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Essay 2: Explanatory SynthesisEssay Format: at the top of the page, please place the following: “Title of Your Explanatory Synthesis” (You should make up a title for your essay.) Note on Length: Your synthesis should be about 8 paragraphs, or 4 double-spaced pages. 1. Does your introduction include a thesis statement? Have you identified the key features to understand about your topic? Have you explained to your reader why he or she should care about this issue? 2. Have you selected a theme-based format for the body of your synthesis? 3. Do your body paragraphs flow in logical order? Do you have good topic sentences and good transition sentences leading from one paragraph to the next?4. Do you include at least 5 quotations and accompanying in-text citations? 5. Does your conclusion reiterate why the particular features you selected are important for an understanding of your topic? 6. Do you have a Works Cited page (the last and fifth page of your paper) in which you include proper citation information on five articles (or articles and books)? 1. Are there at least 8 paragraphs in this essay? 2. Can you identify the topic sentence for each of your paragraphs? Does the topic sentence have a governing idea, indicate an attitude, and set direction? 3. Have you underlined a balanced, periodic, loose sentence AND a strategic short sentence?
Panel Session: IT Volunteering in Disasters Sunday May 22, 11:00 am; Bldg 3, Ballroom Summary: Increasingly, temporary information technology (IT) support is needed during disasters, ranging from setting up WiFi in evacuee shelters, surge support for 2-1-1 websites, recovery wikis for impacted communities, or geo-mapping support. However, volunteers with IT skills need ICS training and organization into deployable teams, like ARES/RACES amateur radio volunteers. This panel will discuss a FEMA pilot program called NET Guard, a recent survey of IT needs of non-profit disaster response organizations in Santa Clara County, and ARES/RACES lessons on training and team-building. Finally, the panel will discuss volunteer management, deployment issues and coordination between NET Guard and ARES/RACES. Peter Ohtaki (.pdf) - Peter Ohtaki, Executive Director, California Resiliency Alliance Peter Ohtaki is Executive Director of the California Resiliency Alliance (CRA), a public-private partnership to strengthen our state’s capacity to prevent, protect, respond and recover from natural disasters, pandemic flu or terrorism. Outside of the CRA, he serves on the Menlo Park City Council, and was previously elected to the Board of Directors for the Menlo Park Fire Protection District. He graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. - Jim Aspinwall, Coastal Region/MAR 2 ACS Officer, Deputy State RACES Officer, California Emergency Management Agency Jim is responsible for the Cal EMA Coastal Region Auxiliary Communications Service, comprised of professional and amateur radio communications members supporting the region's 16 counties' public safety and RACES communications needs for disasters and special events. Serving Cal EMA for six-years, he one of the State's many unpaid professionals in this capacity, FCC licensed in commercial and amateur services for over 30 years, a former volunteer firefighter in Texas, with response experience in Hurricane Alicia, the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, Cosco Buson oil spill and the Indians Fire complex. His technical career spans medical, scientific, forensic, research, communications and information technology. - Rich Davies, InfraGard SF Bay Area chapter board member, Member Board of Directors, San Francisco Bay Area InfraGard chapter, Executive Director, Western Disaster Center Mr. Davies is the Founder and Executive Director of the Western Disaster Center. The Western Disaster Center has been established to provide for increased public safety by improving disaster and emergency management capabilities. This is accomplished through research and the application of advanced computer, information and communication technologies and the development and application of methods for public/private partnering. This process is managed and directed by the Western Disaster Center, Inc., a California, public benefit, 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Mr. Davies has a broad background in defense and intelligence technologies with a 30+ year career as a senior systems engineer and business development specialist at Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman ESL, and GTE Government Systems. Mr. Davies is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology with a Masters degree in Aeronautics and the Northrop Institute of Technology with Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and has attended advanced graduate classes at Stanford University. Mr. Davies is an elected Member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Bay Area InfraGard Chapter, part of the FBI’s critical infrastructure protection outreach initiative and the Silicon Valley chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA). Mr. Davies was the founding President and Member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco FBI Citizens’ Academy Alumni Association. - Gregory L. Smith, Director of Disaster Services and State Disaster Coordination, American Red Cross Bay Area chapter Mr. Smith's affiliation with the American Red Cross began in 1992 when he served as a disaster volunteer with the American Red Cross Bay Area in San Francisco. He has since amassed an impressive record of selfless service and success in volunteer and youth recruitment, program development, training, marketing and fundraising. Throughout his career, Mr. Smith has served as a senior strategist and public advocate for the Red Cross, crafting vital public and private partnerships with universities, businesses, community and faith-based organizations and emergency management agencies. Prior to assuming his responsibilities as the Director of the San Francisco Bay Area Disaster Program and State Response Coordinator, Mr. Smith directed department and efforts at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, DC including disaster training development and delivery support and; Disaster Services external relations and partnership management. Mr. Smith initially joined the national senior staff as vice president of Volunteers, Youth and Nursing. In that role he was responsible volunteer, youth/young adult and nursing program development and enhancement and Chapter program support. He received this senior staff appointment following successful assignments as Director of Disaster Services in Columbus, Ohio where he provided leadership for the chapter and State of Ohio in disaster planning, mitigation, response and recovery, while overseeing disaster program management, community disaster education and statewide training programs and; Manager, Technical Support and Planning for the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter where he supported the chapters’ six county disaster program by managing emergency resources and participating in catastrophic disaster planning. A dynamic leader and resourceful manager, Mr. Smith has worked throughout the United States and overseas on numerous disaster relief operations, including floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, hazardous materials incidents and airline disasters.
It wasn’t exactly the French Revolution, but French voters’ decision Sunday to reject the European Union constitution is as revolutionary an action as one might find in Europe these days. It’s all for the good, as we see it, even though the reasons for the rejection weren’t entirely laudable. A coalition of the political fringes, left and right, combined to reject the constitution, while French elites of the center-left and center-right embraced adoption of the lengthy, convoluted document, which was long on bureaucratese and short on political inspiration. The American Constitution, which inspired not only our new nation but continues to inspire people the world over, was dedicated to the pithy, easily grasped idea that individuals are born with certain unalienable rights, and that the government would be limited to a few defined functions, most notably protecting individual, God-given rights. Now that’s something worth fighting for, or at least worth supporting in a vote. The European Union constitution is what columnist George Will calls “an incoherent jumble of policies” governing minor legislative actions and making promises of rights — not the unalienable “negative” rights Thomas Jefferson promised, but the modern, “positive” welfare-state rights. Many French voters were angry at attempts to shift sovereignty from Paris to Brussels, where yet another layer of unaccountable bureaucrats would control their lives. Others of those surveyed were concerned mostly about losing their cushy, government-provided benefits. Still others worried about immigration from the East, whereby low-skill Poles and Turks would take their union jobs. The French vote puts the kibosh on this constitution, which had been in the works for 2 1/2 years. Every nation had to approve it for the document to go into effect. The EU had promised from its earliest days to be solely an economic union, which made some sense. But critics who said it would devolve into a political union were proved correct. Consider it in these terms: What if the North American Free Trade Agreement morphed into a political union between Canada, the United States and Mexico, with a new government run by bureaucrats headquartered, say, in Montreal? Americans would no doubt reject such a development idea and certainly can understand why the French are troubled by something similar.
Bush, Kerry mark Brown anniversary Both men cite need for more progress in schools TOPEKA, Kansas (CNN) -- President Bush and Sen. John Kerry marked the 50th anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court decision on school integration with separate speeches Monday that hailed progress in the fight for racial equality but said the battle was not won. Their speeches played out against the backdrop of the upcoming presidential election, as Republicans try to break what has been a virtual lock by Democrats on the African-American vote when it comes to the White House. Both Bush and Kerry -- his likely Democratic rival in November -- hailed the court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education. That decision struck down the "separate but equal" practice of segregating students by race. Bush called the decision a "long time coming" and Kerry called the country "a better place because of Brown." Their speeches were similar. Both men offered warm praise for those families and civil rights leaders who challenged the segregation laws of that time. Both men spoke of lingering racial disparities in opportunity and achievement within America's schools. And both men said the dream of a society were race does not matter had not yet been realized. "Segregation is a living memory, and many still carry its scars," Bush said. "The habits of racism in America have not all been broken." Kerry's speech never mentioned Bush by name, but the senator took a swipe at the administration's policies, particularly education. "You cannot promise no child left behind and then pursue policies that leave millions of children behind," Kerry said, referring to a White House education measure that calls for more testing of both students and teachers and ties funding, in part, to success at individual schools. Democrats have charged the administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have not provided states and schools with enough money to comply with some of the new requirements. Kerry's campaign distributed a critical assessment of Bush's record on civil rights, citing his opposition to affirmative action programs and the Justice Department's handling of various civil rights cases. "Today, more than ever, we need to renew our commitment to one America," Kerry said. "We should not delude ourselves into thinking that the work of Brown is done when there are those who still seek, in different ways, to see it undone. To rollback affirmative action -- to restrict equal rights --- to undermine the promise of our Constitution." In his speech, Bush also steered clear of any mention of his opponent. And he also avoided any specific discussion of his policies. He did, however, make a general reference to his education policy. "While our schools are no longer segregated by law, they are still not equal in opportunity and excellence," Bush said. "Justice requires more than a place in a school. Justice requires that every school teach every child in America." Bush has criticized schools for what he's called the "soft bigotry of low expectations," saying some schools move minority students through the system without making sure they've met basic academic standards. Kerry spoke first at a commemoration ceremony on the steps of the Kansas state Capitol. Bush appeared in the afternoon at the former Monroe Elementary School, one of the schools at issue in the case and now a national historic site. In 2000, Bush won roughly 9 percent of the African-American vote. While Bush has said he wants to win a great share of that vote, a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that Kerry has the support of 87 percent of likely African-American voters.
(CNN) -- A year ago Sunday, Neda Agha-Soltan died of a single gunshot wound to the chest. Her last moments -- captured on a cell phone camera and shown around the world-- catapulted her into the symbol of the postelection reform movement in Iran. Today, the Iranian regime's crackdown seems to have driven protesters off the streets. But the movement is not weakening, some analysts say. Instead, it's evolved into an online underground civil rights struggle, they say. "I think they're going to continue to move forward, whether in the form of a green movement or another type of movement," said Karim Sadjadpour, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's just, basically, this march of history." Agha-Soltan, 26, was at an anti-government demonstration in Tehran when she was felled by a single bullet to the chest. "She has been shot! Someone, come and take her!" shouts one man in the shaky cell phone video that has since been seen around the world. The video then shows blood streaming from her mouth, then from her nose. Her eyes roll to her right; her body is limp. A man, who had accompanied her to the rally, is then heard pleading with her by name. "Neda, do not be afraid, do not be afraid," he repeats. Agha-Soltan was taken to a nearby hospital and, within a day, she was buried at Behesht Zahra, the city's largest Muslim cemetery, on the outskirts of the capital. Immediately afterward, she emerged as the face of the anti-government movement. Even world leaders took notice. "We've seen courageous women stand up to the brutality and threats and we've experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets," said President Barack Obama. Eight days before Agha-Soltan's death, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide election victory unleashed massive demonstrations in the country. Thousands of green-clad protesters took to the streets, accusing the government of rigging the elections. Iran's leaders called the uprising a foreign-led plot to overthrow the regime. It cracked down on the protesters -- with many killed and even more jailed. Images of the bloody crackdown fueled worldwide outrage. Agha-Soltan's pictures are still carried on placards at rallies outside Iran. "She will become the image of this brutality, and of the role -- the truly significant role -- that women have played in fighting this regime," said Abbas Milani of Stanford University in California. "I think that women are the unsung heroes of the last few years. They are the ones who began chipping away at the authority, the absolute dictatorship of the mullahs." Iranian authorities continue to deny that security forces were responsible for killing Agha-Soltan. Instead, they have offered at least three separate explanations. They have blamed the CIA, terrorists and supporters of the opposition movement themselves. One year after Agha-Soltan's death, Iranian officials have yet to announce a single arrest in connection with her killing.
Recreational camping began in the United Kingdom in the late 1800s. Thomas Hiram Holding is the notable camper who made the activity popular after camping across the American prairies and in the U.K. with his parents and friends. Holding’s book, Cycle and Camp in Connemara, led to the formation of the first known camping club, the Camping and Caravanning Club. Archive for the ‘Camping’ Category Hypothermia is a creeping, secretive killer. Its early symptoms can appear as mere irritations. Because a person suffering from hypothermia progressively becomes less and less coherent, those who are suffering hypothermia rarely recognize the danger. That’s one reason why the buddy system is so crucial for survival in the backcountry. Two sets of eyes and two rational minds are a real advantage in the face of hypothermia. Your buddy can speak up if you’re not behaving normally, or if he or she notices conditions are ripe for hypothermia. Recognizing hypothermia symptoms is like recognizing stoke symptoms: The earlier you spot it, the better chance you have of saving the victim. And yes, “saving” is an appropriate verb here, since hypothermia can kill. Protect yourself and your trail mates: Know the signs of hypothermia we list below, so that you can call 911 or stop to warm up your companion before it’s too late. The silence of a winter evening spent in nature; the absence of camping crowds and flying insects; the chance to play in the snow. These are just a few of the many delights awaiting you in winter camping. Now we’re not here to make winter camping seem like a piece of cake—it does take quite a bit more planning than summer camping, simply because you have to take freezing cold weather into account. Before you head out into the great outdoors for your next camping adventure, we’ve got tons of resources to help enrich your trip. From the hottest camping gear to the latest outdoor trends to safety tips and information, our blog is full of ideas and advice for campers. To help you find what you’re looking for, we’ve compiled the following digest, which highlights our most popular posts about summer camping: Camping Lanterns: Propane vs. LED Battery. This article compares the LED lantern to its traditional propane counterpart in regards to safety, maintenance, efficiency, lifetime costs, energy concerns, brightness and durability. Outdoor enthusiasts, rejoice! June is national Great Outdoors Month, which highlights the fun you can have outdoors in the country’s forests, national parks, wildlife refuges and other public spaces. This event coincides with several national outdoor events we at COAST Products are excited about. (more…) The About.com 2012 Reader’s Choice Winners are in, and hiking takes first place in the Favorite Camping Activity and Outdoor Recreation categories. Hiking is a great sport for individuals of all activity levels because of the different types of trails available. This activity can be as simple as walking on a flat path in a wildlife sanctuary to testing your balance on steep, rocky trails. With a bit of planning and the right equipment, you, too, can be ready to hit the trails in no time. Reasons Why People Love to Hike Eager to beat the winter blues and get an early start on your camping season? Winter desert camping might be the choice for you. Both winter and desert camping differ from summer season, non-desert camping. The following is a look some of these main differences, as well as note some prime locations in the American West where you can try out desert winter camping. You’ll also find a suggested packing list for desert camping. (Hint: an LED flashlight or LED headlamp should be high on your list!) What is Winter Desert Camping? Camping enthusiasts love to sit under the stars, listening to ambient sounds drifting in the background – the chirping of grasshoppers, the croaking of frogs, the crackling of the campfire. For many adults, these camping memories also include the hissing of a nearby propane camping lantern. The propane camping lantern has long been the traditional choice for camping illumination. In 1885, Austrian chemist Auer von Welsbach invented the durable thorium mantle, which created the basis for 100 years of propane lantern technology. (Historians note that Welsbach was partially driven by the competition of the incandescent electric light.) The propane lantern became a powerful source of light, providing the equivalent of a 300-watt light bulb.
In the simplest of terms, every drop of water saved in the U.S saves energy, and every unit of energy saved saves water. That overlap between energy and water is called the “energy-water Water and energy are inextricably linked when it comes to utilities providing customers with electricity for lights and water for the tap. It takes water to produce energy and energy to produce drinking water at our water treatment plant. It then takes energy to transport water to your home for drinking, bathing, cooking, washing clothes, flushing toilets, and outdoor watering. Each time you take a shorter shower, wash a full load of laundry, or install a low-flow showerhead or front-load washing machine, you not only save water, but you also save energy through reduced hot water use and volume of water used. Residential water heating also comprises the largest share of water-related carbon emissions. High efficiency toilets not only save water, they save energy as well because not as much water from the water treatment plant is needed to be treated and transported in order to flush the toilet, resulting in less energy use. As part of the City of Bellingham’s adopted goals and measures of the Water Conservation Program, the City has partnered with Sustainable Connections and the Opportunity Council’s Community Energy Challenge (CEC). The CEC is a NW Washington Green Jobs and Energy Efficiency Program. The CEC makes achieving energy efficiency as easy as possible from start to finish. The program provides each participating household and business with quality information, a full energy assessment (and water assessment for City of Bellingham water customers), a customized energy action plan detailing cost-effective measures, assistance with utility and tax rebates, reliable contractors, and quality assurance. The goals of the City's partnership with the CEC are to: Please contact the Operations Division of the Public Works Department if you would like more information about Water Conservation.
I din't get your question first. But when you print the name of the vector, then it displays all the elements that is there. In this scenarion it is right. As I can see that you are adding the arrays and array hashcode[not sure whether it is called as hashcode] is printed. We know that when array is printed by its name then we get the reference value[hashcode]. Don't you think it is doing that. Correct me if I am wrong. Joined: Oct 10, 2005 Continuing with my previous reply. If you want to print the individual elements then you should use the function get(int index);
Experts Exchange > Programming > Prog Languages > Java > J2EE > Enterprise Application Web Module Error Enterprise application web module error Asked by: gudii9 I have created one new enterprise aplication project called July2014. While creating I have added one new EJB module called July2014EJB for business logic and one new web module Called July2014Web for the UI(I see connector module and application client module what are the uses of them and when should i select them).I have addded one index.jsp with below sample code When i right click on the parent July2014 EAR project (which is basically empty except it contains web module and ejb module within it ) run on JBoss 7.1 server on my windows laptop I am getting errors as attached. Actualyl when i selected EAR, EJB and WEB projects all three of them and 'Refresh' then the issue solved. Before that i did multiple clean, build, publish, restart, add/remove project from server, creating new instance of server etc. Do i need to do this kind of exercise for creating and running any simiple EJB example. Why EJB examples do not run for first time. How the refresh is different from clean build. connector module and application client module what are the uses of them
Feminist liturgy began in the midst of a broad human quest for justice in the late twentieth century. The Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War movement added momentum for women's struggle for justice. Within this ferment, women addressed the limits placed on them in secular and religious institutions as well. Feminist liturgies developed as one of a number of attempts to discover and claim a more truthful telling and embodying of the stories that shape our religious consciousness. In" Feminist Liturgy: A Matter of Justice," Walton offers a partial account" of feminist liturgies to encourage both discussion and action so that our liturgies will be "true" for all of us. Walton explains that liturgies typically described as "feminist" emerged in the late 1960s when women and some men realized that what they were experiencing in the liturgies not only wasn't enough - but, in fact, wasn't true. - a liturgical process that centers on an encounter - an engaged, embodied dialogue with God - cannot be true when females are left out of the dialogue. To make the liturgies more accurate, people joined together to discover how to use symbols, texts, and forms that expressed relationships with God more authentically. Walton examines four aspects of feminist liturgies: the historical context in which they developed, the tasks and principles that guide them, the possibilities they offer, and application to regular institutional liturgies. In examining these aspects, Walton responds to questions, clarifies hunches, alleviates doubts, and encourages more people to contribute to the development of feminist liturgies. "Janet R. Walton is professor of worship at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She is the author of "Art and Worship: A Vital Connection "published by The Liturgical Press.""
This week, President Obama signed the America COMPETES Act, signifying the importance of science, education and technology to America’s ability to innovate and remain competitive in the 21st century. The America COMPETES Act reauthorizes spending across the federal government on a variety of programs at agencies like the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and here at the Department of Commerce. The act authorizes our National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to receive funding that would double its core science and technology budget by 2017, and elevates the position of the director of NIST to include the additional title of Under Secretary for Standards and Technology. It better equips our National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct cutting-edge research and further innovation in oceanic and atmospheric technology development. And it establishes a new Regional Innovation Program to be administered by our Economic Development Administration that encourages and develops regional innovation strategies like clusters and science and research parks that help businesses grow and take advantage of regional strengths. Finally, the new legislation reaffirms the mission of our Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship – first announced in September 2009 – which works to unleash and maximize the economic potential of new ideas by more quickly moving them from the research lab to the marketplace. This renewed commitment to science, education and technology illustrated through bipartisan Congressional support for the America COMPETES Act will greatly benefit the work done at the U.S. Commerce Department, and help fuel U.S. job growth, economic development and global competitiveness. \| Locke statement \| White House blog \| NIST release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, August 27, 2013 CONTACT OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today issued a statement on the 50th Anniversary of the “March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs.” “Fifty years ago today, nearly a quarter of a million Americans came to Washington from across the country to stand up for civil rights and equality. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s groundbreaking ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ and the March on Washington catalyzed the Civil Rights Movement and led to significant legislation to end discrimination on the basis of race. Perhaps more importantly, the Movement brought to light the significance of economic empowerment. Aptly named, the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs was an opportunity to call for the end of widespread discrimination in hiring, limited job mobility and high unemployment rates. As we reflect back on the progress made over the last five decades, there still remains a lot of work to ensure that everyone who works hard can succeed, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. The Commerce Department remains committed to helping every American and business get access to the resources and support they need to be competitive and innovative in the 21st century." Since 1963, America has made great strides toward economic opportunity and equality. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, for African-Americans, income has risen, the poverty rate has fallen, home ownership has increased, and the amount of high school and college students and graduates has soared. For specific statistics, visit http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb13-ff22.html. Further, minority-owned businesses now generate $1 trillion in annual revenues and employ nearly six million Americans. To learn more about the Minority Business Development Agency’s efforts to support minority-owned businesses grow and create jobs, visit http://www.mbda.gov/pressroom/press-releases/mbda-2012-annual-performance-report-shows-record-breaking-year-job-creation
For Immediate Release Linda Gunter, Beyond Nuclear: 301.455.5655 What’s Next at Fukushima? Are U.S. Nuclear Plants Still at Risk? TAKOMA PARK, MD - The Fukushima nuclear power plant catastrophe in Japan is about to enter its fourth year. Many questions remain unanswered. Little has been done to shore up the 31 U.S. reactors that are identical in design. Interviews with specialists at Beyond Nuclear are available. Kevin Kamps Radioactive Waste Specialist. 240.462.3216; [email protected] “The condition of the high-level radioactive waste storage pools at the Fukushima-Daiichi reactors remains perilous. Another big earthquake could prompt a sudden drain-down of the Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool. The Unit 3 pool may be in even worse shape,” Kamps said. “Few lessons from Fukushima have been learned in the U.S. One of the most important should be that high density U.S. pools are emptied into hardened on-site storage as soon as possible, before the worst happens, whether due to natural disaster or terrorist attack.” Cindy Folkers, Radiation and Health Specialist. 240.354.4314; [email protected] "Considering the constant misinformation regarding how much radioactivity has and is being released into the Pacific Ocean from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster, we must continually monitor the ocean and ocean life, particularly food sources,” Folkers said. “The American Medical Association has passed a resolution pressing for seafood testing for the U.S. But independent testing is almost non-existent. We have the highest allowable limit of radioactive cesium in the world, but not the robust food testing needed to see if we are exceeding it." Paul Gunter, Reactor Oversight Director. 301.523.0201; [email protected] “In a bid to restart Japan's reactors, none of which are currently operating, the regulator there ordered utilities to install costly countermeasures to another severe accident. Here in the U.S., the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission continues to stall those same countermeasures for the identically flawed nuclear technology to protect the fragile economics of nuclear power and keep vulnerable reactors running full throttle,” Gunter said. “The Japanese Diet reported that Fukushima was a ‘man-made disaster’ caused by the collusion of government, regulator and industry to protect a nuclear production agenda. ‘Nuclear Regulatory Capture’ of the NRC by industry here in the U.S. has put financial protectionism, aging reactor systems and the roll of the dice on converging courses for an American Fukushima.” Linda Gunter, International Specialist. 301.455.5655; [email protected] “Japan’s early decision to choose nuclear power, rather than renewable energy, now means Japan will temporarily worsen climate change as the country imports stop-gap fossil fuels while its reactors are down. The alternative favored by the Abe government, to restart its nuclear plants, poses unacceptable consequences,” Gunter said. “Japan must now move to rapid implementation of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Japan’s predicament spotlights exactly how detrimental the nuclear energy path has been to preserving our planet. We cannot take back the disastrous releases of radioactivity. But Japan, like Germany, could now choose to renounce any further such risks.” Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.
Many have read the recent news reports from Connecticut, where a condominium association threatened an owner with fines of $50 per day until she removed a mezuzah from her doorpost. Amezuzah is a parchment inscribed with religious texts and attached in a case to many Jewish homes as a sign of faith. Interestingly, at this particular Connecticut condominium association, owners were allowed to affix Christmas wreaths and crucifixes to their doors, but owners could not affix mezuzahs to their doorposts. Fortunately, the owner and her attorneys were able to convince that particular board as to the error of its ways and it was recently announced that the owner would be allowed to post a mezuzah on her door without any penalty. Can a condominium association interfere with what many deem a fundamental religious right? Interestingly enough, unit owners do not typically own the doors and door frames to their units – these are usually common elements that are owned jointly by all of the unit owners which are maintained by the condominium association. When changes are made to such common elements, particularly material changes, a vote of seventy five percent of the voting interests in the association is required to allow a change. Therefore, the posting of a mezuzah could constitute such a material change. The Florida Legislature wisely looked at this issue and has specifically protected the right of condominium owners to affix mezuzahs to their door frames, so long as it does not exceed three inches wide, six inches high and one and half inches deep. It is also noteworthy that many condo associations’ governing documents allow for holiday displays by unit owners on their doors and balconies for all faiths. Accordingly, Aventurans can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that their rights to religious expression have been protected by the Florida Legislature. Joshua Krut is a Partner at Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Boniske, P.L., where he serves as Chairperson of the Community Association, Club & Resort Practice Group. The Firm has offices in Fort Lauderdale and Coral Gables and Mr. Krut can be reached at 954.763.4242 or [email protected].
Physlets run in a Java-enabled browser on the latest Windows & Mac operating systems. If Physlets do not run, click here for help on updating Java and setting Java security. Illustration 39.2: Polarized Electromagnetic Waves Please wait for the animation to completely load. Light is composed of a traveling wave of changing electric and magnetic fields. Click on the link for a linear wave to see an example of the electric field component of an electromagnetic wave. Click-drag to the right or left to rotate about the z axis. Click-drag up or down to rotate in the xy plane. The wave in the animation is x polarized, which means that its electric field oscillates in the x direction. Some materials, called polarizers, will only transmit light with its electric field in a particular direction. To see an example of a linear wave with a polarizer, click on the link linear wave with polarizer. In this example light that is xy polarized is passed through a polarizer that only transmits the component of the electric field in the x direction. The circular wave link shows an example of a circularly polarized wave, and the circular wave with polarizer link shows the effect of an x-direction polarizer on this circular wave. Exploration 39.1 deals more extensively with circularly polarized light, while Exploration 39.2 discusses polarizers. Illustration authored by Melissa Dancy.
Free-Body Diagrams: Necessary or Sufficient? Documents A. Van Heuvelen, and The Rutgers PAER group is working to help students develop various scientific abilities. One of the abilities is to create, understand and learn to use for qualitative reasoning and problem solving different representations of physical processes such as pictorial representations, motion diagrams, free-body diagrams, and energy bar charts. Physics education literature indicates that using multiple representations is beneficial for student understanding of physics ideas and for problem solving. We developed a special approach to construct and utilize free-body diagrams for representing physical phenomena and for problem solving. We will examine whether students draw free-body diagrams in solving problems when they know they will not receive credit for it; the consistency of their use in different conceptual areas; and if students who use free-body diagrams while solving problems in different areas of physics are more successful then those who do not. - Download PERC04_Rosengrant.pdf - 162kb Adobe PDF Document Published September 1, 2005 Last Modified May 18, 2012 This file is included in the full-text index.
Issue No.07 - July (2005 vol.17) David Wai-lok Cheung , IEEE Computer Society DOI Bookmark: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TKDE.2005.110 Queries on semistructured data are hard to process due to the complex nature of the data and call for specialized techniques. Existing path-based indexes and query processing algorithms are not efficient for searching complex structures beyond simple paths, even when the queries are high-selective. We introduce the definition of minimal infrequent structures (MIS), which are structures that 1) exist in the data, 2) are not frequent with respect to a support threshold, and 3) all substructures of them are frequent. By indexing the occurrences of MIS, we can efficiently locate the high-selective substructures of a query, improving search performance significantly. An efficient data mining algorithm is proposed, which finds the minimal infrequent structures. Their occurrences in the XML data are then indexed by a lightweight data structure and used as a fast filter step in query evaluation. We validate the efficiency and applicability of our methods through experimentation on both synthetic and real data. Index Terms- Query processing, XML/XSL/RDF, mining methods and algorithms, document indexing. Wang Lian, Nikos Mamoulis, David Wai-lok Cheung, S.M. Yiu, "Indexing Useful Structural Patterns for XML Query Processing", IEEE Transactions on Knowledge & Data Engineering, vol.17, no. 7, pp. 997-1009, July 2005, doi:10.1109/TKDE.2005.110
Government plans to cap the number of overseas workers entering the UK have survived the coalition negotiations with the Liberal Democrats. As a result, businesses might have to change their IT cost-cutting strategies. Home Secretary Theresa May announced a temporary cap on immigration of workers while the government put together a longer-term plan. The government said it will reduce the number of non-EU residents entering the UK to work by 5%. The Conservatives plan to keep the existing points-based system, which allows IT professionals into the UK if they score highly enough on a range of measures. But the numbers will be capped. This could mean thousands fewer overseas IT professionals working in the UK. The cap on skilled worker immigration was a key policy for the Tories during the election campaign. Responding to questions put to him from Computer Weekly in February, then shadow immigration minister Damian Green, said: "The one big gap in the points-based system is that there is no overall limit on how many permits can be issued in any one year." "This is why the public has a lack of confidence in the immigration system, which people regard as being out of control. This is why a Conservative government would introduce an annual limit, so that Britain can continue to attract those who will help our economy without putting too much pressure on our essential public services." The limit was not defined and the Tories plan one that can be moved up and down to an appropriate level. "It seems extraordinary that, when British workers can't find jobs, we are bringing foreign workers from halfway round the world. This is another sign that Gordon Brown's 'British jobs for British workers' was a meaningless sound bite," said Damian Green. One IT worker believes the problem only exists because companies get away with paying overseas workers less. This contravenes current rules and businesses are using the Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) rule to overcome this. ICTs allow businesses to bring workers to their UK operations. Seven Indian companies accounted for 43% of IT workers entering the UK on ICTs last year, according to figures obtained by the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (Apsco).The total number of IT workers coming in on ICTs was 29,240, with 12,573 working for Indian firms. "The use of the ICT system to bring in large numbers of IT workers to work at third-party client sites is purely about paying less for foreign workers who are tied to their sponsors and avoiding taxes. The workers need more protection to ensure they are not underpaid and discriminated against. And permanent migrants, residents and UK businesses need a level playing field to compete against companies that take advantage of lax rules around intra-company transfers," said a campaigner against the alleged biases of the ICT system He says the Liberal Democrat idea of a work permit surcharge - which would go to training UK workers - is interesting. He also thinks LibDem plans to introduce regional policies would make it more difficult to bring in workers in over-populated areas. \|The view from the sharp end\| \|A senior IT professional at a large UK company from overseas\|\|The UK could lose high level IT skills if a policy is introduced that caps the number of skilled workers entering the UK.\|\|"Cameron will now go ahead with his plans to put a cap on immigration, but I'm not intimidated. There are many immigrants in my department and even though we are paid less money, we bring a significant contribution. Speaking for myself, I am a lot more skilled and produce a lot more compared to colleagues of about the same age."\| \|Mark Lewis, partner and head of outsourcing at law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner\|\|There needs to be a limit on the numbers of migrant workers but warns that the cap should not be set too low.\|\|"I see no reason to have a totally open-ended number of IT visas granted every year. Limiting the number at a sensible level for UK businesses is fine. But the government would be crazy to restrict the inflow of highly skilled migrants."\| \|Peter Skyte, National Officer at union Unite\|\|There is a need for balanced rules that do not damage UK businesses and do not disadvantage UK workers.\|\|"The points-based migration system and in particular use of the Intra-Company Transfer route in the IT sector is open to misuse or abuse by employers with the potential to undercut pay rates and displace skilled resident workers as currently operated."\| \|Bob McDowall, analyst at Towergroup\|\|If the government tightens the scheme, big businesses will have challenges resourcing for IT.\|\|"This will be especially the case in the financial services sector."\|
Unless the network infrastructure of the internet is upgraded, users will experience slower and unreliable connections by next year. Growing demand for multimedia content and a growing number of internet users will put pressure on outdated networks and could cause serious problems for businesses. Websites such as YouTube and the BBC's iPlayer, which use a lot of bandwidth, will make the internet unreliable, new research claims. According to a report in the Sunday Times, US think-tank Nemertes said as demand for bandwidth potentially doubles, computers will regularly start freezing and dropping offline as early as next year. Nemertes said the growing number of people working from home will also contribute significantly to the increased demand for bandwidth. Ted Ritter, an analyst at Nemertes, told the Sunday Times that the internet, without network upgrades, will no longer be reliable enough for business users. "For business purposes, such as delivering medical records between hospitals in real time, it is useless." The internet will become merely an "unreliable toy," he added. He said disruption will start next year. At first, computers will jitter and freeze. This will be followed by what he describes as "brownouts"- the combination of computers freezing temporarily and being reduced to a slow speed. According to website Internet World Stats, internet users totalled almost 1.6 billion in March this year, compared with about 361 million at the end of 2000. There was a 342% increase between 2000 and 2008, and over 23% of the world population now uses the internet. The Digital Britain interim report, which was published by communications minister Stephen Carter in January, proposes 22 action points to achieve five main goals, including upgrading and modernising the UK's digital networks. Ismail Ismail, director at Webcredible, which monitors web performance, said, "The problem is that the infrastructure of the web was developed long before sites like BBC iPlayer and YouTube existed and bandwidth is now being eaten up faster than was imagined." He said Lord Carter's Digital Britain agenda, which aims to get broadband to everyone in the UK by 2012, will make the problem worse. "If businesses suffer downtime problems and a slow connection, all the good work done by these companies could be undone by something they have no control over, with their previous investment in user experience severely undermined by the lack of bandwidth."
