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When Sarah Panzer was in the seventh grade in Lakeville, Minn., a Peace Corps volunteer spoke to her Spanish class.
Since then, it was her dream to join the Peace Corps.
Now Sarah and her husband, Aberdeen native Jordan Wein, are Peace Corps volunteers themselves, serving in Ghana. On Wednesday, the Weins spoke to eighth-graders at Jordan's alma mater, Holgate Middle School, which they hope will inspire a Holgate student to join the Peace Corps down the road.
Jordan, 28, and Sarah, 27, are glad they joined the Peace Corps. Back in the U.S. for the holidays, they've spent the last 18 months in Ghana. When they return in January, they'll have eight months to go.
“People in Ghana are very happy,” Sarah said, adding that they are welcoming and giving.
In fact, Sarah actually misses Ghana. Both the Weins have made many friends in Ghana. By the time they return, Sarah will have been gone for almost two months, so she'll be glad to see a lot of people.
In America, you always hear about places that are less well-off, she said. Their time in the Peace Corps gives the Weins a chance to live in one of those places.
Life is definitely different from the U.S. In Tarsor, the northern Ghana community where they live, there is no running water and no electricity.
The Weins do their cooking on a propane stove, and on Sundays, they do their laundry by hand. Their life in Ghana, she said, is like camping for two years.
One of their jobs is to teach people about America. In Ghana, women and small children haul water from a pump to their homes. But the Weins tell people that in America, couples share responsibilities. Jordan not only hauls water, but also cleans and cooks.
The Weins will always remember that their first home together as a married couple was in Ghana.
They were married in August 2009. They met at North Dakota State University, where Jordan earned a zoology degree and Sarah earned a degree in electrical engineering.
Jordan, son of Dale and Sue Wein, graduated from Aberdeen Central in 2003.
In Ghana, Jordan’s work is in agriculture. Sarah teaches math at the school, which is between the communities of Tarsor and Kulfuo. Together, those villages have a population of 2,000 people.
In that area, the men go hunting and will eat virtually any animal they shoot, including rabbits, antelopes and bush rats.
When a group of men found a 7-foot python, they cut it up and ate it.
“Meat is very hard to come by,” Jordan said.
In some areas, crocodiles are accustomed to humans. At one tourist area, the crocs know if they pose for a photo, they will be rewarded. After the photo session is over, the crocodile is rewarded with a live chicken.
In Ghana, preparing food for humans takes a lot of time and is very intensive, Jordan said. For the Holgate students, they showed a video of women rhythmically pounding yams. That work goes on for at least half an hour, they said.
But the food they produce is delicious, the Weins said. | <urn:uuid:e8e2e7bd-6896-4ab0-ade4-2786a219dd44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktuu.com/news/aan-peace-corps-volunteers-speak-about-time-in-ghana-20121222,0,1510683.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975124 | 691 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Closed-door meetings between a select group of environmentalists and a handful of electric utility executives may determine the fate of climate change legislation in the Senate.
Majority Leader Harry Reid’s top energy aide, Chris Miller, nudged the small group to the bargaining table earlier this month in the hope they could resolve more than a decade of dispute on Clean Air Act regulations and reach agreement on a first-ever cap on greenhouse gas emissions.
So far, sources close to the talks said, the two sides are holding firm in their demands. The power companies want relief from the air pollution rules as a price of entry into negotiations if they are going to accept a mandatory carbon limit that won’t apply to other industries. The environmentalists are saying no.
While Senate staff are not in the room, a failure to reach agreement among this critical subset of interests may drive Reid to drop greenhouse gas caps altogether from the bill headed to the floor in less than two weeks.
Several key figures met Monday night at The Caucus Room restaurant to hash out a range of issues, from the distribution of valuable emissions allocations in a utility-only climate bill to the potential retirement of aging coal-fired power plants. But the talks ran aground over the air pollution rules.
At the table for industry: Duke Energy President and CEO Jim Rogers, Exelon Chairman and CEO John Rowe, Dominion Resources President and CEO Thomas Farrell, PNM Resources Chairman and CEO Jeff Sterba and Melissa Lavinson, senior director of federal affairs for San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp, Pew Center on Global Climate Change President Eileen Claussen, Dan Lashof, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate center, and Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, represented the environmental and non-governmental groups.
Sources familiar with the dinner said Rogers led the call for regulatory relief on a number of existing Clean Air Act programs dealing with sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury, including a new EPA rule proposed last week that deals with interstate pollution.
Duke and EDF hosted another round of talks on the climate and air pollution issues for several hours on Wednesday at the power company’s Washington offices, alongside officials from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Sources following the meeting were unsure if any agreements were reached.
Debate over the nexus between climate and air pollution dates back a decade, when Miller worked as a senior staffer for Reid and then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Key Senate Democrats and Republicans had been on the verge of agreement in early 2001 over legislation capping carbon dioxide and traditional air pollution emissions from power plants in exchange for breaks on a Clean Air Act provision that the Clinton administration had used in litigation against several companies (for allegedly prolonging the life of their aging plants without installing modern emission controls). But power companies walked after President George W. Bush reversed his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
A few years later, Bush’s Clear Skies initiative died in EPW after Republicans couldn’t persuade a simple majority to pass the bill that capped only traditional air pollutants. Critics, including then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), wanted the GOP-authored legislation to include carbon dioxide controls and also leave untouched several of the same existing Clean Air Act provisions.
Fast-forward to 2010, and industry officials insist that the power companies deserve a break, given the number of air regulations now on the books or soon to come. The Edison Electric Institute, the leading trade group for investor-owned utilities, and some of its member companies, including Duke and FPL Group, endorsed a climate bill released in May by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) that covered other industrial sectors, too, including major manufacturers and transportation. But EEI and the companies want a break if President Barack Obama and Reid follow through with their plans to focus just on power plants because they don’t have the votes for the broader bill.
“It’s like a baby trying to run before it can walk — you’ve got to be able to take the first step,” said Brian Wolff, senior vice president for communications at EEI. “This is about consumers who have to, at the end of the day, pay for this. The buck stops where? The consumers. The people who have to pay for this.”
EDF and NRDC officials declined comment on their closed-door talks with industry officials. But other environmentalists insist they don’t like the idea of any special relief for power companies.
“I’m sure people throw everything on the table,” said League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski. “But we’ve made it damn clear ... that there are no trade-offs of any regulation of any [conventional] pollutants.”
EDF’s presence in the room has made some environmental groups uneasy, given the group’s reputation for cutting some unpopular deals on behalf of the environmental community during the debate surrounding the 1990 Clean Air Act.
“Kerry’s already said he’s already compromised a lot and is willing to compromise a lot more, which has some environmental groups worried,” said Tyson Slocum, an energy analyst with advocacy group Public Citizen.
“In the past, EDF has signaled its willingness to compromise on a large array of key issues in exchange for a larger goal — in this case, of a cap on carbon,” Slocum added. “There’s definitely debate within the environmental community about the degree to which other environmental groups are willing to compromise on other elements.”
The talks between the industry and environmental groups are expected to produce recommendations that Reid can fold into the bill headed to the floor. Other options already on the table include a controversial provision from Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) that would grant power plants exemptions from a range of existing environmental laws if utilities entered into a voluntary agreement to retire them by January 2018. Kerry and Lieberman punted on the issue by calling for a study on the air pollution rules.
And Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), along with six Republicans, is pushing legislation that would curtail the traditional air pollutants nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury without making any changes to other pieces of the Clean Air Act.
A Senate Democratic aide involved in the climate negotiations warned that the Clean Air Act requests from industry may be too much — and have little political payoff, anyway. EEI endorsed the Lieberman-Kerry bill but didn’t bring along any new Republican votes in the process.
“I’m a little worried we’re giving away the farm,” the staffer said, noting that should the bill not pass in 2010, the deal could come back to haunt Congress if it includes Clean Air Act carve-outs. “This is the marker for next year.”
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told POLITICO on Wednesday that he’d oppose an industry-led effort to strip the EPA of its ability to deal with traditional air pollution.
“I’d not want to see any weakening of the authority they have today,” Cardin said. “It’s been a major tool for cleaning up our air.”
Meanwhile, each side in the private talks is prepared to accuse the other of bringing down the whole bill.
The environmental groups “are the key to any deal, not the utilities,” said Wolff, a former top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “They hold all the cards.”
But an environmentalist tracking the process warned that the utility industry demands don’t bode well for the final vote, meaning the whole bill could unravel if the issue isn’t resolved in a clean way.
“The utility deal will only work if EEI strips EPA of their powers to [conduct] the fierce regulation they are doing in several sectors,” the source said. “This will put the votes of the liberal Democrats against the moderate Republicans. This is untenable.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified some of the participants at a meeting at The Caucus Room. The NRDC’s Frances Beinecke and David Hawkins were invited but did not attend. The following people did attend on behalf of environmental groups and NGOs: NRDC’s Dan Lashof, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Jason Grumet and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change’s Eileen Claussen. PG&E’s Melissa Lavinson also attended. | <urn:uuid:42fd26c9-547e-43fa-8547-6a1d9a7a21f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=D33FBE48-18FE-70B2-A8721949AAE06885 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943502 | 1,820 | 1.703125 | 2 |
XL Video has supplied design collective United Visual Artists (UVA) with Barco O-Lite modules for their critically acclaimed interactive music installation, Volume at the V&A Museum, London.
The work was commissioned buy the V&A as part of the Playstation Season and is a collaboration between UVA, Robert Del Naja (3D of Massive Attack), and his long-term co-writer Neil Davidge (as part of their music production company, one point six).
Staged in the V&A’s John Madejski Garden, the O-Lite is arranged into 46 columns mounted on 6 x 7 grid, each column consisting of 24 O-Lite modules stacked on top of one another. These measure 2.5 metres in height by 12 centimeters wide, and the columns are placed 2 metres apart, each with a speaker on top.
UVA’s Ash Nehru explains, “We’ve worked with XL in the past, and they have always been excellent, so were an obvious choice to supply the hardware and support.” The project was handled for XL by Phil Mercer who says, “It’s very exciting being involved with highly stimulating, provocative experimental digital art like this. It’s interesting, completely different, and great fun to be working with UVA.”
Each of the speakers emits a separate sound giving 46 channels of computer controlled audio. The 46 columns create a volumetric screen—as opposed to one on a flat plane.
The columns are all mounted on a stage, with the wiring and electronics and electrics hidden beneath. Visitors walk into the space, and at the top of the courtyard is a camera that tracks their movement as they pass through the installation.
The music track (written by one point six) comprises 46 different instruments, each instrument is sent to a different column speaker, and as people approach the columns they activate an audio trigger that plays the instrument routed to that speaker together with a video image that sends ripples and patterns through the O-lite. As they move away, the area then goes dark.
Each note of music causes a line or a shape to appear on the video, so both sound and visuals are controlled in real time by viewers experiencing the work, and the music is rearranged as people move around the space.
Video is generated in real time using custom visual synthesizer modules which run within UVA’s bespoke Dragonfly 3 software (which was also used to control elements of U2’s live video). Audio control is via a Macintosh computer running a bespoke version of Logic software. The column enclosures and risers were fabricated by Lite Structures. | <urn:uuid:187f4182-1391-4970-86c1-214258bc4781> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://livedesignonline.com/gear/projection/full_volume_xl_video_030807 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952346 | 554 | 1.65625 | 2 |
I did have a feeling that we had once had a picture of a boxer as a Sepia Saturday theme, but after a quick check through the list produced by Kristin Cleage and Marilyn Brindley (and available via our wonderful Facebook Group) I must be mistaken. However, the boxer we have for Sepia Saturday 166 (post your posts on or around Saturday 2 March 2013) is of a different kind altogether because she is a worker in a factory making paper boxes. The photograph is by Lewis W Hine and comes from the George Eastman House Photography Collection which is available via Flickr Commons. Far be it from me to suggest theme interpretations to all the Sepians out there, but boxes, paper, workers, machines and dangerously long skirts spring to my mind. All you have to do is to select an old photograph or two and say a few things about them and if you can tie it in with your interpretation of the theme image, well that is a bonus. Post your posts, link it to the list below and then pop in and visit as many other Sepians as you can manage. Easy peasy!
Here is our usual look ahead at the next two Sepia prompts:
167 : 9 March 2013 : Nominated by Sepian Kathy Matthews, this photograph might want to make you take a paddle steamer down a river ... or interpret the writing on the photograph itself.
168 : Nominated by Sepian John Newmark, this photograph of the Potsdam Conference could make you think of meetings, round tables, famous events, photographers being photographed or almost anything else.
All that is for the future, for Sepia Saturday 166 all you need to do is to open up those cardboard boxes we all keep our old photographs in and search out a suitable contribution. And speaking of cardboard boxes, the shoebox full of old photographs has always been a favourite phrase of Sepian Peter Miebies of Peter's Blog. Peter has been in touch with us to say that he is taking break from Sepia Saturday to pursue some other interests. I always think that one of the fine things about the Sepia Community is that people can step in and step out when they want to and always be sure of a warm welcome back. So this is merely to say, "come back and see us when you can Peter, you will always be welcome here". | <urn:uuid:2782108b-49e0-41f4-8dd3-6b3bd3298eb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com.es/2013/02/sepia-saturday-166-2-march-2013.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959644 | 479 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Posted by Pierre on April 18th, 2011
My first foray into blogging a daily cryptic, so a slightly (actually, very) scary moment. But Quixote’s clear cluing got me over the line eventually, with only a couple of the final solutions holding me up. I haven’t been a regular solver of his Sunday Indy puzzles, so I think some of my initial hesitation might have been due to me getting used to his individual style.
Since my blogging career so far has been with the Everyman and the Guardian Quiptic, where I’ve been trying to help less experienced solvers (like me, par exemple) I will probably have put in too much detail, but you can always ignore it. There is just one I could do with some help with.
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
A charade of ICI (‘here’ in French) and L in DOME.
A reversal (coming round) of RAC’s. For overseas solvers, RAC is the Royal Automobile Club, a roadside rescue organisation. Their motorbike people used to salute you when they saw the RAC badge on the front of the car, which tells you how old I am.
A charade of MAN U and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Given the events at Wembley on Saturday, Quixote thankfully decided not to involve the red-and-white side of Manchester in the clue. Why is Massachusetts so hard to spell?
11 LETS RIP
A charade of vigi[L] and (PRIEST)*
12 LORD PRIVY SEAL
(V SILLY PADRE OR)*
A charade of PAR and ODISTS for poets.
This is obvious, being the river that forms some of the border between England and Scotland. Even with all the crossing letters in I couldn’t see it and had TREAD for a good while, thinking that it was something that ran along the edge of a tyre. Perhaps I should go back to just doing the Quiptic.
But when writing up the blog, I was reminded why I do know this. It’s from Dick Gaughan’s song on one of my favourite albums, Handful of Earth:
Let the love of our land’s sacred rights
To the love of our people succeed
Let friendship and honour unite
And flourish on both sides the Tweed
An insertion of G into ROUÉ for rake.
My last to go in. I presumed (always a dangerous strategy when solving a cryptic) that it was an anagram of (AUNTIE SET)*, with ‘puzzle’ as the anagrind. So it turned out, although the word itself was unfamiliar. ‘A solid solution of carbon in a non-magnetic high-temperature allotropic form of iron’ (SOED). I’m always pleased to see a science-based clue, so I’m not going to whinge about its obscurity, especially since it’s an anagram.
NEIGH (beastly noise) plus BOD (fellow) outside UR (the famous old city) and HO for house and O for old. A bit going on, but it’s all clearly signposted. Perhaps Quixote is going for the record number of elements in a charade, but I’m too much of a new kid on the blog to say whether he gets that particular sticker.
Not prosaic would be ‘in verse’, and INVERSE means contrary. I liked this one when I finally twigged it.
DO and RANT with M for maiden (over) hidden in the middle. Cricket and Cryptics are BFFE.
The actress Greta GARB[O] without the O for nothing. A bit like in Casablanca, where her fellow Swede Ingrid Bergman never said ‘Play it again, Sam’, she never said ‘I want to be alone’ in Grand Hotel. Apparently.
A reversal (turned over) of P for musically soft and MUD for slime.
An insertion of ANGLE (point of view) in MR.
I initially put in a misspelling of CARMARTHENSHIRE here, which wasn’t a big help. Pretty obviously it’s (BEGRIMED HIS CAR)*
4 LIT UP
LIP for audacity around TU for Trade Union.
7 ROPE LADDER
I think that this is ELLIPS[E] plus IS but would welcome confirmation or another parsing.
9 STAYS THE COURSE
I really liked this one too. I could see that there was a ‘reversal’ indicator to get from ‘boy’ to ‘yob’, but the bracketed bit of the clue took me a while to work out.
Children clued as SEED with the inclusion of A SON.
GRI[M] plus EVER.
DIA, a reversal of AID in INNS.
Hidden in 3dn, CambRIDGEshire. It’s ‘surprising’ because, if I may be forgiven for lapsing into the vernacular, the Fenlands in Cambridgeshire are as flat as a kipper’s dick.
Half of STUDents, learners. And ‘stud’ and ‘boss’ are synonyms.
Phew! Thanks to Quixote for a pleasing and not too difficult solve. | <urn:uuid:4ed15f43-7ec0-46e0-81a7-3f30ae661a78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fifteensquared.net/2011/04/18/independent-7645quixote/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937547 | 1,179 | 1.734375 | 2 |
By Alan Greenspan
The extraordinary risk-management discipline that developed out of the writings of the University of Chicago’s Harry Markowitz in the 1950s produced insights that won several Nobel prizes in economics. It was widely embraced not only by academia but also by a large majority of financial professionals and global regulators.
But in August 2007, the risk-management structure cracked. All the sophisticated mathematics and computer wizardry essentially rested on one central premise: that the enlightened self-interest of owners and managers of financial institutions would lead them to maintain a sufficient buffer against insolvency by actively monitoring their firms’ capital and risk positions. For generations, that premise appeared incontestable but, in the summer of 2007, it failed. It is clear that the levels of complexity to which market practitioners, at the height of their euphoria, carried risk-management techniques and risk-product design were too much for even the most sophisticated market players to handle prudently.
Even with the breakdown of self-regulation, the financial system would have held together had the second bulwark against crisis – our regulatory system – functioned effectively. But, under crisis pressure, it too failed. Only a year earlier, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had noted that “more than 99 per cent of all insured institutions met or exceeded the requirements of the highest regulatory capital standards”. US banks are extensively regulated and, even though our largest 10 to 15 banking institutions have had permanently assigned on-site examiners to oversee daily operations, many of these banks still took on toxic assets that brought them to their knees. The UK’s heavily praised Financial Services Authority was unable to anticipate and prevent the bank run that threatened Northern Rock. The Basel Committee, representing regulatory authorities from the world’s major financial systems, promulgated a set of capital rules that failed to foresee the need that arose in August 2007 for large capital buffers.
The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below. | <urn:uuid:315ca2e7-5c60-4936-a6ba-9f37151e6707> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.ft.com/capitalismblog/2009/03/27/we-need-a-better-cushion-against-risk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966841 | 403 | 1.671875 | 2 |
There was a time when pie was an important student retention tool for the College.
During William F. Quillian, Jr.’s 26-year tenure as the fifth president of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, from 1952 to 1978, there was a tendency for students to attend R-MWC until the end of their sophomore year and then transfer to larger institutions.
“‘Sophomore slump’ was the term,” said Quillian, who always emphasized close interaction between faculty and students. “By the end of their second year, some students were just ready to leave and looking forward to the next year somewhere else.”
Quillian wanted insight into why students were leaving, so he and his wife, Margaret, began inviting sophomores to their home for dessert and discussion.
“My wife became known for the pies that she made,” said Quillian. “She always made a chocolate chiffon pie, and our children would serve the students.”
Each group of 20 students would provide him with a better understanding of how students were feeling and a glimpse of the challenges that lay ahead for the next recruiting season.
Quillian’s interaction with students and faculty was a feature of his administration and led to the development of hallmark programs such as The World in Britain program at the University of Reading.
“One thing that came out was that it would be good to have more international studies,” he said. “We had a give and take discussion on what we should do in that area. Sweet Briar had a program in France, so we decided to try to establish the program in England.”
Multi-cultural education, retention, diversity, and issues related to changes in student attitudes and needs that Quillian dealt with then are not unlike those faced by the College today. In his new book, Voices From R-MWC, Quillian offers a collection of his essays and memoirs, and historical material from guest authors. The book provides a unique glimpse into the College’s history, how it responded to changes behind the Red Brick Wall and in the community and society around it, and how it evolved and improved.
Improvements at the College resulted, in part, from fundraising and development. The topic features prominently in Quillian’s book, perhaps because it was in his DNA.
“I always enjoyed fundraising, and I knew we needed to raise money,” said Quillian. “My father was a college president, and I watched him build a brand new campus five miles away from the existing campus.”
During Quillian’s tenure, the College built the Physical Education and Recreation (PER) Building, the Houston Memorial Chapel, and the Leggett Building and Thoresen Theatre, and expanded the Lipscomb Library.
“I enjoyed it,” he said, “especially when something good clicked.”
Quillian also worked to acquire support from a variety of foundations, including Ford, Kresge, and Dana.
At the same time philanthropy helped the College build out infrastructure, America was undergoing sweeping social changes. One such change was the integration of the College. For Quillian, resolving the potentially divisive issue began with a discussion among students.
“Every Wednesday, there was a required assembly. At one of them, I raised the question, ‘Suppose this college were to become integrated?’” he recalled. “It shocked them.”
After he started the discussion, students kept it alive. An essay in his book titled, “The Integration of a Southern College,” recalls an editorial in the November 5, 1953 issue of the Sundial that concluded: “Think about the issue— it’s important for your future.”
Throughout the rest of that decade, the discussion on the R-MWC campus would mirror the debate in the broader Lynchburg community, culminating in December 1960 when two Randolph-Macon Woman’s College students—Mary Edith Bentley Abu-Saba ’61 and Rebecca Mays Owen ’61—became central figures in an anti-segregation demonstration at a lunch counter of a Lynchburg drugstore.
The Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling requiring public institutions to integrate exerted pressure on the College from the outside at the same time student social issues were developing within.
Quillian’s “The Abolition of Sororities” is a notable example. In the College’s first decade, six national sororities were established: Chi Omega, Tri- Delta, Zeta Tau Alpha, Kappa Delta, Alpha Omega Pi, and Tri Sigma. However, by the ’40s and ’50s, there were questions about the value of sororities on campus, especially given the pressure students felt to be selected for the “right” sororities.
“Many new students felt deeply hurt by their failure to make the sorority of their choice,” Quillian wrote. “There were tearful phone calls to parents reporting these disappointments.”
Student referendums on keeping sororities active passed by narrow margins. The discussion continued until a Board of Trustees vote on May 13, 1960 directed the administration to eliminate sororities at the “earliest date deemed practical.” As a result, the 1960–61 academic year began without sororities on campus.
This past May, during Commencement, Quillian stood at the podium as Touch of Harmony, the College’s a cappella group, sang a rendition of “Minnie the Moocher.” Quillian responded by singing the last verse, and as delighted students, faculty, and guests joined in the refrain, a lighter moment from his presidency came full circle. Years before, Quillian had been approached by faculty who were planning the first faculty show. They asked him to do something “out of character.” His performance was “Minnie The Moocher,” and when he sang at the request of students at the following Pumpkin Parade, a tradition was born.
“Every president since then has blamed me for that!” he laughed. | <urn:uuid:ec2fbccf-301f-487a-95c9-d88ace0c2311> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.randolphcollege.edu/magazine_2010_2_2_voices_from_r-mwc.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979102 | 1,303 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Some newbie questions
25 Sep 2006 02:37:41 -0700
I have a couple of newbie questions regarding home recording. I hope
you bear with me, even if the questions seem silly and/or obvious :-)
I have been recording music (electric, bass and acoustic guitars) using
consumer level equipment (sound card integrated into my laptop and a
cheap mic that came with the laptop). I would, however, like to get
some better equipment.
Firstly, I've been thinking about starting with buying a Shure SM-57
microphone (seems suitable for my recording intentions). As I
understand, this microphone has balanced outputs. My consumer level
sound card's inputs are, of course, unbalanced. So my first question
is; can I connect a balanced output directly to an unbalanced input
(using a simple XLR-3.5mm adapter) or will this cause damage to the
equipment/produce tremedously poor signal quality?
Secondly, the mic input on my sound card has a built-in amplifier
which, I assume, isn't very good. So the second step would be to
purchase an exetrnal mic preamp. I am considering a Behringer MIC200.
This preamp accepts balanced XLR input (and hi impendance jack inputs
which I guess can receive input directly from an electric guitar?)
which works great with a Shure SM-57. The problem is that I still have
balanced XLR output which I want to send to my consumer level sound
card line input (not the mic input, right, since the signal already is
amplified?). So, the third step would be to purchase a sound card which
has balanced inputs (I'm considering an ESI Maya 44). Once I have these
three steps, I'm good to go, right? :-)
Finally, I have a question regarding signal level in consumer and pro
level equipment. Apparently, the nominal signal for consumer level
equipment is -10dBV and for pro level its 4dBm. Does this mean that if
I have a pro preamp which outputs signals for other pro equipment, the
signal will saturate the input on my consumer level sound card? Is that
the only problem or are there other issues with the signal levels?
I am very grateful for all answers, tips and suggestions! | <urn:uuid:2ec4310b-d885-4edb-8541-9d9d0018c604> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.burnyourbonus.co.uk/rec.audio.tech/thread403.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93173 | 503 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The Declaration of Universal American Democracy
Bush/neoconservative revision of the Declaration of Independence was originally posted
at VFR last November 13, as part of a discussion, “On the neocons’ re-writing of Jefferson.” It seems particularly relevant in light of America’s delusions concerning the current turmoil in Pakistan, as was discussed
yesterday by Andrew McCarthy.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to impose its vision of freedom and democracy on all other peoples, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the supreme station of self-righteous scold and moral engineer to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a grudging respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the imposition.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 28, 2007 01:33 PM | Send
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all human beings are created with an equal desire in their hearts for freedom and democracy, and that they are therefore also endowed by their Creator with an equal entitlement to freedom and democracy; that, in order to secure this freedom and democracy, it is America’s God-ordained mission to spread freedom and democracy to all men and women everywhere, regardless of whether they are currently able and willing to institute a government among themselves with its powers derived from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any country falls short of our notion of freedom and democracy, it is the right of the American government endlessly to lecture, chastise, blackmail, and cajole the leaders of that country, pushing them to institute new government, with its foundation laid on such principles and its powers organized in such form, as to us shall seem most likely to effect their freedom and democracy.
But when a long-established pattern of resistance to our counsels, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reject permanently the spread of freedom and democracy, it is our right, it is our duty, to take over the direction of such country, and to impose on it new guards for its future freedom and democracy. | <urn:uuid:0a189b6f-662a-4d71-adf7-a02ceaf6ce1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/009552.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962743 | 443 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Wizard, Death Eater, and Ministry of Magic employee, Augustus Rookwood was accused of spying for Lord Voldemort during the First War and was subsequently imprisoned in Azkaban after Death Eater Igor Karkaroff's testimony. Rookwood worked in the Department of Mysteries, passing sensitive information via what Karkaroff claimed was a network of well-placed wizards both inside and outside the Ministry.
Rookwood escaped from Azkaban in 1996 during the mass breakout, at which time he returned to his role as a Death Eater. He was among the group of Death Eaters with whom Harry and his friends battled at the Department of Mysteries and was also present at the Battle of Hogwarts. It is possible that Rookwood was responsible for the explosion that killed Fred Weasley, given that Percy Weasley shouted Rookwood's name whilst chasing him just prior to that explosion. | <urn:uuid:54045920-b0c9-4f24-ba24-6275d9e88f6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://the-leaky-cauldron.org/wiki/index.php?title=Augustus_Rookwood | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982014 | 177 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Delano-based company's playground Slalom Glider slides recalledby Brandt Williams, Minnesota Public Radio
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Delano-based playground equipment maker is involved in a voluntary product recall after more than a dozen children were injured using its slide called the Slalom Glider.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the problem with the slide made by Landscape Structures Inc. is that it lacks a platform between the ladder and slide. It also doesn't have sides to prevent children from falling off the 6-feet tall structure.
Children under 8-years-old have suffered fractures and bruises after falling from the slide.
About 900 slides, sold mostly to schools and other organizations between 2006 and 2011, are being recalled.
A company spokesperson says customers can get the slides replaced with other equipment, they can get a refund or get credit towards a future purchase.
For more on the Slalom Glider CPSC recall, click here. | <urn:uuid:f886c7fa-dbd0-428f-b7b5-5a6bb6777bfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/02/17/delano-based-companys-playground-slides-recalled | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957806 | 208 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Sponge Aquarium Filters
A sponge filter is a simple device for use in both fry tanks and hospital tanks. In fry tanks the sponge offers a banquet of micro-organisms for the young fish to eat. Additionally they also have no dangerous moving parts or places where fry may trap themselves. In hospital tanks the sponge will not remove medications as charcoal based filter systems can.
The sponge's large surface area is ideal as a sight for biological filtration to take place. Beneficial micro-organisms will soon colonise the sponge. The sponge also makes it an effective mechanical filter for small particles.
The essential components of a sponge filter are an air uplift and sponge media. A suction cup mounted heater holder clamp may prove useful for keeping the filter submerged for some models.
Sponge Filters For Sale
|New Top Quality Fish Tank Bio-Sponge Filter (L) -- Free Air Pump & Air Tubing
KIS Sponge Filter ReviewWith the air uplift included this product measures 21.5cm in height. The sponge base is 4cm in height and the longest edge to the triangle shape is 17cm.
I think this is a good sponge filter model because of it's dense sponge. It is fine enough to mechanically filter quite small particles from the water. However it is light in weight and will benefit from being secured in place.
The KIS sponge filter typically sells for less than $10 making it good value.
