traditions are far from set in stone.
I was buying some moong dal and beans and Indian snacks from one of the Indo groceries on Barkly St.
The man being served ahead of me was making sure he had the right kinds of flours to make injera.
When my turn came, I asked the woman serving me if they got a lot of customers seeking injera makings.
“Oh yes – quite a lot,” she said with a big smile.
Of course – broadening the customer base is good for business!
Just as Johns Nuts & Deli is also tapping into the African community.
I’m fascinated by how through sheer necessity the food traditions of new and newer Australians overlap and merge and evolve in an Australian context.
While rivalries and enmities between various home countries and ethnic groups no doubt continue to hold sway in some quarters, I’d like to believe that by and large most folks just get on with business of living – and eating.
Such a dynamic is nothing new, of course, as the by now familiar combo of pizza shop and kebab shack attests.
Among the many benefits of running Consider The Sauce is having a more hands-on and in-depth view of the workings of the fabulous internet.
A nonchalant “think piece” I posted about seafood extender and surimi, for instance, appears to have become one of a handful of default, “go to” posts for those seeking information about those subjects through Google and other search engines.
Visitors thus finding us, especially if they would not otherwise have done so, are most welcome, of course.
But it seems a little weird and scary that such an inexpert authority as myself should be accorded such status.
Especially as a somewhat better informed post detailing a follow-up visit to Austrimi in Geelong is not attracting the same amount of interest.
Also continuing to attract a lot of visitors, no doubt almost all of whom would never otherwise set foot in Consider The Sauce, is our post on Aldi.
I was bemused by the latest of quite a few comments, this one unintentionally seeming to be both illogical and contradictory on at least two counts:
just remember not everyone can afford woolies and coles, and not everyone likes interactions and has time to waste and walk about the supermarket smiling at people….some of us have more important things to do, like work, clean, cook, look after kids…plus who cares if you dont like it…i know i dont. go shop somewhere else!
This week, Consider The Sauce got a lot of referrals from alternative music community and online magazine Mess+Noise.
Some of that site’s forum members re-activated a five-year-old thread on the ups and downs of living in Footscray, and in the process one of them posted a link to our, um, review of the new IGA.
The punter who posted the link, seemingly with a perspective of seeing that IGA as a sort of pop culture emporium, opined: “Though blog person is wrong to criticise the IGA … Yeah that blog was written by a parent it seems, which is why it’s no good.”
Fair enough – I can live with that.
Another punter quipped: “what a fulfilling life that person must lead…”
Well, I can live with that, too, and have a chuckle about it.
But it seems a bit rich coming from a conversation/thread that is so superficial and ill-informed!
Finally, this week I was surprised to discover our rather downbeat and negative post on Chadz Chickenhaus in Sunshine had been reblogged by another wordpress.com blogger.
It’s easy to forget, being so heavily Melbourne-focused, that being part of wordpress.com makes us part of a very large worldwide community, which sometimes leads to surprising visits and inter-reactions, and not all of them from foodies either.
Turns out that in this case it was a mistake – the blogger involved had reblogged rather than “liking” our post.
No matter, for in the process I discovered a most wonderful blog – Salt For Vanilla.
Packed with delicious recipes and photographs – many of them Filipino or otherwise Asian – it is fabulous work by someone who appears to be a seriously good cook.
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Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 1:55 pm Post subject: I'm just curious.......
Keep in mind I am just asking questions out of mere curiosity. These are just some things that I have been wondering about.
Why is it that there are so many things, and some books, taken out of the Christian Bible? Also, if Christianity is the "one right and true" religion and Christians are supposed to follow the Bible to live this religion, why are numerous copies of the Bible all different? I remember I was having a debate with somebody and I pointed out a quote in the Bible to help me. The person responded with "That quote is not in MY Bible." I just do not understand how, for this one religion, there can be so many radically different versions of the Bible and how so much information has been taken out over the years.
Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:14 am Post subject: About Bible.
It's not about adding or removing points in the bible, instead these can be called as mistakes committed when it is carried from generation to generation.Because the origin took place plenty years back the original scripture may not be available all the times , so when people interpret and write it again few mistakes may happen here and there. Its better to make a note of every single new point where ever you see it and add to your Bible, that completes your search.
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Online payments go face-to-face
- From: AAP
- November 14, 2012
SHOPPERS will soon be able to pay in-store via their PayPal account using a new app that takes a human approach to facial recognition technology.
Consumers who download the PayPal app to their smartphone will be able to use their account for purchases in stores which use the eBay-owned PayPal's "Here" payments software and hardware.
The card and cash-free technology requires buyers to upload their photo to their account so that sellers can verify their identity and confirm that payment has been made via the PayPal "digital wallet".
Shoppers "check-in" at the store via the app, then order and pay using their PayPal account.
PayPal Australia managing director Jeff Clementz said the technology would "transform the engagement" between retailers and consumers.
"You show up, make your order .. but instead of pulling out credit cards or cash they push your picture and the payment's complete - they receive an SMS and an email right away," Mr Clementz said at a launch event in Sydney.
"It's all done facially - (the vendor) can recognise me, he knows who I am and charges me via my picture."
Mr Clementz said the technology allowed store operators to develop more direct relationships because it provided them with the name and photo of customers through the point-of-sale terminal.
In a press release, PayPal, which is owned by eBay Inc, said advanced versions of the technology will allow retailers to see more detailed customer information, such as favourite and recent transactions.
Sydney-based bakery Sonoma is one of the retailers rolling out the new technology. | <urn:uuid:8b22040a-2050-4514-8a5c-e80f162e5ec8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/online-payments-go-face-to-face/story-e6frfkur-1226516686581 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950351 | 346 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Was gunman trying to shoot President Obama?
Ballistic glass may have halted a bullet from piercing a White House window, but Tuesday's discovery of the resulting damage raises unsettling questions about whether a gunman was aiming to harm President Obama.
The president was never in any danger, reports our sister blog, Politics Now, because he and the first lady were in California at the time, attending the Carrier Classic basketball game in Coronado. And the bullet could have been an errant one fired Friday in a shooting near the Washington Monument.
The Secret Service, which has the job of protecting the president, is investigating the incident and did not return phone calls seeking details by the time this story was posted. But this much is known:
A bullet hit a window of the White House but was stopped by the ballistic glass. That bullet and an additional round of ammunition were found Tuesday morning outside the building. Photos taken Wednesday, like the one above, show authorities examining windows on the South Portico of the White House, which faces the Washington Monument.
The Tuesday discovery of the bullets followed reports of gunfire near the Washington Monument on Friday night. Witnesses reportedly heard shots and saw vehicles in the area. An assault rifle was recovered as part of that investigation, according to the Associated Press.
Authorities have previously said that the White House did not appear to have been targeted in the Friday incident.
An arrest warrant has been issued in that earlier shooting for a man identified as Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, 21. He's believed to be living in the Washington area, has ties to Idaho and has an arrest record in three states, U.S. Park Police spokesman Sgt. David Schlosser said.
In the wake of that Friday night shooting, authorities found an abandoned car containing items that led law enforcement officials to Ortega-Hernandez.
Arlington, Va., Police Lt. Joe Kantor said Ortega-Hernandez was stopped Friday morning after a report of someone "circling the area," but authorities had no reason to detain him at that time. They say Ortega-Hernandez sports several tattoos, including one with the word "Israel" on the left side of his neck.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
-- Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch
Photo: Law enforcement personnel investigate where a bullet hit a window on the south side of the White House. Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:88dd887b-fbee-478e-8d26-9cf0d1106098> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/was-gunman-trying-to-shoot-president-obama.html | 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 | 0.968629 | 503 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Good Old Time Summer Camp for kids at WCUWritten by Admin
Western Carolina University’s Mountain Heritage Center, Department of Art and Hunter Library are joining forces to offer the Good Old Time Summer Camp for children ages 9 through 13.
Participants will attend the camp from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, July 23-27. The camp will provide an opportunity for children to explore the region’s culture, including the Cherokee and pioneer experience.
Participants will investigate and create crafts such as mask-making, weaving, candle-making, open hearth cooking and pottery. They also will hear a performance by an old-time musician and go on a field trip to local sites of natural and historical interest.
The fee is $90 per child, and daily lunch in a WCU dining hall is included. To register or for more information, visit learn.wcu.edu and click on “Camps and Programs for Kids” or call 828.227.7397. | <urn:uuid:89cfa780-a1d2-48d3-bbb1-a24c749f18ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smokymountainnews.com/component/k2/item/6986-good-old-time-summer-camp-for-kids-at-wcu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946047 | 215 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Celebrities give props to the environment
The scene: the Utah desert, 35 miles from Salt Lake City. Tons of nuclear waste could soon be rumbling toward the Skull Valley Indian Reservation, whose band of Goshutes is already beset by nearby nerve-gas storage and hazardous-waste incinerators. Enter James Cromwell, who played the U.S. president in the nuclear-weapons thriller The Sum of All Fears. In 2002, the actor addressed senators in Utah and traveled to Washington, D.C., to fight a proposed storage facility for 44,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste on Goshute land. "The hazardous materials will be transported on trains and trucks through highly populated areas," he said at a press conference at the Capitol. "The storage land is on an earthquake fault line and subject to flooding. The whole process must be flawlessor there could be dire consequences."
Celebrities like Cromwell are speaking out on behalf of the environment more than ever before. Theyre teaming up directly with conservation organizations large and small, or working through nonprofits devoted to linking Tinseltown with environmental issues.
Granted, there are movie stars with lavish, wasteful lifestyles who attach themselves to Earth-saving causes. But for every ten celebrities who agitate for clean air before heading home in their Lincoln Navigators, theres an articulate, committed environmentalist. (Cameron Diaz, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins were among the stars who pulled up to this years Academy Awards event in hybrids and electric vehicles instead of limos.)
Robert Kennedy Jr., the reluctant celeb, serves as an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Councilwhich has also lured the likes of the Rolling Stones and James Taylor to help with its issues. Working with the Environmental Media Association, John Travolta and Jane Fonda have helped raise environmental awareness by slipping it into movie and television plotlines. At the prompting of EMA, for example, a Law & Order lieutenant reports that the blue fleece at a crime scene is made of "recycled plastic bottles."
Another Hollywood green group, Earth Communications Office, was founded in 1989 by entertainment attorney Bonnie Reiss, who discovered that many of the biggest stars were willing to bring some high gloss to the realm of the tree-hugger. Boasting a member roster that includes Cromwell, Pierce Brosnan, and Kevin Bacon, ECO made its mark with emotional public-service announcements shown before the main features in movie theatres all over the globe. Footage of pristine waters, roiling clouds, leaping dolphins, and time-lapsed sunsets with Willie Nelson singing "What a Wonderful World" as soundtrack encouraged viewers to "reduce, reuse, and recycle."
ECO has moved on to other campaigns, including one narrated by Patrick Stewart, who urges viewers to consider the global trend toward overconsumption as the root of the planets most pressing environmental problems. Another ECO effort includes scuba diver Sharon Lawrence, formerly of NYPD Blue, educating the public about coral reef degradation.
ECOs current campaign addresses global warming and the steps we can take to change our fossil-fueling ways. Click on climatestar.org and up pops a muscular Kevin Bacon who pronounces, "Six degrees can make a world of difference. Not separationtemperature." Bacon has played troubled kids and bad guys and commands big bucks for his work. But he and Joshua Jackson (TVs Dawsons Creek), Jacqueline Obradors (NYPD Blue), and Jorja Fox (CSI) have volunteered their names and faces to this Web sites worthy cause, easing the transition to the sites somewhat unglamorous "Climate Facts" and "Carbon Footprint Calculator."
The Goshutes, too, hope that their big name will help them get their message out to a broad audience. Theres nothing like having Academy Awardnominated Cromwell, who played pastoral, pure-of-heart Farmer Hoggett in the movie Babe, stand before news cameras to declare, "These radioactive waste dumps put us all at risk. We cannot afford to be silent!" Malerie Yolen-CohenUp to Top | <urn:uuid:7efbdc29-d14d-48bd-8ec5-13dae20ff628> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200307/media_printable.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936983 | 855 | 1.78125 | 2 |
FCC poised to give LightSquared's satellite broadband venture a boost
Tuesday, January 25, 2011; 11:00 PM
With a wave of new smartphones and tablet computers threatening to overwhelm wireless networks, the Federal Communications Commission is preparing to take another aggressive step to ease the growing capacity crunch.
On Wednesday, the agency is expected to grant a crucial waiver to Reston-based LightSquared that would pave the way for the firm to create a mobile network offering affordable broadband service based on satellite signals.
LightSquared, backed by billionaire Philip Falcone and his Harbinger Capital hedge fund, would be a rare new entrant to the U.S. wireless market, in which six out of 10 subscribers rely on broadband networks run by AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
FCC officials say they see LightSquared's proposal as a way to spur competition in the sector and have already granted an overall operating license to the firm.
"This is a promising opportunity to promote mobile broadband," said a FCC senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the waiver had not been formally approved. "LightSquared would be a new competitor and entrant into mobile broadband with new sources of capital and a new kind of business model that consumers find appealing."
If granted, the waiver would allow LightSquared to provide wireless broadband access without also having to sell satellite service. Such an exemption is key to LightSquared's ability to attract business customers who desire Web access but don't want to spend extra to lease satellite connections.
LightSquared's proposal, however, has met with opposition from Global Positioning System operators and federal agencies, who have argued that the firm's service could knock out their signals. The FCC says that Lightsquared would be expected to resolve any concerns about GPS interference.
"We are requiring that the process be completed to the FCC's satisfaction before LightSquared offers commercial service under the waiver," according to the FCC official.
If granted, the waiver would follow other recent FCC moves aimed at freeing airwaves.
Earlier this month, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the agency would push to redeploy television broadcasters' unused airwaves to meet exploding wireless demand that has been fueled by the surging popularity of iPads, Droids and other must-have handhelds.
For now, LightSquared does not plan to offer service directly to consumers. Instead, it would lease space on its network to a range of companies, such as Apple and Wal-Mart, that might want to offer wireless devices under their own brands.
For some consumers, the plan could spell the end of long service contracts. And the FCC likes the idea of more options for wireless users, who have increasingly complained of billing confusion and penalties for leaving their contracts early. The plan could also enable gadgetmakers to break free from exclusive partnerships with the carriers that sell their devices. | <urn:uuid:0693d12d-3c70-47b0-8541-cb0953d905d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/25/AR2011012505297.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961944 | 586 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, reported that overall job opportunities for nurse practitioners were expected to be 'excellent' in the ten-year period from 2006 to 2016, with an anticipated employment increase of 23%.
Patients are increasingly aware of the benefits of choosing a nurse practitioner as their primary care provider. Their unique approach combines comprehensive, personalized care with health education and counseling. Studies have shown that patients who see NPs as their primary care provider often have fewer emergency room visits, shorter hospital stays and lower medication costs. ** These benefits ensure a solid role for nurse practitioners in the healthcare system as reform progresses.
The successful graduate of the FNP track of the MSN program are prepared to sit for the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) and/or the American Nurse Credentialing Center (ANCC) national certifying exams.
Potential professional opportunities
- Family Nurse Practitioner – Private Practice
- Nurse practitioner in a Specialty practice
- Acute Care (Hospital) Nurse Practitioner
- Occupational health Nurse Practitioner
- Underserved areas
- Rural health clinic
- Urban health clinic
- Life coach / Wellness / Health Promotion
* Source: US Department of Health and Human Services
** Source American Academy of Nurse Practitioners | <urn:uuid:e9c9f2c3-ed0e-4e74-a680-cef929ceb664> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cedarville.edu/Graduate/Master-of-Science-in-Nursing/About.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937085 | 271 | 1.828125 | 2 |
During the thinc Program this summer one of my favorite highlights of the week was when we had the students interview the adult mentors. It was a simple activity over lunch in Valley Forge National Park. A list of questions. A flip camera. One student recorded and one student asked the questions. But the discussions (like the one pictured to the left with my dad and two of our students) that resulted were simply fantastic to witness.
The goal of the thinc Program is to get students to “thinc” about their futures. What do they want to do? Who do they want to be? How will they have a positive impact on the world?
The adults who volunteer at the thinc Program are truly incredible individuals with very different career backgrounds. Seeing the students absorb the stories of how each person pursued education, formally and informally, followed his/her interests and let passion for a certain topic or for providing for a family guide their decisions was an absolute pleasure. The 30 minute interview activity embodies everything we are trying to do with the Purple Feet Foundation.
So, why not do this all year long? We have so many friends, and friends of friends, and people we have not met yet, but are interested in helping the Purple Feet Foundation, that have such interesting stories. Stories about how they came to pursue the careers they have today. Once a month we are going to make these stories come to life for anyone who wants to listen via thinc Career Chats. Using Google hangouts we’ll have a student interview a special guest about his/her personal journey. Following the live interview, students will have the opportunity to ask questions of the special guest via chat.
If you are interested in being one of our monthly guests, or know of someone who would be willing to share his/her story with kids from all around the world, please let us know. Just drop me a line at [email protected] or direct message us on Twitter @pffbff. | <urn:uuid:fa72eda5-128e-4def-9d14-eecdc9c83012> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.purplefeetfoundation.org/thinc-career-chats/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965394 | 410 | 1.539063 | 2 |
RAMSBOTTOM, John (c.1780-1845), of Clewer Lodge, nr. Windsor, Berks.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Family and Education
b. c.1780, 1st s. of John Ramsbottom, brewer and banker, of Windsor. educ. Eton 1791. m. 21 May 1799,1 Sophia Augusta Prior of Portland Place, Mdx., 2s. 2da. suc. fa. 1826.
Cornet, 16 Drag. 1798, lt. 1799, ret. 1803; maj. commdt. Clewer vols. 1803.
Dep. chairman, Hope Life Insurance Co. 1827-43.
Ramsbottom, whose military career was brief, was probably admitted to a partnership in the Windsor ale brewery and London distillery owned by his father and uncle, Richard Ramsbottom*, in 1801. He also shared in their local and London banking activities. The Lombard Street bank stopped payment in 1819, but he continued to operate the Windsor enterprise in partnership with a Mr Legh until about 1838, when he evidently disposed of his business concerns.2
In March 1810 Ramsbottom replaced his uncle in the Windsor seat which he had captured for the independent interest and which John went on to occupy for over 35 years. His few recorded votes in his first Parliament were all with government: against the release of Gale Jones, 16 Apr. 1810, on the Regency bill, 1 Jan. 1811, against the abolition of the sinecure paymastership, 24 Feb., and against Stuart Wortley’s motion for the formation of a stronger administration, 21 May 1812.
He was accordingly reckoned a supporter of government in the Treasury list compiled after the 1812 general election, but his parliamentary behaviour took an independent turn from this point. He opposed government on the 1815 corn bill; on economies at the Admiralty, 17 and 25 Feb.; the suspension of habeas corpus, 23 and 27 June 1817; the indemnity bill, 11 Mar. 1818; Bank restriction, 2 Feb.; the coal duties, 20 May; the finances, 7 June; Buxton’s attempt to limit the operation of the seditious meetings bill to three years, 6 Dec., and the sureties clause of the stamp duties bill, 20 Dec.; but voted with them on the blasphemous libels bill, 23 Dec. 1819. He did not vote on Tierney’s motion on the state of the nation, 18 May 1819. He voted for inquiry into safeguards as a prelude to granting Catholic relief, 11 May, but subsequently voted for the first clause of the relief bill, 24 May 1813, and for the principle of emancipation, 9 May 1817. He is not known to have spoken in the House before 1820. He died 8 Oct. 1845. | <urn:uuid:00387f32-2f49-4ee6-936d-a035140fa749> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/ramsbottom-john-1780-1845 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962043 | 602 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Jul 27, 2007 (01:07 PM EDT)
Wikia Search Gets Distributed Web Crawler
Read the Original Article at InformationWeek
Wikia, Inc., a provider of community Web sites that users can edit, said on Friday that it had acquired distributed search software called Grub to enhance the company's forthcoming wiki-inspired search engine.
At the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales announced the acquisition of Grub from search engine Look Smart and the release of the software under an open source license. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In much the same way that Wikipedia relies on the distributed brain power of the Internet community, Wikia Search aims to make use of distributed processing power of Internet-connected computers.
"That's a very loose analogy but the idea is that you have a lot of spare bandwidth that you're not using a lot of the time, and if you want to use it to do something, this would be something you could do with it," said Wales. "This tool, it's not really a tool where people will be making editorial judgments, so it's different."
As a distributed program, Grub benefits incrementally from each user that installs and runs the software. The Grub client will make local bandwidth, processor time, and storage space available so that Wikia Search, once it launches, can crawl and index Web pages.
"Of the various pieces of the puzzle that we need to create the full search engine, this is one of them," said Wales. "We're planning to have first public Web site available by the end of this year."
Wikia Search will rely on Lucene, a Java-based open source indexing and search library that powers search services at sites like Digg and Joost, and will probably use Nutch, an open source search engine built atop Lucene.
Though the components of Wikia Search are still being decided on, people will play a major role. "We're definitely intending to have human input into the search results, through the social Web site that we're designing right now," said Wales.
Despite the potential problems of involving people in the search process, Wales believes that search engine spammers can be kept in check by the community. "If people are abusing the system, then they should be kicked out," he added. | <urn:uuid:116185ff-64d7-4557-9375-6b06e9a60aec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techweb.com/news/201201641/wikia-search-gets-distributed-web-crawler.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951233 | 485 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Today, I had my early update with my Nurse Practitioner to check my Hormone levels and a status update. One thing she asked me was that whether I considered myself to be Male. I know she told me Medically I am male but because of my Micropenis and ambiguous genitalia. I am classed as being Intersex/DSD (Disorders of Sexual Development).
So for me, I just see myself as an incomplete male and an incomplete female. Which as a result is more in the area of biological indeterminate gender. I’m not nowhere near a Natural Normal biological male and female. I’m stuck in between and medically induced to make the appearance of looking male. Though how I see myself, I don’t see myself as a normal male or a female at all. I just see myself as someone stuck in between male and female. As a result, I am just a biological indeterminate gender and don’t have a natural gender to begin with. So naturally, I am neither male or female. I’m more like a tomboy in between both.
My Nurse Practitioner sees me as being Intersex/DSD and classes me as having Intersex/DSD. She knows about the DSD (Disorders of Sexual Development) manual and knows that Kallmann’s syndrome is classed as a Disorders of Sexual Development, which results me being classed as an Intersex condition as well.
One thing she did tell me is that medically, my Hormones are near a normal Male. She even told me, If I wasn’t on HRT, my Hormone levels, Naturally would not be near the level of a Natural human Male. So because of my genetic condition my Hormone levels are medically induced and I know that if I wasn’t on Hormones, they would be at a very low level.
As far as identifying as a Male, biologically no. That’s because biologically I was never born male and because of the micropenis and ambiguous genitalia. I’m just an incomplete male and an incomplete female. In terms of Genetics and DNA, I am just in the middle between a man and a woman. Though Medically, I am induced to look like a male. Without it, I would just look like young kid about to hit puberty.
So for me, My hormones are at a normal level and they are medically enhanced to make me look like a male, but Naturally, I will never be near a normal male or a normal female. It’s why for me, I just simply say I’m in the middle between male and female. I don’t see myself as male nor female and that’s because of Biology and Genetics. Also I do like my Nurse Practitioner is the main reason why I am going to college to be like her as well. | <urn:uuid:4280674f-0418-4447-8e2c-1fbae0230407> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nickysworld.wordpress.com/tag/man/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974288 | 610 | 1.679688 | 2 |
LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - Special Olympics Kentucky is suing Louisville Metro Government claiming the Metro Council illegally passed a donation bin ordinance that could cost the non-profit major money it desperately needs.
The suit asks for an injunction to keep the ordinance from taking effect February 22.
It all began after some Metro Council members had complaints about donation bins when they started popping up across Louisville in 2012. Part of the problem? People started dropping off items that weren't accepted like pieces of furniture. So, Metro Council passed a donation bin ordinance in December putting serious restrictions on them.
Metro Councilwoman Vicki Welch told us at the time, many bins were just showing up from out of state organizations.
"They're not putting anything back into our community," said Welch.
The argument that the bins have no value here? A beloved Bluegrass non-profit would strongly disagree.
"Our program, Special Olympics Kentucky has received over $150,000," said Special Olympics Kentucky Executive Director Trish Mazzoni.
Mazzoni tells WAVE 3 News, that $150,000 for local programs was raised in less than two years when they put 90 bins in Louisville in 2011 and over 400 state-wide.
The idea is simple: They accept donations of clothes, shoes and books in the bins and sell them to Ohio Mills, a textile recycling company, who takes care of all the bins.
In an economy where it's hard enough to get donations, Mazzoni said they had no choice but to file suit to try and stop the ordinance and it's tough bin restrictions.
"I think initially the first year, it's a $300 licensing fee and then a $300 permitting fee per bin," Mazzoni said of the ordinance fees.
The ordinance also requires the bin be within 50 feet of the business's front door.
"Every place where we have a bin, we have permission and we have written consent by the business owner that they want to support Special Olympics and they want to be a part of this program," Mazzoni said, "they don't want that bin within 50 feet of the front door and if I owned a business I wouldn't either."
Mazzoni also questions city leaders for trying to hamper the organization's recycling effort at a time when the city keeps touting all of its green initiatives.
WAVE 3 News wanted to talk to Metro Council members about the ordinance, but we're told because Metro Government is being sued, they can't talk about pending litigation.
Lawyers for Special Olympics Kentucky hope to find out about a hearing date next week.
Monday, May 20 2013 1:01 PM EDT2013-05-20 17:01:10 GMT
COX'S CREEK, KY (WAVE) – A brother and sister were killed Sunday in a two-vehicle crash in Nelson County, according to Kentucky State Police. A KSP investigation found that Amaris E. Blair, 22, ofMore >>
Kentucky State Police said alcohol appeared to have played a role in the accident.More >>
Monday, May 20 2013 1:24 PM EDT2013-05-20 17:24:23 GMT
LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – Two men killed in separate vehicle crashes in Louisville on Sunday have been identified. A representative of the Jefferson County Coroner's Office said Michael Shea, 46, of Greenwood,More >>
The accidents happened hours apart Sunday in Louisville.More >>
Monday, May 20 2013 1:10 PM EDT2013-05-20 17:10:55 GMT
LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - Two men are dead after a pair of bizarre accidents. The first slowed traffic way down on i-64 at the Watterson Expressway for several hours. It happened just after 1:30 SundayMore >>
The dead include a man who was pinned between two vehicles after getting out of his SUV to inspect damage from a previous accident. More >>
Monday, May 20 2013 5:59 PM EDT2013-05-20 21:59:22 GMT
(RNN) – A day after long track tornadoes devastated Shawnee and Edmond, OK, another round has begun near Oklahoma City.KOCO broadcast a slow rotating cloud that slowly extended down towards the groundMore >>
The large rain-wrapped tornado tore through Moore, OK, near where an EF-5 tornado ripped through the area in 1999.More >> | <urn:uuid:f73f96c6-ef74-4acd-a49a-9c3b6a0a75dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wave3.com/story/21088860/special-olympics-kentucky-suing-metro-government | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96467 | 915 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Tell Us Your SAMA Story
Personal stories are among the most powerful tools we have to effect change. Lifting the stigma of addiction and delivering necessary services to young people with addictions and their families happens through a better understanding of who is affected by the disease. SAMA Family Stories are told by people who have experienced addiction. They are stories of recovery, loss, despair, hope and change.
These personal stories are the real voice behind SAMA’s mission and are the foundation of our work.
Your experience matters. Your stories are the basis upon which better addiction treatment and policies are built. By sharing real-life stories—your stories—with the press, policymakers and the general public, SAMA is raising awareness about addiction and improving the lives of young people with addiction and their families.
We respect the confidentiality of everyone who submits a story, and will always ask permission before sharing it in any format. Please share your SAMA Story with us.
SAMA Family Stories
The disease of addiction takes a toll on the entire family. For those who lose a loved one to the disease, the grief and pain is immeasurable. Annalee Peck lost her big brother Jonathon (Jono) to suicide in the spring of 2007, after he spent several years struggling with substance addiction. Jono was 19 years old. Annalee once said of her brother, “We were so much a like we could have been twins…except for just one thing: addiction”. Annalee wrote this poem shortly after Jono died.
I am still not sure when my son first experimented and/or consumed alcohol or drugs, but the switch from “partying” to becoming an alcoholic began during his Junior year in high school while he was an exchange student in France. At one time I wanted to blame French culture, his friends, him, or us as parents, as the root cause of his problem. What I now understand is, this is a no fault disease. No person, place or thing caused it and science shows it is largely genetic. From the first time he tasted alcohol it was a different experience for him; he liked it with intensity and he wanted more. Our son was a good student, an Eagle Scout and addicted to alcohol and eventually other substances. Read more
My story is about my son, Phillip, who died of an overdose of methadone on Dec 12, 2004. Phil was a twin & one of eight children. Before Phil died he was in Monroe prison for a year & in work release in Seattle for six months. During that 1 1/2 years, Phil was a completely different person from how he was on drugs & alchohol. I am his mother and we shared more fun, laughs & closeness than we had since he was a small child. Read more
A single day used to be so difficult, largely because of the obstructions created by my addiction, but also because I didn’t possess the tools I needed in order to confront life on life’s terms—to see past a given challenge to a future where things would be simpler and sweeter than they once were. The foundation of sobriety has provided the tools I’ve needed to get the most from life—to live in recovery with optimism about the potential I can realize, and with immeasurable gratitude for the grace I’ve been shown by those who became willing to stick with me, even through the hard times. Read more
- Ben Spencer
Our son Sean was 17 years old when he died of acute opiate intoxication on July 17 last year. It was five weeks after his graduation from Kamiak High School in Mukilteo, WA. He was six weeks shy of his 18th birthday. Sean had been in drug treatment since November of 2007. Opiates were not Sean’s “drug of choice”. However, we think he would have taken anything to satisfy the terrible cravings he suffered. Although the police believe that he died of a heroin overdose, we think that his introduction to opiate abuse was OxyContin several months earlier. Read more
-John and MJ Gahagan
When I think of our daughter Lynn a familiar nursery rhyme comes to mind: There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was horrid. This rhyme describes Lynn Marie Sundborg, our adopted and now deceased daughter. She was a wonderful and very bright person when she was sober. But when she was intoxicated she was horrid. Lynn died August 2007 at the age of 36. She was a late stage alcoholic and she overdosed on heroin. Read more
- Jean Sundborg | <urn:uuid:598fbc38-fe9d-4a7a-ad81-408123161683> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://samafoundation.org/youth-substance-addiction/stories/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985687 | 988 | 1.78125 | 2 |
At just 18-years-old, Justin Bieber is one of the most popular male pop stars in the world. The Canadian singer-songwriter has a huge fan base, appealing to teens and adults of all backgrounds.
For many fans, Bieber is more than a pop culture icon; his music is a source of joy, inspiration and encouragement. Poway High School is in the spotlight this week, as students promote a viral video inviting Bieber to attend their Special Olympics in December.
Callie Gilbert, a senior at Poway High, is an academic tutor in the Critical Needs class. “It’s a topic that comes up a lot -- Justin Bieber. We have posters of him in the room, and we have little captions that we write,” Gilbert explains. One afternoon with extra time in class, Gilbert and the students began writing letters to Bieber, inviting the pop star to visit Poway for the Special Olympics. But Gilbert had a bigger vision.