Henry Wager Halleck Henry Wager Halleck was a Union general during the Civil War. He was commander of the Department of the Missouri comprising the Union armies west of the Cumberland River. Thus, Halleck was Ulysses S. Grant's superior during the campaigns for Fort Donelson and Shiloh in early 1862, taking direct command of the army after the battle of Shiloh. In recognition of these successful campaigns he was promoted to commander in chief on July 11, 1862. Unlike his predecessor George B. McClellan and his successor Grant, Halleck did not take the field as commander in the East, instead engaging in administrative duties and directing the operations of the Union armies from Washington, D.C.. When Grant became commander in chief, Halleck was appointed chief of staff on March 12, 1864 and continued his administrative duties in Washington. - Civil War Home - Biography
(Redirected from Pessimist The term optimist was originally applied to those who adhered to the philosophy of optimism. This declared that the world was the best of all possible worlds, as it was created by God . Therefore, even what appeared bad was actually part of God's perfection. The term came to be used as meaning someone who looks for the positive side of a situation and anticipates the most positive outcome of a venture. An optimist is one who looks at a glass of water that is half-full and half-empty, and focuses on how it is half-full. A pessimist focuses on how it is half-empty. French author Voltaire mocked the concept in his novel Candide (1759), ridiculing Leibniz's notion that this is the best of all possible worlds.
December 22, 2010 By Terry Smiljanich: A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that food-borne illnesses strike millions of Americans each year, killing more than 3,000. Amidst all the clamor for “less government,” few of us want the federal government to slacken in its role of policing the food industry for our protection. Well, most of us at least. The CDC examined statistics from around the country and has found that each year one in six Americans (about 48 million people) get sick from food contamination, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from food-borne illnesses. Thirty-one pathogens are known to cause such illnesses, but many causes are still unidentified. The main killers are salmonella, toxoplasmosis, campylobacteriosis, norovirus, and listeria. Many such illnesses and deaths are caused by poor preparation of food by consumers, but more safety precautions by food producers and better inspections by the government can greatly reduce the risks of such food sicknesses. Now Congress has given the Food and Drug Administration new tools to help in this fight. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010 is the largest reform in food safety legislation since the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The legislation, expected to be signed quickly by President Obama, gives the FDA new powers: - The FDA can now require recalls of tainted food, rather than just politely asking food producers at fault to do so; - The list of food producers required to have hazard prevention plans in place has been expanded to more than 80% of all domestic producers (the USDA has authority to inspect poultry, egg and meat producers); - The FDA has been given more money to expand its inspection programs. The new powers are expected to cost $1.4 billion over the next five years. The cost, however, of those 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths far exceed this price tag. The Consumers Union calls the new legislation “a big victory for consumers that finally brings food-safety laws into the 21st century.” The best prevention for food-borne illnesses, however, remains home safety precautions, described by the CDC as: - Clean – wash your hands and foods carefully during preparation; - Separate – keep raw meat and poultry separate from utensils and plates used to serve food; - Cook – always bring cooked food up to recommended temperatures; - Chill – refrigerate leftovers promptly; and - Report – report suspected food illnesses to local health authorities. December 21, 2010 One of Bernie Madoff’s supposed victims is suspected of being his secret partner in his multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. Multi-billionaire Jeffry Picower died suddenly in an accident last year, and now his widow has agreed to return a staggering $7.2 billion in profits from Madoff to help pay back the other victims. Picower actually made more on the Ponzi scheme than Madoff, with annual rates of return of more than 100% and some returns as high as 500% or even 950% per year. Some investigators believe Picower may even have been blackmailing Madoff, something his widow denies. December 13, 2010 The busy holiday shopping season has gift givers drawn to the time and money saving lure of online retailers. Free shipping, promo codes and heavy discounts may not spell a good deal when you have to return your purchase. Hidden restocking fees up to 25% may leave you “sticker shocked” when your holiday goodies turn sour. December 7, 2010 The foreclosure crisis keeps growing as more abuses are exposed by homeowners and their attorneys who struggle to save their homes. “Rubber Stamping” of mortgage documents and “Robo-Judges” pushing their “Rocket Docket” can create an unfair situation for the homeowner in a foreclosure hearing. Click here to watch the story above and learn more. Read more December 1, 2010 Your recent trip to the dentist may expose you to more radiation than the airport security x-ray machine. The controversy over “body scanners” at airports across the country has raised concerns over privacy as well as high levels of radiation exposure.
If there’s one thing the ancient Maya are known for, it’s their spectacular chocolate cream pie. Depictions on cave walls suggest it was served at Maya roadside diners, and legend has it that Maya cooks prided themselves on just how much cayenne they could add to the filing. Chocolate Cream Pies were so valued among the Maya that they were often, alongside blood, used in sacrifices. Okay, maybe not. Above is just a sequence of thoughts that go through my head when I see any dish with chocolate, chilies and the word “”Maya”. And hey, I’m so on board with that. I love the chocolate chili trend was really happy to stumble across this recipe in Texas Co-Op Power Magazine. That said, the pie posed a bit of a conundrum. The original version from the magazine was so spicy had to throw it out and start over. The second pie was great, but I still had to know what the right amount of pepper was so I wrote a letter to the editor and got a quick and thoughtful response saying the original 1 tablespoon of cayenne was correct. So what to do? If you like super fiery hot desserts, go with the original. If you prefer a pleasant warmth, try my version below. And there’s one more catch. I accidentally left out the cream cheese on the second version (Oops!) and the pie was still very good – not too sweet, as you would except with the missing 3 oz of cream cheese. But maybe it’s because I used a less sweet chocolate. So pick your poison, but don’t skip this pie if you’re a chocolate chili pepper fan because it’s a good one. If you make it, let us know how much pepper you used. MAYA CHOCOLATE CREAM PIE 1 ready to bake pie crust or your favorite crust recipe, baked 1/4 cup cornstarch 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/8 teaspoon salt 1 cup whole milk 2 large egg yolks, beaten 6 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped or use Ghirardelli disks 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 3 oz cream cheese, softened (optional – I left it out) 1 1/2 cups heavy cream ½ teaspoon vanilla 2-4 tablespoons powdered sugar Mix cornstarch, sugar and salt in a heavy saucepan. Add a quarter cup of the milk and whisk until smooth. Turn heat to medium and slowly add the remaining milk and egg yolks, whisking constantly. Continue whisking over medium heat until mixture thickens – this should happen pretty quickly and it will appear lumpy at first. When the mixture is thick, turn off the heat and whisk in the chocolate and spices. When chocolate is melted, whisk in the vanilla. Pour it into a bowl to cool. If will be thick and gloppy. Note: at this point, the original recipe says to stir in 3 oz of cream cheese, but I left that out by mistake. In a large mixing bowl, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Add about a cup of the unsweetened whipped cream to the cooled chocolate mixture – the chocolate is so thick it might be difficult to fold, so just do your best. It’s not supposed to be fluffy anyway. Spread the chocolate mixture over the pie crust. Being careful not to over-beat the whipped cream, lightly beat or just stir in the 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and enough powdered sugar to sweeten. I used about 3 tablespoons. Spread the sweetened whipped cream over top of pie. Chill for 4 to 6 hours or overnight if you have time. I chilled mine for 4 hours and it was fine, but it might be different with the cream cheese. Also, the pepper was definitely not as strong on Day 2 so if 1 teaspoon doesn’t seem to give you enough heat (because you’re going to taste it as you go), then go with 1 ½ or more. Chocolate – original recipe calls for 1 cup chocolate chips which are usually about 52% cacao. I used 6 oz Ghirardelli 72% cacao chocolate so my pie was less sweet and probably had a deeper chocolate taste. This also may be why my omission of the cream cheese didn’t ruin the pie or cause it to be too sweet.
Ever heard of Innocenzo Manzetti? How about Elisha Gray? Okay, how about Alexander Graham Bell? Heard of him? Of course you have. He invented the telephone. (Yes, that’s what that funny-looking thing above is.) Or did he? According to a growing body of research, Innocenzo Manzetti created the first working telephone in 1864, more than a full decade before Bell. But he never did anything with it. Elisha Gray also invented a version of the telephone, and he even filed for patent, but it didn’t do any good. He arrived at the patent office a full two hours before Bell, and eventually filed a lawsuit claiming Bell stole the idea, but it never went anywhere. In contrast, Alexander Bell spent the next several years fighting to win his patent application, raise money from private investors, and evangelize his invention. A decade later, he had more than 150,000 customers, and it no longer mattered who invented it. Bell was reaping the rewards. The moral of the story? The obvious one is that the only way to truly defend your ideas is to take action, but there’s another moral too. It’s much more subtle, and in my opinion, more relevant to what we are doing online. It has to do with being what I call an “idea pack rat.” Are you an idea pack rat? I know I am. In fact, I’m pretty much the king of idea pack rats. On my computer, I have folders stacked inside of folders, all of them stuffed with notes on ideas that I plan to pursue. I have outlines for unwritten books, marketing plans for products I never got around to creating, and half-written posts that I can’t seem to finish writing. One day, I plan to do something with them. One day, I’ll have more time. One day, I’ll have the resources to make them work. Of course, it’s a lie, one that all idea pack rats have conditioned ourselves to believe. Then we’re horrified when some ass has the same idea, and they actually have the nerve to do something with it. Suddenly, the idea we were so carefully hoarding is worthless, and we feel robbed. Almost like someone snuck into our head and stole it. I’ve been there. I’m guessing you’ve been there too. And, in 2010, I think it’s time we finally did something about it. Just not in the way you might think. How to change the world Alexander Bell didn’t change the world by coming up with an original idea. Innocenco Manzetti did that. Alexander Bell didn’t change the world by taking action and getting to the patent office first. Elisha Gray beat him by two hours. No, Alexander Bell changed the world by hitting the road with his idea, telling anyone who would listen, all the way up to the Queen of England. He used the buzz to land investors, build a company, and get people to buy telephones across the globe. He understood that what matters isn’t who thinks of an idea first. It’s not even who takes action first. It’s who spreads the idea the farthest. We writers often delude ourselves into thinking that we’re making progress by publishing a daily blog post or jotting down an outline for a course or writing a book. We are taking action, and we think that’s all that matters. But it doesn’t. You can write blog posts from now until doomsday, and if no one reads them, you might as well be picking your nose. You can write a book that would make Shakespeare green with envy, but you’ll never become a bestseller until someone reads it. You can envision making millions from selling a how-to course, but you’ll never make a dollar until you convince someone to be a customer. The secret to changing the world isn’t you having good ideas. It’s getting those ideas into the heads of other people. So, tell somebody Instead of waiting for popular bloggers to discover you, email them a link to your best post and tell them why it’s important that they link to it. Instead of dreaming about writing your autobiography one day, publish your story as a guest post for a popular blog and see how people respond. Instead of begging venture capitalists for seed capital, make a few prototypes, give them away to people who need them, and then watch to see what happens. Nine times out of ten, you’ll receive a kind but lukewarm response, and you’ll know that your idea is never going to be as big as you thought it would be. It’ll hurt, but at least you’ll know. One day though, you’ll get to that 10th time, where the person you tell will be so impressed that they’ll tell someone else, and they’ll tell someone else, and they’ll tell someone else, and your idea spreads around the world. That’s how change happens. And it all starts with you. You have to stop worrying about getting the credit or finding the right venue or waiting until the right time, and just give it away, right now, to as many people as possible. It’s counterintuitive, but the more people who know your idea, the safer it is. It’s the brilliant people who keep their ideas to themselves who lose out. Someone like Alexander Bell comes along, makes the same discovery, and spreads the idea around the world, while Mr. Brilliant keeps busily figuring out the optimum strategy. Don’t be that guy. We already have far, far too many geniuses who closet themselves away from the world with the rationalization that no one understands or respects them. What we need are more evangelists, people who are willing to fight tooth and nail for their ideas, to change the world not through money or power or smarts, but by drowning out the voices of anyone who dares to disbelieve. That’s what Alexander Bell did, and I believe we can do it too. The world is waiting for us to speak up, and all we have to do is step up and take the microphone.
Of The CIA As An Artist By Lila Rajiva 20 January, 2007 to Frances Saunders, in her well-documented book, “The CIA and the Cultural Cold War,” the CIA financed and groomed the avant-garde art movement from which abstract expressionism, performance art and the other freak shows of the art world emerged. In the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, the Agency wanted to move the center of art away from the social realism of European artists, which threatened the status quo with its powerful, realistic depictions of the human condition. So, it brought to national attention a group of bohemian artists who were busy struggling on the sidelines painting abstract scenes devoid of any identifiable representation of human figures. The groups included the likes of Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and William In 1947 when Pollock dipped a stick into a gallon of diluted house paint and swirled and dripped color across his canvas, he had set off a new style in art. The man was famous for splattering paint on his canvasses any which way to create his paintings. Sometimes he even got young models with paint rubbed over their naked bodies to roll across the canvasses. So dissolute was Pollock that he was called the wild man of expressionism. After he became famous, rich people would invite him to their parties hoping he would live up to his reputation and pee in the fireplace. All the new artists were rebellious, disaffected, self-destructive. Pollock himself was killed in a drunken car crash in 1956….that looked suicidal. Another suspicious car accident finished off sculptor David Smith. And in the decade following, Kline drank himself to death, Smith died in a car accident, and Mark Rothko slashed his arms and bled to death after announcing, “"Everyone can see what a fraud I am." That should have been enough of a hint that there was something dead-end in the whole business. But the CIA took a larger and more pragmatic view. It thought that the would-be geniuses might be useful props in an impending face-off with Joe Stalin. Of course, many of the artists themselves were socialist in sympathy or at least, they made gestures in that direction. Rothko, for instance, agreed to a commission from New York’s swankiest of the swank, the Four Seasons restaurant, solely in order to torment the patrons with claustrophobic scenes. He had modeled them on Michelangelo’s blocked off windows in the vestibule of the Laurentian Library in Florence. Michelangelo’s anteroom of death, leads off the cloister of the Medici church of San Lorenzo, and is a nightmare in architecture. Rothko was hell bent on reproducing its suffocating effect in the New York watering hole. “I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room," he gloated, He wanted his paintings to make “those rich bastards” "feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up." The CIA bankrolled a whole bevy of professional pointy heads and public pontificators like Irving Kristol, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Hannah Arendt, and Mary McCarthy. It was especially fond of ex-leftists like Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, and George Orwell who had ratted out establishment Stalinists. Money poured into cultural journals like the famous Partisan Review and Kenyon Review, among others. The Congress of Cultural Freedom was another Agency outfit, set up as an umbrella organization to bring together all possible opponents to Stalinist totalitarianism. All claimed, of course, that they were motivated only by their own convictions and threw up their hands in astonishment when they were later informed that CIA hand-outs were behind all those plushy conventions at Lake Como and Paris. But their surprise seems a tad rehearsed. How could they not have known whom they were working for? And why else would sophisticated intellectuals with a keen eye for the atrocities of the Soviet Empire manage to wink… or shut both eyes… to what the America was up to in Guatemala, Greece, Iran, and Korea? Or to the U.S. support for the killings in Indochina and Algeria? How did they not know who was paying their salaries and funding their otherwise defunct rags? But the CIA was also involved in co-opting the intellectuals in another subtler way. It was busy sending boatfuls of American artists to European shores in the hope that the bitter pill of imperialism would go down the throats of critics there better when it was sugar coated with song and dance. It especially liked to parade black artists like Marion Anderson and Louis Armstrong to undercut criticism about domestic racial policies. Of course, if the new minstrels forgot to sing according to script and started ad-libbing, like Richard Wright, they were quickly shoved back into the closet. And then there was MOMA, or the Museum of Modern Art, into which the CIA emptied its coffers, in the hope of unearthing new styles of art that would dilute any tendency to political enthusiasm among artists. Abstract art was the Agency’s favorite. The CIA regarded it as an "anti-Communist ideology, the ideology of freedom, of free enterprise. Non-figurative and politically silent it was the very antithesis of socialist realism." MOMA’s founder, Nelson Rockefeller, even called it "free enterprise painting." Money poured through MOMA and another CIA outfit, the Fairfield Foundation, allowing Abstract Expressionism to rapidly take Europe’s chicest galleries by storm and change modern aesthetics irretrievably. The apolitical art of the abstract artists was brandished as true art, because it was not tainted with political concerns. If this meant simply that we would in the future be spared the stutterings of Jeaneane Garofolo and Michael Douglas on Middle East politics or global warming, then we would be squarely in the CIA’s camp. But of course, the CIA had no objection to artists posturing about politics at all so long as it was the right politics – which meant politics that suited the aims of American politicians in the post war period. And for America in those days what was most important was that the value of “freedom” be upheld against the tyranny of Stalinism. An art that recognized no bounds, restrictions, rules, representations, or models was as suited as anything could be to used as propaganda for freedom. And so we had a bunch of marginalized, substance-addicted minor talents suddenly being touted as Renaissance geniuses. Noted critics compared Rothko to Michelangelo. One professor of art likened his paintings to Annunciations'. Another claimed he had seen a student rolling on the floor with joy in front of a Rothko painting at the Tate. Yet another critic called Pollock’s drip paintings the Big Bang of modern art and the “Promethean act” by which the painter “stole the sacred fire from Europe”. Michelangelo and Rembrandt had both been “made irrelevant” by drip painting. The hyperbole was typical of a public spectacle. Only repeat a big enough lie often enough, said Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, and it will quickly become received wisdom with It soon became part of the gospel of modernity that art was something completely unrelated to society or politics, free of all recognizable human needs, limitations, restrictions, But the emperor’s clothes were not always opaque to everyone. Inevitably, even one besotted critic had to admit that he could spot the raw boody underneath. There were, it turns out, earthier foundations to the public spectacle of modern art than the Renaissance masters. Writing about Pollock’s predilection for squirting paint at random, David Dalton dredges up a memory of the painter recalled by an observant neighbor: He saw himself standing beside his father on a flat rock, watching his father pissing, making patterns on the surface of the stone . . . and he wanted to do the same thing when he grew up. “Grand Design: How 9-11 United Conservatives in Pursuit of Empire,” Corey Robin, The Washington Post, May 2, 2004, p. B01. “Francis Fukuyama says Tuesday’s Attack marks the end of ‘America’s Exceptionalism’,” Francis Fukuyama, Financial Times, September 15, 2001, p. 1. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, Frances Stonor Saunders, New York: New Press, April 2000. Mark Rothko: A Biography, James E. B. Breslin ,Chicago: University of Chicago Press, April 1998. “Feeding Fury,” Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, December 7, “A stroke of Genius,” David Dalto Share Your Insights
I was writing program for binary tree and trying to find the leght of binary tree through max_tree function.This code compile and work fine but I coudlnot understand the max_tree function which is using recursion. The basis question which I have max_tree recursion function about base condition.base condition is returning zero but how is it going to calculate height of the tree. Please find the code below for more info. I have given only max_tree function if require I can provide complete code also. Please ignore cout I was using for debug purpose I don't think that's correct; line 5 should return 0. If any subtree rooted at X has no children, then its size is 1. Using this code, it would return 2, as a max_tree(NULL) still returns 1. Anyway, the logic is pretty simple. The height of a subtree is the amount of tiers (levels) it contains. For a leaf node, this is 1, because it only has one tier: the 0-tier (or root-tier). By definition, each "downward path" in the tree ends in a leaf node, thus the height of a subtree is the length of the maximum size "downward path". At each node, a new subtree starts, with the current node as a root. The height of this subtree is 1 (itself) plus the biggest size of the left and right subtree. Thus, the logic does this: walk down until a leaf is found, then walk up and add 1 for each tier encountered. Discard the shortest subtree.
Created in this Craftsy Course Master linear perspective and learn to draw landscapes accurately using simple tools and classic techniques. Offer some kudos... Join the conversation... Ask a question... Add your comment... \|Here are some details about my project:\| Share a little about the materials, processes and techniques used to create this piece. 150gsm sketchbook 8.25x10.25"; graphite pencil H; 4x5" Albertian veil; cone of vision; straight measuring stick; sketch size 5x7.5". What are you most proud of? 1. I'm moving forward and getting into the habit of posting my projects weekly, even if I consider my progress to be quite slow. Watching the video lessons is one thing, doing the exercises is another, and posting projects is a yet another big step. I'm learning a very great deal from other students' projects. 2. Not being overwhelmed by being too self-critical. Yes, I see lots of faults in relation to what I'm learning from the video lessons, but am acutely aware of how different it is outdoors compared to the more controlled studio environment (e.g. a static Albertian veil to look through). 3. Giving myself time to absorb and put into practice what I'm learning in the videos, one step at a time. Yes, I've done a plan view based on the Paul Signac painting posted earlier and yes I'm aware of atmospheric perspective, but am doing one thing slowly at a time. 4. Realising the cone of vision allows me to very accurately assess how much I can "fit" on the page. 5. I've started "adopting" a couple of trees in my local area for sketching purposes. I'll be sketching them four times a year, noting the changes from season to season. With a plan view. What advice would you give someone starting this project? Stick to the advice about a greyed border. Stick to the advice about a 8x10" sketch if using, say, a 4x5" Albertian veil. Don't do as I did and scale down to a smaller sketch size. I made an arithmetic error in scaling down to fit my sketchbook and wondered why I was erroneously and inadvertently elongating my sketches (!). Stick to the advice about using a cone of vision. Stick to the advice about using a straight measuring stick towards the end of your sketch, to "check" your work (too "messy" a process if used too early).
The higher education system in Moffat County is seeing a higher number of students this year, as Colorado Northwest Community College (CNCC) begins its fall semester. Though most students have not yet started classes that begin later in the semester, just comparing this year's beginning to last year's shows a marked growth. "We are seeing a significant increase," CNCC Vice President Dean Hollenbeck said. "If you compare today with the same date last year, we have 16 and a half more FTE's than last year. That translates to about 50 to 60 more students for CNCC." The total enrollment for the 2001 fall semester has not been calculated. An FTE is a Full Time Equivalent student. The college calculates a Full Time Equivalent student using the number of credit hours being taken at the facility. Thirty credit hours equals one FTE. Hollenbeck thinks the late starting classes will further improve CNCC's enrollment, and by the end of the academic year there will be further growth in the number of students. Along with the tuition buy-down, new opportunities at CNCC have driven this increase, Hollenbeck said. "Our private pilot and flight instruction programs are doing real well, and people are excited. We have an airplane here now, an office and computers, and we have people that have to wait for the spring semester before they can sign up," he said. "Our cosmetology program appears it will be ready for January I'm not sure, but I can guess that that new program will have another positive impact on our enrollment numbers. "In fire sciences, our wildland fire training will begin later this fall, and firefighting I and II we also hope to have for January, which we feel is another strong addition to the quality programs we offer at CNCC." Other classes have been filled close to the maximum, or have seen demand that requires some students to wait until next semester to enroll because the course is completely full. The anatomy and physiology course was forced to move to a new location because of the class size, according to Gene Bilodeau, associate dean of learner instruction and support services at CNCC. "We feel good, and are excited about what's happening here at CNCC," Hollenbeck said. "We have people coming in, and as people come, take one class, get involved and then take two or three, their involvement snowballs. We hope that is the case, and we feel it will be. "We are the best buy in the state of Colorado for higher education, and the quality of our core programs, and the quality of our faculty and staff, are very high."
Add To Favorites Learn about snake habits and habitats, then create a model of a snake in its natural surroundings. Independently, or in collaborative groups, students research the types of snakes that live in their area. Find out what kind of habitat in which each snake lives. For example, in Australia, the green tree python or the Emerald Tree Boa, is found in trees in the rain forest. The Common Kingsnake is popular in North and Central America. This snake is black and white in California, but different shades in other areas. Using Crayola® Model Magic, students mold one snake that might be found in their backyards or a park nearby. Find pictures of the snake to share details such as its teeth, markings, or rattles. Students cover work area with recycled newspaper. Paint snake with Crayola Washable Tempera Paints and Crayola Paint Brushes. Allow time to air-dry. Some snakes have intricate stripes and designs. An Eastern Coral Snake has rings of red, black, and white that are so bright they look like they were just colored. Use Crayola Glitter Glue add snake designs. Next, students create their snake's natural habitat with items such as potting soil, twigs, leaves, or grass in a box. Glue materials to the box with Crayola School Glue. Dry. Place the model snake in its natural surroundings. People around the world give thanks for their food. Celebrate a harvest of pineapples, pumpkins, or pomegranates-and sho Add To Favorites Imagination and problem-solving go to work as children check out real bugs and create their own. Protection of the world’s tropical rainforests is a key environmental strategy for keeping the Earth healthy. Demonstrat Create a 3-D braille chart simply with Crayola® School Glue, Markers and paper. Vivaldi inspires paintings incorporating symbols of the seasons. Gild torn-paper edges and make golden leaf imprints on this decorative frame. Display original poetry, photos, or other Display the 7 principles of Kwanzaa in a one-of-a-kind accordion window book. Study the phases of the moon. Test your knowledge with this exciting in-class moon game!
Because Christ is the Son of God, He is superior to angels in every way. Angels do not seem real to us. They are found in fairy tales, and we tell children about them; but we tend not to take them seriously. They are very real, however, and play an important role in ministering to us as believers. Throughout the Bible we only get glimpses of the work of angels in our lives, but one of those glimpses is found in today's chapter. We read here that they are sent forth to minister to those who will inherit salvation. Perhaps this is the passage from which the idea of a guardian angel has come. Apparently, angels can appear in human form, for some have "entertained angels" without knowing it (Hebrews 13:2). They are also very active in world affairs. At present, they are much greater than men, but one day redeemed men will "judge angels" (1 Corinthians 6:3). Angels are ministers who serve believers, and we can praise the Lord for them: Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who only does wondrous things! And blessed be His glorious name forever! And let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen (Psalm 72:18-19). Pause for praise and thanksgiving. Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin: O Lord, I know the way of man is notin himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. O Lord, correct me, but with justice; Not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing (Jeremiah 10:23-24). Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. As you make your requests known to the Lord, include: a stronger desire to be like Christ, local churches across the nation, your activities for the day. Close with this prayer to the Lord: He is the living God, and steadfast forever; His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed, And His dominion shall endure to the end. He delivers and rescues, And He works signs and wonders In heaven and on earth, Who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions (Daniel 6:26-27).
Here are some test cases I'm working with to debug and develop the global illumination changes. They are small tests that display important effects of globally lighting very clearly and have appeared in the literature describing various algorithms for such. The scene for the cornell box already exists in the 'data' directory of the main development branch but the materials describing the different colors are broken. I instead uses a scene of the Cornell Box for Blender. First I generated a ground truth image using the radiosity system in Blender, then I exported the geometry and fixed up the color materials inside the world file to make sure we can achieve the same result in lighter2. Here are some images to show the differences. I will use images of this scene to show progress through each milestone. One very interesting test case for radiosity is a sculpture in the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. by John Ferren, entitled "Construction in Wood, A Daylight Experiment". It was discovered by some of the early radiosity researchers (particular credit goes to Cindy Gorn who first modeled the sculptured and presented it in her thesis) and used it to show how important diffuse-to-diffuse light interaction can be. All of the color visible on the viewing side of this sculpture comes from light bouncing off the surfaces on the back of the sculpture diffusely (not specularly). The result is a structure that looks completely white and boring when naïvely ray-traced or directly lit but vibrantly colorful when a global lighting solution is computed. I will also use this scene to evaluate and demonstrate progress on this project. Info about progress on my Google Summer of Code 2009 project on Advanced Lighting & Shading in CrystalSpace. \|<< <\|\|Current\|\|> >>\|
[FOM] Inconsistency of Inaccessibility JoeShipman at aol.com Tue Oct 25 19:06:07 EDT 2011 I disagree about the truth of measurable cardinals bring more easy to argue for than their consistency. The statement that Lebesgue measure can be extended to a countably additive measure on all subsets of R^n has plenty of intuitive plausibility but implies only the consistency of measurable cardinals, and any universe in which measurable cardinals exist can be cut down to one in which they don't exist (but are consistent) but in which all the same statements are true up to a very high level of statement complexity (all the arithmetical sentences, and all the analytical sentences up to something like sigma^1_4 if I recall correctly). What is the logically and ontologically simplest meaningful statement whose truth depends on the existence of measurable cardinals and not simply on the arithmetical consequences of measurable cardinals such as their consistency? Sent from my iPhone On Oct 25, 2011, at 9:09 AM, MartDowd at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 10/24/2011 5:01:50 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, meskew at math.uci.edu writes: > Are you claiming that giving a convincing philosophical argument for > the addition of a mathematical axiom makes it likely that the axiom is > It adds to the evidence. Statements which are independent of ZFC can only be accepted by agreement that they are true. At this point, such agreement is being argued for, but is by no means inevitable. A candidate for acceptance should already enjoy substantial likelihood that it is consistent. > Existence of inaccessible cardinals seems consistent. They have appeared in logic, in settings such as Grothendieck universes, monster sets, etc. Most mathematicians would probably agree that consistency holds. Claiming that truth holds is a bolder leap, although various mathematicians have been inclined to make it. Actually, it seems that likelihood of consistency is a prerequisite to possibility of truth. > The existence of measurable cardinals provides another example. Many set theorists are inclined to accept the truth of this (I think the opposite view should be well-considered, though). So far, attempts to prove inconsistency have failed; but to me at least, there are few if any arguments for consistency, other than that inconsistency has not been proved. Truth, in fact, for inaccessible cardinals, on the other hand, can be given various arguments. > I might add that some of the arguments in my paper are mathematical, for example that certain axioms imply that Ord is Mahlo. This could be seen as "a posteriori" evidence, as so highly favored by the advocates of measurable cardinal existence. > FOM mailing list > FOM at cs.nyu.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... More information about the FOM
Decorator Diana Phipps finds shortcuts to luxury Boston — With paint brushes, sewing needles, and staple gun in hand, Diana Phipps bypasses expensive professionals to create luxurious rooms at minimal cost. A decorator who isn't concerned with contracting schedules, ordering merchandise, or fancy decorator showrooms, she is adept at making everything from fireplaces and furniture to the fringe on chairs. Mrs. Phipps is something of a compulsive decorator. Her own homes, one in London and one in Oxfordshire, are never in a completely finished state as she continually tries new shortcuts to her ideal of richness and comfort. She has worked mainly for herself and friends on projects ranging from decorating one-room apartments to renovating an English country barn. As a rule, she prefers to take on a dilapidated house or a problem room with low ceilings and squat windows rather than decorate a perfectly proportioned home. ''When something is perfect already, it demands too much respect. It's more exciting to make something out of nothing,'' she says. Mrs. Phipps's decorating style is hard to pinpoint. It leans toward 19 th-century European, but she also draws from other periods and continents. The trademarks of her improvised opulence include draped beds, fabric-covered or paneled walls, plush furniture, rich colors, and glistening wood and gilt. Mrs. Phipps became accustomed to grand surroundings at an early age. Born Countess Diana Sternberg, she grew up in a castle in Czechoslovakia until the German occupation of 1938 eventually forced the family to give up its holdings. ''As the war progressed, we had less and less of the house,'' says Mrs. Phipps. ''We had to move from floor to floor.'' That's when her mother's ingenuity came into play. ''Mother made clothes out of curtains and curtains out of clothes,'' she recalls. The family regained their properties at the end of the war, only to lose them to the communist takeover in 1948. Later the family emigrated to the United States. That's when Diana Phipps started to devise her own techniques for creating beautiful rooms out of inexpensive materials. One of the key principles in her decorating approach is to use what already exists, adapting it rather than throwing it away. She will take a pair of old, well-made curtains, for example, and cover them with a new lightweight fabric. Taking advantage of her ''camouflage'' techniques, she may disguise unsightly kitchen cabinets with trompe l'oeil, or paint a damaged table to look like wood or marble. Another trick she uses is to take one very good piece of furniture, art, or fabric and surround it with less expensive materials. ''It's extraordinary how one good bit picks up everything else. It gives you a guideline for what to do,'' she says. But ''investment'' pieces are seldom necessary to the total effect and are low on her list. ''Things to last a lifetime have always depressed me. They're so final, so binding. Better to spend less in the first place and furnish with fantasy than spend a lifetime stuck with the same boring investment,'' she writes in her new book, ''Affordable Splendor'' (New York: Random House, $20.00). The book is entertaining, and the explanations are illustrated and easy to follow. A section of color photographs shows rooms Mrs. Phipps has decorated. The imagination can be triggered by textile museums, exhibits, paintings, and even shapes in a junkyard. Mrs. Phipps recommends toy shops as a great source for finding little plastic objects that, when painted, can become decoration on picture frames, furniture, and moldings. When scouting flea markets, auctions, and junkyards for old furniture and objects to resurrect, she looks beyond tattered upholstery, exposed springs, or chipped paint for a pleasing general shape. In decorating a room, Mrs. Phipps will combine different styles and periods of furniture in a room as long as the proportions harmonize. ''You can always pull it together with something,'' she says. Mrs. Phipps often uses fabric as the unifying element because it is economical and gives quick results. She uses it to create tents on ceilings, cover walls, make pillows, reupholster furniture, and cover almost anything. She has found that fabrics hold up better on walls than paint, especially if a darker shade is chosen. Her main sources are department stores and wholesalers, where she finds cheap bolts of dress fabrics. Fabric-hunting is ''a paradise'' in New York, she says. It takes some amount of experimentation and confidence to follow Mrs. Phipps's decorating example. But once the ideas get going, she says,''The only thing people may lack is the courage to let loose and do what they want.''