Aquarium Filter Reading | <urn:uuid:58dba388-ef46-459f-b553-58333a8b984e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.e-aquarium.com.au/buy/aquarium-filter/sponge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931255 | 300 | 1.734375 | 2 |
write for yourself.
sure, yes, okay. yes, it was easier when you began and no one was looking and no one was watching and no one was needing, but for you. and yes, that's changed. and so okay, maybe it's not as easy. and maybe you can't run into an old-friend-such-and-such at the 18th street station and promptly write about it.
or maybe you can.
maybe you can and maybe you should.
quiet those voices. those outside voices, those terribly unhelpful, intrusive voices, politely tell them to shove off. you get to do that darling girl, you get to ask them to shut up, that is your right, your perfect grace.
writers are always selling someone down the river and mostly it will be yourself--this is how you write. but sometimes it won't be. sometimes it will have to be someone else. make peace with that. forgive yourself that. you have your four or five that you will protect with a ferocity you've only just begun to discover, but save for them, the others are not your responsibility.
stop letting others dictate the flow of the current with their shoulds and woulds and buts and can'ts. politely tell them to get their oar out of your creek and get on with it.
write for yourself darling girl and get on with it.
there will be those who don't like what you have to say. let them. let them dislike it.
and there will be those who will diminish and demean--who will shrink you down--stamp you with flimsy adjectives and pallid labels in an effort to make more sense of you.
you are not to be made sense of! you, darling girl, are not to be made sense of. you are bigger than that.
and for the love of all that is good and holy please stop worrying about who may or may not read this. about what ex-boyfriend may see something unflattering or what boy may take a phrase and decide that it's his and run with it. i got news for you kid, you can't control that part. and yes, darling girl, you got screwed recently. fate threw you a nasty, little curveball. it was just about as shit as shit can be, but let's talk about the remarkable thing: you're still standing. and you used your voice. no small feat, my dear. it may feel large and unjust now and okay, let yourself feel that, but the whole thing--that whole unfortunate situation will prove a footnote of this story, i promise you that.
so now use your voice here. write.
what you're really afraid of is that he or him or what or not might glimpse your capacity to love. and you yourself are only just waking to the wealth within you and it's startling. i know that. the extent, the boundless measure of it, is almost alarming. do not be frightened by it. this is the source of your power. and if another is put off by it, that's on them, darling girl, not on you. think of it, someone alarmed by the strength and potency of your love? that is a person you simply don't need darling girl.
and now i'm gonna give you a gift. ready? i'm gonna give you permission to say no to that second cup of coffee with that boy or that man or that guy on the cusp who you know is not right for you. politely excuse yourself and politely move on. don't apologize for knowing what you want or honoring the push of your gut. your gut is strong my dear. and loud. lordy is it loud: listen to it, trust it.
move on and write anyway. | <urn:uuid:aaf62330-3867-4994-a1c2-f5a53efe109c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://or-so-i-feel.blogspot.com/2012/03/letter-from-me-to-myself-wiser-lived-in.html?showComment=1330962371423 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983403 | 779 | 1.523438 | 2 |
In the presidential campaign of 1992, George H. W. Bush's family values platform collapsed under the weight of a recession, and to many, the political discussion of morality retreated, taking refuge under the so-called Religious Right. But since the second election of George W. Bush, open talk of faith and morals has reentered the political arena with gusto. This is due partly to the reactive emergence of a Religious Left, such as is advocated in Jim Wallis's bestselling book, God's Politics. The book encourages the political left to use the language of faith and morals to regain the hearts and minds (and votes) of religious Americans. The strategy seems to be “less P.C., more J.C.” But the J.C. who answered the call was Jimmy Carter, whose new book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, fronts as an appeal to our corporate conscience. In effect, the book only masks Carter's public policies beneath religious language. To be fair, Carter is not a poseur, referencing his faith only when politically helpful; he is known to be a man of genuine faith and goodwill. Anyone out simply to baptize the talking points of the Democratic Party would not condemn homosexuality and abortion as Carter does in this book. But even a cursory glance at the rest of the work reveals that Carter is less interested in seriously discussing morality and more interested in propping up a political platform with pseudo-religious platitudes. In the end, the book actually undermines a serious discussion of moral issues.
The book is a case study in one of C .S. Lewis's favorite themes: when secondary goods are sought ahead of primary goods, both are corrupted. Moral prudence might be described as a primary good when compared to the power such prudence renders. We elect leaders because we hope they are qualified to lead. But to use “moral prudence” as a means to political power corrupts both the power and the prudence. There is a fine, but absolutely crucial, distinction to be made here: the discussion of morality most certainly has its place in politics (indeed, the ancients defined politics as social ethics), but this discussion must not be co-opted to serve political ends.
But sadly, it is all too clear that this is what is happening with Carter's book: the moral lexicon is being co-opted to gain votes. And while this phenomenon is not restricted to the political left, it seems that Carter's book is the best example (so far) of an attempt to implement Wallis's vote-getting strategy. In spite of its misleading subtitle, the book offers little substantive analysis of “America's moral crisis.” It contains very few reasonable arguments, relying heavily on non sequiturs and convenient references to “traditional Christian faith.” (Carter does little to unpack this portmanteau, perhaps frightened of what's inside.) Even when a sensible idea pops up—opening trade with Cuba, for example—it is not grounded on a solid ethical foundation. The book seems altogether uninterested in establishing the necessary premises of a reasonable, coherent, moral argument, opting instead to use the moral lexicon to denounce this or that policy of a certain sitting president. Here Carter's political motivations become clear, for it would seem that the sitting president is on the wrong side of almost all of America's “traditional” values: environmental protection, fair treatment of terror suspects, and nuclear disarmament, to name a few.
These and other politically relevant topics supposedly constitute “our endangered values,” a phrase which contains another clue that this book is more political than didactic: the unquestioned use of the term our. This is a common rhetorical slight of hand: build your syllogisms on unstated or unquestioned premises, hoping your interlocutors will overlook any discrepancies contained therein. When Carter refers to our values, he simply takes for granted precisely what that term means (and apparently, things like environmental protection—not freedom, independence, or initiative—are the pillars of the American ideal). This excuses him from having to define clearly the terms values, ethics, and moral crisis. Carter carelessly tosses these concepts about to make his book appear as a serious discussion of the nation's moral fiber when in fact the discussion is threadbare, a cheap appeal to the morally inclined. As result, the subject of this book turns out to be not our endangered values but Carter's engendered ones.
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Phone: (616) 454-3080
Fax: (616) 454-9454 | <urn:uuid:1290023d-672d-4bbb-8c2a-f3c18f907291> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-16-number-1/our-endangered-values-americas-moral-crisis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944897 | 992 | 1.726563 | 2 |
A pregnant Dominican teenager with cancer whose case sparked worldwide controversy over the country’s strict abortion laws died last week.
Her case renewed a bitter debate that has long divided the country – whether an abortion should be allowed if the mother’s life is in danger.
The 16-year-old girl, Esperanza, was battling acute leukemia and ended up pregnant. She needed to undergo chemotherapy but was initially barred by the Dominican Constitution from undergoing treatment because it would have likely harmed the fetus. Her doctors wanted to treat her but feared legal repercussions if they went ahead with the procedure and she miscarried.
According to CNN, the girl died last Friday from complications related to the disease. Doctors began administering chemo 20 days after she was admitted to the hospital, when she was 13 weeks pregnant, but her body did not respond to the treatment, CNN says. She went into cardiac arrest and died.
The mother blasted the doctors, whom she accused of putting her daughter’s life in danger because of the law. Article 37, which states that "the right to life is inviolable from the moment of conception and until death" was passed about two years ago.
"My daughter's life is first. I know that [abortion] is a sin and that it goes against the law . . . but my daughter's health is first," the mother, Rosa Hernandez, told CNN. "They have killed me, I'm dead, dead. I'm nothing. She was the reason for my existence. I no longer live. Rosa has died. Let the world know that Rosa is dead." | <urn:uuid:6b0d9a03-55f3-41d5-a880-99f28b946206> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/08/20/girl-at-center-dominican-republic-abortion-debate-dies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982994 | 326 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Andres Gutierrez, NBC 5 News
The day was full for justices of the peace across North Texas as brides and grooms lined up to exchange vows on 12-12-12.
Hundreds of North Texas couples joined couples all over the world in marrying on Dec. 12, 2012.
More than a dozen newlyweds tied the knot at the Tarrant County Courthouse on Wednesday.
"It's my lucky number three times, so why not?" Karen Ramirez said.
She and her fiance finally exchanged vows after seven years. The lucky couple said their vows at 12:12 p.m.
Whether it's superstition or good energy, the reasons for marrying on Dec. 12 were abundant. Many said the date is easy to remember.
"It's something that I shouldn't be able to forget, so I won't forget our anniversary," Charles Kelsing said.
But the date was also something of a family affair for his new wife. Repetitive numbers and marriage run in Lindsey Kelsing's family.
Donna Carlson, her mother, married on Aug. 8, 1988, and Carlson's niece married Oct. 10, 2010. Her daughter's Dec. 12 wedding date was Carlson's idea.
A date like Wednesday's will not occur until Jan 1, 2101. | <urn:uuid:fd28ca42-907c-431d-b72b-8c0d6db80a36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Couples-Marry-on-12-12-12-183261412.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968533 | 269 | 1.5 | 2 |
With the cold weather and icy roads I have been buying a daily baguette for our elderly neighbours. And it's when you buy bread for somebody else that you understand what an intimate part of French life the humble loaf of bread can be.
An outsider waiting in line to buy fresh bread may notice that each client mutters a few key words as a baguette is being selected for him or her.
"une baguette s'il vous plait, pas trop cuite" (one baguette please, not too cooked)
"deux baguettes, bien cuites, s'il vous plait" (two baguettes, well cooked please)
Regular clients don't even need to say anything about the bread, they just say bonjour, talk about the weather, and the loaf they prefer appears before them.
When I picked up the bread for our neighbours, I asked for our usual loaf then said I'd have "un pain" also, there was a pause ... a raised eyebrow, "ce n'est pas pour vous?", (that's not for you), upon which I'd say no, it's for Monsieur et Madame J, "ah bon! ..... alors voila - this is the bread they take, Monsieur J prefers a good crust".
And it's not just in the countryside that buying bread is so important. Parisians will make huge detours on the way home from work to buy the bread they prefer, rather than from the closest bakers.
Each year there is a prize discerned to the baker producing "la meilleure baguette de Paris" (the best baguette in Paris, I mean ... really?! can you imagine deciding on that one?!). This year it was won by a certain Pascal Barillon who bakes at Au Levain d’Antan . Besides winning the title and a cheque, he also has the honour of being the official baker to the President of France for a year.
So for the whole of 2012, twenty of his humble loaves will go from here ....
to here each day!
What do you think it says about a country, that a simple stick of bread can be so important?! | <urn:uuid:da8a4919-fa5a-46c0-a8ec-1e6848adec6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://myfrenchcountryhome.blogspot.com/2012/02/its-just-baguette-isnt-it.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938971 | 467 | 1.8125 | 2 |
"It was purely a business decision," says William Tollet, Executive Director of the Union Rescue Mission.
That decision came about a week after news reports of the Mission's policy to hire only evangelical Christians to run the center sparked some controversy.
The Arkansas ACLU issued a statement on January 15 criticizing the Mission, saying its hiring policy crossed the line between church and state and amounted to discrimination.
Tollet says the Mission could not meet the city's requirement to have the center staffed with a director and open on holidays and weekends. He says the Mission's proposed budget to run center was about $285,000.
Assistant City Manager Bryan Day says the city had set aside $300,000 to run the resource center. He said the city intends to hire social workers, case managers, security guards and van drivers. Day says he is unsure how many people the city will hire to run the center which is located along Confederate Boulevard.
"I have no doubt the city has the capability to do it (operate the center)," Tollet says. | <urn:uuid:b9a27f5c-a43d-4985-a84c-6415f6de63a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext?nxd_id=632582 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978759 | 213 | 1.5625 | 2 |
I have been asked to create a linear time solution to the majority/majority vote problem stated as follows:
in a set of n elements if there are more than n/2 identical elements, they constitute a majority. Eg in xyxx the majority is x. I understand the Boyer-Moore solution but not its proof.
I am looking to solve the problem by perhaps finding a fast way of determining if an element is -not- part of the majority and elliminating those. My question is how I should formulate the base case for this algorithm on which to build an inductive solution. The way I see it there are at least 3 possible combinations in the smallest case: | <urn:uuid:821f2c9a-76f7-4f81-ab54-0942816012db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mathhelpforum.com/discrete-math/175326-majority-problem-linear-time.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953856 | 139 | 1.789063 | 2 |
|I read Ladies of the Lake while sweating on the elliptical machine; I read it while peddling away on the stationary bike; I read it while eating breakfast; I read it while cooking dinner. In short, I couldn’t put it down. I think my fascination with the story had as much to do with its centerpiece: the relationship between four middle aged sisters. As a middle aged (well, that’s being slightly generous) only child, I find sibling relationships terra incognita. Smith’s portrayal of the interactions of Dahlia, Iris, Violet and Rose – all named for flowers according to family tradition – made me both glad and sad that I never had a sister.
The eldest sister, Dahlia Cooper, narrates the story. Born in the 1950s in Atlanta, the sisters enjoyed happy childhoods. Perhaps their happiest times were the summers spend at the family place on Lake Clare. Hilltop Lodge had been built by their great grandfather in 1919 and had been inherited by their grandmother, Cissy. (Her given name was Narcissus which may explain her eccentricities; apparently, she spent her life living up to her namesake.) In the first scene in the book, Cissy is portrayed as shooting at her visiting granddaughters, under the misapprehension that they were rapists.
Two years later, the sisters are informed that Cissy has died. She has left them Hilltop Lodge and its very, very valuable acreage. But there is a catch. The four have to spend ninety days together at the Lodge. All four sisters could use the money, but Dahlia’s needs are particularly pressing. Two years earlier, her husband had absconded with his company’s money, the cash from a refinance of the family home, his secretary, and their teenage son. Since that time, Dahlia has struggled to keep her house and her head above water. But the wolf is at the door and she is in danger of losing everything. So it is crucial that all four sisters “just get along.”
This will not be easy. Dahlia and her next oldest sister Iris have never gotten along, to put it mildly. Typical sibling rivalry was intensified by Iris’ perhaps understandable jealousy of her elder sister. Dahlia had early on showed great talent as a dancer, a talent which made her the favorite of Cissy. The family had sacrificed to make sure that Dahlia had her chance and she made the most of it. She had become a famous prima ballerina and married well. If Iris, now a successful CPA, takes some pleasure in her older sister’s current difficulties, her intense dislike borders on pathology.
Much of Ladies of the Lake recounts the interaction of the four sisters who find themselves in intimate contact for the first time since their childhood. Alliance formed decades ago still prevail: Dahlia and Violet on one side, Iris and Rose on the other. There are moments of comity and of conflict. I cannot speak to the accuracy of the portrayal of the sisters’ relationship but I found it compelling. Despite their differences, the four share a connection and a history. There are moments of warmth and cooperation as they clear out nearly a century’s worth of memories from the lodge. There is one particular episode of dealing with the detritus of the past that had me laughing out loud.
Even though she is dead, Cissy is a key character is the story. To call her an eccentric is to understate the case. She lived life on her own terms, gallivanting around the world, having love affairs, leaving her daughter Rose behind, insisting on staying at the Lodge long after she probably should not have, and clearly being larger than life. That she, from the grave, attempts to convince her granddaughters of the importance of family ties seems somewhat paradoxical, belied by her own behavior.
Since Dahlia tells the story, we know most about her thoughts and feelings. In addition to her financial problems, she has health issues including severe allergies which are apparently based on the author’s own experiences. She also has a lovely summer romance with a neighbor on the lake, Clete Slocum. The summer with her sisters requires her to rethink her own priorities and her own goals.
Haywood Smith has an evocative and appealing writing style. She portrays the vicissitudes and rewards of middle age with great sympathy. Ladies of the Lake is about the importance of relationships, of a shared past, of finding wisdom and happiness. I enjoyed it immensely.
NB: I should note that I had some problems with the chronology and with some of the dating in the book. If, as indicated, it is set in “the present,” then the timeline is problematic. If, as is mentioned at one point, Cissy was gallivanting in Paris in 1922, then she would have been well over 100 at the time of her death. I couldn’t figure out if Dahlia was 50 as was indicated in one place or 60 as was suggested elsewhere. I know; this is nitpicking. But I tend to notice these things. | <urn:uuid:48a4a3d6-c070-4815-81e7-d62ff3e0bae3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theromancereader.com/smith-ladies.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986033 | 1,063 | 1.757813 | 2 |
El Camino Real & Bowers Avenue,
3 people favorited this theater
The Cinema 150 opened in August 1966 in Santa Clara’s Moonlite Shopping Center. The exterior was a giant square building with a metal escutcheon around the perimeter of the building. Inside, the spacious 901-seat theater had a curved 85 by 32 foot curved screen for the Dimension 150 process. The glass-enclosed lobby had a very tall ceiling that conformed to the open feeling of the cinema. The theater opened with the film, “How To Steal A Million.”
The cinema closed down in 1991 and the rocking seats were removed by UA and installed in a Santa Rosa, CA theater.
The theater, like most D-150 houses, was later demolished and a medical center was built on the former site.
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater | <urn:uuid:b119fce6-7e0a-42e6-bbdf-a69f379841bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/3400 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964336 | 179 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Archive for 'Ruby Scripts'
Last night, I opensource’d my first Ruby project using github – it’s a bulk domain name lookup tool named Domainblob. of course, I’ve released code before via examples on this blog and such, but I have never really started a github repo just for a project. I am very excited by this, I know it’s [...]
Ever since I learned how easy it was to manipulate files with Ruby I have been using it like crazy. And why not, it makes it possible to manipulate existing data and to save computed data. I wanted to write about this and when I needed to be able to easily view the changes made [...]
For years now I’ve heard people reference API’s — sometimes this was in reference to libraries used with programming languages but really the kind I mean are web service API’s. These are the kind used by a developer/application to interact with a web service. I have never worked on a full blown web application so [...]
If you’re like me then atleast once a day you get an idea for a great domain name, and so you head to GoDaddy.com to use their domain-name search to see if its available. At somepoint I thought to myself, hey I could do this with a Ruby Script right from the command-line so I [...] | <urn:uuid:c4731b4f-304e-4a35-b2a5-f7ac87224635> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beginnerruby.com/category/ruby-scripts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941014 | 289 | 1.78125 | 2 |
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Today’s guest contributors are Kerry Westphal, Chris Downs, Krunal Sheth, James Rivera, and Michael Tucker—from the macro designer feature crew.
The Macro Designer is a revamped editor that allows you to automate repetitive tasks; wire together forms and reports to create productive UI; and implement business logic in Access databases. We will talk more about business logic next week when we start the conversation about data macros.
Probably the best way to introduce this feature is a demo:
The goal for the redesign was to help business users and developers be more productive, reduce coding errors, and create robust applications. There are five key usability improvements that support this goal:
As you can see—the new layout looks more like code. The Expand Actions, Collapse Actions, Expand All, and Collapse All commands helps readability as you move around macros. Here is an example drill-through macro in Access 2007:
Now, here is the same macro in collapsed view the new designer:
Here is a view with just the actions collapsed:
Here is what the macro looks like fully expanded—notice it reads like code:
Error handling. One of the first things I do when someone asks me to help them debug their macro is add the On Error macro action to the top of the macro. I put a MessageBox at the bottom of the macro with a message that shows the error description:
Show all actions. By default the Action Catalog and Add New Action combo box show actions that execute in non-trusted databases. To see all actions (including the widely popular SetValue) click the Show All Actions command.
Submacros. Submacros are essential if you have lots of snippets of logic that is frequently reused and should only be modified in one place. This concept maps to the Macro Name column in the old macro designer.
Macro Groups. There is a new program flow construct called Group. This makes it easy to put macros into a group that expand/collapses together.
Action catalog search. The Action Catalog search box not only looks at the action name but also includes the action description. Search for “Query” to see what I mean… It also includes ApplyFilter, GoToRecord, and ShowAllRecords.
MessageBox rename. We renamed MsgBox to MessageBox but you can still type in MsgBox to add the action.
In this database. The “In this database” node in the Action Catalog lists all the macros in your database. Drag and drop of database level macros creates a RunMacro(MacroName) action. You can then use the dropdown to call Submacros.
Drag the Macro Library to create a RunMacro action with a dropdown of sub-macros: If you drag an embedded macro it always creates a copy as embedded macro cannot be invoked from another macro.
Quick comments. Enter “//” followed by text will create a comment with from the text.
Tool tips for collapsed actions. Hover over a collapsed action displays a super tool tip with all the arguments:
Argument quick tips. Hover over an argument provides useful tool tips. Here is the Where Condition argument for the OpenForm action:
Insert IF Block. The right click menu has some useful commands to help organize code and insert IF statements without using the Action Catalog.
Convert to VBA. Even with all the improvements to the macro designer, many developers will still want to convert macros written by business users into code. Open the form in design view and use the Convert Form’s Macro to Visual Basic command.
Next, we will blog about how IntelliSense speeds up development and reduces errors.
I'm impressed with the amount of thought, effort and energy that went into macro designer yet slightly nervous at the same time. I myself don't use macros much in my DBs favoring VBA instead. I'm assuming this is an effort to give the non-developer/end user more power to fashion their own solutions without actually having to learn to code. However, it seems to be that the same time & effort needed to become proficient with all the new tools in the Macro Designer would probably also put someone pretty far along in learning VBA ? Again, almost everything I've seen and read regarding Access 2010 I've regarded in a very positive light. But I do quietly wonder if this is the beginning of the phaseout of VBA ? I don't follow the Excel 2010 Dev team.....wonder what's going on with them and VBA ?
Thank you, Kerry, Krunal, James, and Michael! You have been busy -- and thanks for listening to us -- especially wonderful to see a built-in capability to Convert to VBA Like the new macro designer -- delighted to see arguments in-line instead of in a separate pane for the selected Action. The Hover feature is nice too. The Search box will be great for new users and we all appreciate the incorporation of logic like If-Else-ElseIf Like the Collapse/Expand feature ... and Error Handling -- yay! Submacros are important to create reusable routines although I am not sure I like what happens if you drag an embedded macro -- would be better if it linked to the original as opposed to creating a copy. Would love to see AutoComplete for commands as well as parameters ... did not see that in the demo, hopefully, it is on the plate :) ... is it? -- not everyone wants to click and pick. Good to see macros get greater power and functionality -- this will most likely lead to more template contributions :) Looking forward to more 2010 info from you! Warm Regards,
Crystal Microsoft MVP, Access
remote programming and training * (: have an awesome day :) *
This looks very impressive and I would think will mean Access will get used more by yer average end-user since they can now do more with it without having to learn VBA. This in turn may mean more Access databases becoming important in organisations and maybe a bit more work for developers when the user, further on than before, reaches the limit of their ability in designing their database. Maybe. A downside might be that the database is more firmly set in its ways, probably not fully normalised and so on though.
I very much liked the idea of being able to expand and collapse sections of "code". Visual Studio has had this for years and now the Access macro designer has it. Only the rather sad, long-in-the-tooth VB designer doesn't have it. I've not seen anything about any changes to the VB Editor in 2010. Are there any improvements? Am I right in thinking it hasn't changed at all since Access 2000, i.e. 10 years ago? Developers tend to read between the lines as much as reading the lines themselves. There has been no new about the future of VBA for ages. Is there any news of where VBA is heading? Is it heading anywhere? Alan
Access already has a convert macro to VBA feature (under 'Database Tools'). I believe this feature has been there for many versions. But I'm heartened that it's still there, and that 'VBA' has even been mentioned ;) While the macro editor might be exciting for some new users (at least until they paint themselves into a corner with Tempvars and reams of nested if/else statements), it is really disappointing the complete disregard shown for VBA developers. Ballmer's excitement for "developers, developers, developers" clearly doesn't extend to VBA developers. Oh well, C'est la vie.
As a thought, maybe it would be worth doing enough work on the VBA compiler to expose its functionality such that third party IDEs could be tightly integrated as a new default editor for VBA code. That way the hardcore developers could look after themselves. We could then have modern features like code folding, block completion and so on, but MS would not need to allocate/fund resources needed to develop such features. I personally would be happy to pay extra (to MS or third party) for a better VBA IDE. I think that would be win/win situation.
There was a post a short while back (blogs.msdn.com/.../simplyvba-global-error-handler-special-offer.aspx) about an error handler for VBA. Unfortunately, a shed load of other posts on other subjects appeared at the same time so it didn't get the prominence it deserved. I've been using it for a few months now and it is excellent and have cut the amount of code in my projects by about 30% (mainly repetitive stuff), it has also enabled me to automatically get more info when errors occur. Though it is not related specifically related to the VB Editor, it is an example of how someone has added some seriously good functionality to VBA. There are some other good tools out there, e.g. MZ-tools and Smart Indenter. Alan
For most applications I shall still be a big VBA guy. Those new data macros mean that we now have table level triggers in ms-access. And what is nice is we get a fantastic editor system for those data macros. Ctrl-arrow up/down moves the block of code if you don’t want to use the mouse. Gee, I would love that block move trick in the VBA editor. As a hard core VBA guy I now have a nice new system for table level triggers and code logic. Oracle has pl/sql, and sql server has t-sql. Now ms-access has something rather nice in this regards. We just joined a new club here! It should be really fun answering the question does ms-access have table triggers? I always felt a LOT of people asked this question out of spite! Well, now we can answer yes to this question. And we have a slick editor to manage and show this feature off. As far as I can ascertain, this data macro code will run even without ms-access installed on the target machine. So code in VB6, vb.net or whatever that uses this data file should cause those data macro code to run since it is at the engine "table" level. Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
I use MZ Tools and find it quite useful (especially the 'Show procedure callers' option)...have not tried global error handling app, looks interesting though. However, they still don't fully make up for lack of modern functionality in the IDE. Given that VBA already has a nice suite of options to view/alter VBA code programmatically via Module/VBE objects, I think a lot of great third party tools could be created if we had the following exposed: * A list of outstanding compiler errors (containing module name, code line, column, error description). This would be populated after a compile attempt and could be examined programmatically.
* Exposed events for keypresses/update/save, etc for the VBA IDE itself. * A way to change background color/underlining of selected VBA code segments, so we could indicate code errors/warnings ourselves I think this approach would allow new life to be breathed into the aging VBA IDE - and keep us VBA coders happy - without a huge investment (or diversion of resources) from the MS Access development team. It does seem a little misguided to completely ignore professional coders since we often provide the reason for companies to purchase new Access licenses/upgrades in the first place, i.e. so that they can run our apps. @Albert,
The Data macros sound very interesting. It would be handy to have calculated fields in a table (e.g. an Age field calculated from the Date of Birth) without having to use a query. Not having seen the preview yet myself I'm not sure about what trigger events are catered for, or how they impact of real-world performance, but in any case I look forward to more info on these. @Clint, While I have my obvious gripe about VBA, I should point out that Access 2007's new features, such as layout view for forms and reports, control anchoring, etc have been excellent and real time savers. Positioning new fields into an existing report used to be very tedious, now its a breeze. Also having automatic totals on datasheets, improved filtering, export to pdf, etc are absolutely first rate. So I am certainly looking forward to what's in store in 2010. It's obvious that a huge investment is being made to MS Access. -Cyrus
"It would be handy to have calculated fields in a table (e.g. an Age field calculated from the Date of Birth) without having to use a query." Access 2010 CTP can have a calculated field in a table. If you can read French or get it translated, have a look at warin.developpez.com/.../nouveautes. Mind you the bit at the end casts a bit of doubt on its usefulness as it seems to increase the size of the database for some reason and it is no faster to open up a table with such a calculated field than to open up a query based on the table but with its own calculated field. At least that is what the reviewer found when he tried it. Also, he says you can't use VBA functions in the calculation for the calculated field. Maybe there is some Sharepoint-related advantage to having it??? Alan
@Cyrus >I'm not sure about what trigger events are catered for They are real honest table level triggers that run for delete, insert, update events at the table level. So their use is much the same reason that people use triggers in sql server or Oracle. And the editor to manage this table level code is very nice indeed. I don’t think I can post pictures or code in responses here, but here is some more info I posted on stack overflow in response to these new data macros. In this example I show an macro that maintains inventory when values in order details are modified. stackoverflow.com/.../data-macros-in-access2010-t
riggers Even for applications written in VBA, these data macros are a really nice and usefull feature. Albert D. Kallal
Alan and Albert, Thanks for shedding a bit more light on the calculated fields and data macros. The links were very good too. I think the calculated fields may still be useful...according to google's translation of the french website, the reviewer says you can't use custom VBA functions, but I'm assuming you can still use DateDiff() and Date() which would be necessary for an age calculation based on date-of-birth. Even if there was a slight performance/size impact, I would prefer the convenience of having the calculation at the table level. Although not sure what performance would be like if you wanted to sort/filter on a calculated field, since it wouldn't be indexed - probably much the same as a calculated field in a query I guess. The fact that data macros run at the database level looks really good. In some applications, I've wanted to have an audit log that saves the old copy of a record to a log table when it is updated. In the past I would have to do this via form logic, but of course, this would be bypassed if someone updated the table directly. In the context of data macros, the enhanced macro editor makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the clarification on this Albert.
As an aside, the use of C/C++ style comment syntax in the screenshot above is a little odd, but I guess understandable to more easily allow multi-line comments.
Now the most interesting thing about the macro designer is when is it going to be adopted by the excel team as the new "easy" macro language. If Excel was to adopt this then suddenly the number of people programming in Access code would increase 100 fold. That sounds like a lot more consultancy business to me. | <urn:uuid:5074b8cf-c29d-455b-9211-7bf979787369> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-access/archive/2009/07/28/meet-the-access-2010-macro-designer.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941274 | 3,385 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Built Too Vast
Say what you will about our throwaway culture, at least we can dump our faddish buys when they become embarrassing. That bolero tie we wore in college? Our death metal cassette collection? The Chia Pet? All are composting quietly in a landfill somewhere. Unlike other bad ideas, though, poorly designed houses don’t die: They get built, bought, sold, remodeled, sold again, and so on…
Say what you will about our throwaway culture, at least we can dump our faddish buys when they become embarrassing. That bolero tie we wore in college? Our death metal cassette collection? The Chia Pet? All are composting quietly in a landfill somewhere. Unlike other bad ideas, though, poorly designed houses don’t die: They get built, bought, sold, remodeled, sold again, and so on. In other words, if they’re not our headache, they’re someone else’s. It would seem obvious, then, to have a slightly different attitude toward construction than toward, say, fist-sized clay planters.
Unfortunately, many of today’s home buyers design by numbers, fetishizing square footage and countertop measurements like MLB stats. That’s how houses get huge (5,000 square feet is entry level; 20,000 square feet, comfortable), with so many rooms we’ve run out of names for them—formal dining room, casual dining room, sitting room, exercise room, dressing room, (undressing room?) …. Yards are maxed out through zoning, trees are cut down, and windows look right into neighboring windows. It’s the McMansion recipe, and sheer bigness is the main ingredient.
You may be thinking, “People want to build big homes, Bruce, so leave them alone.” You’d be wrong. It turns out that, given a choice, most Americans actually want quality over quantity. In a 2004 study, the National Association of Home Builders posed the question: “For the same amount of money, which of the following would you choose: a bigger house with fewer amenities, or a smaller house with high-quality products and amenities?” Sixty-three percent of the 2,900 randomly selected respondents wanted the better, not bigger, home.
The problem is that people don’t really know what better means, so when facing a bottom line, they just go bigger. Size is the lowest common denominator, that one yardstick by which all Americans value, well, value. If it’s huge, everyone will know it’s expensive, right? (And that’s how we get the stylistic serial killer, “Charles Mansion.”) Enormous houses need lots of doodads to look right. Builders “break them down” into smaller piles, hide their massiveness under dormers, peaks, gables, eyebrows, and sheds, then decorate them with a Home Depot version of architecture’s greatest hits, including Palladian windows, purposeless neoclassical columns, absurdly elaborate staircases, and inaccessible balconies. The sheer volume needs its own private power plant to keep it at room temperature year in, year out. Owners might as well burn a pile of bills to take the chill off a New England fall. In the end, it’s all a very expensive mess.
Sarah Susanka, author of the bestseller The Not-So-Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live, argues that the best designers understand the importance of scale. In other words, a good designer wouldn’t call for a master bedroom, the seat of intimacy, with ceiling heights befitting Symphony Hall. A good designer wouldn’t take time-tested, time-honored room dimensions and blow them up by, oh, 50 percent, the way McMansions are proportioned. But I suspect even good designers can get sucked into the numbers game.
Some do have the courage to walk away. I know an architect who was asked by a Charles Mansion victim to “please try to make these rooms more comfortable—I feel like I’m rattling around in here.” The architect found a fix was impossible: The walls and ceilings were far enough apart to feel cavernous, but not far enough apart to divide into two rooms. The house, the expert concluded, was irredeemable. She left, and the client ended up doing the only thing he could think of—he added a great room.