“We just got excited, brainstormed different ideas, and came up with making a music video,” Gilbert remembers. “We booked the digital music studio at our school and filmed over a two day span.” Gilbert’s older brother Miles, a filmmaker based in the Bay Area, helped to produce the final music video “The Bieber Project” which features Bieber’s uplifting hit song “All Around The World.” Gilbert believes it was the perfect song choice, with lyrics that say: “All around the world, people want to be loved. All around the world, they're no different than us."
As of this post, the YouTube video has over 230,000 views.
The Special Olympics event is taking place on Friday, December 14, which means we have two full weeks to help share the video and spread the message to Bieber. And Gilbert remains optimistic: “The students just love him a lot and they admire him, he’s super inspirational. The Special Olympics is a really exciting time in their lives.”
Gilbert visited the Night&Day show this week.
View the full “Bieber Project” video on YouTube.com | <urn:uuid:0e0c3bf1-bc95-4a24-a634-c2946deb8f31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/nov/29/bieber-project-poway-high-callie-gilbert/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959419 | 452 | 1.585938 | 2 |
THE FIRED PROSECUTORS: NEWS ANALYSIS; The White House and Congress Seem Headed Toward a Familiar Collision
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: March 21, 2007
''Once executive privilege is asserted,'' Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in a 2004 Supreme Court decision, ''coequal branches of the government are set on a collision course.''
And the White House and Congress seemed headed for just such a confrontation yesterday.
Democratic lawmakers are demanding public testimony under oath from White House aides about their role in the dismissals of eight United States attorneys, threatening to issue subpoenas.
The new White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, offered a compromise yesterday. He said the White House would make several aides -- including Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist, and Harriet E. Miers, Mr. Fielding's predecessor as counsel -- available to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for informal private interviews. But the interviews would not be public or under oath, and no transcripts would be prepared.
As they continued with their public and private negotiations, both sides were mindful that Mr. Fielding possesses a powerful but dangerous weapon, the invocation of executive privilege, which is the constitutional equivalent of a declaration of war. In a letter to the two committees, he only alluded to it, in a reference to ''the constitutional prerogatives of the presidency.''
Executive privilege protects confidential deliberations within the executive branch in some circumstances, even in the face of a subpoena from the courts or from Congress. It is meant to ensure that the president receives candid advice from aides, without fear that they will be hauled before Congress or a grand jury to explain themselves. The Bush administration has few equals in its commitment to a broad conception of executive authority, and it has on several occasions argued for an expansive understanding of executive privilege and similar protections. But legal scholars said that President Bill Clinton asserted the doctrine of executive privilege more often and more vigorously, including in the investigation of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
''Clinton clearly was more aggressive in using executive privilege than any of the modern presidents since Eisenhower,'' said Mark J. Rozell, a law professor at George Mason University and the author of ''Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability.'' ''Bush has been somewhat reluctant to use it.''
But even though the legal concept has been in use for more than 200 years, its scope remains largely unsettled.
One reason is that clashes between the executive branch and Congress over the privilege, while not uncommon, seldom result in an impasse or find their way into the courts. They are, probably fittingly, worked out through political accommodation.
''What usually breaks the deadlock,'' Louis Fisher, a specialist in constitutional law at the Library of Congress, wrote in 2004 in ''The Politics of Executive Privilege,'' ''is a political decision: the determination of lawmakers to use the coercive tools available to them, and political calculations by the executive branch whether a continued standoff risks heavy and intolerable losses for the president.''
Among the tools and threats at Congress's disposal, Mr. Fisher wrote, are negative publicity, the power of the purse, the possibility of withholding Senate confirmation for some executive officials and the possibility of holding potential witnesses in contempt.
Mr. Fielding is a veteran in battles over executive privilege. He has a reputation for nuance and flexibility, playing his cards depending on the strength of his hand.
As White House counsel in the Reagan administration in 1981, he helped head off a confrontation with a House appropriations subcommittee that wanted to hear from an aide named Martin Anderson, according to Mr. Fisher's book. After Mr. Anderson refused to appear, the subcommittee deleted a $3 million budget request.
Mr. Fielding worked out a compromise similar to the one he offered yesterday. Mr. Anderson met ''informally and off the record with the subcommittee,'' Mr. Fisher wrote. Most of the requested money was restored.
Mr. Fielding successfully invoked executive privilege to block a request that he himself give sworn testimony in hearings on the nomination of Edwin Meese III to be attorney general.
This time, Mr. Fielding's hand may not be especially strong. He faces a hostile Congress and a president weakened by an unpopular war. Even Republican allies have faulted the administration for missteps by the F.B.I. over domestic surveillance and by the Pentagon over health care for wounded soldiers. White House aides have testified before Congress relatively frequently. A 2004 report of the Congressional Research Service cites scores of examples in the last 60 years. In general, Mr. Fisher said in an interview, the likelihood that aides will testify increases with the need to respond to accusations of abuse and bad faith and with Congressional and public pressure.
The Supreme Court's only sustained consideration of the scope of the privilege, in the 1974 decision that ordered President Richard M. Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes to a special prosecutor, is of only limited help in understanding assertions of executive privilege in the legislative setting.
The Nixon case arose in the context of a criminal trial, and the court went out of its way to say that it ''was not concerned here with the balance between the president's generalized interest in confidentiality'' and ''Congressional demands for information.''
But the case did make clear that executive privilege is not absolute and must yield in the face of at least some other important interests.
The court, in a unanimous decision by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, also said the case for executive privilege was strongest where there was a need ''to protect military, diplomatic or national security secrets.''
The interest asserted in the current dispute -- the need to protect confidential personnel decisions -- is less strong but hardly frivolous. ''It's not a silly area in which to assert some kind of executive independence,'' said Vikram Amar, a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
But the administration's argument is not helped by the fact that it has already disclosed thousands of pages of documents on the subject. In the context of other protections for confidential information like the attorney-client privilege, a partial disclosure can waive the privilege.
President Bush has invoked executive privilege relatively infrequently, at least by name, legal scholars said. When he has invoked it, though, he has often expanded its scope.
He has asserted it on behalf of former presidents and closed investigations. And he allowed Vice President Dick Cheney to assert something similar in refusing to disclose information about an energy task force.
In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled for Mr. Cheney. The decision was the occasion for Justice Kennedy's musings on the troublesome potential of the privilege. He said it should not be lightly invoked because it was a recipe for constitutional confrontation.
Photo: Senators Patrick J. Leahy and Dianne Feinstein, with Justice Department e-mail, after the Senate voted yesterday to revoke the administration's authority to install prosecutors indefinitely without confirmation. (Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times) | <urn:uuid:76280c20-f696-402b-8950-59390345115f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40612F73C540C728EDDAA0894DF404482&fta=y&incamp=archive:article_related | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951226 | 1,419 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Cassandra, a resident of Atlantis, has dreams of it being destroyed and a mysterious man saving her. When she finds a shipwrecked Hercules on the beach, she recognizes him as the man from her dreams. Hercules convinces her to warn the other Atlanteans of impending disaster, but they refuse to believe her; Hercules is sent to be killed while the king tries to force Cassandra to tell him how Atlantis will be destroyed. Hercules escapes (of course), frees his captured shipmates, and hunts for Cassandra. Written by
Did You Know?
WARNING: Crystal-waves were used during the production of this motion picture. Pregnant women should leave the room immediately. See more | <urn:uuid:55f2e059-f551-4ea1-b41a-d121c65114aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0599740/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943505 | 140 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Britain to 'electrify ring fence' for big banks
Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said British banks that fail to guard their day-to-day banking from risky investment activities will face being dismantled. REUTERS Photo: STEFAN WERMUTH
Britain's banks will be broken up if they fail to radically reform by ring-fencing retail operations from their investment arms to avoid any more state bailouts, finance minister George Osborne warned.
As the government published legislation aimed at significantly altering the landscape of Britain's financial sector, Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne used a speech to say that "2013 is the year when we re-set our banking system".
Addressing staff at US investment banking giant JPMorgan in Bournemouth, southern England, he said: "My message to the banks is clear: if a bank flouts the rules, the regulator and the Treasury will have the power to break it up altogether – full separation, not just a ring fence." Mr Osborne said: "In the jargon, we will 'electrify the ring fence,' adding that the Bank of England would be "the super cop" of Britain's financial system going forward.
The chancellor outlined four key changes:
■"A brand new watchdog with new powers to keep our banks safe so they don't bring down the economy."
■"A new law to separate the branch on the high street from the dealing floor... to protect taxpayers when mistakes are made."
■ "Changing the whole culture and ethics" of banking.
■ Giving "customers the most powerful weapon of all: choice".
The government had already announced plans to force banks to ring-fence operations by 2019, in a bid to avoid taxpayers having to bail out troubled banks such as RBS and Lloyds – as was the case during the financial crisis.
But the draft law has been toughened after Britain's Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards recently complained that the proposals fell "well short of what is required."
Mr Osborne had previously warned the commission against "unpicking the consensus" on structural reform of the banking sector but appears to have accepted its warning that the draft law left room for loopholes.
"Today, we are publishing the legislation that will turn... this consensus for change into law," he said
"A law for the first time ever, to separate the retail and investment arms of banks, and erect a ring fence around the retail bank so its essential operations continue even if the whole bank fails." Mr Osborne said he expected the legislation to be passed by parliament by a year's time.
The changes have meanwhile put the finance minister on a collision course with Britain's banks, which claim the legislation would make London less attractive as a global financial centre.
"This will create uncertainty for investors, making it more difficult for banks to raise capital, which will ultimately mean that banks will have less money to lend to businesses," said Anthony Browne, chief executive of the British Bankers' Association.
"Above all, what banks and business need is regulatory certainty so that banks can get on with what they want to do, which is help the economy grow," he added.
Britain's economy shrank by 0.3 per cent in the final quarter of 2012 and recorded zero growth for the year as a whole, recent official data revealed, placing the country on the brink of a third recession since 2008. | <urn:uuid:01bca161-3950-441b-b53c-5979d114cc15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessday.com.au/business/world-business/britain-to-electrify-ring-fence-for-big-banks-20130205-2dv3i.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955551 | 693 | 1.679688 | 2 |
That was kind of you to support a friend. But of course standing by a friend is just part of your wonderful nature.
Thinking about your delightful nature caused me to consider Bella's nature which helped mr solve this question:
Your good friend Doc
Nobel Cullens, Nobel Bella. Or : Why Bella Fit IN.
Being noble originally didn't refer to the status of your birth, but rather to "your nature." The Summit executive's first question of Stephanie was "You wrote a novel about 'Nobel Vampires?" "Yes,' Was her reply.
Each Cullen ALWAYS wore one of their familys' crest. CC to EC, Q: "Remember who you are!" The symbolism of the Cullens' crest was to announce the statement: " I am a woman or man who lives by "Sincerity, Faith and Perfidity."
Bella Swan is a noble woman living in a non noble woman. At the end of the movie "Eclipse" Bella says that after experiencing Edward's world she felt that she fit in for the first time. Bella fit in with the Cullens because, with or with out Edward, she was born a Cullen.
Hi Layla, yep, I saw it and loved it. The tent scene dialogue I love was missing, that was one negative. They've changed some things, omitted some things. In the big scheme of the plot I don't think the things they've done different or left out drastically change the movie, but when you see it don't expect it to be exactly like the book. But, there are some hilarious moments, it was awesome! And Rob was gorgeous! | <urn:uuid:b9476a13-0555-495a-a3c6-3447da2bb19b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thetwilightsaga.com/profiles/comment/list?attachedToType=User&attachedTo=35yynlu6rnhih&commentId=2570916%3AComment%3A52422640&xg_source=activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978516 | 338 | 1.554688 | 2 |
A new survey shows that Australian finance and insurance companies worked with 1,245 related companies overseas, known as foreign affiliates, to sell their services in 2009-10. That is a near three-fold increase since 2002-03. These foreign affiliates were operating in 70 countries, and the total value of the financial and insurance services they provided was $38.9 billion.
A detailed analysis of this survey is contained in the new Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade publication Trade in Services, Australia 2010 which has just been released.
Australia invested $71.1 billion in our finance and insurance foreign affiliates in 2009-10. These affiliates earned $6.5 billion profit during the year – a good result given the economic backdrop of the Global Financial Crisis.
The key markets for Australia's finance and insurance services provided by Australian foreign affiliates were New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong (SAR of China) and Singapore.
The analysis showed that international sales of financial and insurance services by Australian companies are overwhelmingly delivered through overseas-based affiliates, rather than direct sales from within Australia. This trend underlines for Australian businesses the importance of establishing a physical presence in the overseas markets in order to take advantage of opportunities in overseas services markets.
The publication also showed that in calendar year 2010, Australia's total trade in services with the world increased by 2.3 per cent to $108.3 billion. Australia's exports of services decreased by 0.5 per cent to $52.4 billion, while imports of services increased by 5.1 per cent to $55.9 billion.
The major markets for Australia's services exports were China valued at $6.0 billion in 2010, followed by the United States and the United Kingdom.
The publication is part of a series published each year by DFAT. For further information please contact (02) 6261 2271, or fax (02) 6261 3321 or email [email protected]
The publication and analysis is available from the DFAT website: http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/stats-pubs/trade-in-services.html. | <urn:uuid:a3974802-8987-4172-b2ff-9c5a2bd35550> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dfat.gov.au/media/releases/department/2011/dfat-release-20110805.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957482 | 442 | 1.609375 | 2 |
|Home > After Saddam > Article||Saturday July 5, 2003|
Two soldiers were seriously wounded, with one undergoing surgery in a hospital on the base and another evacuated for treatment, Bryja said. Others suffered cuts and small punctures from flying shrapnel, with nine soldiers already back on duty, Army officials said.
"This is the first time the base was attacked - and the first time we've seen mortars," said Sgt Grant Calease, who said he and other soldiers would nonetheless carry on with a planned steak barbecue, in observance of the July 4th US Independence Day.
The wounded soldiers belonged to Task Force Iron Horse, a 33,000 member unit that has been staging raids in the mainly Sunni Muslim areas north of Baghdad where Saddam Hussein drew much of his support.
The task force includes soldiers from the Army's 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions, the 101st Airborne Division and 173rd Airborne Brigade.
Yesterday evening, a sniper killed a US soldier who was standing in the gunner's hatch of a Bradley fighting vehicle while guarding the national museum in Baghdad.
Yesterday the museum opened its doors for a few hours - the first time since the war. The soldier was evacuated to a military hospital, but died of his wounds.
Attackers detonated an explosive on a highway in Baghdad's western outskirts yesterday, injuring three passengers in a civilian car and two US soldiers travelling in a Humvee convoy, according to an Associated Press photographer on the scene.
On Thursday, US troops near Baqubah, north-east of the capital, attempted to draw out attackers by luring them into an ambush on a stretch of road known as "RPG Alley" because of its frequent rocket-propelled grenade strikes.
One suspect was killed and three captured in the operation, said Lieutenant Kurt Chapman, with the Army's 4th Infantry Division.
"We're trying to be a little bit more proactive and find them before they get us," Chapman said.
News of the strikes brought a sombre start to American Independence Day activities for the 150,000 US troops in Iraq.
"We should be celebrating with our families. It is sad. Everybody wants to go home. I am glad that we came here to liberate Iraq, but I think it is time for soldiers to see their families," said Sgt Thas Eagans from Irving, Texas.
US soldiers have been beset by daily attacks from an increasingly bold insurgency, raising fears of a political and military quagmire just two months after President George W Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.
At least 27 US troops have been killed in hostile fire since Bush's statement.
Despite the problems, US troops planned to spend July 4th enjoying barbecues at bases around the country. A lucky few were invited to join Arnold Schwarzenegger for a screening at Baghdad International Airport of the muscle-bound actor's latest movie, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
Schwarzenegger addressed a rambunctious crowd of soldiers in one of Saddam's former presidential palaces located inside the airport compound.
"It is really wild driving around here, I mean the poverty, and you see there is no money, it is disastrous financially and there is the leadership vacuum, pretty much like in California right now," he quipped.
Schwarzenegger, 55, has indicated he may run for governor of Californian as a Republican if residents there vote to recall the current governor, Gray Davis.
"I play terminator, but you guys are the true terminators," he told the soldiers, before heading to the base at Balad that came under attack.
In the north, American forces planned joint celebrations with Iraqi Kurds, who also celebrate July 4 as the anniversary of the naming of their first government in 1992.
US officials have stressed the need to crush an insurgency they blame on Saddam loyalists, who are reportedly warning Iraqis not to cooperate with American occupation authorities, saying the ousted leader will one day come back to punish those who do.
Washington yesterday put a $US25 million ($A36.81 million) bounty on Saddam's head and offered $US15 million ($A22.09 million) for information leading to the capture of either of his sons, Uday and Qusay.
The reward for Saddam matches the bounty that Washington is offering its other top fugitive: Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader missing since US forces helped dislodge the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
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BBC sticks by claims
45-minute WMD 'unlikely': Blix
Blair in clear over WMD, but doubts remain
Iraqi resistance starts killing lone targets
Point-blank execution of reporter sparks fears for westerners
PM denies he knew US doubted WMD intelligence
PM told of doubts on Iraqi arms: US official
Turks held over Iraq murder plot
Dead journalist yearned to be war correspondent
Blast kills recruits in payback for working with US
Arnie tells GIs they are the true terminators
GIs become grave diggers in search for weapons
Iraqis raise rebel action against US
'Saddam' tape urges resistance as 11 Iraqis killed
US kills 11 ambushers in wake of attacks on soldiers
|text | handheld (how to)||
Copyright © 2003. The Sydney Morning Herald.
|advertise | contact us| | <urn:uuid:bebf9ff2-f3b0-4a4a-8239-15674005f22d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/1057179167614.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962615 | 1,111 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Healthcare Takes It Up A Level On Gaming
Gamification, the tactic of applying game mechanics to traditional activities, has officially realized its self-fulfilling prophecy from early 2011 predictions of becoming the next big thing.
In March, we blogged about our experience at SXSW, noting Seth Priebatsch's belief that the next decade will likely see the game layer prevail over social media. Gamification is slated to lead a new era of incentives, giving users a way to interact with traditionally non-game activities.
If you think adding a game layer to a marketing experience will benefit your brand, there are a few ways to up the ante when incorporating it into your strategy.
The concept of gaming, rewards and incentives isn't new. Companies have been helping brands do it for years with sweepstakes, instant win games, loyalty solutions and more. But we are now shaping it in new ways, in new places and for newer audiences.
Making Health Fun
AARP launched a program this fall under its Brain Health channel, inviting site visitors to a photo memory challenge and offering a chance to win an Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad2, iTunes gift cards, Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit Plus, and $250 toward nutrition counseling – all prizes that tie in to users' overall health and wellbeing. Games, according to health experts, can help ward off diseases like memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer's.
"Our brain health games are some of the most popular on the site,” said Nataki Edwards, vice president, digital strategy & operations for AARP. “The Photo Recall Challenge brought together our users' love of games, as well as their interest in staying healthy and vibrant. We knew that a game challenging memory would work well with our audience and the results did not disappoint –more than 134K people entered this sweeps."
Think games are just for kids?
Games also are effective for repeated brand engagement, and a surprising gamer segment is the over-55 crowd, who enjoy playing games, puzzles and trivia in the online environment.
"It’s not surprising that the over-50 crowd loves games,” Edwards added. “Sudoku, solitaire and mah-jongg were all very popular games played in the 'real world' and now they can be enjoyed online as well."
Blue Cross Blue Shield gets in the game
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida was looking for new ways to encourage Floridians to live an active, healthy lifestyle.
"In February 2011, we refreshed our brand promise with three core tenets: affordability, access and community support,” said Kate Warnock, social media community manager for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSF). “The Pursuit was created as a way to connect Floridians with nonprofit organizations who expand the reach of our brand promise and help more Floridians in their pursuit of health."
To drive awareness, a social media campaign highlighted three non-profit organizations on BCBSF's Facebook page, inviting Floridians to vote for the organization that should win the monthly mash-up. Each monthly winner was awarded $3,000, while each of the runners-up received $1,000.
A leaderboard posting the monthly winners put visibility behind the initiative, showing which organizations were benefiting from users' votes, as well as the total amount donated to date.
Don't think gaming aligns with your audience?
Maybe that's a perfect reason that it does. Gaming by nature is fun, interesting and even competitive. What audience doesn't want to be captivated? Rather than using the same old tactics to convince, persuade, and educate, reprogram and think about the entertainment factor.
The questions every brand should think out loud are, "Is my brand providing organic value to the consumer?" and, if not, "Can we at least make their experience interesting so they spend more time with us?"
Whether or not your brand marketing aligns with a true gamification strategy, remember that in today's world, the consumer is always assessing “what's in it for me.” If your brand, service, or organization can provide extra value, you'll be sure to lock in their attention. | <urn:uuid:813e179e-dd44-4b49-ade3-9742381bcd5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/164970/healthcare-takes-it-up-a-level-on-gaming.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962986 | 862 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Roswell Council Moves Forward with New Bridge
A pedestrian bridge over the Chattahoochee River is in the design phase now.
The Roswell City Council approved moving forward with plans to connect Roswell and Sandy Springs via a bicycle and pedestrian bridge over the Chattahoochee River at its meeting Monday night.
Roswell and Sandy Springs will split responsibility for 10 percent – or $50,000 each – of the $500,000 price tag for this first design phase of the process to “rehabilitate” the bridge between the two cities to include alternative transportations methods. Funding for the remaining $400,000 of this phase will come from specially earmarked federal funds.
After putting out a solicitation for engineering firms interested in taking on the project, the city sorted through 15 potential firms to settle upon Heath & Lineback Engineers, Inc.
“They were the most qualified firm for the project,” said Transportation Department Director Steve Acenbrak.
No official design for the new bridge has been created yet, said Acenbrak. However, “it’s almost certain” it won’t be connected to the current Roswell Road bridge. Instead, residents can expect the pedestrian/cyclist bridge to be some distance away from the current bridge, “either standing on its own structure or supported by its own cables,” he said.
Acenbrak said that the design will stand up to the high standards of the city, which recently won an award for the new bridge on Oxbo Road.
“We will formally tell [the engineering firm] that we expect an award-winning bridge that will be a highlight,and a very nice [addition] for citizens,” he said.
Local resident Janet Russell told council that while she supported the new bridge in theory, she was “appalled” at the cost of the design alone.
“It’s called ‘trickle down economics,’ isn’t it,” she said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s state, local, federal or county, the bottom line is we’re all paying for it. And I’m appalled that we’re paying $500,000 for a design of a bridge.”
Russell also encouraged the city to make sure the new bridge is lighted and connects to pedestrian-friendly sidewalks.
Acenbrak assured the council that the bridge would connect to pedestrian walkways and compliment the future of the historic corridor.
Design is expected to take about two years and construction will take an additional year to complete, he told Roswell Patch. | <urn:uuid:0e064710-a6cb-4448-9764-66074a517c6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://roswell.patch.com/articles/council-moves-forward-with-new-bridge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951224 | 557 | 1.695313 | 2 |
EnXco taps First Solar for panels
First Solar Inc. has received a contract to supply 61 megawatts of solar panels to a project being developed by enXco in California.
Tempe-based First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) will start delivery of the panels in September for the Catalina Solar Project. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
First Solar officials said they have a previous relationship with enXco’s parent company, EDF Energies Nouvelles Co. Co. based in Paris, and look at the relationship with enXon as a continuation of that.
Officials with enXco, which also has an office in Portland, said they went with First Solar because it represented a lower cost solution.
Catalina, being built in Kern County, Calif., is a 130-megawatt solar plant that will sell its power to San Diego Gas & Electric. The first roughly 60-megawatt first phase will be online later this year with the remainder coming online next year.
If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below. | <urn:uuid:cdeaebb6-0712-4e6d-bff8-e34f4f899b34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://assets.sustainablebusinessoregon.com/articles/2012/06/enxco-taps-first-solar-for-panels.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955887 | 266 | 1.664063 | 2 |
McCain’s mind works as follows: all situations are divided between good and evil. No one is simply mistaken, confused, immature, unwise, or, perhaps, correct in a way that McCain cannot yet perceive. Though it’s become a bad word, there is such a thing as nuance, and it’s particularly valuable when we’re talking about relations with a large country that we’re not at war with that happens to have thousands of nuclear weapons. McCain seems to think that doubling down on the aggressive policy in the Middle East is good and brave and heroic, so he’s seeking expensive and risky confrontations with China and Russia halfway around the globe, even as he shies away from securing our own frontiers with nearby Mexico. The latter is prosaic and humdrum, while crusades for democracy in the Caucuses, well, that’s the stuff history is made of. (Unfortunately, that history will be entitled the Decline and Fall of America.)
McCain has the following in mind:
President George W. Bush said in 2001 that he had looked Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the eye and “was able to get a sense of his soul.” Senator John McCain says he looked into Putin’s eyes “and saw three letters: KGB.”
McCain, 71, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, favors expelling Russia from the Group of Eight club of industrial powers. He calls for forging a “League of Democracies” to confront Putin and hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev, who takes over tomorrow, on Russian threats against former Soviet republics and rollbacks of domestic freedoms.
The candidate’s approach to Russia signals that he has aligned himself with hard-line foreign-policy advisers who favor democracy promotion above all and rejects advocates of doing business with authoritarian regimes when it suits U.S. interests.
This election should be treated as a referendum on open borders with Mexico and a policy of quasi-war with Russia. As bad as Clinton and Obama are, neither of them is so uncompromisingly single-minded and ideological about these two very stupid passions of John McCain. | <urn:uuid:66b622cd-44dd-45aa-a162-399a475e9420> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mansizedtarget.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/mccains-hatred-for-russia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963532 | 449 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Oppenheimer, Running and Frumkin… ‘nough said. Lack of US disasters must’ve been weighing heavily on these guys over the last 7 years. I’m pretty sure if you drop by Steven Goddard’s site he’s probably got clippings from plenty worse fire seasons posted. Poor Oppie et al are really clutching at straws now.
Scorching heat, high winds and bone-dry conditions are fueling catastrophic wildfires in the U.S. West that offer a preview of the kind of disasters that human-caused climate change could bring, a trio of scientists said on Thursday.
“What we’re seeing is a window into what global warming really looks like,” Princeton University’s Michael Oppenheimer said during a telephone press briefing. “It looks like heat, it looks like fires, it looks like this kind of environmental disaster … This provides vivid images of what we can expect to see more of in the future.”
In Colorado, wildfires that have raged for weeks have killed four people, displaced thousands and destroyed hundreds of homes. Because winter snowpack was lighter than usual and melted sooner, fire season started earlier in the U.S. West, with wildfires out of control in Colorado, Montana and Utah.
The high temperatures that are helping drive these fires are consistent with projections by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said this kind of extreme heat, with little cooling overnight, is one kind of damaging impact of global warming.
Others include more severe storms, floods and droughts, Oppenheimer said. | <urn:uuid:6314a1ce-69bd-45f1-9a6b-81adbe3994fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://junkscience.com/2012/06/29/sigh-wests-wildfires-a-preview-of-changed-climate-scientists/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946459 | 337 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Netanyahu once said they’re “a waste of time.” Previous Israeli officials called occupation and status quo conditions “permanent.”
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist….How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.”
No wonder Edward Said once called the occupation an “atrocity” and the peace process “a disheartening bloody impasse…..to reduce the Palestinian actuality to nil, to efface Palestinians as a people with legitimate rights, to render them alien in their own land.”
“If Hamas joins the Palestinian government, we will not hold negotiations with the Palestinian Authority….The peace process can only advance while maintaining security arrangements, which is becoming more difficult in light of the current situation in the region.”
In April, Hamas and Fatah announced reconciliation and plans for transitional government ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections within a year to produce unity. Currently, they’re set for May 2012.
Netanyahu reacted angrily saying, “choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas.” Reconciliation shows “weakness,” he added. “There cannot be peace” if both sides unite. “What happened….in Cairo is a tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism.”
Despite reservations on both sides, signing ceremony comments signaled hope. Abbas suggested turning a page, saying:
“Four black years have affected the interests of Palestinians. Now we meet to assert a unified will. Israel is using the Palestinian reconciliation as an excuse to evade (peace. It) must choose between peace and settlement.”
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said:
“Hamas was ready to pay any price for internal Palestinian reconciliation. The only battle of the Palestinians is against Israel. Our aim is to establish a free and completely sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza strip, whose capital is Jerusalem, without any settlers and without giving up a single inch of land and without giving up on the right of return.”
They’ll form a committee ahead of next May’s presidential, parliamentary and Palestinian National Council (PLC) elections. Once held, they’ll join the PLO as sole legitimate Palestinian representative.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded supportively, saying “Moscow welcomes the serious talks between the Palestinian factions that aim to end Palestinian division.”
According to the Turkish Anatolian news agency, so did Ankara. It also praised Egypt’s sponsoring role.
On December 24, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero announced full support, saying:
“This is an important element for the unity of the future State of Palestine, and in that sense, this reconciliation is in Israel’s future interests.”
He added that reconciliation depends on Israel ending Gaza‘s siege, as well as both sides denouncing violence and respecting past agreements.
During Bethlehem‘s Christmas midnight mass, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal called Palestinian self-determination the main thrust for achieving peace, adding:
“We ask for peace for the Palestinian people and for the Israeli people. We ask for peace, stability and security for the entire Middle East so that our children and their children may live their childhood in innocence, in a healthy environment where they may play together without fear or complex.”
Israel and Washington, of course, remain significant obstacles very much unresolved.
Unity Discussions Scheduled to Continue
In late January, unity discussions will continue to select transitional government members until elections. In February, Palestine’s parliament will resume operations.
At issue is Israel’s response. Elections in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem depend on cooperation. In 2005, Israel manipulated the process for Abbas.
Leading opposition figure Marwan Barghouti was imprisoned on bogus murder charges. In addition, Mustafa Barghouti’s candidacy was sabotaged for “demand(ing) total and complete reform, (ending all) form(s) of corruption, (and) mismanagement, and (working to) consolidate the rule of law.”
As a result, Israel arrested him while campaigning, expelled him from East Jerusalem, excluded him from Nablus and Gaza, harassed and intimidated him repeatedly, and effectively rigged the process for Abbas.
In 2012, Israel may either prevent Palestinian elections with Hamas candidates or sabotage them to assure Israeli-friendly officials only gain power.
Another obstacle involves registering Palestinians worldwide to participate and letting them vote in PLO mission offices. Doing so depends on cooperation from countries where they live.
The PNC will have 350 delegates, 150 from the Territories and 200 diaspora ones. PNC Chairman Salim Zanoun has his hands full. He heads a committee charged with making this possible. Doing so’s not easy. Nor is it for millions of occupied Palestinians or diaspora ones prevented from returning home.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Palestinians worldwide number 11.22 million as of year end 2011. About 4.23 million live in Palestine (including 1.6 million in Gaza), another 1.37 million in Israel, 4.99 million in Arab countries, and around 636,000 in other countries.
PCBS also said 44% of those in Palestine are refugees – 42% in the West Bank and 58% in Gaza. Numerous others live in Arab countries, notably Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman‘s extremism is also troubling. Repeatedly he said Israel won’t return to 1967 borders. Settlement expansions will continue, and doing so’s no obstacle to peace. In fact, they violate international law and obstruct any possibility of resolution.
Targeting Hamas at Israel’s Behest
Baseless accusations are Israel’s stock in trade. In January 1995, at its behest, the State Department duplicitously declared Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Its emergence began after 1967. In the late 1970s, Israel offered financial aid to counterbalance PLO influence. During the first Intifada (1987 – 1993), it gained prominence. Israel remained supportive.