Your Sept. 6 editorial, "California's inconvenient truth," sees obstacles, rather than opportunities, where climate change is concerned. We in the US have a president who calls solutions too expensive, even as climate-change-driven disasters ring up their own astronomical toll and as entire climate- saving industries go unborn due to his lack of vision and leadership. The solutions for climate change are, by and large, win-win answers that will save us money in the longterm via more fuel-efficient cars, houses, and businesses. If there are short-term, front-end costs, so be it; economy at the expense of the planet's future is morally unthinkable. The "inconvenient truth" is that many ignore the absolutely unacceptable cost of doing nothing. Are we, for example, willing to pay the "costs" of losing polar bears, penguins, and myriad other species, or entire cities, or at-sea-level nations as we discover it is too late to act? While much of the answer is in slowing out-of-control population growth and consumption in the leading carbon-producing nations of China, India, and the United States (which is headed toward a billion people this century), it is embarrassing that we do nothing, while Germany, Japan, and Norway move forward for the sake of the planet – and their own economies. Rio Rancho, N.M. Regarding your Sept. 6 editorial about California's new law aimed at reducing carbon emissions: Isn't it obvious that this "mandate" will end up just like the one passed by the California Air Resources Board that "mandated" electric car sales? (CARB later loosened the mandate's requirements.) The California legislature can't figure out how to get what it wants without it costing people's pocketbooks or the economy. The US and other countries' legislatures should take note. If you push too hard in one territory, business and manufacturing moves elsewhere. It is not likely that you will ever get all the world to implement harsh limitations on current technology. Fossil fuels are still relatively cheap. Laws may be put on the books, but enforcement is another thing altogether. I am still waiting to see the Al Gores of the world report on what level of man-made greenhouse gases is acceptable and will not result in the predicted catastrophic effects. From the few reports I have seen, the acceptable level of greenhouse gases is not anywhere near as high as Kyoto levels. Perhaps tax money and public persuasion would be better spent moving populations away from the coastal areas – because if the predictions prove true, current plans to reduce greenhouse gases will not progress fast enough to prevent catastrophe. Regarding her Aug. 31 Opinion piece, "How to bridge two views of success in Iraq": Janessa Gans's description of the different perceptions between Iraqis and Americans shows a great gap to be bridged. But how useful such clarifications are! They are a start to understanding what is needed to build the bridges so needed to win the peace in Iraq. More efforts should be made to work from such a basis of critical thinking and understanding. The Monitor welcomes your letters and opinion articles. Because of the volume of mail we receive, we can neither acknowledge nor return unpublished submissions. All submissions are subject to editing. Letters must be signed and include your mailing address and telephone number. Any letter accepted will appear in print and on our website, www.csmonitor.com. Mail letters to 'Readers Write,' and opinion articles to Opinion Page, One Norway St., Boston, MA 02115, or fax to (617) 450-2317, or e-mail to Letters.
Japan earthquake: Survivors dig out, return to work As one survivor of the Japan earthquake and subsequent tsunami says, 'We have to rebuild. It’s the duty of those of us who are left.' Yamamoto, Japan — Toshiyo Shishido found it hard to know where to start when he returned Monday morning for the first time since the tsunami to the agricultural supply store that he manages in this coastal village. The forecourt was torn up and piled with tree trunks, random timber, and a roof that the giant wave had dislodged from its house. A truck lay on its side around back. Inside the front door, smashed by a tree, the floor was coated with thick mud beneath waist high debris. Armed with a chainsaw, a forklift truck, and shovels, Mr. Shishido’s employees were shifting the mess on Monday, wheelbarrow load by wheelbarrow to the roadside, in a first tentative effort to recover from the disaster that has ravaged large swathes of Japan’s northeastern coastline. A 8.9-magnitude earthquake rocked northeast Japan on March 11, prompting a tsunami that sent 30-foot waves miles inland along the country's northeast coast and destabilized the Fukushima nuclear plant. Officials say the death toll from the earthquake and the tsunami is likely to hit at least 10,000. Survivors have begun to dig out their homes and businesses and begin to look for ways to rebuild their lives. Clearing the debris Most business is still at a standstill the length of the coast hit by the tsunami; residents are still emerging from shock, shops are closed for lack of supplies, and much of the region is without electricity, water, and gasoline. Others in Sendai were doing grim work. At the port, totally devastated by the tsunami, firemen from all over Japan were combing the wreckage for bodies; the time for finding survivors, they said, has passed. They clambered up piles of crazily stacked vehicles, peering through broken windows. They picked through the mad assortment of detritus that the tsunami left behind, countless lives and businesses reduced in minutes to so much flotsam and jetsam. In just one patch of a few square feet were scattered a pile of dried peas, a coil of clear plastic hosepipe, a wooden pallet, a bundle of sacks, a table, two tires, a carton of detergent, a gas cylinder, a car tipped against a tree, a mattress, two packs of kitchen towels, and a refrigerator without its doors. A little further away lay a kitchen sink. Mr. Shishido's simple, if daunting, task of clearing out the debris around his store seemed to act as an antidote to the pain he felt as he surveyed the destruction around him: Half his village flattened, untold neighbors missing, and the surrounding rice paddies rendered barren by salty seawater. But he was still stunned. “I cannot think,” he says. “I just want time to go backwards. I want the things we used to have back.” Fridge righted, dishes piled in a corner The Shirasaki family share that dream, but worry it may be vain. On Monday afternoon they were making a start on clearing out the house they built three years ago, now scarred by a tidemark eight feet up the walls testifying to the height of the wave that swept through their home. Inside, Mari Shirasaki had begun to impose the first semblance of order on the chaos that the tsunami had left in its wake. Crockery was piled in a corner on the muddy floor, the refrigerator had been righted, and salvageable cans and bottles had been packed in cartons. Outside her husband Yasahiro was nailing blue tarpaulins where French windows had once graced his small two-story home next to the port in Sendai, while their two young sons amused themselves by collecting some of the thousands of cans of beer strewn all over their street. “I hope we’ll live here again but I’m afraid it may not be possible,” Mrs. Shirasaki sighs. “I think the seawater may rot the walls. All we’ll be left with are our mortgage payments.” Truck driver salvages DVDs, but little else Keiji Sakuma and his wife Natsuko have been left with even less. They had returned to salvage what they could from the wreckage of their home in Sendai but soon been told to leave by firemen because the structure was likely to collapse. Mr. Sakuma carried a sodden pouch of DVDs for his daughter. His wife had rescued only her most precious keepsake – her child’s umbilical cord. A truck driver for a transport company based in Sendai port, Mr. Sakuma is now idle. “I don’t know when I’ll get my job back, or even if I will,” he says. “My boss has not called me.” Back in Yamamoto, Shishido fears it may take months before he is back to selling fertilizer and farm equipment from his cooperative store. “But we have to rebuild,” he says. “It’s the duty of those of us who are left.”
For Palestinians, empathy with Jewish suffering in Holocaust is complicated (+video) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke out against the Holocaust – the first Palestinian leader to do so – just weeks after a trip by Palestinians to Auschwitz. Jerusalem — Ohood Muraqten had read a lot about the suffering of Jews in World War II. But that hardly prepared her for a groundbreaking trip that brought 27 Palestinians like her to Nazi concentration camps in Poland last month. “I thought that OK, I know about the Holocaust…. But when I arrived there it was completely different – there was no comparison [between what we read and] what we saw in Auschwitz and Birkenau,” says Ms. Muraqten, a peace activist. For the first few nights, Muraqten had trouble sleeping. She says she felt the presence of the souls of those killed. “It was confusing, because you can’t understand in three or four days that much pain – millions … killed in the gas [chambers],” she adds. “But at the same time, as a Palestinian, I started to compare it or connect it to the conflict here.” After decades of rejecting the Holocaust's traumatic imprint on Jewish history, out of fear that accepting it would justify Israeli claims to the land to the detriment of Palestinians, the trip generated a fierce debate in Palestinian society. (Editor's note: Due to an editing error, this sentence has been changed to clarify the issue.) Whether that played a role in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas taking the unprecedented step Sunday of acknowledging the Holocaust as "the most heinous crime" of the modern era remains unclear. But what is clear is that a taboo topic is now in the spotlight, prompting some rare reexamination in a conflict in which both peoples appear preoccupied by their own suffering. “As educators, we have a message for both: for Palestinians, to understand what the Holocaust means to Jews, what it meant, what goal it had, and how this goal was being implemented,” says trip leader Mohammed Dajani. “And to Israel we have also an education role to help them see that the Palestinians, when they look at [the Jews’] suffering, they remember their own suffering. “And as a result, I hope that the conclusion of all this might be reconciliation,” he adds. Abbas released his statement as Israel commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day. He expressed sympathy for the "families of the victims and the innocent people who were killed by the Nazis, including the Jews and others." While Israeli leaders dismissed Abbas’s remarks as an opportunistic appeal to the international community amid a fresh rift with Israel, it marks an unusual willingness – on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – to acknowledge the suffering of the other. “As Palestinians under occupation, we want all the world to feel sympathy with us,” says Salim Swidan, a Palestinian journalist and one of the students on the trip. “The first step is to feel sympathy with all the world and all the victims all over the world. After that we can ask them to feel sympathy with us.” The trip was part of a German-funded project run by the Freidrich Schiller University, and also involved two Israeli universities that brought 30 Israeli students to a Palestinian refugee camp. The project title, “Hearts of Flesh – Not Stone,” comes from the words of the biblical prophet Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” The Palestinian trip was led by Professor Dajani, head of the American studies program at Al Quds University in East Jerusalem, where most of the participants study. While Dajani anticipated some pushback, he was unprepared for the ensuing vitriol. He was lambasted as a traitor who was brainwashing Palestinians so that they would give up their rights; Al Quds was pressured to fire him, even though he led the trip in a personal capacity. [But] he staunchly defended the trip. “I will not remain a bystander even if the victims of suffering I show empathy for are my occupiers,” he wrote in a public statement. Closed chapter of history The takeaways from the trip were two-fold. Seeing evidence of the death camps made a deep impression on the Palestinians, most of whom were taught nothing about the Holocaust until university, in contrast to Israelis that begin studying it in grade school. From recordings of the sound of the trains, soldiers, and gas chambers, to piles of shoes of those killed, to talking with Holocaust survivors, the Palestinian students peered into a previously closed chapter of history. But they also saw echoes of their own suffering, including in 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced out of their homes amid the chaotic fighting that surrounded Israel’s declaration of independence – an event Palestinians refer to as the nakba, or catastrophe. “It’s a mixed feeling,” says Hani Smirat, a trainer in conflict resolution who is also studying at Al Quds. “I need to feel as a human that what happened with Jews is not acceptable, and the other feeling that I face the same situation. So it’s a conflict between my story and the other story.” “For the Jews to believe more in peace, because they knew and lived very harsh moments, they have to be more sensitive to our suffering,” he adds.
Hepatitis C has a cure now! Photo credit to gizmocrazed.com A new pill is set to quash the epidemic of Hepatitis C, a disease that kills more people in the US than HIV. The pill has already been proven effective in clinical trials. Dr. Arthur Rubens, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, who had an advanced case of the disease, volunteered his body in the hopes that this pill would at last be the cure he desperately needed. Much to his surprise-and delight-the virus was completely out of his system in a matter of just three months. Hepatitis C is the problem child in the Hepatitis family, the worst of the bunch. It is a virus that attacks the liver, spread by contact with infected blood. It is the disease your mom warned you about when you expressed your desire to get a tattoo. The virus can go unnoticed for decades, steadily eating away at the liver, resulting in cirrhosis (scarring), liver failure, and even liver cancer. Symptoms, when they do appear, include fatigue, fever, yellowing of the skin (jaundice) and nausea. There are up to four million new cases of Hepatitis C every year. 150 million of the victims are chronically ill-the virus stays with them for life. It truly is the new AIDS in terms of destruction. 350,000 people will die this year due to resulting liver complications. In recent months, medical companies have been racing to gain approval for new Hepatitis treatments from the FDA. Gilead Sciences appears to be in the lead, with their pill named sofosbuvir recommended for approval by committee, awaiting the final decision in December. Sofosbuvir and its peers will be a welcome relief to Hepatitis sufferers. Until now, the most effective treatment has involved weekly injections of a man-made protein known as interferon alfa, alongside daily doses of ribavirin. Though many patients were eventually cured by these drugs, they produced harsh side effects, like depression, anemia, hair loss, and flu-like symptoms. In comparison, the new pill produces little, if any, side effects. It acts as an inhibitor, blocking the enzyme needed for the virus to replicate itself. Medical experts are hopeful of the prospects of this new cure. Available to the public as once-a-day tablets, it would more than halve treatment time, reducing it to a palatable eight weeks. But there is always a caveat. Prices for treatment sessions could range from $60,000-$100,000, no small price to pay, especially for the uninsured. If these new pills are to be of any help to the millions of infected people, access to treatment must be made more affordable and more widespread. Perhaps the price will go down as demand increases. Until then, victims of Hepatitis C can only hold their breaths in anticipation. By Erik Bergholm
First Year Experience First Year Freshmen: You have been invited to apply for a new and exciting program... FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE: Foundation for Academic Success at Fresno State Become one of only 100 students chosen from a large pool to participate in a proven approach for a successful Freshman year of college and beyond. APPLY (Application Deadline Monday, May 26, 2014) Questions and Answers These questions will be refined and added to as questions come in. We encourage you to please check this page often. What is the purpose of FYE? - To increase retention, help you stay in college and to reduce the time to graduate from Fresno State. - To assist first generation college students. - To provide a learning community of peers for social and academic support. - In 2009 Fresno State developed the FYE program to support first-time freshmen needing to take English and math remediation, and who are the first generation in their family to attend college. - There are no additional classes. Every class you take will fulfill either the remediation for English and Math, or General Education (GE) requirements. - Many general education courses on campus have class sizes of 200 or more, making a one-to-one relationship with the teacher difficult. Why should I apply to FYE? - It has been proven that FYE students have on average a higher GPA than other students after the first semester. - Extra support during your freshman year - Required English and Math classes are built into your program - Easy registration – all classes bundled - Classes typically scheduled in the morning and early afternoon. - Dedicated Faculty chosen to work together to support the 100 students - You will make friends, study-pals with the 99 other students - Special support services are provided - Classes guaranteed both Fall & Spring semesters - Use EPortfolio - Be part of the new DISCOVERe tablet initiative How was I selected to apply? All those asked to apply are freshmen who promise to have met Fresno State admissions requirements and need to complete remediation courses in English and Math while beginning their college experience. You must meet Early Start requirements to be admitted to Fresno State. Can my friend apply? Only if they received an email asking them to apply. What are the classes? CLASSES for fall: English 5A, Math 4R, Literacy & Early Education 80T, History 12, Comm 8 CLASSES for spring: English 5B, Pol Sci 2, Biology 10, Critical Thinking courses Can I take other classes? YES. You can take a course in the Spring. The course should be in the afternoon or evening such as a major prerequisite, performance, or activity class. To assist your success in this first year, It is NOT recommended that you take more than one other academic class without special advising. Will this work with my major? YES. All students asked to apply need the English and Math course and all other courses apply to the required GE program needed for all majors. What classes will fulfill the math and English requirements I need? The English 5A and 5B meet the English requirement. Math 4R meets the Math requirement. You must successfully complete the courses. Can I only participate in the Fall semester? NO. If you apply you must participate for both semesters (fall and spring). How many units will I earn? You have the opportunity to earn 24-30 units toward graduation. How many General Education (GE) units will I earn? You can earn 21 units of GE credit with the FYE courses.. You will meet the areas of A1, A2, A3, B2, D1, D2, & E. You can earn 24 units if you take an additional GE or major course in spring. Can I Drop Courses? Students will be required to take and remain in all 15 units in the fall and 12 units in the spring. Courses will be linked and selected courses cannot be dropped. Will this program allow me to work? There will be time blocks but FYE is a full-time student schedule and working is a personal decision. You have some of the afternoon and the evening for employment. Remember that you need to allow for study time each day while in college. One hour in class requires three hours of studying. (Comm 8 is three hours of class which equals nine hours of study time per week.) What is service-learning? Fresno State is an engaged university; providing services to our region and community. As a cohort your faculty will link course conversations with services and issues in our community. If I apply is admission to this program guaranteed? NO. We anticipate that this program will be popular due to the support offered and the guaranteed courses once accepted. We would encourage you to apply today. If admitted to this program is course registration guaranteed? YES. Once you have been selected you will be registered. You will not have the experience of closed courses or taking classes at times that you do not prefer. Your courses will be available to you on your my.fresnostate.edu portal. When is the application due? MONDAY, MAY 26, 2014 When will I be notified of my acceptance into FYE? Students selected will be notified prior to Dog Days. Please watch your CSU email for the message. Alternates will be notified if a space opens up during the summer. How will I know what classes to register for? Students will automatically be registered for classes in the fall and spring semester. Students will be assisted when registering for the additional spring course if needed. What else do I need to know? The main form of communication at Fresno State is Fresno State e-mail. If you have not already done so, it is HIGHLY recommended that you access your Fresno State e-mail account (go to 'Settings' and then 'Accounts') and list your personal e-mail address so a copy of everything sent to your Fresno State e-mail automatically forwards to your personal e-mail account. By doing this, you only need to check your personal e-mail and will not be left out of important notices, announcements, etc. First-time freshmen are often unaware that they are held accountable for the information that is sent to their Fresno State e-mail by the various offices on campus (eg., Admissions, Financial Aid, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, etc.) and we want your first experiences at Fresno State to be positive.
Previous Anthropology Department Field Schools 2008-2009 Field Schools Anthropology field expedition to the Ladakh region of the Western Himalayan Indo-Tibetan Borderlands and Dharamsala – Cancelled The trip will explore the history, musci, culture and politics of Venezuela – Cancelled Anth 440 or 540 Field School Cancelled due to economic downturn 2007-2008 Field Schools The department has offered field schools in cultural anthropology in Oaxaca, visual anthropology in China, and archaeology field schools in various locations (e.g.s, Easter Island, Northern Ireland). Following is an example of a visual anthropology field school offered in Winter session, 2008. ANTH 440/540: Ethnographic Film School in Shandong Province, China Shoot an Ethnographic Film in Northeastern China January 3rd – 16th, 2008 Visit the spiritual home of Chinese civilization in the context of a packaged group tour of northeastern China’s oldest, and most vital tourist destinations. Students will climb the 7000 steps of Taishan (Mt. Tai), the most revered of China’s five sacred mountains, which has been a pilgrimage destination for 3000 years. Students will also visit the seaport city of Qingdao (Tsingtao) – home of the world famous breweries – as well as the Birthplace of Confucius in Qufu, Shandong Province. The purpose of the trip will be several ethnographic films that will be planned, shot and edited by student teams in each location / city. There will be planning sessions before departure. . The instructor’s permission is required for this Winter Session course, offered through University College and Extension Services (UCES). For more information, contact Prof. Scott Wilson, Anthropology
February 23 is 'Work Your Proper Hours Day' organised by the TUC. It's all about getting Britain's army of office workers away from computer screens and out into fresh air. To give you somewhere cultural to eat your sandwiches, 24 Hour Museum is pleased to present ten lunchtime trails in cities around England. Before you get out into the fresh air, just to remind your colleagues where you are off to, and why you are going, why not use this desk reminder, specially designed by the Work Your Proper Hours Team at the TUC? Download the sign, print it out, fold it in half and plonk it on your desk one way round whilst you're away at lunch. Simply switch it round at the end of the day to show you're off on time. The ten lunchtime city trails: More than five million people at work in the UK regularly do unpaid overtime, giving their employers £23 billion of free work every year. If you're one, why not take some time to reflect on how well (or badly) you're balancing your life? February 23 2007 is the day to stop and think about how hard you have been working. For more information visit the TUC's website www.worksmart.org.uk.
The utilization of the nucleic acid RNA, the oldest biomolecule in the world, for medical purposes was believed for a long time to be impossible. But with our pioneering spirit and determination, CureVac has been successful in optimizing the natural structure for RNA-based medicine. Based on convincing preclinical and clinical study data, what was once only a vision has now been confirmed. Our RNA technologies have the potential to completely open the door to new and exciting solutions for the treatment of many types of diseases. mRNA, as an active ingredient, can be used in treating cancer and for the prevention of infectious diseases. However, such examples are only a few of the possibilities for our innovative RNA technology platforms.
BOOKS and CDs LETTERS TO EDITOR A CurtainUp Review David Mamet's play Boston Marriage is the juxtaposition of women in late nineteenth, decorous society with explicit, modern and sometimes sexual language. The plot is less important than the expression of the sexual desires and material needs of these women. The effect is sometimes shocking, but more often, blisteringly witty. The whole, just ninety minutes, is delivered at a galloping pace. The term "Boston Marriage" described New England women, often intellectuals and/or feminists, who lived together without men. They either had independent income or careers of their own. Whether their relationships were sexual or not, they were certainly dependent on each other for emotional support. The women who were thus focussed on each other instead of men are familiar to readers of the novels of Henry James, less likely to be found in a play by David Mamet -- yet here we have Mamet's Anna and Claire. They are more outspoken than James' women but have some of the same problems as their counterparts in James' refined stories. In this case, they are not women of independent means and therefore need a benefactor. That brings us to Anna's male friend who will support her in return for sexual favours. He has given her a very valuable emerald necklace which turns out to belong to the mother of a young girl Claire, wishes to seduce (with Anna as a chaperon). A scandal ensues and Anna uses the financial crisis to ensure Claire's loyalty to her. In true Mamet fashion, Claire and Anna lacerate each other verbally. There are lashings of irony and sarcasm, ribaldry and levity and it is clear that though their concern for feminine liberty does not extend to Anna's young Scottish maid, Catherine. Mamet makes this evident by making Anna repeatedly forget not only the maid's name but her nationality, lecturing her on crop rotation and the causes of the Irish Potato Famine on the assumption that she is Irish. In one such interchange the garrulous maid describes losing what she calls her "most precious possession.quot; "Your rapier wit?" suggests Claire. "No , me maidenhood"! Catherine insists plaintively. Zoë Wanamaker is superbly in her element as the older, more devious and manipulative woman. She has a small frame, twinkling eyes and a retroussé nose which makes her look mischievous. She also has moments of melodrama as she envisages life without financial support. Due to her parentage (Sam Wanamaker was her father) she has mastered the accent but the American accent of Anna Chancellor's Claire, who seems to hold the balance of power in the "marriage", wanders somewhat. As the maid, Lyndsey Marshall is refreshingly open and honest. The whole set has been covered in the same floral chintz fabric. The costumes are in keeping with the period. There are times that the furnishings obscure the women but this is a minor complaint in this sophisticated comedy that's packed with clever dialogue and deserves to find another London theatre to extend its run. Readers interested in knowing more about David Mamet can check out CurtainUp's playwrights' album entry for Mamet
The EU needs a structure for coordination and decision-making in order to ensure that Human Biomonitoring (HBM) can be an effective preventive tool in protecting public health, while governments can use HBM measurements to improve EU and national legislation. These were among the issues highlighted during a Cyprus Presidency Conference entitled “Human Biomonitoring (HBM): Linking Environment to Health and Supporting Policy”, held in Larnaca on October 23 and 24. Human Biomonitoring (HBM) has been defined by the European Commission as "monitoring activities in human beings, using biomarkers that focus on environmental exposures, diseases and/or disorders and genetic susceptibility, and their potential relationships". Since it provides a direct measure of the levels of environmental chemicals in the human body, HBM has proven to be an important tool for the protection of human health. In combination with other findings, human biomonitoring can be used to assess whether the level of exposure of the public to environmental pollutants is acceptable or whether measures need to be taken. The human biomonitoring projects “COPHES” and “DEMOCOPHES”, which prove that a European wide measurement of chemicals in people across Europe using a coordinated and harmonised approach is feasible, provide comparable results for the first time. The projects looked at certain chemicals of concern for health in the hair (mercury) and urine (cotinine, phthalate metabolites, cadmium) of almost 4000 mothers and their children in 17 European countries at the same time, in the same way. Six countries also measured bisphenol A in urine. The levels of chemicals in peoples bodies varied greatly across Europe, showing different exposures (from air, water, food, indoor, consumer products etc) and different living habits. Based on the current health guidance values used in the projects, the levels found are generally not a matter of high concern. Ministry of Health
1. Gold. The price of gold bullion has risen from $294 an ounce in 1998 to $1,404 today, an increase of 377%. "It's the biggest, baddest bubble of them all," says Robert Wiedemer, author of Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown. Gold has no intrinsic value. A telltale indicator that gold is a bubble: incessant cocktail party chatter about buying gold and endless TV commercials offering to buy gold jewelry. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) is up 28% since the beginning of the year. 2. Real estate in China. Chinese real estate prices are up only 9.1% this year, which may seem more frothy than bubbly. But rising prices are generating rising demand, which is a clear sign of a bubble, says Vikram Mansharamani, whose book, Boombustology: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before They Burst, will be published early next year. The participation of amateur investors like waiters and maids in the property boom is a clear sign of a property bubble in China. The fact that developers are building more apartments than there are buyers is another giveaway. 3. Alternative energy. Solar technology is still uneconomic, yet governments all over the world are subsidizing solar energy firms. "There are plenty of people who shouldn't be in the solar energy industry who are," says Mansharamani. Do we really need 250 venture-capital-backed solar cell companies? The Market Sectors Solar Energy ETF (KWT) had a 100% gain this year, before dropping back. 4. Commodities. Blame it on the weather, China or the Fed, but commodities have shot higher in recent months. Wheat is up 60% this year, and other food commodities like corn have also risen dramatically. "The focus is on the food category for bubbles," says Wiedemer, but industrial metals like copper are also very frothy. 5. Apple (AAPL). OK, everybody loves their iPad and iPhone (except if they live in New York or San Francisco, where signal strength is a problem). But Apple shares are up 1,200% since 2001, which has to come close to being the definition of a bubble. "Apple is a high-fashion company," says Wiedemer. "If CEO Steve Jobs either leaves or dies, I think they will have trouble maintaining that incredible fashion sense, and as such it's time will go," he says. 7. Emerging market stocks. As an asset class, these shares have risen 146% in the past two years. "We're only halfway along the way to a gigantic eventual bubble in the emerging markets," says Barton Biggs, the former Morgan Stanley Asset Management chairman who accurately predicted the U.S. stock market bubble in the late 1990s. These countries, such as Indonesia, Australia, Russia and Brazil, are growing wildly even though there's no growth in the world economy. Much of their gains is backed by commodity prices, which are also a bubble (see item No. 4). "I have every reason to believe this will turn into a bubble," says Mansharamani. 8. Small tech companies. It's only been a decade since the tech bubble burst, but cash-rich large tech companies are gobbling up smaller firms without regard to price. For example, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) got into a bidding war with Dell (DELL) over computer storage company 3Par and ended up paying a whopping $2.4 billion, 325 times the firm's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. 9.The U.S. dollar. Although the dollar is down 10% against the euro so far this year, Wiedemer believes the greenback is firmly in bubble territory. He believes it will pop when foreigners stop buying U.S. assets such as stocks and bonds. "Foreigners say, 'I'm worried about inflation -- you're going to pay me back in dollars worth less than when I invested'." While China may hold its dollar bonds forever, he says, pension funds in Japan and insurance companies in Europe will start dumping dollars as U.S. inflation climbs. 10. U.S. government debt. "When this bubble pops you're out of bubbles -- nothing is too big to fail any more," says Wiedemer. The debt bubble is growing very rapidly and will continue to grow, he says. Basically, there's no way the U.S. government can ever pay back the $13.7 trillion it currently owes (mainly to foreigners), and eventually they will stop buying. The bubble pops when the government has trouble selling its debt -- just like Ireland and Greece are experiencing at the moment. Instead of borrowing money, the government starts printing money, which is what's happening now. The Fed's balance sheet has gone from $800 billion in 2008 to $2.2 trillion, and the central bank just announced it was printing another $600 billion. Says Wiedemer: "The medicine starts to become poison."
A total of 186,455 foreclosures filings were made in the United States during the month of October, according to real estate tracking firm RealtyTrac. That number represents a rise of 3% month-over-month, and a decline of 19% year-over-year. In January of this year, 210,941 foreclosures were filed. That equates to one in every 706 housing units in the United States. The lower number of filings is good news, of course, but the there are areas of the country with more than their fair share of foreclosures. The largest year-over-year increases in foreclosures during October occurred in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. As a RealtyTrac executive noted: We continued to see vastly different foreclosure trends across the country in October, depending primarily on how each state's foreclosing infrastructure was able to handle the high volume of delinquent loans during the worst of the foreclosure crisis in 2010. Unfortunately the three states dealing with the biggest rebound in deferred foreclosure activity — New Jersey, New York and Connecticut — also had to deal with the devastation to homes inflicted by super storm Sandy. The foreclosure moratoriums being put into effect as a result of the storm will likely extend the already-lengthy time to foreclose in these states, further prolonging a fundamentally sound housing recovery. Other highlights from the RealtyTrac report: - In the hardest hit counties of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, foreclosure activity was up 92% from a year ago, with an estimated $41 billion in foreclosure inventory in those counties. - The highest foreclosure rate in the country is in Florida, where one in 312 housing units is in foreclosure. Other states with high foreclosure numbers were Nevada, Illinois, California, Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Colorado, South Carolina and Michigan. - Foreclosure activity rose month-over-month in more than half (53%) of the 212 metropolitan areas surveyed by RealtyTrac. The RealtyTrac press release is available here. Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Housing, Research
Think you've had a busy summer? You won't after you meet 30-year old Jennifer Pharr Davis. In June and July of 2011, she hiked all 2,181 miles of the Appalachian Trail in 46 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes. With that accomplishment, the North Carolina native broke the previous record -- set by a male runner -- and proved that ladies can come first in outdoor expertise. "It's not big muscles and speed," Davis says. "It's intelligence, and adapting to nature, because you're never in control on the trail." Contact information ( * required ) She recounts the hike in her new book, "Called Again: A Story of Love and Triumph." For Davis, the journey started well before that moonlit moment atop Maine's Mount Katahdin, the northern terminus of the trail. It began with her childhood, which she spent exploring mountains as well as her own physical peaks. Years of tennis and basketball paved the way for her hiking exploits, Davis says. She learned how to work through obstacles on her own in singles matches and developed a "never-quit mentality" by chasing balls. When she started competing in marathons and triathlons, she discovered her passion for endurance. "I did a marathon, but my limit wasn't at the end. I did an Ironman, but my limit wasn't at the end. I found my limit at the end of the Appalachian Trail," says Davis, who completed her first trip along the length of the legendary path the summer after her college graduation. After setting the women's record on the trail in the summer of 2008, Davis was convinced she could go even faster. So she started seriously training, which involved hikes with heavy packs, core work and weightlifting. Davis added yoga to improve her flexibility and to counteract the stress she was putting on her body. Part of her strategy was to stick with hiking rather than running -- an unorthodox approach for the trail. "I knew I'd have to put in longer days this way, but I wasn't as likely to sustain an injury," Davis says. "Hiking is relatively low-impact. It's not a contact sport unless you fall, which I try not to do." Her theory was tested just days into the hike, when she was hobbled by excruciating shin splints. It's a common woe for Appalachian Trail veterans, however, so Davis accepted the pain as a rite of passage. Since giving birth eight months ago, Davis has been forced to slow down again. But she still has trail fever: Her new goal is to hike in all 50 states (and Washington, D.C.) with her husband and baby. It fits in with the mission of her North Carolina-based Blue Ridge Hiking Company, which specializes in guiding women and children, who tend to be less confident on trails. "As they become more comfortable, they can go longer, and go by themselves," Davis says.