Which just goes to show that for every designer who says no, another will come along to do the nasty. Can we have some kind of consensus here? Can we all just agree to respect our better judgment and make houses that are comfortable, well built, and lovely? Because I’m not sure all these McMansions will fit next to my Chia Pet in the bad-idea graveyard. If we keep going this way, we may need to invade another country just to find a place to bury our stuff. | <urn:uuid:c43502cd-9e63-4230-bce0-dd25997ecea1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2007/11/built-too-vast/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946956 | 1,065 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Meet people living with muscular dystrophy
Many people tell us that they feel really inspired after making contact with someone else who has been in the same situation as they have, and having an opportunity to talk about their experiences. As well putting people in touch through our MD Links service there are lots of ways to meet families and individuals in your area who are affected by muscle-wasting conditions.
Get in the know
At our local support groups, which we call Muscle Groups, we get individuals and families together with clinicians and special guest speakers to discuss specific areas of living with muscular dystrophy or a related neuromuscular condition, such as education, health issues and regional campaigning. Our local workshops are also useful for meeting up with other like-minded people wanting to know the same things you do.
Joanne Ashton, whose son has Duchenne muscular dystrophy and is a member of the North West Muscle Group, commented:
"I'm glad I joined the Muscle Group. It means I've got all this information early on and I won't come up against a brick wall later - I feel I've been pre-armed. It's nice to know I'm not on my own and it's good to meet other people at different stages. Every day I imagine how bad things could get, but at the Muscle Group I met young lads with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who are in wheelchairs and they're fantastic, they're doing so well. Everything had a real positive spin on it too, and I realised it's not all doom and gloom."
Muscle Groups bring together patients and their families to campaign for better health services in their area. Among the groups' campaigning successes are getting NHS funding for 31 neuromuscular care advisors across the UK, who are specialists providing vital support, advice and information for families affected by muscular dystrophy and related neuromuscular conditions.
If you would like to meet with your own local Muscle Group, please email [email protected] or call 020 7803 4846.
Get together with families fundraising for research
Fundraising is a great way to meet new people in your area, who are affected by a neuromuscular condition, and to raise much-needed funds for research. Families from across the country have joined local fundraising groups, which are supported by the charity.
If you would like to speak to your local Volunteer Fundraising Manager, please do get in touch with us on 020 7803 4829 or [email protected] or complete our online form and tell us about your fundraising ideas.
Meet up with young people making a difference
Trailblazers, the charity's network of young campaigners, tackle the social issues affecting young disabled people, such as access to higher education, employment and social and leisure opportunities.
Join up with them and campaign on issues close to your heart, develop new skills, participate in work experience and make new friends. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, call us on 020 7803 4807 and get involved!
I joined Trailblazers because I wanted to meet new people (especially people my age and with a similar condition) and to be at the forefront of protecting the rights of young people with muscle-wasting disease." Sulaiman Khan, 27
It often helps just to talk to people who understand what you're going through. The Parents Education Network (PEN), part of our online forum TalkMD, puts parents in touch with other parents so they can talk about the issues they are facing in trying to ensure their child gets the best possible education, particularly around special educational needs.
A group just for parents of a child with muscular dystrophy is brilliant! I wish someone could have told me about this sooner! It is great to be able to talk to people who are going through this as well." BJs Mum, on PEN | <urn:uuid:40e9d65e-3bd3-4972-a53e-b61cd6be58d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.muscular-dystrophy.org/how_we_help_you/meeting_people_with_a_condition | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967067 | 808 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Mitt Romney has promised to take action on Obamacare on the first day of his administration if elected, and it's not the only "day one" promise that he's made.
But those promises are often easier to make than to keep. President Obama came close to fulfilling his "day one" promise to close Guantanamo Bay; he signed an executive order on day two to close it, but as we all know, the prison is still open three years later.
So does Mitt Romney's "day one" promise amount to more than campaign talk? Joining to discuss are McKay Coppins, a political reporter for BuzzFeed; Michelle Goldberg, senior contributing writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast; and Alice Stewart, former spokeswoman for Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Michelle Bachmann. | <urn:uuid:569a12e3-6ff6-459a-9d2e-e0e6ce16fa42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://outfront.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/29/will-romneys-day-one-promise-on-obamacare-come-back-to-haunt-him/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971363 | 158 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Respect and Understanding Needed on Tent Embassy
Thursday 28 June 2012
The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of Brisbane, along with its Aboriginal partners and advisors, welcomes the recent dropping of police charges against a number of people who came to support local Aboriginal people and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in May.
It is our hope that charges against others arrested by police will also be dropped.
We do not want to see the ugly confrontation between police, the Brisbane City Council, Aboriginal people and their supporters, which occurred on 16 May at Musgrave Park, repeated.
The sight of over 200 police officers surrounding Aboriginal people at the Tent Embassy at Musgrave Park was a sorry reminder to Aboriginal people of the troubled and difficult relations they have experienced with the police in this State over many years.
The indignity of being evicted by force by police at the request of Council authorities from land with which they have a long and deep connection was also a sorry reminder of their dispossession and all its negative consequences.
We welcome the conciliatory and respectful approaches and dialogue which have taken place between the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Brisbane City Council officers and elders and representatives of the local Aboriginal communities since the confrontation. It is hoped that this constructive approach will achieve positive outcomes for both the first peoples of this land and for the municipal authorities.
We implore both the State Government and the Queensland Police to follow the Council’s lead so that respectful and productive relationships can be established and cooperative partnerships can be formed to address the problems that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples face across Queensland.
As we approachAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday on 1 July and NAIDOC Week (July 1 – 8), we acknowledge efforts by Church agencies, parishes and schools to develop relationships with local Aboriginal people. We encourage them to maintain and increase such efforts.
In particular, we encourage Catholics and people in the wider community to learn more about the history of Aboriginal peoples’ connection with Musgrave Park in South Brisbane and with other significant sites around south-east Queensland.
We also urge Catholics to learn more about the significance of the first Aboriginal Tent Embassy which was established in Canberra forty years ago and to walk with them on their on-going struggle for justice.
Finally, we wish to acknowledge the significant contribution of Aboriginal church workers and Aboriginal Christians who have worked tirelessly to support their sisters and brothers in the Tent Embassy in Musgrave Park since its establishment and for their long standing efforts to ensure that their people are afforded dignity in many difficult situations over many years. These humble and faithful people are extraordinary witnesses to God’s abundant mercy and love. May God continue to bless their work and inspire others to join them in their efforts to build a civilisation of love in Jesus’ name.
For further information and comment, please contact Peter Arndt (Catholic Justice & Peace Commission) on (07) 3336 9173 or 0409 265 476 or Ravina Waldren (Murri Ministry) on (07) 3891 5911 or 0408 707 101. | <urn:uuid:21b1c0ab-68dd-42f3-9f1e-6a56a52bc672> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cjpcbrisbane.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/respect-and-understanding-needed-on-tent-embassy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965335 | 621 | 1.71875 | 2 |
A Brief History Of FIFA Ballon d'Or
The FIFA Ballon d'Or is an association football award given annually to the player who is considered to perform the best in the previous season. It is awarded based on votes by coaches and captains of international teams, as well as journalists from around the world.
The award started in 2010 after France Football's Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year award were merged.
Previous Winners Of FIFA Ballon d'Or
1st - Lionel Messi
2nd - Cristiano Ronaldo
3rd - Xavi | <urn:uuid:dacccbc9-a4bd-485b-a845-804c3c0217f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.napit.co.uk/viewus/infobank/football/awards/FIFABallondOr.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949512 | 119 | 1.625 | 2 |
On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 02:03:48PM +0000, david at baker.ie wrote:
> This seems to be a very bad thing if Linux is pushing towards the
> non-tech/beginner level.
>> I use SuSE and like it a lot, and lots of people seem to be very happy
> with Red Hat. What does that leave us with in terms of alternative
> distributions which are *reliable* ?
Debian is reliable, but I wouldn't recomend it for the 'non-tech/beginner' level.
Maintained by the ILUG website team. The aim of Linux.ie is to
support and help commercial and private users of Linux in Ireland. You can
display ILUG news in your own webpages, read backend
information to find out how. Networking services kindly provided by HEAnet, server kindly donated by
Dell. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds,
used with permission. No penguins were harmed in the production or maintenance
of this highly praised website. Looking for the
Indian Linux Users' Group? Try here. If you've read all this and aren't a lawyer: you should be! | <urn:uuid:79febf45-6b5b-489c-8bbf-76b8f5001752> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.linux.ie/lists/pipermail/ilug/2000-January/011698.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948872 | 258 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, addresses the media following a Republican Conference meeting on Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. From left are: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-VA, Conference Vice Chairman Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-KS, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, Rep. Susan Brooks, R-IN, Conference Chairman Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-WA, and Rep. Tom Price, R-GA.
Published at 4:35 a.m. ET: After their electoral drubbing last November — their second straight in a presidential contest — Republicans have faced a choice. Do they change their policies or their tone?
For now, many top Republicans in Washington seem to have opted for the latter, deciding that a more articulate re-statement of the party's long-held principles will suffice in their effort to attract new voters to the GOP.
"I wouldn't say shift in policy," pollster Jim McLaughlin said of his advice for fellow Republicans. "Republicans have to make adjustments there, but they have to stick to their principles."
McLaughlin's words echo what many Republicans have argued since the election: It's not the party's long-held principles that are the problem, but rather, the way the party's leaders articulate those principles to voters.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., offered a perfect example of current Republican thinking when he delivered a major policy speech that rehashed a number of familiar policies on education, immigration and entitlements under his new "make life work" veneer.
The No. 2 Republican in the House re-framed some of his party's most familiar proposals as an agenda intended to ease the plight of most American families. (The lone new pronouncement was Cantor's endorsement of the thrust of the DREAM Act, a proposal to allow undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children a pathway to citizenship.)
He disputed the notion that his speech was part of a broader effort to soften the GOP's image: "The average American is not thinking about and wondering about where the Republican Party is," Cantor told one questioner.
But the Virginia congressman's speech is representative of an emerging consensus that a more modern restatement of their long-held principles will suffice in seeking to broaden the party's appeal.
And indeed, President Barack Obama's agenda seems poised to stress-test some of the Republican Party's most bedrock policies.
If Republicans can rebuff the president, it could prove the resiliency of their stances. A victory for the president, on the other hand, could tear through the GOP like a buzzsaw. The GOP is arguably facing the most direct challenge in decades to the tenets that have formed the foundation of Republican Party politics for the better part of three decades.
Republican Eric Cantor calls for legal residence and citizenship for children brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington conservative think tank.
Public opinion shifting
Republicans' decision to hew closely to those long-held principles is not without dissent, however.
"People focus on the 2012 elections, but it's deeper than that," said former Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, a Republican who leads the moderate "Main Street Partnership."
"It can't just be tone," LaTourette argued. "Because just changing the tone is going to be like putting a lipstick on a pig — it pretties things up, but doesn't really change the fact that it's a pig."
The next four years — the midterm elections in 2014 and the next presidential contest in 2016 — will offer a major test of which school of thought is right.
Obama's second term agenda seems almost directly intended to challenge the GOP on taxes, entitlements, immigration, social issues and foreign policy.
Terminally low taxes, hawkish foreign policy, largely unfettered gun rights and opposition to abortion and gay rights have defined the GOP since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. And as recently as 2004, President George W. Bush's re-election seemed to signify a sweeping affirmation of these central principles.
But Obama already won new revenue during the first installment of the "fiscal cliff" fight, and his forthcoming budget is almost sure to seek more tax increases. The president is demanding an immigration bill and the first major gun law since the 1990s. Obama has also consistently advocated for new gay rights, and public opinion has followed (however slowly). And last month's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a majority of Americans support abortion rights — an issue which Democrats used against Republicans to great effect during the election — for the first time in history.
On an even more foundational issue, last November's exit polls revealed a change in tide against Republicans' opposition to new taxes under any circumstances. Almost half of voters — and 70 percent of independents — agreed that income taxes should increase, at a bare minimum, for households earning more than $250,000 per year.
For Republicans, the road map back to victory involves speaking less stridently about some of these issues, and emphasizing certain elements of the GOP platform over others. Virtually all Republicans recoil at the comments last fall about "legitimate rape" by Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, but no mainstream GOP leader has suggested that the party jettison its longstanding opposition to abortion rights. The new strategy might involve sidestepping conversations altogether about abortions in the instances of rape, instead emphasizing Republican policies that might support women's economic mobility.
And already, a new effort led by former Bush political guru Karl Rove has vowed to combat candidates like Akin in primaries and help to nominate more electable Republican candidates. (A separate effort spearheaded by another onetime Bush adviser, Ed Gilliespie, and two Hispanic GOP governors, Suzana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada, will look to recruit more minority Republican candidates.)
LaTourette, the former congressman, suggested the answer might be simpler. The GOP, he said, is should just get things — something, anything — done.
"There needs to be some sort of reasonable approach to demonstrate that we're all in this together," he said, "a willingness to do the doable and get things done." | <urn:uuid:3bc99d71-2403-4c75-90d6-710ef508c7c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://firstread.nbcnews.com/gop?nvo=0&17252336%7Ca%7Cnu%7C30%7C1%7Ct%7Ca%7C0=12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961716 | 1,303 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Springs House – Lancaster, South Carolina
South Carolina | SC Picture Project | Lancaster County Photos | Springs House
This March 2009 photo and description of the Springs House in Lancaster comes to the South Carolina Picture Project by way of See Lancaster – a group which encourages travel and tourism in Lancaster County.
“When David Platt from the Lancaster County School District saw the banners on Main Street in Rock Hill, he was so inspired he brought the project back to his home town. After obtaining a grant, and with the help of the Lancaster County Council of the Arts, the project was under way.
The banners, made of canvas, were designed and painted by local school children and community members. Every school in the county was involved. Students from middle and high schools made their marks on huge cubes which were erected on the lawn in front of the Springs House – home to the Lancaster County Council of the Arts, the Springs Foundation and See Lancaster.
Renowned artist and local resident Bob Doster designed the cubes, and the City of Lancaster assisted with the installation. These colorful cubes and banners will be on display in historic downtown Lancaster until the end of April 2009.”
The Springs House is part of National Register Properties in South Carolina.
Learn about other SC artists.
Update: The Banner Project is still going strong in Lancaster and in its third year as of 2011. Christina Chastain is the resident artist. Each of the 18 schools in the county choose their top 25 art students. These students visit Chastain’s Studio Lofts to paint the banners.
This special project is a partnership of the Lancaster County School District, the Lancaster County Council of the Arts, Chastain’s Studio Lofts and the City of Lancaster. | <urn:uuid:3dd30613-7c44-4fce-995a-473a311435de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciway.net/sc-photos/lancaster-county/springs-house.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947986 | 356 | 1.625 | 2 |
To What Extent Can Luxury Brands Benefit from Relocating to China Where Ignoring Copyright is the Norm?
To What Extent Can Luxury Brands Benefit from Relocating to China Where Ignoring Copyright is the Norm?
"Being copied is the forfeit of success" said Coco Channel, the famous French fashion designer. Looking at the 77 billion dollars of global luxury sales in 2008 presented in the WWF report Deeper Luxury (2008, p4), one could agree that fake products are an affordable problem. A huge increase of sales is predicted with the arrival of the Chinese middle class on this market. But while rushing to relocating to China and preparing to welcoming its new customers, luxury brands tend to forget that China was and still is a paradise for counterfeiting. The absence of any intellectual property rights regulation and the traditional chinese culture of copy seem to be two obstacle to benefit from the seductive perspectives of the market and may even threaten the identity of any brand. This essay aims to evaluate the impact of the fake industry on luxury brands relocating and selling in China in terms of : image and brand identity, business strategy, awareness of customers and Chinese perspective of luxury. The examination of these criteria will reveal that a successful relocation to China relies on a new understanding of brand awareness by Chinese customers, marketing strategies and technology which end the confusion between fakes logo and luxury labels.
"One thing that has surprised us in the last ten years is the speed at which China luxury market has developed" said Serge Brunschwig global manager of LVMH ( 2007,p143). There is no doubt that China is the place to be for luxury groups such as LVMH (French Luxury group composed of Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Dior, Celine, Moët et Chandon), and Hermes. In an Ernst and Young Report (2005)both Goldman and Sachs, and Merryl Linch predicted that China would dominate the market by draining 30% of global sales during the next decade and finally overtaking Japans. And when, according to Bendell and Kleanthous (2007), 94% of japanese women bought at least one Vuitton bag, the 300 000 chinese millionaires and the 250 millions emerging middle class are making the market irresistible . But unlike Japan, China market is surrounded by fake industries. And enforcing new copyright regulation is not on the agenda of the chinese government which is more preoccupied with fighting with corruption and crime organization. It appears that luxury brands are on their own facing this challenge and that relocating in the el dorado of fake industry is endangering their brand. In fact US authorities recently denounced the fact that China manufactured 80% of counterfeiting goods seized in the USA(The Economic Times, 2011), and it is usually known that manufacturing genuine products side by side with copy industries undermines the image of a luxury brand and the exclusivity of its products. Although the reduction of costs is imperative in our global economy, it is not applicable to luxury products, whose reputation comes from high quality handiwork, exclusivity and whose prices do not depend on production cost but on creativity. Despite reducing cost will allow huge profits, previous criteria would suffer from customers' scepticism if its products were manufactured in China. People tend to think that "made in China" is either fake or a bad quality product, and luxury brands, such as Longchamps, who had lately dared to relocate in China and had breaken the taboo, have seen their products losing their exclusivity and find themselves discriminated by famous concurrent. Even though Longchamps achieved the improvement of its brand awareness in China, the reaction of experienced westernized customers led to a backfire. After a decade Chadha and Husband are convinced that Chinese customers are likely to have the same sense of sophistication , therefore such a business strategy is doomed to failure .
Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Dior are strongly refusing any relocation plans to preserve their image. One of the solutions to create a strict distinction between fake industry and luxury industry is to educate target-customers. Emphasis should be made more on "designed by" than "made in". If luxury westernized brands are not able to achieve the Chinese market, it will not be dominated by them and other brands will step up. Shanghai Tang and La Vie, are two Chinese brands which have emerged from the western luxury brands lack of adaptation and are currently illustrating the capacity of local businesses to adapt to this new market. But if Shanghai Tang and La Vie are mostly attracting foreign customers looking for Chinese-stamped luxury handiwork, they succeed in understanding the deeper value of luxury : brands have to guarantee quality, to protect know-how and to promote creativity. If counterfeiting and genuine products are hard to distinguish, know how quality and furthermore creativity are the deeper values of luxury. Several studies led by Ernst and Young have shown that 20% of global luxury customers tend to mix fake and genuine products without regard to cost (p4,2005). Such behavior from the customers illustrates the weak communication of luxury brand of a labeled product and the direct threat of counterfeiting on brand identity.Luxury brands have been reacting differently to this challenge and some with success : Celine, the booming LVMHs brand in Asia and in Europe, relocated to China successfully, focusing on a Chinese know-how integrated with a western brand.
By producing a precious luxury fabric made from bamboo according to ancestral chinese know-how, Celine achieved to please both western and Asian customers while profiting from relocated low cost production. Bernard Arnaud , the present chairman of LVMH, by introducing chinese luxury sourcing had pointed a way out to break the taboo of relocating to China. Despite experts predicted that Celine would not resist to the test, the brand is now one of the most cutting edge in Asia and Europe. In other words the target customer could be educated and brought to the conclusion that "made in China " is not compromising the brand image. However, if Celine's strategy opens the door to relocation in China by using local know-how and by letting counterfeiting behind thanks to creativity, the question of relocating European luxury know -how remains. In fact, this success story, highlights the importance of the country of origin in the customer decision. The marketer Sammie made an interesting analysis by separating "country of origin"of a product, "country of manufacturing" and "country of designing (1994) and luxury brands relocating to China could be inspired by looking closer at these three distinctions during the production process. According to customers 'expectations, the factor "country of origin" is paramount and must be carefully planned to avoid endangering the brand identity. On the contrary, the "country of designing" and the "country of manufacturing" are more likely to be relocated successfully if presence of creativity and know-how is noticeable . An education of luxury consumers should be made using these three criteria to show that a luxury brand is not simply "made in" as in a counterfeit but "made of" a complex and demanding process. The design and the creativity are not questioned by relocating since they are stamped by brand image. This is the relocation of the origin country know how which causes the main dangers.
Firstly transmission of country based origin know-how is a hard task and if know- how were to be successfully transferred, the ignorance of copyrights regulation is a free pass to the chinese fake industry to corner the market. Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Dior are argue that the risk is too high and refuse to go further in the know how transmission as they have already done in other countries as Italy or Romania. First, exporting fragile luxury goods is not cheap and secondly a business brand based on high level handiwork, can not resist tochinese low cost manpower for long. Can they afford such a risk ?
Even more, they are l already behind Celine and Chinese brands strategies which have secured their image and genuine product in China. Moreover luxury brands are excelling in Marketing so that setting new standards for luxury products in China will not be difficult. However an other unexplored pass to relegate counterfeiting could be technology. In fact technology asks for huge amount of research and development and could reveal and widen the invisible gab between genuine products and counterfeiting, for an example by using holograms. Trott and Hoecht (2007), are therefore arguing that counterfeiting is a chance for luxury brands to question what distinguishes them from a simple copy and helps them to go back to deeper values. That is to say counterfeiting in China is a productive threat for luxury brands which has to be in constant move in order to provide exclusivity of its genuine products. Recently Gucci have been exploring the field of holograms to label its bags. Although such technology is asking for high investments from Gucci, expensive devices are clearly out of reach from counterfeiter who relie on a strict budget. Price of counterfeiting can not include creativity and is therefore limited to a low cost strategy which limit the budget of counterfeiters. Trott and Hoecht (2004), said that unexpectedly and in a certain way, fake industry is a chance for luxury and for alternative technologies. Kapferer and the WWF "deepervalue" from Bendell and Kleanthous are identifying the technology as one of the solution to distinguish luxury goods value. In fact they argue that technology will be the new criteria of exclusivity for its genuine products. Whether or not this marketing strategy is effective is an other question, but surely counterfeiter are not interested in cutting their budget and will therefore not being able to follow original brand if they chose to apply this strategy.
In conclusion, relocating to China and facing counterfeiting is a challenging move for luxury brands, they can neither afford to lose market shares nor to ignore low cost manpower. Apart from the obvious benefits, struggling with the chinese fake industries appears as an opportunity for brands to revitalize the conception of luxury by making place for cutting edge technology in traditional handmade products and redefining the deeper value of its products. Although luxury brands have a important role to relegate counterfeiting by implementing new marketing and sourcing strategies, new laws should be enforced in China and Chinese government must undertake massive measure in order to stamp out the ignorance of copyright and Intellectual right. But this measures should only follow the new definition of luxury products in China.
Bendell. J and Kleanthous A., November 2007, Deeper Luxury ,WWF-UK http://wwf.org.uk/deeperluxury/report.html, (date of access : 13/09/11)
Chadha R and Husband P., 2006, The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury. London, UK. The Economic Times 14 jan, 2011
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/80-fake-products-seized-in-us-comes-... Accessed on the 13/09/11
Ernst and Young report, 2005, China : new lap of luxury. 2005 www.ln.edu.hk/mkt/staff/gcui/EY-Luxurygoods.pdf Accessed on the 13/09/11
Kapferer, J-N.,2004, The New Strategic Brand Management. Creating and Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term, Kogan London,
KPMG, Australia’s Monash University and market research firm TNS, 2006. www.kpmg.com.cn/en/virtual_library/...markets/CM_Luxury_brand.pdf
Accessed on the 13/09/11
Trott.P, Hoecht.A., 2007,Product counterfeiting, non-consensual acquisition of technology and new product development: An innovation perspective, European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 10, (2007)
Sammie. S., 1994 Customer Evaluation of Products in a Global Market, Journal of International Business Studie
Trott.P, Hoecht.A., 2007,Product counterfeiting, non-consensual acquisition of technology and new product development: An innovation perspective, European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 10, | <urn:uuid:2c5e8e85-461f-472d-a301-91452f292f4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freetopessays.com/content/what-extent-can-luxury-brands-benefit-relocating-china-where-ignoring-copyright-norm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945939 | 2,505 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Specialization and opportunism
Last summer I had some fun with taking macro shots of insects. I sat in on a session with an entomologist and a professional photographer who has done a few books of insect photographs. Here on WordPress I followed a few people who take macro shots and entomologists who study and take photographs (such as http://beetlesinthebush.wordpress.com/, http://bugphoto.net and http://macrocritters.wordpress.com ) but there are many, many others that focus on photographs of insects and spiders.
I found myself taking pictures of things I could not identify and discovered http://bugguide.net where entomologists professional and amateur review your photographs and help you identify the subjects. I read up on optics and formulas on http://www.cambridgeincolour.com. Entomologists, mostly want lateral or top down shots (the better to identify animals). In my case I prefer portraits and to see the critters in context.
So I set my standards high in an area of photography where the challenges of narrow depth of field, lack of light, and need for a speedy shutter is important. My rules today are animals in context, not behind fences or in cages, at feeders, glued, pinned to a board or fast frozen. What this has meant is several days of effort on a single series of photographs, sometimes weeks (see my galleries on Ambush Bugs or Grasshoppers at www.rakmilphotography.com ). The variables that made it time-consuming were not just my ignorance in macro photography, but wind/rain, accessibility and a need for patience often in uncomfortable positions.
You have to find the little guys and most books and experts are far from clear on their habits etc. Once you find them, you need to think of their size versus your ability to get close and magnify; your ability to steady your gear and get light on subject. Then there is the skittishness of the bug involved. Think of Gulliver hanging over you with a menacing claw, and flashing light.
You need to know your subject, your gear and the circumstances in which you are going to work. There are lots of photographers who are entirely opportunistic and do a great job taking spectacular photographs even of bugs. There can be equal pleasure in taking the time to tell a story, providing more than one viewpoint, learning a new skill, and to do one series of photos well. Having been primarily an opportunistic photographer, I am now trying to build series (not just macro photographs), to stretch myself. I think it has been worthwhile and rewarding. Of course the penalty is never having the right equipment with you for all the things you might want to shoot. | <urn:uuid:0eb122eb-0251-48cc-b2b3-9bad22af8865> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rakmilphotography.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/specialization-and-opportunism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957678 | 561 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson won 1.1 million votes on Tuesday, more than any other Libertarian presidential candidate in history. In an interview with TIME, Johnson talks about his campaign, the consequences of re-electing Obama and his plans for the future.
Was it worth it?
As I told the students every time I visited a campus, you are the director of your own movie, and if you aren’t enjoying what you are doing, change it. That’s the way I operate, and if this campaign hadn’t been worth it every day, I wouldn’t have been out there. The ideas we are promoting are important, and having the opportunity to go out and promote them every day is not only worth it but essential.
What was the high point of the campaign for you?
There were many great moments, but the most heartening experience was visiting college campuses around the country and having hundreds of young people turn out to ask the tough questions, enlist in our movement and display a level of energy that was truly encouraging for the future.
What do you think your candidacy accomplished?
I hope that people will see that we don’t have to sit by the sidelines and watch as the two major parties limit their choices to slightly different flavors of the status quo. It is, in fact, possible to join the fray, stand up for principles and offer a real alternative. Of course, now that we appear to have re-elected the status quo, both in the White House and in the Congress, I hope those same people will see that there is a very real need for the process to welcome, rather than exclude, new and different ideas.
Any predictions for Obama’s second term?
Regardless of who wins, an election should be a time for optimism and fresh approaches. It obviously remains to be seen if that will be the case in a second Obama term. I fear that it will not be. I am actually one of those who took President Obama at his word when he first ran — that he would get us out of ill-advised wars, that he would do something about health care costs and that he would protect civil liberties. Like many Americans, I was disappointed. If the President somehow sees his re-election as an endorsement of his first term, I fear that we could be in serious trouble. We cannot sustain another four years of growing debt, wars we cannot afford and ever expanding government. Based on the outcome of the election, I frankly see a continuation of gridlock as Washington puts politics ahead of the good of the country and refuses to truly address the challenges we face. If that is the case, I am afraid the next four years may look a lot like the last four.
What have you personally gotten out of running for President?
I have gotten thousands of new friends, a renewed sense of optimism from the energy and determination I see in our young people and the satisfaction of doing something rather than sitting on the couch and watching our country go in a direction that it cannot sustain.
What are you doing now, and what do you plan on doing in the future?
Right now, I’m taking a deep breath, recharging the batteries and giving serious consideration to how best we can deploy the grassroots organization we built and the tremendous energy of our supporters to put individual liberty and economic freedom back on America’s agenda. To the extent that I can continue to give voice to those ideas, I will. | <urn:uuid:f1306d0f-3d39-409b-a3fe-656ef7ffc551> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/09/qa-gary-johnson-on-his-failed-presidential-bid-and-whats-next/?iid=biz-category-mostpop2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972165 | 712 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Pharmalot: What is the chapter supposed to accomplish? Hunt: This guidance document will codify what are some of the best industry practices that can be transmitted to members throughout the supply chain (read more here). The issue most people think about is honing in on manufacturers, but as we know, depending on the size of manufacturer and their resources, the supply chain strategy can be vast and multi-faceted. We need to focus on other members. For instance, the counterfeit Avastin involved clinics. Do they have enough knowledge to know how to qualify a supplier?
Pharmalot: So how are you going to reach those other entities? Hunt: We have a list of suppliers we’ll send it to… The workshop will review the chapter to decide what else needs to be done to reach everyone. I think at the end of the day, we’ll get a wide breath of feedback from all members of the supply chain. This is the first proposal of the chapter we’re putting out. I’m almost 100 percent certain, though, that what you see today will change.
Pharmalot: How would you characterize the supply chain problem? It’s not just counterfeit, of course. Look at what happened with Ranbaxy (the FDA issued an import alert for two plants in India in 2008 and, more recently, a consent decree was signed over all sorts of manufacturing problems - see this). Hunt: People need to know more than just their supplier. The larger companies do a good job of auditing their supply chain members. Some of the smaller players may not do so as much. When you start talking about smaller players, how far are they going to go to qualify them? It comes down to resources.
But how do you transmit these common themes in the supply chain? A logistical provider may not even think they’re part of the supply chain, so how do you ensure they’re storing product properly? You could have a counterfeit product inserted into the chain or one that is also stored improperly, but in each case you have a substandard product.
So this is about risk management – do you know your supply chain? How do you identify risks and once you do, how do you mitigate them? Are you qualifying supply chain partners? Reviewing forms or actually visiting facilities?
We talk about quality – how do you measure quality within your organization? Do you have a system in place? Theft and diversion is also a big topic. What are they doing to reduce that? Do they have safety mechanisms in place? Are they using tracking systems? How can they recover stolen trucks? These are issues the large manufacturers are grappling with as well… These are questions that need to be asked.
Pharmalot: So is this like plugging the flood wall with your finger? Hunt: Look at the length of the supply chain. There are many steps. The longer it gets, the greater the opportunity for things to happen and there are people out there looking to take advantage of that. The US supply chain is the safest in the world. But it’s always going to be a problem when there’s money to be made by counterfeiters. But we’re at a point where we can grasp the enormity of the issue. I do think it is worse 10 to 15 years ago.