At issue was manipulating both sides to prevent peace. Like America, Israel needs enemies to justify conflict and violence. Hamas was chosen strategically to advance Palestinian divisions.
In Arabic, Hamas means courage and bravery. Since established, it’s resisted oppression and occupation. It prefers negotiation and international consensus, not violence.
However, its charter says it’ll fight for its rights if Israel prevents peaceful reconciliation. It rejects Zionist intentions to destroy Palestinian society, its values and “wipe out Islam.”
It calls itself “a humane movement, which cares for human rights and is committed to the tolerance inherent in Islam as regards attitudes towards other religions. It is only hostile to those who are hostile towards it….(Under Islam) it is possible for the members of the three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism to coexist in safety and security” as long as other religions “desist from struggling against Islam over sovereignty in this region.”
It wants peace, equity and justice for all Palestinians. It prefers negotiating on the basis of “hudnah” or temporary truce. It’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said Hamas would end its liberating struggle “if the Zionists ended their occupation of Palestinian territories and stopped killing Palestinian women, children and innocent civilians.”
It current leaders are willing to recognize Israel in return for self-determination in peace inside pre-1967 borders – 22% of historic Palestine. Moreover, numerous times it agreed to unilateral ceasefires in spite of repeated Israeli violations.
Nonetheless, it responses defensively after continued provocations. Washington and Israel call it “terrorism.” Under international law, it’s legitimate self-defense.
Besides being Palestine’s legitimate government, Hamas provides vital social services, including medical clinics, education, free meals for children, help for orphans, financial and technical assistance for homeless families, aid to refugees, special youth and sports clubs, and more as their resources allow.
It also maintains an elite military wing for self-defense, policing and security, the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades.
It wants equitable peace and reconciliation. So do Arabs and Jews. Israel and its Washington paymaster/partner choose violence. That Gordian Knot remains to be cut.
* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. | <urn:uuid:20306592-9fd1-4298-90b7-17b9c18c4491> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2011/12/28/netanyahu-rejects-peace/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933827 | 1,874 | 1.648438 | 2 |
by Charlie Finch
Ninety years ago, socialist avatar Emma Goldman drew thousands as she spoke from a soapbox in Union Square or at the labor hall nearby, still standing today as the theater where one can see commercial performance art like De La Guarda
. Folks from Brooklyn and points east came to May’s Department Store, one of New York’s first, to buy inexpensive clothes on weekends. Thirty years ago, Union Square was the largest open air drug market on the East Coast. Preppies and hippies would score there nickel bags at the eastern entrance to Union Square Park and work their way west for the harder stuff. | <urn:uuid:a0932ff9-600a-45a3-b272-0a690b718198> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/finch/finch6-23-08_detail.asp?picnum=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946483 | 131 | 1.742188 | 2 |
If you're a guest:
Guests should feel free to contribute a dish.
If you're going to a party and you don't know what the menu is going to be, bring something healthy that you can enjoy, said New York City nutritionist Barbara Mendez.
She suggests a three-bean salad with corn chips. The protein and fiber in the beans will interact with the refined chips, making for a tasty treat that will help you feel full faster. Another option could be hummus with vegetables.
Experts note that moderation is key, even with healthier options such as hummus, nuts and guacamole. If you want to enjoy these you can have them, but it's important to practice in moderation, said New York City dietitian Maria Bella.
If you're a host:
There are several ways to keep Super Bowl food healthy when you're a host, mostly by making certain food substitutes.
For burgers, Mendez recommends using turkey instead of beef. If you can get a multigrain bread or multigrain bun that would be great, she added.
She also recommends making fries out of sweet potato instead of regular potato and providing guests with salad materials to fill up on.
Studies show that drinking alcohol makes people eat more, but abstaining during the big game would be unthinkable for many die-hard football fans. Mendez suggests alternating alcoholic beverages with glasses of water. This, she said, will keep you hydrated and lucid, so you'll think twice before going for extra food.
Calorie watchers can also opt to bring their own alcohol. Bella advises light beers, such as Beck's 64-calorie beer, Amstel Light, and Corona Light. She advises those who don't like light beer to go for a Guinness, while wine lovers can go for a prosecco.
And if you must indulge in a favorite Super Bowl snack...
Nutritionist Stephanie Middleberg suggests pizza. Have one slice and be done, she wrote in an e-mail. It is best to go for finite options and pizza has an end so if you just have one, you won't overdo it. A bowl of chili is a great second option.
Bella had some really good news about a particular Super Bowl favorite. I think that wings are not the worst thing ever, she said. It's the dressing that kills them.
Still worried about overeating?
Middleberg's tips for not overdoing it include eating only during halftime: Don't go starving, make sure you eat all your food on a plate or a napkin (and not just grabbing and dipping), swap salsa for dips, and when drinking aim for lite beer or glass of wine or hard liquor. Furthermore, wear fitted clothes as a nice 'budget' reminder and keep your hands busy (drink in one hand and camera in the other). Lastly, remember it is just one day! | <urn:uuid:2e8ebabd-f6eb-44ac-b412-18e33946f1d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibtimes.com/super-bowl-food-healthy-eating-tips-sundays-game-404894 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959536 | 598 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Poet laureate to visit
Kevin Stein, the Illinois Poet Laureate, will bring words of elegance to Flint during two free poetry performances May 22-23.
A poem for 2097
"Citizens, what did you find when awakened this morning?
Was the sky as blue as ours? A few sparrows rustling among lime green leaves of April. Are people fed and housed and free."
- Illinois Poet Laureate Kevin Stein
Those are just some of the elegant words of Illinois Poet Laureate Kevin Stein, who will share his creative art and observations when he visits Kettering University and the Flint area May 22-23. A poet laureate is an ambassador who promotes awareness of poetry and works to heighten appreciation of the art form.
Stein comes to Michigan to share both private and public poetry readings. Flint's Cultural Center will be the site for "Poetry Under The Stars," a free event on Tuesday, May 22, at Longway Planetarium. Stein, who follows in the footsteps of renowned poet Carl Sandburg, will offer a reading at 7 p.m. in the Planetarium's sky dome. The event is free and co-sponsored by Kettering University, Baker College of Flint, Mott Community College and the University of Michigan-Flint.
How mundane those things that change us?
Stein's schedule includes these free public appearances:
Tuesday, May 22, 7 p.m.: Free poetry under the stars at Longway Planetarium, in Flint's Cultural Center. The event is co-sponsored by Kettering University, Baker College of Flint, Mott Community College and the University of Michigan-Flint. The Planetarium is located at 1310 E. Kearsley Street in Flint.
Wednesday, May 23, 12:20 p.m.: Cultural Student Convocation in the International Room of Kettering's Campus Center, on the corner of Third and Chevrolet avenues in Flint.
During his visit to Flint, Stein will also visit two middle schools in Flint to interact with young writers. He will also lecture in two Kettering classes.
Stein will be reading from each of his three recent collections: Bruised Paradise, Chance Ransom and American Ghost Roses, all from University of Illinois Press. Stein describes poems from these collections this way:
"Poem Buried within a Time Capsule to Be Unearthed Spring 2097"
If given the chance, have you ever thought of what you might say to your fellow citizens one hundred years from now? When Bradley University buried a time capsule to celebrate its centennial, I had that challenge and that opportunity. I typed this poem on an old IBM typewriter and placed a copy of it, secretly, in my chapbook A Field of Wings," a volume to be buried within the capsule. Until now, no one else knew I'd done so.
"Past Midnight, My Daughter Awakened by Miles Davis' Kind of Blue"
I love jazz for the beauty of its improvisation. I love how it builds a whole from wandering parts. I love how its movements - while wonderfully non-linear - can seem at once inevitable and complete. And blue is my mother's favorite color. Sometimes mine, too.
The University of Missouri Press (Columbia and London) said this about Stein's Circus of Want: "Kevin Stein's poems celebrate desire in its various forms. He moves sinuously among the particulars of daily life - with grace and intelligence, he asks what the ostensibly discrete details amount to ... he composes an absorbing record of human want."
About Kevin Stein
Stein is the Caterpillar Professor of English at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. He was named the Illinois Poet Laureate in December 2003 to the position previously held by noted writers Carl Sandburg, Howard Austin and Gwendolyn Brooks.
He came to Bradley in 1984 from Indiana University, where he earned a Ph.D. in American literature and a master's degree in Creative Writing. Stein teaches a range of graduate and undergraduate courses in American literature, including Ecstatic Dialogics: Poetry and Ecstasy; The Contemporary American Narrative Poem; Men, Women, and the Family in American literature; James Wright and Philip Levine: The Poetry of Work, and the Work of Poetry; and Public and Private History in Contemporary American Poetry. He also serves as director of Bradley's vital Creative Writing Program, leading workshops ranging from the introductory level to the capstone course, in which students write and design a chapbook of their own poetry.
Poet laureate is one of many honors and accolades Kevin Stein has earned during his career as poet, critic, editor, and teacher. He is the author of six poetry collections, three scholarly books, numerous poems and essays published in prestigious journals and anthologies.
Stein?s poetry has been honored with the Frederick Bock Prize awarded by Poetry, the 1998 Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the Devins Award for Poetry for his collection A Circus of Want, and three Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards. In addition, Stein has been the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and three such fellowships granted by the Illinois Arts Council, as well as grant support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2004 he was awarded the Vernon Louis Parrington Medal for Distinguished Writing. His poems and essays have appeared widely in journals such as American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Colorado Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Southern Review and TriQuarterly.
In addition to writing poetry, Stein has pursued a lively scholarly career as literary critic. Stein's scholarly works enhance readers' appreciation for his fellow poets' art. One such work, Private Poets, Worldly Acts, examines the intersection of public and private history in the work of nine American poets, including Robert Lowell, Adrienne Rich, Frank O'Hara, and Yusef Komunyakaa. This volume was named a 1997 Recommended Book by amazon.com, the citation applauding how the book's "insightful visions" lift readers "beyond just reading a poem - to reading between its lines." Also, Stein's James Wright: The Poetry of a Grown Man remains the benchmark study of this important American poet.
Stein extended his scholarly interests by editing Illinois Voices: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry. Co-edited with poet G.E. Murray, this book offers the first comprehensive anthology of Illinois poetry's rich twentieth-century heritage. Following the publication of Illinois Voices, Stein and Murray traveled throughout the state to lead discussions and readings from the anthology at libraries in locales such as Chicago, Charleston, Peoria, Springfield, and Urbana.
For more on Illinois Poet Laureate Kevin Stein site, visit: http://www.poetlaureate.il.gov/
Contact: Pat Mroczek | <urn:uuid:4d749b5e-5390-4d36-9087-f101bdc26323> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kettering.edu/news/poet-laureate-visit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95332 | 1,423 | 1.5 | 2 |
Information About Residencies
Althea Waites is a highly acclaimed pianist who has championed the music of American composers throughout her career. Her extensive repertoire includes traditional and rarely heard works, as well as new music by Latin-American, Asian and African-American composers.
A graduate of the Yale University School of Music, Ms. Waites has been artist in residence at numerous institutions throughout the United States
such as Smith College, Virginia Polytechnic University, Spelman College, Haverford College and Virginia State University.
Her previous experience includes performances in schools with Young Audiences, Inc., Chamber Music in Historic Sites, Junior Chamber Music,and the Los Angeles County Music Center.
- A Residency may include the following presentations:
Coaching (chamber ensembles, piano trios, etc.)
The length of a residency may vary from a few days to several weeks, with extended residencies of a month, semester, or year. In addition to performances in schools, Ms.Waites is involved in community outreach and service programs in retirement homes, prisons, hospitals and churches.
- Lecture Topics
Music of African-American composers
Improvisation: Role of the keyboard in early music, 20 th-21 st century developments
New Music for Piano
Topics for lectures may also be selected by the presenter/institution.
back to top | <urn:uuid:5b039692-cd88-4889-ac7a-c7d6b95edb39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.altheawaites.com/residencies/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940581 | 285 | 1.609375 | 2 |
A message from Marjorie J. Hill, PhD – Chief Executive Officer, GMHC
AIDS is not over. In fact, awareness is down as new infections are up — including among women, people of color and men who have sex with men. The roots of the epidemic are wide and deep, from stigma and misinformation to the increasing cost of care. At GMHC, we believe we can end the epidemic by addressing the underlying causes, shifting cultural beliefs and promoting smart behaviors that empower a healthy life for all of us. | <urn:uuid:a89455ec-b2e2-451b-9321-0aa9c418952f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://[email protected]/about-us/leadership | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961704 | 106 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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Life In Retirement: The Not-So-Golden Years
Wed September 28, 2011
Boomers 'Delusion' About Health In Retirement
Most baby boomers say they're planning on an active and healthy retirement, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. And, in a switch from earlier years, more than two-thirds recognize the threat of long-term care expenses to their financial futures.
But some experts worry that when it comes to their health, boomers are still woefully unprepared — or worse, in denial.
"The mismatch between how people think the next 10 to 15 years is going to go and what current retirees experience is something that's very consistent," says Jeff Goldsmith, a health care futurist and author of The Long Baby Boom: An Optimistic Vision for a Graying Generation, a book about aging baby boomers. "There is no question that one distinguishing feature of our generation is this extraordinary, almost genetic optimism. And the poll results look to me like a lot of that optimism was drawn from a deep well of self-delusion."
Health And Exercise
For example, notes Goldsmith, only 13 percent of those people over age 50 but not yet retired said they expect their health to be worse in retirement than it is currently. Yet 39 percent of retirees said their health IS worse than it was in the five years before they retired.
"Hello," says Goldsmith. "That's what getting older is eventually about. We're all going to have serious health problems in retirement, and eventually really serious health problems."
Similarly, only 1 percent of those not-yet-retired said they expect the amount of exercise they get to decrease in retirement, while 34 percent of retirees said they actually are getting less exercise.
Boomers in the poll who haven't yet retired did say they are taking steps now to ensure good health when they do stop working. Seventy-two percent said they have increased their amount of physical activity or exercise; 68 percent said they have changed their diet or the food they eat, and 83 percent said they are watching their weight.
That's how Aimee and Randy Rolin, of Springfield, Va., both in their 50s, are preparing for their retired years.
"I've been working out for 20, 22 years now; and I plan on working out until I die," Randy says. "I hope to die healthy. ... Fast. Nice and healthy. Not laying in a bed somewhere."
"And we eat right," Aimee adds. "Most of the time."
Of course good genes don't hurt. We caught up with the Rolins cheering on Randy's mother, Marcy, age 87, participating in the Wii bowling competition for the Northern Virginia Senior Olympics. Marcy, who won a bronze medal last year, this year won a silver.
But Goldsmith says the Rolins are more likely the exception than the rule when it comes to the physical state of the boomer generation.
"There's already evidence that people are starting into this retirement era with burdens," he says. "I mean a third of the generation is obese, and a third is overweight. And even though people talk a good game in terms of exercise, it's not clear the numbers actually support it."
That, he says, could mean a lot of additional health bills.
Another expensive need in older age is long-term care, including care in a nursing home, assisted-living facility, or home care.
The good news is that when it comes to long-term care, the boomers are considerably more aware of the possibility of the crushing cost than previous generations have been. More than two-thirds said they were very or somewhat likely to have trouble paying for long-term care if they or a spouse needed it. That's slightly more than the three-fifths who feared they might have trouble paying overall medical bills.
Judy Feder, a public policy professor at Georgetown University and an expert on long-term care, says she's not surprised that after decades of trying to educate the public on the need to prepare people for the cost of long-term care, the message is finally getting through.
"One of the reasons I think people have a better understanding of the likelihood of long-term care is that boomers are experiencing it with their parents, and that a lot of responsibility for helping people who need long-term care falls on children," Feder says. "So the older we boomers get, the more likely we are to have family members who need our help."
That's true of Jason Mitchell, 53, of Rockville, Md., who's in the process of purchasing private long-term care insurance for himself and his wife, Nina.
"A few years ago, my dad passed away at 89, and for the two years before passing away, we incurred some pretty high costs for private care," Mitchell says. "Luckily he had the means to pay for it, but I recognize it's probably a bigger risk as all of us are living longer."
One thing people don't recognize very well, however, is who pays for long-term care. In the poll, a majority of those both retired and not-yet-retired thought Medicare, private savings and private insurance would be the primary payers if they needed a nursing home stays longer than 100 days. In fact, the primary payer for nursing home care across the nation is the joint federal-state Medicaid program. Yet that was identified as the most likely payer for their own long-term nursing care by only 7 percent of retirees and 10 percent of not-yet-retired boomers.
That's a potentially dangerous problem, says Robert Blendon of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked on the poll, particularly as elected officials grapple with budget shortfalls at both the federal and state levels, and Medicaid is a key target.
"There's clearly going to be a very difficult moment," he says. "Because there's this very strong disconnect between what would containing the Medicaid budget for long term care mean to the reality of how many people are in long-term nursing home care (and) couldn't afford to be there without Medicaid paying those bills." | <urn:uuid:6a38cfbb-c4b0-42f4-bdd0-b2dbe59e78b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wemu.org/post/boomers-delusion-about-health-retirement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976885 | 1,378 | 1.796875 | 2 |
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I’d never heard of the American writer John Williams until I stumbled across copies of the recent NYRB Classics reissues of his novels Butcher’s Crossing and Stoner on a display table in a Minneapolis bookstore. Although Williams won the National Book Award for Augustus, a novel of ancient Rome, in 1973, he has since faded into obscurity, and his other books have long been out of print. This is a real shame; Butcher’s Crossing and Stoner are both tremendous novels, and on their strength alone I’d confidently place Williams in the company of America’s best novelists.
Butcher’s Crossing (1960) is an engrossing and breathtakingly beautiful western about buffalo skinners in the dying days of the old American West. Sentence to sentence, the book’s primary concern is detailing the day-to-day activities of the buffalo hunting expedition, and then later, the efforts of the expedition’s members to survive a winter while trapped in an isolated valley in the Rockies. But Butcher’s Crossing also contains a compelling coming-of-age narrative, tracing young Will Andrews’ transformation from a naive Easterner with romantic ideas about the Wild West into a man with a much deeper understanding of the world and his place in it.
As Butcher’s Crossing opens, Will considers himself an Emersonian transcendentalist, and expects that the vast wildness of the West will possess the power to move him to some kind of altered and higher state of consciousness. But after experiencing the harsh, dangerous, violent, and utterly indifferent beauty of nature in the unsettled reaches of Colorado, Andrews comes to understand that nature is in not something to be transcended, and that humans have only a very small place in it. The natural world is in fact indifferent to humans—far less malice can be found in its various life-threatening assaults on the members of Andrews’ expedition than in the indiscriminate and excessive slaughter that Andrews and his companions bring down upon the defenseless buffalo of the valley. The natural world resists all personification, philosophizing, and understanding: it is irreducibly itself, entirely apart from whatever sense humans might attempt to make of it.
Butcher’s Crossing also contains a critique of the myths of the American West. In the novel, the idea that even the roughest and hardiest of American adventurers might be capable of in any way taming or conquering the wildness of the West is treated as a vain fiction. Williams holds up the whole of human ambition against the vastness of the natural world, and finds it insignificant in scale by comparison. When the expedition returns from the mountains, they find Butcher’s Crossing well on its way to becoming a ghost town: the bottom has fallen out of the market for buffalo skins, and so the place has lost both its purpose and its primary source of prosperity. Meanwhile, the natural world waits with complete indifference to wipe the remnants of Butcher’s Crossing from the surface of the earth.
On its surface, Stoner (1965), the second John Williams book reissued by NYRB Classics, could hardly be more different from Butcher’s Crossing: it’s an academic novel about a Midwestern English professor of no particular distinction. After growing up poor and ignorant on a Missouri dirt farm, William Stoner begins a course of study in agriculture at the University of Missouri. His parents expect him to return to the farm upon graduation, in the hope that the new and unfamiliar science that he will learn there might help the family claw its way above the barest subsistence living. But then Stoner falls in love with literature and the life of the mind, and decides to stay in Missouri to pursue a graduate degree, and then later to make a career as an English professor. For several decades, Stoner endures a disastrous, loveless marriage and the slings and arrows of petty departmental politics, all the while finding some solace in his teaching and (most of all) in his private reading. He has one brief and passionate affair, and also makes a an emotional connection with his loving but distant daughter, but he primarily lives within his own mind. Eventually he succumbs to cancer, having never left Missouri or risen above the rank of assistant professor.
Upon his deathbead, Stoner reflects:
He had dreamed of a kind of integrity, a kind of purity that was entire; he had found compromise and the assaulting diversion of triviality. He had conceived wisdom, and at the end of the long years he had found ignorance. And what else? he thought. What else?
What did you expect? he asked himself.
For Williams, Stoner may be a mediocrity, but he is no failure: he has been a learner, a teacher, and (at least briefly) a lover, and no human can truly expect much more out of life. The book’s tragic weight comes from a sense that the heart longs for more than it can ever truly have, while meanwhile the “assaulting” trivialities of day-to-day existence diminish even what what little love and satisfaction people do manage to find in their lives. The life of the mind can bring great pleasure, but never the transcendent wisdom to which every reader and learner aspires; and love brings joy and meaning above all else, but it is also fragile and vulnerable.
Stoner shows its age a bit more than Butcher’s Crossing; its female characters, in particular, are thinly drawn and unconvincing, and also reflect the dominant ideas about gender roles of its time. Stoner’s wife, Edith, is a one-dimensional hysteric, and though Williams seems to recognize that her condition is rooted in her housebound and circumscribed life, he does little to acknowledge Stoner’s role in keeping her confined and unhappy. He does, however, regard Edith’s fate as having its own tragic dimension, and laments the social and cultural “trivialities” that prevented the two of them from finding a way to connect with one another. But this insight remains a long way from a feminist understanding of all that Edith has suffered on Stoner’s account.
This criticism aside, Stoner remains an uncommonly moving, thoughtful, and memorable book—one that deserves a much broader audience. But, given the themes of Stoner and Butcher’s Crossing, I doubt that Williams would himself lament his own obscurity. Though Stoner dies while clutching a copy of his only published book, it isn’t a gesture of ego or vanity, but instead of wonder and awe:
It hardly mattered to him that the book was forgotten and that it served no use; and the question of its worth at any time seemed almost trivial. He did not have the illusion that he would find himself there, in that fading print; and yet, he knew, a small part of him that he could not deny was there, and would be there. | <urn:uuid:d8858f69-85c8-4e2b-a0eb-a5fcfe49aa5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goodreadings.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967325 | 1,450 | 1.835938 | 2 |
SEATTLE -- Dozens of same-sex Washington state couples have obtained their marriage licenses -- just hours after the law legalizing gay marriage took effect.
Washington state joins several other states that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed after voters approved Referendum 74 last month.
The measure asked voters to either approve or reject the state law legalizing same-sex marriage that legislators passed earlier this year. Nearly 54 percent approved.
King County opened the doors to its auditor's office just after midnight Thursday to start distributing marriage licenses. Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the law hours earlier on Wednesday.
Hundreds of people waited on a chilly night for hours, but the mood was festive. Some people sang "Going to the Chapel."
By MANUEL VALDES, Associated Press
The Associated Press | <urn:uuid:25abf3d6-cfa5-4b7c-937f-bed4039db6c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wkyc.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=272480 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937467 | 159 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Facing growing uncertainty about the fate of a key federal tax credit, Vestas Wind Systems on Monday cut about 30 workers at its Brighton plant.
The Brighton cuts follow the 90 layoffs at the company's tower plant in Pueblo announced last week.
Vestas has four plants — representing about $1 billion in investment — and employed 1,700 people.
In January, Ditlev Engle, Vestas' chief executive officer, said that if the U.S. Congress didn't renew the wind production tax credit, it would prompt 1,600 job cuts in U.S. operations.The incentive, which gives a wind farm a 2.2 cent tax credit for every kilowatt-hour it produces, is set to expire at the end of the year, and failure to renew it is depressing the market, industry executives say.
"In response to this market slowdown, and in accordance with its business needs, Vestas Nacelles America in Brighton, Colo., on Aug. 20 adjusted its manufacturing workforce," the company said in a statement.
A nacelle is the covering that houses the generating components of a wind turbine. The Brighton plant had 230 workers before the layoffs.
The workforce reduction in the nacelle factory represents approximately 1 percent of Vesta's total workforce in the U.S. and Canada of 3,000, the company said.
Vestas announced on Aug. 13 that about 20 percent of the 450 jobs at its Pueblo plant, which makes towers, would be cut.
Vestas' two other plants — one in Windsor and one in Brighton — make blades for the wind turbines.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912, [email protected] or twitter.com/bymarkjaffe. | <urn:uuid:9e3a73d1-4197-4ef8-a991-899d1e4b8619> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reporterherald.com/business/northern-business/ci_21364933/vestas-launches-second-round-job-cuts-30-layoffs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944598 | 371 | 1.703125 | 2 |
||This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2011)|
Street sign near Broadway.
|Former name(s)||Blackstaff Lane
|Maintained by||Belfast City Council|
|Postal code||BT12 5|
|Location||Shaftesbury and Beechmount, Belfast|
|West end||Falls Road|
North → Westlink
Southeast → Boucher Road
South → M1 motorway
Northwest → Broadway
|East end||Shaftesbury Square|
The Donegall Road (Irish: Bóthar Dhún na nGall) is a residential area and road traffic thoroughfare that runs from Shaftesbury Square on the "Golden Mile" to the Falls Road in west Belfast. It is bisected by the Westlink – M1 motorway. The largest section of the road, east of the Broadway junction with the Westlink, is predominantly unionist. The remainder is predominantly nationalist.
The eastern side the road and the streets leading from it, are predominantly Protestant and include the well-known Sandy Row and The Village areas. The Village, an area centred on the loyalist section of Broadway and vaguely conforming to the upper half of the Protestant section of the road, was said to have been given the name by African-American GIs stationed at a base on Maldon Street during the Second World War, who described their occasional trips to the shops in the area as "going to the village". Previously the area was locally known by a number of names including Broadway, Donegall Road, Blackstaff, Linfield and Windsor but the Village name caught on and is still in common usage. The Greater Village Regeneration Trust extends the definition further to cover the entire Protestant part of the road as well as Sandy Row.
Most of the housing is of the 'two up, two down' (many of them converted) red-bricked terraced variety. The area is mostly working class, but has become a cachement area for student rental accommodation due to its close proximity to Queen's University. Across Broadway in West Belfast the demographics change as the road forms the southern border of the almost exclusively Roman Catholic St. James area. Located where this section of the road meets the Broadway intersection is the Park Centre, a shopping centre built on the former site of Celtic Park, the home of the now defunct Belfast Celtic. The roundabout at this intersection is also home to Rise, a huge spherical metal sculpture completed in 2011.
The road provides access to the Belfast City Hospital and the City Hospital railway station. Travelling outwards from the city centre also takes one to the Broadway entrance of the Royal Victoria Hospital. The road gets particularly congested at peak times. It is bordered by the Lisburn Road, the "Golden Mile" and Sandy Row.
A number of churches are to be found both on the road itself and the adjacent streets. Broadway Gospel Hall, St Simon's Church of Ireland, Donegall Road Methodist Church, Donegall Road Gospel Hall, Richview Presbyterian, St Aidan's Church Hall, Church of the Nazarene on Roseland Place and the William Tyndale Memorial Free Presbyterian Church on Donegall Avenue.
The road is named after the Marquess of Donegall, a prominent family in the Peerage of Ireland which have given their name to a number of locations in Belfast. It was originally known as Blackstaff Lane and subsequently Blackstaff Road before being given its current name. The Blackstaff name refers to the Blackstaff River, a waterway that flows in the area and forms one of a number of minor river networks around Belfast.
During the Troubles the Donegall Road was the scene of a number of attacks by paramilitaries from both sides. Eastwood's Garage was the scene of one of the explosions that took place on Bloody Friday in 1972 as part of a series of Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) bomb attacks on a single day. The site is still occupied by a garage. Earlier that same year Joseph Gold, a British Army soldier, had been killed on the road after stopping a PIRA vehicle at a check point.
On 29 January 1973 Peter Watterson, a 15 year old Catholic civilian, was shot dead as he stood outside a shop at the corner of the Donegall and Falls Roads whilst two days later the body of another Catholic teenager, Gabriel Savage, was found on a grass verge on the Donegall Road. Both killings are recorded as the work of unspecified loyalists.Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack however say that both killings were the work of a UDA team based in the Village area. On 13 May of the same year two more soldiers, Thomas Taylor and John Gaskell, were killed by a PIRA explosive left in an abandoned factory on the nationalist part of the road whilst on 5 July Catholic Robert Clarke was killed at his place of work by the UDA. On 29 September 1974 Gerard McWilliams, a Catholic, was found stabbed to death in another UDA attack. The following year on 28 April the UDA attempted to kill another Catholic working on railway lines close to the Donegall Road but they mistakenly shot and killed his colleague Samuel Grierson, a Protestant.
Following Grierson's murder the killings largely dried up, with Roy Butler, an off-duty member of the Ulster Defence Regiment killed by the PIRA whilst he shopped at Park Centre on 2 August 1988, the only killing recorded in the area during the 1980s. However in late 1991 the road was the scene of four murders in quick succession. On 10 August Catholic civilian James Carson was shot and killed in his shop on the corner of the Donegall and Falls Roads in an attack claimed by the "Loyalist Retaliation and Defence Group", actually a code name used by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). On 10 September John Hanna, a 19 year old member of the UVF, was killed by the PIRA at his home in the Village. The republican group struck again on 13 November when they entered a house on Lecale Street in the Village and killed William Kingsberry and his stepson Samuel Mehaffey. Kingsberry was a member of the Ulster Defence Association and Mehaffey was with the Red Hand Commando (RHC).
On 7 September 1993 Stephen McKeag and two other volunteers in C-Company of the UDA West Belfast Brigade entered a hairdresser's shop on the upper Donegall Road and shot the proprietor Sean Hughes dead. Although brought to trial, McKeag – known as "Top Gun" – was not convicted after eyewitness testimony did not stand up to scrutiny. The following year the RHC killed 31 year old Margaret Wright at a social club on Meridi Street and dumped her body in an empty house in the Village. Wright was taken for a Catholic although in fact she was Protestant. The most recent sectarian murder to occur on the road took place on 21 January 1998 when the UDA shot and killed Catholic Benedict Hughes outside his place of work on Utility Street near Sandy Row.
In terms of paramilitary organisation the Donegall Road has also seen much activity. In late 1970 John McKeague, who had earlier founded the Shankill Defence Association, attempted to establish a similar "defence association" in the area amongst loyalist residents but the plan floundered when leaders of the local branch of the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee warned their members and supporters not to associate with McKeague, whilst also spreading the rumour that he was a "fruit". The UDA would soon take route on the Donegall Road however, forming part of the movement's South Belfast Brigade. Variously commanded by John McMichael, Jackie McDonald and Alex Kerr, the South Belfast Brigade covered the largest area of any UDA brigade, including not only south Belfast but all of Lisburn and everywhere in between and, despite its name, active units as far away as South County Down, Cookstown, Lurgan and even County Tyrone and County Fermanagh. The Village area of the Donegall Road was a centre of activity for the UDA and the unit it shared with the neighbouring Sandy Row was one of the brigade's two most active units along with that in Lisburn. Alex Kerr would later switch from the UDA to the Loyalist Volunteer Force and his move briefly gained some support in the Village, where graffiti attacking the UDA-linked Ulster Democratic Party appeared. This however proved short-lived and before long Kerr was forced to flee Belfast for the LVF's Mid-Ulster base of operations.
