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Lately, more and more people have begun to understand just how limited — in both variety and nutritional value our "modern" diets have become. This realization has sparked a new and widespread interest in the culinary and therapeutic uses of herbs,those plants which — although not well known today — were, just one short generation ago, honored "guests" on the dinner tables and in the medicine chests of our grandparents' homes. In this regular feature, MOTHER EARTH NEWS examines the availability, cultivation, and benefits of our "forgotten" vegetable foods and remedies and — we hope — helps prevent the loss of still another bit of ancestral lore.
The Sage Plant
An herb of the Labiatae (mint) family and the genus Salvia (and thus not to be confused with the range sage of the western U.S., which is a species of the genus Artemisia) — the sage plant is commonly grown as a garden plant. Few people know, however, that there are a number of reasons why it's actually better to grow this pretty and pungent herb on a windowsill, indoors!
For one thing, a sage houseplant — which doesn't encounter the kind of cold nights and chilly, rainy days that can retard growth — will mature quickly and produce tender, delicately flavored leaves.
Furthermore, since the sage plant is an evergreen perennial, such plants will last for a number of years in indoor containers where they're not likely to be disturbed or destroyed, as often happens when the herbs are grown in a garden that's plowed each spring. (Sage plants, by the way, were once thought to be barometers of success: As they thrived or withered, it was believed, so would their owner's business.)
Caring for and Growing Sage in an Indoor Herb Garden
If you decide to raise this magnificent mint indoors, just plant several seeds in a five to six inch pot (I use plastic containers, as they tend to hold moisture longer than clay pots). Then, once the sage has sprouted, thin It back to one or two seedlings In each container.
Fairly rich soil is necessary to produce healthy herbs (a little rotted manure or compost mixed with any good dirt is fine), and the potted plants should be placed on a sunny windowsill. After the sage shoots are at least four inches high, enrich their water now and then with a good liquid plant fertilizer used according to the directions on its label.
During the spring of its second year (and thereafter), sage will produce small, bluish-white flowers on the end of each branch. Simply pinch the blooms off as soon as they appear, In order to prevent seed formation which might interfere with the little shrub's luxuriant and lovely leaf growth.
How to Dry Sage
After the plants have reached maturity, they may be harvested as often as three or four times a year. To do this, cut the longer leaf stems back to about six inches and leave the little central shoots intact. (When shorn, the herb may look a trifle sad for a short time, but just give it a feeding of fertilizer and place it on a south or west windowsill and, in a few months, you'll find it's ready to be harvested again.)
Next — with small shears — snip the gathered leaves from the severed branches, discard the stems, and spread the greenery thinly on cloth or paper in a subdued light. When the leaves are crispy dry, store them (whole or crushed) In a container that will keep out both light and air.
The taste of many a batch of stuffing, bowl of soup, and patty of sausage can be enhanced by the addition of a pinch or two of this ancient, aromatic herb. And the Chinese liked sage tea so much that they used to trade the Dutch three pounds of their own famous green tea brewing leaves for one pound of sage!
For more helpful hints on how to grow and use herbs see How to Grow and Enjoy Bergamot and The Cooling Borage Herb. | <urn:uuid:ef348c8e-e952-4217-8f02-887af76ee610> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/sage-plant-success-zmaz80jfzkin.aspx?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962421 | 834 | 2.5625 | 3 |
What is Vitamin C?
In simple terms, Vitamin C is an essential beneficial nutrient that helps manufacture compounds that are vital to maintain certain chemical activity within the body. Pure vitamin C is water soluble, meaning that your body cannot store it, hence vitamin C is needed on a daily basis. Vitamin C is also known as Ascorbic Acid, which is a general term for Vitamin C, but also refers to pure vitamin C (single entity Ascorbic Acid) that is not bound to any other compound.
What does Vitamin C do?
We need vitamin C to aid growth and repair tissues in every part of the body. Ascorbic acid is needed to heal wounds and for maintaining and repairing teeth and bones. Another vital role vitamin C plays is in helping with the production of collagen proteins. These aid the manufacture of skin, tendons, cartilage, ligaments and blood vessels.
Vitamin C is widely known as an antioxidant. A build up of free radicals over a prolonged period of time may add to the ageing process and unwanted health conditions. Antioxidants can block damage caused by free radicals. Ascorbic acid also assists the body to absorb iron.
Vitamin C and the common cold
Many people believe that vitamin C can cure the common cold but the scientific evidence for this is conflicting. It is well documented that vitamin C may help prevent a cold if you are deficient in ascorbic acid. Also, vitamin C supplementation may be useful in preventing a cold if you live in low temperatures or if you are involved in regular vigorous exercise.
Ref: Douglas RM, Hemilä H, Chalker E, Treacy B. Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 Jul 18;(3):CD000980.
Vitamin C deficiency
The most known deficiency in vitamin C is the disease scurvy. This disease is very rarely seen today in healthy adults but can affect infants and the elderly.
Health Leads supplement formula
Each capsule is crammed full with 600mg of 100% pure ascorbic acid, free from any additives. Many supplement manufacturers use other forms of vitamin C that are bound to other compounds. For example, buffered vitamin C is bound to calcium, magnesium, or potassium. We believe that pure ascorbic acid is the best form of oral vitamin C supplementation.
Health Leads Purity Promise
When we go food shopping, we are more than ever aware of the need to check food labels for unnecessary or unwanted additives. The same can be said for supplements. Supplement labels need to be checked for unnecessary and harmful additives. Today many supplements contain a lubricant called Magnesium Stearate. Many manufacturers add this purely to make to their machines run faster and to save money. However, magnesium stearate is believed to inhibit the absorption of nutrients. So, next time you are shopping or buying on-line, please check the label.
Health Leads are a Welsh company. We encapsulate pure vitamin C in a plant source vegetarian capsule without using additives or magnesium stearate. | <urn:uuid:3b378e6a-cd34-4212-b2e8-0595d4c86a4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthleadsuk.com/supplements/vitamins/vitamin-c-600mg-90-caps.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918987 | 635 | 3.40625 | 3 |
The WBE.NET Global Internet Trade Course
for Students has captured the interest of at-risk
students increasing their knowledge of basic school studies
while leaning how to identify, evaluate and follow through on import/export
First installed at Alain
LeRoy Locke High School in South Central Los Angeles, California,
the Course was designed to increase student interest in regular
school curriculum and to provide graduates with a career in international
trade upon completion of the course. By the end of the first semester,
Locke students had already identified a simulated transaction that
could net a profit to benefit their school and help further their
education. Principal Annie Webb reported a dramatic change in student
interest levels, grades and behavior due to the new Trade Course.
Students and educators throughout the L. A. Unified School District
received the Course with marked enthusiasm following a demonstration
at a Technology for Learning conference on June 3, 1998.
Since then, a number of school officials have requested that the
course be installed at their schools.
A reasonable cost, per student or per school,
will allow us to begin training course instructors; provide teacher
and student training materials; bring in trade experts; provide
students with hands-on experience in the field. In addition, operational
funds and administrative managers are needed to assist with program
and fiscal oversight, as well as oversee some of the day-to-day
operations. We seek your urgent financial assistance as a public/private
partner to help us meet our target budget for the installation of
the WBE.NET Global Internet Trade Course for Students. | <urn:uuid:a31ea4d5-e640-428f-9df2-14dc836c037a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wbe.net/gitc/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946745 | 333 | 1.984375 | 2 |
If you’re not in the trucking industry you may not be aware of this ticklish issue that divides two major industry groups. One group is arguing to retain a Senate provision in the final federal transportation bill, while the other group wants it removed.
The provision would require long-haul trucks to be outfitted with electronic on-board recorders (EOBR) which can provide real-time monitoring of trucks and drivers to help comply with hours of service rules. The majority of carriers and drivers currently use paper-based log books. Learn more about EOBRs from Wikipedia.
The American Trucking Associations (ATA) supports the provision, noting that “an electronic logging mandate, based on feedback from member carriers find the technology improves compliance, safety and operating efficiency.” ATA President Bill Graves adds that “Many logging devices, or electronic onboard recorders, have additional functions that aid in managing fuel use, routes and other aspects of fleet operations – reducing fuel consumption and making carriers more efficient and environmentally responsible (“ATA: Highway Bill Conferees should back EOBR mandate,” Fleet Owner).
Conversely, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), opposes the provision because of the costs to truckers, and because there is “no proven safety benefit.” OOIDA states the cost of an EOBR over ten years will run at least $7,500 (not including maintenance and training charges) and the provision should be removed from the final bill. Learn more from OOIDA’s letter to Senators Boxer and Inhofe.
The group also reminds negotiators that “last August Speaker Boehner wrote the President requesting/ a list of the most expensive regulations being developed by the Administration. The $2 billion EOBR mandate came back as not only one of the seven most costly rules, but also the most expensive regulatory proposal within the Department of Transportation – costing nearly two times the recently finalized changes to hours-of-service regulations.”
See also: A Rail Issue Comes Up for Transportation Bill Negotiations and learn more from our stories about the transportation bill. | <urn:uuid:354c640e-aef2-47a2-9707-a0237bd718c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.transportationissuesdaily.com/trucking-provision-in-transportation-bill-divides-industry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938843 | 440 | 1.703125 | 2 |
See how the right education could help you pursue a growing, stable career.
Are you ready to get in gear in a high-growth career?
The good news is that many industries are projecting strong job growth. In fact, with the right education, there could be many options out there in health care and business - to name a few industries - that the U.S. Department of Labor expects to experience strong growth from 2008-2018.
Keep reading to learn more about careers with strong growth - and see what education you need to get started.
Career #1: Accountant
Accountants are a key part of the engines that drive business by helping companies resolve consumer debts, manage bills, and create client invoices. When discrepancies or missed payments occur with customers, accountants must handle the issues confidently and discreetly.
Education: Want to have what it takes to get into this high-growth field? According to the Department of Labor, earning a bachelor's degree in accounting could help.
Hiring Outlook: An American Institute of Certified Public Accountants report states that 90 percent of accounting firms predict that they will hire the same amount or more accounting graduates in 2011, compared to 2010. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the accounting field should expect a 22 percent growth rate from 2008 to 2018.
Average Earning Potential: $68,960*
Career #2: Paralegal
Paralegals help lawyers run at top speed. They help attorneys prepare for court, take statements, complete legal paperwork, follow court proceedings, and more.
Education: If you're interested in a growing career in the legal field, consider earning an associate's degree in paralegal studies, which is an almost standard credential, according to the Department of Labor. If you already have a bachelor's degree in another field, look into earning a certificate in paralegal studies.
Hiring Outlook: The Department of Labor projects 28 percent job growth from 2008 to 2018. Paralegals specializing in areas like real estate, bankruptcy, and medical malpractice might have an edge in terms of job opportunities, notes the Department.
Average Earning Potential: $49,640*
Career #3: Probation Officer
Through supervision and guidance, probation officers help gauge the success of former prison inmates in making a life for themselves by keeping track of their activities and making sure they fulfill court-ordered mandates.
Education: A bachelor's degree in social work, criminal justice, or psychology could help prepare you to pursue a position in this field, according to the Department of Labor. If you don't have previous work experience in criminal justice or social work, but you do have a bachelor's degree, consider pursuing a master's degree to help get your foot in the door.
Hiring Outlook: The Department of Labor projects probation officers and correctional treatment specialists will see 19 percent growth from 2008 to 2018, which is fast compared to other occupations. Job openings will increase as a large number of parole officers are expected to retire, notes the Department.
Average Earning Potential: $51,240*
Career #4: Financial Planner
Financial planners and advisors help corporations and private clients fuel their enterprises with direction on how to invest and save money. And they have their fingers on the pulse of future financial trends.
Education: Want to prepare to pursue a career in financial planning? Consider going back to school to earn your bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, business, math, or law. According to the Department of Labor, these subjects should offer good career preparation.
Hiring Outlook: The Department of Labor predicts an occupational growth of 30 percent from 2008 to 2018. This is in large part due to the millions of financial planners who are expected to retire.
Average Earning Potential: $91,220*
Career #5: Software Engineer
Software engineers serve as computer gurus by creating programs to help companies win the race. When they aren't programming, they test and maintain software.
Education: If you want to prepare for this growing career, consider earning a bachelor's degree in an area like computer science or management information systems, which is a common major for applications software engineers, says the Department of Labor.
Hiring Outlook: One of the fastest-growing occupations, according to the Department of Labor, employment of software engineers is projected to grow 21 percent from 2008 to 2018.
Average Earning Potential: $87,900*
*All average earning potential information is from the U.S. Department of Labor, May 2010 statistics.
Next Article: Five Degrees That Are In Demand » | <urn:uuid:c64ef550-6e17-448a-bd37-812af068daae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://education.yahoo.net/articles/education_for_growing_careers.htm?wid=1004&svkid=1LFY3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946241 | 949 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor (DNT)
If your child has been experiencing seizures that don’t respond to medication, a possible cause may be a dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor (DNT). This is a rare, benign type of tumor that occurs in the tissues that cover the brain and spinal cord. The outlook for a child with DNT is generally good.
As you read further below, you will find general information about dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumors (DNT). To read summary information about brain tumors first, see the overview on brain tumors.
How Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center Approaches DNT:
If your child is cared for at Children’s, he’ll be seen through Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center, an integrated pediatric oncology program through Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital Boston that provides—in one specialized program—all the services of both a leading cancer center and a pediatric hospital.
Our pediatric neuro-oncology, neurosurgical and neurology specialists at Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center offer:
- technological advances, such as the intra-operative MRI, which allow our pediatric neurosurgeons to “see” the tumor as they operate with MRI scans. This allows them to remove as much of the tumor as possible.
- treatment with the best standard of care, including neurosurgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy
- access to unique Phase I clinical trials run by our own investigators, Children’s Oncology Group and the Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Consortium
Through the Stop and Shop Neuro-Oncology Outcomes Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, your child will be are able to meet with his entire care team at the same follow-up visit.