Malaysia's acting Transport Minister says the next two days would be crucial for the search of the missing flight MH370. An automatic submarine headed back to the depths of the Indian Ocean on Saturday, in its seventh attempt to hunt for any possible wreckage of the missing Malaysian jetliner. The plane vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board, during a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. But so far, nothing has been found that could have come from the ill-fated jet. Video provided by Xinhua News Agency Producer : Xinhua News Agency
Thousands of Egyptians formed queues at polling stations nationwide on Tuesday, in the first of two days to vote for or against the country’s recently amended constitution. Following the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi by the military on 3 July, a 50 member Constituent Assembly was tasked with revisiting and revising the suspended 2012 constitution, a job they completed on 3 December. In the heart of downtown Cairo, over a hundred voters lined up outside Abdeen Secondary School in early in the morning as police and military secured the polling station. “This constitution will bring good to Egypt,” said Medhat Kamel, an engineer who said he had arrived early to the polling station to vote before work. “This constitution will allow the Egyptian people to possess the power and authority in their own hands,” he added. “Everyone has a national duty to participate in the referendum.” In Cairo’s Manial suburb, the referendum went “very smoothly and people were being treated very well,” one employee who voted Yes said after casting his vote. Everyone was helping each other inside despite the crowds, one supervisor said. An elderly housewife who said she read the constitution explained that she voted Yes for the sake of stability. She added that people who voted No or opted for boycotting “do not want stability for the country.” Another voter, Nisrine Mohamed, said, “boycotting is being passive. If you do not approve of the constitution, vote No.” But Hesham Mohamed, a retired policeman who is boycotting, said he saw few differences from the 2012 constitution. “They just changed the numbers of some articles… very small changes but it is all void,” he said. He added that boycotting is not being passive but rather “a political stance.” One woman who participated in the 30 June protests which led to the toppling of ousted president Mohamed Morsi said she read parts of the constitution and voted Yes. By voting Yes, she said, “I am continuing what I started on 30 June.” “I believe in the constitution because I trust the people who put it forth and I know that there is hope for change,” she said. “Before, there was no hope.” Two women who voted Yes said they read the constitution more than once. “There are loopholes, but they are insignificant,” they added. “There are so many privileges in it for women and farmers and in the field of education and health.” Outside the polling station, pro-army songs were ringing and papers were being handed out to voters, calling for Defence Minister Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to run for president. The day was not without incident, however, and began with an explosion in Imbaba, in the north of Giza. The blast produced no casualties, however, and polling stations at of Martyr Gawad Hosny and Industrial Secondary School witnessed a good turnout, with queues hitting their peak before noon. Daily News Egypt spoke with a number of voters in the area, all of which saying they had voted Yes. Judge Yasmine Nasser, heading the referendum in Kassem Amin Secondary School for Girls said, “the people are happy to vote” but believed it was too soon to make any judgment about the turnout. A small fight broke out outside Kassem Amin School between local residents following political argument. Essam Hazzaz, 29, was standing in front of the polling station making the Rabaa sign, which provoked one of the residents, who described him as a “traitor”. The fight soon ended with no injuries. Hazzaz explained that he was boycotting the constitution not because of the Muslim Brotherhood, but because he rejects what he calls “military rule”. Security in place While confrontations such as these were minimal, security at polling stations was tight, as in Zamalek, soldiers and policemen were stationed outside Zamalek Al-Qawmeya Al-Moshtaraka school, conducting security checks upon entrance to the courtyard of the school. Volunteers in high visibility jackets helped to organise the queue and direct voters to the correct areas once inside the polling station. Journalists with passes to enter polling stations were granted access by security forces. Daily News Egypt witnessed one soldier reviewing video footage of one credential bearing cameraman outside the school. Hoping for progress In a queue of dozens of women outside Abu Bakr Al-Seddiq School in Dokki, Giza, 75-year old Mahri Al-Nemsh said she had come to the polls “not for my own good, but for the country’s.” Al-Nemsh said she voted Yes because “this is what should happen for the country to rise up.” She said she read “most” of the constitutional articles she voted on, adding the draft constitution “serves the people’s best interest”. Magda Metwally said her approval of the draft constitution stems from her relief due to “relieving the country of the Muslim Brotherhood”, describing the group as “traitors”. She had voted against the 2012 constitution, she said, because it glorified the president. Another female voter, Amaal Farouk, voted Yes on the draft constitution “to achieve stability.” She added that the new draft “minimised presidential powers after the 2012 constitution had expanded them to create a dictator for a president.” Farouk only read some articles of the constitution; she admired the rights the draft preserves for citizens, including the right to healthcare. Metwally did not read the draft constitution; she followed some of its article through television coverage. “What I like the most about this draft constitution is that it cancels the labourers and farmers quota,” Metwally said. The Constituent Assembly which drafted the constitution had scrapped an article present since the 1960s mandating that 50% of parliamentary seats be reserved for farmers and labourers. “This quota was badly exploited.” Metwally, who works at the National Research Centre, hoped that the constitutional articles positively addressing research would be implemented. Rozeen Hakem believed that her Yes vote would pave the way to bring “a ruler who deserves Egypt” and achieves security. “I don’t think anyone was happy with [former President Mohamed Morsi’s] rule,” Hakem said. “It was mired with lies and destruction … the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to prevail alone.” Hakem, who didn’t read the draft constitution in its entirety, applauded the draft for preserving the rights of minorities, including; women, farmers, and Copts. She said she looked forward to electing a president after the constitution passes. “If not [Defence Minister Abdel Fattah] Al-Sisi, then the next president should be someone of an equal value,” Hakem said. Standing for stability Al-Sisi himself visited Al-Kholafa’ Al-Rashedeen polling station in Heliopolis, where eyewitnesses said he was greeted with cheers and chants while interim President Adly Mansour voted at the Masr Al-Gedeeda polling station, also in Heliopolis. The northeastern Cairo district saw a relatively high female turnout in the early hours of voting, with queues forming an hour before polls opened at 9am. In an interview with men outside Salah Al-Din polling station in Heliopolis, the majority disclosed that they would vote Yes. “There is nothing wrong with this constitution,” said an elderly man. “I can’t see a reason why somebody would vote No.” Women outside Tabbary Al-Hegaz polling station in Heliopolis said they would vote “Yes”, hoping for “stability”. While the vote appeared to go off smoothly, a number of violations were reported nationwide. Among the violations cited were: attempting to influence voters’ decisions in both directions; preventing voters from accessing polling stations; preventing observers from carrying out their duties; the absence of voting ink, voters being transported to their polling stations in groups; some voters’ names missing from ledgers; and some polling stations inactive before 11am. For more details, see our full coverage of violations titled “Violations reported during first day of Egypt’s referendum”
Andrew Blackwell is a sincere young man, concerned with the fate of the environment, and would have us believe he was inspired to write his travel memoir Visit Sunny Chernobyl by a passion for “pollution tourism,” which he discovered while visiting Kanpur, India’s most polluted city. According to Blackwell, Kanpur and cities like it possess something “inscrutably, mysteriously beautiful.” They are also ignored by the Lonely Planet series of guidebooks. Thus in the first chapter he visits Chernobyl, a place which is extensively covered in many guidebooks, documentaries, magazine articles and even video games. Here he expresses his desire to go camping, find a good bar, and generally flogs his pollution tourism shtick mercilessly, discovering to nobody’s surprise that Chernobyl has become an irradiated nature reserve. Having justified his catchy title, Blackwell then settles down to write what is actually quite an interesting book. In the second chapter, he travels to Fort McMurray, Canada, where in 2008 almost 1,600 ducks drowned after coming into contact with a huge waste reservoir which, to the unfortunate birds, resembled a lake. Blackwell uses the story of the ducks to explore in a non-hysterical fashion the issues surrounding the practice of fracking. Next he visits Port Arthur, Texas, where he travels back in time to the birth of the oil boom, delivering an effective mini-history on how our petrochemical-dependent civilization developed, before sketching a great portrait of Steven Radley, a man who represents “little oil” — lone operators who exploit wells abandoned by the multinationals. It is in the fourth chapter that the book really hits its stride, as Blackwell travels on a boat to visit the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast floating constellation of plastic bottles and fragments that swirls and floats around in the northern half of the Pacific Ocean. It swiftly dawns on Blackwell that the alleged environmental mission is unscientific, quixotic and totally hopeless. He compares the quest for this vast agglomeration of garbage to the hunt for Moby Dick, and delivers a sympathetic, honest portrayal of the various adventurers and dreamers who have set forth to find the trash. At its best, this section is reminiscent of Werner Herzog’s documentary Encounters at the End of the World, in which the German director wisely neglected to focus on penguins and instead told us about the strange people who live at the South Pole. Blackwell does the same, analyzing with honesty the true motives of those who would defend or save the environment. And then at the very end, pretty much as an afterthought, he remembers to mention his “pollution tourism” shtick. By this point, even Blackwell seems to be losing interest in the idea, and from now on it recurs only occasionally as instead he delivers a series of nuanced meditations on nature and the environment, leavened with gentle, self-deprecating humor. Blackwell’s journeys next take him to the Amazon, where he is disappointed to learn that deforestation is at record low levels, and then to Linfen, the most polluted city in China, where he struggles to conceal his identity as a journalist from suspicious officials and businessmen, before finally returning to India, where he first became interested in ruined landscapes. The book thus becomes more interesting as it advances, and perhaps should be read in reverse. Then again, perhaps not. Daniel Kalder is the author of Strange Telescopes: Following the Apocalypse From Moscow to Siberia. He lives in Austin. Visit Sunny Chernobyl And Other Adventures in the World’s Most Polluted Places
\|"QUANTUM SHOT" #545\| Link - Article by Simon Rose Not enough space in the Universe? or did somebody switch on the Improbability Drive? Collisions of an unusual nature have been in the news lately. First, we had the story about the satellites, one Russian and one American, colliding in space and then only days later, two heavily armed and highly dangerous nuclear submarines belonging to Britain and France collided in the vast empty spaces beneath the Atlantic Ocean. Two one-in-a-million collisions, it would seem. Space junk, lots of it - image via 1. In Space Space objects have collided accidentally in orbit before, but these were considered minor incidents and involved either leftover portions of used rockets or small satellites. The February 2009 collision, five hundred miles above Siberia, was the first impact at high-speed involving two intact spacecraft - a derelict Russian satellite and a working American Iridium satellite. Watch a good news coverage of this collision here. (images via 1, 2) The Iridium network consists of sixty six very fast moving communications satellites in relatively low orbit. Most communications satellites circle the planet in higher orbits, making collisions much less likely. The collision at 26,000 mph completely destroyed both the Kosmos 2251, a former military communications craft, weighing 2000 lbs, and the Iridium orbiter, which was 1235 lbs. The American satellite was operational at the time of the collision, but its Russian counterpart had been inoperative since at least 1995. The crash created debris clouds traveling at about 660 feet per second, between 300 and 800 miles above the surface of the Earth. Space Junk Inc. At the beginning of 2009, there were estimated to be 17,000 man-made objects classed as debris in orbit, but both American and Russian experts still have no idea how much space junk came out of the collision or how large the pieces are, although there could eventually be thousands of them. Both space agencies however agree that the collision posed no immediate danger to the International Space Station, which operates at a lower altitude than the orbit where the crash occurred, which contains a multitude of telecommunication, weather and earth tracking satellites. However, the debris may threaten these spacecraft and even tiny fragments could later trigger a chain of collisions. Read this latest news headline: "Station crew has close call with space junk" - click to read the story "The three crewmembers of the International Space Station had to take refuge Thursday in an escape pod while a piece of space junk big enough to punch a hole in the station hurtled dangerously nearby. The crew spent 11 minutes in the Russian spaceship called the Soyuz. Any hole in the station's walls could allow the oxygen to leak out, depriving the crew of air. The piece of debris was more than 10 times bigger than the smallest object that can penetrate the station's shielding" Wayward debris in orbit is classed as the number one threat to the safety of a space shuttle when actually in space, exceeding the hazards present during take off and landing. Space is certainly a crowded place these days. Some satellites come as close as only a few hundred meters of each other every day of the week, but given the increasingly congested environment and the lack of a method to remove dangerous debris from orbit, there are bound to be more crashes sooner rather than later. 2. In the ocean depths: Not as vast as space but big enough to intimidate human imagination, Earth's ocean depths would be an unlikely place for collisions. And yet in the depths of the Atlantic, two nuclear submarines, bristling with weapons of mass destruction, hit each other in yet another one in a million collision. Both vessels, HMS Vanguard and a French submarine of the Triomphant class, were damaged while on a routine patrol at relatively low speeds in the word’s second largest ocean, although no one was injured. (images via 1, 2) Despite what we see in movies, submarines do not travel around the world pinging their sonar to see what is out there, since this gives away their own position. As part of its nuclear deterrent, Britain maintains at least one submarine in the Atlantic twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year. HMS Vanguard carries 16 Trident missiles with a maximum of 48 nuclear warheads. Its French counterpart is no doubt similarly equipped. The odds of this happening may seem high, but it is clearly possible and if a bigger collision had occurred, an explosion involving multiple warheads, as well as two nuclear reactors, would have been catastrophic. Test firing of a hopefully unarmed nuke from Vanguard; images via This wasn’t the first such accident either. In recent years, there have been numerous submarine collisions with icebergs, rocks, underwater mountains and of course other undersea vessels, as well as numerous incidents from the Cold War that were long kept secret. Engaged in covert surveillance, NATO and Soviet submarines would engage in deadly games of cat and mouse, coming as close as they dared to their adversaries. Collisions were inevitable and although many weren't too troubling, some were very serious, since even a slight bump between two vessels weighing in at 4000 tons could have disastrous consequences. Here are some abandoned Russian submarines, left out to rust in Nezametnaya Bay (photo taken in 2005): While the damage to the British and French submarines is reported as minor, the same cannot be said for the nuclear powered US submarine San Francisco, which in early 2005 plowed into an undersea mountain in the Pacific. The mountain apparently did not appear on the navigational charts of the area. The head on crash occurred some 500 feet below the surface, destroying a sonar dome on the sub’s nose and peeling back a large portion of the vessel’s outer hull. Fortunately the inner hull, protecting the living quarters and operational areas of the submarine, was largely undamaged, although crew members were forced to take emergency measures to reach the surface before limping back to Guam. One man was killed and sixty others injured in the incident. 3. In the air: This is not the place to discuss aircraft collisions, but one in particular bears mentioning in the context of unlikely collisions. Antarctica is largely deserted and desolate and perhaps the last place you’d expect a plane to be involved in a collision. However, back in November 1979, Air New Zealand flight 901 set off from Auckland for a sightseeing tour of Antarctica. Mt Erebus, one of the major attractions, is the southernmost active volcano on earth and part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Empty skies, no other air traffic and no real obstacles should have meant a perfect flight over the polar region and back home. Yet, in what is known as sector whiteout conditions, the flight crashed into the volcano, killing all 257 passengers and crew. During the summer months, melting snow on the volcano still reveals wreckage, almost thirty years later. 4. Potential collisions with comets and asteroids: One-in-a-million might describe the Earth’s potential collision with comets, asteroids and meteors, taking into account the sheer vastness of space when compared to the size of our planet. However, impacts with heavenly are far from rare and often cataclysmic. When Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter in 1994, the incident provided considerable new information about the giant planet. The comet’s fragments collided with Jupiter’s southern hemisphere at sixty kms per second and the scars from the impacts were more easily visible than the famous Red Spot for several months. (images credit: Don Dixon, NASA) Most members of the scientific community are in agreement that the earth will experience something similar at some point in the future and there is ample evidence that the planet has suffered such impacts in the past. The best known is the one which most likely ended the reign of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, but there is a more recent incident. The Tunguska Event was a powerful explosion in a remote and sparsely inhabited region of Siberia in June 1908. The exact cause of the blast is still in dispute, but was most likely the result of the air burst of a large meteorite or comet fragment between three and six miles above earth’s surface. The object is estimated to have been up to a hundred feet across, traveling at 21,000 mph when it exploded. The energy released by the blast is still the source of debate, but could have been around ten to fifteen megatons, or around 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. An estimated 80 million trees over 830 square miles were simply blown over and the accompanying earthquake would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. The remoteness of the Tunguska region, combined with the chaotic aftermath of the Russian revolution and civil war, delayed any investigation of the incident until 1927, when the Soviet Academy of Sciences dispatched an expedition to the area. (images via 1, 2) The pattern of destruction in the surrounding forest indicated a powerful detonation followed by shock waves spreading outwards from the centre. High levels of iridium and nickel, usually found in meteorites, were discovered in samples from the local soil. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a blue fireball in the sky, followed by a flash and a deafening explosion that apparently was heard three hundred miles away. The ground shook and people spoke of a strange, hot wind, which swept across the land, shattering windows and even burning crops in the fields. (art by Korado Korlevic and Leonid Kulik) Close call for Europe - Interestingly, had the meteorite struck 4 hours, 47 minutes later, based on the rotation of the earth, it would have hit St. Petersburg, the nation’s capital, rather than some remote area of the country. A few hours later, the impact site would have been in Western Europe, just six years before the outbreak of the First World War. The ways in which history might have unfolded differently, had this one in a million collision occurred at a slightly different time, truly boggle the mind. (art by Don Davis) Airplanes Oops! accidents, Train Accidents Tank Accidents, parts 1-3 CONTINUE TO THE FULL "CRAZY ACCIDENTS" SERIES! -> Simon Rose is the author of science fiction and fantasy novels for children, including The Alchemist's Portrait, The Sorcerer's Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic's Tomb and The Doomsday Mask. Details of his books, plus online readings, excerpts, reviews, reader, comments and of his services for writers may be found at www.simon-rose.com You may also visit his blog at http://simon-rose.blogspot.com Permanent Link......+StumbleUpon ...+Facebook
MS Access for the Business Environment: Create a PivotChart View in Access - Page 3 August 4, 2003 As in our previous lesson, we notice that the joins / relationships have been placed automatically. We review them for correctness, as always, and find them to be adequate. Next we select destination fields to determine the result dataset that the query will generate. For each of the tables that follow, double-click the indicated fields to place it in the corresponding field of the matrix in the bottom half of the Select Query dialog. The Select Query dialog displays the newly added tables and fields, appearing as partially shown in Illustration 4. Now, let's run the query and examine the result set that it returns. The query runs, and returns the data set, whose size is 2,155 rows, as partially displayed in Illustration 5. Let's restrict our query to United States customers. The Select Query dialog reappears. The Country field appears in the field's matrix, in the lower half of the Select Query dialog, to the right of existing fields. The Country field appears as shown in Illustration 6. We can quickly verify that only U.S. Regions (that is, States, in this table of the Northwind database) appear. The Save As dialog appears. The completed Save As dialog appears as shown in Illustration 7. We have now created and saved the new query in our Access database. We will base our PivotTable view, and thus our PivotChart view, upon this query, to demonstrate the steps involved. We are returned to the Database window, where we can see our new query appears among the queries list. As we have said before, a PivotTable view can be constructed for a table or a query. We created a custom query here, upon which to base a PivotTable creation, which we will, in turn, use as the basis for a PivotChart view.
A lso called neotenin, a hormone found in insects that prevents the development of adult characteristics when larval insects molt. It is produced in the corpora allata glands behind the brain. These organs became inactive in the last molt, and metamorphosis then begins. Related category ZOOLOGY Home • About • Copyright © The Worlds of David Darling • Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy • Contact
Historical Background: August 15, 1944 marks D-Day for the Allied landing in Provence. In the morning, 3rd US Infantry Division (Alpha Force) lands at Cavalaire (Red Beach) and Pampelonne (Yellow Beach). Demoralized and reluctant to fight, the Germans offer little resistance to the US troops but the beaches littered with mines remain treacherous. After some scattered firefights to clear the bridgehead of enemy troops, units of the 15th US Infantry Regiment advance inland and soon connect with the Allied paratroops dropped on the enemy's rear during the previous night. It was during this advance that Staff Sergeant Audie Murphy single-handedly destroyed several nests of German machine-guns on his own. The stage is set, the battle lines are drawn, and you are in command. The rest is history. Briefing: Axis player [Germany] Take 4 command cards. Allied player [United States] Take 5 command cards. You move first. Conditions of Victory: 5 medals. Pampelonne and the artillery bunker on the hille are Temporary Medal Objectives for the Allied player. Special Rules: Place a badge on the two Allied engineer units (Troops 4 - Combat Engineers). The Axis player lays out the minefields (Terrain 29 - Minefields).
Bypass navigation bar The Library Directors Council provides leadership and guidance in all issues common to the DCCCD libraries. The council strives constantly to improve the libraries through fostering of standardized services and economic acquisition of materials and services to support information literacy.The council’s purpose includes: The council comprises the library director from each college and the district director of Educational Resources Support Services. The Vice Presidents Council is the organizational sponsor.Meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month from 9 a.m. until noon. Location varies. Additional information can be found on the Library intranet site (Novell login required).See full details about the Library Directors Council’s purpose by reading its charter (PDF – 126KB).
Game wardens got a boost Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by a California man caught with an out-of-season lobster who said his rights were violated. Bouhn Maikhio of San Diego was caught in 2007 with the lobster by a game warden who had been watching him, and others, from about 200 yards away. Maikhio said the ensuing search and seizure violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The California Supreme Court ruled last June that “people who hunt and fish have fewer of the privacy rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment,” according to the Sacramento Bee. The court said game wardens have the authority to stop, question and search citizens without a warrant or even without probable cause to believe a law has been broken. It’s certainly an interesting precedent but not entirely surprising. What is, however, is that a state game and fish violation issue would make it to the highest court in the nation. Read the full report in the Bee here: Click this link What do you think? Should game wardens have the authority to stop anyone they see hunting and fishing, or should there be more specific cause for a search? Let us know your thoughts.
Definitions for Informatics This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word Informatics information science, informatics, information processing, IP(noun) the sciences concerned with gathering, manipulating, storing, retrieving, and classifying recorded information a branch of information science, and of computer science, that focuses on the study of information processing,and particularly as respect to systems integration and human interactions with machine and data. Origin: Coined 1957 or shortly thereafter from ; possibly influenced by automation and automatic. U.S. National Library of Medicine The field of information science concerned with the analysis and dissemination of data through the application of computers. Translations for Informatics From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary Get even more translations for Informatics » Find a translation for the Informatics definition in other languages: Select another language:
Also see Faith and Prayer Poems, Ministers, Philosophy and Religion, Angels, ABC Lists, Memorial Albums, Religious Humor, Hanukkah, and Religious Song Lists. For First Communion, Christening and Baptism see Children and Religion. - All That We Have - All That's Good and Great and True - Be Still and Know that I Am God - Celebration of Faith - Count Your Blessings - Faith Can Move Mountains - Faith Doesn't Panic - God is Great...God is Good - God Moves in Mysterious Ways - Got Jesus?! - Heaven and Earth are Full of His Glory - I am a Child of God - I Fear No Evil - Never Alone - O, the Lord's Been Good to Me - On the Wings of a Dove - Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow - Showers of Blessings - Surely the Presence of the Lord is in This Place - There is Joy in the Lord - We Leave Thy House, but Leave Not Thee - When Prayers Go Up...Blessings Come Done - Any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count all the apples in one seed. (Robert H. Schuller) - Anybody can observe the Sabbath but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week. (Alice Walker) - Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist. (David Ben Gurion) - As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15) - As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit. (Emmanuel Teney) - Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful. - A brook would lose its song if God removed the rocks. - Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. (Victor Hugo) - Coincidence is just God's way of remaining anonymous. (Billy Meyer) - Courage is fear that has said its prayers. (Dorothy Bernard) - Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. (John F. Kennedy) - Don't put a question mark where God puts a period. - Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway. (Mary C. Crowley) - Faith can move mountains, but don't be surprised if God hands you a shovel! - Faith enables persons to be persons because it lets God be God. (Carter Lindberg) - Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to. - Faith is courage; it is creative; despair is always destructive. (David S. Muzzey) - Faith is not belief without proof; but trust without reservation. - Faith is not believing that God can, it is knowing that he will. - Faith is the bird who sings while it is still dark. - Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - Faith is to believe what we do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what we believe. (Saint Augustine) - Faith is like radar that sees through the fog. (Corrie Ten Boom) - Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. (Martin Luther King, Jr) - Faith makes things possible not easy. - Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! - Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. And lo, no one was there. - Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death. - Give God what's right, not what's left. - God answers knee-mail. - God can heal a broken heart, but you have to give Him all the pieces. - God did not call me to be successful. He called me to be faithful. - God does more than hear our words. He reads our hearts. - God enters by a private door into each individual. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) - God gives the best to those who leave the choice with Him. - God has not called us to see through each other, but to see each other through. - God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. (St. Augustine) - God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. (Timaeus of Locris) - God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed. (Saint Augustine) - God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. (William Cowper) - God pardons like a mother who kisses away the repentant tears of her child. (Henry W. Beecher) - God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. - God understands our prayers even when we can't find the words to say them. - God will never lead you where His grace cannot keep you. - God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars. (Elbert Hubbard) - Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live. (Jackie Windspear) - The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray. (Robert G. Ingersoll) - Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake. (Victor Hugo) - Hate the sin and love the sinner. (Mahatma Gandhi) - Have faith in the human spirit and in each heart's capacity to make our world a better place. - He said come to the edge. I said I can't--I'm afraid. He said come to the edge. I said I can't--I'll fall off. He said finally, COME TO THE EDGE. And I went to the edge, and He pushed me. And, I flew! (Guilluame Apollinaire) - He who kneels before God can stand before anyone! - He Will Hold You in the Palm of His Hand - Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't. (Richard Bach) - The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. (Dante Aligher) - I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set in night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere. (Goethe) - I believe in the sun even if it isn't shining. I believe in love even when I am alone. I believe in God even when He is silent. - I can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. (Richard P. Feynman) - I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker. (Voltaire) - I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God. (Carl Jung) - I have discovered that when the Almighty wants me to do or not do a particular thing, He has a way of letting me know it. (Abraham Lincoln) - I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that he has a sense of humor. (William Ralph Inge) - I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. - If God can work through me, he can work through anyone. (St. Francis of Assisi) - If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice. (Meister Eckhart) - If we could all hear one another's prayers, God might be relieved of some of his burdens. (Ashleigh Brilliant) - If you don't want the fruits of sin, stay out of the devil's vineyard. - If your religion makes you kinder than I, your religion is better than mine. (Bradford Leavitt) - If you're headed in the wrong direction, God does allow U-turns! - If you're not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there. (Martin Luther) - In my Father's house there are many mansions - In the dark, follow the Son. - It's hard to stumble when you're down on your knees. - It's nice to work for the Lord. The pay isn't much but the retirement plan is out of this world! - It's not the absence of sin, but the grieving of the spirit that separates the sinner and the saved one. - Just pray for a tough hide and a tender heart. (Ruth Graham) - Life is fragile...handle with prayer. - A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul. - Little words of kindness, little acts of love-- bring us just a little bit of heaven from above. - A lot of kneeling will keep you in good standing. - Man's way leads to a hopeless end--God's way leads to an endless hope. - The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. (T.B. Macaulay) - Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature. (St. Augustine) - Mother Nature is wonderful. A million years ago she didn't know we were going to need glasses, but look where she put our ears. - Most people do not pray; they only beg. (George Bernard Shaw) - Never give the devil a ride -- he will always want to drive. - The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience. (Harper Lee) - Our talents are the gift that God gives to us...What we make of our talents is our gift back to God. (Leo Buscalgia) - Peace is not the absence of affliction, but the presence of God. - Peacefully around us the shadows are falling - People see God every day, they just don't recognize him. (Pearl Bailey) - A person, whose Bible is falling apart, usually isn't. - Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear. - Pray for what you want, but work for the things you need. - Prayer is kind of like calling home every day. - Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God. (Diana Robinson) - Prayer may not change things for you, but it for sure changes you for things. (Samuel M. Shoemaker) - Prayer should be our first resource not our last resort. - Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth." Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. (Kahlil Gibran) - Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. - Sometimes the Lord calms the storm, sometimes He lets the storm rage...and calms His child! - Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up. - Then rang the bells both loud and deep God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. The wrong shall fail the right prevail with peace on earth, good will to men. - There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees. (Victor Hugo) - There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. (Freya Stark) - There is much in the world to make us afraid. There is much more in our faith to make us unafraid. (Frederick W. Cropp) - This church is prayer conditioned. - This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalms 119:105) - Those who never rebelled against God or at some point in their lives shaken their fists in the face of heaven, have never encountered God at all. (Catherine Marshall) - To be alone with silence is to be with God. - To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. - True faith is believing the possible, but trusting the impossible. - The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion. (Matthew Arnold) - We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe. (John Henry Newman) - We don't change God's message--His message changes us. - We have no right to ask when sorrow comes, "Why did this happen to me?" unless we ask the same question for every moment of happiness that comes our way. - We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature -trees, flowers, grass--grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...We need silence to be able to touch souls. (Mother Teresa) - We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods. (Seneca) - We plan, God laughs. - The well of Providence is deep. It's the buckets we bring to it that are small. (Mary Webb) - What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday. - What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly. (Richard Bach) - What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. (Eleanor Powell) - What we usually pray to God is not that His will be done, but that He approve ours. (Helga Bergold) - When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. (Corrie Ten Boom) - When it comes time to die...make sure all you have to do is die. - When praying, don't give God instructions--just report for duty. - When we've done what we can, God will do what we can't! - When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly. - When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you're slamming the door in the face of God. (Charles L. Allen) - Who cared if there was really any Being to pray to? What mattered was the sense of giving thanks and praise, the feeling of a humble and grateful heart. - (Oliver Sacks) - The will of God will never take you to where the Grace of God will not protect you. - Without our faith we are stained glass windows in the dark. You know how kids are when they are hurt . . . they keep their hands over the boo-boos so you can't see them or treat them. As adults you know they have to let go so your can help them and make them feel better . . . but sometimes the biggest job is prying those fingers away. That is the way we are sometimes with the hurtful things in our lives . . . we are so busy "holding" on to them, that we don't give our faith and God the chance to do his work . . . because we "think" we know better. Now asked straight out who could handle it better, us or God . . . we would think it was a silly question, God, of course. But WHAT do our actions say? And what is the benefit of worry?? And what does it tell our children about the faithfulness of God to his people . . . and the covenant he has with us. An Everyday Survival Kit (This brings a whole new meaning to these items.) - Toothpick - to remind you to pick out the good qualities in others...Matthew - Rubber band - to remind you to be flexible, things might not always go the way you want, but it will work out...Romans 8:28 - Band Aid - to remind you to heal hurt feelings, yours or someone else's...Col. - Pencil - To remind you to list your blessings everyday...Eph 1:3 - Eraser - to remind you that everyone makes mistakes, and it's okay...Genesis - Chewing gum - to remind you to stick with it and you can accomplish anything - Mint - to remind you that you are worth a mint to your heavenly father...John - Candy Kiss - to remind you that everyone needs a kiss or a hug everyday...1 - Tea Bag - to remind you to relax daily and go over that list of God's blessings...1 Thess 5:18 This is my gift to you. May God richly bless you. (Give this to anyone who you think needs to know that they are loved.)