Pharmalot: But what you’re proposing are just suggestions. You can’t make them do anything. Hunt: At the end of the day, it’s up to the manufacturer to know its product is up to standard… At some point, they have to test materials when they come in the door… I do think companies are doing more due diligence than they have in the past…. But how far back should you go? How much risk-based assessment do you do? Is there a new supplier you should qualify? Do you want to go back further? ..No, it won’t be mandated… It’s up to the expert committee and panel to say what companies ought be thinking about.
Pharmalot: To what extent does all this bump up against cost considerations? Hunt: I’ll be honest with you, cost hasn’t come up… The big companies are already auditing and trying to use different technologies… We think, though, that having a document that outlines best practices adds value to the big manufacturers so they can determine the best direction in the future…
Pharmalot: What about other perspectives? Hunt: Well, we currently have quite a few participants from industry, large companies… After the workshop, hope to bring in people from other places –pharmacists, raw materials suppliers, wholesalers. But you know, cost is an issue for a lot of people, not just large drugmakers. Pharmacies, for instance, may have a financial burden for scanning product. There’s a cost associated with having the technology to do that. Or for a logistics provider for scanning truckloads, too. Smaller players may not have thought about how this will impact them in the long run….
Pharmalot: You mentioned Avastin and clinics. How do you grapple with that piece of the puzzle? Some of these practices apparently were either fooled or looked the other way. In any event, it seems like they’re a very weak link in the chain (read more here). Hunt: The clinic needs to know who they’re getting product from… It’s totally different than a hospital. They may be looking for a best price or just finding a shortage and buying what they can. That’s the hard question… If there was an association, we could reach out to them. But if there’s no association, I’m not sure exactly how that’s going to be done.
But if we can move to a global system and require people to scan product to come in for authenticity, you can actually fill those gaps.. Until then, there are opportunities for problems. You know, we went from 197 wholesales in 2000 to where, today, just three sell 95 percent of the medications. That’s a major reason why the US drug supply chain is much better than many other countries. But how do you get rid of gray market wholesales? There’s no way we can address those issues in the compendia standard…. But I do think information changes your mindset…. | <urn:uuid:036fd6bb-4ca2-4b46-b07e-0caeb7189d33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmalive.com/supply-chain-problems-are-worse-hunt-explains/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959407 | 1,332 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Duma Energy Corp. reported that with the recent addition of the Redfish Reef Field, the average production from the Company's Galveston Bay fields alone is now approximately 521 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). This included 342 barrels of oil per day as well as 1,075 thousand cubic feet of natural gas per day. This figure is expected to increase in the coming days as more wells are brought online in both the Trinity Bay and Redfish Reef Fields. Additionally, completion operations for the newly drilled ST9-12A #4 in Fishers Reef Field are scheduled to take place this week, which also has the potential to significantly increase existing production and cash flow.
"We have numerous opportunities in Galveston Bay including re-completions and new drilling," said Craig Alexander, Operations Manager for Duma Energy Corp. "We are optimistic about our future production due to the fact that we are currently producing from only a limited number of the total wells in these fields." | <urn:uuid:4a982f9f-2b51-4396-968d-7fd36d7b63ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scandoil.com/moxie-bm2/oil/production_oil/duma-reports-average-production-at-521-boepd-from-.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968952 | 202 | 1.601563 | 2 |
HON. THOMAS E. CAUTHORN-One of the leading merchants of Corvallis, was born in Mexico, Missouri, August 31,
1840, where his father, A. Cauthorn, carried on a large and successful mercantile business, until the breaking
out of the war. When that event occurred their little city became the scene of many depredations and, during the
years following until 865, Mr. Cauthorn lost all of his property, and in the spring of that year, with barely enough
to secure an outfit, he started with his family of wife and five sons to cross the plains to Oregon. Arriving in
Corvallis after a journey of six months, our subject found employment at different occupations until 1875, when
he with his father started the present well known merchandize house of A. Cauthorn & Son. In June, 1882, Mr.
Cauthorn was selected by the people of Benton county to represent them in the State Senate for a term of four years,
a position he ably fills. In 1883 he served as Mayor of the city of Corvallis. He was married in Polk county, December,
1870, to Miss S. L. Jeffreys; they have three daughters, Mary, Gertrude and Frankie.
History of Benton County, Oregon
Published by: David D. Fagan
A. G. Walling, Printers, Lithograohers, Ect.
Portland, Oregon 1885
Benton County, Or
For all your genealogy needs visit Linkpendium | <urn:uuid:cb616085-7b77-4413-b959-7bcb426bb3d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onlinebiographies.info/or/benton/cauthorn-te.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961145 | 343 | 1.84375 | 2 |
I'M GOING TO LET YOU PICK RIGHT UP.
Well, in Selma, Alabama, the differences with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference did become acute. And these differences revolved around the nature of the cooperation with the federal government, um, the um, the style of leadership as well as the the the forms of protest, ok. Now, we had been trying to, excuse me, to get people throughout the South not to have a lot of confidence, you know, that the federal government was going, not that the state governments I mean were going to say to them, we, we were operating on two, two levels, I think that to try to make it clear. That inside the states uh, we felt that federal government should be utilized to break the power of the reactionary racist state governments, because people were living in a climate of fear on the, uh, on the, uh, from the state governors and sheriffs and so forth. And that we had to have some fire to break this grip of fear and this torture and terror which it was inflicted throughout the South. And we felt that the federal government was the agency by which to do that. We were fighting for a strong central federal government OK, and we were successful in that. However, we did not agree that people should collaborate and and and cooperate to the detriment of the long range interests of the people and we felt that by agreeing to injunctions, you know, on the part of the federal government or by not fighting those as it happened in in in Albany, Georgia, I mean we explained to Dr. King that, that when the, when the federal courts were handing down injunctions, that those injunctions should be fought. OK, so consequently we did not feel that that that there should be any types of deals worked out with the Justice Department or so forth that you should take, find out what's the principle and fight for the principle. And so therefore then in Selma, Alabama when he was agreeing to various things we were rejecting that but when he picked up the phone at 5 o'clock in the morning and called the United States Justice Department and said I have to go against the injunction, you know we felt that that was a tremendous victory, and that he should be supported, you know and that meant that we should participate actively in the demonstrations you know. And so on the other hand then as a result of Turnaround Tuesday you know the uh uh uh we felt that something, I mean we knew for instance, I mean we had heard all morning you know that, that well the… the march may be called off but so but we felt that people had to be mobilized to continue to march. | <urn:uuid:d4fa0245-56fd-4291-890d-ad3b11cfda0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eop;cc=eop;rgn=div2;view=text;idno=for0015.0489.039;node=for0015.0489.039%3A1.34 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988989 | 548 | 1.59375 | 2 |
SCORES OF EVENTS MARK "MONSANTO, QUIT INDIA!" DAY – FARMERS, CONSUMERS & TRADERS JOIN HANDS ON THE ISSUE – YOUTH MARCH WITH FREEDOM FIGHTERS TO REMIND ALL INDIANS ABOUT OUR HARD-WON INDEPENDENCE
THOUSANDS OF INDIANS VOW TO FIGHT FOR SEED SOVEREIGNTY
New Delhi, August 9th 2011: On Quit India Day this year, thousands of Indians vowed to uphold the country's food and seed sovereignty and resist the increasing corporate takeover of agriculture. From remote tribal hamlets in Orissa to kasbah towns across the country to the national capital, more than a hundred events were organized by civil society groups and concerned individuals to highlight the peril to India’s Food, Farmers and Freedom. Across the country, the demands to the governments were mainly four-fold: no collaborative research partnerships with companies like Monsanto in the state agriculture universities and other institutions in the NARS; no commissioned projects especially for GM crop trials, by these institutions and no GM crop trials in general; no public-private-partnerships in the name of improving productivity especially of crops like maize and rice which in effect pose serious questions on food/nutrition security as well as seed sovereignty; setting up
grassroots systems of seed-self reliance, recognizing farmers' skills and knowledge related to seed and supporting institution-building and infrastructure around such self-reliant systems, so that timely availability of appropriate, diverse, affordable seed for all farmers is possible.
In Orissa, padayatras and palli sabhas marked the day with dialogues with farmers in the tribal regions where the government is promoting hybrid maize along with chosen corporations. Activists and farmers leaders urged farmers not to fall prey to the false promises and short-term yield claims of these corporations.
In Mumbai, farmers from Vidarbha joined hands with Mumbaikars in narrating stories about GM seeds like Bt cotton and how the suicides continue. Here, youth joined freedom fighters in a silent march from Lokmanya Tilak Statue in Chowpatty to August Kranti Maidan; Freedom Fighter GG Parikh addressed the gathering on freedom from corporate control of agriculture. Participants vowed to continue the fight to enjoy the independence and sovereignty that freedom fighters fought for and gave their lives for. Following the footsteps of Ralegaon Siddhi under the leadership of Anna Hazare which had recently passed a resolution to remain GM-Free, several Gram Sabhas plan to adopt similar resolutions throughout the Kisan Swaraj Saptaah.
In Andhra Pradesh, all major farmers' unions along with dozens of civil society groups came together to urge the state government not to allow any GM crop trials in the state. They reminded the state government that corporations like Monsanto (and its associates) have not hesitated to defy the government on various issues including redressal for loss-incurring farmers and price reduction on cotton seeds. A delegation met with senior bureaucrats in the Department of Agriculture after a protest sit-in at the Agri-Commissioner's office.
Bangalore witnessed a gathering of 300 farmers and consumers under the leadership of Kodihalli Chandrasekhar, President, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) who held a demonstration at the Directorate of Agriculture. One of the main points raised here was related to state agencies like the UAS-Dharwad facilitating bio-piracy in the name of collaborative research. Protesters demanded the scrapping of the ABSP II project through which Bt brinjal varieties were created posing serious questions on the IPRs over farmers’ seed resources; they also demanded that agencies which have violated the legal provisions of the Biological Diversity Act be penalised for such violations. The protestors dispersed only after receiving an assurance from top bureaucrats sent by the Agriculture Minister, that all partnerships and collaborative projects with Monsanto and other such companies will be re-looked at.
In Patna, freedom fighters and social activists along with farmers' leaders joined hands to take up a one day symbolic fast against the government's partnerships with Monsanto and research on GM crops like Golden Rice. The activists were met by the Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Food and Civil Supplies and an assurance provided that Bihar government would look into all the issues raised with regard to hybrid rice, hybrid maize, Golden Rice etc.
More than 15 events marked the day in Tamil Nadu; in Coimbatore farmers and acitivists urged the state government not to allow the State Agriculture University to take up GM crop trials. They reminded the ruling party in Tamil Nadu about its election manifesto in 2009, where AIADMK had expressly recognized the threat from GM seeds and their unsuitability for Indian conditions, wherein the party had promised ‘no more promotion of GM seeds’. Memoranda submitted to the Chief Minister from various locations across the state urged her to follow the footsteps of other progressive states, which have taken a firm stand in favor of farmers and environmental sustainability and have said NO to GM crops. Data was shared from official records on the occasion to show that Bt cotton had not made any dent to the insecticides use in cotton in the state and that yields have been fluctuating greatly over the years that Bt cotton expanded in the state.
In Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of protesters gathered in Neelam Park in Bhopal from all over the state and took out a funeral procession of Monsanto and cremated Monsanto symbolically. They pointed out that the promotion of hybrid maize seed would nullify the efforts of the state government in promoting organic farming in the state, with an organic farming policy being officially adopted recently here. “The hybrid maize PPPs with corporations like Monsanto will take away diversity from our farms, will jeopardize food and nutrition security of poor tribals, will bring in agri-chemicals and indebtedness and will push the farmers of the state towards more suicides”, the protestors pointed out.
Punjab saw the launch of a week-long unique Kheti Khuraak Azaadi Jatha from Jallianwala Bagh on the occasion. This Jatha will travel through the villages and towns of Punjab in the coming days and highlight the dangers of the recent secret deal that the Punjab government entered into with Monsanto. Farmers unions and activists here cautioned the government against giving a No Objection Certificate to GM crop trials in the state and said that all political parties have to take cognizance of the opposition amongst citizens against GMOs in our food and farming, as Punjab moves towards Assembly elections next year.
In Gujarat, a Beej Yatra in the tribal pockets of the state preceded the August 9th events; in Baroda, many Gandhians, along with housewives, youth and activists, took out a rally across the city today, braving heavy rains.
In Uttar Pradesh, led by Bhartiya Kissan Union's Rakesh Tikait, a 5-day long mobilization effort began with a farmers’ meeting held in Muzaffarnagar. The UP government was urged not to allow any GM crop trials in the state and re-look at its plans for hybrid maize and hybrid rice promotion. “The results obtained by the state agriculture universities with agro-ecological approaches like System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in farmers’ fields are amazing and highly encouraging; such results were not witnessed with high-external-input chemical farming. Why then should we opt for GM and other such hazardous technologies? Further, how will the farmers benefit from the claims of higher production due to GM seeds if the farmers don't even get adequate price support in the market? Farmers of this country offer once again that if the governments offer adequate price and other support systems including village level infrastructure for storage and processing, they will give the co
record production and yields. The solution does not lie in false technologies”, Rakesh Tikait said.
Similar events marked the day in other states too including Kerala, Chattisgarh, West Bengal, Pondicherry etc.
The "Monsanto, Quit India!" day call was given by the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), a national network of more than 400 organisations working to promote sustainable farm livelihoods, seed and food sovereignty, food safety, farmers' and consumers' rights etc.
"We are forced to remind everyone on Quit India Day that we are living in times when our freedom is being jeopardized yet again in insidious ways – if we as a nation want to protect our food sovereignty and if we want to retain control on what we grow and what we eat, we need to resist this corporate takeover. We need to put into place lasting and affordable solutions that are farmer-controlled in our agriculture. Urban consumers should realize that it is not just our farmers who are getting trapped and exploited; consumers should understand that access to safe, diverse and nutritious food for all is also at risk", said ASHA in its press release.
For more information, contact:
Kavitha Kuruganti at 09393001550 or
Kiran Vissa at 09701705743 or
PS: As this Press Release is being sent, events at India Gate in Delhi and near Chennai Central are beginning. | <urn:uuid:aedae13a-f034-48c0-9755-431d7f41a726> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?id=13358%3Aqmonsanto-quit-indiaq-day-marked-across-india&option=com_content&view=article | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944536 | 1,911 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The state will receive almost 2.5 billion dollars for education and Medi-Cal.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had counted on receiving three hundred million dollars more for his budget projections, meaning now state lawmakers will need to find a way to close that financing gap. Yet, H.D. Palmer, with the California Department of Finance, says Schwarzenegger is pleased with the package.
"[Governor Schwarzenegger] also believes that California taxpayers have been shortchanged by the federal government in a number of programs, including Medicaid, and this is funding is a good down payment on what we are owed," Palmer says.
The Congressional budget office estimates some 16,000 teachers in the state will keep their jobs because of the funding. And state officials say the twenty percent of Californians covered by Medi-Cal will continue to receive services uninterrupted. | <urn:uuid:61abac2f-ff92-49aa-8f35-50b9ae626102> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capradio.org/150583 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966595 | 168 | 1.585938 | 2 |
|Gaza Court of Appeal Sentences Man to Death|
|Monday, 17 September 2012 00:00|
On Sunday, 16 September 2012, the Gaza Court of Appeal sentenced H.M.A. (27), from the BaniSuhaila village east of Khan Yunis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, after convicting him for committing 2 murders: one against a child, M.M.A., in 2000 when he was a minor; and one against H.H.B. in 2009.
On 19 May 2010, the Khan Yunis Court of First Instance sentenced H.M.A. to life imprisonment for the second crime, in which H.H.B. was killed on 05 July 2009, after convicting him of unintentional killing according to the Palestinian Penal Code No. 74 of 1936. On 16 September 2012, the Gaza Court of Appeal sentenced H.M.A. to death by hanging after convicting him of the willful killing of a child, M.M.A., on 12 July 2000 when he was a minor, amending the ruling issued by the Court of First Instance in 2010.
According to PCHR’s documentation, this sentence is the fifth of its kind in 2012. Thus, the number of death sentences issued by the Palestinian Authority (PA) since its establishment in 1994 is 130, including 104 death sentences issued in the Gaza Strip and 26 in the West Bank; 44 of these sentences have been issued since 2007. Of these sentences, 27 have been executed, including 25 in the Gaza Strip and 2 in the West Bank. Since 2007, 14 death sentences have been executed in the Gaza Strip.
PCHR is extremely concerned about the continued application of the death penalty in PNA controlled areas, and:
1. Calls for the announcement of an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty as a form of punishment as it violates international human rights standards and instruments, especially the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention against Torture.
2. Calls upon Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to not ratify such cruel and inhuman punishment.
3. Calls for a review of all legislation related to the death penalty, especially Law No. 74 (1936), which remains in effect in the Gaza Strip, and the Jordanian Penal Code No. 16 (1960), which remains in effect in the West Bank, and the enactment of a unified penal code that conforms to the spirit of international human rights instruments, especially those pertaining to the abolition of the death penalty.
4. Points out that a call for the abolishment of the death penalty does not reflect a tolerance for those convicted of serious crimes, but rather is a call for utilizing deterrent penalties that maintain our humanity.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites | <urn:uuid:26b433e6-39a3-4e2f-9ea7-7592895837fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8804:gaza-court-of-appeal-sentences-man-to-death-&catid=36:pchrpressreleases&Itemid=194 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954891 | 578 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Student group seems distracted and afraid of transparency
What do the War of 1812, the Israel-Gaza conflict and bottled water have in common? They are causes the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) decided, on the closing evening of the semi-annual general meeting (AGM), to campaign about. How odd for organization that’s supposed to be focused on student issues.
During that Nov. 30 meeting in Ottawa, the CFS voted to organize letter-writing campaigns against the Harper government’s representation of 1812 and its opposition to Palestine’s observer status at the United Nations. This came after hours of debate on transparency and openness—two areas the CFS would do well to improve on. Some of the measures that would improve openness and transparency were, unfortunately, rejected.
The Canadian Federation of Students, funded by mandatory student fees from dozens of universities and colleges, is meant to represent students on issues like tuition. The fact that these non-student (albeit important) issues take up so much of their time shows the CFS may have lost its way. Worse, students may have no idea what the CFS is up to because it seems to fear transparency.
I was the only student journalist reporting on the meeting. Although other student reporters requested access, I was left to “live Tweet” all by myself. It took a Herculean effort just to get in. When the Canadian University Press, where I am Ottawa Bureau Chief, first asked for access to the plenaries, we were told it was closed to reporters. We would only be allowed in the workshops.
It took a board meeting just to allow me in. This seems wrong, considering students fund the organization and I am a student journalist. (At least they allowed me to attend eventually.)
At the meeting, the executive listed off many impressive past campaigns and lobbying efforts.
But one of those campaigns didn’t sit well with me. Their push to ban bottled water is supposed to force schools to provide higher quality water fountains and make students use reusable bottles, thereby helping the environment. In practice, as a student at the University of Ottawa, it just deprives me of water and forces me to purchase carbonated diabetes-in-a-bottle instead.
Unfortunately, those issues went unnoticed, and CFS members across the country will continue to celebrate Water Bottle Free Day and the newly added World Water Day next year.
While the majority approved of bottled water campaigns, the majority also fought tooth and nail against some proposals that would allow for more transparency: writing a comprehensive history of the organization, releasing information about lawsuits from member units trying to leave the CFS, and recording in the published minutes how local representatives voted at the AGMs.
What dumbfounded me the most was rejecting the motion to write a detailed history. During the debate, excellent points were brought up about learning from one’s mistakes. One speaker pointed out there are lots of negative things written about the CFS but not many positive ones. Sure, a history would show failures, but it would also show successes, and those can be pretty cool.
Why was the motion voted down? Resources should go to campaigns instead, opponents said.
And who has time for transparency and history when there’s bottled water to fight?
I don’t think CFS is a bad organization. A lot of the work the CFS does, like fighting against discrimination and standing up for student rights, is admirable and successful. But they are too distracted by political causes that have little to do with their core mission.
It’s also hypocritical to demand government accountability, as they often do, while discouraging media scrutiny and after voting against measures to improve openness.
What is the CFS afraid of? Unlike some people, I don’t believe there’s a conspiracy or something that the CFS is trying to cover up. But when the CFS isn’t open about its operations, it makes the student-funded organization seem closed off and unaccountable to students.
Jane Lytvynenko is Ottawa bureau chief the Canadian University Press. You can follow her at @JaneLytv on Twitter. Have a comment? Share it below. | <urn:uuid:80dc204f-35b5-4ff3-a3f9-ae55afd9e39a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/12/10/has-the-canadian-federation-of-students-lost-its-way/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9756 | 867 | 1.71875 | 2 |
And what about Valve?
With this community, we are asking Valve to release Steam for Linux finally. But what about Valve itself? What do they think about the Steam client for the Linux desktop?
For several years now there has been much speculation about Steam for Linux. Searching for "steam for linux" on the Internet, you will soon come to Valve's Developer Wiki with a description of Steam installation using Wine. By the way, it refers to one of the first speculations about Steam for Linux from 2008 made by Phoronix. Unfortunately, this wiki page is the only reference to Steam for the Linux desktop from Valve.
In May 2010, simultaneously with the release of Steam for Mac, there was the most famous speculation on Phoronix where Steam for Linux was allegedly officially confirmed by Valve. Shortly before it there was even a Linux version of Steam leaked for download on the Valve's official website. Although the client could be downloaded by anyone, it was, however in an prealpha state. Some time later, the download link was blocked by Valve with the 403 - Forbidden error. Hence there is still hope that Valve is developing the Linux version.
The only official statement on Steam for Linux from Valve so far was in August 2010 by Doug Lombardi, Valve's Vice President of Marketing, where he claims that at the moment there was no Linux version in development. Fortunately, this statement is now two years old and hopefully Steam for Linux is being actively developed now and perhaps is going to be released soon.
Until then, we have no other choice than to use Steam another way. | <urn:uuid:449bd0ea-da0d-40d8-9014-5064fb043e7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.steamforlinux.com/?q=node/14 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969434 | 324 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A Resource for Performing Artists, Scholars and Audiences.
Reza Abdoh, avant-garde director, playwright, company leader and poet, was born on February 23, 1963 to Ali Abdoh and Homa Oboodi in Teheran, Iran. At the age of seven, he saw Peter Brook’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in London and was deeply affected by it. Although there is some dispute regarding the biographical facts of his life from 1972-1982, it is known that during this period, he lived in England, where he directed Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen around 1977.
About 1980, he moved to Los Angeles where he directed numerous plays, including a program called Three Plays by Howard Brenton (1983), Shakespeare’s King Lear (1985), The Farmyard by Franz Xavier Kroetz (1985), The Sound of a Voice and As the Crow Flies by David Henry Hwang (1985).
In addition to directing, by 1986 he began to create his own works such as A Medea: Requiem for a Boy with a White Toy and Rusty Sat on a Hill One Dawn and Watched the Moon Go Down, both produced in Los Angeles. It was also at this time he created the first in a body of videos: My Face and Oh Thello Sit Still. Abdoh’s theatrical works often included multimedia elements; his works did not rely solely upon the text to convey their meaning.
“I am an artist living with AIDS. I am a homosexual who was born in Iran”
In my life I have had to work through problems of stigmatization and prejudice. When I discovered the power of the arts to express my pains and joys, it became clear to me that there would be no other way to work through the demons except to fully embrace the process of creation. The work was not personal therapy but had a connection to other peoples’ realities. As I grow older and more mature, it becomes clearer to me that personal struggles and conflicts are connected with universal struggles and conflicts. It is this knowledge, ironically, that gives me the freedom to experiment in my work.” – Reza Abdoh (from the Alpert Award Site)
Reza Abdoh adapted and directed King Oedipus by Sophocles and Eva Peron by Copí at Theatre Upstairs (Los Angeles, 1987). In 1988, he directed Peep Show, a work which he co-authored with Mira-Lani Oglesby. Produced at Los Angeles’s Hollywood Highland Hotel, Peep Show won L.A. Weekly’s Production of the Year Award. Continuing his collaboration with Mira-Lani Oglesby, he directed Minamata (1989) at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. In 1990, Father Was a Peculiar Man, directed by Abdoh and produced by En Garde Arts, was performed in New York City’s meat-packing district. That same year saw his creation and direction of The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. This work would also be performed at the Festival de Theatre des Ameriques, Montreal (1991), the Sigma Festival, Bordeaux and Mercat des la Flors, Barcelona (1992), and at the Festival d’Automne, Paris (1993). He also directed Pasos en la Obscuridad, a work he co-created with Frank Ambriz, at the Los Angeles Festival in 1990.
He wrote and directed Bogeyman which the Los Angeles Theatre Center produced in 1991. That same year marked the formation of his Dar A Luz theater company and his receiving the Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theatre Award for Outstanding New Work.
In 1992, Dar A Luz performed his work The Law of Remains in the Diplomat Hotel, New York City and in October of that year took the production to the Walker Arts Center’s Freight House in Minneapolis. 1992 saw him branch out to other media—he created and directed The Blind Owl, a ninety-minute feature film; he also directed Long Beach Opera’s production of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. His Tight Right White was performed by Dar A Luz in New York City in 1993. From May through July of that same year, he toured with Dar A Luz, which performed The Law of Remains in the Springdance Festival, Utrecht; Festival Internacional, Granada; Wiener Festwochen, Vienna; Internationales Tanzfestival, Munich; Theater am Turm, Frankfurt; Sommertheater, Hamburg, and the Festival d’Automne, Paris.
He directed Quotations from a Ruined City, which he wrote with his brother, Salar; it was performed by Dar A Luz in New York City in 1994. In 1995, he wrote A Story of Infamy (a.k.a. The History of Infamy). It was never produced. Reza was placed on life support on the first day of rehearsal and the production was abandoned. Reza was later discharged from the hospital and died at home about a month later.
He was among the first five winners of the Cal Arts/Alpert Award in the Arts.
Reza Abdoh died of complications from AIDS on May 11, 1995 in New York City at the age of 32.
In 1996, he was posthumously awarded a “Bessie” Choreographer and Creator Award for Sustained Achievement.
Quotations from a Ruined City
TIGHT, RIGHT, WHITE
The Law of Remains
The Blind Owl (a film by Reza Abdoh)
The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice
Father Was a Peculiar Man (Reza Abdoh & Mira-Lani Oglesby)
Minamata (Reza Abdoh & Mira-Lani Oglesby) | <urn:uuid:6353eced-42f2-4db8-991e-0326ed12448d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://contemporaryperformance.org/profiles/blogs/featured-reza-abdoh-1963-1995 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971793 | 1,243 | 1.765625 | 2 |
[Disorders of uric acid metabolism in rats with fructose-induced experimental insulin resistance syndrome].
Fiziol Zh. 2011;57(1):72-81. PMID: 21516836
Consumption of dietary fructose has been recently suggested to be one of the environmental factors contributing to development of obesity and accompanying abnormalities of the insulin resistance syndrome (IRS). IRS was induced in rats by adding 10% fructose to drinking water. Within 8 wk insulin resistance, carbohydrate metabolism disorder, weight gain, hypertrigyceridemia and hyperuricemia were developed. The signs of IRS were more pronounced in male than in female rats. An increase of uric acid (UA) daily excretion was revealed only in males, suggesting a hyperproductoin of UA. There was not significant disorder of kidney filtration, although an increase of UA clearance was revealed due to enhanced kidney urate reabsorbtion which may be connected to the hypouricosuric action of insulin but not the testosterone level changes. It was first revealed an increased activity of enzymes catalyzing early stages of purine catabolism (5'-nucleotidase and adenosindesaminase) in liver homogenate. Activity of enzyme of purine reutilisatoin (hypoxantin-guanine-phosphoribosil transferase) was found increased that may have a compensatory significance under conditions of increased purine degradation. | <urn:uuid:94a8d4cc-f8b2-4624-9ba2-e70703d71d0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/adding-10-fructose-rat-diet-results-within-8-wk-development-insulin-resistance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934624 | 298 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Trio lends voices to Sartell-St. Stephen school board
SARTELL, Feb 13, 2013 (St. Cloud Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Sartell High School seniors Sienna Schneider, Hannah Tilstra and Brady Anderson represent more than a small structural change to the Sartell-St. Stephen school board; they represent a direct connection to the students and their voices.
When the Sartell school board members decided to add a student representative to its regular meeting, they wanted to choose a student who was informed, engaged and comfortable with talking to the administration and board members.
"(Schneider, Tilstra and Anderson) are students who got involved after the calendar decision," said Chair Michelle Meyer in reference to the board's decision to end the traditional weeklong spring break in March. "We went to the Student Voice group because they are an engaged group. They really felt that during this calendar issue that their voices weren't being heard. They tried to find a positive outlet for their frustration and created this group. They really took lemons and made lemonade."
The Student Voice group came together as a result of the conflict over the calendar change, Anderson said. "It's really grown, and now it's easy for us to communicate our viewpoint to the administration."
There are about 35 students involved in Student Voice, which meets at least once a month to discuss the happenings of the district.
"We have a student council, but it's not the same as a student government group, per se. That's more of an organizing and planning group, but we don't have as much power as we do with Student Voice group, where we can address issues with the administration," Anderson said.
While forming the Student Voice group, Schneider said, they made it a point to talk to every grade about getting involved in order to share their opinion and accurately depict how the students feel.
"Our goal was to make sure that we actually have a voice in our community and know what's going on in our community," Tilstra said. "Everything the school board does, we want to actually have a say in it."
While the student representative is a nonvoting participant in the school board, Schneider, Tilstra and Anderson, who rotate in the position, are responsible for providing the board with insight into the student body.
"We're not unusual in doing this," Meyer said. "Other districts have student representatives too."
One of those districts is Rocori in the Cold Spring area, which has included student representatives on its board since 1988. Rocori allows up to four students, who are chosen by the student senate, to participate on the board.
"While we have three student representatives this year, it won't be the same next year," Sartell's Meyer said. "I just couldn't pick between them. They are all seniors and started this Student Voice group. They also organized a school board candidate forum during this past election. I think that just shows how dedicated these students are, and I'm really proud of them."
Schneider was the first of the three seniors to sit on the board during a meeting with Anderson listening from the crowd.
"It went really well. They were really welcoming and made me feel comfortable," Schneider said. "I talked about myself and about what was going on in the building."
Among the topics the board is discussing that the students are paying attention to are a new scoreboard for the football field, curriculum changes and a new hydration system to help decrease the amount of plastic water bottles being used.
"It's nice for us to hear the discussions and be a part of them instead of just letting them (the board) make the decisions and having them throwing those decisions at us," Schneider said. "The biggest thing we're watching is the calendar."
Despite having their spring break removed for this school year, the students want to have the decision reversed or at least have the board address it once again.
"I think we just want to discuss this again," Anderson said. "It's nice that the current school board is shifting the room and making itself available to the people. They really are making more of an effort to listen and hear the community this year as compared to last year. I see that as an improvement."