- Our pediatric brain tumor survivorship clinic is held weekly.
- In addition to meeting with your pediatric neuro-oncologists, neurologist and neurosurgeon, your child may also see one of our endocrinologists or alternative/complementary therapy specialists.
- School liaisons and psychosocial personnel from the pediatric brain tumor team are also available.
- If your child needs rehabilitation, he may also meet with speech, physical, and occupational therapists during and after treatments. | <urn:uuid:ec5ea707-a96d-4efb-81cc-8f2c47caa23c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://childrenshospital.org/az/Site812/mainpageS812P0.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915069 | 500 | 2.453125 | 2 |
7 When artists, anthropologists and neuroscientists gather at The Brain Unravelled in London through September 19, their creative efforts will range from paintings to performances to mixed-media works. In addition to the exhibition, which includes a children’s area, the event offers a daily program of film screenings, concerts, artist talks and lectures by renowned scientists. Informed by the latest research, the speakers will delve into the relation between brains and minds, plumbing the deepest reaches of human experience: our consciousness.
9 Charles Darwin, in his 1871 book The Descent of Man, provoked his contemporaries by suggesting not only that our physical traits had evolved over time but also that our mental faculties had not always been as keen as they are today. At the conference Evolution of Brain, Behaviour & Intelligence in Cambridge, England, international scientists will discuss advances made since Darwin’s time, drawing on results from species as diverse as unicellular organisms and Neandertals. Darwin biographer James Moore will deliver the keynote lecture.
12 In Huntington’s disease, genetic mutations cause a protein known as Huntingtin to become toxic to the brain, leading to movement disorders, problems swallowing and speaking, and eventually dementia and death. Hundreds of researchers and clinicians will convene in Vancouver at the 2009 Congress on Huntington’s Disease to discuss advances in our understanding of the disorder as well as the latest results from experimental treatments.
24 Will neuroscience transform national security? Is a brain-dead person alive or dead? Could new findings in brain science undermine moral and criminal responsibility? These are a few of the controversial questions that experts will take on at BRAIN Matters: New Directions in Neuroethics, a cross-disciplinary conference hosted by the Novel Tech Ethics research team at Dalhousie University.
Halifax, Nova Scotia
1 As many as half of us may suffer from a mental disorder at some point in our life. Added to the burden of illness is the social stigma that people with mental health problems face. The Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival, sweeping over the country until October 22, tries to raise positive awareness about these issues through a series of concerts, film screenings and theater performances. This will be the third year for the festival, which is the largest of its kind in the world.
8 Ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience will collide at Mind and Life XIX, a two-day conference presided over by the Dalai Lama himself. Exploring the emerging intersections among their different fields, a panel of educators, scientists and contemplatives will discuss ways to promote personal and societal health. The Mind and Life Institute’s ultimate goal? To inspire a view of education that will “create compassionate, engaged, and ethical world citizens.” | <urn:uuid:7d2414a3-c891-49ea-a666-ad9b7cf9ae1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=calendar-sept-oct-09 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94001 | 558 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The Great Depression of Debt: Survival Techniques for Every Investor
January 31, 2009
In 2004, Warren Brussee wrote, "Come 2008, the number of people giving up on making house payments will skyrocket . . . banks will be forced to foreclose on homes and sell them, causing a glut of homes on the market and a deflation of home values. . . . You will be able to get a great deal on a used SUV, especially a Hummer!"
These are just some of the author's gloomy, but accurate predictions that have come to be part of today's economic reality. But, says Brussee, the worst is yet to come: the problems are so severe that it will take until 2013 before the economy bottoms out and begins to grow. In the meantime, the stock market will drop dramatically, unemployment will be over 15%, and our country will be humbled as it is forced to adapt to a far lower and simpler standard of living. In The Great Depression of Debt, Brussee offers a detailed economic analysis of the difficult years ahead, telling what to expect and how to survive the next great depression.
The author clearly lays out the circumstances that have led to this situation—the craziness in the nineties' stock market that encouraged people to stop saving and start speculating, consumers who began spending more than they could afford, as well as other factors—and outlines the similarities between current times and the years just prior to the First Great Depression. Brussee explains in detail what individuals must do to get through it: keep a job, limit debts and return to saving, and stay away from the stock market until it hits bottom. The author also reveals how the country will emerge from its economic troubles, telling how effective job creation in alternative energy, electric cars, and the required infrastructure will be key, along with training for related skills. | <urn:uuid:21dfb3aa-f7d0-4e1a-9f08-51e4dd91598d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.financialsensearchive.com/Experts/2009/Brussee.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944227 | 376 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Let's discuss user interfaces
In the open Sunday thread several readers suggested I start a thread about graphical user interfaces (GUI), and how important they are for games, so here it is. The GUI is what connects us to our games, which is why it is very important to be done right. But there are a lot of pitfalls how it could go wrong.
One major problem is information overload. Too much information displayed, and you end up not noticing any of it, because even important displays get burried in a mountain of data. Especially single-player games nowadays have a strong tendency to minimize user interfaces, for example displaying your health by the image becoming red instead of having a health bar you might overlook. While I haven't played it, I saw videos of the new Splinter Cell: Conviction, where even the mission goals are projected onto the walls instead of being shown in a window, way cool!
One technical difficulty for graphical user interfaces is scaling. You can play games in lots of different resolutions, with screen widths ranging from 800 pixels to 5700 pixels. But user interfaces in many cases don't scale very well, because they use a fixed number of pixels, not a fixed percentage of the screen width. Thus if for example a game is using a 10 point font, that looks large on a 800 pixel wide screen, but tiny on a 24" 1900 pixel wide screen. In the early days of World of Warcraft I played on a 17" screen with 4:3 aspect ratio, and the various UI addons for raid healers took so much space, that I only ever saw Molten Core through a small window in the middle. My current 22" wide screen is a lot better there.
The biggest impact on the user interface of a MMORPG is the developers decision on how much modification to allow by the users. The user interface of World of Warcraft improved a lot over the years, because Blizzard not only allowed addons, but then also integrated the functionality of the most popular addons in the standard user interface. Can you believe that when WoW came out, there was only one single hotkey button bar, with no possibility to show more than 12 buttons at a time? It's true, and addons changed that.
The downside of user-created GUI addons is that they have an impact on the difficulty of the game. For example I have Deadly Boss Mods running, and whenever a dungeon or raid boss targets me with an ability from which I am supposed to run away, the "run away little girl" from the Big Bad Wolf event in the Karazhan opera plays, making it harder for me to fail to notice what I should do. One extreme example was recently shown on MMO Champion, where the Augmented Virtual Reality AVR addon makes it possible for a raid leader to mark the ground with circles and symbols as in "healers stand in the blue circle, ranged dps in the green one, and when boss ability X triggers, run in the direction of the big red arrow!".
So, tell me about your experiences with user interfaces in various games! What game has an exceptionally good GUI, which one an exceptionally bad one? How important are GUI addons for you? Discuss! | <urn:uuid:fbab3652-c14a-45c0-9e39-b054e0831e95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2010/05/lets-discuss-user-interfaces.html?showComment=1273952678520 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952305 | 664 | 1.578125 | 2 |
There are two ways in which coral reefs grow.
First, they grow by secreting more limestone around the base of their cup. This creates the limestone skeleton that grows outward and upward.
Second, some coral polyps reproduce new polyps by creating clones using asexual reproduction, while others procreate sexually using eggs and sperm.
more on curiosity.com | <urn:uuid:27c1f103-6de9-4156-a26d-d5fb2340f010> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oceanminds.com/coral-reefs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924893 | 74 | 3.25 | 3 |
A Sydney court of appeal has ruled that sex is not binary, ie, just male or female. From now on, certificates for births, deaths and marriages in the state of New South Wales must accommodate people who do not identify with either sex.
The case was brought by Norrie, who was born as a man but now identifies as neuter after sex-change surgery. In 2010 he was allowed to place “sex not specified” on his official documentation. But this permission was quickly withdrawn by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. Norrie appealed and won.
''This is the first decision that recognises that 'sex' is not binary - it is not only 'male' or 'female' - and that we should have recognition of that in the law and in our legal documents,'' said Emily Christie, one of Norrie's solicitors. Lawyers predict that the case could be persuasive In other Australian jurisdictions.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, “The decision has both symbolic and practical significance. Unlike passports, which currently allow for someone to declare their sex as '’X'’, registry documents such as birth certificates are ''cardinal documents'', meaning they create a person's identity. They are thus recognised by government departments, courts and other legal authorities.” The New South Wales government is currently studying whether to bring the decision to a higher court.
The ethics of using killer robots is adding a new subspeciality to bioethics. This week the United Nations Human Rights Council debated the use of lethal autonomous robots in Geneva. UN special rapporteur Christof Heyns, a South African legal expert, called for a moratorium while legal and ethical issues are knotted out.
"War without reflection is mechanical slaughter," he said. "In the same way that the taking of any human life deserves - as a minimum - some deliberation, a decision to allow machines to be deployed to kill human beings deserves a collective pause worldwide."
Mr Heyns says that LARs could be as big a step in warfare as gunpowder or nuclear weapons. But it would be qualitatively different, since machines, not humans, would be deciding whether or not to kill. He also worries that LARs could make war more likely, as nations would not feel inhibited by the fear of wasting the lives of their own soldiers. In a report to the Human Rights Council, he writes:
“There is a qualitative difference between reducing the risk that armed conflict poses to those who participate in it, and the situation where one side is no longer a ‘participant’ in armed conflict inasmuch as its combatants are not exposed to any danger. LARs seem to take problems that are present with drones and high-altitude airstrikes to their factual and legal extreme.”
One important issue posed by the LARs is the lack of a clear chain of responsibility. Drones are also mechanical killers, but at the moment the decision to kill is taken by a human being. Mr Heyns says:
"Their deployment may be unacceptable because no adequate system of legal accountability can be devised. LARs can potentially be also used by repressive governments to suppress internal domestic opponents. "Do we want a world in which we can be killed either as combatants or as collateral damage by robots with an algorithm which takes the decision? It's this issue of diminishing human responsibility that concerns me."
Human Rights Watch has been campaigning to ban the use of killer robots. It issued a report last November calling for a pre-emptive ban.
The bill was sponsored by the independent Rep. Joseph Brooks. Brooks gave an emotional address to the house about the slow death of his own father. Rep. Deborah Sanderson who used her mother’s death to argue the opposite case: “I sat with my mom the last five days of her life. I slept in a wheelchair by her bed,” she explained. “The night before my mother passed, my mother said, ‘It’s not like what I thought it would be.’ She said, ‘It’s peaceful.’”
The Maine Medical Association opposed the bill, as did the Maine Osteopathic Association, which called it "very dangerous public policy." Both groups strongly support better palliative care. Assisted suicide was defeated in a 1990 referendum.
Health experts have long lamented the complexity of patient consent forms. A new University of Michigan study may provide a solution to this barrier to achieving genuine informed consent.
The study, published in JAMA Paediatrics, was conducted on 640 parents of children scheduled for elective surgery. It involved a fictional trial of the pain relieve drug “Painaway”. Parents were randomized to receive information about the trial presented in 1 of 16 consent documents containing different combinations of 5 selected communication strategies (length, readability, processability [formatting], graphical display, and supplemental verbal disclosure).
The trial showed that “positive message attributes” — text written at the eighth-grade reading level, bigger type, graphic display, oral explanations and shorter forms — led to a 75% better understanding risks and benefits of the trial. Parents had 50% better odds of understanding documents that included pictures displaying risk information in graphic form. The odds of comprehension dipped by 75% when forms were written at the 12th-grade reading level. Documents that were just a few pages longer were 71% less likely to be understood than shorter forms.
The research shows it is important to combine as many comprehension-aiding techniques as possible when crafting informed-consent documents, said Alan R. Tait of the University of Michigan Medical School. “These are simple things to do. These are not expensive. These are easy fixes, easy to incorporate, and yet they make a big difference.”
In an accompanying editorial, Dr Mark Schreiner, of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said that consent forms have been becoming increasingly technical and legalistic. "Instead of brevity, consent forms remain verbose, increasing in length by approximately 1.5 pages per decade, with some well in excess of 20 pages" he said. Many health institutions have been reluctant to shorten and simplify forms due to concerns about increased liability.
Princeton ethicist Peter Singer (at about 16 minutes in video) provoked an uproar at last week's Women Deliver 2013 conference in Kuala Lumpur, a major international talkfest featuring the acting head of UN Women, Lakshmi Puri, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, former Finland president Tarja Halonen, African Women’s Development Fund CEO Theo Sowa, and Princess Mary of Denmark.
Singer denied the absoluteness of reproductive rights. He argued that there are "imaginable circumstances" when these rights could be overridden. He compared children to cattle grazing in a field, and said that overriding procreation may be necessary to avoid environmental catastrophe:
“Turns out that the right to graze as many cows as you like on the common was not an absolute right… Obviously this is what I think we ought to be saying even about how many children we have… I hope we don’t get to a point where we do have to override it… but I don’t think we ought to shrink away from considering that as a possibility.”
Babtunde Osotimehin, executive director of the UNFPA, objected, “There is no way we will come to a point where we are limiting the rights of people in this way.” Osotimehin emphasised that “global population growth is actually coming down” and that predictions of worldwide famine and overpopulation disaster were way off the mark.
A US court has overruled government health policy and fast-tracked a lung transplant for a Pennsylvania girl with cystic fibrosis. On Wednesday US District judge Michael Baylson overruled the regulation that prevents children under 12 from getting adult lung transplants regardless of how ill they are. The rule was waived for Sarah Murnaghan, a cystic fibrosis patient at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's intensive care unit, who is believed to only have weeks to live.
Murnaghan's family - and many bioethics lobby groups - have for weeks been petitioning US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius to waive the rule for Sarah. Sibelius believes that it would be wrong to change the policy so rashly for one patient. She said that that transplant experts believed the procedure to be extremely risky, and that the policy should not be revised without a proper HHS review.