Matthew Mead, Associated Press After years building his career and credibility on carbs, award-winning baking instructor and bread cookbook author Peter Reinhart was an unlikely candidate to become an ambassador for low-carb, gluten-free living. And yet his just-released "The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking" (Ten Speed Press, 2012) puts him squarely at the top of the heap of writers, bloggers, bakers and chefs clamoring to satiate America's hunger for a life — or at least a dinner or two — lived with fewer carbohydrates and less of that pesky, yet ubiquitous wheat protein known as gluten. He has his carb-derived cred to thank for it. Reinhart has long been considered one of the nation's premier bakers. His gorgeous, painstakingly researched books blend textbook-worthy detail with a gentle voice that masterfully leads readers through the science and romance of transforming carbs and gluten into deliciousness. So why change? "I wanted to add something totally new that no one else was doing," he says of his book, which he co-authored with flour developer Denene Wallace. That something new is a fresh approach to gluten-free baking. Traditional gluten-free recipes turn on what Reinhart calls "the holy trinity" of starches — rice flour, tapioca and potato starch. Those starches work in place of gluten, but they also happen to be startlingly high in carbohydrates. He wanted recipes that blended low-carb and gluten-free. His approach, developed in collaboration with Wallace, relies on finely ground flours of almonds or pecans. Some recipes also call for flours made from seeds, such as sunflower or sesame. "With the nut flours, you've got a lot of natural oils in there and no starches that will go stale," he says. The added benefit — and perhaps, he believes, the most important — is that nut flours reduce the carbohydrate load in the bread, making the products suitable for diabetics and others watching their carb intake. "I'm always fascinated by new frontiers, by what's the next thing coming that nobody's tapped into," says Reinhart, a baking instructor at Johnson & Wales University's College of Culinary Arts in Charlotte, N.C. "The biggest concern for us was the growing diabetic community," which is particularly sensitive to the carbohydrates in food. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. It gives bread its elasticity and allows it to be pulled into long loaves, such as baguettes. And it is the element that creates the air pockets that give breads much of their texture. But some people are sensitive to gluten. The most serious sensitivities lead to celiac disease, which causes abdominal pain, bloating and intermittent diarrhea. Gluten-free breads tend to be more dense than traditional breads. To combat this, many of Reinhart and Wallace's recipes contain xanthan gum — which stabilizes and thickens — to help mimic the texture of traditional bread. To get around the need for high-carbohydrate sweeteners, they rely on stevia, a zero-calorie sweetener made from a plant extract. Reinhart's next frontier? Breads made with flours created from sprouted grains. Sprouted grains are more efficient nutritionally, Reinhart says, and produce a greater amount of food than unsprouted grains. When a grain is sprouted, he says, the vitamins it contains shoot up and it becomes more nutritionally dense. There are only a couple of mills in the U.S. producing sprouted grain flour, he says, but he believes it is the way of the future. Bread made from sprouted wheat flour also is sweeter and less bitter than bread made from traditional whole wheat, he says. "It just makes sense that it's a great way to eat," Reinhart says. "And once you can improve the flavor it becomes intriguing for all of us. I need to go into that and see how far we can push it."
Bells toll for victims one week after shooting in Newtown, Conn. NEWTOWN, Conn. — The chiming of bells reverberated throughout Newtown on Friday, commemorating one week since the crackle of gunfire in a schoolhouse killed 20 children and six adults in a massacre that has shaken the community — and the nation — to its core. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy gathered with other officials in rain and wind on the steps of the Edmond Town Hall as the bell rang 26 times in memory of each life lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The gunman also killed his mother before the massacre, and himself afterward. Officials didn't make any formal remark, and similar commemorations took place throughout the country. Though the massacre does not rank as the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history — that happened at Virginia Tech — the tender age of the victims and the absence of any apparent motive has struck at Americans' hearts and minds. The gunman used a military-style assault rifle loaded with ammunition intended to inflict maximum damage, officials have said. The White House said President Barack Obama privately observed the moment of silence. Just a week after the attack on the first grade students and members of the school's staff, gun control has taken a front burner in Congress, where previous mass shootings produced only minimal legislative reaction. Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that the Obama administration would push to tighten gun laws. The National Rifle Association, at its first public event since the shootings, called Friday for armed police officers to be posted in American school to stop the next killer "waiting in the wings." Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the nation's largest gun-rights lobby with 4.3 million members, said at the Washington news conference that, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." He blamed video games, movies and music videos for exposing children to a violent culture. Though security was tight, the briefing was interrupted twice by people holding up signs that blamed the NRA for killing children. The protesters were taken from the room. Newtown schools superintendent Janet Robinson told The Associated Press on Friday that consolidating the first grade classes at Sandy Hook Elementary School is part of the process of preparing for the students' return Jan. 3 to a refurbished middle school in Monroe. She said most of the classes will remain intact, except the first grade where 20 students were killed. She said one of the three classes has a single remaining student. Traffic stopped in the streets outside the town hall in Newtown early Friday as bells rang out to honor the dead. Malloy, taking deep breaths with his hands folded in front of him, was joined by the Newtown superintendent of schools, lawmakers and other officials as bells rang out at the nearby Trinity Episcopal Church. Firefighters bowed their heads around a memorial filled with teddy bears, other stuffed animals and a New York Giants pillow. Some hugged and onlookers shook their hands afterward. "When I heard the 26 bells ring it just melted my soul," said Kerrie Glassman, of Sandy Hook, who said she knew seven of the victims. "It's just overwhelming. You just can't believe this happened in our town." Among those who gathered in Newtown was a group of 13 survivors of the 2005 school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. The group drove nearly 1,500 miles to support and comfort the families and survivors. They brought gifts intended to bring a message of resilience and hope, including a plaque that survivors of the 1999 Columbine shooting gave to them after their experience. "This is just something we had to do," said Ashley Lejeunesse, 23, who was also in the Red Lake classroom. The chiming of bells reverberated throughout the nation, and there were observances around the world. - Top Catholics and evangelicals: Gay marriage... - Mitt Romney courts middle class, jabs Hillary... - Profiting as a Super Bowl host city... - McDonald's CEO steps down as sales decline - Attorney General nominee picks up support... - Arizona monitoring hundreds for measles... - NASA remembering 17 astronauts killed in the... - Child grooms of Nepal are married off as... - Mitt Romney courts middle class, jabs... 40 - Top Catholics and evangelicals: Gay... 39 - Victim of sexual abuse sues Boy Scouts... 19 - Denver police shoot, kill teen who... 13 - 'Potentially historic' blizzard... 12 - Some Republican presidential hopefuls... 12 - House GOP moves toward possible lawsuit... 11 - Prosecutors promise thorough probe of... 11
Kristin Murphy, Deseret News August marks the last, dwindling days of summer. For families, it also means that if the kids aren’t already back in school, they’ll be heading to class in just a few weeks. And that means shelling out lots of dollars on everything from new socks and sneakers, to new backpacks and paper pads. This year, the average U.S. family with K-12 kids will spend $634.78 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics, according to an annual back-to-school survey by the National Retail Federation. That’s about $54 less than in 2012, which was a banner year for school spending, coming out of the recession. Parents are being a little more cautious, doing their back-to-school shopping “with cost and practicality in mind,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said in a statement. “Having splurged on their growing children’s needs last year, parents will ask their kids to reuse what they can for the upcoming school season.” With that in mind, we gathered some money-saving advice from local parents and national experts: —Take inventory: Go through closets, dressers, desks and drawers. If Cooper already has three pairs of jeans that fit, you may only need one more pair. Same with pencils, felt-tip pens and other school supplies. Only stock up on what your kids truly need. “Last year’s school scissors are still sharp and last year’s pencils still write,” said Pam Farley, a Sacramento, Calif., mother of two who blogs at BrownThumbMama.com. “Buy only what the teacher suggests, not every shiny, new back-to-school item.” Make a back-to-school list for each child and set an amount you can comfortably afford to spend. Yep, it’s a budget. —Give kids a say: Involve your kids in the budgeting process, including how much money is available to spend. “Get them involved in prioritizing expenses between ‘must-haves’ and ‘nice-to-haves,’ ” says personal finance website PracticalMoneySkills.com, which has a back-to-school budget calculator for students. When shopping, take a printed budget with you and have your kids or teens fill out the amount of each purchase. As an added incentive, offer to split the savings with your kids if the back-to-school shopping comes in under budget. —Be label-wary: Teens and even young kids can be label-conscious, wanting just the right brand name on their backpack or jacket. But it can be risky to buy all the latest gotta-have-it apparel or accessories. The TV show your youngster adores today might be too uncool-for-school next month and he’ll refuse to wear the logo T-shirt or carry the lunchbox, no matter how much you spent. (Of course, if your child attends a school that has a dress code or requires a uniform, you have less to worry about.) Give teens choices, especially when they’re clamoring for trendy, pricey sneakers or designer jeans. If it’s beyond your budget, let them figure out how to buy it cheaper. Wait till it goes on sale, find something similar at a consignment store, swap with friends, etc. Farley recommends what her father did when she desperately wanted a pair of Birkenstock shoes in high school: He offered to pay half and she had to save up the rest. “When (teens) have to earn it or use their birthday money, it makes them think harder about their choices,” she said. - 25 cities that are winning at education - Profiting as a Super Bowl host city... - 5 reasons your most talented employees will... - 4 warning signs your teen is destined for bad... - Child grooms of Nepal are married off as... - Lawmakers looking to pump up gas tax this... - Balancing act: Organizations slowly move... - Dave Ramsey says: Make changes to save money - Lawmakers looking to pump up gas tax... 62 - Most K-12 students are now low income 10 - After setting iPhone record, what does... 4 - Want to save money in 2015?... 4 - US consumer confidence jumps to 7... 3 - 5 reasons your most talented employees... 2 - Want a one-of-a-kind name for your... 2 - Tess Frame: Five reasons you’re... 1
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with the arab spring, the london riots and the less covered israeli summer, a clear message has been sent to governments and corporate leaders alike, in the information age, there is no silent suffering. Political and corporate leaders have for decades picked easy fights against certain groups in society they were certain to win whether it was cuts public services such as healthcare, education and benefits, or the wholesale outsourcing of what were, until the dying embers of the 20th century and 21st century, thought to be under the purview of the state handed over to the private sector. Politicians have been extolling the virtues of the market in comically stark contrast of the life sapping quality of state bureaucracy while implementing policies that were business friendly to say the least. This generosity often lead to the cuts, privatization, or the outright defunding of state services that benefit those who suffer silently in society, those groups in almost all cases being members of working and middle class, students or young people in general and the elderly. Any action taken to either punish or stop abuses of corporate power are headline issues in the media, providing high visibility for corporate plight, these attempt are also met by heavy lobbying of relevant politicians and threat of to government warning of corporate flight to friendlier centres of capital generation. However, armed with strong intention and a twitter account, these groups have managed get issues heard and more importantly, change the course of history as well as well held perceptions of these groups. the arab spiring has gotten rid the insulting and borderline racist perception that the Middle East will always be run by dictator because there is either no demand for democracy or there dictatorial rule is an inherent trait in arab dominant states. In Egypt the use of social networking has brought down a dictator now standing trail on corruption charges who led the country for the last 30 years backed by the United States, forced to change their stance and notably their with regard to certain Middle East states. In Britain, the government has been forced to recognize long standing issues that are rarely covered in the media such police engagement with black males and the growing number of young people who are unemployed. in israel the riots are not over foreign policy but over economic strains effecting the working and middle class. These protests have been the largest in the nations history and are well supported by the general public with over 80% in support of them with even sections of the right wing backing the protest which accounts for the such a high margin. In conclusion, tracking news stories across the world a pattern emerges, from students strikes in chile to the toppling of well backed strongmen, people who have suffered silently in the last few decades are now actively fighting for change as government across the globe are forced to consider long desired reforms, concede defeat or at least realize the silent suffering have one found their voice and now their walking shoes.
Next, we put a layer of adobe on top of the newspaper-covered sand dome. The walls of the oven want to be 3" thick, with the clay as uniformly distributed as possible. What worked best for us was to grab hunks* of adobe (about the size of a brick and roughly 3" thick) and put a layer of slightly curved hunks all the way around the base of the dome, taking care to smush each hunk into its neighboring hunks, so there aren't any seams visible between hunks. Then we stacked another layer of curved hunks on top of the first (now seamless) layer of curved hunks, building all the way around the circumference of the dome again. Again, we smushed the hunks together as we added them to the dome so there weren't any visible seams between hunks or layers. We repeated this process until we put a roundish hunk at the very top of the oven and smushed it into place, too. Note that three firebricks will be protruding from the adobe-covered dome -- this will form the lip (bottom front) of the oven itself. Don't worry about an opening yet; you'll be carving that out in a few days, after the adobe has some time to dry out a little. *Don't get too obsessed about the neatness of these curved hunks -- they may be more "blob" than "brick." The important thing is that the hunk-blob-brick needs to be 3" thick and moist enough that you can mold it as you're building, but dry enough that it doesn't dribble and slip down the side of the dome.
On today’s menu? Mince Pies! Now back in the day, mincemeat pies were made with a mixture of beef and suet (which is animal fat), and some mixture of dried fruit like raisins and apples. I found some fun vintage mince pie recipes from the 1500s, but some of the directions and ingredients were, um, well…interesting. Like this recipe for mince pie made with eggs: Take the Yolks of two dozen of Eggs hard boyled, shred them, take the same quantity of Beef-Suet, half a pound of Pippins, a pound of Currans well washt, and dry’d, half a pound of Sugar, a penny-worth of beaten Spice, a few Carraway-Seeds, a little Candyed Orange-peel shred, a little Verjuice and Rosewater; fill the Coffin, and bake it with gentle heat. Seeing how I was fresh out of verjuice to fill my coffin, I decided to make the modern version of mince pie, which doesn’t involve any meat (or verjuice). I found a very simple Mince Pie recipe, and it only requires few ingredients – - 2 cups of flour - Pinch salt - Full stick of butter, cubed - 1 beaten egg + a little water, as needed - Jar of mincemeat Would you believe I found mincemeat in bulk at WinCo Foods? Oh yes I did! I ended up buying 1/2 of a pound and it was enough for 12 mini pies. Start by mixing the flour and salt and working the butter in with your hands. Once you have your dough ball, wrap it and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. But before you add the lids, you’ll want to fill the bottom of each crust about 2/3 with mincemeat. This wasn’t called for in the original recipe, but I added a little brushed egg white and granulated sugar on the tops of my pies to give them a pretty crust. (A trick my grandma taught me years ago!) Bake at 400° for about 15 – 20 minutes. Here are my completed pies! Aren’t they adorable? They were also crazy tasty. You know you’ve got a winner when your picky preschooler dives right in. (Note she’s still going through her “dress phase.” On this particular day, she was wearing an Easter dress or something.) My son loved these so much, I actually packed one in his school lunch yesterday. I was hoping he’d come home and tell me some story about how everyone thought his mom was soooo cool to make him a mincemeat pie, but all he told me was that he’d spilled part of it on his coat and pants and it had made a huge mess. But also it had dried in 7 seconds. (Phew, that was a close one.) So if you pack these? Send napkins. I topped mine with homemade brandy butter (hey, I had brandy leftover from figgy pudding!), but I left my kids’ plain. If you’ve been on the fence with some of my other recipes in this series due to the ingredients or complexity, I hope you’ll give this one a try. It was easy, not time consuming, and the result was pretty awesome. I think you’d impress the crowd. Join me tomorrow when I’ll be tackling a festive drink.
MARRAKECH, Morocco – One month after Hurricane Matthew killed more than 1,000 people in Haiti, many of the 1.4 million citizens who need humanitarian aid are still waiting for help despite a United Nations call for $120 million in recovery funds. Yet the devastated country got an instant down payment on its rebuilding efforts from an insurance company based in nearby Cayman Islands. The money came from a group called the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, which kicked in $23 million as soon as wind speeds roared high enough to trigger a “tropical cyclone policy” that Haiti took out in 2009. The Haitian government used the money to pay emergency personnel, “keeping the wheels of government turning,” according to a CCRIF statement. Some insurers say this kind of policy can help manage risk and ease the economic pain of natural disasters as they become increasingly frequent thanks to climate change, which the Environmental Protection Agency expects to happen through the 21st century. Money comes much faster, insurers say, if it doesn’t require donor countries to scramble together an aid package, or disaster-stricken governments to issue a call for help. “It’s an idea whose time has really come,” says Aaron Oxley, executive director of the international charity Results UK. “It is one of the most exciting things we’re doing in international development at the moment.” Oxley says insurance money that lessens the impact of a disaster up front is four times more effective than relief funding later. “So a drought that you could solve for say half a billion dollars ends up costing $2.5 billion dollars because you didn’t act fast enough,” he says. “You’ve eliminated a massive amount of suffering from the world, and you’ve set up all those families to hit the next growing season with all of their productive assets intact so they can get on with their lives.” The process of getting insurance requires the countries to assess their risk. Verena Treber, project manager for German insurance giant Allianz, says that could spur investments in prevention measures, like planting mangroves along vulnerable coastlines or digging drainage ditches around farms in flood zones. “It’s never better to clean up after. It’s always less expensive to think before and do some prevention,” says Treber. But this new financial tool comes with challenges. If Haiti’s cyclone policy had set the bar for a payout at a higher wind speed, for example, the country might have gotten nothing. And because it’s not practical for insurance companies to send claims adjusters to every home in Haiti, this kind of insurance works by looking regional data like rainfall and wind speeds. How exactly to set those metrics—and how to make sure vulnerable groups signing up for policies are on equal footing with the insurers they negotiate with—is an open question, especially in Africa. In April, the president of Malawi declared a state of emergency when a severe drought decimated the country’s staple corn crop. After Malawi joined the African Risk Capacity, an African Union program similar to the risk pool that paid out in Haiti, Malawian farmers were eager to receive payments under their country’s drought insurance policy. But the insurer’s models and satellite data underestimated the severity of the drought, and money for suffering farmers dried up. The African Risk Capacity eventually paid Malawi after a barrage of bad press. And since it started in 2015, ARC has paid $26 million to drought-affected countries in Africa before humanitarian aid could arrive. Its experience in Malawi, however, underscores a problem for so-called “sovereign disaster risk solutions.” Set the bar for payouts too high and people will suffer; set it too low and insurers won’t be able to gather enough money to prepare for extreme events. Regional efforts like the ARC and the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility attempt to thread that needle by expanding their risk pool—Zambia may have ample rainfall while Tanzania is parched, so nations can spread their risk around—but the uncertainty of climate models makes it difficult to keep that equation balanced. And when it comes to climate change, insurance is more useful for extreme weather events than for slow-moving catastrophes like sea-level rise and ocean acidification. The simplest way to reduce climate-related suffering, of course, is to limit the amount of climate change that future generations have to bear. But a UN report released this month shows even the pledges made by 162 nations under the climate deal struck in December in Paris don’t add up to enough for the planet to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. In the meantime, a growing number of insurance companies are offering financial tools to help the world’s poorest people defend against financial ruin in the wake of natural disasters. Led by Germany, the G7 group of nations (the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom) hopes to increase the number of people covered by this kind of insurance from 100 million today to 400 million by 2020. The G7 governments have started setting up funds and working groups to make that happen, and major insurance companies are taking note. Climate risk insurance is one of a slew of new financial tools being touted at the UN climate talks this week in Marrakech, Morocco. But according to Simon Hagemann of the German government’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the concept is transformational, if not entirely new. “It’s basically rapid disaster financing,” says Hagemann. It may be a small part of an insurance company’s business, but it’s a way potentially to do good while doing well. And it’s good for appearances. “It’s somewhat for show,” Hagemann says, “but it’s also a real market that they haven’t been able to get involved with on their own.” Unfortunately, for those in harm’s way, disaster risk management may be a growth market. Since 1980 the United States has suffered more than $1 trillion of damage in weather-related disasters, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Globally the cost of extreme droughts, floods and other calamities supercharged by climate change is expected to grow.
It all began when a young Tunisian man became tired of being abused by authority and within weeks the fever of democracy spread to Egypt. Now, petty tyrants like Gaddafi in Libya and benevolent rulers like the King of Morocco are confronted by crowds of angry people demanding basic rights. In Rabat, they cried that the “king must reign, not rule.” In Libya they want an end to the one man rule of Gaddafi, the man who is quick to denounce Israel or the West but refuses to acknowledge his own tyranny. Hundreds of people in Libya already have been killed and even more hundreds wounded since in this country we do as the Big Man says. Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam warned the population that Libya “is not Egypt , it is not Tunisia.” In this country, as he so aptly put it, “there are not political parties.” The only thing allowed to express an opinion is either the Man himself or one of his lackeys. He went on to warn those involved in demonstrations they would be regarded as enemy agents. Israel is among the few democratic nations in the region. What a wonderful opportunity for Israel leaders to announce they are ready to work with Palestinian leaders and support these democratic ventures. Unfortunately, Israel has Avigdor Lieberman rather than Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela as leaders who had vision of a democratic future.
Master of Engineering (Civil) student Alexandra Weisenberger joined Engineers Without Borders during her Bachelor of Science Degree. In her guest post, Alexandra shares what it’s like to be involved in an organisation that is using engineering to make the world a better place. A great thing about being part of the University of Melbourne is the extra-curricular opportunities that are available to us. At the end of my Bachelor of Science at UoM, I began to get involved with Engineers Without Borders. For those of you who don’t know, Engineers Without Borders is a not-for-profit organisation that connects, educates and empowers people through humanitarian engineering. At the University of Melbourne, we are lucky enough to have our very own chapter where we have many volunteering programs such as High School Outreach and Maths Without Limits, as well as weekly meetings on campus and some social events. Being part of EWB meant that over the university break I was lucky enough to travel up to not-so-sunny Queensland and participate in National Council. National Council is EWB’s Annual cornerstone member event and focuses on building the abilities of their members and staff. The weekend away was very much a celebration of everything EWB has achieved in the past few years and an opportunity to plan for the next 10 years, with discussions on what should be prioritised within our chapter! During National Council I participated in the Pathways to Humanitarian Engineering workshop, where we learned about the skills required, pathways and barriers that we may face in pursuing a career in humanitarian engineering. We plan to run a mini version of this workshop with our chapter at the University of Melbourne in the upcoming weeks. Overall, it was an amazing experience where I made connections all around Australia and got to understand more about how EWB works on a national level. Back on campus, the first week of semester two has finished and EWBUnimelb is back in action. We had a great first meeting where we ran a High School Outreach workshop for new members and old. They were challenged to build a floating barge with minimal resources. There was a healthy level of competition and the workshop meant that members were able to gain a greater understanding of the humanitarian engineering, appropriate technology and issues that developing countries face in terms of shelter. Engineers Without Borders at The University of Melbourne holds weekly meetings on Tuesday from 1pm-2pm in Old Metallurgy 103 (Room 1). Please come join us to learn more about what we do and how to volunteer! We are always excited to welcome new members to the group! Visit our website for more information. To find out more about volunteering opportunities at the University of Melbourne visit the Student Union’s website.
It’s not only monkeys and wildlife we aim to help. We feed the poor and homeless in nearby Playas del Coco, every Tuesday evening. We also research and develop ideas that can be shared with the surrounding community. One such program is aquaponics systems which use 95% less water than conventional farming, which is very important in this, the driest part of the country. We need funds to purchase the land that the farm is currently on. We also need funding to build large enclosures for recovering monkeys and other wildlife at The Monkey Farm. We welcome donations of all sorts. We are a registered non-profit both in Costa Rica and the United States holding 501(c)(3) status, so your donations are tax-deductible. If you have an animal emergency, call us at (506) 8853-0165. We will help with the rescue of all types of wildlife and farm animals and partner with local governmental organizations to place rescued wildlife. *We do not rescue cats or dogs, as there is another local organization for them. For non-emergency or questions regarding local wildlife or domestic animals feel free to email us at [email protected] We need you! Get Involved Today! The Monkey Farm in Costa Rica is a volunteer-run, registered non-profit that combines sustainability, organic farming and permaculture methods with monkey and wildlife rescue activities.
Feb 24 2009 I didn’t plan to do two similar stories in a row, but this just came to my attention. There is a picture going around that purports to show a 100ft. snake swimming through a river in Borneo. The picture was allegedly taken by from a helicopter by a disaster team monitoring flood conditions. The image is certainly provocative – but as I pointed out yesterday, before we start hypothesizing about what the picture may be we first have to confirm that it is real. Pictures are no longer acceptable as evidence at face-value. The so-called Atlantis picture from yesterday was likely an innocent artifact. This picture is unlikely to be an artifact, but it can easily be fraud. I’m sure that the marketers at Adobe are thrilled that their brand name photo-manipulation software, Photoshop, has become the generic term for using such software to alter images. So before we knock ourselves out trying to figure out what physical phenomenon may be in the picture we first have to confirm that it was not “photoshopped.” I looked at the picture zoomed in, and nothing is obvious to me, but that is a minor point as I don’t think I would be able to detect a good photoshop job. The original digital photo (I am assuming it was originally digital – if on film then better still) would need to be examined. The metadata might indicate if it had been altered. The press is immediately linking the notion of a giant snake to recent reports of the discovery of Titanoboa – an extinct giant boa from South America 60 million years ago. This beast was about 45 ft long and could snack on alligators. Scientists speculate that the warmer climate allowed for the boa to become larger than extant boas, which max out at about 30 ft. The largest snake on record was a python 33ft long. This brings up an important point about plausibility. If a warmer climate was necessary to allow for a 45ft snake, then how can a 100ft snake be living today? Perhaps this is a warm-blooded snake, but that would be quite amazing. There is also the problem of a 100ft snake escaping detection for all this time. This is a point that comes up regarding any cryptozoological claim for a large yet undiscovered animal not living in deep ocean trenches or otherwise remote location. An undiscovered fish on the sea floor, or a small lizard in pristine forest – sure. But a large primate living in Pennsylvania – no. Borneo does have remote dense jungle, and there are likely many undiscovered species there, but a 100 ft snake stretches plausibility a bit too much. The giant snake of Borneo, dubbed Nabau by locals, is likely to join Nessie and Bigfoot in the halls of unconfirmed crytozoological speculation. 24 Responses to “Revenge of Titanoboa” Leave a Reply You must be logged in to post a comment.
Whaddaya mean, “evaluation?” — Mismatched expectations in nonprofit measurement In Ontario’s nonprofit sector, evaluation is a word that gets used a lot. Different kinds of data gathering approaches with different purposes sometimes get lumped together under the general heading of evaluation. This can lead to miscommunication and unrealistic expectations. To try to clear things up a bit, we have created this resource (Editor’s note: We’ve updated this resource. Click here to see Version 2.0). For the purposes of this discussion, we would suggest that people in the sector use the term evaluation to describe four basic approaches to measurement work. We know the reality is a bit more complicated than that, but allow us to elaborate further. Here are four definitions that we will be using: 1. Performance measurement is the day-to-day tracking of simple descriptive information. 2. Program evaluation tends to be more intensive, time-limited, and focused on measurement of short term outcomes. 3. Applied research tends to be more theory driven and designed to generate new knowledge from which we can make general conclusions rather than practical recommendations for program managers. 4. Systems evaluation focuses on understanding the cumulative effect of multiple programs or strategies. At first glance, it may seem like we are splitting hairs here. However, we think these four approaches are different from one another in really important ways. Check out our table that lists six common reasons why nonprofits engage in evaluation and then indicates which of the four evaluation approaches works best for each. In the table, the green cells represent situations where the approach and expectations are well matched. Let’s say, for example, your program collects basic data about how many people take part, who those people are, and how satisfied they are with your service in a general way. This is a classic example of a good performance measurement approach. If your purpose in gathering this data is to demonstrate to a funder that you are carrying out the program as planned and that things are running smoothly, this approach works really well. You’re in the green cell in the top-left of our table. On the other hand, maybe you are doing much more ambitious measurement work. Perhaps you are working with sister agencies in other cities and an academic partner on a study of the long-term impacts of a certain program model. If so, you’re probably down in the bottom-right section of our table, in another green cell. If so, you’re good to go! The applied research approach is probably right for you. So far, so good? However, there are many situations where the approach and expectation don’t match as well. Imagine a nonprofit with a strong track record of day-to-day performance measurement. Let’s say this nonprofit starts to shift its thinking about the purpose of its measurement work. Perhaps, for example, it would like to get better at measuring program outcomes. It might be tempting to think that this would be an easy shift. A few tweaks to the client survey and off we go. However, this expectation may not be realistic. Getting good at outcome measurement may require the agency to develop or do more thinking about its theory of change. It may need to begin doing pre-test surveys as well as post-tests. It may need to start asking somewhat more intrusive questions of its clients. In short, a change in evaluation purpose or expectations may require a significant change in evaluation approach. In our table, using performance measurement approaches to demonstrate achievement of impact appears in a yellow cell. That means it can work, under the right circumstances, but you should proceed with caution. Shifting to a program evaluation approach (the green cell in the middle of the table) might be a better way to go. Funders in the nonprofit sector can also run into challenges around mismatched expectations. Imagine a funder that has asked all grant recipients to engage in program evaluation work and report on the outcomes. Let’s assume that the grant recipients have done this measurement work well. That funder may believe that these individual program evaluation reports can be rolled up to demonstrate system impact or the impact of the funder’s investments on the community as a whole. This may not be a realistic expectation, and it shows up in our table as a red cell. Unless the funder and its grant recipients have worked together to create a measurement strategy specifically designed to demonstrate system impact (as the Canadian Women’s Foundation does, for example) lots of individual evaluation reports aren’t likely to add up to evidence of systems change. If you’d like to know more about evaluation definitions and approaches, there’s an app for that. However, the core point we are making is that no single evaluation project can be all things to all people. It is important to think about whether your approach matches your expectations and whether everyone involved in your evaluation work has similar expectations.Check out our updated version 2.0 Check out our original resource for more Info This series is part of our work to develop a Sector Driven Evaluation Strategy. Stay tuned for more great evaluation resources & get involved!
Collective bargaining refers to negotiations between an employer and a labor union’s members to determine the conditions of employment. Some states are trying to take away some collective bargaining rights of public employee unions. Do you favor or oppose taking away some collective bargaining rights of the unions? Unsurprisingly, 60% of Americans told The New York Times they did not want to take away the rights of other Americans. Problem is collective bargaining is not a right. It is a privilege. There is a big difference between rights and privileges. Americans have the right to vote. The state, barring a felony conviction, cannot take that right away. Driving, on the hand, is privilege. The state can refuse you the privilege of driving for a myriad of reasons including failure to pass a test showing you know the rules of the road or failing to purchase auto insurance. Similarly the freedom of association is a right shared by all Americans and protected by the First Amendment. In contrast, collective bargaining is a special power occasionally granted to some unions. In upholding North Carolina’s ban on government union collective bargaining, a federal court wrote in Atkins vs. City of Charlotte: “All citizens have the right to associate in groups to advocate their special interests to the government. It is something entirely different to grant any one interest group special status and access to the decision making process.” Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) budget bill in Wisconsin in no way infringes on any Americans’ right to associate and lobby government. What it does do is allow Wisconsin employees to choose not to join a union and keep their job at the same time. It also forces the government unions in Wisconsin to collect their own union dues instead of using the power of the state to withhold them directly from employee paychecks. Now there is a question you’ll never see in a New York Times poll: “Do you favor forcing all state employees to join a union and empowering government unions to take union dues directly from employee paychecks?”