___ (c)2013 the St. Cloud Times (St. Cloud, Minn.) Visit the St. Cloud Times
(St. Cloud, Minn.) at www.sctimes.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
[ Back To Technology News's Homepage ] | <urn:uuid:2142141e-38e9-49b9-ab32-577ef72e6392> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://technews.tmcnet.com/channels/netflow/news/2013/02/13/6920275.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981484 | 953 | 1.554688 | 2 |
UK clinical psychologist Rufus May descended into madness -- convinced he was on a spy mission and that animals were robots, he even walked into a family gathering naked. How did Rufus find meaning in these experiences, learn to live without medication, and become a successful psychologist and mental health advocate? Rufus was recently featured in the Channel 4 feature film The Doctor Who Hears Voices. www.rufusmay.com
Clinical Psychologist David Lukoff talks about his madness experience and the spiritual transformation it triggered. David went on to become a leading figure in the field of Transpersonal Psychology and works to bring greater spiritual awareness into mainstream mental health practice. http://www.spiritualcompetency.com/
UK video activist and writer Mel Gunasena on her mystical experiences and forced psychiatric hospitalization. Mel is the director of Evolving Minds, a documentary film about spiritual experiences and what gets labeled "psychosis" by the mental health system. She also discusses the art therapy project in Sri Lanka she helped found to assist traumatized tsunami-affected children. See a trailer for the film at www.undercurrents.org/minds and check out the Sri Lanka project at www.art-2-art.org/.
Blacks in the UK are much more likely than white people to be locked up, put on drugs, and mistreated in the mental health system. Social scientist Philip Morgan of London's Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organization (THACMHO) discusses the legacy of slavery, survivor-run advocacy for system change, and an innovative project reclaiming Black identity through historical research. www.thacmho.org.uk | <urn:uuid:e3a4e634-d121-4a38-9ecf-262a3a38ccd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.madnessradio.net/show-topics/hearing-voices?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947902 | 343 | 1.820313 | 2 |
[chagall, Klee, Matisse, Et Al.]. Verve. An Arti
Verve was founded by Greek expatriate Efstatios Eleftheriades in partnership with David Smart, then publisher of "Coronet" and "Esquire" in the United States. Smart's aim was to create "the most beautiful magazine on earth." To this end he would provide the capital, and Tériade as managing director had carte blanche to provide the content. Tériade's own aims are best explained by quoting the manifesto which appeared in issue No. 1: "Verve is devoted to artistic creation in all fields and all forms...Verve will utilize the technical methods best suited to each reproduction. It will call upon the best specialists in heliogravure in colours and in black and white, as well as typography, and will not disdain the forgotten process of lithography." | <urn:uuid:e5223512-279b-4a95-af31-6c12b2601855> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/10770489_chagall-klee-matisse-et-al-verve-an-arti | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956586 | 192 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Representatives of the major Palestinian factions are in Cairo trying to revive prospects for a national unity government.
The latest effort to bring together the Islamist Hamas faction, which is in charge of the Gaza Strip, and rival Fatah, which controls the West Bank, comes at a rocky time.
Israel seems to be shifting further to the right after its recent elections. Hard-line Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal has called for a third armed uprising against Israel and wants to replace the Palestine Liberation Organization, the long-standing umbrella organization once led by Yasser Arafat.
Meanwhile, the West and some Arab states cling to President Mahmoud Abbas as the only legitimate Palestinian leader, though his term expired in January and his popularity at home is plummeting.
Palestinian Question Muddied
To a casual observer, it might seem obvious that Palestinians need a unified front if they are to have any hope of success in dealing with the much stronger Israelis. But Emad Gad at Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies says the Palestinian question is muddied by the involvement of regional and international players.
He says Hamas is evolving, with the leadership in Gaza moving toward what he calls a more practical or realistic approach to dealing with Israel, while Mashaal and other Hamas exiles in Syria maintain an uncompromising stance. Gad says this process is still playing out, and there will be setbacks.
"Syria and Iran will not allow for Hamas to convert to a realistic movement," Gad says. "Because where is [the] political bureau of Hamas? In Damascus. From where [does] the money come? From Tehran. So it's very difficult now. And Khaled Mashaal will resist minimizing his influence."
Gad says Syria and Iran are using the Palestinian cause for their own ends, but the same could be said of Western support for Abbas and his technocratic government in Ramallah.
The United States, and to some extent Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have made clear their unease with the results of the Palestinian elections in 2006 that brought Hamas to power. Supporters say what their movement wants now is recognition, and that's precisely what Washington and other international players are not prepared to grant, at least not without extracting concessions that Hamas isn't prepared to yield — such as recognizing Israel and renouncing violence.
Microcosm of Arab Disputes
Analysts say Palestinian disunity is in some ways a microcosm of the fissures in the rest of the Arab world, but Mustafa al-Ani at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai says he hasn't given up hope.
"I think Arab unity is still alive. Suffering, yes, as usual," Ani says. "The principle in the Arab unity was to save the Palestinians. And this is a common ground, which every Arab agrees on. The question of how to achieve that, and how to handle the crisis, this is where the disputes emerge."
This latest round of talks is starting with modest goals: to improve the atmosphere with gestures such as releasing detainees and to set the stage for further talks. But some officials will be watching for signals that Hamas, having suffered heavily from the Israeli military assault in Gaza, may now see the benefits of reconciliation. If nothing else, they argue, more than $1 billion in reconstruction aid might reach Gaza that much sooner if donors leery of Hamas could send it via a unity government. | <urn:uuid:fcc7aa4c-55e2-41f0-b94b-2159f3cf6c73> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101154071 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967831 | 699 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Anglers Should Check Status of Missouri River Boat Ramps
Anglers planning to fish the Missouri River this spring should take notice of which boat ramps are accessible.
Bob Frohlich, North Dakota Game and Fish Department fisheries development supervisor, says the damages from last year’s flood are still evident in some areas from the Garrison Dam to South Dakota, and numerous sites will be closed for some time.
“While all ramps and some of the associated infrastructure were damaged to some degree from last year’s flood, many of the ramps are now open and usable at least for the time being,” Frohlich said. “However a couple popular ramps, MacLean Bottoms and Kneifel Landing, are currently closed, but the department hopes to have them operational as soon as possible.”
Local park boards who manage these areas have been busy working with FEMA, engineers and contractors to come up with plans and funding to reconstruct facilitates damaged or destroyed during the flood. The Game and Fish Department is assisting park boards, as well as working on a number of its own ramps.
At this time of the year, conditions can change daily and anglers are encouraged to check the status of Missouri River boat ramps by accessing the boating link at the Game and Fish website, gf.nd.gov. | <urn:uuid:a0c1edd7-c457-4723-8a45-cf0ffaefb8a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dougleier.areavoices.com/2012/03/19/check-the-ramps/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969419 | 271 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The New York Times
September 21, 2008
Bomb Explodes at Hotel in Pakistan’s Capital, Killing at Least 40
By CARLOTTA GALL
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A huge truck bomb exploded at the entrance to the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday evening, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 250, the police said.
The blast, one of the worst acts of terrorism in Pakistan’s history, went off just a few hundred yards from the prime minister’s house, where all the leaders of government were dining after the president’s address to Parliament.
The toll was expected to grow because of reports that people had been trapped inside the six-story hotel, which has been a favorite meeting spot of both foreigners and well-connected Pakistanis in the heart of the capital. The building was quickly engulfed in flames and continued to burn for hours Saturday night.
The bomb left a vast crater, 40 feet wide and 25 feet deep, at the security barrier to the hotel. Witnesses said security guards were buried under a mound of rubble. Cars across the street from the hotel were mangled, and trees on the street were charred and stripped of their branches. The blast shattered windows in buildings hundreds of yards away.
Witnesses said they dragged dozens of bodies from the lobby of the hotel and an adjacent parking lot, including those of a number of foreigners. Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the State Department, issued a statement saying at least one American citizen was killed and several others were injured.
An American Embassy spokesman, Lou Fintor, could not confirm if any American citizens were killed or wounded. “We are in the process of determining the status and welfare of our embassy staff as well as any other Americans who may have been affected, and we are in close contact with the State Department in Washington,” he said.
The bombing was the deadliest to take place in the well-guarded capital and may have been timed for the day that President Asif Ali Zardari made his first address to Parliament since his election two weeks ago. Mr. Zardari, whose wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in December by a suicide bomber, vowed in his speech to root out extremism and to stop terrorists from using Pakistani soil to attack other countries.
Both he and the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, condemned the attack and repeated their determination to deal with terrorism with an iron hand, the state news agency, The Associated Press of Pakistan, reported.
On national television late Sunday, Mr. Zardari said most of the victims had been security guards at the entrance to the hotel. “These are not the acts of a Muslim,” he said. “We will get rid of this terrorism cancer.”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But Pakistani analysts said the bombing may have been in retaliation for recent army operations that have reportedly killed scores of militants in the tribal area of Bajaur, near the border with Afghanistan, and the adjacent area of Swat.
An American intelligence official said the attack “bears all the hallmarks of a terrorist operation carried out by Al Qaeda or its associates.”
The tribal areas have become a safe haven for insurgents linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, whose attacks on targets in Pakistan have become increasingly frequent and lethal. Coming after a bombing this year at another gathering spot for foreigners, the Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Marriott attack seemed intended to send a message to Washington and other allies of Pakistan.
Despite the tough talk by the president and prime minister, it was unclear what kind of response the government would mount. Pakistan has been in a state of political turmoil for months, and from the American perspective at least, the new civilian government has so far shown little interest in pursuing a campaign against the militants.
President Bush denounced the attack on Saturday. “I strongly condemn the terrorist bombing in Islamabad that targeted and killed many innocents,” he said.
The Islamabad Marriott has been attacked by militants at least twice in the past, including in a suicide attack in January 2007 that killed a policeman. A senior police official, Ashfaq Ahmed Khan, said initial reports suggested that an explosives-laden dump truck had been detonated near the entrance.
“The Marriott is an icon,” said Abdullah Riar, a former aide to Mrs. Bhutto. “It’s like the twin towers of Pakistan. It’s a symbolic place in the capital of the country, and now it has melted down.”
One wounded American who works at the embassy here said he was unlocking his car when the bomb exploded. The American, who gave only his first name, Chris, had injuries to his face, neck and shoulder, and was holding a bloody T-shirt to his face.
American Embassy personnel members at the scene said they had come to help American citizens caught in the blast.
Amjad Ali Khan, a guard on duty at a side entrance to the hotel, said that he had seen four to five bodies in the hotel parking lot and that he helped carry out 40 bodies from inside the hotel. He said they had been “in the lobby and in the restaurant and everywhere.”
“There were very few people injured,” he said. “They were all dead.”
When asked who he thought was responsible for the blast, he responded, “They are terrorists.”
The Interior Ministry had warned several days ago that it had information that four or five suicide bombers had been dispatched on missions around the country. The government enforced tight security during the president’s 3 p.m. address, posting Army Rangers and police officers in rings around the Parliament and government buildings.
The Marriott is nearby, but security may have been reduced after the speech and ahead of the evening meal, when Muslims break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan. The bomb exploded at 8 p.m., when many Pakistanis were inside the banquet hall at the back of the hotel.
Asmatullah Marvat, a paramedic for the Capital Development Authority, said rescue workers had taken 70 to 80 people to different hospitals in the city.
Hotel workers said that they had heard a loud explosion and that the east wing of the hotel was on fire. “I was inside the Marquee Hall,” said a man who identified himself as Kaleem. “It was iftar time. All of a sudden there was a massive explosion. The roofs collapsed, and we ran out the back.”
The Islamabad police asked the army to assist in the rescue work.
The F.B.I. offered to send special agents to help investigate, said a senior American official, who declined to be identified because of the nature of the matter. The F.B.I. is awaiting approval from the Pakistani government, the official said.
Reporting was contributed by Salman Masood from Islamabad, Jane Perlez from London and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
Article can be found here | <urn:uuid:0bf84121-79cb-4e14-bc66-e6030a8dcac9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zdlr.net/board/lofiversion/index.php?t15341.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982858 | 1,470 | 1.59375 | 2 |
1) Gasoline containers. I was driving slowly. The fuel gauge was about empty and I was trying to find a gasoline retailer. The next gasoline station was about five kilometers away so my target was a small time retailer which is selling gasoline and diesel packed in soft drinks PET and glass bottles. Yes! some entrepreneur are selling engine fuels in food bottles. I was unlucky not to found one selling diesel fuel.
2) Funnel. Plastic bottles are cheap and readily available funnels. To use, cut the bottom or at point just below the curve.
3) Soap container. This a bit confusing. I first saw PET bottles containing purified water. Juices and teas followed. Then soy sauce, vinegar, oil, honey and soap. The soap thing and the gasoline above are absurd. The same is true for laminated pouches.
4) Explosive device. More popularly known as molotov. Explosives, flammables or other reactive substances are place inside bottle with a wick for ignition. It is ignited before throwing to target. In the Philippines, it is used for illegal fishing and most are made of gin bottles.
5) Float. A single six liters mineral water bottle is enough to save someone from drowning – it serves as salbabida, a lifebuoy. Several small and large pieces can be tied together to serve as raft – a more durable alternative to wooden and bamboo raft.
6) Bags. The idea of some innovative entrepreneurs. Laminated juice pouches are cleaned, dried and stitched together to form hand bags of different designs and sizes.
7) Decorative arts. Some bottles are elegant enough to serve as flower bases or a little of creativity will make it suitable. A file of empty aluminum cans can be glued together to form statues, Christmas decors and novelties.
8) Decorative lightings. I saw many of these at Sonya’s Garden in Alfonso, Cavite. Bottoms of wine bottles are removed and incandescent bulbs of different colors are inserted. These series of bottle lamps guides most walks.
9) Children’s toys. Plastic bottle with few beads is a cheap baby rattle. Empty milk cans are good wheels for building toy cars.
10) Knife. Broken glass and a cut out piece of thin can are sometimes use for cutting. However, dangers from these things are likely.
11) Rolling pin. For a baker wannabe who forgot to buy a rolling pin, a wine bottle will do the job temporarily.
12) Walling and roofing. Large tin can of biscuits and oils are disassembled and flattened. They are used for fixing broken roofs and walls. Coke PET bottles packed with cement cocktails are long term alternative to hollow blocks.
13) Plant pots. Wanna have indoor plants? Get empty cans or plastic bottles. Open or cut it. Place good soils and healthy plants. This option is good if appearance does not matter.
14) Floods, pollution and ugly surroundings. Apparently, this is the most unexpected. Many are leaving every piece of empty bottle, carton and plastic just anywhere. Thinking he is the only one doing the bad habit and such will have no significant effects. | <urn:uuid:59ec2b9b-e883-40f5-812b-01ddc34f0480> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodrecap.net/pack/unexpected-use/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949267 | 664 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Goal setting, ugh! I know what you’re thinking, “not another article about goal setting”. Am I right? Especially this time of year, everyone is talking about goal setting. So much so that the idea of setting goals has become more of a nuisance than a practical task. It is true that setting goals are an important way to measure whether or not you’re living up to your expectations and fulfilling your desires. In business, goal setting is vital to the sustainability of the company. In our personal lives, goal setting is vital in order for us to achieve our dreams and level of success. But, how much emphasis should we place on the act of goal setting?
You can accomplish only a limited number of tasks in a twenty-four hour period, so wisdom is needed to choose the most important. Determining your priorities helps ensure that you are working toward the purpose God designed you to achieve. Consider where God wants you to be next week, next year, even five or ten years from now. Setting goals provides structure, disciple, and purpose. It helps you to focus on the important instead of just the immediate.
With 2013 just around the corner, think about what you want to accomplish next year. Where do you want to be financially this time next year? What kind of lifestyle do you desire to live by this time next year? If you have kids, where do you see your kids this time next year? If you’re married, where do you see your marriage this time next year? Now pull out your journal and start answering the above questions. Make a list of things you want to accomplish. Ask God what His goals are for you and pray for wisdom in achieving the purpose uniquely designed for you.
As your friend, I’d love to hear what you want to accomplish next year. So, share it with me in the comments section below.
Until next time, always remember that you were created by excellence for excellence. Plan to achieve excellence in 2013! I believe in YOU! | <urn:uuid:34574c9c-94a8-4d77-9a4b-1e99045767da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://drmommyonline.com/setting-god-given-goals | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955868 | 418 | 1.59375 | 2 |
With the recent tragedy that hit the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, many people have been left wondering what they can do to help. Thankfully, there is an easy way to show the support so greatly needed for the teachers, parents, and children affected by this devastating event, and it begins with a simple snowflake. On Thursday, January 3, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Mo’oheau Bandstand in Downtown Hilo, the Big Island community is invited to join together for the “Make a Snow Flake Day” event, open to everyone. Aside from this event, homemade snowflakes can also be dropped off at the Eighty-Two Creations store, located at 82 Ponahawai Street in Hilo, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, between December 22 to January 5. With the help of several invaluable community members and The Connections Public Charter School PTSO, this Sandy Hook snowflake drive has been made possible. | <urn:uuid:360691f4-ddec-4e7b-a46a-c5dd88c8a92f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://downtownhilo.com/make-a-snowflake-day-in-hilo-for-sandy-hook-elementary/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970254 | 209 | 1.789063 | 2 |
India | Darjeeling | Shambhala | Csoma de Koros
Csoma de Köros was a full-blown eccentric who devoted his entire life to the pursuit of arcane knowledge. As the Russian Shambhalist Madame Helena Blavatsky noted, "a poor Hungarian, Csoma de Körös, not only without means, but a veritable beggar, set out on foot for Tibet, through unknown and dangerous countries, urged only by the love of learning and the eager wish to shed light on the historical origin of his nation. The result was that inexhaustible mines of literary treasures were discovered." Among the written works unearthed were the first descriptions of the Buddhist Realm of Shambhala to reach the West . . . Continued
Although my main reason for going to Darjeeling was to make a pilgrimage to Csoma's grave I also of course wanted to sample the Darjeeling Teas for which the surrounding area is famous. Above is a tea plantation just across the road from the tomb. After paying homage to Csoma I visited one of the dozens of local tea emporiums, where I was faced by a bewildering array of types and grades of tea. The very best grades of black tea, such as “First Flush Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe," can cost up to twenty dollars for 100 grams, depending on what garden it comes from and where you buy it. I bought some “Second Flush Ruby Clonal” from the Arya Garden plantation and by evening I was comfortable ensconsced in the second story lounge of the Bellevue Hotel, which overlooked the Chowkra, the main square of Darjeeling, with a cup of freshly-brewed Darjeeling tea at my elbow. How much different this tea is from that found in the tea bags commonly sold throughout the rest of the world! If we lived in a more orderly society the chairmen of the board and CEOs of bag tea purveyors would be hauled off to the nearest public square and given a sound horse whipping for trying to pass off on the unsuspecting populace the floor sweepings they dare to call tea. | <urn:uuid:b76c8cfe-4a27-438d-9856-d4a3e66a7110> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.doncroner.com/BlogArchive/2005_11_25_achive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96466 | 450 | 1.65625 | 2 |
MEE's working life barometer 2011: Relevance of work and willingness to work on the decline
The relevance of work and willingness to work are diminishing, say a majority of wage and salary earners, according to the latest working life barometer. It was published in January by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy (MEE). Recent annual reports reveal that this trend has been prevalent for a longer time already. In autumn 2011, when the latest material was collected and sifted, it was found that the number of negative replies (making up the majority) was even greater than in previous years.Among those working in government jobs negative replies - to the question of relevance of work and willingness to work - constituted an overwhelming majority. This feeling was shared by also a large majority of municipal employees and was somewhat smaller majority among employees working in industry and in private services. In all of these four categories the majority of negative replies was larger in 2011 than in 2010. In industry in 2010 positive replies still constituted a narrow majority.
As to the age factor, positive estimates won out only among the youngest respondents, those below 25 years of age. The largest majority of negative "votes" came from employees between 45 and 54 years of age, closely followed by the oldest age group (55 and over).
No significant difference was found between the estimates given by men and women. In the 2010 working life barometer women clearly "voted" more negatively than men.
Positive replies to six other questions
MEE's annual working life barometer does not explain why more and more wage and salary earners consider that the relevance of work and willingness to work have been diminishing in the last few years. One should not doubt the method, used in this survey, as replies given to six other questions have been clearly positive.
Year after year a large majority have been of the opinion that gender equality and employees' opportunities to influence their own jobs and their skills' improvement have developed positively. Positive replies have prevailed also when asked about the supervisor's way of management and about availability of information on the goals of the work place.
The replies are based on a statistically representative sample of over 1,200 wage and salary employees, from 18 to 64 years of age, whose normal working hours exceed 10 hours per week. The replies were furnished in September-October 2011 during the course of telephone interviews. The reply rate was 80 per cent.
Helsinki 29.2.2012 by Juhani Artto | <urn:uuid:088bd5ee-512e-4eb9-9f9b-b813e19cc686> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.akava.fi/en/current_issues/mees_working_life_barometer_2011_relevance_of_work_and_willingness_to_work_on_the_decline.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971253 | 501 | 1.773438 | 2 |
10 Everyday Uses For Apple Cider Vinegar
If Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) isn’t a staple in your house, it will be once you realise just how many benefits it has (other than to make a delicious vinaigrette). ACV is one of my favourite ingredients to use in the kitchen, bathroom and around the house. ACV has been used for hundreds of years for its medicinal properties. Raw ACV is not pasturized and therefore contains a lot of the benefits from the apples it was made from. These benefits are further increased as it is fermented, turning into a real superfood. NB: buy organic ACV that still has the sediment at the bottom of the bottle. This shows that it contains live nutrients and healthful bacteria.
Have a look a these 10 varied uses for ACV:
- Multi-purpose household cleanser: Mix 2 tablespoons ACV with 1 cup water, add a few drops of tea tree essential oil. Store in a spray bottle. Shake before use and use for all household cleaning
- Laundry softener: use instead of chemical laden softeners or softener sheets. Add 1/2 cup to your final laundry rinse
- Hair rinse: for smooth, shiny hair and as a dandruff treatment, dilute 1 tablespoon ACV in 2 cups water and apply during your final rinse. You can leave it on, your hair won’t smell of vinegar once it’s dry
- Face toner: mix 1/2 tablespoon ACV with 1 cup water. Apply with a cotton pad or splash it on your face from a bowl. ACV is great to help with skin conditions such as acne, warts and other skin conditions (don’t get any in your eyes!).
- Sunburn relief: add ACV to your bath and have a soak. Or apply directly to the affected area with a cloth soaked in ACV
- Indigestion/heartburn: mix 1 tablespoon ACV in 100ml water. Sip this instead of reaching for your Rennies (it really works, I tried this first hand as I didn’t leave enough time between eating and laying my pregnant self down to sleep, much to my discomfort…until ACV came to the rescue!)
- Weight loss: ACV helps to break down fats so that they are used rather than stored and helps balance blood sugar (it is therefore also beneficial for diabetes). Use as above
- Arthritis: ACV helps relieve joint pain and stiffness as it is anti-inflammatory and alkalising. Use as above
- Colds, flus, sore throats: As soon as you feel any of these coming on, use as above to alkalise the body and boost your immune system with antioxidants. Continue 3 times a day for about 3 days to prevent a full blown onset. This is one of my first go-to remedies if I feel something coming on.
- Pets: use on your pets to help ward away fleas and create a shiny coat! Wash your pet with a gentle shampoo, mix 1 tablespoon ACV with 1/2 liter water, sponge on. Let your pet dry naturally (put some in a spray bottle to apply easily on-the-go)
These are but the tip of the ice-berg when it comes to the benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar.
What’s your favourite way of using apple cider vinegar in and around the house? Please share your tips and tricks below – any natural remedy tips and original ideas especially welcome! | <urn:uuid:f0e1ccc5-7f3b-4ea1-b500-6a7df5372737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carolinecain.com/10-everyday-uses-for-apple-cider-vinegar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931522 | 731 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Prince William and Kate Middleton ended their whirlwind visit to the U.S. in typical fashion: Devoting time to charitable causes important to them.
Following a star-studded day of glamorous events, the royal visited L.A.'s notorious Skid Row district to spend time with impoverished children.
That wasn't all. The Duke and Duchess followed that up by filling care packages for children whose parents are serving overseas in the military.
Will and Kate went to Inner City Arts, an oasis in the middle of an area rife with homelessness that provides free art classes to neighborhood kids.
The regal 29-year-olds were treated to an art class of their own, where they painted canvasses and made ceramics alongside some area children.
Later, at the Service Nation: Mission Serve event at the Sony studios in Culver City, William gave a speech at his trip's "most important" event."This is the last event on our tour of North America, but to my mind, it is the most important," he said. "This is because it is about men and women who - of their own freewill - choose to put their life on the line for their country."
"They are the front line of a remarkable relationship between the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, which has safe-guarded our freedoms for a century."
"As this is my last opportunity before we leave this afternoon, I would just say, on behalf of us both, how grateful we are to have been welcomed so warmly in the Golden State and the City of Angels. Thank you so much."
The event was dedicated to helping veterans get jobs and saw the royals put together boxes of goodies with the children of servicemen and women.
Prince William and Kate Middleton also attended exclusive private reception for the launch of African conservatation charity US Patrons Circle of Tusk.
There, they mingled with Reese Witherspoon, Disney bigwig Bob Iger and others. And with that, it was off to Los Angeles International Airport.
Come back soon, you two!!!
[Photo: Fame Pictures] | <urn:uuid:244b9b13-28e8-4e94-a97d-5fceecc7de3c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/07/prince-william-kate-middleton-end-us-trip-on-charitable-note/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969135 | 440 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Most of the asbestos companies that file for bankruptcy protection do so under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. This allows the companies to avoid being sued in civil courts. According to federal law, when a company files for bankruptcy, all pending and future lawsuits against that company are barred during the length of the bankruptcy case. Companies filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection emerge from bankruptcy with a reorganization plan and set up an asbestos bankruptcy trust. Once the trust is established, any person who was injured by by that company’s asbestos containing products has to file a bankruptcy claim against that company’s trust.
There is no limit to the number of trusts you can put in a claim against as long as you have evidence you were exposed to that company’s products or worked in one or more locations where their products were used. In addition, there is no cap to the amount of recovery you can receive from bankruptcy claims. All claims are then paid from the asbestos bankruptcy trust.
In combination, the asbestos trusts have more than $30 billion set aside to pay claims brought by those who have been injured by exposure to asbestos. | <urn:uuid:cb602bc7-c3f0-4832-87b3-83bbacd9871f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mesothelioma-attorney.com/mesothelioma-law/asbestos-bankruptcy-trusts/about | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977537 | 228 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Sponsoring the Oceans Prison Wardens
Commentary by Gary Stokes, Sea Shepherd Hong Kong
“Opening Video” this could be quite frightening to say the least!The annual meeting of IMATA (International Marine Animal Trainers Association) is currently taking place in Hong Kong. This gathering consists of dolphin trainers from around the world, all meeting to discuss whatever dolphin trainers discuss when they get together and judging by their
Back in 2006 IMATA issued a position statement, which condemns the inhumane killing of dolphins and other cetaceans in the Japanese drive fisheries. However, IMATA still has many members that are connected to the Taiji dolphin slaughter. One very prominent IMATA member is the Beijing Aquarium, one of this year’s event ‘Facility Sponsors’. In a press statement on their own website, the Beijing Aquarium proudly announces their new-found friendship with Taiji and “the two sides plan to build a platform to archive the imported marine mammals in the aquariums all over China.” At the same time, the Taiji Whale Museum formally became a friendly sister of Beijing Aquarium. They have imported many dolphins and whales from Japan to this aquarium.
So it doesn’t look like IMATA is doing a very good job of distancing themselves from the Taiji slaughter.
With that in mind, we turn to the sponsors of this ‘meeting of death and torture’. As to be expected there are the peripheral companies that supply water filtration, frozen foods, etc. But then we come across much to our surprise Scubapro and Sherwood Scuba as Silver and Bronze Sponsors, respectively. Why would such respectable brands in the diving industry want to be seen promoting dolphin trainers and captivity? Looking further down the list we come to Coca-Cola, Haagen Dazs Ice Cream, and Blue Girl Beer. Some party going on here!
And there’s more. Lurking amongst them all is Parlevliet & Van der Plas B.V. the owners and operators of the super trawler Abel Tasman (formerly known as the Margiris), that has been the subject of a major controversy in Australia. This company rapes and pillages our oceans, sure they do supply frozen fish, but it seems this is more a case of greenwashing-being seen alongside respectable companies such as Coca Cola, Haagen Dazs, Blue Girl Beer, Scubapro, and Sherwood.
All this is being hosted by Ocean Park Hong Kong, a theme park who likes to announce that all their dolphins were captive born and bred. What they fail to state is that until 1994, 90% of their dolphins came from Taiji / Taiwan dolphin drives, so most of the dolphins in the park are actually descendants of Taiji dolphins. In fact, the only living animal in the USA from the Taiji drive hunt was transferred from Ocean Park Hong Kong some time ago.
After the Scubapro/Sherwood sponsorship was exposed, many divers globally were obviously shocked and have likely written to Scubapro. This morning Scubapro made yet another very big mistake. They claimed that the statements on Facebook were ‘false allegations’ and that they should be ignored. Yet it was clear as the light of day that they were listed as Silver Sponsors on the conference website. They then proceeded to say that their logo was used without their knowledge or permission, which is strange as Grant Abel from the IMATA Conference said in an email that Scubapro provided all the information for them to post.
Then Scubapro made their biggest blunder yet, they actually stated that they provide support to Ocean Park, one of a very few carefully selected marine parks that provide awareness and education. Someone must have lost his or her job over this one! Do they not realize that most divers in the world, dive for the pleasure of exploration, nature, and the interaction with wild animals. If we wanted to see them in a concrete tank we wouldn’t need to buy all their expensive dive gear!
The slaughter continues again today. It is time for us all to stand up and be counted, time to make a stand against this mindless slaughter, and time for big corporations to get off the fence and make a solid statement. ARE YOU FOR CAPTIVITY OR AGAINST?
Scubapro-the long and short of it is, as divers we love your products, but we love our mammals free and in the ocean more. We can buy gear from others; we cannot get wild mammals from anywhere else. | <urn:uuid:4fc66e11-ff5d-4037-a1fc-15aca9c5bad9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seashepherd.org/commentary-and-editorials/2012/12/05/sponsoring-the-oceans-prison-wardens-581 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967714 | 948 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Senator Peter Wirth, (D-Santa Fe - 25) is a second term State Senator. He spent four years as a Representative in the State House from 2004 through 2008 replacing Max Coll who retired
from the seat.
Peter’s New Mexico roots go back several generations on both sides of his family. His maternal grandfather, John Gaw Meem, was one of New Mexico’s preeminent architects and first came to New Mexico in 1920 to recover from Tuberculosis. His paternal grandfather was a math teacher and camp counselor at the Los Alamos Ranch School before World War II. Peter’s late father John Wirth, a historian, took great pride in the fact that he was born in Dawson, New Mexico, now a ghost town.
When he is not working at the Legislature, Peter is a lawyer in Santa Fe. read more... | <urn:uuid:e06594a9-6c62-475c-b814-644cb181d1c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.senatorpeterwirth.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973708 | 177 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Venice, Italy is one of the world’s most photogenic cities, there is no doubt. Why not make this your next adventure in photography? Photographer Randy Jay Braun will lead his third Venice photo workshop during July, 2013.
Beyond the historic icons of Piazza San Marco, Rialto Bridge, and the surrounding tourist shops and cafes, there lies a different city altogether. You will see a city that most tourists never get the chance — or have the confidence — to experience!
Venice is a fabulous place to be “lost” with your camera. In fact, locals will often advise visitors to wander the city without using a map. Sure, the city can be confusing, with its labyrinthine passages and canals, but these tiny passages hold the key to much of its beauty! Luigi Barzini, writing in The New York Times, described this place as the “most beautiful city built by man.” Our photography leader Randy Jay Braun calls Venice a “city of layers, textures, and reflections, where architecture dances with the light.”