Bioethicist Authur Caplan said that it is troubling, and perhaps precedent-setting, for a judge to overrule that medical judgment, and predicted a run to the courthouse by patients who don't like their place on the waiting list. "I'm not sure I want judges or congressmen or bureaucrats trying to decide what to do with organs at the bedside," Caplan said.
At the hearing, Dr Samuel Goldfarb, one of the girl’s doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the head of its heart and lung transplantation programs, testified that she was critically ill and had worsened in the past 24 hours. A machine has helped her breathe since she entered the hospital about three months ago, and she will probably need more invasive assistance within a week. Without new lungs, she would probably die within weeks. He said that 12 was an “arbitrary” age for the change in policy.
Russian scientists claim to have discovered liquid woolly mammoth blood in a frozen carcase in Siberia, which would make cloning a real possibility. An expedition earlier this month, led by scientist Semyon Grigoryev, uncovered the remains of a 60-year-old female mammoth on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean. "This find gives us a really good chance of finding live cells which can help us implement [our] project to clone a mammoth," Grigoryev said. However, many scientists are sceptical. Dolly, the famous cloned sheep, was born after 277 attempts.
The discovery has reignited debate over the ethics of cloning. At a conference at Stanford Law School last week, experts debated the ethical, legal and political implications of “de-extinction”.
Beth Shapiro, of the University of California at Santa Cruz, expressed concerns about the difficulty of cloning and the inevitable creation of countless deformed and terminal-ill animals. “I think we should consider deeply why we want to de-extinct things" she said. Kate Jones of University College London said that “Conservation biologists worry that if people think we can revive species they won’t care about protecting what’s left".
It used to be said that "the British Empire was acquired in a fit of absence of mind". Similarly, adventurous bioethicists seem to be continually pushing back the frontiers of their discipline. The latest conquest, or at least challenge, is climate change. Writing in the journal Bioethics, Cheryl Cox Macpherson, of St George's University School of Medicine, in Grenada, points out that climate change will harm public health systems and that bioethicists have a responsibility to warn policy makers.
“Bioethics could boost understanding of the benefits and harms; promote transparency about actions and policies that allow climate change to worsen; expose potential conflicts of interest that affect the conduct and interpretation of risk assessments; generate insights about sociocultural conditions that impinge on autonomy and worsen emissions; and ground new conceptions of social responsibility. At the very least, bioethics should inform and facilitate public and policy dialog about how climate change threatens health and things societies have valued for centuries.”
It is hard to imagine a more inhumane policy than China’s one-child policy. But there is one: the two-child policy imposed on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims. Late last month government authorities in the largely Buddhist country reaffirmed a 2005 policy which punishes Rohingya women who bear more than two children with hefty fines and loss of legal rights for the children.
After a long silence on the issue, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has condemned the measures. She has told the media that if reports of the policy were true, it was illegal. "It is not good to have such discrimination. And it is not in line with human rights either.”
According to al-Jazeera, a government spokesman, Win Myaing, explained that the regulations were meant to dampen sectarian tensions. The Rohingya live mostly in two town, which are islands in a sea of Buddhists. "The population growth of Rohingya Muslims is 10 times higher than that of the Rakhine (Buddhists)," he said. "Overpopulation is one of the causes of tension."
The Rohingya number between 800,000 and 1 million, most of them living near the border with Bangladesh. They have been the target of legal discrimination and sectarian violence. Human Rights Watch has accused the Myanmar government of conducting a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya.
Tensions between Buddhist Burmese and the Muslim Rohingya go back centuries but were greatly heightened during the British colonial period and the Japanese occupation in World War II. Since 1982 Myanmar has not even acknowledged that they are citizens.
In 2005 local authorities began to enforce a two-child policy. Rohingya couples who wish to marry must seek government approval – a process which can take up to two years. They must agree to have no more than two children. More children are punishable with fines and imprisonment. As a result unsafe abortions are common among women who become pregnant before they are legally married or who are carrying a third child.
According to Human Rights Watch, “Rohingya children born out of wedlock or in a family that already has two children do not receive any status whatsoever from the government, making them ineligible for education and other government services, unable to receive travel permissions, and they are later not permitted to marry or acquire property. They are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention.”
America's foremost expert in the psychology of suicide this week offered an alarming account of what he calls "the suicide epidemic" in Western nations. In an interview with Newsweek Professor Thomas Joiner of Florida State University drew attention to alarming new data about suicide rates amongst middle-aged adults - the number of suicides in this group has increased by 30% in just one decade. The new figures are even worse when narrowed to white middle-aged men, for whom the rate has jumped by more than 50%. In wealthy countries, suicide is the leading cause of death for men in their 40s and top-five killer of men in their 50s.
Joiner identified a number of factors. One of the main ones is a decline in the sense of community in Western societies. "Low belonging", he said " is [usually the initial cause] of the desire to die". He believed this explains why suicide rates rise by a third on the continuum from married to never been married. It also accords with the fact that divorced people suffer the greatest suicide risk, while twins have reduced risk and mothers of small children have close to the lowest risk.
Joiner called for a paradigm shift in the way society perceives suicide. Currently suicidal tendencies are seen as the product of a weakness of character, he said. This perception produces shame in people which leads them to not seek treatment. “We need to get it in our heads that suicide is not easy, painless, cowardly, selfish, vengeful, self-masterful, or rash,” Joiner said. “And once we get all that in our heads at last, we need to let it lead our hearts.” Suicide is the rare killer that fails to inspire charity drives and new university research centres for study and treatment. Joiner is convinced that this needs to change. | <urn:uuid:80c5944f-846c-4687-bfe3-98b8e6354015> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/email_article/8561/P10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967232 | 3,285 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Peres to Iran: Return to your Persian heritage of culture, not missiles
President sends greeting for Persian new year; urges Iranian leaders not to threaten anyone or make their 'children flee home,' an apparent reference to the possibility of war.
President Shimon Peres sent greetings for the Persian new year to the Iranian people yesterday, urging them to "replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage, a heritage of culture and values, not of bombs and missiles." Speaking first in Farsi and then in Hebrew, Peres also urged Iranian leaders not to threaten anyone or make their "children flee home," an apparent reference to the possibility of war.
The greeting for Nowruz, the Iranian new year that is celebrated today, was broadcast over Israel Radio's Farsi service, which is popular in Iran.
Peres opened his greeting in Farsi, wishing Iranians wherever they may be a happy Nowruz. "I wish the Iranian people a real, true holiday, in which they may taste freedom, dignity and human honor," he said. "It is not too late to replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage, a heritage of culture and values, not of bombs and missiles.
"At times I ask myself how such a civilized nation, with such a rich history, has allowed such a radical, blind and hate-filled group to dishonor its historic legacy. How does a people permit a regime to sow fear, rob people of their freedom and horrify the younger generation, which is looking for a way out of dictatorial Iran?" Peres asked.
"Iran, once loved by many countries worldwide, has turned the whole world against it ... The Iranian regime puts all its money into its nuclear [program], abandoning its people to wallow in poverty and hunger. Enriched uranium cannot feed the hungry," he concluded. | <urn:uuid:fbbbba25-31e3-4c7d-8ea6-b6a2263718d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/peres-to-iran-return-to-your-persian-heritage-of-culture-not-missiles-1.419621 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950925 | 382 | 2.125 | 2 |
Rockwell Collins HGS-3500 brings small HUD to smaller airplanes
For more than five years, Rockwell Collins engineers have been working on a tough challenge: how to make a compact head-up display (HUD) system, one that could fit into much smaller aircraft than the big jets that currently carry HUDs. Now, thanks to ever-improving technology, Rockwell Collins looks to be first out of the gate with the new HGS-3500 head-up guidance system, a self-contained single-LRU HUD that does away with the bulky external projector.
The HGS-3500 head-up guidance system is targeting light to midsize business aircraft, from single-engine turboprops to midsize jets, and is designed to fit cockpits equipped with Rockwell Collins Pro Line Fusion avionics. At roughly one-fifth the installed cost of a typical long-range jet’s HUD, the HGS-3500 promises to bring the safety benefits of HUD technology into many more cockpits. No announcements have been made about which aircraft will be first to feature the HGS-3500, but, predictably enough, Rockwell Collins is in discussions with aircraft manufacturers, according to Adam Evanschwartz, principal marketing manager at Rockwell Collins.
Big-jet Functions in a Small Package
The breakthrough made by Rockwell Collins engineers was to fit the HGS-3500 into one 12-pound unit that mounts on the windshield sill beam in front of the pilot. Larger, heavier Rockwell Collins HGS units have a projector mounted behind the pilot, shining the image onto a combiner screen in the pilot’s line of vision.
What made the HGS-3500 possible is substrate-guided optics. LED backlighting in the pilot display unit’s internal active-matrix LCD feeds the image into the top of the HUD glass. The HUD glass contains a diffraction grating framework (an “optical waveguide”) that helps spread the light as it is “poured” into the glass so it fills the entire image space. The image on the HGS-3500, as on any other HUD, is focused on infinity so the pilot doesn’t have to adjust focus between the outside view and HUD symbology.
According to Rockwell Collins HGS director of marketing John Wilson, an LCD using ordinary fluorescent lighting would not be able to deliver enough light into the glass. “Without LEDs,” he said, “we would still be scratching our heads on how to pump enough light through.” Enough light for the HGS-3500 means luminance of more than 2,500 footlamberts. A typical 6000-series HGS delivers about 4,000 footlamberts, but images on both systems appear about the same to the viewer. As LED technology improves, Wilson expects the HGS-3500 to be able to deliver even greater luminance.
While the HGS-3500 offers a slightly smaller field of view, lower luminance and lower resolution compared with larger Rockwell Collins HGS, the result for the pilot is functionally the same, Evanschwartz explained. All the symbols on the HGS-3500 will look the same in terms of size, resolution and placement as they do on larger HGS. The field of view is also plenty wide enough so flight-path symbology remains viewable during approaches with a crosswind.
Like larger HGS, the -3500 meets head-injury criteria standards that protect pilots in case of an accident. When not in use, the glass part of the HGS-3500 is stowable, folding up and out of the pilot’s forward view. Controls are available to adjust the video image and symbology.
The HGS-3500 will display the Fusion’s synthetic vision system (SVS) view as well as infrared enhanced vision (EVS). A yoke switch will allow pilots to select between the normal, SVS and (if an infrared sensor is installed) EVS views. The reason that Rockwell Collins will offer the HGS-3500 only for Fusion-equipped cockpits is that the Fusion system is doing all the processing needed to drive the images delivered to the HUD. Making Fusion work with other avionics systems is possible but would require substantial additional engineering, Wilson said. “This is the quickest way to get to market, by tightly integrating with Fusion,” he explained.
One of the key benefits of HUD is that it enables pilots to keep looking outside during an instrument approach. According to Wilson, a NASA study on head transition during approach found that on a three-degree glideslope flown at 124 knots, the average time a pilot took to transition from head-down to looking outside was 3.5 seconds, and during this time the aircraft descended another 40 feet.
A 2009 Flight Safety Foundation study showed that HGS technology could have helped prevent 38 percent of accidents that occurred over a 12-year period. “The study also came to the conclusion that a staggering 69 percent of landing and takeoff accidents and 57 percent of loss-of-control accidents could have been avoided if the pilot had access to the information available on a HGS,” according to Rockwell Collins.
“We’re trying to get into a market that doesn’t have a HUD,” Wilson explained. “There is just such huge opportunity for a new wave of operators to enjoy the benefits of HUD.”
Rockwell Collins plans to fly the HGS-3500 on its Challenger 601 next year, with the goal of certifying the new HGS in 2014 or 2015. The company hopes to gain FAA approval for lower approach minimums using synthetic vision on the HGS. | <urn:uuid:72a89120-fbea-48d0-a147-1e9e6a4be94f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-international-news/2011-05-24/rockwell-collins-hgs-3500-brings-small-hud-smaller-airplanes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944464 | 1,202 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Find more accessories like this in our rain barrels
It makes short work of emptying rain barrels or getting water out of any flooded area. The Slide n Pump Hand Powered Water Pumpworks with a variety of liquids, but is best suited for water.
It also works as a siphon
. Once you get the siphon initiated with the pump, it will continue to move water from one location to another.Setup is lightning fast
. With this simple pump, you can setup and drain a rain barrel in less time than it takes to find a power outlet for an electric pump. There's no starter cord to tug on, or spark plugs to clean. All you need is a standard garden hose
to attach to the end to move any amount of water. We recommend using a longer intake hose for siphoning, and using a short intake hose for optimum pumping needs.
Also, keep in mind the pumping action will work in most every circumstance assuming your intake hose is fairly strong, like a garden hose. With weak intake hoses you will typically see the hose collapse due to the strong suction. Also, siphoning is bound by the laws of gravity so don't expect this pump to be able to siphon water from a 20 foot well and dump the water at ground level. The water level you are pumping to must be lower than the in take point. Do a quick internet search on "how siphoning water works" before expecting what is impossible for this tool.Benefits of this hand pump
Doesn't need priming
Sets up in seconds
Works off the grid
The biggest advantage of a hand powered pump is that it gives you freedom. Using it doesn't run up your electric bill or require a costly trip to the gas station.
The freedom from a power supply also helps when gardening in hard to reach places - you don't need to worry about extension cords or ventilation.Slide n Pump Hand Powered Water Pump Features
Measures: 25" long x 3" diameter
Moves 22 fluid ounces per stroke
Made of lightweight plastics and rubber
Portable and can be stored almost anywhere
Works as a siphon initiator
Moves water long distances
Provides access to hard-to-reach places
Fits with standard garden hoses
This manual water pump requires no electricity or fuel - it's perfect for off-the-grid locations or for use during power outages. When heavy storms knock out the electricity and your basement is in danger of flooding, this crank pump comes in handy. It's perfect for removing water in a hurry.