The UVF have generally played second fiddle to the UDA on the Donegall Road with only Donegall Pass, a thoroughfare connecting the base of the Donegall Road to the Ormeau Road, recognised as a true stronghold. A UVF memorial garden stood on Nubia Street in the area, although in 2008 it was replaced by a children's playground. A series of racially motivated attacks carried out on the homes of immigrants in the area in January 2004 were blamed on local members of the UVF, with even the local spokesman for the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) conceding that UVF members had been behind the attacks. He did however add that the UVF leadership had not sanctioned the attacks. Four members who were said to be behind the attacks were subsequently "arrested" by the UVF leadership, who issued claims that two of those held responsible had links to the far right British National Party. The leader of the Donegall Road UVF was subsequently stood down by supreme command.
Relations between the UVF and the UDA in the area have not always been cordial and as late as 2004 a UVF band parade in the Village was cancelled following mediation by the PUP over fears that the march could lead to clashes between UDA and UVF supporters.
Republican activity in the St James's area of the Donegall Road is commemorated by a garden of remembrance as pictured. 21 year old Peter Wilson, one of sixteen people believed or confirmed to have been abducted, killed and buried in unmarked graves by republicans and known collectively as "the Disappeared", was a native of the St James's area. Wilson disappeared in July 1973 with his body not recovered until 2 November 2010.
Sport and culture
Windsor Park, the home of both Linfield F.C. and the Northern Ireland national football team is accessible from Donegall Avenue, a street that leads off the Donegall Road. As a consequence both the club and national team are well supported within the road's community and are celebrated by murals in the Village area. The Donegall Road also features in a popular chant that Linfield supporters often sing. A supporters club for Scottish Premier League club Rangers F.C. is located at Barrington Street adjacent to the Donegall Road. As stated, Belfast Celtic previously made their home on the Donegall Road. However the club left the Irish Football League in 1949 after a series of sectarian incidents at matches, notably at Windsor Park. Their stadium remained as a venue for greyhound racing until it was demolished in the 1980s.
Snooker player Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins also grew up on the road, having been born on Abingdon Drive. He was a regular visitor to the local snooker hall, the Jampot Club, before he went on to win the World Snooker Championship for the first time in 1972. Higgins is commemorated by a piece of public art on the road.
Popular singer Ruby Murray was born on Donegall Road. Like Higgins, Murray's ties to the area have been commemorated artistically, in this case by a photographic montage on the side of the Road's Credit Union.
The Donegall Road Carnegie library opened on 5 March 1909, one of three Carnegie libraries in Belfast. Sold by the council in the early 1990s, it was restored and converted into offices in 1999.
For representation on Belfast City Council the Donegall Road is split between the Balmoral District Electoral Area, currently represented by Claire Hanna and Bernie Kelly of Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Tom Ekin of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), Ruth Patterson of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Máirtín Ó Muilleoir of Sinn Féin and Bob Stoker of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and the Laganbank District Electoral Area, an area currently represented by Kate Mullen and Pat McCarthy of the SDLP, Catherine Curran of the APNI, Deirdre Hargey of Sinn Féin and Christopher Stalford of the DUP. It is part of the Belfast South constituency for the House of Commons, with Alasdair McDonnell of the SDLP serving as MP, as well as the Belfast South constituency of the Northern Ireland Assembly which is represented by Conall McDevitt and Alasdair McDonnell of the SDLP, Anna Lo of the APNI, Michael McGimpsey of the Ulster Unionist Party, Alex Maskey of Sinn Féin and Jimmy Spratt of the DUP.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Donegall Road|
- Billy Dickson, "American GIs Helped Make Broadway Famous", South Belfast Community Telegraph, 26 January 2012
- Greater Village Regeneration Trust
- Park Centre
- RISE sculpture - Broadway Roundabout
- Richview Presbyterian Church
- Church of the Nazarene Lisburn
- Myths, Legends And Facts On Olde Belfast
- Urban regeneration: Village in a city
- CAIN Note: the site mistakenly refers to the attack as taking place in Donegall Street, an unrelated area of Belfast City Centre
- Sutton Index of Deaths 1972
- Sutton Index of Deaths 1973
- McDonald & Cusack 2004, pp. 53–55
- Sutton Index of Deaths 1974
- Sutton Index of Deaths 1975
- Sutton Index of Deaths 1988
- Sutton Index of Deaths 1991
- McDonald & Cusack 2004, p. 2
- Sutton Index of Deaths 1994
- Sutton Index of Deaths 1998
- McDonald & Cusack 2004, p. 15
- McDonald & Cusack 2004, pp. 186–187
- McDonald & Cusack 2004, p. 187
- McDonald & Cusack 2004, pp. 278
- Parade Scrapped
- UVF garden now a kids' playground
- Loyalists behind racist attacks
- UVF move in to take on racist members
- UVF leader stood down, say reports
- Violence - Details of 'the Disappeared'
- "Walking Down The Donegal Road Football Song". Retrieved 4 September 2012.
- "Blue Nose Bars". Retrieved 4 September 2012.
- Flynn, Barry (2009). Political Football: The Life and Death of Belfast Celtic. Nonsuch Publishing. ISBN 978-1845889463.
- "Alex Higgins' funeral taking place in Belfast". BBC News Online. 2 August 2010. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
- Baxter, Trevor (26 July 2010). "Obituary: Alex Higgins – Two-times world snooker champion whose style of play and wild ways electrified the sport". www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
- Walker, Michael (30 July 2010). "Belfast says goodbye to Alex Higgins, a troubled and ungovernable man who came to define this volatile city...". dailymail.co.uk. Associated Newspapers Ltd. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
- "Greater Village Regeneration Trust: About Us". Archived from the original on 10 October 2009. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
- "Catalogue of the Photographic Exhibition of Irish Carnegie Libraries" (PDF). An Chomhairle Leabharlanna (Library Council of Ireland). Retrieved 4 September 2012.
- Directory of Traditional Building Skills (PDF) (4th ed.). Ulster Architectural Heritage Society and Environment and Heritage Service. 2004. p. 4. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
- District electoral area - Balmoral
- District electoral area - Laganbank
- McDonald, Henry; Cusack, Jim (2004). UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror. Penguin Ireland. ISBN 978-1844880201.
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Mike Tyson's professional and personal odyssey is equal… (JERRY LODRIGUSS, Knight…)
The International Boxing Hall of Fame is too small for Mike Tyson. His legend is boundless and iconic. It is a crazy love, full of passion and ear bites and facial tattoos and marked opponents left staggering on the canvas.
He is not even one of the Top 10 heavyweights of all-time, but that misses the point completely.
Tyson is a brand onto himself. Iron Mike. Kid Dynamite. The Baddest Man on the Planet.
And perhaps the Craziest and Most Conflicted, too.
He is the most dynamic athlete I've ever been around, and that includes Muhammad Ali, whose personality has been stolen by Parkinson's Disease.
Tyson remains fresh and vibrant, and largely enigmatic as he took his place among boxing's all-time greats in Canastota, N.Y. on Sunday.
His professional and personal odyssey is equal parts tragedy and triumph. A improvised punk growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, N.Y. The youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history. A goliath tumbled by Buster Douglas in Tokyo. A convict who spent three years in jail on a rape conviction. A star who earned $300 million during his career. A deadbeat who filed for bankruptcy.
We loved watching every minute of it, even if you felt compelled to take a shower to purge yourself from the visceral sins. He was the train wreck for much of his career, a carnival freak show character who cemented his legacy by etching a tattoo on his face.
It is impossible to box him into a one-size-fits-all stereotype. He was equal parts manipulative and misunderstood, naïve and street-smart, warrior and coward.
The short version of Tyson's bombastic career is that he was the typical bully who gained strength through reputation alone. By the time he fought Michael Spinks in Atlantic City in 1988, even the guys in one of the roughest professions on the planet wanted nothing to do with him. Spinks checked out in 91 seconds.
And then Evander Holyfield stood up to the bully, and it was Tyson who wanted to check out. After Holyfield beat him in their first fight by TKO in the 11th in 1996, Tyson took the cowardly exit by biting Holyfield's ear in the third round of their rematch, and the reputation as the baddest man on the planet was burned to ashes.
Tyson finished his career with a pedestrian 5-5 record, including the Holyfield beatdowns, before finally retiring after a TKO loss to Kevin McBride in 2005.
"This guy could have gone down as the greatest ever," his former trainer, Kevin Rooney, told me in 2002, "but he might end up shining shoes somewhere."
Not quite. Mike and his shiny shoes recently went to Argentina, to compete in its version of "Dancing with the Stars" because it pays more than the USA version. And he remains a quirky presence with the party boys of "Hangover Part II."
Tyson doesn't do irrelevant. Nobody brought more "juice" to ringside than Tyson in his prime, and even in the years when his skills eroded, he was still the Big Ticket in Vegas and other venues.
Despite the 50-6 record and the self-destructive tendencies, Tyson deserves to be honored among boxing's all-time legends. Much like Tiger Woods, Tyson became the name and the brand for the sport itself. Nobody else mattered.
But while Tiger was Ambien as a personality, Tyson was an amphetamine rush.
I saw one of his flunkies ("Crocodile") get arrested during a press conference over an outstanding warrant. I ate Popeye's fried chicken with him in the breakfast nook of Don King's house in Vegas. I was ringside for the Spinks' early check out and for bite-nite. He once looked at me and some other writers in a hotel suite in Maui when he said, "I'm here with all my [bleeping] antagonists."
Tyson defined the art of war since winning his first pro fight in 1985 by a first-round TKO.
He was the king of this blood-sport, who built an empire only to destroy it with his inability to rein in the destructive elements of his personality.
To this day, he remains one of the most enigmatic men on the planet:
The man who was once a man-eater is now a vegan.
[email protected] Read George Diaz's blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/enfuego | <urn:uuid:2aae2acc-a3aa-4649-8a5d-7222f6b41182> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-06-12/sports/os-diaz-mike-tyson-0613-20110611_1_baddest-man-champion-in-boxing-history-mike-tyson | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97767 | 967 | 1.601563 | 2 |
George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney and Australia's leading Roman Catholic official, has said the Church will cooperate with the government's plan to investigate child sex abuse cases, but maintains that the problem is not exclusive to the church nor as widespread as the media makes it seem.
"Sexual abuse is not confined to the Catholic Church. Tragically, it occurs in families, churches, community groups, schools and other organizations," a joint statement by Australia's leading archbishops said.
"While there were significant problems concerning some dioceses and some religious orders, talk of a systemic problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is ill-founded and inconsistent with the facts," the statement added. more >>
Australia has overwhelmingly chosen to preserve the traditional definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman by voting against a bill that sought to amend the definition to include same-sex couples.
The House of Representatives voted 98-42 against the legislation on Wednesday, although a separate bill on gay marriage was also to be debated in the Senate, The Associated Press reported.
"As Christian leaders representing different denominations or churches, we join together and affirm our shared commitment to promote and protect marriage," a statement by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, along with other notable Christian leaders of Australia, said ahead of the vote. more >>
The leader of the Presbyterian Church of Australia has said that Christians are not being discriminatory by wanting to preserve the traditional definition of marriage as the country gets ready to suggest legalizing same-sex marriage.
"We continually are told that the legalization of same-sex marriage would end perceived discrimination against same-sex couples who are currently not able to marry under federal government law," said the Rev. David Jones, as reported by the Herald Sun.
"But at least from the church perspective, opposition to such legalization has nothing to do with discrimination," he continued. "Plain and simply, Christians oppose same-sex marriage because the Bible, the word of the God who created male and female and also created marriage, clearly and distinctly says that marriage is between one man and one woman – which means not between two men or two women." more >>
An Australian Baptist pastor has come under criticism for posting what are being called homophobic messages on his church windows – although he has said he is solely expressing his opinion on what the Bible says of human sexuality.
The Hamilton Baptist church in Australia, where the Rev. Trevor Walmsley preaches, displayed electronic messages on the side of the sanctuary reading "You are here because God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," and another reading "None of us owe our existence to same-sex sexual relationships".
A number of local residents who read the messages were "outraged," News.com.au reported, but Walmsley was quick to explain that the signs represent his views, and not necessarily those of the church. more >>
Evangelist Louie Giglio, speaking during the last day of the Hillsong Conference in Sydney Friday, shared about how he was lifted by God's grace from a more than two-month struggle with the physical and emotional symptoms of stress and depression.
"Almost four years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and I felt like I was dying. I literally thought, 'this is it, my heart is going to blow open and I am going to die right here, right now,'" Giglio said before thousands of people at Allphones Arena and an online audience. "I could not breathe."
For a long time, doctors were unable to properly diagnose the problem, the founder of the highly successful, youth-orientated Passion Conferences said. more >>
Elevation Church Pastor Steven Furtick preached at a Hillsong Conference in Sydney for the first time on Tuesday, telling thousands of people in attendance and an online audience that God doesn't need anyone to "feel ready" to answer their calling.
"Abraham wasn't ready. Moses wasn't ready … The disciples were never ready and they never got it. Even when they got it they still didn't get it … each time they were ready they started to doubt because their faith was in their readiness," said Furtick, referring to people and stories in the Bible that included reluctant participants in God's plans.
"I certainly wasn't ready when I was 16 years old and God saved me." more >> | <urn:uuid:77e2161f-1bba-4fba-924a-cee6c4b1c39d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christianpost.com/region/australia/page2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9829 | 890 | 1.71875 | 2 |
A new Berlin Wall?
Is Sharon's security fence a new Berlin Wall, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
The Bush plan for a Greater Middle East has evoked mixed reactions in the Egyptian press. Some commentators view it as a diktat from a foreign power intent on imposing change, modernisation and reform in a wide area it sees as the main breeding ground for terrorism in the world and a source for the production and spread of weapons of mass destruction. Others believe the plan should not be rejected out of hand, arguing that it could even provide a lifeline out of the morass of problems into which the region is sinking.
The plan divides the world into two categories of states. One category, made up of Western democracies under the leadership of the United States, is responsible for and capable of reforming the world system and of standing up to the forces of evil, terrorism and widespread devastation. The other category is made up of states incapable of standing up to the forces of evil and at risk, even, of becoming tools in their hands.
In other words, some political entities are qualified to make history while others can only remain passive onlookers watching helplessly as it unfolds. That is the underlying logic behind the push for global reform led by those capable of undertaking such a monumental task, who are in turn led by the most powerful state on earth, the sole remaining superpower in the unipolar world order. It is in this spirit that Washington is offering the European Union a partnership in the war on terror that would form the nucleus of a global force capable of containing the forces of evil, attacking their strongholds and overcoming the procrastination of countries held hostage by the powerful influence exerted by these forces on their societies. That is what the Greater Middle East is all about. It is an attempt to recruit and mobilise political forces which see the abandonment of part of their sovereignty in the age of globalisation as a lesser evil than the harm they could suffer by standing up to the pressure of great powers. The concept of the Greater Middle East has been received with strong reservations by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and a number of other Arab countries, who see it as a project imposed from abroad, despite American assurances to the contrary.
The Greater Middle East is being sold as nothing more than a new geographical classification, an entity defined first and foremost by reference to considerations of geography, not politics. However, the very name makes it clear that it designates a region stretching beyond the traditional borders of the Middle East to include Pakistan in the east and Morocco in the west, and hence, that geography is not the determining factor in the new classification. By lumping together several distinct regions and dealing with them as one entity, it clearly expects that entity to perform a functional role. Actually, this is very much in keeping with the phenomenon of globalisation, which deals with large entities made up of diverse smaller entities, such as the European Union. The EU today has an interest in building bridges with the countries lying across the Mediterranean, and one of the notable steps in that direction is what has come to be known as the Barcelona process. Europe is motivated partly by its proximity to the turbulent area lying along its southern flank, while America, for its part, is separated by vast oceans. But when, as on 9/11, civilian aircraft can be used as giant bombs to bring down the Twin Towers, damage the Pentagon and very nearly hit the White House itself, it is clear that geography is no longer an obstacle in the face of a determined terrorist.
A question worth asking is why the idea of the Greater Middle East has come up at this particular juncture. Why has the Middle East suddenly emerged as a functional rather than a geographical entity? Is it because the Coalition's plans for the region have run into difficulties? The US and Britain invaded Iraq on the strength of "conclusive evidence" that Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, evidence that has since proved false. Does the decision to expand the Middle East mean that the war on Iraq was just one battle in a wider war that targeted first Afghanistan then Iraq and will continue to target others until all its objectives have been attained? Or is this argument being used to counter accusations that the war on Iraq failed to achieve its objectives, because Bush cannot conduct his election campaign from a position of failure?
The argument used by those in favour of the plan is that it is motivated by real interests -- Bush's interest in winning the elections and in downplaying the fact that the war did not confirm his prediction that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction -- and that, accordingly, the US administration's talk about civil society, human rights, democracy, etc should be taken seriously. But opponents of the plan remain sceptical of Bush's real intentions for the region. One of their main arguments is his retreat on the Palestinian issue. How can we assume his good faith, they ask, when there is hardly any mention of the Palestinian state and practically no criticism of Israel's security fence? In their view, the Greater Middle East serves only to dilute the Palestinian issue by drowning it in a wide spectrum of complex issues.
As to Sharon, his insistence on pushing ahead with construction of the security fence all around and even within the West Bank in defiance of widespread opposition attests to his determination to completely liquidate the Palestinian state. It is a policy of separation and isolation of the Other that is more in keeping with a bygone age than with the age of globalisation and the removal of barriers between peoples. Sharon's security fence is in fact an updated version of the Berlin Wall.
Sharon does not want to sink into the Gaza quagmire, one of the most densely populated spots on earth. He wants to pull out of Gaza as soon as possible, even unilaterally. From his viewpoint, pulling out is a plus, not a minus. Still, he would like to take advantage of the pullout and increase whatever benefit he could draw out of it, such as using the fence to divide the West Bank into a number of separate cantons, or retain substantial chunks of Palestinian territory in the West Bank beyond the June 1967 borders. The wall has a functional role, reminiscent of the Berlin Wall.
Where does Bush stand with respect to Sharon's plans? Bush is expected to concentrate his presidential campaign on foreign policy, because he believes his chances of re-election are closely linked to his image as a strong leader in the wake of 9/11. This strategy might work, but it needs a constructive outlook and a credible presentation. Here lies the importance of the Greater Middle East project. To make it acceptable to a wide audience of Arab elites, Bush used facts and figures from the UNDP development reports for 2002 and 2003. Written by Egyptian experts, the reports criticise various aspects of Arab policies and attribute most of the shortcomings in the Arab world to the lack of democracy. Bush's use of the reports to promote his plan makes it seem as though he stands on the same wave-length as Arab intellectuals in criticising Arab regimes. While this might apply to a number of Arab intellectuals fascinated by the American plan, it is certainly not the viewpoint of the bulk of the Arab intelligentsia. They might be critical of many issues concerning their own regimes, but are even more critical of the American stand.
In conclusion, a question worth asking is: why does the United States' determination to change the region so radically not extend to requiring changes in Israel's confrontational stance and its insistence on continuing its occupation of Arab territory? True, a solution of the Palestinian problem will not immediately solve the many problems besetting the region, but Washington should realise that its project has no chance of success as long as the Palestinian problem is not satisfactorily resolved.
The criterion by which the Greater Middle East project should be judged is, in the final analysis, its ability to resolve the central problem of the region: the Palestinian issue. The only way this can be done is through the establishment of a Palestinian state that could become an element of rapprochement and peace rather than of separation and war. Palestine is the very essence of the conflict in the region. Issues of security should be addressed with a view to satisfying the security requirements of all the concerned parties, not of some at the expense of others. In a word, we need to narrow our focus on the smaller core element in the Middle East, not expand it to include far-flung regions as the Greater Middle East project would have us to do. | <urn:uuid:794cecc9-9606-44a7-816e-9040e06052f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/681/op5.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966831 | 1,721 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Reporter Claire Cardona of The Dallas Morning News has covered the research of SMU religious studies expert Mark A. Chancey. A new report by Chancey, “Reading, Writing & Religion II,” found that most of the 60 public school districts in Texas that offer Bible study courses aren’t meeting a 2007 state law mandating that the courses be fair as well as academically and legally sound.
Chancey prepared the report for the Austin-based education watchdog group Texas Freedom Network. His study uncovered bias, factual errors and insufficient curriculum standards in Texas public school Bible courses. An SMU Religious Studies professor, Chancey recommends the Texas State Board of Education develop Bible course curriculum standards and the Texas Education Agency be allowed funds for a teacher training program.
“As a biblical scholar and especially as a parent, I want our state’s public schools to take the study of the Bible’s influence as seriously as they do the study of science or history,” Chancey told The Dallas Morning News. “Academically, many of these classes lack rigor and substance, and some seem less interested in cultivating religious literacy than in promoting religious beliefs. Their approach puts their school districts in legal jeopardy and their taxpayers in financial jeopardy.”
Chancey, a professor in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, has devoted considerable attention to the constitutional, political and academic issues raised by religion courses in public schools.
Dallas Morning News
Update at 4:55 p.m.: Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said the agency did not receive funding to implement professional development when the bill first passed, but the course has been developed and is undergoing review now.
Original item at 1:50 p.m.: AUSTIN — A report from the Texas Freedom Network claims the failure to implement a 2007 law that included guidelines to improve the quality of Bible study courses has resulted in factual errors and “blatant religious bias” in the courses.
The Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit religious liberties and education watchdog based in Austin, contracted Southern Methodist University professor Mark Chancey to write the report, entitled “Reading, Writing & Religion II.” The report details findings gathered from Texas school district responses to public information requests.
The 2007 law established guidelines for public schools courses about the influence of the Bible in history and literature, however, school districts — 57 of which taught Bible courses in 2011-12 up from 25 in 2005-06 — are not required to offer Bible courses and many do not train the teachers who do, according to the report.
“If everybody is allowed to ignore those guidelines, they have no teeth,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. “And if the state isn’t going to enforce its own guidelines and fund even basic teacher training, maybe we should leave instruction abut the Bible to religious congregations who will treat it with the respect it deserves.”
Three Dallas school districts — Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, Lovejoy ISD and Plano ISD — offered the most successful courses according to the report. Duncanville ISD and Prosper ISD made it to the list of the most problematic courses.
The report finds that without the legislative guidelines, courses have weak foundations, sectarian bias favoring conservative Protestantism, and problematic treatment of Judaism.
The report commends Plano ISD for doing an exercise on poems and paintings that refer to the story of Adam and Eve and demonstrate how biblical imagery influenced western literature and art, and Lovejoy ISD that asks students to analyze differences in creation stories with those from religions other than Judaism and Christianity.
The report states that these assignments require analytical skills, whereas in the Brownsville area’s Port Isabel ISD students spend two days watching the documentary Ancient Aliens that presents “a new interpretation of angelic beings described as extraterrestrials.”
Duncanville ISD’s social studies “Bible Survey” course features the 2003 video The Messiah: Prophecy Fulfilled, which, according to the report tells viewers to “GET READY FOR A POWERFUL AND CHALLENGING EXPERIENCE THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!”
Another finding Chancey reports is of “pseudo-scholarship” which “reflects ideological biases such as the belief in an America founded as a Christian nation based on biblical Christian principles.”
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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650. | <urn:uuid:b08492c6-0a34-4352-b311-90dcf12e5c6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.smu.edu/research/2013/01/18/dallas-morning-news-report-shows-bible-courses-in-texas-public-schools-are-biased-lack-strong-curriculum-standards/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932312 | 1,057 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Home Health Care
- What is Home Health Care?
- How Do I Make Sure that Home Health Care is Quality Care?
- Case Study
- A Word of Caution…
- How Can I Pay for Home Health Care?
- Where Can I Learn More About Home Health Care?
Home health care helps seniors live independently for as long as possible, given the limits of their medical condition. It covers a wide range of services and can often delay the need for long-term nursing home care.
More specifically, home health care may include occupational and physical therapy, speech therapy, and even skilled nursing. It may involve helping the elderly with activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, and eating. Or it may include assistance with cooking, cleaning, other housekeeping jobs, and monitoring one’s daily regimen of prescription and over-the-counter medications.
At this point, it is important to understand the difference Continue Reading » | <urn:uuid:40f8fe11-f722-44be-a226-3130d5337259> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://valleyhomehealth.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961014 | 194 | 1.523438 | 2 |
In an on-going campaign to reveal the deception used by the Humane Society of the United States in its fund-raising tactics, watchdog group HumaneWatch.org claims what HSUS says in its fundraising appeals is far different from what its leaders and the organization think. The latest publication from HumaneWatch is currently available at the watchdog group’s website.
Despite the words “humane society” in its name, the HSUS isn’t affiliated with any community-based humane societies or other pet shelters, according to HumaneWatch. “HSUS doesn’t run a single pet shelter, nor does it serve as a national headquarters for humane societies that serve cities, towns, counties or states.”
The HSUS has been charged repeatedly by the media and others for the group’s deceptive fund-raising tactics which misrepresent the groups bigger objective. “HSUS is focused on winning rights for animals—not helping the pets depicted in its TV ads. Americans who want their contributions to impact pet shelters should give locally,” the watchdog group recommends.
According to HumaneWatch.org, HSUS spends millions of dollars on lobbying, including costly ballot initiatives that target family farmers. HSUS has recently turned its attention to animal agriculture in Nebraska. In addition, the group has been accused of backing an objective promoting a vegetarian lifestyle.
Is the Humane Society trying to force the country to become a nation of vegetarians? According to Jon Bruning, Nebraska’s Attorney General, the answer is yes. Bruning issued a check for $100,000 last week to ‘We support Agriculture”, a Nebraska-based coalition which intends to raise awareness of HSUS’s anti-animal agriculture agenda.
The HSUS is facing more and more public scrutiny as people gain an understanding of its misleading and deceptive tactics. As Bruning recently put it, “(HSUS is) advertising puppies on TV, but then they come in here … trying to end meat consumption in America.”
HumaneWatch.org has documented how HSUS’s fundraising is misleading. According to HumaneWatch, “the Nebraska Attorney General has the basic HSUS formula down pat: Heart-wrenching images of abused pets are the vast majority of animals in HSUS’s TV appeals, yet HSUS doesn’t run a single pet shelter and donates just one percent of its budget to pet shelters.”
A recent report by HumaneWatch, a project of the Center for Consumer Freedom, determined that HSUS indeed gives less than one percent of its annual budget to local groups—totaling $527,000 over the last three years—despite raising more than $120 million annually. | <urn:uuid:ec21de98-1ba1-468e-a224-dc33a131bd1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dairyherd.com/dairy-resources/hot-topics/HumaneWatch-HSUS-says-one-thing-thinks-another-135522463.html?email=yes&cmntid=79550017 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948184 | 561 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The Philipstown Food Pantry is a mission of the First Presbyterian Church of Philipstown. It started over 30 years ago on the pastors' porch and has grown ever since. It is organized by the Board of Deacons and supervised by the Session. It continues to be a dependable source of grocery supplies each week to those in our community who are in need of assistance. We feel blessed to be able to offer a helping hand to all of our neighbors in need. With rapidly rising food and energy prices, these are difficult times for many families.
There are approximately 50 families registered at the Food Pantry. People hear about the Food Pantry in various ways: through the Department of Social Services, through friends and neighbors, ads and newspaper articles, and also when they notice the Food Pantry Shopping List at Foodtown.
Our doors are open each Saturday from 9 to 10 AM and approximately 25 families come each week to "shop" for food. We have everything set up for them when they come and try to assist them if they need help or are looking for a particular item. Sometimes they may also ask for personal help or advice and we do our best to guide them in finding the assistance they need. Once the families leave, we work together to put away all of the food that is left and refill the carts for the next week.
Whenever we have perishable items donated, we try to hand all of it out that Saturday. Sometimes it is more than we need. We try to freeze what we can and take the rest to St. Christopher's Inn and / or the Walter Hoving Home in Garrison. We want to assure you that nothing that can be used is wasted. Everything that is donated will mainly be used by the Philipstown Food Pantry and may be passed on to other charitable organizations in Philipstown/Putnam County only.
If you would like to make a difference and help the Philipstown Food Pantry, or have a question, just contact us at 845-265-3220 or [email protected].
PresbyBuild (Habitat for Humanity): First Presbyterian Church of Philipstown is teamed with 11 Presbyterian churches in the Hudson Valley committed to a program to build affordable housing for the community of Newburgh, NY. We provide a team of approximately 12 volunteers to work on a Saturday morning to contribute to the construction effort to build these homes. As a part of the PresbyBuild organization, we are currently building our third home. You do not need to be skilled to participate and we can guarantee you that you will share in the camaraderie and when any work day is finished you will feel a definite sense of accomplishment. Come join us.
HABITAT NEWBURGH www.habitatnewburgh.org
The most exciting part of this is our partner house, the Presbybuild house on E Parmenter St. The existing structure on the site was demo'd and the concrete foundation still needs to be removed by an excavator. Once this step has been accomplished, and the new construction manager for Habitat is on board, we will be working regularly on this site.
Anticipated dates are: September 13 and November 22. (Confirmation to follow)
We serve on the first Wednesday of the month. Our church community participates in a free lunch program sponsored by the Peekskill Area Pastors' Association, an interfaith organization, PAPA for short. Lunch is provided for the needy at the Salvation Army Dining room in Peekskill. The Salvation Army also provides administrative and financial support for the project.
The numbers served vary according to the season and the weather, but about 70 to 80 people are served Monday through Friday at the dining hall.
I used the words "church community" instead of just "church" in describing our participation because the effort behind the project extends beyond our congregation. In fact most of our cooks for the project are not members of the congregation and are from a variety of faiths...or no faith. Ingredients for the meals come largely from our food pantry...donations for which come from all sorts of folk in Philipstown. And best of all…well, tastiest of all…one of our congregants has organized a dessert program run by more diverse hands from our community. They pick up scrumptious but day old pastries, cakes and bread from local markets and we send it down to the soup kitchen. Oohs and aahs greet the delivery of the desert specials.
I think the PAPA project is religion at its best. It serves as a magnifying glass, focusing the energies of a diverse community to start a fire...a cook fire in this case.
We serve the first Wednesday and the 4th Friday. Cooking is always the day before at 6:30 PM. Deliveries are made the day of, departing Cold Spring at about 10:30 AM. Delivery help is always appreciated!
If anyone is interested in helping out, feel free to call me at 845-838-3890.
This service is just what it sounds like! We have a group of 14 volunteers who pick up food from local suppliers (Super Stop & Shop and Food Town) and in turn bring the food to various clients in the area who are in need of produce and baked goods. Our two main clients are St. Christopher's Inn and Walter Hoving Home. If you have some extra time to spare, this is a wonderful opportunity to "Make a Difference."
Twice a year we at the First Presbyterian Church of Philipstown gather clothing, food and coffee to provide to the homeless in NYC beginning at 10:30 pm and ending somewhere around 4:00 am. We travel in a group of about 12 including some youth and usually make about seven stops to distribute our items and to talk with the people. This experience is life changing for anyone who attends. Please come and join us as we try to lend a helping hand to our neighbors.
We will be scheduling a midnight run to street people in NYC in the Fall and in the Spring. We need to acquire donations of clothing and, when it gets closer, food for the bag lunches and soup. The clothing sorting and lunch preparation will be during the day, and The Run at night.
A group of 6 from the First Presbyterian Church of Philipstown in Cold Spring went to Nicaragua this summer as part of a mission trip. They spent a week building a home in the village of Ticuantepe. The local congregation has supported the trip with their prayers, with donations of items for the Nicaraguan children and by assisting some of the group members financially.