Our accommodations will be five-star — guest rooms within a palace built around 1570, located at the center of the Grand Canal. The Ca’Sagredo Hotel is now declared a National Monument of Italy. The air-conditioned building offers one of the best views overlooking the Grand Canal and the Rialto Marketplace. During our workshop days, an enticing customized program for “non-participant” spouses (cooking demonstrations, fitness, shopping…) will be offered by the hotel.
Our itinerary is set up expecially for photographers, to take advantage of early morning and late day light. Private boats will ferry our group during golden hours, allowing vantage points perfect for the low light to be captured by camera. We will visit Venetian restaurants, historic buildings, and the famous outer islands of Murano and Burano. It is in the “hidden gems” of Venice, revealed by our local guides, that some of the greatest favorite photographs are made. Come embrace the passionate side of you! | <urn:uuid:910f8b3c-1846-49ce-99ac-0ef3d1fb020b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.randyjaybraun.com/venice-photo-workshop-home-13/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943596 | 433 | 1.59375 | 2 |
I read some news today that made me quite happy, and it’s not about the Blackberry Z10 pre-orders in Indonesia.
Remember Wildan Yani Ashari? The hacker who defaced the Indonesian president’s site in January. Instead of the disproportional jail time that Wildan would face, the national police hinted yesterday that they might use Wildan’s help inside the police cyber crime unit.
Arief Sulistyo, the national police’s special crimes chief spoke to Tempo yesterday about the 22-year old hacker’s possible recruitment:
It is very possible. We recruit hackers and educate them about positive activities and ask their help in securing Indonesian cyberspace,
The police had informed Wildan’s father that his son will receive special training and be recruited. While Wildan will still undergo the legal process regarding his crime, another police representative said that he can receive another sentencing at court.
This is wonderful news. Wildan’s arrest has attracted quite a commotion, as other local hackers showed their support for Wildan by defacing numerous other government official sites after the incident. Wildan himself is a self-taught hacker who graduated from a vocational school studying architectural engineering 1. Before his arrest, Wildan worked as an operator at an internet cafe in East Java.
This is a great move made by the Indonesian police. The biggest message sent by Wildan’s fellow hackers was that the government shouldn’t punish them, but instead teach and recruit them to help fight off foreign hackers who can attack the country’s systems. And if this goes through, then it will become a huge precedent that there is room for hackers in Indonesia to grow.
Hackers being hired by local authorities and big companies is now becoming common practice even among companies like Apple and Microsoft which also picked up teenagers who hacked their systems.
The post Notorious Indonesian Hacker Might be Recruited by the Police appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Comments are disabled on this post | <urn:uuid:34c67266-cf08-4aaa-81b8-caa36390174d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utahsaint.com/notorious-indonesian-hacker-might-be-recruited-by-the-police/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961922 | 420 | 1.53125 | 2 |
6th November 2012
The strengths are obvious and we are happy to report that, after a careful analysis of President Obama’s first 4 years as President-guy, they are every bit as much in play as they ever were:
- He’s a black man. His skin is darkly-enough hued that if you saw him, you wouldn’t even be totally sure that he even had one white parent.
- This makes you Not Racist™ if you vote for him. Attaining coveted Not Racist™ status is a difficult enough task for struggling middle- and lower-class whites in this society of ours that this benefit cannot be underestimated.
- The socialist-realist art posters. They are inspiring because you don’t have to think about them much. CHANGE. HOPE. FORWARD. You don’t even have to read too much stuff on them. I like stuff where you don’t have to read a lot of words or think too hard. Also, only a couple colors. You see that poster and you’re all, ‘Dude, I wish that guy were our President.’ But he is now! Pinch yourself because, not dreaming.
- The Youtube video featuring will.i.am where they take Barack Obama saying “Yes we can” and make a awesome rap song out of it. I bet that’s still up on Youtube and it’s just as inspiring as it always was. Because, don’t you want to send the message that Yes we can? What, you’re saying we can’t? Screw you! We TOTALLALLY can! So there.
- He made there be a National Health Care Thing. This is an issue that is near and dear to the hearts of, if not all of us, at least a whiny plurality of us. For decades now, many Americans have approached their politics with the single desire of something being done about health care to the exclusion of all other considerations, and (most importantly) that it be some sort of National Thing. Obama is the one who got us there. FINALLY there’s some kind of National Health Care Thing, with whatever details, in place. Our tireless whining about there not being a National Health Care Thingamajig has finally paid off.
- Celebrities. Obama knows ‘em. They like him. You like celebrities don’cha? They are the stars and starlets that charm our nation’s soul, entertain our children, and instruct our thoughts. And they, importantly, almost all want the President-guy to be Barack Obama. You wouldn’t want celebrities to get mad at you and move to Canada would you? Then who would dazzle us with their star power, their glamour?
So as you can see, Obama’s resume is impressive indeed. And despite Republican claims that his sheen has faded, the above list of strengths and qualifications – which could just as easily have been written in 2008 – has not faded in the slightest. | <urn:uuid:e7dfc145-d526-47c7-b77f-5049782c2459> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dyspepsiageneration.com/?p=82704 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972465 | 643 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Stop the Abuse of the Akha people by Christian Missions!
In village after village in Northern Thailand's Chiangrai Province the Chinese Baptist Church and other Churches are removing large numbers of girls from Akha villages in the name of protecting them from the possibility of going into prostitution.
According to the Geneva Convention on Genocide it is illegal to remove a people from their group and make them a part of another group.
Throughout northern Thailand, telling families that their daughters will be educated, the Chinese Baptists, and numerous other protestant and catholic groups are stripping all the girls of marriageable age from Akha villages by using the ploy that they will be educated in town at churches where the population usually is not dominantly Akha, but rather
Thai or Chinese or another hill tribe group. Foreigners are being told that the girls are at high risk for going into prostitution but the net result is that there are no girls in the villages for Akha boys to marry and the villages are being torn apart in this fashion.
The battle is on in northern Thailand for the life of Akha villages.
This battle is over the right of the Akha to remain in the mountains without being under seige of every wannabee protestant organization that has a "adopt an unreached people group" program to force a church into every ethnic village on the planet by the year 2000.
There are currently hundreds of girls in the "protective custody" of Christian missions in northern Thailand and the numbers increase as these groups find it easy to get funding from the western church peoples for "protecting the virginity" of these girls. The attitude is that the Akha environment is only a PAGAN ENVIRONMENT and that therefore the pulling of the girls out of these villages by promising their families that they will be educated is justified.
No thought is given to the ramifications on the birth rate of AKHA CHILDREN and the sustainablility of the culture in the already highly marginalized environement that Akha villages live in.
It is generally unknown what these groups are up to as they continue to repeat the practices of removing children from their tribal environment as has been done in Australia and the Residential schools of Canada.
Denmark students groups blocked from building non religious school in akha village by chinese baptist church of maesai, chiangrai, Thailand!
A group of teachers and students who came from Denmark to help assist in an Akha village were confronted by aggressive men from the Chinese Baptist mission that was located more than 100 kilometers away and were told that "this was to be a Christian village" and no school for learning to read and write Akha would be allowed to go on. These men were Lisaw, did not live in the village but threatened the villagers that they had to stop the construction and that the regional Lisaw headman would be contacted threatening their already delicate ability to hold onto that village land on that much coveted mountain in Hua Mae Khom.
The Denmark students group from a project in Denmark called "The Small Schools" had already received permission from the Akha Headman to build a school in traditional Akha style, in a clearing on the steep hillside where one family had volunteered to remove their house and move up one terrace so that the Akha school could be in the center of the village, accesible to all, and where parents could easily spot their children. According to non traditional learning, in an Akha village the center gathering area often has a small open air building with no walls, only benches around the edge where children can come to learn, play, older villagers gather for a smoke, drink of tea or a meeting and so forth. These buildings exist in many Akha villages. Mission after mission have fabricated the falsehood that these open terraces are where Akha young people come for sex in plain view and that they must not be allowed and that churches must be built there instead and then kept locked.
These terraces that serve as central meeting areas for the villages are crucial to Akha children having a place to come in the safety of the village and learn their language.
Most villages have this place to gather but due to the steep hillside this village did not.
The Denmark students group had already made the more than 200 kilometer round trip back out of the mountains to purchase the required building materials and had them trucked adjacent to the building site, for use in the morning. That night two aggressive men from the Chinese Baptist Mission in Maesai came into the village and began going from hut to hut telling the villagers that they could not build "without the MISSION'S permission" and that the regional Lisaw headman would be contacted and that the mission head would be brought out to stop the project. The villagers became frightened at this time and asked that the construction be stopped. Hundreds of dollars had already been spent by the students for these materials and they would not be able to return. The materials had to be left with the headman with no idea how construction would go on.
This village had been pushed into conversion to Christianity only a couple of months before and already radical changes were being imposed on the village.
Numerous girls had been gotten from families for "education" at the mission in Maesai even though there are Thai schools that other students go to, but these are not boarding schools.
On the following day we went to the Maesai Chinese Baptist Church and as luck would have it, there the same young men were. We asked the officials of the church why they had the right to stop the construction?
They told the woman from Denmark she would have to get the police. She did. The police told her that they couldn't make the church give back the money but that the church had no right to do that and we could build. But the Denmark teachers and students had to get back on the bus and the materials were left in the village, the project unfinished.
We are seeking anyone who has the qualifications to document human rights abuses as per the indigenous, who would be willing to come here and document these many cases. Without this kind of help it will be very difficult to stop this tragedy.
Please Contact your foreign ministry about this abuse of the Akha People and their right to their indigenous culture. Request that they contact the Thai Embassy in your country and find out what is being done to protect the indigenous culture of the Akha people from agressive foreign missions.
Please protest to the head office of the Maitrichit Chinese Baptist Church in Bangkok.
Phone: 66-2-222-5056, fax: 66-2-225-0299
Regarding Endangered Language:
For the Akha Weekly Update it must be added that the very kind people from Denmark and the small schools program have donated the three last toner cartridges that we so seriously needed to finish the "in progress" 50 copies of the Akha reader and these will be done in a few days.
From there we will continue our effort to get the deposit money on the building paid and get the printing press paid for and get the first large printing of 20,000 copies of the Akha Reader printed. After that there will be the currently finished Akha Children's Workbook and a host of other books already in the rough draft stage. | <urn:uuid:bab1535d-a75b-442a-9f5c-b7ab3f53075d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lithuanian.net/memory/akha/dk.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980372 | 1,496 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Asperger’s syndrome will be dropped from the latest edition of the psychiatrist’s “bible,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) announced on Saturday the changes to its flagship manual that doctors use to diagnose patients with mental disorders. It’s the first major rewrite to the DSM in nearly 20 years.
Full details of all the revisions will come in May 2013 when the APA’s new manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.
It’s good to see progress being made on such an important issue. That being said, I think most would agree that we’ve still got a long way to go when it comes to societal acceptance of trans- folk. A change in the wording of the DSM-V is nice, but an end to hate-fueled acts of violence would be much nicer. | <urn:uuid:da9d64bc-d92b-47a5-9675-9285c4f6af47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shortformblog.com/post/37143658453/american-psychiatric-association-mental-disorders | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943512 | 231 | 1.835938 | 2 |
From the Lottery's website: "Newport gave its all when competing with several other sites to bring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to town. However, it took $19.5 million in Oregon Lottery® funds for the Port of Newport to eventually land the new NOAA Marine Operations Center-Pacific …"
That raised the eyebrow of a sharp-eyed reader, and ours, too. The facility was a huge deal for Newport and for Oregon, allowing us to best the Puget Sound for a coveted federal facility that means jobs and bragging rights. (We took it away from Seattle.)
But is it fair for the Lottery to claim unbridled credit for this wonderful new economic activity?
PolitiFact Oregon checked it out. Find out how we ruled in "Did it really take Oregon Lottery money to 'land' the NOAA operations center in Newport?"
Read the ruling and return to OregonLive to tell us what you think in this story's comment section. | <urn:uuid:c78f67ca-0c70-4f0d-9b89-e4ca34e7ee64> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/03/how_much_credit_can_oregon_lot.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963285 | 203 | 1.507813 | 2 |
At The Foreign Press Association
23 November 2004
When they asked me if I would speak here tonight, I was very honoured. But I'm going to admit I hesitated just a bit. For a head of state to speak to a room full of top journalists is a little like a pheasant walking into a kitchen full of Cordon Bleu chefs.
Well, I'm not sure what you will all decide to make of me, but I hope it will be good.
Tonight I'd like to talk, very briefly, about the global challenges we are facing. And more important, about the opportunities we have, to make some decisive moves toward greater peace and security.
When this association was founded, back in 1888, it was perhaps understandable that many people saw other countries as foreign and far away. Not today. No nation, anywhere, can ignore the world that surrounds us: regional conflicts; the deep division between haves and have-nots; the twin threat of extremism and terror. We share the planet and we share its future, good or bad. As citizens, as professionals, as people, we all need to ask ourselves: what is our responsibility? What can we do to advance a positive agenda?
Last week, Prime Minister Blair and President Chirac both affirmed the importance of multilateralism. Well, I suggest we need multilateralism in its purest form: practical action on every side – involving every nation, every sphere of society, and every skill we have. We all seek a peaceful, secure and prospering world. To achieve it, we must work together – to end regional conflict; to unite against terror; and to heal economic and cultural divides.
No where is that effort needed more than in the Middle East. In our region, conflict is causing immense suffering, to the victims and all who identify with them. Too many people live in poverty or lack the opportunities they deserve. Through the media, they see the amazing promise and possibilities of our century. And they want to share in those benefits. When such hopes are frustrated, good and hopeful people – especially young people – can fall prey to apathy or rage. Both responses are deadly to the future of our region and the world.
For those of us who believe in a better future, the answer is clear: there must be reform aimed at good governance, economic growth and national development. In Jordan, such a process is well underway. Our country has made structural changes to increase opportunity and build democratic political life. Human rights are a key part of the effort. We have established a human rights centre, which will serve as an ombudsman. We are working to empower youth and women. A responsible, independent press is essential to our development. New laws are being enacted to disengage the government from direct control of the state media organisations. Laws have been drafted to open the public airwaves to private TV and radio stations. And we abolished the Ministry of Information.
We know there is work ahead. But Jordan has chosen its path. Our vision is of a modern civil society rooted in true Arab-Islamic values: tolerance and respect for others; belief in the rule of law; the equal dignity of all people and the pursuit of excellence. This month we issued the Amman Message to all Muslims and the world, reaffirming the true Islam, the Islam of peace, moderation and progress. And we believe that Jordan can help show what a home-grown model can accomplish, in creating development, combating extremism and providing new hope.
This term, “home-grown,” is very deliberate. Successful reform results from the work of people throughout society – from school teachers to entrepreneurs to religious leaders. Imposing a process from outside can't generate that kind of engagement. Reform must be rooted in our region's history, communities and culture. And creative people across the Middle East are showing the way.
Reform is ours to create. But there is another, critical role for the international community: moving the parties to peace. My friends, we urgently need a democratic, sovereign and rebuilt Iraq. I agree with my friend Tony Blair when he says: “Elections, not terror should decide the future of Iraq.” To create such a future, Iraq needs security and normalisation – and soon.
And most important, we must once and for all, resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is a core challenge, not just for the region, but for the world. It has caused untold suffering to the parties. It is holding back regional reform and development. And it is causing collateral damage around the world – a crisis of faith in international justice that creates breeding grounds for extremist violence.
In 2002, Arab countries committed themselves to a landmark two-state solution. A sovereign, democratic and viable Palestine. Security guarantees for Israel to live in peace with its neighbours. A process that leads to a comprehensive settlement; addressing the Syrian and Lebanese tracks. The parties agreed on the Road Map, and it was endorsed by the G-8 countries.
I'm not telling you anything new when I say that progress has been far too slow. Every day of continued violence aids those who seek to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Every day of delay holds back Palestine's peaceful democratic development, Israel's ultimate security and global peace.
It's time to move forward. The passing of Yasser Arafat has wakened global attention and opened a new chapter in the peace process. I have urged the international community, especially the United States, to recommit to bold new progress. The world media can help all of us keep our eyes on the prize – the goal of peace. Palestinians and Israelis alike are crying out for peace. Hear them. Help them. Be their voice.
Indeed, in the Middle East, and everywhere around the world, credible, balanced news can allow people to see beyond the tensions, to the interests people share. Rivers of violence may divide communities, but we must always remember that the same humanity stands on either shore. As professionals, your knowledge, your openness and objectivity provide a bridge to bring people together.
Let me say a special word about terrorism and the tools of communication. Modern extremism depends heavily on its ability to deliver its message. But let's remember what kind of communication this is. It is not a message of reason or dialogue, but of terror and command. Terrorists do not submit to free and open questioning. They do not respect media independence or the safety of journalists. In the world they seek, there is no right to press freedom; it is not even a goal. This is why a free and responsible press serves both humanity and its future when it refuses to be used as a tool – when it refuses to incite hatred and violence - and when it reaches for the truth of our common humanity.
A thousand years and more ago, here in Britain, there were no reporters. Monk-scribes recorded the world's important events. In that age, it was the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles that printed all the news that was fit to print. The entries would begin: “In this year …” Some were very short:
- In this year – the comet-star.
- In this year – a great famine.
In some entries you can almost hear the editorial writer:
In this year – the army went back to York and sat there a year.
Today, you are the chroniclers of our future. In the coming days, you will record the important events of our time. Together, I hope we can write a new reality:
- In this year – an independent Palestine.
- In this year – peace for Israel and the Middle East.
- In this year – a new promise for all the peoples of the earth.
Thank you very much. | <urn:uuid:8dcb678e-bedd-4f33-8192-a44f131ff776> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kingabdullah.jo/index.php/en_US/speeches/view/id/78/videoDisplay/0.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952303 | 1,593 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Pine Mountain is located in the Piñon Range south of Carlin in northeastern Nevada, about 28 miles southwest of the city Elko. Its elevation of 8,282 feet (prominence 742 feet) makes it only the sixth highest peak in this small range and is probably a big reason why it’s not a highly sought after summit objective, especially in a region in close proximity to the more popular Ruby Mountains. Pine Mountain has “curb appeal” though, especially when viewed from the west where this massive ridge towers 3,000+ feet above nearby Pine Valley. The north one-third of the Pine Mountain ridge is on private lands, while the remaining two-thirds to the south, including the summit, are on BLM administered lands. Surprisingly, I was not able to find much information on the WWW about this mountain.
The summit provides outstanding 360-degree views of a vast and remote region of the state. Centrally located in the Piñon Range, you can see the range, almost in its entirety, north to south. To the west and southwest lie Crescent Valley and Pine Valley, respectively. The Ruby Mountains are about 30 miles to the east.
From Interstate 80, take NV-221 (exit 280) south at Carlin. Proceed 0.25 miles south, turn left and proceed west through Carlin another 2.7 miles on NV-221/Chestnut Street. Turn left (south) onto NV-278 and proceed south for about 14.7 miles, then turn left (east) onto the dirt access road. You will see a Tomera Ranch “private property” sign. Continue past this sign through Ferdelford Canyon (along Ferdelford Creek). The road heads in a northeast general direction to the north side of Pine Mountain, where it changes to a southeast direction then winds south through the Piñon Range. The route on the dirt access roads is 13.2 miles in length and through a combination of BLM administered land and private property, much of it through the sprawling 70,000-acre Tomera Ranch. Please stay on the designated access roads and treat both the private and public lands with respect. Also, drive with caution as this is an open range area.
There are many roads in and around the Piñon Range and it can be easy to take a wrong turn. A good topo map of the area could be invaluable. Pine Mountain, although not the highest mountain in the range, is visually the most prominent. It also has significantly more trees on its slopes, particularly on the west side, than the other peaks in the area. The road in will pass to the north of Pine Mountain and wind around down the east side of it about three miles distant. When northeast of Pine Mountain, you will pass by a radio tower facility, which will be on the left (north) side of the road. Pass by the northwest ridge of Bunker Hill then follow the road as it curves to the northwest; park it the area just west of the summit of Point 8525 B. The latter portion of this route requires 4WD and high clearance.
The below topographic maps show the driving and hiking route for Pine Mountain.
Route to SummitThe cross-country trek to Pine Mountain is a negative-gain route, with a starting elevation of 8,378 feet and ending at the summit at 8,282 feet. The basic route starts in the shadows of Point 8525 B and runs west along the ridge connecting Point 8525 B with Pine Mountain. There is not a use trail on this route, but I did see several game trails that could be followed for short distances. There are several ups and downs on the route which account for a gross elevation gain of 872 feet on the ascent and 986 feet on the descent. The final section of the ascent route involves a 742-foot gain from the saddle up the east slope through moderate density mountain mahogany and piñon pine woodlands. The three upslope sections of the descent route involve gains of 252, 200, and finally 534 feet at the end. The route is a mixture of Class I and Class 2 that involves crossing over shrub and grasslands, shale, scree slopes, and woodlands.
This route is 4.1 miles round-trip with a gross elevation gain of 1,858 feet. | <urn:uuid:104f815a-8f07-49cd-bedf-1d3279b288a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.summitpost.org/pine-mountain-b-nv/470771 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953687 | 889 | 1.84375 | 2 |
It’s a sure thing that next year’s deficits will be even worse, even in reasonably well-run cities.
Most economists, and city officials for that matter, know our economic troubles today are not cyclical phenomena with recovery just around the corner.
Fundamental changes must take place so we can rebuild our economies in the new reality of global competition. Fundamental changes must take place in how we define work and the good life.
Yet, resistance to change runs deep. We all want what we’ve had.
The ongoing fights by communities across the state to reduce public employee costs and preserve their redevelopment agency slush funds are illustrative of the backward-looking mindset, futile efforts to preserve the past in a changing world.
Public employees have become a privileged class, their pensions and benefits protected by law, while private-sector workers have seen pensions eliminated entirely, even as their share of health-care costs rise.
Officials are reluctant to lay off city workers because they mean loss of services to a public that has come to expect so much from government, so they keep looking for short-term fixes just to get through the next 12 months.
It is a downward spiral. Like so many companies that have failed, they are chasing declining numbers downhill with no end in sight.
On the revenue side, local governments have become addicted to using millions of dollars in redevelopment money siphoned from their own general funds and schools to buy jobs, especially retail jobs that will generate sales tax revenues.
The trouble is shops are closing; whole sectors, like bookstores, are disappearing. People are shopping online and usually not even having to pay sales tax.
To a great extent, Burbank and Glendale thrived on luring entertainment companies and shoppers from the big city next door. They are the real “Hollywood” today.
But in a declining and changing economy, it is a zero-sum game.
Los Angeles recently gave $5 million to a developer to build an office building in Hollywood to attract entertainment companies to leave Burbank and Glendale. No new jobs are created by such competition. No new houses sold. No new cars bought. People simply change their commuting route.
These games go on all the time with tens of millions of public dollars being given away without improving the regional economy.
There are some positive signs that officials are beginning to think and act regionally. The Valley Economic Alliance and the new San Fernando Valley Council of Governments are examples of cities starting to work together for mutual benefit.
We have a long way to go, and there are many obstacles.
The cost of providing government services must be reduced, and the talents of our people need to be brought together to take advantage of the economic opportunities to develop “green” industries and manufacture products for export.
It’s asking a lot of government, of workers, of civic leaders to break with the patterns of the past and to embrace innovation.
It means taking a step back financially for public employees, and it means paying a little more in taxes for everyone else in the short term. But things will only get worse if we continue down the road we are on.
RON KAYE can be reached at [email protected]. Share your thoughts and stories with him. | <urn:uuid:fbedae41-fda9-4721-8b6b-75e557ee0df7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glendalenewspress.com/news/tn-gnp-0424-kaye,0,4328503.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958448 | 676 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Recent figures show the UK economy is back in recession - and it’s the construction sector that put it there. In the first of a two-part look at the handling of the economic situation Joey Gardiner examines why the government’s course of treatment is failing to deliver a recovery
Many in the construction industry expressed surprise last week’s when UK GDP figures were unveiled, showing that a contraction in construction output had dragged the whole of the UK economy into recession.
For those at the front of the supply chain, the start of 2012 has felt a lot more positive than the nightmarish end of 2011, which was beset by a growing sense of dread regarding the euro crisis. Clients have been more confident in 2012, and schemes, particularly anything with a pre-let, are gradually being dusted down.
But last week’s figures, showing a 3% fall in construction output in the first quarter of the year, shouldn’t really have surprised anyone. Schemes being taken off the shelf now will only feed through to output figures in 12-18 months’ time. Current output, on the other hand, is based upon the new orders received last year. And new orders in 2011 were (accounting for inflation) at their lowest ever level since the data was first recorded in 1980, 39% below the peak of the market in 2006.
It was the year that austerity really started to bite. New orders for non-domestic public buildings - schools, hospitals, prisons - were down 35% in 2011 compared with 2010. The most recent figures for public non-housing work show quarterly orders sitting at way under half the peak reached under Labour’s fiscal stimulus in 2009.
But, nevertheless, just last October prime minister David Cameron talked about “getting Britain building” with plans for 100,000 extra homes, partly on public land. Chancellor George Osborne made the provision of new infrastructure the centrepiece of his autumn statement in November, with a plan to attract £20bn of institutional finance for new construction projects. We have a National Infrastructure Plan, a £50bn public construction pipeline, a new construction strategy and a totally revised planning system, all changes designed to aid the economy by boosting the construction sector.
Yet with the likes of Balfour Beatty and Carillion all launching major restructures, the number of people employed in construction fell by 65,000 last year. So with construction still on the sick bed, why has the government seemingly got its prescription for a recovery so wrong?
The first and most obvious reason why the government’s attempts to revive construction are running up against the buffers is the overall plan to cut the UK’s national debt by reining in spending.
Osborne has made limited efforts to protect capital spend on infrastructure in these cuts - none of the additional £200bn of planned spending cuts above and beyond that previously planned by Labour will fall on capital expenditure. But it still leaves the big-spending construction departments cutting sharply: communities and local government, down 74%; education, down 60%; health, down 17%. Overall the Construction Products Association (CPA) predicts a cut of 36% in public spending on construction over the five years from its peak in 2010, when public work made up a third of all industry work.
A significant change in government spending is bound to have an effect. while The private sector is moving, it is not yet taking up the slack
Graham Shennan, Morgan Sindall
Graham Shennan, managing director of Morgan Sindall, says: “Such a significant change in government spend is bound to have an impact. While the private sector is moving, it is not yet taking up the slack.”
But it’s not just direct procurement of public construction that is at stake: the cut in spending impacts on growth in the wider economy, arguably making private clients less likely to invest. Until now the government, and many bodies representing businesses, including the UK Contractors Group (UKCG) and the CBI, have said the cuts are a price worth paying for the supposed economic stability engendered by a credible deficit reduction strategy. But worsening GDP figures makes this argument less convincing.
Noble Francis, economics director at the CPA, says: “It is essential to cut the deficit. However, if you cut so much you can end up with a situation where you don’t get any growth in the economy. Unfortunately plan A has ended up reducing economic activity.”
Osborne has made a big play of protecting infrastructure spend during his cuts: the Department for Transport (DfT) has one of the smallest capital spending cuts in government, at just 11%, while funding at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), which pays for flood defences and nuclear decommissioning, will actually rise by 41%.
Final sign-off on Crossrail and approval for major projects like High Speed 2 and new-build nuclear plants are also working through the system. Potentially more significant in terms of positive growth is the £20bn Osborne is trying to raise from institutional and pension fund investors to fund infrastructure projects.
At the same time overall infrastructure spend, much of it by private regulated industries, has been growing since 2008, and will have doubled by 2016, according to the CPA. The problem is that, beyond the decision not to cancel Crossrail, all of this has been factored in by the industry and it is difficult to discern any particular boost from the coalition’s policies.
This is because infrastructure projects, such as the £30bn High Speed 2, take such a long time to come to fruition. So, while Osborne’s plan makes long-term strategic sense for the economy, there will be no short-term construction stimulus.
Francis says: “If the government was committed to a short-term boost it would simply speed up spend on maintenance. Instead it has chosen to focus on new projects, but these will take 8-24 months to come on stream.”
The problem with relying on the slow world of infrastructure investment is exacerbated by another feature of the government’s strategy - its reliance on private capital. A huge number of the government’s stated priorities can only be achieved if private companies decide it’s in their interest to come to the government’s aid.
For example, Osborne’s “announcement” of £20bn of institutional investment in to infrastructure last autumn was based on estimates following an initial discussion with some pension funds. But so far only £2bn has actually been promised, amidst widespread concern that pension funds are not ready to take on the risk for complex construction projects. The £10bn plan to build new nuclear plants at Hinkley is dependent on a French utility, EDF, deciding to invest - despite the fact the lights might go out in the UK if it isn’t built.
Earlier this year prime minister David Cameron said the government will explore road pricing and private funding to build the £1bn A14 upgrade - previously a publicly-funded project cancelled by the coalition in its first weeks in power.
The lack of a clear strategy on PFI is a major stumbling block. investors will only participate if they know a project will be delivered
Ken Gillespie, Galliford Try
The government’s much-heralded mortgage guarantee scheme, NewBuy, is already showing signs of being hamstrung by a lack of interest from banks, who show little sign of increasing their lending to homebuyers.
Overall, out of 40 key government infrastructure schemes 15 require private funding. The desire to court private investment is understandable but, in doing so, the government is losing control of the timing of delivery on priority projects.
Obviously in a worldwide recession driven by fears over debt, securing private investment is difficult. Simon Rawlinson, head of strategic research at EC Harris, says: “It all revolves around money, and the tightening of finance in all directions is screwing us up royally, with many banks repatriating funds. This is working in a big negative feedback loop, meaning the treacle we’re in is getting thicker and thicker.”
As all this is happening, the principal form of private funding for construction that is understood and endorsed by the market, PFI, has been all but shut down. Fears over its cost-effectiveness led the government to commission a review but there are few indications of when it will report or what it might recommend. While PFI has never been a funding route for economic infrastructure such as roads and railways, it has been vital for the huge investment in new schools, hospitals, prisons, and homes in the last decade.
As a knock-on effect the launch of the PFI-funded £2bn Priority Schools Building Programme has been delayed while the review is being carried out, and anecdotal evidence suggests no new PFI projects are being signed off.
Ken Gillespie, group construction MD at Galliford Try, says: “The lack of a clear strategy on this is a major stumbling block. Investors are looking for certainty and this uncertainty on PFI is very, very unhelpful. They will only participate if they know a project will be delivered.”
One major factor affecting the decline is largely out of the government’s hands: the ongoing debt crisis in the eurozone. Last weekend Cameron said that Europe was nowhere near halfway through the chronic problem. The situation looked to have eased but has flared up again in recent weeks with concerns over the economies of Spain and Portugal.
The crisis damages both the demand and ability to finance projects, particularly in the vital London commercial market. Rawlinson says: “The City of London market is one that could respond the quickest, bringing projects back online.” However, it is hamstrung as potential occupiers eye events on the continent nervously.
Steve McGuckin, managing director of consultant Turner and Townsend, says Europe remains a concern but that things have improved. He says: “The jitters over the euro were particularly severe in the last quarter of last year, but from January we have seen some confidence return.”
The Government Construction Summit will be hosted by Building on 2 July and will feature sessions with government ministers and officials, including the Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office. For more information visit www.governmentconstruction.co.uk
6 September 2012
18 May 2012
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12 March 2012 | <urn:uuid:d6257d83-10b3-4cf3-a247-de7c2c2617f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.building.co.uk/analysis/news-analysis/the-uk-economy-kill-or-cure/5036109.article?fontSize=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958468 | 2,174 | 1.601563 | 2 |
‘Charudatham,' staged in Palakkad, recently, was a fine adaptation of ‘Julius Caesar.'