With this environmentally friendly water pump, you can
Empty rain barrels
Transfer soil amendments from barrels into smaller containers
Blend liquid treatments together
Pump heavier liquids (ie; paint, sewage)
Fill livestock trays
Bail out boats or basements
Drain pools or spas | <urn:uuid:b491ad95-00e7-4d71-b51f-a7057b50ee1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cleanairgardening.com/crank-water-pump.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914422 | 586 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library’s 10th Anniversary
Saturday, April 27, 12:30-3 p.m.
Activities for the whole family!
Storytime, Arts & Crafts, and Face Painting
Light Refreshments ~ Free and Open to the Public
Jewel in the Community Exhibit
Ending April 30
Cousins Gallery - 3rd Floor
Join us as we explore the history of the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. From Conception and Construction to Events and Exhibits the Blair-Caldwell library is a place of discovery and knowledge waiting to be explored.
I naively used to think that writers of short stories and essays simply didn't have enough good material to fill a traditional book. Fortunately some great teachers, and exposure to some of the best writers in the field, showed me the incredible art of short form writing.
The beauty of short works has become even more apparent as I've read too many books lately where I'm left feeling like a shorter essay or short story would've been more powerful. Often (like my college papers) they had a few great things to say but had used filler to make it fit a length requirement. As print magazines, the previous bastion of short form, are shutting their doors, I'm encouraged to see new outlets such as Kindle Singles and Ted Talks remind people that brevity can be a virtue.
Born in Pabianice, Poland in 1929, Jack Adler and his family were swept into the terror of the Nazi concentration camps. His parents and four siblings all perished at the hands of the Nazis. In his powerful and inspiring firsthand account, Y: A Holocaust Narrative, Jack (Yacob) tells his story and describes his struggle to survive, overcome and regain a sense of joy about being alive.
"I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house." -- Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Denver Public Library hosts a workshop designed to help writers navigate the changing world of self-publishing.
In 2008, there was a paradigm shift in the publishing world: more book titles were self-published than published through traditional means. In 2009, 76% of new book titles came into being by self-publishing. London-based author Dean Fetzer is leading the charge for the brave new world of publishing. He helms our upcoming workshop focused on self-publishing for new authors.
In the past couple of years, many Denver Public Library Branch Locations have settled into their new digs, enjoying remodeled spaces, more public computers, and updated software. Did you know that several Branch Libraries, including the Central Library, also have improved workstations for customers with physical barriers to access?
These computer workstations have adjustable tables that move up and down to accommodate wheelchairs or customers who are unable to sit. Several types of mice and keyboards are available upon request too, including stationary trackball mice and large print, high contrast keyboards.
The International Bank of Bob is the inspiring memoir of an ordinary American who turned his brief brush with opulence into a joyful adventure of investing in the world's working poor (from the jacket).
Bob Harris, hired by ForbesTraveler.com to review some of the most luxurious accommodations on Earth, was inspired by a chance encounter in Dubai with the impoverished workers whose backbreaking jobs create such opulence. He writes, "My Forbes Traveler cash would be about $20,000... I needed to do something good with it." He then started a list of what he hoped he could do with the money.
Help poverty in 3rd world (at least a little)
Help build an economy, not fix emergencies. Long-term, not short
April is National Poetry Month, and April 18 is Poem in Your Pocket Day!
What does that mean? Celebrate poetry by carrying a favorite poem with you all day and sharing it with family, friends, and coworkers! Need ideas for poems to share? There are a few places you can go for inspiration:
Poets.org has a web page dedicated to Poem in Your Pocket Day. There are poems on the site that you can download and print for your pockets, along with other great resources about poets and poetry!
Did you know that one of Denver Public Library's Strategic Initiatives is job search assistance? "People's lives are improved by acquiring the resources and skills needed to prosper and contribute to Denver's economy." No doubt this is a goal worth pursuing, but let's talk about what this means, and what steps are being taken to be sure we are doing the best that we can to help our customers.
As part of this initiative, a decision was made to "beef up" the job-related materials in our collection. Over a thousand books, eBooks, audiobooks and DVDs were purchased to enhance career materials already in the collection. These cover a wide-range of topics from entering the job market, to starting a home-based business, to re-entering the job market, or just information about a variety of careers for people wondering what they might want to do. Here's just a sampling of recently purchased items that might be of interest:
Libraries are sites of imagination and possibility. Each book contains a tiny world capable of transporting the reader into a radically different time and place. In a similar way, the space of the library itself -- whether dark and dusty or bright and modern -- also has the potential to transport us out of the realm of the ordinary.
In honor of National Library Week I'd like to present a few of my favorite cinematic libraries. All these titles are available to check out through DPL. | <urn:uuid:8acc9b55-885e-4bdb-8df0-bb8cc4c88504> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://denverlibrary.org/blog?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966907 | 1,187 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Masha Allah Seeyah, maybe I'll borrow from the library. I'd rather see it, but you know!
I agree, should be required high school reading. It really opened my eyes about the shameful way the first people to live on this land we call the USA were treated. There were lots of broken promises made.
This is not where the spread of humankind is buried, but where a dream encapsulates the nightmare of mans cruelty and insensitivity, but has there been any lessonslearnt ? No, now the imperial machine plunders on insanely but now with a dainty kerchief dabbing at the guilt ridden snot of a drugged out generation appealing to political acumen in a ever tightening, speeding and diminishing world.
I think it was a very good book, it gave the reader a very good idea what the whites had done to the Native Americans other then "beat the savagry out of them" and showed that the whites were just or much more savage then the people they were trying to make civilized; I am very glad that Mr. Brown wrote the book.
The reason why I read this is because I went on a mission trip to the Rosebud Reservation and the Pastor said we should read the book to get an idea of what the Native Americans went through.
Being part Native American myself (Oglala Lakota/ Ho-chunk) I had some what of an understanding but after reading the book it made me realize that they were worse off then what I thought they went through
Indian History and Lore is one of my favorite subjects of American History. The Indians were as much victim's of predjudice as well as the black man and also the Irishmen who first came to this country. | <urn:uuid:78911dbd-0b69-4438-a06c-674cbc30f82c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shelfari.com/books/7960600/Bury-My-Heart-at-Wounded-Knee/discussions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985069 | 357 | 1.921875 | 2 |
White? There is no white!
Posted by Marco on Feb 28, 2009 in ICC
So what’s up with these colors? The answer is actually pretty simple. The color to the right and left of the content actually is white. ‘White?!’, I hear you thinking…’ It’s more like a dirty grey-brown! But no, it really is white. You just have to ask yourself … according to what? Because that’s the trick you see! This is white. And the first time I realized this actually was white, I was shocked. Because I had created ads for thousand-euro budgets not realizing this was white… in the world of newspapers.
How can I know these RGB values represent the correct ‘white’ for every newspaper? Well, I can’t of course. But the color does represent the exact white-values for the average newspaper and that’s good enough for me. That I do know for sure because ISO, the International Organization for Standardization has documented everything and described them in ‘ISO 12647-3’. I know, I know, this is a bit too much information for most of you, but bear with me…
You don’t need to know anything of ISO to use the information. All you need to do is download* the ICC-profile called ISOnewspaper26v4 and dump it in your profile directory: Macintosh HD / Library / App Support / Adobe / Color / Profiles.
(You do need to restart). After that it’s available in all of your colorprofile-supporting apps like InDesign, Photoshop or Acrobat. Now when you’re working on artwork for a newspaper-ad you can simulate the newspaper, like I did with this sunflower. (Please read RGB workflow in ‘real life’ for more information about how to do this).
And the rest of the colors I used in this design?
With the newspaper-white in mind I was looking for a matching palette. The last thing I wanted was to have too much color lest it became a distraction. I was looking for colors which would appeal to graphic designers like myself and I found the matching palette in the graphic designer’s color playground called Adobe’s Kuler. ‘Sandy Stone Beach Ocean Driver’ was at the time one of the most popular themes and it was the pallet I used as inspiration for Digital-Engineers.net.
* Both the full color and greyscale ISO ICC-profiles for newspapers and a lot mere details can be downloaded at the bottom of this webpage. | <urn:uuid:21f5e178-0795-486e-8d85-d16e3eb798b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digital-engineer.net/archive/entry/white-there-is-no-white/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95453 | 550 | 1.890625 | 2 |
FAA Releases Thousands of Pages of Drone Records
We just received new information today about drone flights in the United States, including extensive details about the specific drone models some entities are flying, where they fly, how frequently they fly, and how long they stay in the air. The 125 drone certificates and accompanying documents the FAA released today total thousands of pages and were released in response to EFF’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, which has already uncovered thelist of all entities licensed to fly domestic drones.
The 18 entities represented in the files include police departments from Seattle, Washington to North Little Rock, Arkansas; about 10 public colleges and universities; a few federal agencies, including the USDA and the Department of Energy—Idaho National Lab; and other entities like the City of Herrington, Kansas and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. For every entity, the files include the actual Certificate of Authorization (COA) application information submitted to the FAA (for each entity, that file is called "COA.xls"), and many other supporting records. The files go back several years and include COAs for every year that the entity has had drones. For some entities this is as early as 2004.
We’ve included the records below in zipped folders separated by entity. Given how voluminous the records are, we’ve only been able to perform a cursory review so far. We plan to review them in more detail over the next week and post analysis here once we do. In the meantime, we encourage you to download the files and find out more about the drones flying near you.
The FAA documents we received mainly address saftey issues with drone flights, but there are still many unanswered questions about the privacy implications of drones. EFF is asking the Internet community to help us push for more transparency around the use of drones for domestic surveillance. We're proud to be teaming up with MuckRock in this initiative. If you are curious about how your local law enforcement agency may be using drones to surveil Americans, please visit Muckrock's site to submit an online public records request.
- City of Herrington, Kansas (.zip)
- Cornell University (.zip)
- Department of Energy Idaho National Laboratory (.zip)
- Eastern Gateway Community College - Steubenville, OH (.zip)
- Miami-Dade Police Department (.zip)
- Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (.zip)
- North Little Rock Police Department, Arkansas (.zip)
- Ogden Police Department, Utah (.zip)
- Ohio University (.zip)
- Seattle Police Department (.zip)
- Texas A&M - Texas Engineering Experiment Station (.zip)
- Texas Department of Public Safety (.zip)
- Texas State University (.zip)
- University of Connecticut (.zip)
- University of Florida (.zip)
- USDA Agricultural Research Service (.zip)
- Utah State University (.zip)
- Virginia Tech (.zip) | <urn:uuid:e3b1f1c5-22ba-4c17-8264-38e717d38b3f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newworldliberty.com/newsarticle/faa-releases-thousands-pages-drone-records | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936054 | 604 | 1.914063 | 2 |
A rendering of Boeing’s new Space-Based Space Surveillance Satellite.
With 20/20 hindsight, catastrophes can appear inevitable. The subprime mortgage meltdown. The BP oil spill. To avert a different kind of catastrophe, the U.S. military is trying to gain 20/20 foresight on the looming space junk crisis, which I wrote about in the June issue of WIRED.
To get an unprecedented view of the space waste cluttering the heavens, the U.S. Air Force is scrambling to reschedule the launch of the first-ever Space-Based Space Surveillance Satellite. Currently, the military monitors space junk through a ground-based network of radar and optical sensors. But this would be the first time that the Pentagon would capture detailed views of the 500,000 pieces of orbiting trash by relaying photos of debris from space itself.
The one-ton spacecraft will also keep watch on other spacecraft that might pose an accidental–or purposeful–menace to any of America’s many vital satellites.
The launch, initially set for July 8, was delayed after tests found software bugs in the lift-off vehicle. The rocket is now expected to blast skyward in mid-August from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, says a spokesman for Boeing, and the lead contractor on the project.
The new eye in the sky will start snapping photos at a time when the threat posed by space waste seems to be growing. In late May, the Pentagon released an alarming report to Congress warning about future collisions among active satellite and zombiesats–like last year’s unprecedented crash between the long-retired Cosmos-2251 and Iridium-33. That smash-up added 2,000 fresh new fragments to a fast-growing catalog of debris objects. The Pentagon raised the specter that a catastrophic chain reaction of crashes has the potential to devastate the $250 billion satellite services industry, crippling global communication and commerce.
Then, in mid-June, NASA was alerted to three pieces of junk that zoomed dangerously close to the International Space Station during a docking mission. After a string of similar close calls last year, NASA officials have already called space junk the top threat to the $100 billion space laboratory and its international crew of astronauts. The ISS, flying at just 220 miles high, happens to inhabit the most cluttered band of low-Earth orbit (LEO).
Following that, President Obama released an 18-page National Space Policy that catapults the space junk problem to the very top of the space agenda. But in a break with the past, Obama not only called for more “mitigation” and monitoring of debris but also urged space junk removal, something that has yet to be tried. His 2011 budget for NASA is the first to propose funding for debris removal projects.
While the space debris situation is already perilous, the problem would be compounded if a collision between objects of different nations leads to a misunderstanding. After all, one man’s waste can be seen as another man’s anti-satellite weapon. What might at first appear to be an accident could develop into an international imbroglio.
“The center of gravity of American military power is in space,” says George Friedman, the CEO of Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based geopolitical consulting firm, in the new issue of Smithsonian. Looking ahead deeper into the 21st century, he warns that an enemy who wants to attack the U.S. would strike first by knocking out our satellites, in order “to blind us, to cripple us.”
That does sound ominous, and it’s all the more reason to pay far more attention to a different kind of UFO, the unintended flying object. | <urn:uuid:da384a50-406f-4e90-a228-3e84108980b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.technologyreview.com/view/419860/an-eye-in-the-sky-for-space-trash/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935808 | 772 | 2.796875 | 3 |
For Immediate Release: January 7, 2010
Contacts: Michelle Jeffers (415) 557-4282 [email protected]
Exercise Your Brain at the San Francisco Public Library
Weekly drop-in Mental Aerobics class beginning Jan. 25 - May 24
San Francisco Public Library has joined forces with the Older Adults Department of City College of San Francisco to present Mental Aerobics, a weekly free mental exercise class for the brain beginning later this month.