Some of those going on the trip included the Rev. Leslie Mott, Ron Sopyla, Lynn and Norm Brown, Wendy and Emily Ordway. The group of 14, which also included people from Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church in Pearl River, New Hempstead Presbyterian Church in New City and a church in Woodstock, NY, traveled under the auspices of Bridges to Community.
Bridges to Community, Inc. is a nonprofit community development organization that takes volunteers to developing countries to work, learn and reflect. Through the process of living and working with local communities on construction, health and environmental projects, Bridges promotes cross-cultural learning, a deepening awareness of our global interdependence and a commitment to the common good.
Bridges to Community has been operating in Ticuantepe since 2002. We have constructed one school and over 150 houses for families living in material poverty in four of the eighteen communities in the municipality.
Ticuantepe produces ninety percent of the pineapples for all of Nicaragua, some twenty-seven million pineapples. As a result of pineapple production, over half of Ticuantepe remains rural, yet is located only fourteen kilometres from the capital of Nicaragua, Managua. However, due to seed quality that is considered inferior in the international market, Nicaraguan pineapples remain a domestic product instead of a lucrative export.
Ticuantepe mostly consists of humid sub-tropical forest, and nearby Volcan Masaya has blessed the region with rich volcanic soil but also cursed it with frequent acid rain. Deforestation and low agricultural production levels are two of the problems most seriously effecting the municipality.
Ticuantepe also sits atop the largest aquifer in Central America, which provides water for one quarter of the Nicaraguan population. Even still, Ticuantepenos often live without running water for days at a time due to insufficient infrastructure.
While Ticuantepe serves as a suburb for Managua, its population remains small at twenty-four thousand total inhabitants and is plagued by many of the same problems as rural communities. In fact, over sixty percent of the population in Ticuantepe live in rural and semi-rural communities. A third of children do not attend elementary school and by high school only a half of young people are studying with even less graduating. As a result, nearly a quarter of the population remains illiterate.
The municipality has one hospital with fifteen beds, four doctors, eleven nurses, and irregular ambulance service. Nevertheless, the hospital runs on a socialist model that provides free care to all, including foreigners. To find out more visit the website www.bridgestocommunity.org
The Friendly League is the womenís group of the church that was started many years ago. They used to meet socially about once a month with tea & homemade cookies and cake. They usually had a rummage/bake sale every year and gave the proceeds to the church. In lean years this was sometimes the difference of the church staying open.
Over the following years it has evolved into a yearly Harvest Sale.
From the proceeds of this Harvest Sale the women with their efforts have refurbished the library with new furniture, paid for the food pantry cabinets in the kitchen, paid for the new front doors & have refinished them, bought the artificial wreaths for the sanctuary & outside, purchased the metal table & many of the pots, pans & utensils in the kitchen, donated money to Philipstown Concerts, paid for $6,000 of the cost of the new driveway & many other things too numerous to mention.
At the sale we sell homemade baked goods such as pies, cakes, candy, cookies, bread, quiche, etc. We also usually have books, holiday items & handmade goods.
We need your help! In order to continue to enhance the building & life of the church we need people who like to cook to donate homemade goods to the sale.
The First Presbyterian Church is the current site of an Inspiration Garden dedicated to providing fresh vegetables to the Food Pantry. Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, and basil provide Food pantry participants with healthy additions to the current offerings. The original idea of transforming lawns into food producing gardens was brought to the Church's attention by Carolyn Llewellen, and has been carried out by Tess Dul as her Girl Scout Gold Award Project. The Gold Award is the highest award in Girl Scouting, and requires a sustainable project suited to meet needs of the local community. The goal of the Inspiration Garden is to motivate/encourage others to transform their own lawns as well. Even contributions from a small potted plant are appreciated. The vegetables have been very well received at the pantry and hopefully the project will expand beyond the grounds of the Presbyterian church. | <urn:uuid:5c668553-46b5-4288-a1d3-c173ac3f72bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.presbychurchcoldspring.org/docs/500_makediff.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958556 | 2,351 | 1.523438 | 2 |
People talk about being more present or wanting to “be here now.” But few are willing or able to pay the necessary fare to get “here now.”
There are three things you must give up to experience the present.
1. free choice
It is likely you don’t wish to give up any of these. You hold to them like a child to a best blanket or a teen to resistance.
If you have explored yourself a good deal you may have loosened your grip and may only hold to them addictively not existentially. With progress toward who you really are you will hold this trio like an addict does heroin or a lover does love.
But to get anywhere near the present you will release all three, or, all three will release you.
Without these three you won’t recognize yourself. You will simply meet who you really are. You will experience unconditional love, acceptance and freedom.
You will discover what all the gurus are smiling about. Everything changes when you wake up… everything. You can walk without the crutch of free choice, glow without the fear of separation and relax without the stress of control.
To wake up into the present you have to release what seems to make your life worth living and what you wouldn’t want to live without. It isn’t the stuff you want to get rid of that keeps you out of the present. It is the stuff that you want.
Lets take a closer look at these three little buggers.
1. Free Choice
Free choice is a common delusion which seems to set you free but actually oppresses you horribly. Free choice has you imagine you have options where there aren’t any. It forces you into past or future, way out of the present.
In the present you simply do what you do. No choice. When you distance yourself from NOW you get to choose which now. But none of the choices available to you are now.
The simple solution to this age old oppression that has caused people endless suffering, blaming and justification is to “always perceive that you have a choice and never make it.”
When you don’t make choices you will discover the flow of life. Choices are already made for you. Only “no choice” is free choice. I know that doesn’t sound right or true. That is because you have been oppressed by the myth and delusion of free choice for so long you don’t notice that the door to your cell is unlocked and swinging open.
You remain incarcerated with your lovely cell mate “free choice.” Until you don’t. I wonder how soon that will be. Get curious about what life would be like without the illusion of free choice.
On a fairly shallow layer of thought and experience you are separate: an individual. You beat your chest proud of yourself or weep ashamed of yourself.
One cost of the illusion of separation is being haunted by loneliness. A huge cost.
Another spiritual cost is having to continually compete and compare yourself to others.
Yet another is perceiving nothing, the void, as your individual responsibility to avoid.
Wholeness disappears as you, the individual, step forward into the agonizing spotlight of life as a performance/act.
Ouch, it hurts, but you don’t notice the pain because the show must go on. You are too busy trying to be you, stand on your own two feet, prove yourself and dance your own beat up dance.
The deeper you go into who you are the more wholeness you will experience and the more subtly you will experience being specifically you as You.
Separateness melts into wholeness and you are alone together as universe and universal you.
Your motivations change as no matter where you go or what you do there you are. Its all you baby.
Wholeness! Your birthright.
Control is a particularly nasty common delusion. It has you think you can help or influence things which has you constantly experience being responsible without being able.
How it really is: You are falling into the present. You have no more, or less, control than you might having just jumped off the top of the Sears Tower. You have a limited, but you don’t know how limited, time until you splat on the pavement of the present.
Until your demise you can make up junk, try and be in control, or enjoy the outrageous life affirming sensations of the fall.
If you are fighting for control then you are fighting. If you are simply enjoying the ride then you are simply enjoying.
To focus attention on fighting over entertainment is to try and control. Both are happening simultaneously. Mastering attention so it includes more rather than less allows you to expand your experience of yourself.
to master attention you have to confront free choice, separateness and control so you can answer the really important question “Who’s attention is it anyway?”
If your answer to the question is anything but “not mine” you have a lot more to learn and experience about love and life before you touch down into who you are: splat into the pavement of the present and wake up. Enjoy the ride.
I had a women in a course who asked “How do I have my child stop using a pacifier?”
A friend of mine spoke up. He said “Who gave him the pacifier?”
You need a pacifier until you don’t. The pacifier doesn’t provide you with any nutritional value but it does support you until you can support yourself. It has you imagine that you are safe and well taken care of. But this safety is only imaginary.
Free choice, separateness and control are pacifiers. They have you image that you are safer than you really are. You need these pacifiers until you don’t. Having them will stop you from discovering that you really are OK that the universe really is perfect just the way that it is and that you are exactly as you should be.
Your pacifiers are hollow representations of the wholeness and presence available. But they are what you have. Well meaning parents, teachers, friends and lovers give you this pacifier to keep you quiet, stop you from seeking and for your sake and their sake.
Releasing the pacifiers is as simple as getting really curious about them. Focus attention on them. Get curious about what is true under what you think is true. Question your thoughts, question your solutions. While curiosity may have killed the cat it makes a human being more human, open, loving and real.
Get curious about what you already know and what you don’t yet know. Ask way more questions than answers. Question all of your answers, tickle them, look behind them and you will find the perfect you waiting patiently in the present: awake. | <urn:uuid:a00a7002-2f55-4bfc-94d8-29e84ba0c9c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jerrystocking.com/blog/3-things-you-have-to-give-up-to-get-closer-to-the-present/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961304 | 1,434 | 1.570313 | 2 |
LGBT Groups To ABC: Don't Air 'Work It'
Work It, ABC's new, probably-doomed-to-be-canceled-anyway sitcom, is a show about two heterosexual, out-of-work car salesman who dress as women to secure employment as pharmaceutical reps. The show features no transgender characters, but according to GLAAD and the HRC, it demeans transfolk anyway. From GLAAD's press release:
During a period in which the transgender community now routinely finds itself in the cultural crosshairs, the timing couldn’t be worse for a show based on the notion that men dressed as women is inherently funny. In fact, shows like this have the power to put the transgender community in an even more dangerous position.
GLAAD has seen the pilot and while the show’s pilot does not explicitly address transgender people, many home viewers unfamiliar with the realities of being transgender will still make the connection. Work It invites the audience to laugh at images of men trying to adopt a feminine appearance, thereby also making it easier to mock people whose gender identity and expression are different than the one they were assigned at birth. Said GLAAD’s Acting President Mike Thompson, “Transphobia is still all too prevalent in our society and this show will only contribute to it. It will reinforce the mistaken belief that transgender women are simply ‘men pretending to be women,’ and that their efforts to live their lives authentically as women are a form of lying or deception.”
The show's pilot must have been a lot worse than its preview. At least in the preview, Work It's writers seem less interested in the "inherent funniness" of men in dresses than in the comic potential of subverting heterosexual gender roles. Watch it AFTER THE JUMP.
GLAAD and HRC are asking ABC to pull Work It from the air. If ABC elects to run the show anyway, it'll premier on January 3rd. | <urn:uuid:c871756b-9b0f-4cec-a79a-5ed00b4d0792> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.towleroad.com/2011/12/lgbt-groups-to-abc-dont-air-work-it/comments/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963751 | 413 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The Price of the Spay (or Neuter) Procedure
Pet Population, Veterinarians and the Pet Owner:
The choice to obtain a pet presupposes some forethought concerning it's care. Nobody forces or requires you to own a pet. Neither is pet ownership a preconferred right, but rather a responsibility and commitment freely undertaken; and any reasonable person knows pet ownership will require expenses for food, shelter and occasional medical care.
One aspect of pet care involves "planned parenthood" for your pet. There are medical advantages for the pet and sociological advantages for us humans if the pet is spayed or neutered. Unfortunately, sterilizing the pet requires surgery. Unfortunately, not everyone has the skill to do this safely. Unfortunately for the pet owner, they will have to actually pay someone to do it who does know how … just as you world to repair a water leak in your basement.
It is self evident that this surgery never comes as a surprise to the pet owner. It is not an unplanned emergency. It is not something that suddenly presents itself as a huge medical/financial disaster. I fully appreciate the fact that there are people who desire to own a pet and also desire to responsibly curtail their pet's reproductive ability but have severe financial constraints. To these people we extend credit with no interest and a payment plan is set up.
I personally believe it is unfair and illogical to assert that "If you vets truly had humanitarian feelings for pets like you're supposed to, you wouldn't charge so much for 'fixing' them. That's why there are so many unwanted pets. And maybe if you did it for free, all those animals wouldn't be put to sleep in animal shelters."
Sometimes I'll respond to these questions with equally illogical statements of my own like, "Why don't the dentists give away free tooth reconstructions to people who can't afford it; or the shoe store owner give away basketball shoes to kids whose torn shoes affect foot care and posture? Or why doesn't the heating specialist fix that furnace for a bargain price for old folks on a fixed income; or why doesn't the guy who runs the clothing store sell winter coats at cost to people who "just can't afford" warm winter clothes? After all, we're talkin' HUMAN HEALTH here! If these business people had any humanitarian empathy toward their fellow human beings, they wouldn't charge so much for those things!"
Somehow the veterinarian has been singled out to give their time and labor away for "humanitarian reasons" in order to stem the tide of homeless, unwanted pets. I speculate it's in keeping with the currently fashionable fixation on blaming someone or something else for our own personal challenges. If all the veterinarians in the USA did nothing but spays and neuters all day long for a month, it would barely dent the surface of the pet over-population problem. The responsibility for animal population control lies squarely on the shoulders of the pet-owning public. Veterinarians, through their understanding of medicine and surgery, are available to assist and promote pet population control. And, like any other service provider, they charge a fee for your use of their knowledge, skill, and time... just like a plumber, cab driver or neurosurgeon.
I've raised the fees I charge only once in the last eight years. Can you think of ANY other business whose fees have gone up less often than that? I believe other area veterinarians are also holding steady regarding the fees for spays and neuters. Plus, all the veterinarians I know in northern Wisconsin donate their services at no charge for spaying/neutering animal shelter pets in order to increase the animal's chances of adoption. So, if pet owners in my neighborhood are looking for a bargain for surgical sterilization of their pets, look no further … you're already getting one!
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60% (114 votes)
14% (27 votes)
8% (15 votes)
6% (12 votes)
N/A (I do not use tick preventives)
12% (23 votes)
Total votes: 191 | <urn:uuid:bf491f46-1f80-4480-8c55-9149504eeea1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petmd.com/dog/care/evr_dg_price_of_spay_or_neuter?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960616 | 847 | 1.742188 | 2 |
With Debt Forgiveness Offer, Sears Reduces Fear of Regret
Sears this week announced a new incentive program to convince consumers that it's safe to buy a major appliance, even if they're worried about losing their job. Wharton marketing professor Stephen J. Hoch, who directs Wharton's Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative, says the offer is a variation of an age-old sales strategy that aims to assure people that they won't regret their decision.
The retailer says customers who use their store credit cards to buy at least $399 worth of appliances and related merchandise will be able to suspend their payments and keep the product if they become unemployed. Sears will credit one-twelfth of the purchase price to the customer's account for every month they’re out of work; those who are jobless for more than a year will have the full debt forgiven. Doug Moore, president of Sears' home-appliance unit, told Bloomberg News, “We thought this would be a way to get folks to jump in where they’d been a little reluctant.”
In a similar marketing approach, automakers, led by Hyundai (see: How Hyundai Sells More When Everyone Else Is Selling Less), has offered to let customers suspend payments and return their cars. Such offers, while currently wrapped in the fear created by the recession, are nothing new, says Hoch.
In his classes, Hoch uses another example from the Sears playbook: In its Chicago area stores, the retailer once offered to pay rebates to customers who bought snow blowers and were later disappointed because there was less snow than usual. If snowfall was less than 50% of the official average, customers would get a 50% rebate. If the snowfall was less than 20% of the average, Sears paid buyers a 100% rebate and let them keep the machine.
With such offers, Sears is making "an actuarial bet," says Hoch. The company determines how many of its customers are likely to lose their jobs, then accounts for those losses against the revenue from the additional sales. "People aren't going to try to get fired just to get a free appliance."
Hoch says the offer targets one of three specific groups of customers. Citing the snow blower model, he described these groups as "people who are going to buy a snow blower no matter what, people who are not going to buy a snow blower no matter what, and people who ask themselves every year if they should buy a snow blower — but worry that they'll regret the decision if it doesn't snow very much." This offer speaks to the last group. "It's an insurance policy against feeling stupid after you make a big purchase." | <urn:uuid:6e094b4b-307c-4680-960c-c866a6eef6db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knowledgetoday.wharton.upenn.edu/2009/06/regret-insurance-at-sears/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975583 | 558 | 1.75 | 2 |
The Top 10 Myths of SEO
By Cayley Vos, President and CEO, Netpaths.net
Seek and Ye Shall Find, the old adage goes. A couple thousand years ago, however, there was no way to foresee that someone seeking new chairs for their card table could simply type folding chairs into a search engine and find over a million results in less than one second. In todays computer-oriented techno-world, there is no doubt that seekers have incredible power and capabilities right at their fingertips. But if you want to be found, you have a bit more work to do to make sure that related quests lead to your business. If you sell furniture, for example including a wide variety of folding chairs then you do not want to be website number 957,283 in someones quest to outfit their card table.
Businesses turn to SEO, or search engine optimization, to get their websites prominent placement for related searches. Since the worldwide web and use of it has exploded in the last 15 years, SEO practices and procedures have had to keep up and evolve apace. In addition to leading to some common practices and procedures, it has also led to many misconceptions and a lot of misinformation.
Following are some of the most common myths about SEO that can trip a business up if they arent careful.
Top 10 Myths of SEO
- Meta tags are everything
Meta tags are extremely important. But if the only aspect of searches you pay attention to is meta tags, then competing sites that also attend to keywords, links, content, and ongoing maintenance will surpass yours.
- Once you have a good ranking, dont change anything
It sounds logical that if youve made it to the first page or so of a search, you shouldnt rock the boat with changes and risk falling back down. But in order to stay on top, websites need to continually update to keep relevant and ahead of the pack.
- Get as many links as possible
More is not always better with SEO most often its just more. Besides, linking to completely unrelated websites isnt really going to help your customers once they make it your site. If they found the folding chairs they needed on your site, a link to a tablecloth site might be helpful to your customer, but a link to Freds Super Auto Parts Store is just a distraction and potential waste of their time.
- Get as many domain names/sites as you can
Again, more does not automatically equal better, and in the case of SEO it can equal more competition for your time, money and effort.
- You Must Have a Dedicated IP Address
This is impractical, and not possible. The current system of allocating IP addresses is nearing collapse, and IPv6 will eventually replace the current octet address allocation system. IP addresses are scarce, and not all websites can afford this luxury. The search engines do not discriminate based on what you can afford, and payment will not get you to the top. Additionally, all ranking data and historical information is tied to your permanent domain name. A spammer can go through multiple IP addresses per week, but you cannot get a new domain name without major business disruption.
The reason the domain name system was created was to relieve users from having to type numbers to access websites. Its simply easier and more convenient to use coolsite.com instead of trying to remember 126.96.36.199.
- Corporations Pay for #1 Ranking
In the beginning of the major search engines, there was an intermix of paid/unpaid results in the rankings, however this has long since passed. Now there is an virtual wall between natural and paid results, and all search engines are required by law to clearly disclose all paid results.
- Google Page Rank is the be all and end all
Do not obsess over the little green bar. There is no proof that PageRank has any bearing on your placement. Its likely that publicly displayed PageRank is months behind the actual value in Googles database. Its natural to try to quantify ranking, especially since Googles algorithm is such a coveted treasure. We want to put concrete numbers and attach fixed processes to placement. The desire to have a shred of evidence of the workings behind the golden walls of the Googleplex is like the Ring. Dont fall for this, turn away, be strong, and continue to reverse engineer.
- Dynamic sites kill rankings.
A webserver generates HTML pages that are fed to a users browser or a search engine spider. It is always in HTML format, nothing else. Dynamic sites by themselves are not a problem, however session ID's and long query strings do hinder your website effectiveness. Using page rewrites and a good sitemap can usually fix any spidering problem.
- Its possible to get quick rankings
Since the web expands, evolves, and exists in warp speed and searches themselves provide instant gratification people often think a website SEO tune up should give them a quick boost in placement. The search engines, which have to sort and analyze millions and millions of websites and trillions of words and phrases with every search, beg to differ.
- I know all there is to know already
The half life of a search engine algorithm is approximately half a year. This means that 1/2 of the code is rewritten every 6 months. Search engines are extremely fluid and constantly change. Continuous research, testing, and study is required to keep in the game. Complacency brings downfall!
Finally, a word to the wise:
I'm Impatient. I'm going to use doorway pages, link farms, cloaking, guestbook/forum/blogspam posts, and hidden text.
NO NO NO!!!
Its tempting to want to get top placement without working very hard. Perhaps you've heard of a webmaster who claims they used these tricks and have not been penalized. This is Russian Roulette. It is a short term strategy at best and the downside of being permanenty kicked out of a Search Engine's database far outweighs the temporary reward of a good ranking. Google has publicly stated that any tactic that attempts to manipulate their algorithm, deliver different content to spiders and human users, hides or conceals information or attemps to willfully mislead them is spam and will be handled with extreme prejudice.
Be aware of these myths, and avoid the pitfalls that believing them can cause, and you shall be rewarded with lasting results.
More info about specific website changes to promote a website: 26 steps to 15k visitors per day. | <urn:uuid:5abab455-92ec-4061-95ab-8da10846016c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netpaths.net/articles/search-engine-myths.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947376 | 1,331 | 1.617188 | 2 |
SD WANTS MORE SAY IN REGULATING PROPOSED POWERTECH URANIUM MINE
South Dakota environmental officials are asking the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for more authority in regulating the proposed Powertech USA uranium mine near Edgemont, while mine opponents have submitted proposed legislation to restore portions of state permitting authority over the project.
South Dakota lawmakers in 2011 suspended the state’s power to issue permits for and directly regulate in-situ injection-extraction mining…the system Powertech plans to use for its Dewey-Burdock project, which would mine about 200 of the 11,000-acres the company has under mineral lease.
Lawmakers agreed with Powertech that direct state in-situ-mining permits are an unneeded duplication of federal permits and regulation. The state did retain authority on other permits needed for Powertech and similar projects.
South Dakota Department of Energy and Natural Resources spokesman Eric Holm said the agency is working with the NRC on a memorandum of understanding that would give the state a bigger role in setting reclamation bonds and inspecting Powertech’s mining operation, but legislation would be needed to reinstate permit authority.
Holm says public interest in and requests for having state inspectors on such projects led to the talks with the NRC, explaining that responding to such citizens contacts is “customer service.”
Powertech critics aren’t satisfied with that and want the limits passed by the legislature repealed. Lilias Jarding, an organizer for the Clean Water Alliance of Rapid City, says South Dakotans “value keeping government close to the people,” so “it makes sense” for the state rather than “some distant federal official” to regulate uranium mining.
Democratic State Senator Jim Bradford of Pine Ridge filed 3 bills Friday that had been developed by the Clean Water Alliance and Dakota Rural Action. The bills strengthen state regulations on uranium mining and restore the state permitting authority over in-situ uranium mining.
Bradford says residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation are worried about the mining operation depleting and contaminating water supplies that reach to the reservation…with Edgemont area residents also expressing such fears to him and promising to go to Pierre to testify in favor of his bills.
Powertech project manager and Edgemont rancher Mark Hollenbeck says the company opposes simply reinstating the state in-situ permit process, but would support the state reaching an agreement with the NRC to have the state be the lead regulator for all the mine permits…including the one for the in-situ operation.
Hollenbeck says opponents who claim the state doesn’t regulate Powertech are just trying to create another hurdle for the company to jump, pointing out that he has 4 different state permits to show how extensive state regulation is.
In-situ mining…the processed used at the Crow Butte uranium mine near Crawford…pumps a solution of water chemicals similar to bi-carbonate of soda into the aquifer to dissolve and capture uranium. The water is then pumped to the surface and processed to remove the uranium.
Hollenbeck says the process is designed to reuse most of the water…which is not of drinking standard to begin with…and to restore it to its original quality when mining ends. Opponents says the chemical solution has escaped in other mines and is certain to do the same at the Edgemont project. | <urn:uuid:0c1e0c25-be0c-4224-ada8-66758e462834> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.panhandlepost.com/2013/01/22/sd-wants-more-say-in-regulating-proposed-powertech-uranium-mine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931616 | 706 | 1.75 | 2 |
There is a push in Fargo to widen streetsFargo, ND (WDAY TV) -- The push is on to widen city streets, made precariously narrow from snow piles.
By: WDAY Staff Reports, WDAY
Fargo, ND (WDAY TV) -- The push is on to widen city streets, made precariously narrow from snow piles.
Much of the snow from the weekend blizzard has been pushed up into what look like snow dikes along city streets. It makes things tight for drivers especially trucks trying to maneuver around corners. Fargo crews are working 24 hours a day to fix that.
If you see them out widening the roads, make sure to give them plenty of room.
Mark Williams with the Public Works says, "We can use a blower and blow it under the boulevard or the open area, otherwise for those areas we can't blow, we need to haul to widen."
By now, they have gotten most streets opened up, but say to drive slow in those narrow areas that are left. | <urn:uuid:4cfb5bcb-d638-41a8-8860-7c1738024351> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wday.com/event/article/id/75346/publisher_ID/29/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959049 | 215 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Psst! That 5-pound bundle of Streit’s matzo you just bought for $8.99 probably cost the store about $14.99. Your friendly neighborhood supermarket manager was willing to take the $6 hit just to lure you in so you’ll stock up on Manischewitz gefilte fish and Gefen dish detergent.
For years, supermarkets have treated Passover matzo as a loss leader — a product sold at a steep markdown to lure Jewish shoppers and their expensive Seder shopping lists. In highly competitive markets such as the New York tristate area, some stores are literally giving it away.
In recent weeks, shoppers at Waldbaum’s supermarket, in the Long Island town of Great Neck, N.Y., could choose between a $3 coupon for a bundle of heavily discounted American matzo, or a free bundle of Israeli matzo with every $25 purchase.
Such fierce competition is beginning to hurt American producers.
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, which owns Waldbaum’s, Pathmark, Super Fresh and other stores, bought one-fifth the amount of Streit’s matzo this year compared with last year, said Streit’s president, Aaron Gross. If stores have to give away matzo, Gross said, they are turning increasingly toward “cheaper Israeli products.”
“We’re getting tons of calls from consumers, mostly on Long Island, just looking for Streit’s, and they can’t find it,” Gross said.
Paul Bensabat, one of the two CEOs of New Jersey-based Manischewitz, said he did not wish to comment on what other manufacturers and retailers are doing.
“Contrary to other brands, we cannot afford to be part of the games people play,” Bensabat said. “We basically have one line of direction, which is to produce great-quality products and to make them as competitively as we can.”
But Menachem Lubinsky, who runs a kosher consulting firm, said Israeli matzo sales have increased steadily in recent years. Last year, matzo sales totaled $86 million, Lubinsky said, 80% of which was machine-made matzo. In 2009, Israeli matzo captured 28% of the American machine-made matzo market, Lubinsky said. Last year, he said, sales from Israel had increased to 40% of the market.
Lubinsky said demand was being driven by a rise in the quality of Israeli matzo and an improvement in packaging. But he said price was also a major factor.
American manufacturers are selling 5-pound bundles of matzo wholesale this year for between $10 and $12, Lubinsky said. The same Israeli matzo bundles are selling at between $6 and $7.
Industry officials say matzo is being produced more cheaply in Israel because of lower labor costs. “We’re a union shop,” said Gross, whose business has been making matzo on the Lower East Side for almost 100 years, “and between health insurance and labor and subsidies on flour, it’s a lot more expensive.”
Kobi Afek, marketing director of Osem USA, the American arm of Israeli manufacturer Osem, denied that there was a big disparity between the wholesale price of domestic and Israeli matzo. He pointed out that since matzo is such a simple product, production costs ought to be very similar.
“All you need is water and flour and to make it in less than 18 minutes,” Afek said, adding that any difference in price may arise from other American companies having to rely on Passover sales for a larger share of their annual revenue.
Afek said Passover products accounted for just 25% of his company’s annual revenue and that matzo sales in particular are low in Israel during the rest of the year.
“In Israel you barely find people who will eat this kind of cracker year-round,” Afek said. “We suffer enough from other things.”
The prize for stores landing Passover shoppers is huge, Afek said. According to Osem’s figures, the average kosher household spends between $1,500 and $2,000 on Passover food.
Barry Eizik, kosher category manager of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, said there is “no ironclad reason” that a company chooses to discount one matzo brand more heavily than another.
Eizik also denied that imported matzo is necessarily cheaper than domestic matzo. He said the choice to stock one brand over another often comes down to what is “sought after and what the customer would want more.”
Shoppers at Waldbaum’s one recent evening were, of course, oblivious to the price wars. Standing in front of a towering display of Israeli matzos Osem and Yehuda and American matzos Manischewitz and Streit’s, they all appreciated the discounts, but few expressed much in the way of brand loyalty.
Several people, including a few men and women from the Persian Mashadi community, said they picked up free Israeli matzo because they intended to give it to charity. One Mashadi woman, who did not wish to give her name, said she would buy handmade shmurah matzo ($17) for herself.
During a two-hour period, only two shoppers expressed a preference for one brand. After plopping a 5-pound bundle of Manischewitz in her cart, Carlene Campbell declared, “It just tastes better.” Anat Gluzman, an Israeli shopping with her husband and son, said she was disappointed that Waldbaum’s had sold out of her favorite matzo, Aviv.
Instead, Gluzman, whose cart already contained an enormous multipack of Kedem grape juice, chose a bundle of Yehuda matzo. “It all tastes the same anyway,” she said, jabbing her neck with her fingers “It all gets stuck in your throat.”
Matzo manufacturers, of course, don’t want you to believe that all matzo is the same. That much is clear from a brief observation of the packaging wrapped around the 5-pound bundles. Streit’s, with its signature pink wrapper, tugged at the heartstrings with its misty-eyed tagline, “the taste of a memory.”
Osem appealed to Zionists by having ”Israeli Matzah” prominently emblazoned on the package’s side, where an upturned hand cupping a tree promised that $2 from every purchase goes to the Jewish National Fund. Is Manischewitz the Walt Disney of matzo? It certainly seemed that way, with its red stars bursting out of a blue splash and the promise of a free trip for a family of four to Washington for the winner of its “Find the Afikomen” competition.
Yehuda was the only brand that did not appear to have an identity at all. Its plain packaging simply boasted that it was the “#1 best tasting matzo” — as rated by the San Francisco Chronicle. Such a bold claim will be put to the test this Passover by Ed Edelstein, who picked up a free bundle of Yehuda matzo.
“I will probably come back tomorrow and get the other one,” said Edelstein, 60, gesturing toward the free Osem bundles. “We’ll have a taste-testing contest at my house.” Edelstein will have to act fast.
Jim Prongay, manager of the Great Neck Waldbaum’s, said he was already down to his last container of matzo after receiving four container loads in mid-March. Each one of those containers held 3,300 5-pound bundles of matzo.
“The warehouse is out of Aviv,” Prongay said, “and Streit’s sent its last six cases today.”
In fact, if you’re reading this and you haven’t yet stocked up on matzo, you may be too late.
Contact Paul Berger at [email protected] or on Twitter @pdberger | <urn:uuid:dad74eee-da7c-4e6c-b28a-ebc3252db72d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/153984/supermarkets-battle-over-israeli-matzo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95668 | 1,758 | 1.5 | 2 |
Here are some important tips that can help you create a more effective cover letter. Presentation can be just as important as content, so make sure the letter looks professional. Use a good inkjet or laser printer, and resume quality paper, not thin copy paper. Check it carefully for any typos or spelling errors. No one likes to see their name misspelled, so be especially careful with the executive's name, title, and exact company name. Don't take any chances: verify the spelling and wording from a reliable source, like company literature, or call someone at their office. The letter itself should be brief and to the point: one page, two at the most. If you're replying to an ad for a job opening, address the qualifications listed in the ad. Tell the employer how your background makes you suitable for this position. Avoid general and obvious descriptions of your past experience. Instead, provide the reader with specific examples of your achievements. Write with a confident, upbeat tone, but avoid any hint of bragging. Let your record of accomplishments speak for itself. | <urn:uuid:d26ee418-9193-46be-a970-2633eba96379> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.local12.com/guides/career/resume/story/Cover-letter-tips/t7gM-RJxdEWaSarRtLqDoQ.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935423 | 217 | 1.820313 | 2 |
“Is [marriage] the battle worth fighting for?” he asked. “I think not.”