Adopting Western classical plays into Kathakali format is nothing new. Kathakali plays such as ‘King Lear,' ‘Othello' and ‘Oedipus' are some of the more famous among them, with stalwarts like Kalamandalam Gopi, Kalamandalam Vasu Pisharodi and Kalamandalam K. G. Vasudevan having donned the lead roles. William Shakespeare's ‘Julius Caesar' renamed as ‘Charudatham' is one of the latest entries into the list. ‘Charudatham' was staged in Palakkad, recently.
The three-hour play, penned and choreographed by Sadanam Harikumar, was performed by Gandhi Seva Sadanam Kathakali troupe. Harikumar, a writer, an artist, a musician and above all a Kathakali artiste, beautifully re-created the play without losing the depth of the Elizabethan drama.
He gave Indian names and temperaments to Shakespeare's characters. Thus we have Charudathan (Julius Caesar), Malathi (Calpurnia), Jayasenan (Brutus), Dandi (Cassius), Keerthibhadran (Mark Antony) and so on.
The play begins with a jubilant Charudathan returning to his palace after a successful military campaign against the son of the King of Pompeii. His friends Jayasenan and Keerthibhadran greet him warmly and decide to nominate him for the throne of Rome.
But Dandi dislikes this decision and conspires to kill him and brainwashes Jayasenan onto his side. In the second act, Malathi, Charudathan's wife, dreams that something ill will befall her husband and requests him not to go for the crowning ceremony. However, Charudathan does not heed her warning. In the third act Charudathan is stabbed to death by Dandi, Jayasenan, Pindarakan and Rudrakan. In the last and final act Keerthibhadran, loyal friend of Charudathan, gets his revenge on the murderers.
Harikumar's version of the play was a notable one in many respects, most importantly, because he adapted it without losing the flavour of Kathakali. The first scene, which looks similar to that of the wedding scene in ‘Subhadraharanam,' was perfectly poised. The most interesting aspect of this ‘attakkatha' is its choreography. Except for Vellathadi and Kari, almost all the important veshams in Kathakali appear in this play. Some of the kalasams (nritha) that were structured for Dandi is an example of Harikumar's skill as a choreographer. It is a style that is reminiscent of his guru Keezhpadam Kumaran Nair.
Although Charudathan is the hero of the play, he is appears only in two acts. Jayasenan, Dandi and Keerthibhadran are the lead roles. Sadanam Harikumar played the role of Charudathan with ease and élan. Sadanam Sreenath stood out for his acting in the role of Malathi. Sadanam Manikandan's Jayasenan was remarkable. Manikandan, an up-and coming artiste, gracefully enacted the emotion-filled scenes. Though his body movements were somewhat lacking, his powerful ‘nritha' and ‘bhava' were excellent. Narippatta Narayanan Nambudiri excelled in the role of the vengeful Dandi. Dandi's costume design (by Harikumar) and make-up deserve special mention. Sadanam Balan enacted the role of Keerthibhadran in style. Keerthibhadran's make-up, which featured ‘pazhukka' (a yellowish paste), was apt for the character.
The other roles of the play were donned by Sadanam Mohanan (Chaithanian), Sadanam Vignesh (Rudrakan), Sadanam Vishnuprasad (Pindarakan) and Sadanam Suresh (Charulatha), respectively. Sadanam Sivadas and Sadanam Jyothishbabu were the singers, while Sadanam Rajan and Sadanam Ramakrishnan were the percussionists. The play was staged under the aegis of the Palakkad Kathakali Trust. | <urn:uuid:baf28d4a-613a-4056-b86a-09f00c036301> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/theatre/a-tragedy-retold/article972129.ece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961265 | 989 | 1.601563 | 2 |
People often ask how many 6 MHz channels it takes to do an IP video offering over cable. The answer, of course, is “it depends,” but let’s be more specific: MSOs can create an IP video offering with as few as four 6 MHz channels. With eight, they can create a partial replacement of the traditional linear and on-demand video product line. Sixteen 6 MHz channels afford a full replacement of what’s on the MPEG plant today.
If that sounds like a lot, think about it another way. Today’s 860 MHz cable plant contains about 125 channels, including analog and digital. Between two and four channels are currently used to handle both broadband and voice over IP (VoIP) traffic. Viewed through that prism, 16 channels perhaps don’t seem like so much!
How much bandwidth is really needed to deliver VoIP depends on the nature of the service offering. Offering a full simulcast of the linear lineup costs more in bandwidth – some networks are already carried in dedicated analog, standard definition, and high definition bandwidth. By contrast, offering VoD content in IP is a variation on switched digital video, itself a bandwidth saving mechanism.
John Chapman, Cisco Fellow and CTO of Cisco’s Access, Transport and Technology group,
talks candidly in this short video about what it takes, in bandwidth and QoS, to launch a video over IP service.
Contributed by John Mattson, Director of Product Management, Cable Marketing
New 3G60 Broadband Processing Engine Enables Cable Operators to Cost-Effectively Move to All-IP Networks
The long-awaited 3G60 line card for the uBR10012 CMTS has finally arrived. Ever since Cisco first conceived this line card, many worldwide cable providers have been waiting for its debut with breathless anticipation. In my 22 years in the cable industry I can’t recall any other product with as much advance customer interest as this one.
Why is the 3G60 such a hot commodity? Because it finally brings the right combination of very high capacity and very low cost-per-port that enables operators to realistically deploy Video-over-DOCSIS (VDOC) service. And VDOC is the key to moving to a converged, all-IP network, which dramatically reduces both capital and operating costs and provides unprecedented flexibility to introduce new services quickly and efficiently.
The 3G60 provides up to 72 downstream ports and 60 upstream ports on a single line card, -- over 3 times the density of any line card on the market today. Using the 3G60, a single uBR10012 can support up to 576 downstream and 480 upstream ports per chassis. In addition, starting from a minimal base system, all of the upstream and downstream ports on the 3G60 can be provisioned via software licensing, so customers can install the card and then only pay for the ports they use. The 3G60 supports DOCSIS® 3.0 downstream channel bonding of as few as 2 up to as many as 24 channels, which makes downstream speeds of over 900 megabits per second possible. Read More » | <urn:uuid:717c8be8-4af2-400c-adf2-935ddf0913b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.cisco.com/tag/vdoc/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942616 | 652 | 1.75 | 2 |
Clinical aromatherapy is the controlled use of essential oils from plants to enhance health and well being. The use of essential oils to promote health and healing is thousands of years old and rooted in herbal medicine.
Clinical aromatherapy has been known to relieve these symptoms:
- Migraine headaches
- Menstrual cramps
Patients at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth can receive aromatherapy while they are staying in the hospital and are welcome to a free consultation. Research has shown that patients who have long-term diseases as well as patients who are in the hospital temporarily can benefit from clinical aromatherapy.
Also, any individual who wants to try clinical aromatherapy outside of the hospital setting to relieve a symptom or simply to just relax can visit the Outpatient Aromatherapy Clinic at the Alternative Medicine Center. Using essential oils to their maximum potential and consulting a Certified Clinical Aromatherapy Practitioner (CCAP) may save patients time and money. | <urn:uuid:e34aab54-d22a-445a-ae19-30a067cfb597> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.texashealth.org/Aromatherapy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939438 | 201 | 1.78125 | 2 |
A large bronze statue created by an artist known for capturing life in the Old West should be on display soon at the Palace Hotel.
Norm Hudson, the contractor hired by the building's owner Eladia Laines to oversee its restoration, said Wednesday that a 70-pound bronze sculpture of a cowboy on a bucking horse would be arriving at the hotel Friday, courtesy of the Frederic Remington Museum in Ogdensburg, NY.
According to the museum, Remington was known for his paintings and bronze statues of cowboys, soldiers and Native Americans of the Old West. His career took off in the 1880s when he began making illustrations for Harper's Weekly, and though he made more than 3,000 signed paintings, he may be best known for his sculptures, particularly The Bronco Buster.
Hudson said the museum is sending the sculpture to the hotel along with two more paintings to join one already displayed in the hotel's office at 275 N. State St.
"This (relationship) is very important to the Palace," Hudson said, adding that the museum may also be adding a link to the hotel's website on its website.
Also on Friday Hudson will be continuing his weekly tours of the building. The free tours are offered every Friday at 10 a.m., and Hudson said they are "going well.
"Some people shake my hand, some hug me, and some tell me I'm crazy," he said, referring to the enormous task of renovating the formerly grand hotel that has fallen into disrepair. "I love it -- that's why I do it."
At the last City Council meeting Nov. 7, Vice-Mayor Doug Crane said he and Mayor Mary Anne Landis met with Laines and asked her what progress she had made with getting the title to the building cleared and "what progress had been made in terms of engaging professional design services, and we hope to have answers two weeks from tonight."
Landis said she also asked about the sufficiency of the roof repairs and whether they would hold for the winter.
Laines was expected to give an update at the Nov. 21 City Council meeting, but it has been canceled. The next meeting will be Dec. 5.
Justine Frederiksen can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @JustFrederiksen or at 468-3521. | <urn:uuid:838ceff1-8251-4aa6-888e-ff04b74c0581> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ukiahnews/ci_21998898/palace-hotel-ukiah-joins-forces-new-york-museum | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978249 | 492 | 1.585938 | 2 |
How To Measure For Your Cover
Finding the proper size cover is very important to the overall protection of whatever it is you're covering. The dimensions you see on our website are for our covers. The cover you choose will fit better and perform better if it is slightly larger than the object you are covering. Our rule of thumb is "Bigger is Better"!
Below you will find category links to helpful pages with measuring guides and covering tips. Click the link you are interested in and let us help out with determining which cover is right for you. If you have any questions during this process please contact us toll free 1(866) 889-8896 Monday-Friday between 8:30am-6:00pm CST, or email us at [email protected].
Measuring For Bench, Glider, Sofa and Loveseat Covers|
Measuring for bench, glider, sofa and loveseat covers is easy, though slightly different than for chairs and chaise lounges. Follow these step-by-step guidelines:
H = Height and this dimension is determined by measuring from the ground to the top of the back of the furniture.
L = Length and this dimension is found by measuring your furniture from left to right across the front.
W = Width and this dimension is calculated by measuring from the back to the front of your furniture.
- Outdoor furniture covers aren't intended to touch the ground so that air can properly circulate underneath the furniture. Don't worry if the cover does not come all the way down to the ground.
- If you have a sectional and cannot find a cover for it, you might try separating the pieces slightly, measuring them individually, then trying to find a suitable sofa, loveseat, bench or glider cover for each piece.
- Bigger is better, so select an outdoor protective cover size that is slightly larger than your bench, glider, sofa or loveseat dimensions.
Go to Bench & Glider Cover Selections
Go to Sofa & Loveseat Cover Selections | <urn:uuid:825fd6fb-2f46-418a-8d44-de6e1d5ec12b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.the-cover-store.com/HowToMeasureBenchVsGlider.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949386 | 427 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Walkers will go around the clock in the battle against cancer when the 15th annual American Cancer Society Relay For Life of El Dorado County gets underway with teams of residents gathering at El Dorado County Fairgrounds on Sept. 8-9, 2012 at 10 a.m.
Relay For Life events are held overnight as individuals and teams camp out with the goal of keeping at least one team member on the track at all times throughout the evening. Teams do some of their fundraising prior to the event, and most teams also hold creative fundraisers at their camp sites during the relay. Raffles, silent auctions, wonderful food, contests, and more are all a part of the event. Relay brings together friends, families, businesses, hospitals, schools, faith-based groups … people from all walks of life — all aimed at furthering the American Cancer Society’s efforts to save lives by helping people stay well, by helping them get well, by finding cures and by fighting back.
Relay is a unique opportunity for the El Dorado County community to come together to celebrate people who have battled cancer, remember those lost, and fight back against the disease. Many of the participants are cancer survivors, which serves as a reminder that El Dorado County is not immune to this disease and that by participating in Relay, El Dorado County is joining with the American Cancer Society’s efforts to create a world with less cancer and more birthdays.
Funds raised at Relay For Life of El Dorado County are enabling the American Cancer Society to impact the lives of those touched by cancer within the community. The money raised at Relay enables the American Cancer Society to deliver on its mission of helping people stay well, helping people get well, finding cures and fighting back against the disease.
Relay For Life’s Luminaria Ceremony takes place after sundown, honoring the community’s cancer survivors and remembering those lost to the disease. Participants will circle a track that is surrounded with glowing luminaria that bear the name of someone who has battled cancer. Luminaria may be purchased for a $10 donation by calling 916-955-8615 or by visiting RelayForLife.org/eldoradocountyca.
Also a part of El Dorado County’s Relay For Life event is the “Fight Back” Ceremony, in which a community leader will inspire Relay participants with his or her own commitment and will challenge them to take a personal pledge of action (for example, stop smoking, eat more healthily, exercise regularly, etc.) in fighting back.
The American Cancer Society combines an unyielding passion with nearly a century of experience to save lives and end suffering from cancer. As a global grassroots force of more than three million volunteers, it fights for every birthday threatened by every cancer in every community. It saves lives by helping people stay well by preventing cancer or detecting it early; by helping people get well by being there for them during and after a cancer diagnosis; by finding cures through investment in groundbreaking discovery; and by fighting back by rallying lawmakers to pass laws to defeat cancer and by rallying communities worldwide to join the fight. As the nation’s largest non-governmental investor in cancer research, contributing about $3.4 billion, it turns what we know about cancer into what we do. As a result, more than 11 million people in America who have had cancer and countless more who have avoided it will be celebrating birthdays this year. To learn more about us or to get help, call anytime, day or night, at 1-800-227-2345 or visit cancer.org. | <urn:uuid:ba38813c-fb31-4e74-ad90-6cab524c8889> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mtdemocrat.com/news/using-hearts-and-feet-to-fight-cancer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957087 | 750 | 1.679688 | 2 |
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Golf has no place in the Olympics and its inclusion is contributing to the dilution of the importance of the sport's major championships, according to eight-times major winner Tom Watson.
The sport will return to the Olympics at Rio de Janeiro in 2016, after last being played in 1904, and while its return has been lauded by players and officials alike, the 63-year-old Watson was not keen on it staying there.
"I don't want to pour cold water on it but I don't think it should be in the Olympic Games," Watson told reporters on Tuesday ahead of the Australian Open at The Lakes Golf Club in Sydney.
"I still think of Olympics as track and field and not golf, to be honest with you.
"We have our most important championships (the four major championships). You have golf in the Olympics. You have diluted the importance, in a sense, of the four major championships."
Watson said he also had an idealistic belief about what the Olympics stood for and periodic doping scandals and innuendo about athletes had tainted his feelings.
"I probably had a pie in the sky way of looking at the Olympics as being clean and pure," he said.
"I like to trust people and trust they are doing things for the right reasons.
"When the professionals go to the Olympics, they go for the wrong reasons ... I'm probably talking like a dinosaur."
Watson, who at 59 missed a seven-foot putt to win the 2009 British Open before he lost a four-hole playoff to Stewart Cink, also felt the calendar meant several end-of-year tournaments were also being diluted.
"Our Tour is not being serviced enough by the top players," added Watson, who has been paired with 2011 champion Greg Chalmers and promising local Jake Higginbotham for the first round of the A$1.25 million ($1.30 million) tournament that tees off on Thursday.
"We have six or seven tournaments at the end of the year. They were designated to be there and they are putting up $5 or $6 million but they are (considered) a secondary tournament.
"Add the World Golf Championships to the mix, the four majors, the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup and all of a sudden you have 20 tournament that the top players have to play every year.
"You play 20 tournaments and you have 10 other tournaments to choose. But there are 30 other tournaments to choose from so 20 tournaments don't get the top players.
"What I'm saying is they make too many tournaments important and other tournaments are not getting a representative field." ($1 = 0.9593 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Greg Stutchbury in Wellington; Editing by Patrick Johnston) | <urn:uuid:93709bab-b8b9-4ac3-805e-477c42c99f71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wdez.com/news/articles/2012/dec/04/dinosaur-watson-not-keen-on-golf-in-the-olympics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980408 | 573 | 1.5 | 2 |
Big businesses and some of the world's wealthiest people are renting taxpayer-owned land in NSW for peppercorn rates under a system that is riddled with inconsistencies and loopholes.
Office buildings, factories, marinas, petrol stations, restaurants, prestigious golf courses, five-star resorts and homes have been built on the land.
The total rent collected by the Department of Lands for 37.5 million hectares - nearly half the State - is just $60 million a year. That is less than $2 per hectare in the public purse.
Some leaseholders on land that contains multi-million-dollar businesses qualify for an added bonus - they pay no land tax.
An examination of about 18,000 leases, obtained by the Herald under freedom-of-information laws, reveals that some fixed-term leases contain huge inconsistencies in the rent charged for similar properties.
In Sydney's eastern suburbs, two golf courses sit side by side on prime coastal real estate in the electorate of the Premier, Bob Carr. St Michael's, a championship-sized course that is open to the public as well as members, is charged $257,000 in rent a year, before rebates. Next door, the private and highly exclusive NSW Golf Club pays $40,000. However, for allowing the public in, St Michael's qualifies for a rebate, which last year was more than $217,000.
Many government leases have become so valuable on the private market that they are traded for millions of dollars, but none of this ever finds its way to taxpayers.
Cattle stations in New England, on leasehold land, are traded for close to freehold prices because of rules which mean peppercorn rents can never be increased by more than a few dollars a year. In some cases the rents on farms are so low that it costs taxpayers more money to collect them.
This kind of deal applies to some of the best farms, orchards and banana plantations the state.
Kerry Packer, Australia's richest man, pays less than $15 a week for a part of his Hunter Valley retreat, famous for its polo fields. Rupert Murdoch pays less than $3 a week for 48 hectares near Yass. However, both men did pay the previous holders of the leases market value to take over the land.
"It is the legislation that has created this situation," said Jeff Green, manager of Crown land information for the Department of Lands. Governments made the law, he said. "That is not a criticism, it is a statement of fact."
However, John Pickard, a former senior public servant who helped administer the leases, said that if the system were better managed it could generate tens of millions of dollars for new schools and hospitals.
"You are paying for it, mate, the same way I am, but that doesn't explain why," Dr Pickard said. "I am not implying corruption of any form but this is obscene, when your rent is so low that your phone bill is higher. The scandal is what the hell are those politicians in Macquarie Street doing whingeing that they have not got enough money to do things . . . when they are sitting on this bloody goldmine."
The Lands Minister, Tony Kelly, defended the leases but said his department was conducting a review of rents. "The review will consider all policies, strategies and legislation to improve the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of the use of crown land."
Many farming leases were granted long ago and "effectively the NSW Government's equity in these lands has been minimal". Crown rents are determined on the land's unimproved value, whether it is an empty paddock or contains a multi-million-dollar marina.
"In most cases, Crown land is leased without any improvements. Therefore it would be unjust to factor into the assessment of rent a surcharge for use of improvements that are owned by the lessee."
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Copyright © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald.
|advertise | contact us| | <urn:uuid:d73d70ab-9736-45a9-ac79-5095e0915b19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/29/1062050664724.html?from=storyrhs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96528 | 840 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The enterprise computing industry seems like it's turning into one big utility company.
It's a good thing the accountants didn't have to sit through the keynote speeches during the first two days of Oracle OpenWorld, because no one would be allowed to attend next year. Hector Ruiz of Advanced Micro Devices showed video clips of Star Wars and the World Series. Mark Hurd of Hewlett-Packard discussed whether or not he thought Oracle's Larry Ellison could beat him at tennis. At least Intel's Paul Otellini tailored his Tuesday morning address to the actual attendees of the conference, 42,000 technology professionals and Oracle customers looking for a sense of where this industry is going.
But after running down a list of Intel's pet IT projects, and making sure to tout the company's new Penryn processors on several occasions, Otellini let the cat out of the bag: You folks just aren't cool anymore.
The future of enterprise computing will draw from what is being developed on the consumer side, Otellini said. "Consumers today are the No. 1 users of semiconductors; they passed over IT and government in 2004. That's a big change; prior to that period, most people developing silicon in the industry were focused on the main market--the enterprise and IT. Today, most of us are focused on the consumer market as drivers."
Not so long ago, if you were technology-oriented and wanted to do something innovative and cool that would make you rich, you wrote a new piece of enterprise software. Or you came up with a new design for a server. Or you figured out a way to link businesspeople with their offices while on the road. Of course, there are always exceptions, but enterprise computing, most believed, was where the real innovation occurred. Those innovations paved the way for the computing industry as we know it today.
They also made a lot of people rich. Oracle's bash is easily the biggest tech conference of the year to hit San Francisco, covering all three halls of the Moscone Center, one usually busy street that runs between the north and south halls, and expanding out to the Cow Palace on the southern edge of the city where attendees will hear Billy Joel, Lenny Kravitz, and Stevie Nicks on Wednesday night. It's never hard to find a passel of men wearing sport coats without a tie juggling a BlackBerry and a medium latte in downtown San Francisco, but this week, it's out of control.
However, keeping an enterprise's IT operation up and running is rapidly turning into the technology equivalent of plumbing, or maybe electricity: extremely vital pieces of infrastructure that no longer attract the type of young engineering enthusiasts who built Silicon Valley. Those people are now building Web 2.0 applications. They're designing social-networking communities or virtual worlds, not some new piece of enterprise-resource planning software that's going to set the world afire.
Perhaps that's because they can see the endgame. "We are the IPO market for the enterprise software industry," said Oracle President Charles Phillips on Monday. Hurd echoed the sentiment later that day. "In the end, math wins. When you look at the math right now, in the tech industry, there are only a handful of players that have in excess of $100 billion worth of cash," he said. Enterprise computing has turned into an acquisition race between giants like Oracle, SAP, IBM, HP, and EMC.
Consumer technology and the Web are going in the opposite direction. Sure, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are snapping up anything and everything that seems remotely interesting. But consolidation? Hardly. For every 10 companies gobbled by Google, a new powerhouse like Facebook starts forming its own little tech ecosystem, with start-ups eagerly feeding into it. You don't see that sort of thing in enterprise computing much these days.
The major trends in enterprise computing are things like consolidation and virtualization: how to do more with the stuff you've already got, or how to pare down the electrical costs of running a modern data center. Overall enterprise technology spending is basically flat as businesses work with the assets they already have.
Otellini focused his speech on his new Penryn chips and how they can save enterprises money off their data center expenses through lower power consumption and better performance. Notable goals, for sure. Consumer technology, however, is about the experience, about finding new and better ways to interact with technology.
"Computing is becoming free," Otellini said. That doesn't mean Intel will start giving away its products, but it does mean that the cost of acquiring computing power is getting smaller and smaller every year. In that kind of environment, where computing power itself is no longer the sexy technology, it's the presentation that matters.
Enterprise computing has never been about presentation: it's about getting stuff done. It's about running the payroll for Fortune 500 companies, and about analyzing and sorting huge amounts of extremely complex customer data.
Look, enterprise computing isn't going anywhere. Billions of dollars will continue to be spent on software needed to run increasingly complex businesses and the hardware that will keep it snappy. And the consumer appetite for technology could start to diminish if people have to start choosing between a new PC or HDTV and paying the mortgage or filling up the car.
But just as technology transformed the way the world does business, it's about to have the same effect on individuals, who are mostly still running desktop PCs, calling friends and family on a landline, and driving a car with an analog set of gauges. This is where the talent and the dollars are flocking, improving how we as individuals interact with technology. Not building CRM modules for the midmarket. | <urn:uuid:2c2157c4-0205-4cd1-93ae-e3f7d3b80ae7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9816311-37.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961675 | 1,170 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Somewhat hard to imagine this week 47 years ago Barry Goldwater was considered the epitome of the right-wing fringe element of the Republican Party. The fringe element that hi-jacked the party at the convention and set in motion the changes that would make it the party it somewhat is today. But, truths to tell, listening to Goldwater in this 1964 Paid Political Campaign talk and hearing the insanity passing itself off as political rhetoric this past week, one almost imagines Goldwater as something of a moderate or, dare I say, Liberal in comparison.
Take, for example this extract regarding his views on Social Security:
Barry Goldwater: “During my twelve years in the United States Senate I have voted for every improvement in the Social Security Act. I voted against those amendments that I thought would be detrimental, which would have been detrimental to the Social Security. Now this year, the Senate and the House both voted nice increases for the recipients of Social Security. We added a great many people who have not been covered and I voted for these things. Now the real enemy in my mind, on Social Security is the man who didn’t allow this bill to become the law and that’s the President of the United States, who wanted his way and he didn’t get it, so he just said to the conferees ‘stop everything’. So those people on Social Security or who were receiving Social Security will not receive these improved benefits this year. And it’s not Goldwater’s fault. It’s Johnson’s fault.
No getting around it - Goldwater wasn't a saint. His views on Civil Rights were legendary and his stand on military spending and Vietnam were in lock-step with the John Birch Society. But you really have to wonder what Goldwater would be thinking about this current lineup of Republican hopefuls.
Perhaps the sound of engines we hear in Arizona are actually those of Barry spinning in his grave. | <urn:uuid:e5e62751-aac5-4619-a371-0609c3a266ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newstalgia.crooksandliars.com/gordonskene/newstalgia-reference-room-barry-goldwa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978446 | 408 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Google has added pivot tables to Docs' spreadsheets.
Pivot tables provide an efficient way to summarise large data sets and obtain alternative perspectives on it. You take the row and column (2D data) and add more dimensions that you can "pivot" around and view in different ways.The Docs blog works through an example and the data is provided as a template so that you can easily experimennt with it. It also has this explanatory video which demonstates that pivot table creation is quick and easy.
Pivot tables created using Microsoft Excel can't be uploaded into Google Docs yet - but as they are quick to create from the grid data that can be imported that shouldn't present a problem. | <urn:uuid:f4ca9ea4-ba32-4f4f-8f5b-01eadccd59c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://i-programmer.info/news/141-cloud-computing/2445-pivot-tables-added-to-google-docs-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951228 | 147 | 1.796875 | 2 |
After months of debate and negotiation, Congress on Tuesday approved legislation to avoid the most immediate consequences of the “fiscal cliff” but that falls far short of the more comprehensive reforms that many advocates of fiscal responsibility had hoped to see.
Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert L. Bixby called it another “political punt” that “leaves much more to be done.” The plan, he said, “requires no hard choices and solves no difficult problems.”
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of a national fiscal commission and co-founders of the Campaign to Fix the Debt, issued a statement last night calling the budget deal “truly a missed opportunity to do something big to reduce our long-term fiscal problems.”
Many economists and others had warned that going over the fiscal cliff -- a scheduled combination of expiring tax cuts and poorly designed “automatic” spending reductions – could have thrown the country into another recession.
Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell took the lead in negotiating the final plan, which focused largely on tax policies while postponing the scheduled spending cuts for two months. It makes the Bush-era tax cuts permanent for most Americans and allows the scheduled increase to take place for those with the highest incomes. In addition, a temporary reduction in the payroll tax that supports Social Security is being allowed to expire.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that relative to what had been current law -- which included assumptions such as the expiration of the 2001/2003 tax cuts and the triggering of the automatic spending cuts -- the legislation will increase deficits by almost $4 trillion over ten years.
But Jeff Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, argued that it is more relevant to compare the legislation to what had been “current policy,” which assumed that Congress would extend the tax cuts and other expiring provisions. Using a current policy baseline, Zients estimates that the legislation will reduce deficits by $737 billion over ten years.
In a blog post yesterday, Bixby pointed out various shortcomings in the deal: “There is no entitlement reform, no tax reform and no framework or process for addressing these critical needs in 2013. Meanwhile, the indiscriminate and disproportionate discretionary spending cuts mandated by last year’s Budget Control Act are postponed, creating a new cliff.”
Bixby also notes that the deal fails to increase the statutory debt limit, so “it still looms as the next self-imposed crisis to remind everyone of how dysfunctional the legislative process has become on Capitol Hill.” The government officially hit its debt ceiling Monday although the Treasury can use what it calls “extraordinary measures” to avoid default for at least a few weeks.
Bixby urges the President and the new Congress to make it their first order of business to negotiate “a sustainable framework for spending, taxes, deficits and debt.” He also calls for a “reasonable debt limit increase to give the process time to work without a crisis of confidence over the government’s willingness to pay its bills.” | <urn:uuid:9d4fd9ba-3ab9-4dc4-8a67-1f89eeeedb24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.concordcoalition.org/publications/budget-reports/updates/2013/0102/fiscal-cliff-deal-another-political-punt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954085 | 646 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Rich Templeton, chief executive of Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc., said last night that the federal government needs to put policies in place to help businesses grow at home and abroad.
“We certainly have a weak economy” in the United States and globally, he said during a Jones Lang LaSalle panel discussion with four other top Dallas area CEOs on how businesses will adapt to the post-election world. “We need to get some policies in place to promote growth.”
TI’s semiconductor chips are used in electronic products from smart meters to sensors to tablets. The $13 billion company has operations around the world.
“Even though the United States accounts for 20 percent of global GDP, we have only 5 percent of the world’s population,” Templeton said. “If we want to grow our businesses … we need to view the rest of the world as an opportunity rather than a threat.”
He’d like to see more government incentives to do business overseas — in China, for example — and more investment in university research and development.
Ninety percent of TI’s revenue comes from outside the United States, yet most of its payroll is in the United States, he said. The company employs more than 34,000 people worldwide, including about 9,900 in North Texas. | <urn:uuid:38ac1f15-b831-4bed-a441-fdb75856d37e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/tag/post-election/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959764 | 278 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Gettysburg Review managing editor Kupperman offers discrete, attentive autobiographical essays concerning her relationship with her mother and others in her life.
Undoing the harm of years of enforced silence—“the genesis of omission”—is the author’s aim in these essays about family, travel and love, published separately in literary journals, and as a collection the winner of the 2009 Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize for Nonfiction. The first part deals with the author’s mother, “Dolores, a prophecy of sorrows,” who died by suicide in 1989. Kupperman admits her mother had always been “foreign” to her—a glamorous presence who had once worked at Revlon and became the wife of a several-times married fundraiser for Jewish philanthropies (Kupperman’s father) in the 1950s. The couple underwent a rancorous custody battle when the author was eight, although it wasn’t until Kupperman’s father was dying in 2004 that he allowed her access to the extensive court files. “Habeas Corpus” delineates the unsavory contents of those files, such as the mother’s neglect of the daughter and entrapment by detectives in an adultery sting, ultimately necessitating both parties’ need to win the girl’s allegiance. In “Teeth in the Wind,” the author layers reflections of her family over different time periods: The “ghosts” riding a coastal wind storm in Maine circa 1995 bring to mind her attempts to locate the story of her paternal grandmother, supposedly from Kiev, who actually hailed from the Pale of Settlement region in western Ukraine before venturing to America after the pogroms of 1905. The Chernobyl nuclear cataclysm kept Kupperman from traveling to Russia, further complicating “the business of remembering.” In “The Perfect Meal,” the author examines her doomed love affair with a married man, and “That Roar on the Other Side of Violence” provides eloquent anecdotes about the battered women who populated a domestic-abuse shelter where the author worked.