The old saying “use it or lose it” applies as much to the brain as it does to any other muscle in the body. In this very social class, Hope Levy, a member of City College’s Older Adults Department since 2003, will lead attendees through fun, challenging and creative brain exercises designed to maintain and improve cognitive vitality and memory.
Levy will present ways of conquering everyday memory challenges, such as remembering names and “tip-of-the-tongue syndrome.” She will also discuss the latest news on mental fitness. She stresses this course is appropriate for first-timers as well as those who have previously attended a memory and mental fitness program.
Beginning Jan. 25 and running through May 24, classes will be held at the Main Library on Mondays from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. (Note: no class will be held on Feb 15 or March 29.) All classes will be held in the Main Library’s Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room on the lower level. Library patrons can take one class, the entire series or pick and choose from among the classes. Simply show up and fill out a registration form at the class.
Levy has more than 20 years of teaching experience. She holds masters degrees in Gerontology and Special Education, both from San Francisco State University. Through her work, Levy promotes positive aging through her passion for lifelong learning.
The Older Adults Department of City College offers classes designed for adults 55 or older, though all are welcome to attend. For additional information about the Mental Aerobics class, contact Hope Levy at (415) 931-8679 or [email protected].
Mental Aerobics is part of SFPL’s Wise Up! program, a series of classes and events for learning and living well at any age. | <urn:uuid:e5328a6b-a9a8-4b96-b595-2e47c08efa0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000177502&sl=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936159 | 485 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The proposal comes at a politically opportune moment for the president, who has faced sustained Republican criticism that his administration has failed to tame a bloated federal bureaucracy.
With an eye squarely on his reelection campaign, Obama announced that he would initially focus on merging sprawling entities that deal with small businesses in a bid to save $3 billion by eliminating more than 1,000 jobs over the next decade.
Almost a year ago, Obama promised in his State of the Union address to create a leaner, more efficient federal bureaucracy. Since then, Republicans — both on Capitol Hill and in the presidential campaign — have charged that the administration’s health-care, environmental and financial reforms have added layers of red tape and costs at the worse possible time.
For a president who has spent months pushing his $447 billion jobs bills, the proposal sought to establish that he is also committed to reducing spending over the long term. His announcement came a day after he notified Congress of his intent to raise the national debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion to cover increased U.S. spending commitments.
Obama noted before an audience of small-business owners at the White House that the federal bureaucracy includes five different entities involved in housing and more than a dozen that regulate food safety.
“No business or nonprofit leader would allow this kind of duplication or unnecessary complexity in their operations,” Obama said. “So why is it okay in our government? It’s not. It has to change.”
Obama is scheduled to deliver this year’s State of the Union address on Jan. 24, and Republican critics, while embracing the spirit of paring the government’s size, questioned whether Obama was scrambling to make good on his pledge with his reelection effort looming.
“A year after raising the issue
. . .
it’s interesting to see the president finally acknowledge that Washington is out of control,” said Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Other lawmakers expressed concern that the reorganization could harm U.S. trade policy, noting that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which is among the agencies the president would consolidate, was established to serve a distinct role.
In a joint statement, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) questioned whether the legislation would hamper the government’s ability “to aggressively open new markets to American-made goods and services and create U.S. jobs.”
Yet the White House was banking on muted opposition from GOP lawmakers, because the consolidation proposal goes right to the Republicans’ core ideological belief that the government is too large. | <urn:uuid:2cea9e16-c3d6-4fb0-9c7d-e96a7fe10e92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-to-propose-combining-agencies-to-shrink-federal-government/2012/01/13/gIQAHsLqvP_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965917 | 563 | 1.609375 | 2 |
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters Calls on States to Immediately Inspect All Steel Arch Truss Bridges
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters today called on all states to immediately inspect any steel deck truss bridges similar to the I-35 bridge that collapsed last night in Minneapolis.
"Even though we don't know what caused this collapse, we want states to immediately and thoroughly examine all similar spans out of an abundance of caution," said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters.
According to Federal Highway Administration data, there are 756 of the relatively unique steel deck truss bridges in the United States.
The Federal Highway Administration issued the guidance to all state transportation agencies and bridge owners strongly advising them to conduct an inspection or, at minimum, review inspection reports to determine if further action is needed.
# # #
To view PDF files, you can use the Adobe Acrobat Reader. | <urn:uuid:e7e4fdd4-0d5f-447b-8185-dd679afdfdaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pressroom/fhwa0712.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904635 | 230 | 1.617188 | 2 |
There are many different procedures associated with breast reconstruction. Some involve the use of implants. Others involve the use of tissue from another part of the body – called a flap – that is used to rebuild the breast. Surgeons also perform procedures such as breast augmentation or breast reduction on healthy breasts so they more closely match a woman’s reconstructed breast.
Our plastic and reconstructive surgeons work closely with patients to determine which procedures are best for each woman based individual circumstances.
To learn more about the procedures offered by Washington University physicians at Siteman, click on the links below. | <urn:uuid:0b658386-fe0c-4ad5-bb69-7ce65ef7fed5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/Printable.aspx?id=5465 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953307 | 117 | 1.734375 | 2 |
|"He wasn't in Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, or Notable Magical Names of Our Time [...]"
The subject of this article does not meet our notability standards. Although it is based on canonical/valid information, it was suggested it does not merit its own article and, as such, is to be either deleted or merged with similar articles.
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|Giant at the Battle of Hogwarts|
Behind the scenesEdit
- This giant is played by Matthew Bancroft in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but he was not credited along with the other giants so only three of them are credited.
- Bancroft's giant, unlike I, II and III, did not appear in the video game.
- In LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 this giant stands on the top of an area in a courtyard. He has to be shot with a catapult three times before he falls backwards into the Ravine below. | <urn:uuid:3a07c943-6fec-400c-adc6-0acf7580285b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Unidentified_Giant_in_the_Battle_of_Hogwarts_(IV) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944511 | 233 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Visual inspection of concrete will allow for the detection of distressed or deteriorated areas. Problems with concrete include construction errors, disintegration, scaling, cracking, efflorescence, erosion, spalling, and popouts.
Errors made during construction such as adding improper amounts of water to the concrete mix, inadequate consolidation, and improper curing can cause distress and deterioration of the concrete. Proper mix design, placement, and curing of the concrete, as well as an experienced contractor are essential to prevent construction errors from occurring. Construction errors can lead to some of the problems discussed later in this fact sheet such as scaling and cracking. Honeycombing and bugholes can be observed after construction.
Honeycombing can be recognized by exposed coarse aggregate on the surface without any mortar covering or surrounding the aggregate particles. The honeycombing may extend deep into the concrete. Honeycombing can be caused by a poorly graded concrete mix, by too large of a coarse aggregate, or by insufficient vibration at the time of placement. Honeycombing will result in further deterioration of the concrete due to freeze-thaw because moisture can easily work its way into the honeycombed areas. Severe honeycombing should be repaired to prevent further deterioration of the concrete surface.
Bugholes is a term used to describe small holes (less than about 0.25 inch in diameter) that are noticeable on the surface of the concrete. Bugholes are generally caused by too much sand in the mix, a mix that is too lean, or excessive amplitude of vibration during placement. Bugholes may cause durability problems with the concrete and should be monitored.
Disintegration and Scaling
Disintegration can be described as the deterioration of the concrete into small fragments and individual aggregates. Scaling is a milder form of disintegration where the surface mortar flakes off. Large areas of crumbling (rotten) concrete, areas of deterioration which are more than about 3 to 4 inches deep (depending on the wall/slab thickness), and exposed rebar indicate serious concrete deterioration. If not repaired, this type of concrete deterioration may lead to structural instability of the concrete structure. A registered professional engineer must prepare plans and specifications for repair of serious concrete deterioration. For additional information, see the "Concrete Repair Techniques" fact sheet.
Disintegration can be a result of many causes such as freezing and thawing, chemical attack, and poor construction practices. All exposed concrete is subject to freeze-thaw, but the concrete's resistance to weathering is determined by the concrete mix and the age of the concrete. Concrete with the proper amounts of air, water, and cement, and a properly sized aggregate, will be much more durable. In addition, proper drainage is essential in preventing freeze-thaw damage. When critically saturated concrete (when 90% of the pore space in the concrete is filled with water) is exposed to freezing temperatures, the water in the pore spaces within the concrete freezes and expands, damaging the concrete. Repeated cycles of freezing and thawing will result in surface scaling and can lead to disintegration of the concrete. Hydraulic structures are especially susceptible to freeze-thaw damage since they are more likely to be critically saturated. Older structures are also more susceptible to freeze-thaw damage since the concrete was not air entrained. In addition, acidic substances in the surrounding soil and water can cause disintegration of the concrete surface due to a reaction between the acid and the hydrated cement.
Cracks in the concrete may be structural or surface cracks. Surface cracks are generally less than a few millimeters wide and deep. These are often called hairline cracks and may consist of single, thin cracks, or cracks in a craze/map-like pattern. A small number of surface or shrinkage cracks is common and does not usually cause any problems. Surface cracks can be caused by freezing and thawing, poor construction practices, and alkali-aggregate reactivity. Alkali-aggregate reactivity occurs when the aggregate reacts with the cement causing crazing or map cracks. The placement of new concrete over old may cause surface cracks to develop. This occurs because the new concrete will shrink as it cures. Surface cracks in the spillway should be monitored and will need to be repaired if they deteriorate further.
Structural cracks in the concrete are usually larger than 0.25 inch in width. They extend deeper into the concrete and may extend all the way through a wall, slab, or other structural member. Structural cracks are often caused by settlement of the fill material supporting the concrete structure, or by loss of the fill support due to erosion. The structural cracks may worsen in severity due to the forces of weathering. A registered professional engineer knowledgeable about dam safety must investigate the cause of structural cracks and prepare plans and specifications for repair of any structural cracks. For additional information, see the "Concrete Repair Techniques" fact sheet.
A white, crystallized substance, known as efflorescence, may sometimes be noted on concrete surfaces, especially spillway sidewalls. It is usually noted near hairline or thin cracks. Efflorescence is formed by water seeping through the pores or thin cracks in the concrete. When the water evaporates, it leaves behind some minerals that have been leached from the soil, fill, or concrete. Efflorescence is typically not a structural problem. Efflorescence should be monitored because it can indicate the amount of seepage finding its way through thin cracks in the concrete and can signal areas where problems (i.e. inadequate drainage behind the wall or deterioration of concrete) could develop. Also, water seeping through thin cracks in the wall will make the concrete more susceptible to deterioration due to freezing and thawing of the water.
Erosion due to abrasion results in a worn concrete surface. It is caused by the rubbing and grinding of aggregate or other debris on the concrete surface of a spillway channel or stilling basin. Minor erosion is not a problem but severe erosion can jeopardize the structural integrity of the concrete. A registered professional engineer must prepare plans and specifications for repair of this type of erosion if it is severe.
Erosion due to cavitation results in a rough, pitted concrete surface. Cavitation is a process in which subatmospheric pressures, turbulent flow and impact energy are created and will damage the concrete. If the shape of the upper curve on the ogee spillway is not designed close to its ideal shape, cavitation may occur just below the upper curve, causing erosion. A registered professional engineer must prepare plans and specifications for repair of this type of erosion if the concrete becomes severely pitted which could lead to structural damage or failure of the structure.
Spalling and Popouts
Spalling is the loss of larger pieces or flakes of concrete. It is typically caused by sudden impact of something dropped on the concrete or stress in the concrete that exceeded the design. Spalling may occur on a smaller scale, creating popouts. Popouts are formed as the water in saturated coarse aggregate particles near the surface freezes, expands, and pushes off the top of the aggregate and surrounding mortar to create a shallow conical depression. Popouts are typically not a structural problem. However, if a spall is large and causes structural damage, a registered professional engineer must prepare plans and specifications to repair the spalling.
Inspection and Monitoring
Regular inspection and monitoring is essential to detect problems with concrete materials. Concrete structures should be inspected a minimum of once per year. The inspector should also look at the interior condition of concrete spillway conduit. Proper ventilation and confined space precautions must be considered when entering a conduit. It is important to keep written records of the dimensions and extent of scaling, disintegration, efflorescence, honeycombing, erosion, spalling, popouts, and the length and width of cracks. Structural cracks should be monitored more frequently and repaired if they are a threat to the stability of the structure or dam. Photographs provide invaluable records of changing conditions. A rapidly changing condition may indicate a very serious problem, and the Dam Safety Engineering Program should be contacted immediately. All records should be kept in the operation, maintenance, and inspection manual for the dam.
Any questions, comments, concerns, or fact sheet requests should be directed to:
The Ohio Department of Natural Resource
Division of Soil and Water Resources
Dam Safety Engineering Program
2045 Morse Road, Bldg. B
Columbus, Ohio 43229-6693
Phone: (614) 265-6731
Fax: (614) 447-9503 | <urn:uuid:cf748583-bdc3-4a5e-b44e-83aaa9fd0f01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ohiodnr.gov/water/pubs/fs_div/fctsht56/tabid/4143/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938263 | 1,764 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Rosemont Promotes Environmental Sustainability Initiatives
Posted February 7, 2013
Sustainability is based on a simple principle: everything we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on preserving and protecting our natural environment. Sustainability is also recognized as an issue of social justice and, as such, is vital to Rosemont College’s mission as a socially responsible institution. That’s why Rosemont College is again participating in Recyclemania and has expanded several waste elimination initiatives on campus designed to actively promote the concepts of reducing, reusing and recycling to its staff and students.
Rosemont’s dining services (Parkhurst) and facilities departments currently have several sustainability initiatives in place to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases, the support of sustainable agriculture, and the elimination of unnecessary waste.
Parkhurst’s sustainability efforts include recycling all corrugated cardboard, paper, bottles, cans, and oil, and staggering light and kitchen equipment turn on and off to conserve energy. Food products with a carbon footprint of 150 miles or less are utilized when available and fair trade coffee, free range beef and cage free eggs are consumed daily. Parkhurst has made available refillable containers thus reducing the use of Styrofoam and paper cups while also offering discounts for using a reusable mug.