Colloidal Silver and Airborne MRSA Pathogens It’s now been demonstrated in hospital studies that the deadly MRSA pathogen can go airborne and colonize people’s nasal passages and lungs through the airborne route, causing infection and disease. This means, if a family member were to have a MRSA infection, the pathogen could go airborne in the home, and other family members could be in danger of getting the same infection simply by breathing. So, is there a simple and effective way to use colloidal silver in the home to combat this problem? Indeed there is, and you can read about it in this article… Hi, Steve Barwick here, for www.TheSilverEdge.com... More people die each year in the U.S. from MRSA infections than die of AIDS. Indeed, some 94,000 deaths each year are attributed to the MRSA pathogen. But previously, it was thought that MRSA can only be transmitted by touch, i.e., either by person-to-person touching, or when a contaminated person touches a doorknob or a shopping cart handle, and then you later touch the same object. Because of this erroneous assumption, most work to stop the spread of MRSA in public places like hospitals, schools, gymnasiums and others has centered chiefly around the disinfection of touch surfaces, which is to say, disinfecting door knobs, chairs, desks, tables, and other objects the MRSA pathogen can be found colonizing. Indeed, the touch surfaces of entire hospital wards, school classrooms, gyms, prison cell blocks and other public facilities have been thoroughly disinfected with topical disinfectants after MRSA outbreaks. Is MRSA Airborne? But the dirty little secret the health and medical authorities are apparently trying to avoid letting you know is this: As far back as 2001, clinical researchers discovered that MRSA can easily become airborne and infect people by lodging in the nasal passages and lungs after it’s breathed in. In fact, a study published in the Archives of Otolaryngol Head and Neck Surgery demonstrates that MRSA was very easily spread among patients in a hospital through the airborne route, and may be responsible for many cases of hospital-borne MRSA infections. According to the study authors: In other words, as long as everything was perfectly still in the hospital rooms, MRSA didn’t go airborne. But as soon as there was significant movement in the hospital rooms -- such as the changing of bed sheets, or the moving of hospital equipment, or dusting and cleaning -- the MRSA pathogens easily went airborne, and were carried throughout the hospital room on the ambient air currents. Indeed, the study states: “…clinical isolates of MRSA in our ward were of one origin, and the isolates from the air and from inanimate environments were identical to the MRSA strains that caused infection or colonization in the in-patients.” Yes, the study found that the exact same MRSA strains found to be airborne were also found to be colonizing the nasal passages and lungs of the hospital patients. According to the study authors, this strongly suggests the patients were being contaminated with MRSA via the airborne route. MRSA Levels 50 Times Higher What’s more, the researchers found that airborne samples of MRSA and other bacteria increased a staggering 50 times over in hospital rooms when the air was sampled directly after bed sheets were changed. According to the study authors: CFU means “colony forming units.” In other words, whenever there was movement in a hospital room, such as hospital staff changing bed sheets, MRSA was spread throughout the room and began colonizing additional areas of the room. Known Since 1998 Indeed, one 1998 study published in the Journal of Hospital Infections was titled “Ventilation grilles as a potential source of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus causing an outbreak in an orthopaedic ward at a district general hospital.” Apparently, the newly airborne MRSA pathogens can even colonize the ventilation grilles in hospital rooms, and literally be spread further throughout the rooms whenever the heat or air conditioning comes on – even enough to cause an outbreak of MRSA infections! Also Spread By Coughing The researchers in the 2001 hospital study went on to state: “…In this study, we confirmed that MRSA could be acquired by medical staff and patients through airborne transmission. The findings suggest the importance of protecting patients against cross-infectious agents existing in aerosols.” “Aerosols” means tiny drops of liquid that are airborne. Translation: Even coughing can spread the MRSA pathogen to others once a patient’s nasal cavities or lungs have been infected through the airborne route. Finally, the study authors pointed out that as far back as 1998 it was already thought by some researchers that MRSA could be spread by coughing: “MRSA in the form of a bio-aerosol can contaminate the air and cause airborne infectious diseases.” “Bio-aerosol” simply means liquid droplets in the air that come from a human body. Again, it’s just a ten dollar medical term for coughing. So to summarize: the pathogen becomes airborne when hospital staff begin moving things around in a hospital room. Then it colonizes other areas of the hospital room and also lodges in the nasal cavities and lungs of the patients. And from there it can be further spread throughout the hospital room and to other patients or medical staff simply by coughing. Of course, what can happen in a hospital room can happen in a home just as easily. This may well be one reason why MRSA infections that occur in the home – often referred to as “community acquired MRSA -- tend to be spread to other family members. If for example a family member were to have a MRSA infection and precautions aren’t taken during the changing of bed sheets, the MRSA pathogen can go airborne in the home and potentially contaminate other areas of the home and infect other family members. Colloidal Silver to the Rescue? Of course, it’s been amply demonstrated in in vitro laboratory studies that colloidal silver literally decimates the MRSA pathogen. I’ve reported on this multiple times. And the Colloidal Silver Cures MRSA website documents a number of these little-known clinical studies in detail. What’s more, real-life anecdotal accounts from MRSA victims who have used colloidal silver after prescriptions antibiotics failed them further demonstrate the astonishing effectiveness of colloidal silver against MRSA. You can read about some of these dramatic real-life accounts in one of my previous articles, titled Does Colloidal Silver Really Kill MRSA? And you can read additional real-life accounts of colloidal silver being used to cure MRSA infections at the Colloidal Silver Success Stories website. So with MRSA being so rampant in public facilities such as hospitals, schools, prisons, gyms and more, why isn’t colloidal silver used more often in efforts to keep the populations of this deadly pathogen down to controllable levels? And with such a stunningly high national death rate from MRSA infections here in the U.S., why isn’t colloidal silver being used to treat patients who come down with MRSA infections? Only the doctors, hospitals and other public facilities where MRSA has proven to be a problem can answer that question. But I suspect it has a lot to do with the powerful influence of Big Pharma over doctors, hospitals and the health and medical policies of public institutions. The $250,000 Colloidal Silver Machine Interestingly, as reported on the Colloidal Silver Cures MRSA website, at least one British hospital seems to be catching on to the idea of using antimicrobial silver against MRSA, and also seems to understand that often MRSA is spread via the airborne route. According to another British newspaper, The Sun, a $250,000 machine has been developed to spray a special aerosol silver mist throughout British hospitals, in order to stop the spread of the deadly MRSA super pathogens. The newspaper reveals: “Experts have long known silver is deadly to the superbug and is highly toxic to some other bacteria as well. It is already used in plasters and hospital dressings. But now medics from Leicester University have created a generator that divides pieces of silver into billions of tiny particles. It then suspends them in liquid glycerol to be put into aerosols. The particles are small enough to pass inside bacteria but do not kill human cells. The $250,000 machine’s inventor, Professor Chris Binns, said medical trials will start within the year.” Wow. A whopping $250,000 for a machine to spray a fine mist of aerosolized silver through a hospital? The Cool Mist Vaporizer Trick! You’d think it would be a LOT cheaper to put a simple $40 cool mist vaporizer from Walmart or Walgreen’s drug store (see photo at top of article) into each hospital room, and simply fill it with colloidal silver and turn it on, allowing the fine vaporized mist of colloidal silver to spread throughout the room. In light of the above study, this would be particularly valuable in hospitals while nurses are changing sheets and bedding, or while cleaning personnel are moving things around in the patient care rooms. Indeed, in my own home whenever there’s illness or infection, I frequently fill an inexpensive cool mist vaporizer with homemade colloidal silver, and let it run for 20 or 30 minutes several times a day, allowing the fine colloidal silver mist to spread on the ambient air throughout the room or even the entire household. Why? Because I recognize the importance of keeping the spread of the pathogens strictly limited, so others family members are not infected. But of course, that’s just common sense. There are no clinical studies demonstrating that running a cool mist vaporizer filled with colloidal silver in a hospital room, or in the home for that matter, will kill airborne pathogens such as MRSA and others, and keep infection or disease from spreading. But every clinical study I’ve seen that’s been conducted on antimicrobial silver and its effect on MRSA has demonstrated that the silver literally wipes out the MRSA pathogen with ease! So it stands to reason the “cool mist vaporizer trick” would work. And until the clinical studies are performed, and the idea of using a cool mist vaporizer filled with colloidal silver is proven to be either effective or ineffective, I think I’ll stick with common sense and run the machine – particularly in light of these studies demonstrating that MRSA can so easily become airborne. Make Your Own Colloidal Silver for Pennies! Of course, it’s awfully darned expensive to fill a cool mist vaporizer with a commercial brand of colloidal silver. After all, commercial brands of colloidal silver can cost anywhere from $20 to $40 for a tiny four-ounce bottle. And the reservoir in a cool mist vapor can hold a quart or two of liquid, depending upon the size of the vaporizer. That’s a total of anywhere from eight to sixteen bottles of store-bought colloidal silver – obviously a very expensive proposition! But if you make your own colloidal silver with high-quality Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator from The Silver Edge, you can literally make gallons of antimicrobial colloidal silver at a time for just a few pennies per batch (see video here)! So you never have to worry about cost, and you’ll always have all of the colloidal silver you could possibly need on hand for situations like those described in this article. If you’d like to learn more about making and using colloidal silver, just click the link. Meanwhile, I’ll be back next week with another helpful and insightful article… Yours for the safe, sane and responsible use of colloidal silver, Steve Barwick, author Important Note and Disclaimer: The contents of this Ezine have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Information conveyed herein is from sources deemed to be accurate and reliable, but no guarantee can be made in regards to the accuracy and reliability thereof. The author, Steve Barwick, is a natural health journalist with over 30 years of experience writing professionally about natural health topics. He is not a doctor. Therefore, nothing stated in this Ezine should be construed as prescriptive in nature, nor is any part of this Ezine meant to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice. Nothing reported herein is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. The author is simply reporting in journalistic fashion what he has learned during the past 17 years of journalistic research into colloidal silver and its usage. Therefore, the information and data presented should be considered for informational purposes only, and approached with caution. Readers should verify for themselves, and to their own satisfaction, from other knowledgeable sources such as their doctor, the accuracy and reliability of all reports, ideas, conclusions, comments and opinions stated herein. All important health care decisions should be made under the guidance and direction of a legitimate, knowledgeable and experienced health care professional. Readers are solely responsible for their choices. The author and publisher disclaim responsibility and/or liability for any loss or hardship that may be incurred as a result of the use or application of any information included in this Ezine. Copyright 2012 \| Life & Health Research Group, LLC \| PO Box 1239 \| Peoria AZ 85380-1239 \| All rights reserved
THE JOINT CENTRE FOR BIOETHICS (JCB) at the University of Toronto does not shy away from a challenge. The centre was founded in 2002 with the mission of leading the charge in “bioethics research, education, practice and public engagement.” Two Canadian women, Gloria Taylor and Kay Carter, and their families recently provided the JCB and similar centres across Canada with an unprecedented ethical issue when they challenged the Attorney General of Canada for the legal right to physician-assisted deaths (PAD). Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) became a turning point in Canadian law on February 6, 2015, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the section of The Criminal Code that restricted physician-assisted dying deprived individuals of their charter right to life, liberty, and security of the person. This ruling has major implications for the practice of medicine. It will no longer be a crime in Canada for a physician to honour the request of a “competent” person who asks for assistance in ending their life because of a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.” The judgement was suspended by the Supreme Court for one year, in order to give both federal and provincial jurisdictions — who will both be affected by this change — the opportunity to draft new legislation. This grace period has now been extended to June 2016. From now until then, patients can apply for an exemption to the Supreme Court’s suspension and be assessed for physician-assisted deaths. While the Supreme Court’s decision detailed certain eligibility requirements for potential cases, many questions remain on how to move forward with this change, while still protecting the rights and freedoms of physicians and patients alike. Legislators in Ontario continue to negotiate the complicated ethical implications of the Supreme Court ruling in an attempt to synthesize laws surrounding the practice. The University of Toronto, as an institution at the intersection of health research, policy, and practice, is a key player in this historic change. Looking outward: the role of U of T in crafting PAD policy Physician-assisted dying practices are in effect in many places around the world, including Oregon and Washington D.C. in the U.S., the Benelux countries, and Colombia. Québec crafted and implemented an assisted dying law on December 10, 2015, which resulted in Canada’s first legal physician-assisted death shortly thereafter. Last week, the first judicially authorized physician-assisted death took place in Calgary. The procedure was conducted by Dr. Ellen Wiebe, an advocate for PAD. Pressure for the implementation of PAD in Canada has been rigorous and punctuated by passionate appeals from activists. Sue Rodriguez, a resident of Victoria, BC who suffered from ALS, became known as an activist for PAD in the early 1990s when she fought for her right to die. Despite having her case dismissed by the Supreme Court in 1993, Rodriguez died the following year with the assistance of an anonymous doctor in Victoria. Other groups have opposed the change. The Council of Canadians with Disabilities has called for an “intervention” in the Carter case, arguing that PAD laws will normalize and legalize the harmful perception that death is preferable to disability. It is within this complex and heated moral setting that Ontario and other Canadian jurisdictions must craft new legislation. Trudo Lemmens, professor and Scholl chair in health law and policy at the Faculty of Law with cross-appointments at the Faculty of Medicine and the JCB, says that academics, and the University of Toronto in particular, have an important role to contribute to the debate. “I feel it is our civic duty as academics working in relevant areas to [participate] in the debate and to help inform policy makers,” Lemmens said, adding that U of T professors have been active in making recommendations to government, participating as expert witnesses to the Carter case, and becoming involved in a variety of community groups. Lemmens himself has been advocating for the development of a “strict regulatory regime with rigorously monitored safeguards” surrounding the practice of physician-assisted dying. On February 3, 2016, he gave a talk hosted by the Dalla Lana School of Public Health entitled Bioethics Seminar: Why Physician-Assisted Dying Can and Should Remain Restricted in Canada after Carter. This was one instance of an ongoing debate that has occurred at U of T surrounding PAD. “[W]e’ve had many more events at U of T on the topic in which I and other members of the academic community [participated] on different sides of the debate,” Lemmens said. Another significant contribution to the conversation that U of T has made is through the formulation of interim recommendations to the many hospitals affiliated with the University of Toronto. The university is an integral member of the Toronto Academic Health Sciences Network (TAHSN), the only one of its kind in Canada, which institutionalizes collaboration between the university, its nine teaching hospitals, and four associate level members. The JCB recently released a detailed list of key considerations for physicians dealing with PAD requests before the legislation comes into effect in June. The report was assembled by the Physician-Assisted Death Implementation Task Force, and it cautions physicians that are not currently compelled to perform PAD to focus on established ethical strategies and to seek legal advice, since the recommended process has not been previously tested. According to Lemmens, these recommendations will weigh highly with U of T’s many hospital affiliations. Ethics of dying In his seminar, Lemmens pointed to the development of PAD in Belgium as a fairly open and interpretive legislative regime. The criteria for PAD in Belgium include the following, as outlined in Lemmens’ memorandum on the topic for the parliament of Canada: “1. the patient is in medically hopeless situation; 2. of constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering; 3. that cannot be alleviated; and 4. resulting from a serious or incurable disorder; 5. caused by illness or accident.” This standard was brought into effect in Belgium in 2002. Belgium has since seen an exponential increase in instances of physician-assisted deaths: from 347 cases in 2004 to 2,021 cases in 2015. One out of every 16 deaths in Flanders, Belgium can be attributed to PAD. This is concerning for Lemmens, who noted that some language used in the Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying Report mirrors that of Belgium’s and may not do enough to protect vulnerable people. Vague criteria and terminology, Lemmens warned, could lead to premature deaths. He offered the example of a mandatory waiting period for PAD, which was not recommended in the advisory group’s report. Instead, this measure was recommended to be left to the discretion of physicians in collaboration with their patients. “What me and other colleagues have said is most physicians will be responsible, but there [are] always, in any practice of medicine, there are sloppy people,” Lemmens said, emphasizing the importance of more stringent laws to mitigate the problem. On the other hand, the Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group, co-chaired by JCB director Dr. Jennifer Gibson, stated that the recommendations “place the patient at the centre” of the PAD process. This includes, according to the report, safeguards for vulnerable populations, including assessment by two physicians and robust assessment of eligibility, competence, and consent. The future of health care In October 2014, 84 per cent of Canadian respondents to an online poll agreed with the statement: “a doctor should be able to help someone end their life if the person is a competent adult who is terminally ill, suffering unbearably and repeatedly asks for assistance to die.” This sentiment was echoed by some U of T students who are planning future careers in health care. For these students, the Carter case comes at a critical point in time. As some students see it, PAD will become an important aspect of ethical patient care during their careers. “The patient has the right to control the time and means of his or her own death under the ethical principle of autonomy. Suicide is a legal act for theoretically everyone, but someone who is terminally ill or is disabled may not be able to exercise this option,” said Angela Han, a first-year medical student at U of T. Joanna Dowdell, a U of T student who is also serving as a delegate for UN Health and Sustainable Development, agreed. “I think the introduction of physician-assisted [dying] in Canada is great. It ensures that people who would otherwise be forced to continue living in a lot of pain are now given another option, to end their lives when they want to, with dignity,” said Dowdell. That said, Dowdell saw reason in Lemmens’ argument for a strict legislative regime surrounding the practice. “I think there is definitely need for regulative body for oversight of the program, to ensure that [it is] not being misused and pushing vulnerable groups towards an unwanted procedure,” said Dowdell. It is clear to see why protective measures are warranted. A new study forecasts that 74,000 patients will die of cancer this year alone, and many of those will not have access to palliative care in Canada. In fact, in spring 2014, the Canadian Hospice Care Association reported that only 16 per cent to 30 per cent of Canadians who die have access to palliative care. In this precarious situation, PAD risks becoming an alternative to other kinds of end-of-life care. PAD must, therefore, be considered just one part of a much broader discussion of health care options. Han, for one, was not discouraged. “[PAD] would not discourage good palliative care — the Netherlands and Oregon both became leaders in palliative care only after the medically assisted death was legalized there,” Han said. Still, it is essential that policymakers, health care workers, and patients alike do not lose sight of holistic care in the ongoing discussions surrounding PAD. In a 2015 study involving 100 patients suffering from a wide range of psychiatric disorders — such as mood, personality, post traumatic stress, eating, schizophrenia, addiction, autism, and complicated grief — who requested euthanasia, 38 of them withdrew their requests, and 11 others postponed upon being granted treatment. In other words treatment is inextricably linked to requests for physician-assisted dying. Han and Dowdell, and many other students soon to enter health professions will have to navigate this fine balance. Politics and pressure As the June legislation deadline approaches, public feedback on PAD has grown increasingly heated. Many religious institutions are voicing opposition to PAD as it becomes increasingly evident that it will become legal in Canada. Cardinal Thomas Collins of the Toronto Archdiocese made a statement against PAD in February. A special Commons-Senate Committee, comprised of 11 MPs from the Conservative, Liberal, and NDP parties and five senators was struck at the beginning of January with the following mandate: “to review the report of the External Panel on Options for a Legislative Response to Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) and other recent relevant consultation activities and studies, to consult with Canadians, experts and stakeholders, and make recommendations on the framework of a federal response on physician-assisted dying that respects the Constitution, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the priorities of Canadians.” The committee of MPs and senators put forward 21 recommendations to the government on February 25. Canadian students will be able to participate in discussions surrounding physician-assisted death over the coming months and as the practice is implemented. For Han, Dowdell, and many others, the policy will be a defining ethical consideration in their careers for years to come.
Copenhagen — Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom and one of Europe’s most influential politicians, likes to express his admiration for the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. That’s no coincidence. The First Amendment provides the best legal protection of speech in the world, including the kind of speech that in December 2016 led to the conviction of Wilders in the Netherlands for having insulted Dutch Moroccans and having incited discrimination during a political rally a few years back. I suppose that’s why Wilders is seen by some as a politician willing to stand up for freedom of expression and speak his mind about uncomfortable issues that others have refrained from doing. He insists on his right to unfettered criticism of Islam and Muslim communities as fundamental to free speech. In the wake of terrorist attacks in Europe and clashes of culture and values, these issues have risen to the top of the political agenda in most European countries. Recently, one of Wilders’s supporters in the U.S., the right-wing activist David Horowitz, lauded the anti-Muslim Dutchman as “the Paul Revere of Europe … a hero of the most important battle of our times, the battle to defend free speech.” It’s true that this is a crucial battle. Its outcome will have long-term consequences for the protection of freedom in liberal democracies. Free speech is under attack from many quarters. Wilders himself has to live with round-the-clock security because of his stance on Islam and immigration. Wilders insists that it’s impossible to separate words and deeds when it comes to Islam … This is the way a dictatorship operates. I am fully on Wilders’s side when it comes to the speech crimes he has been accused of. I am against hate speech laws as a matter of principle but also for practical reasons. They are not the most effective way to fight bigotry. They tend to be enforced selectively and express a social norm, not a genuine will to fight bigotry. One man’s hate speech may be another man’s poetry. I also believe it’s important to defend Wilders’s right to speak out in light of the threats against his life. Nevertheless, I disagree with people like Horowitz, who see Wilders as a defender of free speech. Let me explain why. Wilders has called for banning the Quran. He wants to close mosques and ban the building of new ones, and he has proposed a change to the Dutch Constitution that would outlaw faith-based schools for Muslims but not for Christians and citizens committed to other religions and life philosophies. As a justification for his position on Islam, Wilders often quotes Abraham Lincoln’s words from a letter written in 1859: “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” But one could turn Lincoln’s words against Wilders himself. By calling for a ban on the Quran and for the closing of mosques and faith-based schools for Muslims, he insists on denying freedom of speech and religion to Muslims. Does that mean that Wilders, contrary to Lincoln’s claim in a very different context, deserves freedom of speech for himself? It does, I believe, though Wilders’s position on Islam makes his support for the First Amendment and calls for a European First Amendment ring hollow. A couple years ago, when I debated Wilders on the legitimate limits of free speech in a democracy, I told him that all his proposals to restrict freedom of speech and religion for Muslims would be denounced by the U.S. Supreme Court with reference to First Amendment protection. They wouldn’t stand a chance to become the law of the land. Wilders responded that if that’s the case, then we need to adopt a slightly different version of the First Amendment in Europe. It became clear to me that Wilders’s support for the First Amendment was based on the fact that it would protect his own speech, but when he found out that the First Amendment would also provide a robust protection of the freedom of speech and religion for Muslims, he was reluctant to support it. In doing so, he failed the acid test for the support of free speech in a democracy. It was first formulated by the legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who issued a famous dissenting opinion in 1929: “If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” Freedom for the speech that we hate. That’s the acid test. This principle embodies the essence of tolerance. You do not ban, intimidate, threaten or use violence against speech that you deeply dislike or hate. So, on Islam and Muslims, Wilders comes down on the wrong side of democracy when it comes to three of its key principles: freedom of speech and religion, equality before the law and tolerance. Wilders tries to escape accusations for discrimination against Islam and Muslims by saying that Islam just isn’t like any other religion. It’s a totalitarian ideology like fascism and Communism, he insists. He has compared the Quran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and for a while, he justified his call for banning the Quran with a reference to the fact that Mein Kampf was banned in the Netherlands. In recent years, he has insisted on outlawing the Quran independent of the fate of Mein Kampf,which was recently published in Germany for the first time since the fall of the Nazis. Some people would be inclined to support Wilders’s claim about Islam as a totalitarian ideology. However, it doesn’t improve his argument significantly. The works of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler and other ideologues of totalitarian or anti-democratic ideologies are accessible in the majority of democratic states. The classical texts of Communism weren’t banned during the Cold War. In many Western democracies, there were Communist newspapers and publishing houses. Communists had their own schools and controlled unions, and Communist parties were running for Parliament. If Communist parties became targets of bans, they were usually short-lived or not enforced. Why treat Islam any different, even if you think it’s not a religion but a totalitarian political ideology? Here is what Wilders replied when I said that it is fundamental to a democracy to make a distinction between words and deeds if one wants to safeguard free speech and provide space to a diversity of opinions: “We have to not only criminalize actions but the source legitimizing actions as well — that is the Quran. If we don’t do it, we provide those who want to kill our freedom with the means to do so.” Wilders insists that it’s impossible to separate words and deeds when it comes to Islam — i.e. between what the Quran says and what Muslims quoting the Quran say, and violence committed by Muslims in the name Islam. That is very problematic. This is the way a dictatorship operates. It treats words as if they were actions and therefore they put people propagating unwelcome opinions in jail. Authoritarian regimes state explicitly that these kind of people represent a threat to the public order, social harmony or security. Wilders’s argument for limiting the rights of Muslims shares other similarities with unfree societies. When he calls for banning the Quran and shutting down mosques and faith-based schools, he refers to opinion polls taken from among the Muslim population — he bases his call for restrictions on what Muslims think and believe, not what they actually do or plan to do. In other words, Wilders accuses Muslims of being guilty of thought crimes, and he believes that this is sufficient to justify restrictions of their civil rights. I am not saying that widely spread opinions among Muslims — on apostasy and blasphemy, on equality between men and women, on homosexuality and freedom of speech and religion and other issues — aren’t problematic, to say the least. I am saying that in a democracy, you cannot restrict freedoms based on what people think. In a democracy, you criminalize quite a few deeds — like tax evasion, shop lifting, fast driving, fraud and murder — but you ban only words that directly incite violence or crimes. Wilders’s quote of Abraham Lincoln — “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves” — is incomplete. It continues: “and under a just God, cannot long retain it.” In the context of Wilders’s selective defense of free speech, those words are worth remembering. Flemming Rose is a Danish author, journalist and adjunct fellow at the Cato Institute. Filed under: American Domestic Policy by admin No Comments »
When I see one of my parents cars before it’s washed there’s brake dust all over the front rims. Also when I’m on the road and see people locking up there brakes in traffic, I see dust coming off the tires which eventually washes into the soil. I believe we should stop using products which contain Zinc, Iron, Copper, and lead additives. These metals are causing serious damage to our environment and its inhabitant’s animals, plants and humans. Dust from the tires on vehicles as well as brake linings contain Iron, Copper, and Zinc are adding these metals to nearby soils. For example, like the sport drifting all the dust from the tires are contaminating nearby soils. Commercial fertilizers added to home gardens and lawns have a high level of copper and zinc. Like when I see People in naborhoods putting toxic fertilizers on there lawn which harms our environment. Most house paints which contain lead can run off or chip off houses harm wildlife. As well as illegal dumpings of empty paint cans. When I’m with my family and we drive past naborhoods were people air painting with lead paint. This is why I believe we should stop using these products containing these metals. In towns I see cities lawns being fertilized, constant painting over the summer, and people locking there brakes up. These causes hurt plants, wildlife, and humans, which we need to stop using these products. If we stop using these products birds and fishes’ concentration of lead should decrease and stop increasing. If you enjoyed this essay, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to This I Believe, Inc.
Digging into Roy Palmer’s Ballad History Of England, the first poaching song I come across again had the keepers killing a poacher… Which makes one wonder which is the ‘correct’ version of the The Bold Poachers or The Oakham Poachers! In this BBC Archive On Four, historian Alan Dein celebrates the centenary of his mentor George Ewart Evans, collector of Suffolk farming tales. Evans began by chatting to his neighbours over the fireside in the 1950’s and transcribing stories about poaching, shepherding, smuggling and ditching. The talk was of a hardscrabble life, of leaky roofs and meals of pea soup and pollard dumplings and beef only at Christmas with occasional festivities like the Whitsun fair. Evans came from a Welsh mining village and he sympathised with the labourers’ stories about the tyranny of the trinity of the parson, squire and farmer. He was a sympathetic listener who asked allowed his community to speak for itself and he captured the stories of people whose traditions had been unbroken for generations, who worked on the land before mechanisation and who believed in magic and folk wisdom and had intuitive understanding of working with animals. Evans’ eleven books about the working lives and folk stories of Blaxhall are a portrait of every facet of his village and paved the way for books and programmes, both fiction and not fiction, about British agricultural life. The Long Affray: The Poaching Wars in Britain by Harry Hopkins Published in 1985, this life changing book was given to me by Sam Lee. “A beautiful telling of the age-old battle between peasant and landowner where for the price of a rabbit or a pheasant men were murdered, transported as convicts and executed. This ancient struggle over game was not just about food for the poor poachers and their families, it was about social rank and the power of the landed gentry, the burgeoning class politics of the time and the harsh realities of rural life.”
Some interpreters of the Revelation suggest that Jezebel was the wife of the vision caster in Thyratira. Even though there are a few linguistic reasons for such an interpretation, I find none of them convincing in the least. Primarily (as I've written elsewhere), the angels to whom these letters are written are not pastors, prophets, vision casters, or even humans--they are angels as is consistent with the use of the term throughout the Apocalypse. Pastors and bishops are never called angels (or messengers) in the NT, and it would be a novel application of the term to use it as such in these messages to the seven churches. Furthermore, since the same Koine word means "wife" and "woman", it is not necessary to interpret the reference to Jezebel ("that woman") as "your wife", even if an extra pronoun (your, second person, singular) is attested in some minority manuscripts. She is female, she may be married, but there is no way she is married to an angel! The bottom line: there is nothing compelling about such an interpretation, and much that militates against it. Christ gives this self-styled prophetess time to repent of teaching and misleading Christians in Thyatira to commit sexual immorality and participate in idolatry. Of course, in that time she actually has an opportunity to lead more astray, although time granted for the one leading others astray is also time granted for those being led astray to come to their senses and repent. If they don't, they'll go down with her because followers never shed their responsibility for following what they follow. The Antichrist may be thrown into the fire first, but those who follow him get thrown in just the same afterward. Striking her children dead is a shocking threat, not really unique in biblical revelation, but appalling to our modern sensibilities all the same. Whatever else that says about God, it certainly undermines any notion that he is the touchy-feely type that loves everyone unconditionally. God is love, but he does with people as he sees fit, and who is there that can argue with him about it or question his judgment? History has an ample record of bracing catastrophe, e.g. the Black Death (~1340's), the Shaanxi Earthquake (1556), the Spanish Flu (1918), the Boxing Day Tsunami (2004), and the Haitian Earthquake (2010), which should convince any of us that it is a fearful thing to be in the hand of a God who can suddenly bring us into judgment. If one sees the name Jezebel as a merely figurative assignation, (i.e. there was not a woman actually named Jezebel in Thyatira), then I would think it was permissible to see her children along the same figurative line. In that case, the children would be her second layer or level of followers rather than actual biological offspring. Those she commits adultery with would be the first layer, those that are won to her way as a result of the first layer would be the children. All three (her, her first followers, and the followers of followers) are justifiably threatened with judgment, for none are innocent. When God strikes in judgment, it is meant to get our attention, but does he do so just because he desires to demonstrate his wrath? I think that the answer to that question must be both yes and no. No, in that he didn't desire it within himself as if wrath were an attribute of his nature; yes, in that given rebellion, he does desire to respond to it with wrath. Apart from creatures rebelling, there would be no need for, nor any expression of wrath--God is not innately wrathful. He doesn't have to, and hasn't fixed the game just so he has an opportunity to hurt someone and break things, but when it comes to unrepented of rebellion, God wants folk to know what reaction to expect from him. So never read the wrong message into his patient forebearance--God searches the mind and heart, with absolute transparency. And what he knows in secret, he'll make known in judgment seen by all.
All of the cosmological, elemental Spirits must be in their full energies and in balance for the greatest amount of abundance and harmonious empowerment to be manifested. The universal balance and health of All That Is is dependent upon the unfettered interdependence of these elemental energies. If any one is held back, blocked or otherwise constrained, then those forces in nature must be brought back into balance. If these energies are out of balance in human community or within an individual, it may be necessary to do ritual to bring the energies back into harmony - but something must be done or ill health, disease and dangerous imbalances for all will become deeply ingrained in the people. The pathologies of racism, sexism and classism, along with the negativities of white privilege, heterosexism and religious imperialism are all dangerous blockages to the full fruition of individual and communal human energies, let alone a serious disrespect and affront to the flow of nature's energetics. When we stand in the way of a person or people connecting to their Ancestors and abilites of vision, their full dream life and warrior traditions, we create serious imbalance and blockage of the Spirit of Vun, the element of fire. When we stand in the way of a person or people connecting to their purpose, their birthright, their ability to know their history and reason for living, we create serious imbalance and blockaage of the Spirit of Kusir, the element of Mineral ("stones and bones"). When we stand in the way of a person or people connecting to their own abilities to heal, to be in reconciliation, to peace and unity with themselves and their people, we create serious imbalance and blockage of the Spirit of Kuon, the element of Water. When we stand in the way of a person or people connecting to their true nature, their ability to fully manifest abundance and material reality in their lives and truly transform themselves for the advancement of culture, we create serious imbalance and blockage of the Spirit of Wie, the element of nature. When we stand in the way of a person or people connecting to each other, to being seen, being protected, to knowing their identity, their cultural identity, to being truly nurtured and held in compassion, to the very fundamental gift of being touched in love and respect, we create serious imbalance and blockage of the Spirit of Tenbalu and Tingan, the element of earth. The destructive, dismissive, divisive and unjust social and spiritual pathologies of racism, sexism and classism and all the structures and behaviors and social systems that sustain them or are sustained by them must be summarily dealt with and wiped out if we are to be looked upon as respectable adults and then Ancestors by our children and their children's children. Future generations will look upon as unworthy of reverence if we do not seriously apply our spiritual technologies to the most vexing problems of modern society. They will inherit our social diseases and will have no faith in our Ancestral traditions. And just maybe they will see beyond our tragic mistakes if we don't set ourselves firmly upon the road to social liberation and the creation of universal systems of justice. Maybe the Ancestors (and we will someday be in that spiritual realm) will come burning through the polluted mist of modernity's oppression to speak truth and clarity directly to them if we have not successfully paved the way and their way on this challenged earth. But we must fight these systems and structures of oppression like there is no tomorrow, unwilling to settle back into our morass of ignorant bliss and comfort. We cannot risk being an accomplice to the energetic imbalance that puts so many of us, women, people of color, gatekeepers in the LGBT community, indigenous peoples, oppressed peoples, in jeopardy, in ill health and spiritual, psychological and physical danger. If we love our goddesses, gods, spirits and the earth, if we love nature and our mandate to live in harmony with All That Is, with EVERYone that is, if we love our Ancestors and the traditions they have left for us to advance into a bright and beautiful and empowered future, we must seek out and destroy every small, every persistent, every gross presence of social, spiritual and energetic oppression so that true love, compassion, respect and joy can course powerfully and sustainably through the fibers of the Tree of Life, through the bloodstream of humanity, through every dimension of our sacred and universal presence in this multi-dimensional world. May the coyote run free. May the warriors be reintegrated into the body of our communities, with stories of success upon their lips, able to lay down their weapons with confidence because we all did what we were truly sent here to do and have reinstated the unity of humanity in the spiritual complex of All That Is.