As the author and founder of Against Equality, an online critique of “mainstream gay and lesbian politics,” Conrad was invited to campus by GU Pride, the Lecture Fund, the LGBTQ Resource Center, and the Women’s Center as a part of Gender Liberation Week.
“What does marriage do for us?” Conrad said, explaining that marriage would do nothing to help the queer community in terms of health care benefits or monogamy. Marriage, he claimed, is an arbitrary, social institution that is coveted beyond its usefulness.
“The conservative Christian Right and the gay liberal [political] narrative look exactly the same,” he argued. | <urn:uuid:063a4a98-4897-4c47-9610-4677ae4ab546> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/tag/womens-center/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961305 | 163 | 1.796875 | 2 |
7/24 in Yankee History
The red-letter day:
1983: The ‘Pine Tar Game’.
With 2 outs in the 9th inning at the Stadium, George Brett hits an apparent 2-run home run off Rich Gossage to give the Royals a
5-4 lead, only to have it taken away when Yankees manager Billy Martin‚ at the urging of coach Don Zimmer, points out that the pine tar on Brett’s bat handle exceeds the 17 inches allowed in the rules. As a result‚ Brett is called out for illegally batting the ball‚ giving New York a 4-3 victory. Brett goes ballistic, and the Royals immediately file a protest with AL President Lee MacPhail.
On other 24ths of July…
2004: One of the more eventful contests in the long Yankees-Red Sox rivalry takes place at Fenway. The game almost does not take place at all, as there is a delay of nearly one hour getting the field ready. By the time the umpiring crew agree that the game should go on, several Yankee players have showered and left the park. Tempers flare in the top of the 3rd when A-Rod is struck on the elbow by a pitch from Boston starter Bronson Arroyo. A-Rod yells at Arroyo; when catcher Jason Varitek intervenes, Rodriguez turns on him, and Varitek atatcks him without removing his mask. Both benches clear, then, and in the melee that follows, several players on both sides sustain minor cuts and bruises. After order is restored, A-Rod, Varitek, New York’s Kenny Lofton and Boston’s Gabe Kapler are all ejected. The game ends when Bill Mueller delivers a three-run homer off Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the ninth for an 11-10 Red Sox win.
2001: Andy Pettitte gets the ball and goes 7 innings, giving up 4 runs on 7 hits. His replacement, Ramiro Mendoza, will give up an 8th inning moon shot to Detroit’s Juan Encarnacion. The blast lands in the 2nd row of the empty blue bleacher seats in left center, and is believed to be the first ball hit into that area since Yankee Stadium was remodelled in the mid-’70s. Andy gets the 7-4 win, and Mariano Rivera the save.
1999: The Yankees pound the Indians 21-1. The Bronx Bomber attack is led by Chili Davis, who bangs out 5 hits‚ including a double and homer‚ while driving home 6 runs.
1998: Darryl Strawberry’s 2-run blast in the 6th propels the Yankees and Andy Pettitte to a 5-4 win over the White Sox at the Stadium.
1996: Andy Pettitte gives up 9 hits in six innings of work, but holds the Rangers to only 2 runs. A bases-loaded three-run double in 5th inning off the bat of Tino Martinez is the margin of victory as the Yanks roll 4-2 at home, and Andy goes to 15-5.
1991: In a game against the Mariners‚ the Yankees score 3 runs on a ground ball hit back to the pitcher. With runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out in the 4th‚ Pat Kelly hits a comebacker to Erik Hanson. The Seattle hurler traps Kevin Maas in a rundown between 3rd and home‚ but Maas scores when third baseman Edgar Martinez’s throw hits him in the back. The ball rolls up the 1st base line into foul territory where it is recovered by catcher Dave Cochrane. Cochrane fires home off Alvaro Espinoza who is also attempting to score. The throw goes into the Mariners’ dugout allowing Espinoza and Kelly to cross the plate with the 2nd and 3rd runs.
1978: In Kansas City‚ a distraught Billy Martin reads a prepared statement in which he resigns as the Yankee manager. Dick Howser will fill in that night as the Yanks lose 5-2.
1966: The Yankees beat the Angels 9-1 in game one of a doubleheader, and Mickey Mantle hits his 2nd homer in two days. The
roundtripper‚ his 493rd‚ ties him with Gehrig for 6th place on the all-time list. The Yanks take the second contest as well, 4-1.
1961: 50‚000 fans‚ on hand for the Yankees exhibition game with the Giants, save their biggest cheer for Willie Mays. Willie delivers a 2-run single in the 4-1 victory. The only score for the Yanks is a Mickey Mantle homer.
1958: It’s Gil McDougald and Mickey Mantle today hitting back-to-back shots‚ in the 9th‚ as New York outhit Detroit for a 10-7 win. Paul Foytack comes on in releif today. Mickey Mantle is 3-for-4 as the Yanks complete a 3-game sweep of the Tigers.
1954: Repeating hsi recent experiment, Casey Stengel pulls Phil Rizzuto in the 8th for a pinch hitter and brings in Mickey Mantle to play shortstop. Mantle plays short with Willie Miranda at second against lefthanded hitters. Against righties‚ Miranda and Mantle switch positions. But Cleveland win 5-4 on Larry Doby’s 2-run homer in the 10th‚ his 3rd homer in 2 days at Yankee Stadium. Sam Dengte fills in at short for George Strickland‚ sidelined with a broken jaw. The Tribe go 2 1/2 games up on New York.
1940: The Yankees (6) and Browns (5) tie a Major League record for most pitchers in a 9-inning game. The Browns pound out a 14-12 win as Walt Judnich hits a home run‚ 2 doubles and 2 singles. He had 2 homers in yesterday’s win over New York. The Yanks counter with homers by Joe DiMaggio‚ Bill Dickey‚ Joe Gordon and Tommy Henrich.
1934: In a 4-2 loss to the Browns‚ Yankee star center fielder Earle Combs crashes into the wall at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis and
suffers a broken collarbone and a fractured skull. New York summon George Selkirk as a replacement, but learn he broke his arm today playing for Newark. Combs will announce his retirement on the 28th‚ but will come back to play 89 games next season.
1929: The Yanks edge the Tigers‚ 7-5‚ behind the hitting of rookie Bill Dickey. The new starting catcher has 4 hits‚ including a home run, to back Herb Pennock’s pitching.
1926: Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth demonstrate that power hitting is not the only thing they can do when Lou scores on a double steal with the Babe in a 7-4 victory over the White Sox. They had pulled the same double steal against the Red Sox on April 13th.
1923: In Philadelphia‚ Yankee pitcher Carl Mays (below) beats the Athletics‚ 9-2 for his AL record 24th straight win over Philadelphia. (This matches the ML high of Christy Mathewson, who won 24 straight against the Phillies). He started with doubleheader victories on August 30‚ 1918‚ while pitching for the Red Sox. The Yankees score 5 in the 8th and another 3 in the 9th on Babe Ruth’s 3-run homer‚ which lands on the roof of a house across 20th street.
1920: After losing 3 in a row‚ Cleveland salvage a win against New York by scoring 2 runs in the 11th inning to win 4-2. Both Yankee runs come on solo homers, by Bob Meusel and Babe Ruth. The Babe, who hit his 34th home run to give the Yanks a temporary 2-1 lead‚ moves to first base in the 8th to take over for Wally Pipp who was ejected for arguing a called third strike. Ruth’s high throw on a grounder allows Cleveland’s Ray Chapman to reach base safely‚ and he and Joe Wood score on a Larry Gardner triple that eludes Meusel. Jim Bagby is the winner. Cleveland leave New York with a slim lead over the Yanks.
1919: At Fenway‚ Babe Ruth is intentionally walked twice by Yankee hurler Bob Shawkey with runners on. But in the 8th‚ with a one run lead,he gives up a single to Braggo Roth and pitches to Ruth, who hits his 15th homer. The Sox win‚ 4-2. | <urn:uuid:ce27ffb1-7e2c-48f1-ae5b-2980d2e5d945> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yankeedinosaur.mlblogs.com/2012/07/25/724-in-yankee-history-3/?like=1&_wpnonce=9501e873bf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934428 | 1,847 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Mind the Strip is a documentary to highlight a story of Ayman Qwaider, Gazan student who had difficulties to access the closing borders of Gaza to pursue his studies in Spain. It does not often happen that students can easily get out from the blockade in Gaza Strip pursuing their further studies abroad. Ayman had numerous obstacles to reach his goal in Spain and pursue his masters’ studies. After working tirelessly and contacting anyone who would listen to his story, comprehensive media campaign, he received his longed-for transit permit from Israel in order to exit the Gaza Strip and travel to University of Jaume I in Spain, to pursue a graduate degree in Peace, Conflict & Development Studies (how appropriate!).
Facebook Event in Girona, Spain June16
Mind the Strip Facebook page
Website: Mind the Strip Website | <urn:uuid:ca4fc24f-1ef3-49a2-9a8f-ea6b696d301a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://peaceforgaza.blogspot.jp/2011/06/mind-strip-documentary.html?showComment=1308849372600 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97948 | 165 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Washington : Government Printing Office
Pursuant to the provisions of section 10 of the Act of September 5, 1962 (76 Stat. 429), it is hereby proclaimed that the distribution of the assets of the Ponca Tribe of Native Americans of Nebraska has been completed and the Federal trust relationship to the Ponca Tribe of Native Americans of Nebraska and its individual members is terminated. Hereafter, the tribe and the individual members whose names appear on the membership roll of the Ponca Tribe of Native Americans of Nebraska as prepared pursuant to the Act of September 5, 1962 (76 Stat. 429), and as closed and made final as of July 21, 1965 (30 F.R. 9114), shall not be entitled to any of the special services performed by the United States for Indians or Indian tribes because of their status as Indians; all statutes of the United States which affect Indians or Indian tribes because of their status as Indians shall be no longer applicable to the tribe or its members; and the laws of the several States shall apply to the tribe and its members in the same manner as they apply to other persons or citizens within their jurisdiction. All restrictions and tax exemptions applicable to trust or restricted lands or interests therein owned by the Indians who are affected by this notice are terminated.
Nothing in this proclamation shall affect the status of any member of the Ponca Tribe of Native Americans of Nebraska as a citizen of the United States.
Termination of the Federal trust relationship to the Ponca Tribe of Native Americans of Nebraska and of supervision over the affairs of the individual members thereof becomes effective as of the date of publication of this proclamation in the FEDERAL REGISTER.
CHARLES F. LUCE,
Acting Secretary of the Interior. | <urn:uuid:60e43257-70bc-4917-ab87-9c963437f16f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/vol7/html_files/v7p1561.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956571 | 348 | 1.539063 | 2 |
NH Weekly Fishing Report - May 31, 2012
Stocking report: www.fishnh.com/Fishing/fish_stock_current.htm
Find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/nhfishandgame
June presents an unusual paradox for New Hampshire anglers. The weather is picture perfect, with warm days, cool nights, and plenty of daylight hours in between. The only negative variable in this equation is the insects that spring to life in these conditions. After a particularly successful evening on a trout pond Saturday, I had more black flies stuck in my hair than flies in my fly-box. Mosquitoes dined on my arms while I was tying knots, and landing a fish was a daunting task as I tried to do so while slapping at hungry deer flies.
I suppose that, without insects and their sometimes inconvenient life cycles, fishing may not be the intriguing sport that it is. Mixed in with the no-see-ums are the caddis flies and mayflies that trigger aggressive trout strikes. For every application of bug spray, there are even doses of dry fly floatant. Biting insects are almost always aquatic at some point in their development and trout have no hesitation eating black fly or mosquito larvae. When they hatch in great densities, a fly-fisherman can be less than perfect when choosing an imitation. Pheasant tail nymphs will resemble an emerging insect closely enough to fool a trout that is gorging itself.
There is no magical time of day when biting insects take a break. An angler is a constant target and, sometimes, the only cure is landing a beautiful fish and forgetting the bugs. – Andy Schafermeyer, Fisheries Biologist
A recent trip on Lake Winnisquam produced a couple small lake trout, it certainly didn’t help that a southeast wind was present that morning. I noticed a great deal of “junk” floating on the lake’s surface, by junk, I mean tree pollen, and flowers from assorted trees. It meant that lines had to be cleaned frequently of this debris. I noticed some male smallmouth bass still sitting on nests; the eggs should be hatching any day now as the lake temperature is near 68 degrees. The flow at Lakeport Dam is approximately 800 cfs (cubic feet per second), and this means there are still good opportunities at fishing the Winnipesaukee River in Laconia, and at Lochmere Dam, at the outlet of Winnisquam.
Fisheries biologists Matt Carpenter and Ben Nugent are nearing the end of stocking river herring into Lake Winnisquam. We will monitor the progress of this species, as the YOY (young-of-the-year) alewives grow throughout the summer and into the fall as they prepare to leave the system on their journey back to the Atlantic Ocean.
Aerial pond stocking will occur the week of June 11. JBI Helicopter Services of Pembroke, NH will again be guiding us across the landscape as we stock fingerling Kennebago strain brook trout into 48 remote, high elevation ponds. Approximately 110,000 fingerlings are stocked in this one-day event. If you have never fished these ponds, you are missing out on some fantastic fishing, in remote, wilderness settings.
Don’t forget that this Saturday, June 2, is free fishing day in New Hampshire. Take advantage of this day with a friend and enjoy the wonderful outdoor opportunities we have here. – Don Miller, Fisheries Biologist
Water temperatures in our local trout ponds are more like mid-June than the end of May. Fishing at Dublin Lake last week showed a surface temperature of 69 degrees! Despite these earlier than normal warm temperatures, reports I have been getting point to good trout fishing.
The Cold and Ashuelot rivers have been stocked heavily with brook, brown and rainbow trout. Anglers are taking notice -- and are also taking home some heavy stringers in the past week. Beard’s Brook in Hillsborough is also producing some nice catches of rainbow and brook trout. Don’t forget about the area where Beard’s Brook and the North Branch meet in Hillsborough by the Chinese restaurant, as this area has always produced a few nice trout for me. Anglers have been having good luck on these streams using Powerbait, worms, and small inline spinners such as Mepps and Rooster Tails.
For ponds, both Gustin (Marlow) and Newell Pond (Alstead) are producing some excellent brook trout, as is Smith Pond (Washington). Whittemore Lake (Bennington) has been giving up some fat rainbow and brook trout as well. A friend of mine relayed to me that the last couple weeks at Willard Pond (Antrim; fly fishing only) have been great. As he put it, “emerging insects, a North wind, and hungry trout make for a great combination on Willard.” There have also been some big smallmouth bass caught in Willard during the past week or so.
Finally, I received a report that anglers are already starting to catch walleye in the Connecticut River by trolling large crankbaits such as Reef Runners. – Gabe Gries, Fisheries Biologist
Southeast NH/Merrimack Valley
Anadromous fish species have begun to appear at the fish lift at the Essex Dam in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Already around 100 Atlantic salmon and 5,000 American shad have been counted at the fishway. Once our efforts to transfer river herring to Winnisquam Lake are over, we will begin moving American shad from Lawrence upstream to the Merrimack River in the Boscawen/Concord area. The same principles associated with transferring adult river herring are found with the movement of American shad. The mature adults trapped at lower sections of the Merrimack River will be trucked to more ideal spawning habitat upstream. The adults will leave shortly after spawning, while the hatched juveniles will spend the summer months in this stretch of river before returning to the Atlantic in the early fall. The juveniles will be utilized as a seasonal forage source in the river, benefitting several different sport fishes. – Ben Nugent, Fisheries Biologist
Well, the groundfishing has been slow this past week, but as the river herring runs slow, stripers are moving back down river and anglers are catching stripers in the Piscataqua and the bay. Mackerel are being brought in by the cooler full, most of these coming from the Piscataqua as well.
Winter flounder have had a really slow season so far, and it doesn’t seem to be picking up. One of our biologists took a flounder trip this past weekend down in Rye Harbor; he fished for 4 hours and only got 1 bite. I guess any day where you get to bring home dinner can be considered successful, even if it is a little disappointing. – Becky Heuss, Marine Biologist | <urn:uuid:c3b6d3d3-8df6-4c65-8d49-e1b823e63190> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Fishing/Fishing_Reports/2012/053112.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953301 | 1,458 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Sentech is all about connecting you to the world and connecting the world to you. As a State-Owned Enterprise established in terms of the Sentech Act (as amended) our broadcasting and broadband infrastructure delivers access to communication services to the furthest and most remote places in the Country.
Sentech provides signal distribution services for most of the Country’s broadcasters which include the Public Broadcaster, Commercial and Community Broadcasters. Our VSAT solution provides internet connectivity to Government departments, municipalities and learning institutions; amongst others.
Sentech has been involved in some of the major National projects. In 2009 and 2010 we provided the back-up satellite infrastructure for the FIFA Confederations and World Cup respectively. We are also involved in the low power transmission project with the Department of Communications and SABC; an intervention that will ensure universal coverage and access to broadcasting services in the Country. | <urn:uuid:ade4fb5f-9433-4b0f-b513-f89069b3defc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sentech.co.za/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948628 | 177 | 1.648438 | 2 |
OK all, time to set a few etiquette ground rules....
1. Please do not quote the ENTIRE post containing the story. It is unnecessary and makes you have to scroll a ton more just to see your 1-line comment. If you want to talk about a specific part of the story, then quote that, but please refrain from quoting the entire original post.
2. Try to give more feedback than a few words such as "This was great!" While that is encouraging to the original poster, try to give them a few reasons as to why
it was great. Not only will this be a better use of your post, but it'll let the author know what everyone likes and he can focus on that more later.
3. Constructive Criticism - While there's not a lot of poor stories being written, if someone does, don't just give complete negatives, try to work in a few positives as well. A well balanced comment goes a long way towards someone improving their writing.
4. Please use proper punctuation, spelling, and grammar (except if used in dialogue where it deserves to be that way). Also, remember to space out your entries so it's not a huge wall of text. Hitting the "Enter" key a few times can really make a difference in someone reading your story, or just skipping over it.Valdarez
has a few simple spell checking solutions below:
The easiest way is to download and install Firefox. Firefox has a built in spell checker that works on nearly all text boxes. I use it and it definitely works on The Row's forums. It saves me from a ton of spelling errors. Now, if only it had a grammar check. :) Download Firefox here --> www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Another way to spell check your work is to download and install Open Office a free alternative to Windows Office software giving you a Word Editor, Spread Sheet Editor, Presentations, and more. The Word Editor will let you create, edit, and save your work to your local computer. If you're writing something that's fairly long then this is the solution that you really should use. Especially if you want to keep your work for a long time. Download Open Office here --> www.openoffice.org/ | <urn:uuid:d5741b4e-2a54-486f-94df-162fcbe35445> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saintsrow.com/community/go/thread/view/136777/28562525/Posting_Etiquette_for_Stilwater_Stories?lang=us | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950985 | 466 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Gaston Leroux's 1909 novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra was first adapted in 1911. This adaptation was from its native French language to English, where it gained its more familiar name, The Phantom of the Opera. That was just the start of adaptations for the storied tale of a deformed opera fanatic who terrorizes the French opera house. Three quarters of a century later, the book would be adapted again, but this time from print to theatre. English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber opened his famous musical in 1986; a musical that has become the longest running and financially successful musical and is still running over two decades later. Having earned more than its fair share of box office receipts in London's West End and Broadway, it was only a matter of time before an expensive adaptation of "The Phantom of the Opera" made its way to the big screen. The film launched in 2004 with a budget of sixty million dollars and topped the fifty million dollar mark in domestic receipts.
The 2004 version of the film is noteworthy as it is produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and was originally promoted as "Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera." This marked the first time that the creative team behind the long running stage production became involved with a cinematic version of Gaston Leroux's novel as the 1989 film featuring Robert Englund as the Phantom and the 1998 Dario Argento film did not have the benefit of Webber's involvement. Webber had long wanted Joel Schumacher to helm the film as its director and the film took nearly fourteen years to complete, as the composer had originally intended to feature the stage version's original stars Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman.
For those unfamiliar with the musical's basic story, "The Phantom of the Opera" tells the tale of the Paris Opera House and events that unfold when the opera house comes under the control of new managers and the Opera House's diva Carlotta (Minnie Driver) refuses to perform and is replaced by the young and lovely Christine Daae (Emmy Rossum). Christine has been tutored by a mysterious Phantom (Gerard Butler) who uses terror and intimidation to collect a salary and enact some control over the happenings of the Opera House. The Phantom is a disfigured loner who is a talented mentor, but remains hidden in the shadows. His apparent fatherly love of Christine runs deeper and jealousy builds when Christine's childhood love Raoul (Patrick Wilson) patrons the Opera House and attempts to rekindle his flame with the pretty opera singer. This causes the Phantom to emerge from the shadows and enact a vengeful rage over those involved with the Opera House.
"The Phantom of the Opera" has succeeded for as long as it has on Broadway for a reason. It is a top notch musical that features captivating and memorable songs and a strong plot. "The Phantom of the Opera" features all of the elements of a powerful story. There is strong romance between characters, thrills and suspense lie behind the Phantom's mystique and mysterious maneuvers. There is action and excitement. A rare few laughs are thrown in, though the film doesn't possess too much comedy to its storyline. The film's primary purpose is to surround its viewer with intrigue, sadness, romance and music. The film's title song is very upbeat and will rattle around in your mind for quite some time after hearing its mesh of rock and roll and classical music. The remaining songs are also potent and "Masquerade" was perhaps my favorite song included in the film.
I am not a person that is particularly fond of musicals and I loathe operas. It doesn't matter of I'm culturing myself with the "Barber of Seville" or "Madame Butterfly," I'm not going to become too engrossed in the stage production. I've seen both of the aforementioned operas and struggled to reach the curtain call. "The Phantom of the Opera" is and English Opera and I have to admit that there were rather arduous moments in the musical for me to endure. This isn't because "The Phantom of the Opera" is a bad musical; it is quite the opposite. It was difficult for me to sit completely through became I'm just not particularly fond of this style of film – the operatic musical. I did enjoy the majority of this beautifully shot and well told musical and had my ears been more welcoming of the brilliantly sung songs, I'm sure I would be raving about Joel Schumacher's "The Phantom of the Opera." It is a well done and engrossing film that is just not quite my cup of tea.
Warner Bros. presents "The Phantom of the Opera" to Blu-ray video with a nicely done VC-1/1080p widescreen transfer that is framed at roughly 2.40:1. Part of the splendor of "The Phantom of the Opera" lies in its impressive visuals and both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray boast impressive clarity and coloring. My favorite sequence, "Masquerade" features striking golds and metallic colors that absolutely shimmer on my high definition screen. Another particularly memorable scene involves snowfall and a red rose on the roof of the Paris Opera House. Some of the scenes that occur in the sewers of the Opera House are murky and muddied because of poor lighting and a fog, but this is an intended effect and detail and shadow detail are still surprisingly strong during these moments. When I had first purchased this film for HD-DVD on the launch day, this was my comparison piece between DVD, Upconverted DVD and HD-DVD. Every stop of my comparison showed significant improvement, but going from standard definition DVD to High Definition DVD is striking and impressive. This release is nearly identical to the older HD-DVD release and this very colorful and visually rich transfer shows how good a film can look in the world of High Def.
The primary draw of "The Phantom of the Opera" for its legions of followers and fans is the riveting musical score by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This is where I must sadly report that the Blu-ray release of "The Phantom of the Opera" falls behind the older HD-DVD release, as the impressive Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is completely absent from this release. The Blu-ray release does include a 640kbps English Dolby Digital 5.1 multi-channel surround mix that is quite good, but just can't compare to the next-generation TrueHD format. My two favorite songs "Masquerade" and "Phantom of the Opera" push the .1 LFE subwoofer channel and populate all speakers. The actors singing voices are nicely capture by the soundtrack and sound marvelous (An Interesting side note is that Minnie Driver is the only member of the principle cast that did not sing her own vocals). If you throw the TrueHD soundtrack of the HD-DVD out of the comparison, then "The Phantom of the Opera" stands as one of the better sounding releases from Warner Bros. on any of the next generation formats.
All of the supplemental materials from the HD-DVD release have been carried over to the Blu-ray disc. The supplements will take about two hours to completely sit back and experience and will surely delight fans of the film, as it features information relating to the storied Broadway production and the genesis of the theatrical release. The most notable of the supplements is the lengthy Behind the Mask: The Story of the Phantom of the Opera (1:05:12). The documentary features an lengthy interview with Andrew Lloyd Webber and only touches on the actual film, but spends much of its time looking at the stage incarnation of the tale and the trials and tribulations of Webber's effort to bring his musical to the silver screen. I learned a great deal from this hour long documentary and felt this was easily the best supplement contained on the Blu-ray disc.
A number of smaller vignettes are also included on the disc. The Making of the Phantom of the Opera is broken down into three parts. The first part is Origins and Casting (17:38), which looks at the decisions made in casting the actors and actresses used in the film and includes a quick overview of the efforts made in creating the cinematic production. The second chapter is Design (11:06) and this looks at the wonderful set design, miniatures, costumes and visual splendor of "The Phantom of the Opera." The final chapter is Supporting Cast and Recording the Album (17:17). This chapter showcased the singing of the cast and the songs of the film. An Additional Scene titled No One Would Listen (2:26) features a solo with Gerard Butler. Under the category of "Fun and Games," a Sing-a-long (4:44) shows the cast and crew singing along to the signature title song. This wasn't either a game or much fun, but was oddly unique. Finally, the Theatrical Trailer completes the list of supplements.
I'm not a fan of musicals or operas. I do enjoy musicals that revolve around rock and roll and consider myself a fan of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." However, when it comes to opera, my ears take a defensive stance and try to stop listening. This may speak to the appeal of "The Phantom of the Opera," but I did enjoy most of the film. There were a few segments I struggled to sit through, but for the most part, I thought it was an interesting and mysterious story. Two songs stuck out as being memorable and for my tastes, likeable. This is perhaps the only opera-based musical I will ever willingly sit through and I can see myself watching it again at some point. The Blu-ray release comes nearly nine months after the HD-DVD release and is a visual match for its Warner Bros. sibling, but lacks the potent TrueHD soundtrack that was packaged for the rival format. The supplemental materials are decent enough and spend more time chronicling the Broadway and West End musical than they do the actual production of the film. This is a nice title to own for either of the High Definition formats, and although the title falls just short of the HD-DVD release, it is worth owning on Blu-ray. | <urn:uuid:dd19e6bf-4317-4fb9-8b6e-087751fd906e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://moviemet.com/review/phantom-opera-blu-ray-review | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964896 | 2,078 | 1.8125 | 2 |
, Maine is a refreshingly beautiful coastal town that has a working harbor, restaurants with great seafood, historical sights and scenic ocean cruises. Located approximately an hour from Boston (by car,) near the Kennebec River and the Atlantic seacoast, Freeport was founded in 1820 and is called “the birthplace of Maine.” As a yachting destination, you will delight in the picturesque Freeport Town Wharf, historic coastal landmarks, island colonies, ocean wildlife and watching lobstermen hauling in their traps. Points of interest in Freeport include the oceanfront Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park, Winslow Park with a beach on Casco Bay, the Desert Dunes of Maine and the Mast Landing Sanctuary, which is open daily for nature walks and guided tours. Freeport is home to famous L.L. Bean and over 170 upscale outlet shops, eclectic boutiques, casual cafes and fine restaurants. Boating, sailing, canoeing and kayaking are all popular sports in Freeport, and several yacht charters and scenic cruise ships operate from within the city. Narrated Casco Bay Seal and Osprey Watch cruises depart in summertime from the Freeport Town Wharf in South Freeport. Eagle Island Adventure tours take visitors to the museum of famous arctic explorer, Admiral Peary, and the Robert E. Peary State Memorial, which is located in the island park. | <urn:uuid:08a6d395-7f9d-4a4f-b53e-75e649804e32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yachtcharters.com/destinations/Freeport.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943374 | 289 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Brennan forcefully stood by the U.S. drone campaign during an April address at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, saying the government acts fully within the law "in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and save American lives."
His comments, however, did not specifically address American citizens abroad.
"President Obama and those of us on his national security team are very mindful that as our nation uses this technology, we are establishing precedents that other nations may follow," he said. "And not all of them will be nations that share our interests or the premium we put on protecting human life, including innocent civilians."
Brennan also revealed that there are disagreements over use of the program within the administration -- but he added that the nation is at war.
"If anyone in government who works in this area tells you they haven't struggled with this, then they haven't spent much time thinking about it. I know I have, and I will continue to struggle with it as long as I remain involved in counterterrorism."
The Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind poll was conducted by telephone from December 10 through December 16 with 814 registered voters. The sampling error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. | <urn:uuid:18ef2e1b-2f65-4a46-bf4c-9d1301a80c28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wpbf.com/news/politics/Poll-Americans-back-drone-attacks-but-not-on-U-S-citizens-abroad/-/8788770/18448908/-/item/1/-/ww6wms/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977774 | 250 | 1.71875 | 2 |
All the above are good and I agree. They seem to emphasize teaching absolute beginners.
Once they are able to fall, a couple of hints that I think are important to (re) emphasize.
1) Breathe. Don't hold your breath. For my own training, I purse my lips and "hiss" the breath out in order to ensure that I don't hold my breath. Every couple of years I forget this, take a fall while holding my breath, and regret it.
2) Tuck your head. Probably the most important safety feature. Worth reminding.
3) Watch your foot. As you commit to the roll, look at your opposite foot. This will ensure that you tuck your head and it helps to build the right structure, and to ensure that you're committed.
4) Do not cross your feet. Looks really cool, enables you to do a very pretty, very smooth roll. But sometimes (1 in 10,000? whatever, the proportion is too high for comfort) your upper heel will land on your lower shin and shatter it. I believe that this happened to a friend of a friend this past year. Make a habit of always landing with the "upper" leg in front.
Couple of other ways to reduce the intimidation for students who can do breakfalls, but need more.
1) Uke gets down on all fours, lifts one hand and extends it under his chest to the opposite site. Partner grasps hand and pulls (smoothly, sharply) upwards. Uke flips over and smacks the mat.
2) To transition from low falls to high, shake hands with your partner, who does a 180 pivot and then holds while you take the fall over. Start low, then work high.
And of courseArt of Ukemi (Other links invited) | <urn:uuid:b53efac0-4900-42aa-a45d-d409191524e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://martialarts.stackexchange.com/questions/120/how-can-i-improve-my-teaching-of-ukemi-or-break-falling/187 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941999 | 379 | 1.84375 | 2 |
"At William Woods, we have never been an institution that relied on history. We have always prided ourselves on being forward-thinking. As our undergraduate enrollment continues to expand, it is important that we continue to offer inviting living and residential facilities and programs that appeal to prospective and current students. Imagine ... How will you leave your mark?"
- Jahnae H. Barnett, President
The Imagine Campaign has reached $8.1 million in financial commitments toward the $11.7 million goal as May 21, 2013. These gifts include:
Together with other significant leadership gifts, these donations have allowed us to imagine the launch of the campaign, setting the stage and providing a challenge for additional donors to step forward.