“Growing the sustainability programs on campus is exciting," said Rick Cuba, general manager of dining services. "We implemented the trayless residential dining to improve our carbon footprint by saving on water consumption as well as putting fewer chemicals into the water system on campus and for the local community.”
Another example of how Rosemont College is promoting sustainability campus-wide is by participating in RecycleMania, a national competition for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to campus communities. This spring marks Rosemont’s sixth year of participation in the eight-week challenge, coordinated by the college’s facilities department in partnership with the Office of Residence Life.
Colleges taking part in RecycleMania report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week and are then ranked by category. With each week’s updated ranking, participating schools compare their performance against other colleges and use the results to rally their campus to increase awareness of the importance to reduce and recycle even more.
Rosemont College has participated in the RecycleMania competition for the past five spring semesters and has recycled over 26,700 lbs. of materials to date. This past year, Rosemont College saw its total weight recycled surpass the previous year’s total by over sixty percent and hopes to maintain this upward momentum in this year's competition.
Participating in environmental programs like RecycleMania helps the college track the impact of its operations and measures progress toward long-range goals of waste prevention, healthy environments and community awareness, and a broader overall commitment to sustainability. “We hope by educating the student body and administration about our sustainability initiatives it will increase efforts to reduce waste, and generate more attention and support for all campus recycling programs,” said Tom Szatkowski, director of facility services.
"As a College, we have the unique capability to leverage our strength in teaching to promote and encourage our students and staff to use products and incorporate practices in their everyday lives that support recycling and other sustainability efforts," said Rosemont President Sharon Latchaw Hirsh, Ph.D. ‘70. | <urn:uuid:6c495fd9-42e2-4d88-9f23-0fd450e419a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rosemont.edu/news/detail.aspx?pageaction=ViewSinglePublic&LinkID=752&ModuleID=19 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950167 | 700 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Studies at Yale University have shown that children who engage in imaginative play are usually either first-born or only children. Dr. Jerome L. Singer, who conducted much of the research, found that children with imaginary companions were more imaginative, had a richer, more varied vocabulary, an increased ability to show empathy for others, and were more able to entertain themselves.
This is certainly true of Daniel. He is the first-born and during his imaginary friend stage was an only child, started talking well before his first birthday, and is an articulate, happy child with a lively imagination. He has been a number of “people” over the last two years – Buzz Lightyear as well as Bob the Builder and Spiderman. Dr. Erickson feels that this attribution factor is for the most part healthy, especially or the three- to six-year age range as long as the child is, if necessary, disciplined for his character’s actions.
In fact, it was “Buzz” who shot the water pistol at the light switch and short-circuited the lights last year, leaving the house in darkness and Daniel crying. When we were able to fully establish what had happened, Daniel was adamant that Buzz was at fault, although this did not stop him from getting a stern lecture about the dangers of mixing water with electricity!
Dr. Taylor also found that the type of imaginary companion fell into different categories including ordinary child, magical child, baby, older person, animal (including a magical dolphin), superhero, enemy, and ghost, angel or presence.
What can parents do to help?
Dr. Erickson says that parents should allow the child to have their imaginary friends, neither ignoring nor drawing attention to them. “[Imaginary friends] provide an opportunity to become aware of some of the child’s needs. For example, a child who talks about a ‘friend’ not wanting to go out to play in the playground may be revealing his or her own fears about being with other children he or she doesn’t feel comfortable with. It is my belief that parents should never question the child as to the reality of their friend’s existence or bring it up when other people, particularly other children, are in attendance in the home.”
Suzie Milner, 28, had three imaginary friends called Do, Geeny, and Ted as a young child. She says “they were around for a couple of years” and that she used to play with them and chat with them for hours on the telephone. She adds that her parents actively encouraged her to talk and interact with them.
Dr. Erickson’s advice to parents is this: if the young child wants to set a place at the table for an imaginary friend, he should be allowed to do so. Taking this low key approach, the imaginary friend usually disappears within six months—typically when the child has dealt with his stress or change in his environment. Also, make sure the child has ample things to play with at home, especially play objects that call for imagination (blocks, paper bags, empty boxes, a pretend computer or cash register, modeling clay, etc.).
Imaginary friends are common for children between the ages of two and six, especially children who spend considerable time alone. If a child keeps her imaginary friend past age six or seven and into elementary school, doesn’t seem to have any friends, and spends a lot of time by herself, then parents might want to talk to school personnel and perhaps see a psychologist. | <urn:uuid:b9b3496d-0f14-4231-8eb3-5890bb566f1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babyzone.com/kids/child-development/social-skills/imaginary-friends-identities_73281-page-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981479 | 728 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Online Resource Library
Welcome to the Province of St. Albert the Great Resource Library.
Nearly 800 years of Dominican history have created an enormous treasury of spiritual, theological and historical resources. These pages collect some of those. Here you will find books, articles, illustrations, homilies, You Tube presentations, and links that will help you explore what “Dominican” has meant through the ages.
Part and parcel to its very nature, this collection will be permanently “Under Construction.” Such is the life of the words and works of Dominicans. Friars have been compelled to contemplate, and then share the fruits of that contemplation with others, from the very founding of the Order of Preachers. What is compiled in this library represents recent and ancient works.
Check back often. We will add the latest words of the Friars of the Province of St. Albert the Great as they become available. We will also add those older pieces of which you are familiar as well when we come upon them.
We are honored to be of service. | <urn:uuid:de587a6b-ab82-46b8-a854-3f617bfc571a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://domcentral.org/resources-sub-section/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949964 | 215 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Clean Up Day promotes sustainable water resource management along the Nam Xong River
Taking place in Vangvieng on 20 May 2011, the Nam Xong Clean Up Day brought together more than 400 people to learn about water resources management and to collect garbage and waste from along the river.
Participants in the event included representatives from local government, the Nam Ngum River Basin Committee Secretariat, local villages, business associations, students and tourists.
The objectives of the Clean Up Day are to reduce water pollution in the Nam Xong, improve the surrounding environment and build a common understanding on the importance of water and the environment of the Nam Xong for local livelihoods.
The event was officially opened by H.E Mr. Phonekeo Khounphon, Vangvieng District Vice-Governor, and included an exhibition on the Nam Ngum River Basin Committee, as well as the proposed Nam Xong river sub-basin committee, a quiz, and the launch of a short film on the Nam Ngum River Basin, produced by the Asian Development Bank- supported Nam Ngum River Basin Development Sector Project by.
Six main clean up teams then used 100 tubs, 30 kayaks, 10 motor boats and a garbage transport truck to collect garbage in and along 20 kilometers of the Nam Xong River, removing a total of 1.1 tons of waste.
The Nam Xong Clean Up Day was made possible this year through the support of the Vientiane Provincial Authority, the Vangvieng District Governor, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Mekong Water Dialogues project, The Mekong River Commission (MRC) Basin Development Programme, AusAID, The Mekong Futures Project, Nam Ngum 2 Hydropower Company, Phubia Mining Company and the valuable contributions of local businesses.
About the Nam Xong River Basin:
The Nam Xong River Sub Basin (NXRSB) is one of 18 sub-basins of the Nam Ngum River Basin (NNRB). Located in the central-northern Lao PDR, the Nam Xong basin is 83 km north of Vientiane and 14 km south of Kasi District. The central and largest town in the basin is Vangvieng, which is well known for its beauty and tourist attractions. The Nam Xong and its tributaries are vital for income generation, particularly fisheries, tourism, mining and agriculture.
Like the rest of Lao PDR, the Nam Xong basin is developing rapidly, with an increasing population and growing agro-forestry, tourism, hydropower, mining and fisheries industries. Improved monitoring, information and understanding of developments along the river are needed to minimize adverse effects on the communities, economy and environment of the area.
Therefore, in order to help strengthen public awareness and build a common understanding about the need to protect the Nam Xong river basin, the concerned authorities organize the Nam Xong River Clean Up Day each year for a cleaner and healthier river.
About the Mekong Water Dialogues:
The Mekong Water Dialogues Programme (MWD), convened by IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature and supported by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, was initiated to work with countries of the Mekong Region - Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam - to improve water governance by facilitating transparent and inclusive decision-making to improve livelihood security, human and ecosystem health. www.iucn.org/asia/mekong_dialogues
IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges by supporting scientific research; managing field projects all over the world; and bringing governments, NGOs, the UN, international conventions and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice.
The world's oldest and largest global environmental network, IUCN is a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists and experts in some 160 countries. IUCN's work is supported by over 1,000 professional staff in 60 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. | <urn:uuid:0e54adec-38a1-46e6-8843-878173965f13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iucn.org/news_homepage/news_by_date/2011_news_gb/july_2011/?7782/Clean-Up-Day-promotes-sustainable-water-resource-management-along-the-Nam-Xong-River&add_comment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911229 | 868 | 2.421875 | 2 |
MIDLAND — Construction workers are hanging structural steel this week in Midland to create Dow Chemical Co.’s new Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingle manufacturing facility.
Company officials said the facility being built on Poseyville Road near Smithfield Park is expected to begin production in 2012 and create 1,275 jobs by 2015.
“This new facility will increase production capacities of the Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingle and create advanced manufacturing jobs that are helping to make Michigan a ‘green tech’ hub of the new U.S. economy,” said Earl Shipp, Dow’s vice president for Michigan Operations, in a prepared statement.
The Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingle is a roofing product that protects a home and creates power from built-in solar cells.
In 2010, Andrew N. Liveris, Dow’s chief executive officer, called the solar shingle a game-changer that will address an estimated $5 billion market by 2015.
Dow officials have yet to say how much each shingle will cost, but the estimated cost for a Michigan homeowner — with tax credits — to install solar shingles and an energy converter box is about $11,200.
The shingles are featured on two new homes in the Great Lakes Bay Region. The first was built in Bay County’s Monitor Township in 2010 at the 3100 block of Summerhill in the Willow Creek subdivision.
A second home that features the shingles, built in cooperation with Freeland-based Cobblestone Homes, is located in Midland at the 5000 block of Butterfield Drive.
Mark Wahl, co-owner of Cobblestone Homes, said the best part about the solar shingle is the simple installation process.
“They’ve been hooked up by our builders and electricians on two homes now, and for Dow to take that to a mass market is really big,” Wahl said.
“Our company deals with solar panels, but we have to bring in an installation firm. Because builders can install these shingles, Dow will be able to easily sell them across America.”
While the new Dow manufacturing facility is under construction, a pilot plant will support a limited launch of the solar shingles scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year.
The state awarded Dow $141 million in tax credits to support the facility.
Initial job creation for the facility will include full-time positions involving parts fabrication, assembly and packaging. The first wave of jobs was announced in September, with a majority being filled to support the small-scale production launch in late 2011.
In 2009, Time magazine named the solar shingles as one of the top 50 inventions of the year. | <urn:uuid:c40a45d1-409f-48de-afb0-8fee892971d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-michigan/index.ssf/2011/06/dow_powerhouse_solar_shingle_p.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94516 | 569 | 1.929688 | 2 |
08-08-2004, 09:10 PM
I am welding some .125 cold steel and all my welds are looking like popcorn. It seems nice untill I hammer the slag off and then it looks nasty like it caved in or something. My straight welds come out just fine, only having this problem on a 90 degree weld. Currently I'm using 6013 but 7018 and 6011 are doing the same thing. I am running about 80 - 90 amps AC. | <urn:uuid:d2437962-e096-4dce-996b-d20234a9ea10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weldingweb.com/archive/index.php/t-1768.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919588 | 100 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The APN relies heavily on the generosity and commitment of all its member countries for financial and in-kind support. The following sponsors provide direct funding for the APN that is complimented by in-kind support from APN members, such as hosting workshops and seminars and the sharing of scientific and management expertise.
Hyogo Prefecture is one among the 47 prefectures in Japan and one of the most accessible regions in the world. Since the opening of the Port of Kobe in 1868, Hyogo has served as a gateway to Japan for the outside world, serving as a Center of international trade. Research facilities that have been established in Hyogo include the world’s largest synchrotron radiation facility (SPring-8), the International EMECS Center for environmental management of enclosed coastal seas, and the WHO Kobe Centre, which conducts human health studies. Based on the lessons learned from the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, research activities for disaster management and prevention are under way at the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution as well as the Asian Disaster Reduction Center. In addition to the accumulation of international research institutions and collaboration with local governments abroad, the Prefecture encourages the participation and cooperation of non-governmental organisations and companies that engage in activities for international exchange and cooperation. Through such measures, it hopes to contribute to the peace and stability of the world in the 21st century by advancing efforts to solve common issues for all humanity.
The Ministry of the Environment, Japan plays the central role in the government’s environmental conservation policy. Generally, the Ministry’s work can be classified into three basic types: 1) work for which the Ministry is fully responsible; 2) work for which the Ministry shares responsibility with another ministry; and 3) work where the Ministry provides advice from the perspective of environmental conservation. To perform this work efficiently, the Ministry cooperates with the environmental protection offices in different regions of the country, as well as with such organisations as the National Institute for Minamata Disease, a research organisation; the National Institute for Environmental Studies and the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency, both of which are independent administrative institutions; and the Japan Environmental Safety Corporation, a special company wholly owned by the government. There are a total of seven regional environment offices throughout the country. These offices, as the local branches of the Ministry, take care of the following affairs: wastes/recycling measures; environmental conservation measures; conservation and development of the natural environment; and protection and management of wildlife.
The Ministry for the Environment, New Zealand, which was established under the Environment Act 1986, works to achieve high environmental standards for the country while sustaining and enhancing social and economic development. It is the government’s principal adviser on the environment in New Zealand and on international matters that affect the environment. The Ministry focus on: environmental management systems, including laws, regulations and national environmental standards; national direction through national policy statements and strategies; guidance and training on best practice; and information about the health of the environment. To achieve its aims, the Ministry works with central government, local government, business, community and in partnership with other government agencies, such as the Department of Conservation, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Economic Development and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which have specific responsibilities not covered by the Ministry.