Moving selections, somewhat disconnected but gracefully composed. | <urn:uuid:b4013f84-f4d8-4416-9376-6e63134da64b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kim-dana-kupperman/i-just-lately-started-buying-wings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956159 | 455 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The death of a music icon …
Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco has passed away at the age of 63. She passed away at her home in Naples, Florida after a long battle with cancer. How very sad, for those of you old enough to remember vinyl records and 8-track tapes, Donna Summer was the diva of diva’s of the 1970′s music era and the undisputed Queen of Disco. Donna Summer then went on to have a career beyond disco and had such 80′s hits as with “She Works Hard for the Money” and “This Time I Know It’s for Real.” TMZ is reporting that Donna Summer died of lung cancer which she and her family kept very secret and private.
We’re told Summer was in Florida at the time of her death. She was 63 years old.
Sources close to Summer tell us … the singer was trying to keep the extent of her illness under wraps. We spoke to someone who was with Summer a couple of weeks ago … who says she didn’t seem too bad.
In fact, we’re told she was focused on trying to finish up an album she had been working on.
Donna Summer: 1948 – 2012 … Rest in Peace
From the LA Times, much more on the life and times of Donna Summer.
An early fan of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, Summer sang in a psychedelic rock band called Crow in the late 1960s. She left home for New York City at 18 and quickly landed a role in a touring production of the Broadway show “Hair.”
She spent the next three years living and touring in Europe. While there she met and married singer Helmuth Sommer, and took a variation of his last name as her stage name. In Europe she also met Moroder, whose early dance tracks were making an impact there.
“Love to Love You Baby” was their first hit together. A shortened version of it that was released in 1975 by Casablanca, then a hot label, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart.
Her family released the following statement Thursday: “Early this morning, surrounded by family, we lost Donna Summer Sudano, a woman of many gifts, the greatest being her faith. While we grieve her passing, we are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy. Words truly can’t express how much we appreciate your prayers and love for our family at this sensitive time.”
MTV Interview: Donna Summer Calls Singing ‘The Greatest Gift’ In 1989 … ‘Sometimes you can’t communicate in words, but in a song, you can.
“Music is part of my life. For my judgment, music is the greatest of all the gifts,” Summer told MTV News’ John Norris in a rare 1989 interview. “The voice — not my voice, but the voice — to me is the greatest gift. Having a voice. You need no other instrument, all you have to do is sing. Open your mouth, and it’s there.”‘
She will be laid to rest in Nashville, TN. | <urn:uuid:16c0c587-cdad-4a5b-ba9d-81faec75ca75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scaredmonkeys.com/2012/05/17/last-dance-donna-summer-the-queen-of-disco-has-died-at-the-age-of-63-from-cancer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975219 | 665 | 1.632813 | 2 |
|Angel Investor Group Profile|
In 2003, twenty individuals composed of entrepreneurs, business professionals, and investors in the Gainesville and Ocala regions came together with a purpose of creating an organization that engages in high-risk, high-return investments. In cooperation with the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce, the University of Florida's Office of Technology Licensing and the University of Florida Foundation, the initial group pooled in more members and established a group that is now known as the Emergent Growth Fund. The first round of membership application produced over fifty member investors, while the second round has come up with about sixty member investors. Currently, membership to the Emergent Growth Fund is closed. Those who are interested to become member investors should send an application via electronic mail. These applications will be considered for the next round of membership application.
Emergent Growth Fund has a total amount of $2.5 million fund capital available. Although they invest directly from the fund, member investors can also invest individually on prospective companies. Thus, their fund capital can still extend up to $5 to $7 million. The group makes an average investment on a prospective company ranging from $100,000 to $500,000. The amount of investment can even reach up to $1 million, considering additional investments from individual members.
The Emergent Growth Fund prefers to be the first outside investor on a prospective company and can also invest together with other angel investment groups or venture capital firms. They consider various characteristics on investment qualifications. First of which, a candidate company should have a significant technological edge and an exclusive product or design. It should also have a national or international market potential and has a technology or product that creates a positive market effect and is wanted by the market. The company should also have an owner and a management team that are strong, experienced and passionate in working towards achieving market leadership. It should also provide a viable exit strategy that is attainable in a maximum of five years. The company should also share the same values with the group and should be open to the guidance and mentoring of the group. The investment group also focuses on companies or technologies within the Gainesville and Ocala region and those that are brought in by the University of Florida, although this is not exclusive and applications coming from other origins are still given consideration.
Applications for funding should be submitted, together with an executive summary, directly to the Emergent Growth Fund by accomplishing an initial review form available on the group's website. The executive summary should not be more than fifteen pages and should not have more than one megabyte file size. All applications are reviewed and evaluated by a committee. Any company that would be of interest to the investment group will be requested for a complete copy of their business plan. After further review, the company shall then be requested for a formal business presentation to the entire group. After the presentation, the member investors will discuss and perform further evaluations, from which the final investment decision shall arise.
Emergent Growth Fund Website
The Emergent Growth Fund website gives thorough information and details about the investment group. The welcome page, which is also the home page, provides a background of the group, their operations, mission and values and their contribution to the local community. It shows how the the organization works not just for advancement and benefits for themselves, but also for the development and progress of the whole region as well. In another page, a short history is also provided. The members of the executive management is also enumerated in one of the pages in the website, as well as other management details.
Entrepreneurs will find the necessary information they need to be able to apply for funding on a page specifically for that purpose. The investment criteria and process of application is clearly explained. An online application form is also provided for a faster way of submitting applications. There is also a table of contents for an executive summary, which serves as a pattern for funding applicants. It enumerates the necessary details that an executive summary should contain. For applicants who are not familiar with mentoring programs of investment groups, there is a page in the website that explains the mentoring program of the Emergent Growth Fund.
Members of the Emergent Growth Fund can access a database of information, by logging on to the members page using a username and password. This can be utilized by the members for evaluating prospective companies and other investment opportunities. To have an idea about the kind of companies that the group have funded, there is a list that can be viewed on the portfolio companies page. It also provides a short description about the nature of the company and a link to their company website.
There is also a page where the latest news about The Emergent Growth Fund are posted. A resource page is provided as well, which contains links to various websites that are very useful for entrepreneurs or for those who are interested in the investment business. These are websites of companies or organizations in the local area that are business oriented. A contact page is also available. It provides the electronic addresses, postal address and telephone number of the group. It also has a link to the initial review form for submission of funding applications.
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|Angel Investor Group Profile| | <urn:uuid:e5cd80fd-0ebf-4dea-9dd1-49b1e1e76e61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fundingpost.com/angelgroup/angel-group-profile.asp?fund=105&refer=VCP-94 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955065 | 1,122 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The Leader of the National League for Democracy 66 year old Sui Kyi and 36 party members have put off taking oaths in Parliament due to a dispute over the wording of the oath.
They do not want to take oaths to protect the pro military constitution. They want the wording to be changed. She has written a letter to President Thein regarding the issue and they are awaiting a decision by the President.
During the election Suu Kyi and her party National League for Democracy advocated the changing of the nature of the constitution and pushing for reforms. | <urn:uuid:1d560145-5175-4b31-95bd-2525f5608536> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.omlanka.com/SuuKyi230412.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960295 | 113 | 1.578125 | 2 |
There was always great competition to please Grandma and Granddad. One of the regular things Granny would ask us kids to do was to bring them the newspaper. With three generations living in the same household we only had one newspaper. When the postman came it was always such a thrill to run and get it, so that Granddad could have it first.
I always remember Granddad being very old. He was born the 11th June 1894. He was very wrinkly and his hands and head were always shaking. His fingers were curled in a strange way and he could not straighten them. He had very little hair on the top of his head and what was left was grey. He had a short trimmed moustache and he still had some of his own teeth. When he went to bed, he laid in his bed reading his cowboy books, holding them up very close to his face, reading with a tiny light from the night lamp on the wall behind him. He had lost one of his eyes after an accident when a small stone was trapped in his eye. For years the trapped stone caused an infection that led the doctors to remove his eye. So every night he took out his glass eye and put it in a cup before he went to sleep.
Some times I would ask Granny if I could please sleep in her bed. I called her my stove, because she was always warm and I was like an ice cube and I felt she would defrost me. I loved to hear Granddad’s stories from the real old days. He told us about the wolves that came around the houses then, and how they had to be careful when they went to feed the animals to make sure they shut the barn door, because wolves would surround the barn in large packs and howl for the animals inside. He told me stories about how the bears attacked the cattle while they were in the mountains during the summer and how they would go out in big hunting teams to hunt the bears down. I was so fascinated with everything Granddad had seen and experienced, even surviving two world wars, and I always wanted to hear the stories again and again. Granddad was my brave hero and he had lived for so long I thought he would live forever!
Each morning that I woke up with Granny and Granddad, one of them would always bring coffee in bed. Granny was tired in the mornings, so it was more often Granddad brought the coffee to help wake her up. Sometimes Granddad could not find either the milk or the coffee, and then Granny would have to jump out of bed, with tiny half asleep eyes, run into the kitchen, and help Granddad find everything. He always put two biscuits on the saucer and made instant coffee with loads of milk. I loved the biscuits and enjoyed the coffee too.
Then Granddad brought in bread crumbs that he had crushed the day before to feed the little birds. He would call the birds, after he put the food on their tray, and soon the little birds came flying from everywhere to get their food. Granddad said he felt he had to look after the little birds, and he said, “Laila, you will always be my little bird.” So when Granddad talked to me, he often said, “You come here, my little bird!” When Granddad became sick with cancer, he asked me if I would continue to feed the birds when he was not able to. I promised him to do my best, and for years after his death I gave his birds the food.
I often sat in Granny’s kitchen; I liked to draw there. Granddad used to teach me how to draw. With his shaky hands, he would show me how to draw a horse. It took ages for him to get it right. It almost lulled me to sleep seeing his old hand trying to draw a horse whilst chewing his tobacco, the brown saliva running down the deep wrinkles on each side of his mouth, taking short breaks to spit in the sink as his mouth got too full. I so much loved drawing at my Granddad’s kitchen table, with him there to help me get my drawings right.
One day, Dad suddenly came storming through the door, drunk as a skunk, in raging anger. He screamed, “Where in the hell is my f***’n newspaper, where in the hell is the f****’n newspaper?” Granny was washing the dishes. She turned around when she saw her son run towards her husband. It all happened so quickly that there was no time for her to interfere. Granddad stood by the stove with the newspaper in his hand and Dad ran towards his father and hit him with full force across his head. The next thing I saw was Granddad on the floor, the newspaper flying out of his hands. I ran to try to rescue Granddad, but I was too late. Granny was shouting “Stop!”, but she was too late too. Dad grabbed the newspaper that had landed on the floor and stormed out of the room, just as quickly as he had arrived, slamming the door behind him, curse words ringing through the house. Granny managed to get Granddad back up on his feet and they rang Sara, their daughter. She came and took Granddad to the doctor. For a long time Granddad had to wear a neck brace; Dad had broken his collarbone!
Granny knew it was getting too dangerous to stay for long periods at the farm after this episode, especially during the times when Mum and Dad were drinking. She and Granddad decided to stay away for longer periods of time. But this was the house where my Granddad was born! He was homesick, so they came home just now and again. In 1973 their daughter Sara had moved into her new house 30 miles away, and Granny and Granddad started to stay there.
The absence of Granny and Granddad brought a lot more hardship for me. There was no one I could run to when Ted was after me, nowhere I felt safe at all. The only refuge I had left now was my dog Tally. I loved her from the moment she came to the farm. The first greeting Tally gave me was when she ran over and jumped up on me. I fell over and she licked me all over. She was one year old when we had her and I was just six. She became my best friend, in fact my only friend.
Tally had a mat under the kitchen table, she and the cat used to sleep there together. I used to be so cold all the time. I wore hand-me-down tights that were far too big; they were at least six inches too long. My feet were always a problem to me in that old, cold house. But I figured out a way to help myself when it got too cold. I used to crawl under the kitchen table and cuddle up to Tally and my cat. I remember snuggling up tightly to Tally’s belly and grabbing the cat to get heat from them. I often fell asleep with the two lovely warm animals. I started to daydream about one day getting married and leaving this place. My plan was to marry a tall man with big muscles that could box Ted in the stomach when he came after me, and also knock out my Dad’s teeth when he became cruel.
There were no words of comfort that Tally could give me: I often wished she could be my very own wolf who would put an end to Ted’s tyranny. But Tally would wag her tail at whoever came to the farm. With Tally’s wonderful happy nature and her warm body, I felt she was essential for my survival after Granny left. At least she was someone I could talk to and cry with and Tally was the one I felt really listened to me. When things got really bad, Tally was the only one I could run to and pour out my grief.
One day I said to Mum, “I want to go and visit Granny.” I was about six or seven years old and not old enough to start school yet. I wanted to go and visit her for a week. In Norway in the 70’s you had to be seven before you could start school so Mum said that I was not allowed to go. But I didn’t care, I had never been taught boundaries. I wanted to see Granny and that settled it for me. I found a shopping bag, packed a change of clothes and stood by the road waiting for a car. I had seen how Mary and Sally managed to stop the cars by holding out their right thumb. After a long time I got lucky and I was so happy to be on my way to see Granny. After one week it was time for me to go home, and Granny gave me enough money to take the bus. But there where no way I was going to spend the money on a bus! I wanted to save it. So I ran a shortcut down to another road and decided to return home the same way I had arrived!
When I came home, everything was normal; I was not told off or punished. I wasn’t asked any questions about where I had been or what I had been doing because I had told Mum that I wanted to see Granny. But I do guess that Granny may have called Mum to say that I had arrived. There were no boundaries given, though. If Mum said no to something, we just did it anyway, and there were never any consequences of just doing what we wanted. | <urn:uuid:e696942c-02fe-404c-bce9-2b824edd25ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://authonomy.com/books/29250/stolen-childhood-/read-book/?chapterid=281342 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.995631 | 1,993 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Reader Question: My doctor recommended that I take a fish oil supplement, but I’m concerned about mercury. Is there any way to tell which brands are lowest in mercury content?
On Call Response: When it comes to OTC supplements, the answer is no. Though most fish oil supplements sold by major brands are probably safe, there’s really no way to tell what’s in the bottle or how much mercury it might contain.
If you’re worried about getting quality fish oil, your best bet is Lovaza, which is sold only by prescription. Lovaza is an FDA-approved medication, so the government closely monitors its purity and stability. Ask your doctor for a prescription, though you should be aware that this might be more expensive than an OTC fish oil supplement.
A warning: Don’t take any fish oil (including Lovaza) if you’re pregnant or breast-feeding. And if you take a blood thinner, like Coumadin, don’t take fish oil unless your doctor says it’s OK.
I want to hear from you, so e-mail me your questions at [email protected].
Disclaimer: Your seeking information on health related topics and/or Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, MD’s providing such information herein constitutes neither the solicitation of nor the provision of medical advice, services, care or treatment. Communication with Dr. Fryhofer on this website does not create a doctor/patient relationship. For concerns about your own particular medical condition, you should consult your own medical professional, who can examine and evaluate you. Communication on a website is not a substitute for taking an active role in your own medical care and treatment and being personally seen by a physician of choice in your area. | <urn:uuid:1110582b-16c8-4975-90a5-e351cc58249d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womansday.com/blogs/blog-list/fish-oil-mercury-6063 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930349 | 370 | 1.726563 | 2 |
A cold front this week has prompted a Friday freeze warning and residents might see snow Thursday as low as 1,500 feet — including on Mount Tamalpais.
Meteorologists said temperatures are anticipated to drop to the low 30s Thursday and Friday and 32 degrees Saturday and Sunday in Marin County.
National Weather Service meteorologist Diana Henderson said people can expect the weather to also turn a bit wet.
"It's carrying with it some showers," Henderson said. "If there is enough moisture on the top of the hills, we may see a sprinkling of snow."
Low snow levels of 1,500 feet are expected Thursday, with a freeze warning in effect for the Bay Area from 2 to 8 a.m. Friday. The elevation of the east peak of Mt. Tam is 2,571 feet.
Marin is anticipated to receive less than one-half inch of rain during the front, with a slight chance of showers over the weekend, Henderson said.
While the cold weather might be bothersome to people, she said it won't have a huge effect on the area.
"It won't have people shut in for days at a time," Henderson said.
People are advised to stay off the beaches, as excessively high and low tides are anticipated around the Bay Area through Friday morning.
The highest tide will be 7.7 feet at 10 a.m. Thursday, and minor flooding in low-lying areas is expected.
Contact Megan Hansen via email at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:37d8ba7f-f116-48f0-8bcb-4b3a220c44fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marinij.com/sanrafael/ci_22342910/cold-front-last-through-weekend-freeze-warning-friday?source=most_emailed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964633 | 312 | 1.523438 | 2 |
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Eight people were arrested Monday at a construction site for the Keystone XL oil pipeline in central Oklahoma, including one man who locked himself to a crane-like piece of machinery, authorities said.
The two women and six men were arrested on trespassing complaints at the site near the town of Schoolton, Seminole County sheriff’s Chief Deputy Chris Conn said. One woman also was cited for resisting arrest. None of their names has been released.
“We had several individuals on private property who refused to leave, and they were arrested for trespassing,” Conn said. “One individual was chained to some equipment … his wrists were chained together.”
The organizers, protesters from the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, cited environmental concerns and the oil extraction’s impact on indigenous people as the reason for their protest.
Calgary-based TransCanada has proposed a 1,700-mile pipeline, dubbed the Keystone XL, to carry oil derived from tar sands in Alberta to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. Although the northern leg of the project has not received federal approval, the company currently is constructing the 485-mile southern portion of the pipeline that will transport oil from storage facilities in Cushing, Okla., to Texas, said TransCanada spokesman David Dodson.
The man who locked himself to the machinery, called a side boom, was removed after he was lowered to the ground and a local fire department used a pair of bolt cutters to free him, Conn said. A spokesman for the environmental group identified the man as Stefan Warner, a youth pastor from Harrah.
Warner said in a statement that, “I figure folks have to take action to stop our beautiful Oklahoma from being marred by a foreign corporation, and stand up to fight big corporations who think that poisoning people and stealing land is acceptable so long as they make a profit.”
Environmental groups have been pressing President Barack Obama to reject the pipeline, saying it would carry “dirty oil” that contributes to global warming. But business and labor groups have urged approval of the project, saying it would provide much-needed jobs and encourage North American energy independence.
Dodson said Monday’s incident is the second in Oklahoma in recent weeks in which a protester was arrested after attaching themselves to a piece of equipment at a job site. He said a Norman woman was arrested last week after locking herself to a piece of machinery at a job site near Ada.
Sean Murphy can be reached at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy | <urn:uuid:a08b3a07-2c42-4d96-9c64-8144d54d9685> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://examiner-enterprise.com/sections/news/state/sheriff-arrests-8-keystone-pipeline-construction-site-near-schoolton.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979201 | 530 | 1.617188 | 2 |
This is a revealing dual biography of two key American figures of the Cold War era, George Kennan (who authored the 1946 "Long Telegram" advocating Soviet containment and then regretted the plans it set in motion) and Paul Nitze, who placed his faith in American bomb-making technology to keep our competitive edge.
"[Nicholas] Thompson, who is Nitze's grandson, brings a judicial impartiality to the fierce disputes that raged between the two men. Thompson has enjoyed full access to his grandfather's archival documents, but perhaps his most impressive accomplishment is to have mined Kennan's extensive diaries for new insights. In this important and astute new study, Nitze emerges as a driven patriot and Kennan as a darkly conflicted and prophetic one."—Washington Post | <urn:uuid:295328b3-9f4c-4012-ac9d-1526802528da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.daedalus-books.com/Products/Detail.asp?ProductID=95361&Media=Book&SubCategoryID=2153&ReturnUrl=%2FProducts%2FDetail.asp%3FProductID%3D101115%26Media%3DBook%26SubCategoryID%3D2208%26ReturnUrl%3D%252FProducts%252FCategoryMain.asp%253FMajorCategoryID%253D2%2526Media%253DBook%2526Special%253D | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969794 | 157 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has chosen the New York-based Durst Organization as its partner in the marketing and management of its 1,776-foot office building at 1 World Trade Center.
The bi-state agency’s board of commissioners chose Durst over the Related Cos., a New York firm headed by real estate mogul Steve Ross, during a closed meeting today in Manhattan. The deal is expected to be finalized by the board on Aug. 5.
Durst will manage the 2.6-million-square-foot office tower, scheduled for completion in 2013 at a cost of $3.3 billion. The crystalline office tower will be the nation’s tallest building, and the centerpiece of an $11 billion redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, which will also include a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attacks, a new PATH and subway hub, a performing arts center and several other office buildings.
Designed by architect David Childs with a height corresponding to the nation’s birth year, WTC 1 was conceived as a symbol of American resilience following the 2001 terror attack. While the height remains the same, the original name, Freedom Tower, was dropped.
Despite its symbolic value and whatever cache the title of tallest building carries, WTC 1 is subject to the same market forces that drive rents and occupancy rates in any other large office building. About 46 percent of the space has been leased, mostly to government agencies, and part of Durst’s job will be to market the remaining space.
Durst will also manage day-to-day operations of the building, much as it does with its existing commercial portfolio of 10 million square feet in 10 Manhattan buildings. The flagship of the Durst empire is the new 2.1 million-square-foot Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, a structure more than 50 stories tall that Durst bills as "the world’s most environmentally responsible high-rise office building." It bears more than a passing resemblance to WTC 1. | <urn:uuid:ef5f757d-6d2f-4549-9295-16ce321eb8d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/port_authority_chooses_ny_durs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950713 | 417 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Hsieh, C.-Y., 2008. Parental choice of preschool in Taiwan. Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)). University of Bath.
This research investigates parental choice in an active preschool education market in Taiwan. Most research into parental choice of school has been conducted in quasi-markets; markets that are highly regulated by government policy. The Taiwanese preschool market could be said to be a true market, operating through supply and demand and regulated by price. How parents operate in such markets and how their choice influences what is offered, is less explored. The research consisted of following eighteen parents through the choice process. Data collection methods involved diaries completed before the child started preschool and two in-depth interviews; one at the beginning of the school year and one nine months later. The parents who supplied the information came from different educational backgrounds, social status and family structures. For most it was their first experience of choosing an educational setting for their children. Using a rational choice theoretical framework the thesis argues that there was certain rationality in the parents’ process of choice but balancing the benefits and costs of preschool education was embedded in a wider family context. In addition, the findings show that whilst the parents were initially concerned about the more structural aspects of quality, their on-going engagement with the preschool provision enabled them to have a deeper understanding of process issues. However, there were other criteria that the parents used which would suggest that they were defining quality in a way that may be more influenced by Taiwanese life and culture. One implication is that the quality of preschool provision is not likely to improve if it is purely dependent on preschools wishing to meet the parents’expectations. However, neither will it improve if the contextual conditions are ignored. The implications for Taiwanese government preschool policy are discussed.
|Item Type ||Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy (PhD))|
|Uncontrolled Keywords||rational choice, pre-school quality, parental choice|
|Departments||Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > Education|
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:15c256fd-2974-455b-a92c-7991994fd36c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opus.bath.ac.uk/12267/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958054 | 417 | 1.796875 | 2 |
NanoSteel, a privately held company that makes proprietary nano-structured steel materials, announced this week that automotive visionary Bob Lutz has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors.
Through the development of patented alloys, NanoSteel has created a new class of steel that allows automotive engineers and designers to reduce weight through the use of thinner, higher strength gauges while maintaining the structural integrity needed for safety. Its new steel design is an alternative to other light-weighting materials which may cost more, require new investment in parts production and have performance limitations.
“I have been deeply impressed with NanoSteel’s progress in sheet steel materials design,” said Lutz. “The company’s innovative approach has the potential to offer the most natural progression for automakers to stick with their most trusted material - steel - and at the same time enjoy exceptional properties that support the design of next-generation fuel-efficient vehicles. Additionally, the use of NanoSteel’s AHSS breakthrough could drive efficiencies across the supply chain by leveraging existing steel infrastructure and parts production.”
“The appointment of Bob to our Board of Directors is extraordinarily positive for NanoSteel,” said David Paratore, the company's president and CEO. “Bob's commitment to the company is a testament to the unique opportunity that our nano-structured sheet steel solutions will bring to the automotive industry. Bob's leadership in auto innovation is unparalleled and there is not a more proven leader today to help us propel our growth in automotive and hone our strategy moving forward.”
Image: Terrence Taylor | <urn:uuid:f0a29cd7-49b8-4078-9483-76790ffd899d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chargedevs.com/content/news-wire/post/bob-lutz-joins-board-nanosteel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940042 | 331 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Testimony of Lt. Horatio B. Reed
Report on the Conduct of the War, Vol. 2, pp. 220-221
WASHINGTON, January 28, 1862.
Lieutenant HORATIO B. REED sworn and examined.
By Mr. Gooch:
Question. What is your rank in the army?
Answer. I am second lieutenant in the fifth regiment of United States artillery.
Question. Where are you now stationed?
Answer. Minor’s Hill, Virginia.
Question. Were you at the battle of Bull Run?
Answer. Yes, sir; I was chief of line of caissons in Griffin’s battery.
Question. Can you tell us the movements of the battery just before it was lost, the orders given, and what led to the loss of the battery?
Answer. Our battery was in battery five times. We first came in battery I do not know by whose orders. I had charge of six caissons, a battery wagon, and forge. I left the battery wagon and forge some distance below where we came in battery the first time. Our battery was again ordered in battery—by whose orders I do not know. General Barry—then Major Barry—came to my captain, and I am under the impression my captain made some protest against going forward on account of the want of support. But we then advanced in a field upon the right. We found that was not where we had been ordered, and we then went upon a hill and came in battery for the fourth time. That was on the left of the house there. We then came in battery on the right of the house. I was chief of the line of caissons, and my position was in the rear. As we advanced upon the hill I wanted to go with the battery, and I left the caissons and went forward. I think we came in battery with two pieces; Lieutenant Hasbrouck in command. There was a body of troops coming up, and I know there was something said about those troops being our own, sent by some one to support us. I have heard since that it was said General Heintzelman sent them, but I did not hear the name mentioned then. We did not fire there until the troops advanced so near that they fired upon us and cut us down.
Question. Why did you not fire upon them?
Answer. We had orders not to fire.
Question. Who gave those orders?
Answer. I am under the impression that General Barry gave them.
Question. Did you hear the order given by General Barry?
Answer. I heard the order given by some one to Captain Griffin and Lieutenant Hasbrouck—and I am under the impression that it was General Barry— not to fire upon that body of men, for the reason that they were troops sent up to support us. Just after that they fired upon us and cut us down.
Question. Was General Barry there at that time?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Could you have broken up that body of men by your battery if you had opened on them?
Answer. We could have done so unless they were better troops than we saw that day; I think we could have swept them off with canister; we could have scattered any body of troops, I think, no matter how efficient—that is, to the best of my belief.
Question. Was Ricketts’ battery captured at the same time?
Answer. I presume it was. My horse was shot from under me at the time, and I was somewhat stunned by falling on my breast. We advanced together, but I never met Captain Ricketts except on that occasion, and he rode up in advance of his battery, and I was in rear of ours.
Question. Did the panic on the field commence immediately after the capture of those batteries?
Answer. Well, sir, the Ellsworth zouaves were ordered to support us, but they ran away before that.
Question. Did you have any support at that time?
Answer. No, sir; we were ordered there without any support but these zouaves.
Question. Did not the marines support you?
Answer. No, sir; they could not get up there. When we first went into battery, we went ahead of them.
Question. Was your battery without support during the day?
Answer. Yes, sir. I went after the 14th New York, and they went up with us for a little time, and then they left; their officers did all they could.
Question. About what time did the loss of your battery happen?
Answer. I have a very faint idea of time on that day, for I did not exactly know what time we came into battery; I was without a watch. We left our camp about 12 o’clock at night, and I suppose we went into action about 11 o’clock; and if we did, I think this was about 4 o’clock. | <urn:uuid:8b9a7bb2-484d-43f5-8cf8-cb5944033e24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bullrunnings.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/jccw-lt-horatio-b-reed/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=4e28c04ab9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987333 | 1,036 | 1.757813 | 2 |
How can the Antichrist be identified?
Here are some characteristics of the Antichrist:
1. He exalts himself above all gods.
2. He will sit in the Temple and claim to be God.
3. He will be able to do powerful supernatural things.
4. He will deceive many with his cult of personality.
5. He will sign a false peace covenant with Israel but the church will be taken out in the Rapture prior to that signing.
It doesn't take much study to find out who this man is. There is only one person who fits all of the characteristics of a great deceiver who will arise at the end of the world to fool people with supernatural signs and wonders. This megalomaniac will also demand to be worshipped as God. | <urn:uuid:be013d72-e183-41fb-983b-bdb5985f8b39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://raptureready.com/faq/faq534.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961272 | 165 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Vodafone has apologised to its customers after pleading guilty to 21 charges under the Fair Trading Act at the Auckland District Court today.
The charges laid by the Commerce Commission relate to various
claims made by the telco about its broadband and mobile services
between 2006 and 2009.
Vodafone said it never meant to mislead anyone, but admits it did not communicate clearly with customers with its ''broadband everywhere'' campaign.
"We take these charges very seriously and we apologise to our customers," said Vodafone's Marketing Director Greg Campbell.
"As a company that strives to provide a great experience to our customers, we know we can do better, and we will.
"We have been working hard to improve our processes. We are very focused on making sure that our communication is clear and that our systems support the offers we have in the market."
The telecommunications giant will be sentenced on September 10.
Each of the 21 charges carries a maximum penalty of $200,000.
In the second of six cases the Commerce Commission is taking against Vodafone, the company was fined $81,900 for misleading the public over its $1 a day mobile internet plan in November.
The Commerce Commission said customers thought they were paying "$1 a day" for 10 megabytes of data on its Vodafone Live service, when in fact they were charged $1 after only using 2% of the 10MB.
The company apologised that its communication around the $1 a day offer was not as clear as it should have been.
In the first case, Vodafone pleaded guilty and was fined over $400,000 for misleading customers over the cost of its internet service. | <urn:uuid:c007c104-16e8-4cc3-98ad-5559af8a56a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/vodafone-apologises-over-misleading-advertising-4961512?ref=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976728 | 351 | 1.546875 | 2 |
What mama doesn't love a little handprint? We made some really simple and cute Mother's cards.
A handprint on the top and bottom of the card:
Fill in the letters with markers using each finger as the base of a letter:
That's it. In honor of Mom's Day, we checked out two mom books from the library. I ended up reading them myself because my preschoolers were not interested. I don't think these were intended for preschoolers anyway, but they are super cute for older children and moms.
M.O.M. (Mom Operating Manual) is a funny "owners manual" to keep your Mom running in tip-top shape. It's divided into chapters like Daily Care and Maintenance which tells us "Remarkably, despite their size, moms can sleep on as little as three inches of bed." and advises that if your mom is trying to lick the bottom of her coffee cup, you should insist that she take a nap. Troubleshooting describes what to do when a mom, who is normally the most adaptable human model on the planet, has reached her limit (often a direct result of overuse). One warning sign of a malfunctioning mom is "eerie silence" and the quick fix for that is to call Grandma and have her come get you for a while. Funny for moms and kids.
31 Uses For A Mom is a list of all the things moms are. My favorites are bank, thermometer, and page turner.
What have you been up to this week? I'd love for you to link up any kid friendly projects! I'll pin some favorites to the Kid's Co-op Pinterest board! | <urn:uuid:ae650717-2329-41cb-8503-bad31272379a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readingconfetti.com/2012/05/handprint-mothers-day-card-kids-co-op.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968787 | 346 | 1.523438 | 2 |
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