In addition, WWU has the largest in-kind donation in the university's history, a gift of real estate that is valued at $1 million.
WWU is in the midst of the Greek phase of the Imagine Campaign, reaching out to Greek alumni for their support. A volunteer committee of eight co-chairs, representing each of the four sororities at The Woods, has taken on the Sorority Challenge, along with their sorority sister volunteers.
The Sorority Challenge is a competition between the members, alumni, parents, and friends of the four sororities at WWU to raise the funds for their portion of the Sorority Circle and Amphitheatre project. Each sorority has been challenged to raise $1 million. The first sorority to reach $1 million will be allowed to select its preferred location from among the four possibilities. The second sorority to reach $1 million will have second choice, and so on. More info is included in the FAQ section.
Our students, faculty and staff extend a thank you to Kristen Koppen '75 and Judy Kuergeleis Schmuck '72, Alpha Chi Omega; Deborah Bunn Hutchison '74 and Elizabeth Tsiharidis Farris '94, Alpha Phi; Sudee Miller Floyd '83 and Laura Hill Steinbeck '85, Chi Omega; and Kathryn Ude '79 and Cori Gilbert Wallace '99 for leading the challenge on behalf of their sororities.
"The Center for Ethics and Global Studies is important to me because ... I had the opportunity to travel to Europe to tour sites of importance in the Holocaust as part of Woods Around the World ... I think it is so vital to travel abroad. It's an opportunity to step back and see how people in other countries live their lives. It's such a huge change when you go to another country not knowing the language because it is like you become a minority. I think everyone should experience this type of traveling because it really does enrich the mind and it is such a rewarding experience." Courtney Wieberg '12
"Being Greek changed my life. It encouraged me to accept opportunities that I might have shied away from. With the support of my sisters, my life has been changed for the better. Being connected to a sorority is valuable. The Greek phase of the Imagine Campaign provides a beautiful home for the next generation of the Greek community."
Judy Kuergeleis Schmuck '72 | <urn:uuid:f67abe8e-2c89-45b4-b5fb-7aad674a8a81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.williamwoods.edu/imagine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949785 | 646 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Imagine you're a precocious, loudmouthed 10 year old, enamored with the city that you live in and its myriad mysteries. The never-ending speed of its citizens, the spray-painted scarred walls of the subway (this was in 1990 mind you), and the subway itself, with its electronic beeps and boops and its tunnel hugging, bridge chugging path from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Now imagine that in the middle of a routine trip to Grandma's apartment, taking the Q Diamond (RIP) from Ditmas Park, Flatbush to the Upper West Side (with a transfer at Herald Square to the D) all of a sudden there's a flash of light, a burst of imagination, and a brightly colored cartoon strip, coming out of nowhere, bursts onto the walls of a subway station that isn't even there. You're enamored, even though it last less than 30 seconds before it disappears and you're climbing the Manhattan Bridge towards the original burst of imagination that is New York City.
You're 10 years old, you just saw an awesome animated cartoon-strip thing while on the subway and then its over, and gone again. You look for it on next month's trip to Gramma's apartment, but its gone. You can't even remember which windows it showed up on - the left or the right side - or between which stops on the train. Years go by, you wonder if it ever really existed, or was just a catnap-powered dream while holding Mom's hand on the subway. A decade goes by and you can't even describe it successfully, further removing this phantom vision from the possibility of reality.
Well guess what Virginia. It existed, and exists again, and has a name. Its called the Masstransiscope and is the genius of an artist named Bill Brand. And last night, at the NY Transit Museum, Mr. Brand gave an enthralling lecture about the inspiration, creation, scientific explanation, destruction, and re-installation of one of the most whimsical, energetic, free pieces of public artwork in New York City. Free if you have an unlimited Metrocard, that is.
Bill Brand, an experimental filmmaker and archivist, as well as professor of Film and Photography at Hampshire College was just another young, creative soul in New York City during the deep dark 1970s and early 80s. He became enamored with cartoons at an early age (Woody Woodpecker with Walter Lantz) and how all films are "simply individual pictures that change from frame to frame". We're learning this as Mr. Brand lectures in the screening room of the NY Transit Museum, and hands out small pieces of 35 mm film, to explain the notion of how film works. Next up, a VHS tape, which Mr. Brand violently smashes against the corner of the podium, in order to rip up the tape and pass it over our heads in the audience. Then Mr. Brand kills all the lights and illuminates himself with a high-powered camera flash. We watch as the ghostly retina image of Bill hovers in the air for a second, then floats away - persistence of vision. Its all visceral, and slightly loopy, and does a good job of explaining early films, notably the zoetrope.
We go on learn how Mr. Brand approached Creative Time, the arts organization, with this wacky idea of installing a slow-motion stop-animation cartoon in the abandoned Myrtle Avenue subway stop on the (nowadays) B & Q trains. To his amazement, they were on board from the get-go. In order to create this interactive film projection, a 300 foot installation, kind of a narrow square hallway had to be installed on the platform of the disused station, with narrow vertical slits in the wall closest to the trains rushing by, and with the painted panels on the back wall. Silkscreened panels, 228 in all, with each one showing a different stage of the animation. Protective graffiti-proof sheer coverings on top of each painting (more on this later). Two vertical fluorescent bulbs framing each of the slits, to light the art as the subway rushes by. Installed and "opened" to the public in 1980, and lasted for 5 years. It looks likes this:
Then Mr. Brand had a family, moved away. Couldn't keep up the upkeep. "Public Funding for 'permanent art' in this country generally means five years" Mr Brand shrugged at us during the lecture. It briefly resurfaced for a few months in 1990, which is when I saw it on my way to Gramma's and it blew my mind. Again, covered in graffiti, vandalized, left for trash.
Until 2008, when construction work on Flatbush Avenue at Myrtle unlocked a gate in the sidewalk which lead to the Myrtle Avenue station, and direct access to the installation. With help from MTA Arts for Transit, and other organizations, including ShelterExpress/MetroClean which helped strip away the years of accumulated paint that coated the panels (but thanks to the sheer coverings, left the animated paint works largely intact), the Masstransiscope was reinstalled.
After Q&A with the artist, the audience of 40 left the museum as a group, and went on a "ride-by" the Masstransiscope. Present in the tour group, Thersea DeSalvio, the artist who painted the original pieces in 1980, and her daughter. Ms. DeSalvio had left the country in 1985, missed the resurfacing of the piece in 1990, and returned to live in NJ. Therefore she hadn't seen her own artist creation since it was first installed in 1980. What a trip! We boarded the R train at Lawrence, rode into Brooklyn one stop and transferred across the platform for a city-bound B. In no time at all we were watching (and applauding) the piece as we whizzed by it (at 7 mph). You too can check out the Masstransiscope. Just swipe your card on a Manhattan-bound B or Q train, sit tight, and wait for the dream to begin. It'll be on your right, after Dekalb Avenue station and before the bridge.
Photographs and Youtube video thanks to Masstransiscope website and artist Bill Brand. | <urn:uuid:7e3d463e-aa70-4d83-a34f-086c86debc60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959467 | 1,311 | 1.59375 | 2 |
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - A judge struck down Alabama's decades-old policy of segregating prison inmates with HIV, ruling Friday that it violates federal disabilities law.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled in favor of inmates who sued to end the longstanding practice and said he would give the state and inmate attorneys time to propose a way to bring state prisons into compliance with his order.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven HIV-positive inmates, called the decision "historic."
Prisons Commissioner Kim Thomas issued a statement saying corrections officials were still studying the ruling and had not decided "our next course of action.
But he said the department "is very disappointed with the conclusions and characterizations reached by the Court."
"The men and women of the ADOC are not prejudiced against HIV-positive inmates, and have worked hard over the years to improve their health care, living conditions, and their activities," Thomas said. "The ADOC remains committed to providing appropriate housing for all of its inmates, including the HIV-positive population, ensuring that these inmates receive a constitutional level of medical care and that the correctional system in Alabama does not further contribute to the current HIV epidemic in our State."
Alabama and South Carolina are the only states that segregate HIV-positive prisoners. The class-action lawsuit accused the state of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
"It spells an end to a segregation policy that has inflicted needless misery on Alabama prisoners with HIV and their families," said ACLU attorney Margaret Winter, who was lead counsel for the plaintiffs during a monthlong trial.
Neither the lawsuit or the judge's ruling mentions South Carolina, but Winter said she hoped it helped end that state's practice.
"A judge considering a similar case in South Carolina would almost certainly give this ruling significant weight, but would not be required to follow it. We hope this opinion will influence South Carolina to abandon its policy," Winter said.
In his opinion, the judge recounted the history of the AIDS scare in the 1980s and noted the extreme rarity of HIV being transmitted by any means other than the sharing of bodily fluids, particularly during unprotected sex between males or between a man and a woman.
"It is not transmitted through casual contact or through the food supply," he wrote. "A person would have to drink a 55-gallon drum of saliva in order for it to potentially result in a transmission. There is no documented case of HIV being sexually transmitted between women."
The prison system had asked Thompson to dismiss the plaintiff's claims, saying the issue had been decided in an earlier lawsuit. But Thompson wrote that circumstances have changed since that ruling and HIV "is no longer inevitably fatal."
Alabama's policy resulted from a "panic" over AIDS in prisons, Thompson wrote. While other states have ended similar practices, Alabama hasn't because of "outdated and unsupported assumptions about HIV and the prison system's ability to deal with HIV-positive prisoners."
Bias from agency leaders is at the heart of the plan to segregate infected inmates, the judge said. He still must decide a part of the suit involving work-release inmates.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read the original story: Judge stops Ala. policy of segregating HIV inmates | <urn:uuid:de794e53-c055-485a-afca-9bd4a20480a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chillicothegazette.com/usatoday/article/1785707 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971822 | 690 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Here are the materials in this update to Grondal v. United States (E.D. Wash.):
An excerpt from the court’s order:
Plaintiffs filed their Complaint on January 21, 2009. Plaintiffs have acquired memberships in and are tenants/occupants of the Mill Bay Resort, a campground located on Lake Chelan in Chelan County, Washington. The Mill Bay Resort exists on real property known as Moses Allotment No.8, also known as Indian Allotment 151-MA-8 (“MA_8″), which consists of approximately 174.26 acres on the shores of Lake Chelan. MA-8 is part of an original allotment authorized under the Moses Agreement of July 7, 1883 as ratified by 23 Stat. 79-80, July 4, 1884 and conveyed to Wapato John through two trust patents. The history of the creation ofMA-8 and other Moses Agreement allotments has been discussed elsewhere, including in this court’s decision on summary judgment (ECF No. 144), in Wapato Heritage, LLC v. U.S., 637 F.3d 1033 (9th Cir. 2011), and in U.S. v. La Chappelle, 81 F. 152 (C.C. 12 Wash. 1897), United States v. Moore, 161 F. 513 (9th Cir. 1908), and Starr v. Long Jim, 227 13 U.S. 613 (1913). | <urn:uuid:3bb1c676-80c2-4c0c-a5d9-61d1f3d9fe10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/federal-court-dismisses-colville-tribe-from-non-indian-claims-to-indian-allotments-sorta/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950655 | 313 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Yes, it’s official: I don’t like Earth Day! And it’s for the same reasons that I don’t like Easter, Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving either. What a cynic, you say! You may be right, but read more to find out why.
Leading up to Earth Day I usually get a ton of spam announcing someone’s Earth Day sale, especially incorporating some worn out phrase like “Save Green on Earth Day”. While I am all about being green, saving green and especially doing my part to protect the environment within the area I can influence, I am not about seeing green promotions once a year from various marketers. So you won’t see an Earth Day email from Nashville Wraps.
Here at Wraps every day is Earth Day. Every piece of Green Way® packaging is earth friendly, and we watch over that 365 days a year. It’s the same way at my home too. In fact I spent a lot of time this year researching organic solutions to fertilizers for my farming (and found them too).
The product managers at Nashville Wraps have been instrumental in creating true green packaging. Some of it has not been popular with the fads, but have been true green. Our biodegradable plastics are a good example. We were telling people about the low carbon imprint of plastic when others were trying to ban them all together; now the tide is changing as people are seeing that they were just getting bad press.
Nashville Wraps was also the first to distribute paper shopping bags made with “Fusion” kraft paper which is 100% recycled white paper on one side and 100% recycled brown on the other. This dual paper gives an economical and ecological alternative to pure white which is difficult to recycle without harsh bleaching and makes a great surface to print on (with water based inks of course). That one took months to develop.
We spend our time looking for and developing green packaging all the way from the Philippines to right next door in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where not only are our 100% recycled bakery boxes made, but also where we found recycled drink bottles being made into shoelaces. It wasn’t a large leap for our folks to quickly realize that if they can make a shoelace, they can make a ribbon! And so the story continues.
So what does Earth Day have to do with Valentines, Easter or Thanksgiving? If every day is Earth Day, then every day is a day to love, give thanks and to believe in miracles with life-changing results.
Happy Earth Day! | <urn:uuid:5b1cd49d-83df-4929-b14a-dc924b4c65ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nashvillewrapscommunity.com/blog/2011/04/i-dont-like-earth-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953521 | 544 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Star Trek Into Darkness
Less a classic "Star Trek" adventure than a Star Trek-flavored action flick, shot in the frenzied, handheld, cut-cut-cut style that’s become Hollywood’s norm, director J.J.…
Booked into the Auditorium Theater in Chicago in the 1930s, Orson Welles was confronted by a snowstorm of historic proportions. Most of his audience couldn't make it to the theater.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "My name is Orson Welles. I am an actor. I am a writer. I am a producer. I am a director. I am a magician. I appear onstage and on the radio. Why are there so many of me and so few of you?"
Welles explains how psychics tell fortunes
Transcript of his famous radio broadcast about Martians landing in New Jersey. It was structured to sound like real news bulletins, and many listeners believed it lock, stock and barrel.
A drunken Welles does a wine commercial
Here is the famous audio recording of Welles working with a British advertising agency to record a commercial for Frozen Peas. The animation isn't needed. All you need to do is listen.
Click here for Orson Welles.org. a magnificently well-presented site on Welles' life and career. That's where I found the image at top, of a 16-year-old Welles having talked his way into a theatrical career in Dublin. On his opening night, he recalled, "I received all the applause I needed for a life."
The competition film "A Castle in Italy," a lightweight comedy, seems strangely out of place.
Boos for Takashi Miike's "Shield of Straw," a muddled "Blind Detective" from Johnnie To and Paolo Sorrentino's "The G...
At Cannes, the Coen brothers discuss their inspirations for "Inside Llewyn Davis."
Roger was a titan in the film community, but he was also a beacon for the seriously disabled. | <urn:uuid:b5dd08f0-0ef6-43a3-ac46-7e2f09dd7268> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/orson-welles-young-old-drunk-sober-and-plenty-pissed-off-about-frozen-peas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966648 | 434 | 1.640625 | 2 |
This site celebrates the activities of Woolwich Arsenal, precursors of Arsenal FC, 100 years ago. Today…
Arsenal 0 Nottingham Forest 1,
Monday 9 October 1909. Division I
100 years ago there were no internationals going on, and football carried on in its proper fashion – with first division matches.
This match, like all midweek games in October was played in the afternoon – when the men working at the armaments factory were at work. Maybe because of this the official records don’t record the crowd.
Just to complete the picture Arsenal were the first Football League club to install floodlights, and the first floodlit game was against Hapoel Tel Aviv at Highbury in September 1951. The rules of the time said that clubs could play under floodlights as long as both sides agreed. So midweek games were still being played in the afternoon right through the 1950s.
In 1909 there was electric lighting (electric street lighting started to be installed in London in the 1880s) but there was nothing powerful enough to illuminate a football ground for another 40 years.
So, to return the 9 October 1901, this was Arsenal’s eighth game of the season, and thus far they had won only one – against Chelsea who were already looking doomed for the relegation they ultimately got.
The previous games were a 7-1 and 5-1 thrashing, the first largely caused by playing a goalkeeper with an injured knee, and the second when using the reserve keeper.
The reserve keeper played one more game for Arsenal in his entire career – this one. So G Fisher made his second and final appearance, while H Oliver playing centre forward made his one and only show for the club.
This defeat left Arsenal precariously near the foot of the table, and it was to get worse in the next game – but I’ll leave that for the present.
Forest had won the Cup in 1898 and come fourth in Division I in 1901, but they’d slipped away and had only returned to the top league in 1907, having won the second division. In the 1909/10 season they had just about the worst defence in the league, and so failing to score against them was another sign of how much trouble Woolwich Arsenal were in.
One win, one draw, six defeats, scored 7, against, 28. Not looking good.
The book, “Making the Arsenal” which tells the story of Arsenal in 1910 – the year that saw the birth of the modern Arsenal club – will be published on October 30th 2009, and will be available via this site. There’s more information on Arsenal today at www.blog.emiratesstadium.info | <urn:uuid:6f52a9dd-db59-4d50-bce9-582c2f798513> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/archives/54 | 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 | 0.987674 | 555 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Last week, I was watching the season finale of the second season of Heroes. It's not technically the season finale, but with the Hollywood writer's strike, they finished off the first part of the season until new episodes could be written.
Anyhow, my memory seems to be bit fuzzy at the moment, but there was a scene in there which caused me to laugh out loud. Two of the characters have broken into the evil corporation Primatech's headquarters in order to destroy the Shanti virus (why the heck can't I remember the exact details?). They login to a computer, enter in the username and then enter in the password.
Normally, when you enter in a password in pretty much any web page anywhere on the web, or any computer system anywhere in the world, it looks like this:
Of course, that's in Windows. If you go to a web page in Firefox and enter in your password, it looks like this:
In this episode of Heroes, the character who I can't remember enters in the password. However, instead of the characters being obfuscated, the password characters are echoed to the screen in plain text and we learn that the password is MIDAS.
I'm beginning to see why the Corporation couldn't control the people they released on the world or capture the good/bad guys. With security measures like that, where passwords are echoed to the screen (and probably stored in plain text, no doubt), one would think that breaches are par for the course.
The heroes were typing asterisks at the keyboard.
The actual password was stored with an LM hash.
Each time the hero typed an asterisk, a cracker program displayed the next character of the actual password. | <urn:uuid:6d3222a1-510c-401d-a03b-b17f282894ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tzink/archive/2007/12/10/security-risks-in-a-powerful-corporation.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951465 | 350 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Last Updated: 11:31 PM, February 18, 2013
Posted: 11:31 PM, February 18, 2013
In 10 days something will happen that hasn’t happened in a while: Washington will stop spending too much money.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I’m not trying to make the process called sequestration into a joke. Oh no, there’s nothing funny about what’s going to happen on March 1, when $80 billion in budget cuts will automatically occur.
But there is something comic — or, at least, comic-bookish — about the process in Washington. I mean, really, there are just two political parties — not three or six or 12 — and they cannot get together and do what has to be done.
At the end of this column I’m going to try — yes, once again — to propose a solution to Washington’s dilemma: a new way to boost the economy while tempering tax increases and spending cuts.
I don’t expect anyone down there to listen, since I haven’t bribed a politician with a big campaign contribution and I don’t lunch with people of influence.
But I’ll give it another shot because then I’ll have a clear conscience when bad things start to happen as a result of our addiction to debt.
We can quibble over the figures. But any way you look at it, the situation is bleak.
The Congressional Budget Office thinks the nation’s deficit might only be $845 billion this year, instead of the $1 trillion-plus shortfalls of the past three years.
But as I’ve explained before, those deficits are calculated without the use of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles — or GAAP as they’re called — that are mandatory when corporations do their books.
If you use GAAP accounting, which includes long-term obligations like retirement payments and Medicare, then our total debt is around $88 trillion. And 2012’s GAAP deficit was about $1.3 trillion, well above the still-shocking $1.09 trillion that was reported.
Even when the $80 billion in automatic cuts occur, the deficit will still be monstrously larger than the $200 billion to $300 billion deficits that were common before we hit this rough economic patch in 2007.
Worse, cutting $80 billion in spending (or some combination of spending cuts and tax increases) will inevitably slow down the economy, which was nearly in a recession in the last three months of 2012.
The reduction in tax revenue from another economic slowdown could quickly eat away at those $80 billion in sequestration benefits — and we’ll be right back where we started from, in need of more cuts and tax increases.
What if the deficit isn’t cut? Well, then a true catastrophe could occur. Eventually investors — especially of the foreign variety — will simply refuse to buy US debt until interest rates climb enough to compensate them for the risk associated with Washington’s overspending.
So, Washington is damned if it cuts spending and damned if it doesn’t.
The only thing the economy has going for it right now is the high price of stocks, which have been rising irrationally because of an easymoney policy that the Federal Reserve and the world’s other central banks have been pursuing for the last five years.
Not surprisingly, some people have benefited from the stock market’s rise. In fact, it was reported last week that the money in 401(k) retirement accounts rose above the 2007 level. (This fact will be important when I start making my proposal.)
This last part may sound like wonderful news, but it really isn’t.
After five years, people’s retirement wealth is only back to where it had been. And that’s only for those who weren’t wiped out in the 2007/08 Wall Street debacle or who weren’t too risk-averse (and sensible, in my view) to keep their assets in stocks.
People lost wealth in other ways, which hasn’t yet been recovered.
The value of most people’s homes declined dramatically. Savers lost trillions because of low interest rates, which are essentially a secret tax on the thrifty to help borrowers and Wall Street firms.
And, of course, millions of people still haven’t recovered from job losses.
In the US, the Fed’s easy-money policy — which includes the incredibly dangerous, innocuous-sounding Quantitative Easing — has done little to spur economic growth. But it has done a lot to rig the stock market and pump up another equity bubble.
Now Fed members are even expressing increased nervousness that QE will eventually turn into a problem the economy can’t handle.
The Fed has tried its last trick, even though Ben Bernanke would publicly disagree with that. QE hasn’t helped the economy. So the game is over for the Fed.
Congress and the White House are also out of tricks.
Our elected officials tried to spend their way out of the economic slide, which is a classic reaction to downturns. But that, too, hasn’t worked.
The economic stool, right now, has two very wobbly legs.
For years I’ve been suggesting that Washington create a third leg by allowing Americans to tap into the riches in their retirement plans like 401(k) and IRAs — to buy some of the vast amounts of foreclosed homes weighing down the economy.
It’s a plan whose time has come.
I’ll flesh this plan out more in Thursday’s column. | <urn:uuid:52a96af0-f20a-4c66-8462-99d1b436e8ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/business/march_arriving_like_lion_and_we_1vjNCTEkgSmJ2NJOzBHOSI | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951243 | 1,193 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Just wondering if this is an "o.k" thing to do and will not mess with the Unity project?
Are there any issues with doing this?
I wanted to use it to store per-project default settings for an AssetPostprocessor class I'm making. i.e:
AssetDatabase.CreateAsset only takes a relative path and it's always inside the asset folder. You can't use a full path. All Unity-stuff that belongs to your project have to be placed inside the asset folder. If you don't want to include an asset into your build, just place it in an "editor" folder.
If you just want to store some settings you still can use plain .NET / Mono functions to write an xml file or something like that. This one you can place where ever you want, but your should leave the library folder alone. There's no reason to place anything in there. You can create a seperate folder for your stuff ("config" or something like that).
But again all assets that are under control of Unity have to be placed inside the assets folder
answered Oct 03 '11 at 05:54 PM | <urn:uuid:f1f2c7a9-77da-4900-8641-77052f4a51fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/172906/is-it-ok-to-save-custom-per-project-asset-files-in.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938209 | 234 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Mission Basilica 31520 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, CA92675 The city of San Juan Capistrano was built around the historic Mission complex in 1776. The ruins of this original…More structure are also located on this property and are now a museum. The Mission Basilica is the more modern structure and home to the Catholic faith headed by Rev. Monsignor Arthur A. Holquin. Mass services are conducted daily in this Basilica building with High Mass held on Saturdays and Sundays. The facility is used by members of the church for weddings, births and funeral services. The site is a registered monument with the National Historic Preservation Trust. In the year 2000, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II named this special place of pilgrimage a "Minor Basilica" and today it is a calling place for Catholics to visit.
Dynasty Collections & Antiques 31531 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, CA92675 This showroom across the street from the Mission Basilica church near the historic Mission de Capistrano specializes in…More Japanese and Chinese antiques though it also carries American and European antiques. Items include porcelain, pottery and stone figures that are great for outdoor gardens. | <urn:uuid:59c0aed9-a6cf-494a-82d4-ccb8526fcf51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sanjuancapistrano.patch.com/search?keywords=Mission+Basilica+Church | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931614 | 256 | 1.523438 | 2 |
publication date: Mar 19, 2009
author/source: Anne Coates
Make your holiday money go further with Anne's top ten tips:
- Getting to a London airport - returns on Gatwick Express and Heathrow Express are far more expensive than the southern service and underground respectively. To Stansted the bus outside Liverpool Street Station takes a little longer than the train but costs half as much.
- Foreign currency – buy with cash at Post Offices. Using debit cards mean an extra 2.5 per cent charge. Dollars and Euros are available on the same day but for all other currencies you have to order two days in advance.
- Holiday insurance – check your home contents insurance as you may be covered for losing/damage to your belongings abroad and this could cut the cost of your holiday policy. If you have an annual holiday policy only renew it when you are about to go on another trip.
- When to go – midweek flights are less expensive than Friday and Sunday dates.
- Tourist information – make the most of the wealth of information available free from tourist information offices either in the UK or in the country of your destination. Don’t buy maps, get them on arrival and download any directions you need from the web.
- Travel guides – read up about your destination by borrowing books form the library or going on line. Remember any book you buy will be about a year out of date on prices and opening times etc.
- Inflight food – if it isn’t provided free of charge by your carrier, buy your sandwiches and drinks in the departure lounge outlets. You’ll have a wider choice and they’ll be cheaper.
- Credit cards – the Post Office credit card has a 0 per cent commission on purchases overseas. It is worth using a credit card when buying jewellery or expensive items as if there is anything wrong with the product you are covered under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and should be able to get your money back.
- Mobile phones – it’s cheaper to send texts than make calls. You will be charged for calls made to your mobile so switch it off and make sure you don’t have the voicemail service activated unless it really is important for you to receive calls.
- Sterling – don’t be tempted to pay for goods in sterling – the exchange rate will be uncompetitive and will cost you between one and five per cent more. | <urn:uuid:23f5e6a3-4b8c-46b3-bb69-63af6e3b86eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parentingwithouttears.com/articles/20090318 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930216 | 500 | 1.523438 | 2 |
|CGSociety :: Technology Focus|
14 October 2010, by Paul Hellard
During IBC in Amsterdam when the Autodesk Softimage 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack software was publicized, it was also announced that the Lagoa Multiphysics simulation technology would be brought into the Softimage workflow. Thiago Costa, inventor of the Lagoa solver, has come a long way from the streets of southern Brazil. In his home town there were beaches and fishing boats, but no web, so he says he figured out lots of things by himself. By his own admission, he "learned how to make silly things happen on the computer".
After more than two years in development, Thiago Costa has unveiled Lagoa Multiphysics, an exciting feature addition to Autodesk Softimage, the first application he targeted for his new solver. | <urn:uuid:ddde53cd-a99c-4bf9-b72b-b5c84572100a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/lagoa_multiphysics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979198 | 177 | 1.671875 | 2 |
GM promises the upcoming 2013 Chevrolet Malibu will provide the utmost in comfort, and it can thank Oscar for it. Oscar kept busy in providing engineers with key measurements used to develop maximum comfort in the new model, and the comfort engineers wouldn’t even begin to layout the vehicle’s dimensions without his input. Although it sounds like Oscar deserves a raise, it won’t do him much good.
Oscar is a three-dimensional, mannequin-like simulation tool used by engineers to help them develop seats that can accommodate drivers and passenger of various sizes with exceptional comfort. Oscar, weighing in at 170 pounds and assembled in 18 different parts, is technically known as a “Comfort Dimensioning System.”
Malibu seat performance engineer Daniel Cohen says “Oscar represents our consumers,” and that’s because he can take their shape. Oscar can be assembled to represent an average 172 pound adult, scaled up to 270 pounds, and is even capable of modeling a more petite 108 pound female.
Oscar’s shape and size was developed by using human X-rays, and is mechanically hinged at the hip-point, closely mimicking the pivotal center of the human torso and thigh. Oscar’s hip-point helps comfort engineers get an idea of how much headroom is needed, along with a comfortable back angle. All this in turn helps paint the overall picture of the positioning of driving controls like the steering wheel, pedals, rearview mirrors and instrument panel.
But Oscar is not completely new to GM, he’s 50 years old! The automaker designed and patented him back in 1961, and he still continues to be a vital asset to the comfort engineering team.
Why the name ‘Oscar?’ The dummy is descendant from the Oscar Eightball, a heavier 185-pound dummy used by Northrop for ejection seat and other testing in aviation. GM drew inspiration from the mannequin and created its own. In order to differentiate between the two , GM dropped the ‘Eightball’ from the dummy name. | <urn:uuid:95771ef3-6ed1-4fdd-a2bb-398b737a3768> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rumors.automobilemag.com/50-year-old-mannequin-influences-design-of-2013-chevrolet-malibu-59943.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951433 | 431 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Tonya Jackson (703) 524-7600
|For Immediate Release
10 Dec 97
This documentary is part of the "America Undercover" series and will debut on HBO on Tuesday, January 6, and air several times throughout the month. The film's premiere tonight in New York City was co-hosted by HBO and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), the nation's leading advocacy organization for people with severe mental illnesses, such as major depression.
"'Dead Blue: Surviving Depression' is a useful tool for educating millions of people about severe mental illness, particularly major depression," said Laurie Flynn, executive director of NAMI. "People seeing this film will be left with one over-arching message -- treatment works."
The 55-minute film gives the viewer a greater understanding of the pain of depression and the hope offered by new and effective treatments. Wallace, Styron and Manning paint a human portrait of the challenges of living with depression through candid interviews, photos, home movies and archival footage from their lives.
"HBO produced this documentary to reach out to anyone suffering in silence," said Sheila Nevins, HBO producer. "If one person learns that severe depression is treatable by seeing this documentary, then the film has served its purpose."
Thanks to medical advances, major depression can now be easily diagnosed. Depression is defined as a mental disorder marked by feelings of sadness, despair, hopelessness and thoughts of suicide. Effective treatment, coupled with the support of friends and family members, can speed recovery.
"The testimony heard throughout the documentary illustrates the path to survival for people with depression," said Flynn. "All too often, people don't seek help and that's why suicide claims the lives of nearly 18,000 people with depression every year in this country."
NAMI works on the national, state and local level through 168,000 members and more than 1,100 affiliates to provide education about severe mental illnesses and to support increased funding for research and quality services.
This video may be purchased online at www.amazon.com. | <urn:uuid:0c4e5c4b-25bd-4bcb-917d-6e5ace988015> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Press_Release_Archive&template=/contentmanagement/contentdisplay.cfm&ContentID=5583&title=New%20HBO%20Documentary%20Unlocks%20The%20Mystery%20Behind%20Major%20Depression | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954848 | 425 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Our artist has been working hard drawing all the graphics for our new game (more info to come on that front). She’s been working on the main character’s animations recently. These are complex animations with many frames and, to ensure they line up properly, she draws all the frames within a canvas the size of a single frame and separates the layers into layer sets. This is to ensure that the image for each frame of the animation aligns correctly with the frame before it.
However, our animation system in the game requires that each frame is drawn separately from left to right. Even with the layer sets, it’s still a lot of annoying manual work to move and align each frame while ensuring they’ll draw the same as they did in the single-frame-sized canvas. I recently found out that you can script for PS and so this set me thinking: there must be a way to write a script that can do this!