The mission of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea, is to protect the national territory from threats of environmental pollution and improve the quality of life for the public so that the people can enjoy ambient natural environment, clean water and clear skies. Furthermore, the Ministry aims to contribute to the global efforts to protect the Earth. In February 2008, Korea Meteorological Administration became an affiliate of the Ministry to facilitate countermeasures against climate change. The tasks of the Ministry of Environment include enactment and amendment of environmental laws and regulations; introduction of environmental institutions; building up framework structure for environmental administration; drafting and implementation of mid-long term comprehensive measures for environmental conservation; setting up standards for regulations; providing administrative and financial support for environmental management to local governments; inter-Korean environmental cooperation; and environmental cooperation with other countries.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…" With an annual budget of about $6.06 billion, NSF is the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing. The Foundation fulfils its mission chiefly by issuing limited-term grants, currently about 10,000 new awards per year, with an average duration of three years, to fund specific research proposals that have been judged the most promising by a rigorous and objective merit-review system. Most of these awards go to individuals or small groups of investigators. Others provide funding for research centers, instruments and facilities that allow scientists, engineers and students to work at the outermost frontiers of knowledge.
The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. The USGCRP began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606), which called for "a comprehensive and integrated United States research program which will assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change." Thirteen (13) departments and agencies participate in the USGCRP, which was known as the U.S. Climate Change Science Program from 2002 through 2008. The program is steered by the Subcommittee on Global Change Research under the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, overseen by the Executive Office of the President, and facilitated by an Integration and Coordination Office. | <urn:uuid:dc12a74c-da0d-46de-8868-514b25a73c81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apn-gcr.org/newAPN/links/links.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943364 | 1,213 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Gateway cited as example of tech ed connecting with jobs
November 16, 2011
From communitycollegetimes.com: “Tech ed offers opportunities to connect with jobs” – Career and technical education (CTE) programs may be the way to boost high school graduation rates and put students on a college and career pathway, according to panelists at an American Youth Policy Forum discussion this week.
Securing a living-wage job is becoming harder for workers with high school diplomas or less—particularly for women in that category. College is the best path to employment and middle-class earnings, but higher degrees won’t always lead to higher-paying jobs, according to panelist Anthony Carnevale, research professor and director of the Georgetown University Center of Education and the Workforce (CEW).
“It’s not so much the educational level as what you take and how that leads to a job,” Carnevale said.
The discussion coincided with the release of CEW’s report Career Clusters: Forecasting Demand for High School Through College Jobs. The study predicts job opportunities and skill requirements within 16 CTE clusters, including manufacturing, architecture and construction, and hospitality and tourism.
The study shows that for those with high school diplomas, decent jobs still exist but there are not enough to go around. Only one in three of high school-level jobs will pay wages of $35,000 or more. | <urn:uuid:4e75c48e-7cf4-4edb-8920-ce483cb4f8a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wistechcolleges.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/gateway-cited-as-example-of-tech-ed-connecting-with-jobs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952051 | 299 | 2.78125 | 3 |
• Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of
preventable and premature death in the United
States, responsible for an estimated 440,000
American deaths each year.
• Based on data collected in the late 1990s,
the US Centers for Disease Control estimated
that adult male smokers lost an average of
13.2 years of life and female smokers lost
14.5 years of life because of smoking.
• Smoking has been proven to negatively effect
every major organ in the human body, by living
tobacco-free, your overall health is significantly
better than that of smokers and tobacco users.
• Smokers who quit before age 50 have one-half
the risk of dying in the next 15 years
compared with continuing smokers.
• Aside from the obvious health benefits,
living tobacco free provides countless other
• More stamina for work and play.
• Whiter teeth and fresher breath.
• Cleaner smelling clothes, furniture, and car.
Click here to view sources for the above facts. | <urn:uuid:0fed3039-36a3-4d2e-a2b2-897bb8987681> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.befreesd.com/lifestylebenefits.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932765 | 216 | 2.9375 | 3 |
What is Methylprednisolone?
Who is it for?
What are the benefits?
Methylprednisolone is a synthetic corticosteroid used in the treatment of many different conditions, including autoimmune diseases such as lupus and some hemolytic anemias. It is also used to treat asthma and certain skin diseases in cats.
How does Methylprednisolone work?
Is there a generic equivalent available?
How is it given?
What results can I expect?
What form(s) does it come in?
Please click on "More Information" for possible drug and food interactions with this medication. | <urn:uuid:8a298110-cd41-410c-9652-fd467f20511f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=23253 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915768 | 136 | 1.796875 | 2 |
One of the difficult stages of life, through which each woman has to go, is the menopause. This period is characterized by a gradual decrement of child-bearing functions and the overall alteration of the body.
Early menopausal disorders are characterized by vasomotor reaction, which results in so-called flashes. Vasodilatation occurs mainly in the upper half of the body, therefore most women mainly experience redness of chest, shoulders, neck and face. Simultaneously, there could be excessive sweat and headaches, blood pressure changes, increased heart rate. The temperature of hyperemic skin is usually increased.
Hot flashes usually pass quickly, but they are easy to be provoked by any emotions (whether negative or positive). At the same time, women's neuroendocrine activity starts changing that may cause bad mood, easy fatigability, overall weakness, bad memory, aggressiveness, and depression.
Hormonal disorders are manifested in hyperactivity of the thyroid gland expressed in a visible enlargement of the thyroid gland, swelling, tremor, dyspeptic disorder, cardiac dysfunction, etc. Also, during this time a woman has decreased libido due to drying and thinning of vaginal mucosa.
Late menopausal disorders are characterized by violations of cardiovascular activity, the atrophy of bone tissue and other somatic disorders, and exacerbation of chronic diseases.
Treatment of climacteric disorders consists in the use of hormonal drugs (but with great caution, after a detailed discussion with the doctor), as well as symptomatic therapy. Diet, herbal drugs like Menosan, moderate exercise are very beneficial as well. | <urn:uuid:9af19f92-ad1c-4429-8a77-4da7f5103198> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.multiherbal.com/womens-health.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944924 | 331 | 2.359375 | 2 |
They came. They saw. They scoffed.
Zoning Adjustments Board members and neighbors had little good to say Thursday night about the Old Grove, a two-building, five-story 186-apartment complex proposed for the site of the mini-mall that now houses Kragen Auto Parts at 1695 University Ave.
Berkeley developers Christopher Hudson and Evan McDonald presented their plans at a special preview session held before the regular ZAB meeting. It was their first appearance as independent developers following their split from the always controversial Patrick Kennedy.
“You’ve exceeded the planning code in nine different areas, and I stopped counting the number of city policies the project doesn’t meet,” said ZAB member Bob Allen. “It would be a waste of your time to bring it to the Design Review Committee.”
“Building A”—the larger of the two structures—“looks like a Ramada Inn,” said ZAB member Chris Tiedemann. Referring to comparisons provided by project neighbors with plans presented two years earlier, Tiedemann said “the new project looks like it’s on steroids.”
“The design is overwhelming. It’s not going to work,” said ZAB member Dean Metzger.
“We believe we can make it much more attractive,” Hudson said, “but we are not going to be constantly coming back to address the rules, which would become a circular process. The idea is to create class buildings that look like they’ve been around for a while.”
Architect for the project is Kirk E. Peterson, whose best-known Berkeley designs were created for Kennedy’s Panoramic Interests—the Gaia Building at 2116 Allston Way and the Bachenheimer Building at 2119 University Ave.
While his other two buildings might be taller, neither approaches the street front massing of the larger Old Grove building, which presents a block-long five-story frontage along Martin Luther King Jr. Way (formerly called Grove Street.)
The smaller building, situated west of the main structure on Berkeley Way, reaches five stories at its apex, and residents of the residential street appeared at ZAB to complain that the structures would cast their homes into shadow.
Parking Worries, Density
Metzger said he was particularly worried about the plan’s inclusion of only 71 parking spaces in a complex with nearly 200 apartments and ground floor retail space as well.
Further complicating the parking problems are city policies that will bar residents from applying for residential parking permits that would allow them to park on neighboring streets.
Parking becomes even more problematic in light of the targeted residential population—working adults, and not the students who occupy the smaller units built by Hudson and McDonald during their long association with Kennedy.
At the project’s inception, 1695 University Ave. was to have been another development of Kennedy’s Panoramic Interests, but the developer ceded the project to his former associates when they set out under their own flag.
As with Kennedy’s projects, another lightning rod proved to be the city staff’s application of density bonus calculations in determining the mass and height of the project.
“The density bonus has been abused,” said Metzger.
“There’s a lot of disagreement among the board about the way the density bonus is being interpreted,” said Allen. “It does not state, in my opinion, that you can violate any and all zoning codes and still get two or three concessions—and you’ve asked for eight. I would like to see your project fit the spirit of the Berkeley zoning code and still get the most density bonus you can.”
Member Rick Judd told the developers that “city staff has gone out of its way to be helpful to you.”
Steve Wollmer and other neighbors have enlisted a powerful ally in their efforts to bring the project to more sedate dimensions. Oakland land use attorney Rena Rickles—who usually represents developers and builders—made the first of two Thursday evening appearances on the side of project critics.
“We too would like to know the rules from the beginning, so that it doesn’t turn into an exhausting situation going from ZAB to the City Council and back,” Rickles said. “We’re very uncomfortable with the growth of the project,” noting that the average per unit size had grown by 20 percent from the last plans presented to ZAB.
Rickles also challenged the city staff’s recommendation of reduced side yard setbacks along Berkeley Way. “The law is clear on its face and unambiguous, and not as recommended by city staff,” she said.
Under plans endorsed by the staff, the smaller building would be built to within five feet of the Victorian home at 1838 Berkeley Way.
Tom Hunt, whose home is just across the street from the project on Berkeley Way, voiced his concern for neighbors who live in the home. “This is a very large building up against a very small building. Their garden will be pretty much useless,” he said. Hunt also worried about shadows that will result in a loss of solar heat and light to his own home during the winter.
Too Little Commercial?
Wollmer also charged that the project violates city policy by limiting ground floor commercial use. “The city is losing sales tax revenue,” he said. ZAB member David Blake endorsed Wollmer’s concern.
“It needs retail along MLK all the way to Berkeley Way,” said Chair Andy Katz.
Rob Browning, an area resident with a small business on University in the same block, offered some historical perspective on the site, referring to its inspiration for Allen Ginsberg’s 1955 poem “A Supermarket in California,” written when a U-Save market stood on the spot, and Robert Bechtle’s choice of the locale for his 1971 painting “‘60 Chevy.”
“Compared to this project, that lonely little strip mall begins to seem lovable,” Browning said.
Peterson has styled himself a “19th Century” architect, but Hearst Avenue resident Travis Ritter said the project “wasn’t something Bernard Maybeck would have been happy to drive by.” Maybeck is Berkeley’s most celebrated turn-of-the-20th-Century architect.
While no one opposed the project outright, and neighbors said they like the inclusion of apartments for low-income tenants, their key issues remained mass and parking.
“Most people are still going to have cars, and the business customers will only exacerbate parking conditions, which are getting worse in this neighborhood,” said an Addison Street resident.
Hillary Goldman, who lives on Grant Street, shared the parking worries. “I’m also concerned that you’re protégés of Patrick Kennedy,” she said. “I hope you’ll take this seriously.”
Density Panel Formed
The conversation kept coming back to the always thorny issue of the density bonus, which by city calculations allowed Hudson McDonald LLC a 35 percent bigger building for setting aside one fifth of their apartments for low-income tenants—raising the base project from 135 apartments by an additional 48.
By the very end of Thursday night’s meeting at 1 a.m. Friday, ZAB members had voted to create a four member ad hoc subcommittee to look into the density bonus.› | <urn:uuid:9f95434d-3ba1-4b21-96bf-7bea9ae94803> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2005-05-03/article/21292?headline=Neighbors-ZAB-Blast-University-Ave.-Project-By-RICHARD-BRENNEMAN | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965432 | 1,600 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The tit-for-tat kidnappings renewed fears that Lebanon could once again plunge into rounds of unchecked violence. They served as a grim reminder of the dark days of the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s, when thousands disappeared across the country.
As in the past, sectarian enmity seems to be driving the violence. The Meqdad clan is primarily made up of Shiites, and its captives are Sunni. Hassan, the hostage in Syria, is allegedly being held by the Free Syrian Army, a mostly Sunni group.
The sectarian divisions are reflected in the broader alignment of the region as governments and armed groups take sides in Syria’s civil war.
The Syrian government, which is run by members of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, is supported by Iran, the largest Shiite country in the region, as well as Hezbollah, the largest Shiite party in Lebanon. The Syrian rebels are supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all countries with a majority Sunni population. Analysts fear that the kidnappings could be among the first indications of a broader, regional war along sectarian lines.
Hassan isn’t the only Lebanese hostage in custody in Syria. In late May, 11 Lebanese pilgrims were kidnapped in Syria and are still being held. Last week, as the Meqdad clan embarked on its kidnapping spree, rumors spread that some of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims may have been killed in an attack in Syria. Enraged family members and supporters blocked the airport highway in Beirut with burning tires and debris.
After rounding up the Syrians this month, members of the Meqdad clan went on television wearing black balaclavas and toting AK-47s. They paraded some of their Syrian hostages, who were allegedly members of the rebel Free Syrian Army, in front of the cameras.
About half of those kidnapped by the Meqdad clan have reportedly been released. But there have been few signs of the Lebanese government or any security forces trying to intervene to free the others.
“It’s just a rampant culture of impunity — the state seeing itself as one actor among many rather than the enforcer of laws,” said Nadim Houry, the deputy Middle East director for Human Rights Watch.