The Roof! One of the elements that made the Waikikian so special. "Wimberly used the roof form to create a unique feature that agreed with traditional Polynesian design. During the design process Wimberly used soap bubbles on wire frames to model the difficult form in three dimensions. Shortly after the Waikikian opened, the Honolulu Advertiser ran several articles in early October 1956, featuring the hotel and its distincitve roof. It was called an outstanding Honolulu landmark and a 'photographic must'." "Besides choosing the roof form for its association with traditional Polynesian buuildings, Wimberly stated that he knew that something out of the ordinary was needed for the Waikikian becasue he was building in the shadow of Henry Kaiser, whose Hawaiian Village Hotel had just opened next door." The graceful roof rested on only two points. Vertical uprights steadied the shell to keep it from rocking, but they did not support it.
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has visited Moscow on his first overseas trip since the civil war broke out in his country in 2011. During the surprise visit, he held talks with President Vladimir Putin. Russia launched air strikes in Syria last month against the so-called Islamic State (IS) and other militant groups battling Assad's forces. Assad said Russia's involvement had stopped "terrorism" becoming "more widespread and harmful" in Syria. For his part, Mr. Putin said Moscow's hope, in providing a "positive dynamic in the fighting", was that a "long term resolution can be achieved on the basis of a political process with the participation of all political forces, ethnic and religious groups". The visit happened on Tuesday evening, but was not announced until Wednesday - after Mr. . . Assad had returned to Damascus. President Assad's surprise visit to Moscow represents a sign of growing confidence by the embattled Syrian president. He feels it safe to leave Damascus for the first time since the civil war in Syria erupted. It is also a visible symbol of Russia's confidence in the current Syrian regime. Having Mr. . Assad turn up in Moscow shows that there is little doubt that for now at least, President Putin is intent on shoring up Mr. Assad's position. But the trip may also mark a new stage in Russia's efforts to roll out a diplomatic plan alongside its military intervention in Syria; an illustration that Russia deals with Mr. Assad, and that for now at least Mr. Assad has to be part of any interim solution. In comments that were videoed and published by the Kremlin, Mr. Putin thanked Mr. Assad for coming despite the "dramatic situation" back home. He praised the Syrian people for "almost alone... resisting, fighting international terrorism for several years. They had suffered serious losses, but recently have been achieving serious results in this fight," he added. Mr. Putin said Russia was also concerned by the 4,000 people from the former Soviet Union believed to be fighting in Syria. "We cannot permit them - once they get fighting experience there and ideological training - to turn up here in Russia," he said. Mr. Assad thanked Russia for "standing up for the unity of Syria and its independence", and said its intervention had "prevented the events in Syria from developing along a more tragic scenario". Terrorism is a real obstacle to a political solution," said Mr. Assad, "and of course the whole (Syrian) people want to take part in deciding the fate of their state, and not just the leadership." Russia launched air strikes in Syria on 30 September, saying they were hitting IS positions - which are also being targeted by US-led strikes. Western countries and Syrian activists say Russian planes have been hitting non-IS targets, a claim Moscow denies. The US and Russia agreed a deal on Tuesday to ensure their air forces do not clash in the skies over Syria, after Washington said last week their planes had "entered the same battle space" and came within miles of each other. Anti-government protests developed into a civil war that, four years on, has ground to a stalemate, with the Assad government, Islamic State, an array of Syrian rebels and Kurdish fighters all holding territory. Government forces concentrated in Damascus and the centre and west of Syria are fighting the jihadists of Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as less numerous so-called "moderate" rebel groups, who are strongest in the north and east. These groups are also battling each other. More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed and a million injured. Some 11 million others have been forced from their homes, of whom four million have fled abroad - including growing numbers who are making the dangerous journey to Europe. Iran, Russia and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement are propping up the Alawite-led Assad government, while Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar back the more moderate Sunni-dominated opposition, along with the US, UK and France. Hezbollah and Iran are believed to have troops and officers on the ground, while a Western-led coalition and Russia are carrying out air strikes. Source: BBC news
Fisker [Automotive] probably won’t [change the world], but that doesn’t mean it was a dumb bet all along. An exhaustive Republican investigation found no wrongdoing connected to the Solyndra loan, and there’s no reason to think the Fisker loan was shady either. Like Solyndra, it was once considered a game-changing example of American innovation. Like Solyndra, Fisker raised a billion dollars from private investors. But like Solyndra, Fisker couldn’t cut it in the marketplace. The $100,000 Karma broke down on the Consumer Reports test track. Its display panel is a mess; I couldn’t get the radio to work. Fisker had awful production problems and ultimately sold only about 2,000 Karmas before suspending operations. Its second model, which was supposed to revive a shuttered GM factory in Delaware, was never built. The Energy Department cut Fisker off after it drew down just $192 million of a half-billion-dollar loan. So it goes. Companies that receive tax breaks and subsidies fail all the time. Ordinary Americans who get tax deductions and subsidies fail too. Success is not guaranteed in a capitalist economy. The loan program provided a jump start, not a free ride. But Solyndra’s failure has overshadowed a spectacular boom in the -solar industry, which has grown more than tenfold since Obama took office. Fisker’s failure could overshadow similarly impressive growth in plug-in electrics; there were almost none on U.S. roads before 2008, and now there are more than 100,000. During a presidential debate, Mitt Romney memorably lumped in Tesla Motors with Fisker as an Obama-supported “loser,” but Tesla just had its first profitable quarter and is on track to pay back its federal loan five years early. Its Model S has won the big car-of-the-year awards and received the highest Consumer Reports score of any car since 2007; its reviewers have sounded like teenage boys reviewing porn. So who’s the loser? The larger point is that overall, as an independent review by Republican Senator John McCain’s finance chairman confirmed, the Energy Department’s $40 billion loan portfolio is performing well. It’s also transforming the energy landscape with America’s largest wind farm, a half-dozen of the world’s largest solar plants, cellulosic biofuel refineries and much more. Obama didn’t support one company or one technology; he supported all kinds of plausible alternatives to fossil fuels. He didn’t pick winners and losers; he picked the game of cleaner energy. And we’re winning. The U.S. has doubled its production of renewable power. Our carbon emissions are at their lowest levels since the early 1990s. U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions have fallen dramatically in recent years, in large part because the country is making more electricity with natural gas instead of coal. Energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that is widely believed to contribute to global warming, have fallen 12% between 2005 and 2012 and are at their lowest level since 1994, according to a recent estimate by the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department. While other factors, including a sluggish U.S. economy and increasing energy efficiency, have contributed to the decline in carbon emissions from factories, automobiles and power plants, many experts believe the switch from coal to natural gas for electricity generation has been the biggest factor. And after decades when the U.S. invented products like solar panels and lithium–ion batteries only to see them manufactured and deployed abroad, we’re finally making green stuff at home. For example, not only are we generating twice as much wind power, we’re making twice as many of the components for U.S. wind turbines.
And he (Pharaoh) treated Avram good because of her (Sarai), and he acquired sheep, cattle, donkeys, slaves and maidservants, female donkeys and cattle. (Breishis 12:16) And he treated Avram good because of her: Rabbi Chelbo says, “A man should always be careful with the honor of his wife because blessing is only found in a person’s house because of his wife. (Bava Metzia 59a) This is a little odd. If Pharaoh was the benefactor, how do we learn from here that blessing comes to the house because of a person’s wife? Was Pharaoh the source of blessing? The Maharsha explains that the word “hetiv” -“did good”- is referring to ultimately to HASHEM, while the agency of that goodness to Avram channeled through, even through Pharaoh. How might one access that blessing? It was a regular weekday night at home. Dinner was still happening for some while others were in various stages of doing and avoiding doing homework and preparing for bed. My wife and I were feeling like referees in a rugby match. Suddenly a loud honk signaled from outside. I picked up my attaché case, and loudly declared, “My ride is here! I’ve gotta go now. Bye!” I left. I could immediately feel the waves of serenity washing over me and I could now prepare for the evening lecture in Queens. Yossi the Israeli driver was there with a guest lecturer from Israel, Rabbi Cohen, who specializes in issues of Shalom Bais. He was to give a separate class in Hebrew. We greeted each other and I was ready to go when Rabbi Cohen asked me in Hebrew, “Did you get the Brocha (blessing)?” Between his lack of ability to speak English and my impoverished modern-Hebrew skills I was confused. I asked for clarification. “Do you mean the Brocha- for eating? I did that a long time ago!” We didn’t budge from the curb. He insisted, “The Brocha!” I assumed now he was talking about the “Asher Yatzar” (bathroom blessing”) posters that are widely distributed by our office. Wrong again. Then he quoted the statement of the sages referenced above, “Blessing is found in the house of man because of his wife.” He passionately pressed on, “How can a man hope to be successful in teaching or business or anything without a blessing from his wife?” I got it, but I told him, “We’re late!” He insisted, “We’ll wait!” I walked sheepishly up the lawn and knocked on my front door before reentering the house. There I stood looking up from the landing of our split level home and the kids started shouting out to Ima, “Abba’s home!” My wife arrived immediately with a baby wrapped in a towel and blankly asked me, “Did you forget something? I chokingly let out, “I forgot the Brocha.” She wondered aloud, “We ate dinner hours ago.” I told her again that I had forgotten the Brocha and so she pointed to where we have stored boxes of those Asher Yatzar posters. I was glued to that spot and now I had to explain, albeit hesitatingly at first, “The blessing is only found in the house of man because of his wife. How can I give a successful class or do anything well without your Brocha, Ima?!” I remember she looked at me as if I was drunk and asked me, “Did you lose your job?” I said submissively, “Ima, I need your Brocha!” Then she melted and fountain-like flowed the following, “I hope you get to where you have to go and come back home quickly and safely and while you’re there, the words should come out from your heart and mouth with ease and enter the hearts of the listeners and make a difference in their lives and in the whole world!” I and all the kids assembled shouted together, “AMEN!” Now I told my wife, “I hope that the dinner gets magically cleaned up and the homework gets done and everyone settles down in a timely fashion, and you get a chance to unwind and read a good book and talk to your best friend on the phone while I’m out.” I earned a mediocre, “amen”, and I sped into the night with wind in my sails and the kids shouting out the window, “Be Matzliach Abba! -Be successful!” That piece of advice has since let loose contagion of encouraging wishes. The beauty is that even while engaged in different activities we can always feel that we are working together. Now I cannot imagine leaving home without getting the blessing and doing whatever is necessary to be worthy of the Brocha. DvarTorah, Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Label Lam and Torah.org.
Why Are Children Called “Redeemers”? These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Tapes on the weekly portion: Tape # 551 – Being Motzi a Wife in Kiddush. Good Shabbos! Parshas Nasso includes a Mitzvah which Chazal refer to as “Gezel HaGer” [restitution of theft from a deceased convert]. The Torah teaches: “Speak to the Children of Israel: A man or woman who commits any of man’s sins, by committing a trespass against Hashem, and that person shall become guilty – and they shall confess their sin that they committed; he shall make restitution for his guilt in its principal amount and add its fifth to it, and give it to the one to whom he is guilty. And if the man has no redeemer to whom to return the debt the returned debt is for Hashem, for the Kohen…” [Bamidbar 5:6-8]. The Gemara [Bava Kamma 109a] explains that this passage, which references a situation where a deceased victim “has no redeemer to whom to return the debt,” is referring to the case of someone who stole from a recent convert who legally has no relatives. This is the only type of Jew who can have absolutely no heirs. It is peculiar that this pasuk [verse] refers to heirs as redeemers [go’el]. In this context, it does not seem to make sense. It is not uncommon in Tanach that relatives are referred to as “go’el” — such as in the Book of Rus. When the field of Elimelech was supposed to be sold, Boaz went to the relative, whom the Megilla refers to as the “go’el”. In that case, the relative was called the the “go’el” [redeemer] because he had the ability to redeem the field so that it should stay in the family. The same expression is used in Sefer Vayikra [25:25] regarding s’deh achuzah [the field of inheritance]. If a person sells a field that is part of a family plot, we give the opportunity to the relative — the go’el, to redeem it. In that case, the term go’el makes a lot of sense. The field has left the family line and he is “redeeming” it to bring it back into the family. But why — asks the Shemen HaTov — in the case of “Gezel HaGer” in Parshas Nasso are relatives referred to as “go’el”? They are not redeeming anything. We are not speaking of a piece of land that is in jeopardy of leaving the family. The simple way to write the pasuk would be to state “If the person does not have any heirs (yorshim)”! Why are heirs referred to here as “go’el”? The answer is that many times a child can be a redeemer (go’el) for a parent. The source for the custom of saying Kaddish for a parent is a story in the Midrash about Rabbi Akiva. He met the son of a man who was suffering in Gehinnom. Rabbi Akiva taught the son of this man how to recite the Kaddish. Through the Kiddush Hashem [Sanctification of G-d’s Name] that the son accomplished by reciting Kaddish, he was able to bring his father out of Gehinnom and into Gan Eden. Is there a greater “go’el” than this? Is there a bigger redeemer on the face of the earth than a child who can redeem a parent from suffering? That is why even regular heirs are called redeemers. Many times a person can live a life that was — spiritually speaking — not necessarily the best of lives, and he can have a child that is a tremendous spiritual asset. The fact that he was responsible for putting such an offspring on the planet will remain an eternal merit for the parent. That child can be the safest investment and the greatest insurance policy that the parent ever took out in his life. That is why children are referred to as “go’el”. Sometimes children can be tremendous redeemers. The Dual Meanings of “Ki Yaflee” Coincide Wondrously Parshas Nasso contains the laws of Nezirus: “Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them: A man or a woman who shall set himself apart by taking a nazirite vow to set himself apart to Hashem…” [Bamidbar 6:2]. A Nazir is prohibited to drink wine. He is prohibited from coming into contact with ritual defilement of the dead, and even from attending the funeral of his own relative. He is prohibited from shaving or taking a haircut. By saying the words “Behold I am a Nazir,” he takes upon himself all these restrictions. Regarding the restrictions of avoiding Tumas Mes [death defilement], the Nazir has the exact same status as a Kohen Gadol [High Priest]. This section begins with the words “A man or a woman ki yaflee to make a vow…” What do the peculiar words “ki yaflee” connote and what is the connection between that term and the institution of Nezirus? The early commentaries contain two interpretations. Rashi cites a commentary that “L’haflee” is from the same root as “L’hafrish,” meaning to separate oneself. The pasuk would then read “A man or a woman who chooses to separate themselves by taking a nazirite vow”. Alternatively, “L’haflee” may mean “to articulate” or “to express” This is the approach of the Rambam. In his 14 volume work, Yad HaChazakah, the Rambam includes the Laws of Oaths, Vows, Nazir, and Cherem in the book of “Hafla’ah”. It is called “Hafla’ah” because all these laws relate to expressions uttered by a person who takes upon himself certain restrictions or responsibilities. But there is a third possible interpretation to the word “L’haflee”. “L’haflee” could connote “It is a peleh [wonder]!” Whether the interpretation of “L’haflee” is separation or articulation, they both coincide with something that is wondrous (full of peleh). The Sforno comments that for a person to separate from something he likes (e.g. – to vow not to touch a drop of wine) is wondrous. Think about it. What if someone took a vow not to have another soda in his life? Not to have another piece of cake? Never to have a doughnut again? It would be a peleh that a person would have the ability to voluntarily separate himself from the pleasures of this world. The second interpretation of “L’Haflee” is also wondrous. The fact that a human being can express himself, the gift of speech, to articulate sensible thoughts and emotions is the greatest wonder. The ability to speak is what separates man from animals. The power of speech is what gives man the power to reveal what is in his living soul. This is a peleh! With Nezirus, with two words “Hareinee Nazir” [Behold I am a Nazirite], one can gain the holiness status of a Kohen Gadol! Through words alone, he can change his essence to one of great holiness. Through words alone, he can restrain his passions. That is why the two words coincide. Whether Nezirus is separation or utterance, it is all the same. The Peleh that speech can change a person and that the person has the ability to separate himself from his desires is wondrous. That is why the Torah introduces these laws with the words “A man or woman ki yaflee”. Both concepts are indeed a peleh. Were The Princes Interested In Car Pooling? Parshas Nasso (towards the end) also contains the sacrifices brought by the Princes: “They brought their offering before Hashem: six covered wagons and twelve oxen…” [Bamidbar 7:3]. Every Prince offered the identical sacrifice. They were elaborate offerings. The Princes did not skimp on their offerings: They each brought large silver bowls and basins filled with fine flour mixed with oil for meal offerings; golden ladles filled with incense; one young bull; one ram, one sheep in its first year for olah-offerings; he-goats for sin offerings; and two cattle, five rams, five he-goats, five sheep in their first year for peace offerings. The section is introduced by the statement that the offerings were brought in six wagons led by twelve oxen. Now since there were 12 Princes, why were there not 12 wagons? The answer is, they car-pooled. Rather than bringing 12 wagons led by 12 oxen, they were economical and had the 12 oxen pulling only 6 wagons. Could it be that they were over budget and they needed to cut back somewhere, so they cut back on the number of wagons bringing the sacrifices? Obviously not! What is the real meaning of all this? This situation was ripe for competition. Every Prince had to bring an offering, every day another Prince. The situation was ripe for jealousy and showboating. Therefore, the Princes made an opening declaration: “We are not twelve independent people. We are six sets of Princes. We are going to share, not to cut down or to save money or to be cheap, but rather we are going to share to show unity. Even though we have to bring 12 separate offerings on 12 separate days, we are not 12 individuals – we are together, we are sharing.” The verse in Parshas Vayigash says: “And he saw the wagons (Agalos) that Yosef sent to transport him, then the spirit of their father Yaakov was revived.” [Bereshis 45:27]. The famous Rashi there comments that the wagons were sent as a hint to Yaakov that the last Torah portion he studied with Yosef before the latter was kidnapped was the portion of the Decapitated Calf (Eglah = Agala). The message was that Yosef had not forgotten the Torah he studied with his father. He was still involved in learning. The Daas Zekeinim m’Baalei haTosfos, however, gives a different interpretation. The allusion of the wagons that lifted Yaakov’s spirit was the wagons of the Princes. Yaakov saw that in future generations the 12 Princes would also bring wagons — but they would only bring 6 wagons, indicating that they didn’t want to fight and compete amongst themselves. Thus, the message from Yosef to Yaakov was that in the future, the problem which sent him to Egypt (hatred amongst the brothers) was going to be resolved. This message of brotherly love and unity amongst his children is what revived Yaakov’s spirit. This week’s write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Torah Tapes on the weekly Torah portion. The complete list of halachic portions for this parsha from the Commuter Chavrusah Series are: Tape # 014 – The prohibition of Yichud Tape # 059 – Sheitels: A Woman’s Obligation to Cover Her Hair Tape # 103 – Birchas Kohanim Tape # 148 – Sotah: The Case of the Unfaithful Wife Tape # 195 – Birchas Kohanim: Who Can and Who Can’t? Tape # 241 – Yichud and the Housekeeper Tape # 285 – Sa’ar B’isha Ervah Tape # 331 – Must a Kallah Cover Her Hair at the Chasunah? Tape # 375 – Ain Osin Mitzvos Chavilos Tape # 419 – Causing the Erasure of Hashem’s Name Tape # 463 – Dee’chui Eitzel Mitzvos Tape # 507 – The Faithful Unfaithful Wife Tape # 551 – Being Motzi a Wife in Kiddush Tape # 595 – Chazonim and Chazanus Tape # 639 – The Unfaithful Wife – Is ignorance an Excuse? Tape # 683 – Shalom Bayis – How Far Can One Go? Tape # 727 – Singing During Davening – Pro or Con? Tape # 771 – Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Bishul Akum., 2 Tape # 815 – The Laws of Sotah, Still Very Relevant Tape # 859 – Walking Behind a Woman Tapes or a complete catalogue can be ordered from the Yad Yechiel Institute, PO Box 511, Owings Mills MD 21117-0511. Call (410) 358-0416 or e-mail [email protected] or visit http://www.yadyechiel.org/ for further information. Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Yissocher Frand and Torah.org.
I stumbled on to something amazing, it’s a programming language that is crafted for feminist and it’s impressive. The syntax and logic is just out of this world. Read this: A project of the Feminist Software Foundation. Feminist software is a cornerstone of any modern free society. We build this foundation. Now hosted on BitBucket, as GitHub proves to be too misogynistic to support a feminist programming language. C+= (pronounced either C-plus-Equality, or See Equality) is a feminist programming language, created to smash the toxic Patriarchy that is inherent in and that permeates all current computer programming languages. Note: This is a programming language written by and for FEMINISTS, not WOMEN. LEARN THE DIFFERENCE, YOU MISOGYNIST! Inspired by the ground-breaking feminist research of Arielle Schlesinger. It’s inspired by a thought provoking article and I just got lucky and found out the core members behind this movement. Although I had some doubts about it but it seems they are the true heroes of our time. If you see them in shops or places or actually know them, do congratulate them. Here is the list: You should visit their website here: and don’t forget to check the bucket as well. - The language is to be strictly interpreted using feminist theory. Under no circumstances should the language be compiled, as compilation and the use of a compiler imposes an oppressive and toxic relationship between the high-level descriptive language and the low-level machine code that does all the labo(u)r. Instead, C+= is interpreted, which fosters communication, itself a strong female trait. - No constants or persistence. Rigidity is masculine; the feminine is fluid. I.e., fluid mechanics is hard for men ‘because it deals with “feminine” fluids in contrast to “masculine” rigid mechanics’. - No state. The State is The Man. ‘Nuff said. Hence, the language should be purely functional. - Women are better than men with natural language. Hence, the language should be English-based like HyperCard/LiveCode. - No class hierarchy or other stigmata of OOP (objectification-oriented programming). In fact, as an intersectional acknowledgement of Class Struggle our language will have no classes at all. - On the off chance that objects do mysteriously manifest (thanks, Patriarchy!), there should be no object inheritance, as inheritance is a tool of the Patriarchy. Instead, there will be object reparations. - Societal influences have made men often focus on the exterior appearances of women. This poisons our society and renders relationships to be shallow, chauvinistic, and debases our standards of beauty. To combat that, C+= is to tackle only audio and text I/O, and never graphics. - Unicode is the preferred character encoding due to its enabling the diverse aesthetic experiences and functionality that is beyond ASCII. UTF-8 is the encoding of choice for C+=. - Women are more social than men. Hence, social coding should be the only option. The code only runs if it is in a public repo. - Instead of “running” a program, which implies thin privilege and pressure to “work out”, programs are “given birth”. After birth, a program rolls for a 40% chance of executing literally as the code is written, 40% of being “psychoanalytically incompatible”, and 40% of executing by a metaphorical epistemology the order of the functions found in main(). - Programs are never to be “forked”, as the word has clear misogynistic tendencies and is deeply problematic. Instead, programmers may never demand “forking”, but ask for the program to voluntarily give permission. “Forking” will henceforth be called “consenting”, and it is entirely up to the program to decide if the consent stands valid, regardless of the progress of the system clock. - Forced program termination is not allowed unless the program consents to it. The process is part of the choice of the program, not the programmer. - Licensing: the Feminist Software Foundation License. Thanks for everyone here: In helping me compile the list.
Self-Changing Gears designed, built and licensed transmissions for various applications including light and heavy road vehicles, military, marine, and rail vehicles as well as motor racing cars. Following the death of Walter Wilson in 1957, his son A.Gordon Wilson took over the running of the company until his retirement in 1965. The original company Improved Gears Ltd was incorporated on 28 December 1928, and this later became Self-Changing Gears. The company moved a number of times in the early years, and in 1938 settled in premises at Lythalls Lane, Coventry. During the war, additional premises were used at Burbage, Leicestershire. In 1935, J D Siddeley sold his interests in Armstrong-Siddeley motors (including Self-Changing Gears) to Hawker Aircraft forming Hawker-Siddeley. In 1951 Leyland Motors Ltd bought into the company, resulting in each party owning one-third of the company, and in 1957 Leyland bought-out Hawker-Siddeley's shares in the company, thereby gaining control. References / sourcesEdit - Wilson, A.Gordon (1986). Walter Wilson: Portrait of an Inventor. ISBN 0-7156-2127-0. - "Biography of John Siddeley". Armstrong Siddeley owners' club. \|This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Self-Changing Gears Limited. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Tractor & Construction Plant Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons by Attribution License and/or GNU Free Documentation License. Please check page history for when the original article was copied to Wikia\|
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 Corse Payton at the Court Square Theatre Corse Payton arrived in Springfield, Mass. with his stock company in 1915 to play at the Court Square Theatre. He billed himself as “America’s Best Bad Actor.” Rather than keep the crowds away, this unlikely label seemed to attract them, if only out of curiosity. Born in the 1860s, Payton was a Midwesterner who joined a traveling circus as a young man, and by 1900 had had enough touring through the country to settle down in Brooklyn and bought himself a theater and founded a stock company. Some future film stars got their start with Payton, including Mary Pickford, Ed Wynn, Fay Bainter, and Dorothy and Lillian Gish. In August, 1915 at the Court Square Theatre, Corse Payton and his stock company, which included some of his relatives, like his brother, Claude, presented what the playbill labeled “the absorbing drama” called “Madame X.” The teenaged girl who went to this performance at the Court Square Theatre wrote in pencil on top of the program “went with Agnes - cried a lot.” Hopefully, the girls cried because it was such an absorbing drama, and not because Payton really was such a bad actor. This photo of the Court Square Theatre here is from the Library of Congress, from the Detroit Publishing Company, taken sometime between 1900 and 1910. The Court Square Theatre opened in 1892. Most of the theatre greats played here, the Barrymores, Helen Hayes, each in their season and generation. It was closed in 1955, demolished two years later. Here is a shot of what remains of the Court Square block. For more on the Court Square Theatre, have a look at this blog post by Mark T. Alamed in his terrific “Exploring Western Mass” blog, and also here at Cinema Treasures for more history on the Court Square.
Many points of transition present opportunities for communication failure and adverse events Transitions routinely occur across phases of the maternity cycle, among individual providers and disciplines, between settings with different levels of care, and between maternity care and other types of health care. Lapses in communication and discontinuity of care frequently cause adverse events and decreased quality, and maternity care is characterized by numerous care transitions and weak care coordination processes. The current model of maternity care does not engage consumers as partners and empower them to take an active role in coordinating their own care The vision of engaged and empowered childbearing women and families at the ‘‘center’’ of well-coordinated maternity care is largely unrealized at present. The current focus is often facility and provider oriented, with institutional policies that serve the needs of the system taking precedence over woman- and family-centered care, respect for self-determination, and access to care options along with support for informed choice. Lack of cooperation between maternity care providers and facilities Competition for maternity clients among facilities and providers within a community is common and may be a key barrier to communication and care coordination. Lack of trust presents a particular barrier to effective coordination of maternity care during intrapartum care transfers from out-of-hospital to hospital settings; this problem negatively impacts safety and continuity of care, and improved processes are needed. (See the Blueprint section on Clinical Controversies.) Negative or perverse incentives discourage optimal care coordination The current reimbursement system does not incentivize care coordination activities that foster appropriate use of services, does not reliably cover many beneficial preventive and other services for women and families, and encourages overuse of procedures and duplication of services. There is no mechanism for sharing the overhead and revenue of maternity care across the full episode of care among facilities and providers. Liability pressures may discourage collaboration between midwives and physicians who fear exposure to vicarious liability. (See the Blueprint sections on Payment Reform Aligning Incentives with Quality and Improved Functioning of the Liability System.) Health IT and other resources and tools for care coordination are poorly developed at present Health professionals and systems lack tools to foster good coordination, such as interoperable health IT with personal health records, decision tools, and systems for measuring performance and improving the quality of care. (See the Blueprint section on Development and Use of Health Information Technology.) - The full episode of maternity care is coordinated through a Woman- and Family-Centered Maternity Care Home. - When moving within the maternity care system, women and families experience seamless transitions throughout the full episode of maternity care. - Care is coordinated around the needs and preferences of childbearing women and families.