If you’re interested in the script click on.Read the rest of this entry » | <urn:uuid:7f191f17-856e-419c-b38b-4349a2d45d19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.systemroot.ca/tags/scripting-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943819 | 215 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The Taliban's reclusive leader Mullah Omar has issued a bellicose Eid statement that was swiftly denounced by the commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan Friday as a message of hate from a deranged man.
The rare statement by the Islamic militants' one-eyed leader claims victories on the battlefield against NATO and defends as tactical the Taliban's initial contacts, now suspended, with the United States.
General John Allen pilloried the statement as "an unmistakable message of death, hate and hopelessness for the Afghan people" on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Calling Omar a "deranged man" using "insane language", Allen scoffs at his call on Taliban militants to avoid killing civilians, pointing to the deaths of dozens of civilians in a series of suicide and bomb attacks this week.
"Either Omar is lying, or his henchmen are not listening to him, but it is clear that innocent Afghan civilians are paying the price for his corrupt leadership," Allen said in a statement.
In an apparent move to allay fears among some Taliban factions, Omar said in his seven-page statement that initial talks with the United States "had not meant submission or abandoning our goals".
Instead they had been aimed at initiating an exchange of prisoners, opening a political office and to "reach our goals", he said, noting that the Taliban had suspended the talks earlier this year.
General John Allen, the chief NATO commander in Afghanistan (seen in Washington in March) has denounced a message from reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar to mark the end of Ramadan as "an unmistakable message of death, hate and hopelessness for the Afghan people".
He called the "so-called transition", under which NATO is handing increasing responsibility for the war to Afghan security forces ahead of the exit of some 130,000 foreign troops by the end of 2014, a sign of defeat.
And Omar, said by the Afghan government to be based in neighbouring Pakistan, warned the war would continue after their departure.
"The Afghan people will wage jihad (holy war) against the foreign invasion until complete independence of the country, though the invasion may ensconce itself in the garb of peace-keeping forces or strategic cooperation," he said.
The United States has signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with the government of President Hamid Karzai pledging support after the departure of combat troops and is expected to leave a residual force behind.
The Taliban has always refused to negotiate directly with Karzai's government, labelling it a puppet of Washington, and Omar dismissed it in his statement as "corrupt, collapsing and ill".
But, he said in his message, which mixed belligerence with promises of future "unity and harmony", the Taliban "will make efforts to reach an understanding with the Afghan factions in due time following (the) pull-out of the invaders".
On the war itself, Omar claimed that the "unique distinction" of this year's summer offensive by the Taliban was that it had reached all areas of the country and forced NATO and Afghan government into defensive positions.
NATO has acknowledged a spike in attacks this summer over the same period last year.
Omar also claimed that a spate of green-on-blue attacks, in which Afghan forces turn their weapons against NATO personnel, was the result of Taliban infiltrating local security units.
NATO says most of the incidents, in which 39 foreign soldiers have been killed this year, are motivated by cultural differences between troops and plays down the role of Taliban infiltration.
The Taliban, led by Omar, were in power from 1996 until being ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001 for harbouring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. | <urn:uuid:4a0e1ab0-dc2e-4e2d-8b3a-72a2f04b7d17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.afp.com/en/news/topstories/nato-brands-taliban-leader-omars-eid-message-insane | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966664 | 775 | 1.5 | 2 |
Long, long ago on a primitive planet teenagers went amok. Fed by imagination and fueled by pulp paper and ink they formed little local clubs and passed Weird Tales and Hugo Gernsback scientifiction (later Sci-Fi and SF) back and forth between each other. When a “pen pal” in a far off town couldn’t get the latest works of E Hoffmann Price, Seabury Quinn, Dr. David Keller, Ray Bradbury, Damon Knight, L Sprague deCamp, Isaac Asimov, or some other fantasy-horror-weird tale writer, they traded them or sold extra copies.
Not content to merely talk about it, or send a USPS letter about it (long distance! too expensive!), they made their own “fanatic magazines”, or fanzines. These were the rawest of raw by the most amateur of amateurs. The art was drawn, and then hectographed (by gelatin plates) or sometimes a raid to the local high to use the mimeograph machine!
Crude? You bet. Fun? Better than an Indie forum firefight. In fact, fanzines invented the flame war. One of the first practitioners of the flame war was a guy from Providence named Howard Lovecraft. When “H P Lovecraft” wasn’t calling down astrologers in the newspapers, or ripping into Edgar Rice Burroughs for not portraying Mars correctly, he critiqued other people’s stories. That is until he met a kid from California named Forest Ackerman. Whew, was that something. Later, along came cratchity Harlan Ellison, frenetic Ray Bradbury, and a boy from Florida whose name was almost as long as his state: Linwood Vrooman Carter.
Those were days when amateurs drooled to be in the “prozines”, or *gasp* land a letter in the PULPS! A few rare dreamers thought they might one day live to have a short story published like their heroes Robert Bloch, August Derleth, or Robert Heinlein. Darest they reach for the stars and think they might even get a BOOK published?
Many youths between the years 1935 and 1975 learned their craft and landed contracts (such as Marion Zimmer and later Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire, Jr), became critics or editors (Sam Moskowitz), or went on to write for radio, television, and movies (Arthur C Clarke is one example). As they say, cream rises to the top.
Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of those fandom days is how 4SJ managed to sneak him risqué magazine covers through the USPS censors! Hey, anything for the G. I. Josephs!
So the next time you visit an Indie horror forum and post there, think how hard that person is working to grow the genre. Support Horror! It may be down, but it ain’t over yet! | <urn:uuid:0664db86-bdc0-4ef2-bee0-66c1f4872d56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miskatonicbooks.wordpress.com/tag/sam-moskowitz/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942736 | 612 | 1.828125 | 2 |
IRS Tax Tips
January 24, 2007 – IRS Tax Tip 2007-17
What to do if You Haven't Filed Your 2005 Return
The failure to file a federal tax return can be costly — whether you end up owing more or missing out on a refund.
There are several reasons taxpayers don’t file their taxes. Perhaps you didn’t know you were required to file. Maybe, you just kept putting it off and simply forgot. Whatever the reason, it’s best to file your return as soon as possible. If you need help, even with a late return, the IRS is ready to assist you.
Here are some things to consider:
- Failure to File penalty. If you owe taxes, a delay in filing may result in a "failure to file" penalty, also known as the “late filing” penalty, and interest charges. The longer you delay, the larger these charges grow.
- Losing your Refund. There is no penalty for failure to file if you are due a refund. However, you cannot obtain a refund without filing a tax return. If you wait too long to file, you may risk losing the refund altogether. The deadline for claiming refunds is three years after the return due date. For example, the last day for claiming a refund for your 2003 tax return will be April 17, 2007.
- EITC. Individuals who are entitled to the Earned Income Tax Credit must file their return to claim the credit even if they are not otherwise required to file.
Whether or not you must file a tax return will depend upon a number of factors, including your filing status, age, and gross income.
For more information on how to file a tax return for a prior year, visit the IRS Web site at IRS.gov, call the IRS Tax Help Line for Individuals at 800-829-1040 or visit your local IRS office. | <urn:uuid:fd2b67bc-5959-41dc-a04f-1e7cba460f49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taxact.com/reference/tt_2005-return.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940209 | 395 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Rockefeller political dynasty dies with oil tycoon's great-grandson Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) retiring from U.S. Senate
John D. Rockefeller's great-grandson is retiring from the U.S. Senate after a nearly 30 year run.
Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller announced on Friday that he will end his congressional career and not seek a sixth term representing the state of West Virgina.
'I’ve decided that 2014 will be the right moment for me to find new ways to fight for the causes I believe in and to spend more time with my incredible family,' the 75-year-old politician said at a press conference in Charleston, West Virgina.
Retiring: Sen. Jay Rockefeller, with his grandchildren and wife Sharon, announced on Friday that he will not seek a sixth term in the U.S. Senate
Early days: Jay Rockefeller with his wife and their children when he launched his political career
His announcement marks the end of long political dynasty in one of America's wealthiest and most prominent families.
Jay Rockefeller is the great-grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller and the lone Democrat in the brood.
The more conservative policy makers in the clan were responsible for creating a class called 'The Rockefeller Republicans' which referred to a more moderate, fiscally conservative yet socially liberal sect of the GOP.
His great-grandfather Nelson Aldrich was a long serving Republican senator from New York from 1881 to 1911.
His uncle, Nelson Rockefeller, was the 49th Governor of New York. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination three times from 1960 to 1968.
He did finally enter the national political stage, serving as Vice-President under Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1977.
Another uncle, Winthrop Rockefeller, was the Republican governor of the state of Arkansas from 1967 to 1971.
All in the family: Sen. Jay Rockefeller's uncle, Nelson (pictured in 1969), was the governor of New York and also served as Vice President under Gerald Ford
Legacy: John D. Rockefeller, left, founded the Standard Oil Company and made the family name synonymous with wealth and power. His grandson, John D. Rockefeller III, right, was Jay Rockefeller's father
Jay Rockefeller, a New York City native who attended Harvard College, moved to West Virginia in 1964 as part of the VISTA program, a U.S. Peace Corps-type initiative that mobilized volunteers to fight poverty in the U.S.
He served as the Governor of West Virginia from 1976 to 1985 and began his time in the U.S. Senate in January 1985.
In the U.S. Senate, he served on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Sen. Rockefeller represented the Mountain State alongside the venerable statesman, Senator Robert Byrd.
After Sen. Byrd's death at the age of 92 in June 2010, former Democratic Governor Joe Manchin won a special election to fill his seat.
As the state leans more conservative though, it is thought Rockefeller's seat will easily fall to a Republican in 2014.
Rebel with a cause: Sen. Jay Rockefeller, pictured in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, was the lone Democratic among the Rockefeller Republicans
President Barack Obama noted Sen. Rockefeller's 'impressive legacy' in a statement on Friday and praised the Senator's work as a progressive voice in the upper chamber of Congress.
'Michelle and I join the people of West Virginia in thanking Senator Rockefeller for a lifetime of service, and I look forward to continuing to work with him over the next two years,' the president said.
While the Rockefeller run in politics seems to be nearing the end, another family powerhouse in American politics is set to carry on the tradition.
George Prescott Bush, son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, is said to be gearing up to soon make his foray into politics in the Lone Star state.
The 36-year-old is the nephew of 43rd President George W. Bush, grandson of 41st President George H.W. Bush and great grandson of Prescott Bush, who represented the state of Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1952 until January 1963. | <urn:uuid:b35facc9-8fe9-4df8-96a1-4a7bb82512f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261600/Rockefeller-political-dynasty-dies-oil-tycoons-great-grandson-Jay-Rockefeller-D-WV-retiring-U-S-Senate.html?ITO=1490 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959922 | 868 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Certified Interior Designers and Their Services
What is a New York Certified Interior Designer?
A Certified Interior Designer (CID) licensed in New York plans, designs, supervises and/or consults on various aspects of interior spaces including:
- layouts and planning of interior construction
- furnishings and fixtures
- cabinetry, lighting and finishes
- other aspects of interior construction not materially related to the main structural building components or systems
To safeguard people and property, certified interior designers incorporate construction, fire, safety and accessibility codes and data into their design services.
When would I use the services of a certified interior designer?
You might employ a CID to plan and design the interior space of a new or existing house or business. The CID will consider your needs as well as environmental safety laws, building and fire codes, accessible-design regulations, and historic preservation factors. Certified interior designers work to integrate design solutions with informed selections from a range of product resources and services.
What services do New York certified interior designers offer?
New York CIDs work with you to create home and business environments that project your desired image while allowing for changing requirements, functionality, comfort, and efficiency. Their services include the following:
- schematic design and development
- space planning
- complete interior design specifications
- working drawings
- project monitoring and post-occupancy review
In providing these and related services, certified interior designers ensure that all fire codes, flammability ratings, and other safety and product issues are addressed.
What credentials does a New York Certified Interior Designer have?
A licensed New York CID has earned at least 7 years of education/experience credit and has passed a 12.5 hour national licensing examination. With the exception of those who applied for licensure prior to January 1, 1996, certified interior designers have at least a two year associate's degree from an interior design program registered by the State Education Department (or its equivalent) and have earned qualifying experience as interior designers.
What should I expect as a client of a certified interior designer?
You should expect to be provided with:
- a description of the designer's qualifications;
- names of former clients as references;
- a clear and complete description of the work that will be done and the products that will be delivered;
- a project schedule, including terms of payment; and,
- final plans, specifications and reports that contain the signature of the certified interior designer.
The CID can provide complete project services, including project planning, design, supervision, and inspection.
What can I do to ensure a good professional relationship with my certified interior designer?
Make your needs known as clearly as possible; ask questions if you are unsure about any elements of the project. It is also in your best interest to have a written contract that contains the following:
- description of the work to be done;
- work schedule;
- a description of the completed products, including drawings, schedules and data; and
- the amount and terms of payment of the designer's compensation.
How do I locate a certified interior designer?
Check under "Interior Decorators and Designers" in the yellow pages of your telephone book. You may also call professional organizations for assistance in identifying their members who may specialize in your area of need.
The State Board for Interior Design cannot refer you to a practitioner.
What questions should individuals with disabilities ask about accessing services?
Ask such questions as whether the service location is physically accessible (curb cuts, ramps, restrooms, etc.) as well as whether there is a Telecommunication Device for the Deaf (TDD) and parking for people with disabilities.
Are client records confidential?
Yes, in general. New York certified interior designers are required by the Rules of the Board of Regents to keep confidential any personally identifiable facts, data or information obtained in a professional capacity unless the client has given prior consent to release this information.
Verifying a New York License
New York interior designers must display a current New York registration certificate; this certificate lists the professional's name, address, and dates of the registration period. Interior designers must reregister every three years to practice in New York. Some professionals also display their original New York license, diploma, licenses from other states, and membership certificates. You may verify an individual's license and registration on this site. | <urn:uuid:a410037d-0151-4354-97e0-12647c758ae9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/id/interiorbroch.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935008 | 896 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Over the last decade, the prediction market industry has grown more slowly than one might have expected given the technology’s unique combination of simplicity and power. The main source of resistance to enterprise prediction markets has been the information and power-sharing that this new approach entails. Those traditionally in control of the collection and distribution of information are often reluctant to let go of their prerogatives.
Yet, the pace of adoption has also been relentless. One has to wonder what is the deep driver to adoption that has been able to effectively counter the natural and powerful resistance to share information and power.
In the latest issue of CNBC BUSINESS magazine, a feature article on NewsFutures provides some answers, beyond the traditional nod to Surowiecki’s “The Wisdom of Crowds” book whose best-seller success is itself a symptom of something deeper and more powerful: a demography-enabled cultural shift:
Servan-Schreiber suggests that it may not be long before participatory technologies become a prerequisite for employees reared on a diet of blogs and wikis. “A whole generation of workers has grown up with the internet and everything it entails,” he says. “It means they expect to be heard and to be part of the conversation all the time, including at work. They expect that people will listen and take them seriously. Prediction markets provide an answer for that yearning.”
His message for these companies is that resistance is futile; prediction markets are, literally, the future. “We are in tune with collective intelligence and participatory process; prediction markets can easily involve thousands of people. Our industry is surfing a huge demographic wave and that is what will make us ubiquitous.”
Read the full article online. | <urn:uuid:87ca379a-cf93-44c6-8a20-33e0a7c88680> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsfutures.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950749 | 361 | 1.75 | 2 |
Fort Hays State University > About FHSU > Division of Student Affairs > Academic Advising and Career Exploration > Commemorative Cowbell
Bells have a variety of traditions surrounding them. In the Academic Advising and Career Exploration Center, they are a symbol of a voice being heard.
Students who receive a cowbell from the AACE Center have completed the career exploration process in the office and have found their voice in declaring a major that fits their interests, abilities, values and strengths.
This milestone is celebrated with the gift of the cowbell to serve as a reminder to the student that with exploration, reflection and commitment to themselves they can find their place in the world.
The yellow color of the cowbell not only shows FHSU school spirit, but also represents the drive of the student to act and turn their goals and dreams into a reality.
Copyright © 2009-2012 Fort Hays State University • 600 Park Street, Hays, Kansas 67601–4099 • 785–628–FHSU (3478) Contact Webmaster with any questions or comments concerning this Web site. | <urn:uuid:e1e03422-a829-4d9d-9410-1de820f03479> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fhsu.edu/aace/commemorative-cowbell/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954548 | 226 | 1.671875 | 2 |
A former Barclays executive has told MPs he was instructed by his then boss, Bob Diamond, to cut the bank’s Libor interest rate submissions. Jerry del Missier, who quit as Barclays chief operating officer, has appeared before the Treasury select committee.
Asked if a 2008 phone call from his boss was an instruction to cut the rates del Missier said “yes, it was”. Last month, Barclays was fined £290 million after admitting trying to manipulate Libor from 2005 to 2009. Barclays has said that Mr del Missier told his traders to cut the Libor interest rate submissions following a misunderstanding over a note sent from Mr Diamond. However del Missier told MPs he acted on the basis of a phone call from Diamond made the day before. “I took the action on the basis of the phone call that I had had with Mr Diamond,” Mr del Missier said.
“He [Bob Diamond] said that he had a conversation with Mr Tucker of the Bank of England, that the Bank of England was getting pressure from Whitehall around Barclays, the health of Barclays as a result of Libor rates and that we should get our Libor rates down and that we should not be outliers. “At the time, it did not seem an inappropriate action, given that this was coming from the Bank of England,” del Missier added. Asked, was it an instruction from Mr Diamond to him to lower Libor, del Missier replied “yes, it was.” “I passed the instruction on to the head of the money market desk. I relayed the content of the conversation I had with Mr Diamond and fully expected the Bank of England views would be fully incorporated in the Libor submission,” he said.
MPs asked del Missier how he managed to misunderstand a crucial email from Diamond sent the day after the phone call.
The e-mail had summarised a call between Diamond and Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England. It appeared to suggest that the Bank might turn a blind eye if Barclays reduced its high Libor submissions, to avoid appearing under financial stress at the height of the international banking crisis. “Mr Tucker stated... it did not always need to be the case that we appeared as high as we have recently,” the notes, written by Diamond said. Del Missier told the committee he believed the Bank of England alone instructed Barclays to lower Libor submissions. Diamond had previously told the committee he did not believe the Bank of England instructed the bank to lower the inter-bank lending rate and did not believe he instructed del Missier to do so. Asked how he could have misinterpreted Diamond’s conversation, del Missier said: “I can only tell you what I clearly recall from the conversation.” (BBC) | <urn:uuid:c3dc3c02-e51c-427a-ad74-ebe2853674bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.tt/business/2012-07-17/libor-scandal-del-missier-%E2%80%98instructed%E2%80%99-diamond | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982165 | 580 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Soldier author Neil Blower could be in line to get government backing for his groundbreaking idea to place 'Veterans Champions' in every British local authority to "save the lives" of ex-forces personnel.
Royal Tank Regiment veteran Neil witnessed his mentor sergeant Steve Roberts being shot and killed as the first British casualty of the Iraq War in March 2003.
Like an estimated 50,000 others returning to civilian life in Britain from conflicts happening now, dad-of-two Neil - who also served in Kosovo - suffered post-traumatic stress disorder when he left in 2005.
Many former soldiers with the condition slip tragically slip into alcohol abuse, drug abuse, domestic violence and homelessness.
But amazingly Neil - who was taught to fire a rifle before he could vote or drink - found solace from a 'maze of darkness' in his head by picking up a pen and writing.
His first book 'Shell Shock: The Diary of Tommy Atkins' - which he described as 'Heart of Darkness meets Adrian Mole' - was published to critical acclaim in October 2011.
And now Neil, who lives in Salford with his partner Samantha, 26, and sons Ethan, 5, and 13-week-old Oliver, is planning to get Parliament to listen to the stories told by thousands of others.
Despite a network of more than 700 charities offering support to former servicemen and women Neil believes a government-backed 'Veterans Champion' working at a local authority will be able to help as they will understand what the ex-soldiers have been through.
His idea has already got support from his local MP Hazel Blears and Neil is set to meet defence minister Mark Francois this December.
Neil, 29, said: "If you have a young man in his early 20s who do they talk to? The public have shown an enormous amount of respect to the armed forces, but should it be up to them to provide the support?
"I do think this will save lives, having someone like an NCO who has commanded 100 men will be someone these young men and women can talk too.
"Get any veterans together, be it from the Korean War, the Iraq War, the Falklands or whenever and there is a connection there, an understanding.
"These 'veterans champions' will be someone these ex-servicemen and woman can talk to knowing they understand and someone who can connect them to a network of support.
"In Salford you've got 11,000 people employed by the council so what is one more, and the money they will save in social services, prison costs and support for homelessness or substance abuse will pay for itself.
Neil said his own personal experience was echoed throughout the armed forces returning to civilian life in the UK.
He said: "We have been at war for a decade now, in Kosovo, in Iraq and now Afghanistan. We send children to fight our wars and I was trained to fire a rifle before I could vote or drink.
"I was 18 in Kosovo when I lost my innocence and first witnessed the horror and man's inhumanity to man.
"When I came back in 2001 the TV show Pop Idol was at its height and I saw it and civilian life and was thinking 'there are people dying out there', it had f***** me up to be fair.
"I was 20 when I saw my comrade and mentor Sgt Roberts die, he was like an uncle to me, to the whole unit.
"Iraq was the biggest British Army operation since Korea, it was a shooting war, people went and didn't come back the same person.
"They say that travel broadens your horizons, except when your travel agent is the British Army it's a bit different."
Neil said much of the problem ex-forces personnel face is a sense of 'loneliness' from the rest of society.
He said: "People say the people in World War II didn't get all these problems we get now, but that was different.
"I live next door to an electrician and a chef, if it was World War II they would have gone to war too, it was the whole country at war, so it was a shared experience.
"Now you are talking a fighting force of at maximum 100,000 in a country of 60 million people, unless you live in a garrison town we are just a small demographic.
"In 2005 I left the army on a Friday and got a job as a cleaner at the Job Centre on a Monday before I became a security guard.
"I think I had an NVQ when I worked on the tanks but there aren't a lot of Challenger II battle tanks in Salford to work on.
"For me my release of the emotions I was feeling was writing, little short stories and notes, but for others it is not like that.
"Inside I suppose the best way you can describe it is like a maze of darkness, for me this came across as feeling angry, I shut myself off from the world, I wouldn't make eye contact or listen to people when they talked to me. I probably came across as a bit of a p****."
Neil said he had support from his partner Samantha, his children and discovering a love of writing.
He said: "I got made redundant in the recession and decided to go to university and study a degree. I got into Salford University studying English and Creative Writing.
"I was like a sponge, I began reading everything I could, studying philosophy, everything and when I had my book published I was over the moon.
"The biggest thing for me since that day has been getting reviews from ex-squaddies telling me when they read it they thought 'that's me' - that's the best review you can have."
A study by King's College London estimated that up to one in five British soldiers leaving the frontline this year will suffer some form of mental illness, while the Forces charity, Combat Stress has warned that up to 50,000 British service personnel could develop mental health problems in the future
Defence secretary Philip Hammond has now said he will ask Lord Ashcroft, the Prime Minister's new veterans' tzar, to consider Neil's idea "very carefully" in his deliberations on how to improve support for ex-service personnel.
Neil's MP Hazel Blears, who represents Salford and Eccles, said: "You only have to look at the figures to see that more needs to be done to support our brave ex-servicemen and women who have put their lives on the line for their country.
"Far too many veterans suffer in silence from mental health issues, and some also end up in prison or living on the streets.
"Beyond each statistic is a moving human story like Neil's and having a Veterans' Champion in every town hall is a realistic practical step that could be taken to help.
"It would not cost the earth but it could make a real difference to a section of our society that has been let down for too long.
"I'm pleased that the secretary of state is to ask for the idea to be considered further and I will be writing to Lord Ashcroft to make the case in more detail."
Criminal justice campaign group 'No Offence' claims that military veterans comprise at least 10 per cent of the prison population in England and Wales, although the MOD puts the figure at 3.4 percent.
Homeless Link, the membership body for organisations working with the homeless in the UK has estimated that up to six per cent of the country's homeless population are veterans.
Neil's book Shell Shock: The Diary of Tommy Atkins published by Firestep and is on sale at £8.95. £1 from each sale goes to the charity Combat Stress. | <urn:uuid:91bb9a59-ad2c-403f-9dfe-4984d3e09a7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uk.news.yahoo.com/neil-blower-from-royal-tank-regiment-taking-veterans-champions-idea-to-philip-hammond-30102012.html?.tsrc=yahoo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979238 | 1,599 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Hovercraft transit firm makes bid to revive Toronto-Rochester ferry
April 9, 2008
A Toronto company that for the last five years has been trying to build a Hovercraft service on Lake Ontario is now trying to revive the Toronto-Rochester ferry.
Hover Transit Services, which proposes to use a Hovercraft that once plied the cross-channel route between England and France, was the only bidder for the right to operate the cross-lake service in a public bidding process that closed at the end of March.
The attempt to revive the ferry service is being spearheaded by the City of Rochester, N.Y., and the Toronto Port Authority, which last month asked companies interested in reviving the service to express an interest in doing so.
Alan Knauf, the company's Rochester lawyer, said last night that the city and the port authority will take 30 to 45 days to evaluate Hover's proposal, which says it could get the service going for $10-million. He expects they will have a number of questions for the company, as the proposal at this stage is not very detailed.
"I assume they would be interested. It would be a great contribution to both communities," Mr. Knauf said.
According to the submission from Hover Transit, which two years ago said it was trying to set up a Hovercraft service between Toronto and Niagara, the company would refurbish and use the Princess Anne, a Hovercraft which has been dry-docked in a marine museum since 2000 after 33 years of cross-channel service.
The submission suggests that the vessel, which holds 400 passengers and 55 cars, could make the 88-nautical-mile trip across the lake in 75 minutes, and offer passenger service for about $30 a person, starting in March 2009
It says a second British Hovercraft, the Princess Margaret, could also be purchased, refurbished and put into service on Lake Ontario.
The submission added that the company is exploring the possibility of an early-morning commuter shuttle from either Hamilton or Oshawa to Toronto before leaving for Rochester; then, in the afternoon, it would again cross the lake to Toronto, then return to Hamilton or Oshawa
If the company, which says it has an unnamed partner that already operates a private non-subsidized ferry service between Canada and the United States, goes ahead with the plan, it would be the third attempt in this decade to operate a service.
In 2004, a privately owned venture using a catamaran made in Australia was shut down after less than three months, and the vessel was then sold for $32-million (U.S.) to the City of Rochester, which closed the service in early 2006 after losing $10-million in 10 months.
See HTS's full proposal here..... | <urn:uuid:3462faae-4442-4a0e-ad7a-ef1ce9d29287> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=149041 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964581 | 571 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Honor Killing Averted: Muslim Convert to Christianity Flees For Her Life
by Phyllis Chesler
Yesterday afternoon, my living room was filled with lights, cameras, and two very friendly ABC crew men. We were taping an interview for Good Morning America which appeared today and which is preserved at their website. We talked about honor killings and the plight of Fathima Rifqa Bary, the Muslim teenager from Ohio who converted to Christianity and who ran away from home because she knows her father will kill her.
Seventeen year-old Rifqa's interview is heartbreaking. She knows that if a Muslim leaves Islam, converts to another religion, is an "apostate," that they are supposed to be killed by any other Muslim; this includes members of her own family.
If someone from a Jewish or Christian fundamentalist home converts out, they may be ostracized, they may be treated as if they had died, but they are not physically killed.
Weeping, the very frightened teenager from Sri Lanka knows that most western journalists (and the police who turned her over to the state and forced her into a public trial), do not believe this can be true. How quickly they forget Salman Rushdie's plight. How easily everyone is lulled into viewing fundamentalist Islam as a religion just like any other, as if Islam-on-the-march today is still the "soft," cosmopolitan, hospitable culture it has occasionally been in the past, in certain cities and for certain monied people.
In 1989, the authorities in St Louis Missouri, also chose to allow a battered and bruised Palestina Isa, who had turned to them for help, to remain at the cruel mercies of the very family that had battered her. Palestina was sixteen-years-old and her father was, quite literally, a Palestinian terrorist. The social worker who made a home visit agreed that kids were difficult to control but that the effort to do so must be made. Palestina was held down by her mother as her father viciously kept stabbing her. Palestina's crime? She had an African-American friend who was a boy, and her mother, sisters, and father all perceived her as a "whore" because she was becoming too "westernized."
Now, twenty years later, Rifqa Bary is trying to make us understand something that we still fail to comprehend, do not want to believe is true. On camera, Rifqa keeps saying: "You guys don't understand, my life is at stake, this is reality, this is the truth, they have to kill me if they love God more than they love me." You can see her interview here.
Here is what can happen to her. Rifqa may be "forced" to return to Islam. Her family may place her under house arrest, and bring in the mullahs to reason with or to brainwash her; her mother may beg her to relent so that the family may remain together as before. If all else fails, Rifqa may be sent back to Sri Lanka either to be killed or to be confined to a lunatic asylum. She may be killed here. What absolutely cannot happen is for her religious Muslim family to remain close to her as she follows another religious path very publicly.
I do not have all the facts at my disposal. Thus, it is possible that Rifqa's father may genuinely view her as mentally ill (because only a "crazy" girl would do such a blasphemous thing) and, because he loves her, has decided not to abandon her, but to try and reach her, help her….return to her senses and therefore to Islam.
And, by the way: the weeping and terrified Rifqa has possibly been coached for the interview, she is slightly "hysterical," she seems somewhat auto-hypnotized. And yet, she also makes perfect sense. She is quite in touch with reality.
What can we offer someone like Rifqa in America? There is, as yet, no shelter in America for the intended victims of an honor killing. So far, no prosecutor has accused any murderer of committing an honor killing in America.
Even if we leave religion, culture, and ethnicity out of the equation, (to please every last political correct-nik), an honor killing is not like western-style domestic violence, it is a family collaboration and conspiracy to redeem lost family honor by murdering a daughter, wife, sister, or female cousin. Only her blood can "cleanse" their public shame. The murderer and his accomplices are viewed as valorous, they are not demonized or viewed as sociopathic criminals. They are rarely prosecuted in Third World countries. Men can also be honor murdered if they are seen as marrying or having an affair with a woman whose family views itself as of a higher class and of another religion.
Please see my study on this subject "Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?" in the Middle East Quarterly.
I hope and pray that Rifqa Bary is not returned to her parents. Even so, her life will be very hard. She is a young immigrant with, as yet, no marketable skills, who will never again be able to claim an extended family of origin. She may have to live in hiding for the rest of her life. But, she will have her religion, and to the extent to which she remains fervently religious, she may also have a faith-based community.
And, she will remain alive. Nothing more but at least that.
The Muslim parents have "lawyered up" and through their lawyer, Craig McCarthy, are insisting that they never threatened their daughter's life, that in fact, Pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz are to blame for their daughter Rifqa's fears. However, Rifqa sought the Lorenzes out herself, many years after she secretly converted to Christianity.
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--Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Author of Infidel and Nomad
This is a bold book, intimate and rich in detail… Chesler is a voice crying out for women. She will never stop
The 2011 Edition of Mothers on Trial
The 2009 Edition of | <urn:uuid:60188b2b-e1c4-4695-bac3-992b0e435204> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/602/muslim-convert-to-christianity-flees-for-her-life | 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 | 0.979376 | 1,291 | 1.726563 | 2 |
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