Václav Havel (1936-2011) In 1977, for me, just as presented in the official propaganda, the future seemed to belong entirely to Socialism. We spoke of “discovering” our African heritage; being internationalists was to pay our debt to humanity. Deeply immersed in Africa, if the press gave any mention to Charter 77, if in some twisted interpretation they spoke of its imperialist background, it went unnoticed by me. At the end of 1989, when neither I nor anyone else had any idea that coming our way was the continuous blackouts and terrible food of the Special Period, still shocked by an embarrassing trial of several undisputed military heroes [of General Ochoa and others], back in our sister state Czechoslovakia there was a new government and a new president and — Oh! — the new president wasn’t a Communist. Soon the flags were surrendered without fighting — Fidel raged, stunned before the scene he thought eternal — but Charter 77 continued to be a document unknown to me. I came to have a precise idea about what human rights were when in 1992 a scientist, now in exile in Puerto Rico, gave me a pamphlet with the Universal Declaration. But Charter 77 continued to be a document unknown, although it’s possible that by that time someone would have mentioned it to me. The news that came out of Europe was fragmented, confused and almost always late. And by then I was skilled in the Granma-speak of our only newspaper, and it was easy to realize that if the meager newspapers of that time didn’t speak about the countries of Eastern Europe, they were doing very well. Czechoslovakia disappeared first from the pages of Granma and then from the map of Europe as it quietly divided itself. Charter 77 was still an unknown document, and not to offer a comparative biography, I will summarize. It wasn’t until I accessed the internet for the first time, barely three years ago, that Charter 77 ceased to be an unknown to me. Admirable in the context in which it was developed, at this stage it is not a new document. The defense of human rights has been a constant demand on the part of civil society. The Demand For Another Cuba, for the ratification of the UN Human Rights Covenants, is a younger sister of the Czech initiative, and as one, is a target for the pressure of the repressive forces and international sympathy. Documents like this usually exist and are subversive only where human rights are not fully realized. To speak of Charter 77 and not of Václav Havel, would be a crime of omission. If the document is admirable, it is mostly because of the greatness of the men who promoted it (Jan Patocka, Havel). Over the years, Havel became a powerful man, but never ceased to be a citizen who felt deeply. Although I’m not even sure I would have voted for him for president, I’m in tune with his ethical concerns, I appreciate his interest in the human rights situation in Cuba. Let this be a tribute and reminder of the role of intellectuals in society. Of the decision to live without lies. Translated from Diario de Cuba 18 December 2012
Yesterday Phil Twyford announced that it would be Labour’s policy to abolish Auckland’s Rural Urban Boundary (RUB), as part of a policy to improve housing affordability. Labour wants the Government to abolish Auckland’s city limits to get people out of cars, caravans, garages and tents. Labour housing spokesman Phil Twyford said the urban growth boundary had to go because it has fuelled the housing crisis and people would not be forced into bad circumstances if the Government acted. “The Government should rule out any possibility of an urban growth boundary in Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan if it is serious about fixing the housing crisis,” Twyford said. “Over 25 years the urban growth boundary hasn’t prevented sprawl, but it has helped drive land and housing costs through the roof. It has contributed to a housing crisis that has allowed speculators to feast off the misery of Generation Rent, and forced thousands of families to live in garages and campgrounds,” Twyford said. “Labour’s plan will free up the restrictive land use rules that stop the city growing up and out. It will stop land prices skyrocketing, and put the kibosh on landbankers and speculators.” There’s no doubt Auckland has a housing crisis at the moment, with house prices increasingly dramatically over the past five years. Rents rose more slowly but the impacts for some families are still alarming. There’s also no doubt that planning restrictions have played their part in creating this crisis – by making it too difficult to build the required number of houses that Auckland has needed. Addressing regional scale issues like housing and transport was one of the key reasons Auckland Council was amalgamated in the first place and why one of its first tasks was to rewrite the city’s planning rulebook through the Unitary Plan. But will abolishing the Rural Urban Boundary help? To answer that question it’s important to understand what the boundary is, and what it isn’t. As its name suggests, the RUB is the boundary between land where urbanisation is anticipated and provided for over the next 30 years and land which is intended to remain rural over that time. If you take a look at the map below, it is the black dashed line that separates the yellow-coloured “future urban” zoned land from the brown rural zones: It’s also important to recognise that the RUB doesn’t exist yet as it’s part of the Unitary Plan being decided by the Independent Hearings Panel. It’s quite a different tool to the old metropolitan urban limit (MUL) that was typically set up against the edge of the existing urban area and made any urban expansion a significant challenge. The RUB, by contrast, isn’t designed as a permanent boundary. It provides for a substantial amount of greenfield growth – enough to meet 40% of Auckland’s growth over the next 30 years. The scale of the areas in yellow is highlighted in an Auckland Transport video that looks at the future transport requirements to enable their urbanisation: The main argument against the RUB is that it creates a scarcity of land where urbanisation is possible, which drives up the price of that land. Over time the high price of land translates into higher house prices and reduced affordability. Fair enough. But what can we actually do about that? As Auckland Transport’s consultation video above shows, the RUB isn’t simply a line on a map: it’s a plan to provide publicly-funded infrastructure to new urban areas. If you wanted to expand the yellow future urban zoned areas on the map, you’d also have to find the money for additional infrastructure. In other words, greenfield land is in scarce supply because it’s currently farmland that requires roads, pipes, train stations, parks, schools, hospitals and a myriad of other infrastructure investment to take place before development can actually happen. Making a dent in the housing shortfall by enabling more urban expansion to occur is therefore entirely about speeding up infrastructure, rather than whether or not there is a line on a map. As we’ve talked about before, the costs of supplying bulk infrastructure to greenfield areas are large. It is time-consuming to investigate, design, consent and build these projects. There’s no quick and cheap way to make a whole heap more greenfield land “development ready”. In fact, removing the RUB could easily disrupt existing infrastructure plans and slow down overall development. If you take a look at the work that’s been done on transport for future urban growth, the networks are optimised around the location of the RUB. Scattering small developments around the region could force AT and NZTA to react to piecemeal development rather than taking a more strategic approach to infrastructure development. I suspect that the first thing to get cut due to funding pressure would be the city’s rapid transit plans, which have already been delayed long enough. This would have the perverse effect of putting a damper on the 60-70% of development that’s intended to occur within the existing urban area. In short, abolishing the RUB isn’t a straightforward proposition. It’s not actually obvious that you could abolish it, as infrastructure plans would simply turn into a de facto RUB. Ironically, Twyford acknowledges as much in his press release, where he says: There is a smarter way to manage growth on the city fringes by properly integrating land use with transport and infrastructure planning. There should be more intensive spatial planning of Auckland’s growth areas in the north, north-west and south. Land of special value can be set aside, like the northern coastal strip or Pukekohe’s horticulture soils. Corridors should be acquired and future networks mapped for transport and other infrastructure Let’s unpack this. First, he says that he’d like to see “intensive spatial planning of Auckland’s growth areas” with “future networks mapped for transport and other infrastructure”. That sounds a lot like the process that Auckland Council and Auckland Transport are currently undergoing for the yellow-coloured future urban land. Second, he says that “land of special value can be set aside, like the northern coastal strip or Pukekohe’s horticulture soils”. That sounds a lot like some sort of boundary between urban land and non-urban land, which is exactly what the RUB is intended to be. Basically, if you read beyond the headline soundbite, Twyford’s policy starts to sound a lot like Auckland Council’s current policy, just under a different name. That shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, the current government has been looking at this issue for half a decade now, and they’re pretty critical of restrictions on land supply. If it was a simple matter to abolish the RUB, they probably would have done it by now. So what could we do differently? There aren’t necessarily any “magic bullet” solutions to land supply. Greenfield land needs infrastructure to be useful, and infrastructure is expensive and slow to build. Shifting some of those costs onto developers, either through development contributions, targeted rates, or design rules that reduce the need for hard infrastructure (e.g. stormwater pipes) can allow more of it to happen. But the problem is that the developers push back, which limits the gains that can be had in this area. Consequently, other policies are also needed to enable housing supply. That means relaxing or removing restrictions on building height and density within the urban area. While Tywford and Labour have also said they support this approach, they devoted only a single sentence to it: Freeing up growth on the fringes needs to go hand in hand with allowing more density – so people can build flats and apartments in parts of the city where people want to live, particularly around town centres and transport routes. That’s a great aspiration, but to be useful it needs to be backed up by specific policies to limit the use of height limits and other density-killing rules like minimum parking requirements. For example, would Labour lift building height limits throughout the urban area? If so, how high? Lifting building height limits and density controls would have some immediate benefits for housing supply. For one thing, the transport networks and water pipes have mostly already been built, meaning that there’s no lag time waiting for the infrastructure providers. For another, it would make the housing market a hell of a lot more competitive by opening up lots of new development opportunities in the places that people most want to be. This would also have the benefit of allowing people to avoid the high transport costs associated with sprawling development patterns. Even given Auckland’s dispersed employment patterns, the further out from the centre people live, the further they need to travel to work. This map from a Ministry of Transport analysis of the 2013 census data which shows how far people travel to get to work based on where they live: This trend is repeated around the world, with more spread out cities requiring a greater amount of travel and, consequently, a higher proportion of income being spent on transport. In some cases this can end up outweighing any savings in housing costs. If we’re going to lift restrictions on housing construction, it makes sense to prioritise lifting the ones that also pose a barrier to efficient travel patterns.
- You are in: - Homepage > How to Pack Responsibly Here are some things to remember when packing for your long awaited vacation: - Forewarned is forearmed. Count the number of days you’ll be traveling, then check the weather forecast of the country you’re visiting. You don’t want to pack sweaters for the tropics or tank tops for a cold winter. - Bring the essentials. If you’re traveling for a month, prepare enough underwear for seven days – you can always hand wash them. Prepare all your medication and toiletries. And by toiletries we mean your toothbrush, toothpaste, and a bath scrub. Shampoo and soap bottles might be unnecessary if you’re traveling to a city where you can always buy these when you arrive. - Pack two major outfits... and then just mix and match. You don’t have to bring all your jeans. One or two pairs will do. - No Twins. Don’t have two of the same things – i.e., two grey sweaters. You’ll just need one. And if you repeat it, so what? Learn to accessorize. A change of bangles here and there, a scarf or maybe a brooch will turn this plain piece into something fun each time you wear it. This is true for footwear, too. - Small on side, bulky on top. Make use of all side pockets by inserting all small items such as underwear, socks, leggings, stockings and swimsuits. Major pieces like jeans and coats can be laid flat on top of everything else. - Be prepared for a dressy occasion. You never know when you might be invited to a dressy affair, so have a dress on hand, ladies, or slacks and a decent collared shirt, for the men. - Emergency kit in hand-carry. Now we’re not saying your luggage will get lost, but in case it does, don’t tell us we didn’t warn you to bring a back up in your hand-carry. It’s always safe to have a change of clothes on hand, especially for a long flight.
Origin and Fate of A/H1N1 Influenza in Scotland during 2009Lycett S, McLeish NJ, Robertson C, Carman W, Baillie G, McMenamin J, Rambaut A, Simmonds P, Woolhouse M & Leigh Brown AJ (2012) J Gen Virol 93, 1253-1260. The spread of influenza has usually been described by a 'density' model where the largest centres of population drive the epidemic within a country. An alternative model emphasising the role of air travel has recently been developed. We have examined the relative importance of the two in the context of the 2009 H1N1 influenza epidemic in Scotland. We obtained genome sequences of 71 strains representative of the geographic and temporal distribution of H1N1 influenza during the summer and winter phases of the pandemic in 2009. We analysed these strains, together with another 128 from the rest of the United Kingdom and 293 globally distributed strains using maximum likelihood phylogenetics and Bayesian phylogeographic methods. This revealed strikingly different epidemic patterns within Scotland in the early and late part of 2009. The summer epidemic in Scotland was characterised by multiple independent introductions from both international and other UK sources, followed by major local expansion of a single clade which probably originated in Birmingham. The winter phase in contrast, was more diverse genetically with several clades of similar size in different locations, some of which had no particularly close phylogenetic affinity to strains sampled from either Scotland or England. Overall there was evidence to support both models with significant links demonstrated between N. American sequences and those from England, and between England and East Asia, indicating major air travel routes played an important role in the pattern of spread of the pandemic both within the UK and globally.
Dominus vobiscum: Latin mass returns to SeattleThe chants are stuff of childhood memory for today's middle-aged Catholics, but a ritual that has lately been resurrected and restored in the Archdiocese o Many women's heads were draped in lace. Young children, present in large numbers, were quiet as, well, church mice. There were no response readings by the congregation. No laypeople walked to the microphone to read scripture. The congregation's participation could be described in two words, prayerful and contemplative. Only to the once-familiar words "Dominus vobiscum" (May the Lord be with you) did the congregation deliver a full voiced reply, "Et cum spiritu tuo" (And with thy spirit). Continue reading this article here: http://www.seattlepi.com/connelly/410557_joel26.html
Shared Living is exactly that: people sharing their lives by living together under the same roof. Shared Living is highly personalized and offers people with disabilities a great opportunity to choose the person(s) with whom they will live and have a lot of control over their day-to-day lives. Shared Living Arrangements The Trudeau Center's Shared Living option has been approved by BHDDH - Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals as an Authorized Placement Agency for Shared Living Arrangements. High quality Shared Living programs, such as the one we have started here at Trudeau, offer many advantages and opportunities, and expand the choices available to individuals about where and how they want to live. There are many different arrangements that can be developed based on the needs of the person and their situation. The person who lives with and provides support to the person with a disability is called the “Shared Living Provider”. Many Shared Living Providers work outside the home, and continue to have time to enjoy on their own. Most people with disabilities in Shared Living either work or volunteer in the community and/or attend some type of a day program. Shared Living Arrangements can have a significant positive impact on the quality of life of people with disabilities. The consistency of both relationships and routine in a regular family household are just two of the positive and highly desirable features of this model. While the benefit to the person is the driving force behind this option, there are other notable benefits as well. Shared Living is less costly to the system than group home living. It is also a nice way for individuals and families who are open to sharing their homes and lives with the “right someone” to enhance their household income. People in families and communities come to know and appreciate the people with disabilities who are living in Shared Living Arrangements. How do I get involved in a Shared Living Arrangement? If you want to become a Shared Living Provider You can do this through the Trudeau Center! We are continuously recruiting quality individuals and families who want to share their lives and homes with an adult with a developmental disability. If you are a person with a disability or a family member who would like to learn more about Shared Living Arrangements You now have the option to receive this support option through Trudeau. You can contact the Shared Living department directly at (401) 739‑2700, or you can speak to someone close to you and ask for their assistance in making this contact. If you already know someone you would like to share your life with through a Shared Living Arrangements There are certain requirements such as background checks of all adults in the home, as well as certain home safety requirements. Many successful arrangements have occurred between people who enjoy one another’s company and want to share their lives in a different way. For further information regarding Shared Living services please contact , Program Coordinator, at (401) 739‑2700 ext 250.
Today was another in that long list of firsts that comprises the beginning of every school year. My students conducted their first Writers Read discussions. This is an assignment that my teacher-friend originated: each week we choose a focus, one that usually supports the craft or convention that we are working on in writing workshop. The students do a prep sheet, where they answer some questions about their independent reading and pull an excerpt from the text to support their ideas, then they use the sheet to guide their small-group discussions about their books. This is why I was doing my research about questioning strategies yesterday. Sometimes, the students simply read their prep sheet to the group and proclaim themselves "done" (as in, hand raised, waving vigorously across the room for your attention, only to ask triumphantly when you finally do give them the nod, "What do we do when we're finished?!?"). Last year, I worked with our gifted resource teacher on ways to teach the kids to extend their discussions. We tried some ready-made question models. The results were mixed; some students genuinely rehearsed, and even implemented, higher-order questioning, and some picked questions at random to ask so that they could check that off their to-do list. Today, I tried a different approach. First, I directed the groups to use a "spiral method" when presenting the thoughts recorded on their planning sheets to their group. Rather than reading through all the questions student-by-student, I asked them to paraphrase one answer at a time, one student at a time, with permission for the others to interrupt politely, should they have a question or comment. Our goal was conversation rather than presentation. In addition, I told them that their conversation had to go "off the page;" the prep sheet was just a starting point. These directions turned out to be a good place to begin-- I think they helped the students conceptualize the task more clearly than in years past. I have a plan for supporting higher-level questioning in the next couple of sessions, too. I want to do it in context, so we're going to continue with this approach to the discussion, but with a few minutes of follow-up to ask the students to jot down which questions extended the conversation most. Then we'll take a look at those questions and analyze them together to figure out what made them so effective. That's the concept, at any rate. We'll see how it goes.
The fireman helps maintain the steam engine, and, along with the driver, keeps the engine in control and provides a voice of reason when an engine is being difficult. If the driver is sick the fireman takes over and drives the engines. While the engine is moving, they shovel coal into the fire and keep the water level where it needs to be, and fill up an engine's water tanks or tender. After a day's work is over, they clean out the ash from the firebox. They also couple the engine if a shunter isn't around. A North Western Railway fireman's uniform consists of blue trousers, a black tie, a white shirt with a blue jacket over it, and a blue cap. - From the eighth to sixteenth seasons of Thomas and Friends, drivers and firemen act almost purely as background characters and are very rarely acknowledged, but from the seventeenth season onwards, they have been seen more often and have worked more realistically. - To date, two firemen have been named: Sidney Hever, Edward's fireman and Ted, Henry's fireman. - As with the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, the engines of the Arlesdale Railway do not have firemen, as the drivers are capable of handling the duties that they do with the larger gauge engines since their cabs are so small.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 # weed control Crabgrass is up and affecting lawns. Lighter green foliage that does not blend well with the darker greens of desirable lawn grasses is one reason people feel crabgrass is a weed. Here we see crabgrass sprouting in a lawn. Crabgrass likes warm soil. Most often it is found along the edges of the lawn -especially where the grass abuts concrete or asphalt walks or driveways. The hard surfaces hold the heat and transfer the warmth to the soil nearby. Coupled with the fact that the lawn tends to be weaker at the edges, makes these spots ideal for crabgrass to grow. To reduce the risk of crabgrass, do protect your lawn from pests. Then do those things to keep your lawn healthy and dense- regular quality fertilizations, overseeding as needed. Also proper mowing and watering. For crabgrass, a mowing height of 3" is important. The longer grass blades will shade the soil and keep it cooler. This will favour desirable turfgrasses and discourage crabgrass.
10 Viral Photos You Got Duped Into Thinking Were Real We’ve all been duped by a very well photoshopped image or by a very convincing story behind a picture, but most of the time, the stories are lies and the images are fake. So before you start sharing a story and perpetuating a dumb-dumb being duped into another hoax, check out these pictures to make sure you’re not falling for another stupid story, you’re better than that. Some of these images are like this cell-phone… they just won’t go away. 1. Whale In Venice Source: Twitter / Sunday Fundayz Robert Jahns is a master photo-manipulator. No, there was never a whale swimming through the canals of Venice. 2. Tree Growing Through An Abandoned Piano Source: Twitter / Abandoned Pics This photo was staged by a man who “talks” to trees. No, a tree didn’t grow and burst out of an abandoned piano. The piano was placed there by an artist named Jeff. In the video he starts talking about how he was trying to find the perfect spot for the piano and “talking” to trees. “I was gonna do different stuff with the piano. And then I was going around and I started talking to some trees, and basically found that one tree that would fit perfectly — that wanted the piano. So as soon as that tree kinda gave me permission to do that I kinda went ahead and did it.” 3. Supermoon On Dubai Skyscraper Source: Twitter / Astronomy HD A simple case of taking something beautiful and transforming the photo into something incredible. The original photo was taken by Mo Aoun in Dubai of the Burj Al Arab, but the moon wasn’t as large and perfectly placed on top of the helipad. The photo was altered making the moon bigger and moved to the right. 4. Sand Struck By Lightning Source: Flickr / Matt What happens when wet sand gets hit by lightning? Not this. This photo doesn’t show you what happens when sand gets hits by lightning. This photo is a photograph of an art project in Puerto Rico. The whole art installation can be seen here. 5. Six Flags Arlington Park Underwater Source: Twitter / McCartyConner Close but no cigar. The photo is not from Six Flags in Arlington; it is a picture of a theme park in Atlanta that was flooded in 2009. The photo may float its way back into viral images again the next flash flood. 6. Stop Being Poor STOP BEING FOOLED! Paris Hilton might seem like a stuck up, selfish, rude person, but she’s not that bad. The photo was taken back in 2005. And the original text on her t-shirt said “STOP BEING DESPERATE” not “STOP BEING POOR.” 7. Hillary Clinton Taking Photo With “I’M WITH STUPID” T-shirt. Source: Facebook / Nation In Distress When a picture has become that pixelated you know, it’s been passed around a few too many times. The original photo was taken during a parade with her supporters all around her. 8. Donald Trump Duping Republicans Source: Twitter / Andrew Haag It sounds like something he’d say. Donald Trump has never openly said that Republicans are the dumbest group of voters in the country. In fact, Trump told CNN said he was a registered Republican back in 1999. People magazine has never quoted Donald Trump saying any of this either. 9. Selfie Outside An Airplane Those clouds seem very familiar… Taking a selfie on a plane doesn’t look like anything big. But if you’re the pilot and your taking a selfie on a selfie stick outside the plane, that would be something! Unfortunately, if you did that it would depressurize the cabin and you’d probably be barely able to breathe. But those clouds look exactly like the clouds from a DeviantArt account. 10. Fetal Footprint Source: WTF Pinterest This photo has been circling the internet since 2004. Nearly every OGBYN doctor has said this is physically impossible. The abdominal wall is too muscular to allow a footprint to be seen with this much clarity. If this were real, the foot is disproportionately large The abdominal wall is too muscular to allow a footprint to be seen with this much clarity. If this were real, the foot is disproportionately large for for a fetus and if her muscles were so thin that they would allow this imprint the mother would need to be hospitalized.
Houston's most prominent black deaf women are coming together to share their stories of defying expectations, blazing trails and, most importantly, getting others to see and hear them. The panel discussion, "The Untold Stories of Black Deaf Women," will begin at 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 26 in the Social Work Building, Room 101, on the UH campus. "The deaf community as a whole is often overlooked, ignored and marginalized by society at-large," said Sharon G. Hill, an adjunct professor in the department of communication sciences and disorders. "Imagine how much more so that occurs to minorities within the deaf community." Hill, a sign language interpretation instructor, will moderate the panel, which features Shirley Allen, Mary van Manen, Mary Perrodin, Rebbie Smith and Michelle Martin. Allen, the first African American deaf woman to earn a Ph.D. degree, is president of Houston Black Deaf Advocates. Van Manen, the first black deaf person to graduate from college in Mississippi, sat on the Texas Governing Board for the Texas School for the Deaf. Perrodin is an educator of the deaf at Barbara Jordan High School and is pursuing her second Master's degree in counseling at Prairie View A&M University. Smith is a long-time employee at the Michael E. Debakey Veterans Administration Medical Center. Martin is president of the United Methodist Committee for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Ministries. "Black deaf individuals possess their own unique cultural norms, values, language dialect and heritage - distinct from the white deaf community," Hill said. "This diversity in the deaf community makes the need for minority interpreters all the more necessary. Sadly, minority groups are grossly underrepresented when viewing the statistics for certified interpreters."The discussion is hosted by communication sciences and disorders department's American Sign Language Interpreting program. Communication Axcess Ability Group (CAAG) and G. E. Grigsby Inc. are co-sponsors of the event. CAAG is one of only five interpreting agencies in Houston that specializes in sign language interpreting services and G. E. Grigsby Inc. is a local accounting firm that specializes in serving deaf and hard-of-hearing clientele.
The CitroŽn museum is located Aulnay-sous-Bois in the north of Paris. It’s the historic museum of this famous brand of French cars. We can see more than 300 vehicles from 1919, with the first Citroen car, the Torpedo, a car that we can see in several movies. We can also see the mythical 2CV. This car is a legend because it’s associated in french minds with the beginning of leisure activities (roof racks for luggage). There are also the presidential cars since Charles de Gaulle, which were always CitroŽn cars, even today with FranÁois Hollande (DS5 Hybrid). Citroen has also participated in the Paris Dakar race with a lot of half-tracks and rally cars. The Citroen museum is more than a museum because it’s a place where the cars are affectionately guarded and maintained. Some of them can be used for a film shoot which takes place in the past. It’s one of our many visits we propose to individuals and groups. Each year almost 1000 people visit the CitroŽn museum. There is an excellent range of production vehicles from the beginning to the present. But for me it was an extra special experience to see many of the prototypes, special body and experimental vehicles on display. A big thank you to the staff and guide. Phil Ward, Australia.
113.00 Malignant Neoplastic Diseases What impairments do these listings cover? We use these listings to evaluate all malignant neoplasms except certain neoplasms associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. We use the criteria in listing 114.08E to evaluate carcinoma of the cervix, Kaposi's sarcoma, lymphoma, and squamous cell carcinoma of the anus if you also have A. What do we consider when we evaluate malignant neoplastic diseases under these listings ? We consider factors such as the: 1. Origin of the malignancy. 2. Extent of involvement 3. Duration, frequency, and response to antineoplastic therapy. Antineoplastic therapy means surgery, irradiation, chemotherapy, hormones, immunotherapy, or bone marrow or stem cell transplantation. When we refer to surgery as an antineoplastic treatment, we mean surgical excision for treatment, not for diagnostic purposes. 4. Effects of any post-therapeutic residuals. C. How do we apply these listings? We apply the criteria in a specific listing to a malignancy originating from that specific site. What evidence do we need? 1. We need medical evidence that specifies the type, extent, and site of the primary, recurrent, or metastatic lesion. In the rare situation in which the primary site cannot be identified, we will use evidence documenting the site(s) of metastasis to evaluate the impairment under 13.27 in part A. 2. For operative procedures, including a biopsy or a needle aspiration, we generally need a copy of both the: a. Operative note. 3. When we cannot get these documents, we will accept the summary of hospitalization(s) or other medical reports. This evidence should include details of the findings at surgery and, whenever appropriate, the pathological 4. In some situations, we may also need evidence about recurrence, persistence, or progression of the malignancy, the response to therapy, and any significant residuals. (See 113.00G.) E. When do we need longitudinal evidence? 1. Tumors with distant metastases. Most malignant tumors of childhood consist of a local lesion with metastases to regional lymph nodes and, less often, distant metastases. We generally do not need longitudinal evidence for tumors that have metastasized beyond the regional lymph nodes because these tumors usually meet the requirements of a listing. Exceptions are for tumors with distant metastases that are expected to respond to antineoplastic therapy. For these exceptions, we usually need a longitudinal record of 3 months after therapy starts to determine whether the intended effect of therapy has been achieved and is likely 2. Other malignancies. When there are no distant metastases, many of the listings require that we consider your response to initial antineoplastic therapy; that is, the initial planned treatment regimen. This therapy may consist of a single modality or a combination of modalities (multimodal) given in close proximity as a unified whole, and is usually planned before any treatment(s) is initiated. Examples of multimodal therapy a. Surgery followed by chemotherapy or radiation. b. Chemotherapy followed by surgery. c. Chemotherapy and concurrent 3. Types of treatment. Whenever the initial planned therapy is a single modality, enough time must pass to allow a determination about whether the therapy will achieve its intended effect. If the treatment fails, the failure will often happen within 6 months after treatment starts, and there will often be a change in the treatment regimen. Whenever the initial planned therapy is multimodal, a determination about the effectiveness of the therapy usually cannot be made until the effects of all the planned modalities can be determined. In some cases, we may need to defer adjudication until the effectiveness of therapy can be assessed. However, we do not need to defer adjudication to determine whether the therapy will achieve its intended effect if we can make a fully favorable determination or decision based on the length and effects of therapy, or the residuals of the malignancy or therapy (see 113.00G). F. How do we evaluate impairments that do not meet one of the malignant neoplastic diseases listings? 1. These listings are only examples of malignant neoplastic diseases that we consider severe enough to result in marked and severe functional limitations. If your impairment(s) does not meet the criteria of any of these listings, we must also consider whether you have an impairment(s) that meets the criteria of a listing in another 2. If you have a severe medically determinable impairment(s) that does not meet a listing, we will determine whether your impairment(s) medically equals a listing. (See §§404.1526 and 416.926.) If it does not, we will also consider whether you have an impairment(s) that functionally equals the listings. (See §416.926a.) We use the rules in §416.994a when we decide whether you continue to be disabled. G. How do we consider the effects of therapy? 1. How we consider the effects of therapy under the listings . In many cases, malignancies meet listing criteria only if the therapy does not achieve the intended effect: the malignancy persists, progresses, or recurs despite treatment. However, as explained in the following paragraphs, we will not delay adjudication if we can make a fully favorable determination or decision based on the evidence in the case record. 2. Effects can vary widely. a. Because the therapy and its toxicity may vary widely, we consider each case on an individual basis. We will request a specific description of the therapy, including these items: i. Drugs given. iii. Frequency of drug administration. iv. Plans for continued drug administration. Extent of surgery. vi. Schedule and fields of radiation therapy. b. We will also request a description of the complications or adverse effects of therapy, such as the following: i. Continuing gastrointestinal symptoms. iii. Neurological complications. v. Reactive mental disorders. 3. Effects of therapy may change. Because the severity of the adverse effects of antineoplastic therapy may change during treatment, enough time must pass to allow us to evaluate the therapy's effect. The residual effects of treatment are temporary in most instances. But, on occasion, the effects may be disabling for a consecutive period of at least 12 months. 4. When the initial antineoplastic therapy is effective . We evaluate any post-therapeutic residual impairment(s) not included in these listings under the criteria for the affected body system. We must consider any complications of therapy. When the residual impairment(s) does not meet a listed impairment, we must consider whether it medically equals a listing, or, as appropriate, functionally equals the listings. H. How long do we consider your impairment to be disabling? In some listings, we specify that we will consider your impairment to be disabling until a particular point in time (for example, at least 12 months from the date of diagnosis). We may consider your impairment to be disabling beyond this point when the medical and other evidence justifies it 2. When a listing does not contain such a specification, we will consider an impairment(s) that meets or medically equals a listing in this body system to be disabling until at least 3 years after onset of complete remission. When the impairment(s) has been in complete remission for at least 3 years, that is, the original tumor and any metastases have not been evident for at least 3 years, the impairment(s) will no longer meet or equal the criteria of a listing in this body system. the appropriate period, we will consider any residuals, including residuals of the malignancy or therapy (see 113.00G), in determining whether you are disabled. I. What do these terms in the listings 1. Persistent: Failure to achieve a complete remission. 2. Progressive: The malignancy became more extensive after treatment. 3. Recurrent, relapse: A malignancy that had been in complete remission or entirely removed by surgery J. Can we establish the existence of a disabling impairment prior to the date of the evidence that shows the malignancy satisfies the criteria of a listing? Yes. We will consider factors 1. The type of malignancy and its location. 2. The extent of involvement when the malignancy was first demonstrated. K. How do we evaluate specific malignant neoplastic diseases? a. Listing 113.05 provides criteria for evaluating intermediate or high-grade lymphomas that have not responded to antineoplastic therapy. Low grade or indolent lymphomas are rare in children. We will evaluate these impairments under 13.05 in part A. b. We consider Hodgkin's disease that recurs more than 12 months after completing initial antineoplastic therapy to be a new disease rather than a recurrence. c. Many children with lymphoma are treated according to a long-term protocol that can result in significant adverse medical, social, and emotional consequences. Acute leukemia . The initial diagnosis of acute leukemia, including the accelerated or blast phase of chronic myelogenous (granulocytic) leukemia, is based upon definitive bone marrow examination. Additional diagnostic information is based on chromosomal analysis, cytochemical and surface marker studies on the abnormal cells, or other methods consistent with the prevailing state of medical knowledge and clinical practice. Recurrent disease must be documented by peripheral blood, bone marrow, or cerebrospinal fluid examination. The initial and follow-up pathology reports should be included. Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) . The diagnosis of CML should be based upon documented granulocytosis, including immature forms such as differentiated or undifferentiated myelocytes and myeloblasts, and a chromosomal analysis that demonstrates the Philadelphia chromosome. In the absence of a chromosomal analysis, or if the Philadelphia chromosome is not present, the diagnosis may be made by other methods consistent with the prevailing state of medical knowledge and clinical practice. c. Juvenile chronic myelogenous leukemia (JCML) . JCML is a rare, Philadelphia-chromosome-negative childhood leukemia that is aggressive and clinically similar to acute myelogenous leukemia. We evaluate JCML under 113.06A. d. Elevated white cell count . In cases of chronic leukemia, an elevated white cell count, in itself, is not ordinarily a factor in determining the severity of the impairment. 3. Malignant solid tumors . The tumors we consider under 113.03 include the histiocytosis syndromes except for solitary eosinophilic granuloma. Therefore, we will not evaluate brain tumors (see 113.13) or thyroid tumors (see 113.09) under this listing. 4. Brain tumors . We use the criteria in 113.13 to evaluate malignant brain tumors. We will evaluate any complications of malignant brain tumors, such as resultant neurological or psychological impairments, under the criteria for the affected body system. We evaluate benign brain tumors under 111.05. 5. Retinoblastoma . The treatment for bilateral retinoblastoma usually results in a visual impairment. We will evaluate any resulting visual impairment under 102.02. L. How do we evaluate malignant neoplastic diseases treated by bone marrow or stem cell transplantation? Bone marrow or stem cell transplantation is performed for a variety of malignant neoplastic diseases. 1. Acute leukemia (including T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma and JCML) or accelerated or blast phase of CML . If you undergo bone marrow or stem cell transplantation for any of these disorders, we will consider you to be disabled until at least 24 months from the date of diagnosis or relapse, or at least 12 months from the date of transplantation, whichever 2. Lymphoma or chronic phase of CML . If you undergo bone marrow or stem cell transplantation for any of these disorders, we will consider you to be disabled until at least 12 months from the date of transplantation. 3. Evaluating disability after the appropriate time period has elapsed . We consider any residual impairment(s), such as complications arising from: a. Graft-versus-host (GVH) disease. b. Immunosuppressant therapy, such as frequent infections. c. Significant deterioration of other organ systems. 113.01 Category of Impairments, Malignant Neoplastic Diseases 113.03 Malignant Solid Tumors. Consider under a disability: A. For 2 years from the date of initial diagnosis. Thereafter, evaluate any residual impairment(s) under the criteria for the affected body system. For 2 years from the date of recurrence of active disease. Thereafter, evaluate any residual impairment(s) under the criteria for the affected body system.. 113.05 Lymphoma (excluding T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma-- 113.06). (See 113.00K1.) A. Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, including Burkitt's and anaplastic large cell. Persistent or recurrent following initial antineoplastic therapy. B. Hodgkin’s disease with failure to achieve clinically complete remission, or recurrent disease within 12 months of completing initial antineoplastic therapy. C. With bone marrow or stem cell transplantation. Consider under a disability until at least 12 months from the date of transplantation. Thereafter, evaluate any residual impairment(s) under the criteria of the affected body system. 113.06 Leukemia. (See 113.00K2.) A. Acute leukemia (including T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma and juvenile chronic myelogenous leukemia (JCML)). Consider under a disability until at least 24 months from the date of diagnosis or relapse, or at least 12 months from the date of bone marrow or stem cell transplantation, whichever is later. Thereafter, evaluate any residual impairment(s) under the criteria for the affected body system. Chronic myelogenous leukemia (except JCML), as described in 1 or 2: or blast phase. Consider under a disability until at least 24 months from the date of diagnosis or relapse, or at least 12 months from the date of bone marrow or stem cell transplantation, whichever is later. Thereafter, evaluate any residual impairment(s) under the criteria for the affected body system. 2. Chronic phase, as described in a or b: a. Consider under a disability until at least 12 months from the date of bone marrow or stem cell transplantation. Thereafter, evaluate any residual impairment(s) under the criteria for the affected b. Progressive disease following initial antineoplastic therapy. 113.09 Thyroid gland. Anaplastic (undifferentiated) carcinoma. Carcinoma with metastases beyond the regional lymph nodes progressive despite radioactive iodine therapy. A. With extension beyond the orbit. B. Persistent or recurrent following initial antineoplastic therapy. C. With regional or distant metastases. 113.13 Brain tumors. (See 113.00K4.) Highly malignant tumors, such as Grades III and IV astrocytomas, glioblastoma multiforme, ependymoblastoma, medulloblastoma or other primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNETs) with documented metastases, diffuse intrinsic brain stem gliomas, or primary sarcomas. A. With extension across the midline. B. With distant metastases. D. With onset at age 1 year or older.

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