While the government appears to exert little control over the clan, neither does one of its reported allies, Hezbollah. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said in a speech last week that his group could no longer control the kidnappings and tire burnings in the streets of Beirut.
Clans in Lebanon have deep roots. During times of insecurity or conflict, the clan can act as family, benefactor and state, analysts say. Those ties only became stronger during the chaos of the Lebanese civil war, which ended in 1990.
Some clans have come into direct conflict with the Lebanese government. The Jaafar, a clan from the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, were blamed for an attack that killed four Lebanese army soldiers in 2009. They are believed to have attacked soldiers with rocket-
propelled grenades and machine guns this month.
The Meqdads originate from the area around Byblos in central Lebanon, according to clan members. They have since splintered, with Sunni and Christian branches in the north and Shiites, who make up the bulk of the clan, settling in the Bekaa Valley and in southern Beirut. The clan is believed to have up to 20,000 members.
Security forces blame the clan members for violence and weapons smuggling. Still, not all of the clan, which includes members who are doctors and lawyers, fit the stereotype. Since the mass kidnapping last week, Maher Mokdad, an urbane 53-year old with salt-and-pepper hair and a fondness for pressed khakis and pinstripe shirts, has emerged as a crisis manager and spokesman. (Mokdad uses a slightly different English spelling of his name than the one often used by his clan.)
On Thursday afternoon, Mokdad returned from a two-hour meeting with members of Lebanese General Security, who passed on an unambiguous message: Stop the kidnapping. He didn’t seem moved.
“Why do my people have to carry weapons?” he asked. “We have no government. We live in the jungle, and we have to survive. If the government cared for me, then I wouldn’t have to protect myself.”
Mokdad said the clan released 22 of the Syrian hostages who did not appear to have a link to the Syrian rebels. But the clan says it still has more than 20 Syrian hostages in custody, along with the Turkish businessman.
“If there’s a happy ending for Hassan [Meqdad], there will be a happy ending for them,” Mokdad said. “If there is a bad ending for Hassan, there will be a bad ending for them. All of them.” | <urn:uuid:51ea0cfc-201e-4f48-8bd3-eec2d1a27ca2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-lebanon-kidnappings-by-clans-raise-alarm/2012/08/24/e1702bb2-ee17-11e1-afd8-097e90f99d05_story.html?wprss=rss_middle-east | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969467 | 1,016 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Panetta hails 'last chapter' of war in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is hailing what he calls "the last chapter" of a long and costly struggle to ensure that Afghanistan can govern itself and avoid reverting to a haven for terrorists.
In remarks at the start of a meeting in his Pentagon office with visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Panetta reflected on what he called a decade of great sacrifice by Afghans as well as their coalition partners.
Panetta was conferring with Karzai a day ahead of the Afghan leader's meeting at the White House with President Barack Obama.
Karzai followed Panetta's remarks by saying he could assure Americans that Afghanistan will soon be able to provide for its own security. And he said it will never again be threatened by what he called "terrorists from across our borders." | <urn:uuid:6fe902db-a83b-46dd-9c9d-3bf4d48d88a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northjersey.com/news/Panetta_hails_last_chapter_of_war_in_Afghanistan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959519 | 172 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Part of Painter Painter
“The paintings are messages in a bottle to my future self. I make this thing in this conscious way because I’m trying to figure out what I think. I put it in a painting and then for the next five years I can see it there.” —Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
Author of 95 Theses on Painting, Zuckerman-Hartung has no shortage of thoughts, declarations, and proclamations about her chosen medium. For her, paintings distill fleeting ideas, sensations, and experiences in surfaces built up and torn apart over years. Join the artist as she talks about the concerns she grapples with in the studio and on her canvases.
One of the artists featured in the exhibition Painter Painter, Zuckerman-Hartung received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007, where she now teaches painting and drawing. She is cofounder of Julius Caesar Gallery, an artist-run exhibition space in Chicago. | <urn:uuid:72d30155-6525-4695-9f08-125010320154> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.walkerart.org/calendar/2013/studio-talk-with-molly-zuckerman-hartung | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960172 | 208 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Congress urges U.S. safety panel to exclude youth-model motorcycles and ATVs from anti-lead law
April 03, 2009
U.S. House and Senate members have written letters to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), asking the panel to exclude youth-model motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) from a new lead law that bars them from being sold.
The law is the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which went into effect in February. It was meant to protect children 12 and under from toys containing lead. But the law also covers youth-model motorcycles and ATVs, meaning they can't be sold unless they are granted an exclusion from the law.
"At a time when our economy is in crisis, we cannot afford unnecessary regulations that do nothing to protect our children but harm small businesses and motorized recreation," said U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) "Michigan's economy depends on both a healthy manufacturing sector and a recreation and tourism sector, which is why I have called on the CPSC to exempt off-highway vehicle manufacturers from unnecessary testing of these vehicles."
The two-member CPSC is expected to vote soon on whether to grant an exemption from the CPSIA for youth-model motorcycles and ATVs. Acting Commission Chairman Nancy Nord indicated on Friday, April 3 that she will vote against granting an exemption, but that she supports a one-year moratorium on enforcement to give Congress an opportunity to change the law. Commissioner Thomas Moore, the second member of the commission, has yet to vote.
Ed Moreland, AMA vice president for government relations, hopes the federal agency will follow the wishes of Congress and grant the exclusion.
"The banning of the sale of new and used youth-model motorcycles and ATVs, as well as certain replacement parts, is devastating for families who enjoy motorized recreation, the safety of children who may ride bigger, more powerful machines, the thousands of small independent dealers across America that are already struggling to survive the economic recession, and the manufacturers and aftermarket suppliers who serve these customers," he said.
Federal lawmakers who signed the letters seeking the exclusion for youth-model motorcycles and ATVs are U.S. Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.).
Also, U.S. Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), John Thune (R-S.D.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Robert Bennett (R-Utah), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska).
In the House, those who signed the letter are U.S. Reps. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.), Travis Childers (D-Miss.), Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), John Murtha (D-Pa.), Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), John Tanner (D-Tenn.) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)
Also, U.S. Reps. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), John Shimkus (R-Ill.), Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Aaron Schock (R-Ill,) and Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). | <urn:uuid:1ad354dc-5a95-4efb-919f-223a3a6936cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/NewsView/09-04-03/Congress_urges_U_S_safety_panel_to_exclude_youth-model_motorcycles_and_ATVs_from_anti-lead_law-1002590132.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941934 | 767 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Louis Theroux reports on the market in big-game hunting in South Africa: you can pay up to $100,000 for the right to kill a rhino.
Commonsense economics says this is the way to conserve wildlife. If a farmer is given ownership rights over the rhinos on his land and the right to charge hunters to kill rhino, he'll take care to breed rhinos and protect them from other hunters. The result will be more rhinos than if rhinos are unowned - because then the tragedy of the commons will ensure they are hunted to extinction.
Sure enough, some economists have indeed found that private ownership is a great way of conserving wildlife.
Sounds simple. But there's a problem. Property rights have to be enforced. As Theroux points out, that means fencing farms in. And that can be expensive. As this paper (pdf) describes, property rights don't arise from nothing - they only exist if the (private) benefits of establishing them outweigh the costs.
Worse, migratory animals can't be enclosed. And as they migrate, they'll be killed. This paper (pdf) describes how this is a problem for wildebeest in the Serengeti. And it was probably the reason why American bison were hunted almost to extinction in the 1880s; it was just impossible to create private property rights in them.
So, property rights are great in theory. But the practice of creating and maintaining them is a little trickier. | <urn:uuid:27261db1-de0e-4940-a75b-6188ac4e6474> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/property_rights/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95261 | 306 | 2.5 | 2 |
They can also judge by themselves if they are going in the right direction or not. Getting the right training by qualified and professional singers would surely increase their chances of attaining an influential voice that can fascinate the listeners and eventually they may also accomplish the goals that they have set to attain when they begin with the singing lessons properly.
It really pains me to see how people struggle with projection. If you sense your voice is weak or that it has no power behind it when you sing certain notes, you'll need to take a quick step back to analyze how you sound. Take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror if you can while you're at it. I'm going to point out the most common reasons why good projection eludes a lot of people, and how to quickly fix the problem.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but when you speak your voice is at its most powerful. Why then do you struggle to project the same power when you sing? The reason is very simple. You're not using your speaking voice to sing. And I'll warn you right here. This is the hardest bad habit to kick. And here's another reason why you're experiencing the undesirably low levels of projection with your voice. You're lacking thrust. Yes, if you don't push it isn't going to happen. So how then do you fix this singing problem and break the cycle of bad habits that have plagued your advancement as a singer? Here's what I'll recommend you do.
What I like about humming is that, if you do it correctly, it helps focus the voice so that the voice projects through the mouth area. Now to be sure that it really is projecting, you'll want to hear a powerful voice wanting to leap out of your closed mouth and furthermore, you should feel a buzzing sensation around the lips--and a tingly feeling at the front of your face. If your voice is weak and you experience none of the above, then this is what's hindering your projection when you sing. How to fix this? Practice humming so that you experience all of the above when you do. Pick any old song and hum that song using, at first, your speech level and work your way up the scales as you hum. The irony is that, if you can't project your voice on speech level when you sing, you'll have a lot of trouble projecting a voice that's not only fuller, but one that's got timber in its vocal.
In summary: voice projection is one of the most common problems untrained singers tend to experience. This little problem could hold you back from achieving your dreams of becoming a better singer. The solution is simple. Hum your way to better projection. Humming is by far one of the quickest ways to focus the voice so that you are projecting it properly and more effectively when you sing. Who wants to listen to a meek, thin, powerless voice that lacks conviction? I know you don't. click here for info, check this out, click here for more info | <urn:uuid:fda93389-031d-4eef-89c3-d6ca4a7312de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bookmarkshut.info/blogs/75752/80293/excellent-purple-16cm-aa-freshwa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971769 | 619 | 1.945313 | 2 |
WILLIAMSTOWN -- The history of the town's main commercial street will be traced in a free lecture on Saturday at 11 a.m., at the Williamstown Historical Museum.
Rita Watson will discuss Spring Street's evolution from a residential thoroughfare to the commercial "hub" ofthe town. She will guide a virtual stroll on the street with stops at each building.
Long-established businesses will be recalled, as will those that once occupied various spaces.
A town resident since 1964, Watson has designed costumes for the Williams College Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williams Dance Department, Albany Berkshire Ballet and Dances Patrelle in New York City. A Water Street business owner for many years, she started work with the Williamstown Historical Museum when she retired in 2002.
The museum was founded in 1941 and is in the Milne Public Library. The museum conserves and protects historic items related to Williamstown's past.
The WHM has more than 200 contributing members. It is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. or by appointment arranged by calling (413) 458-2160.
Additional information is available at www.williamstown history.com. | <urn:uuid:275f5562-b37f-446d-a34f-b2851fa592a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetranscript.com/ci_22626214/lecture-explore-history-spring-st | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939348 | 256 | 1.5625 | 2 |
- Overview of compilation on Windows, Linux and Mac.
- Mac/Linux/Unix step by step guides for compiling Audacity
- Notes for Packagers - people building Audacity for Linux distributions and the like.
- Designing Audacity - read and write about what goes into Audacity and how it works
- Ensuring Quality - coding standards, commenting code, submitting patches...
- Mezzo - A library re-write of some of the internals of Audacity (formerly known as "libaudacity")
- Please subscribe to our mailing list to exchange your ideas with our developers or to seek help
Tips for New Developers
- Ask lots of questions and don't be afraid to look a divvy! It's a learning process and like I tell my students, 'if you don't understand (after a reasonable amount of effort), ask somebody who can help!'.
- Note our Coding Standards for Audacity (these don't apply to subordinate libraries). Most importantly, don't use tabs at all, and always use three spaces for indentation (otherwise things don't line up on different editors). We mostly use standard camel-case capitalization. Some use Hungarian notation, but not everybody.
- Note the challenge of maintaining Quality in open source software. We have had many short-term contributors over some ten years. This can result in "organic" interdependencies that aren't obvious, so any code change has the potential to break something. Read all the comments in the code, write your own comments when you add code, and don't remove any code you don't understand.
- Use the same tools other people are using.
- Post error messages when asking for help, but try and select relevant bits.
Platform Specific Guides
Getting Audacity building on Linux is usually trouble-free because the right tools are there in the environment, or can be found and installed easily. The same isn't really true for Windows and the win/compile.txt file provided with the Audacity source code assumes you know quite a lot about how stuff works under the bonnet, and about Visual Studio.
- Developing On Windows
- Developing On Linux and Compiling Audacity Step by Step Guide
- Developing On Mac
Improving and Adding Features
Adding new features is one of the more exciting aspects of the job, but needs care so as not to destabilise what is already there. New approaches using a plug-in type of architecture can help this. Even so, there are some things that cannot always be done in an open source program due to licensing restrictions. Have a look at our Feature Requests page to see what our users most wish to see in Audacity, add your own requests, and let us know if you are interested in helping us implement the best of these.
We also have a Roadmap of planned steps in Audacity development.
More about Digital Audio
There are also articles on the internet ranging from beginners' guides on how sound is represented in a computer, to research papers on digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. For some recommended sources, see Digital Audio Recommended Articles. | <urn:uuid:728175f4-c8a2-4d68-ae55-3b666593c626> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wiki.audacityteam.org/w/index.php?title=Developer_Guide&oldid=15799 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927573 | 643 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Special Feature: Products Sally Recommends
Rose Scented Geraniums
In nature, there are some plants and flowers that have complex aromas and flavors. Probably the best example of this is wine grapes. Just think of all the words to describe your favorite wines: berry, chocolate, citrus, oaky, grassy. The list is almost endless. In the world of herbs, scented geraniums are similar. While each individual variety may not be so complex, there are enough varieties to allow you to choose just the aromas you are in the mood for. Will it be apple or coconut, peach, apricot cinnamon or pineapple, nutmeg or maybe pink Champagne? With over 230 varieties, there are plenty from which to choose.
Scented geraniums are all actually members of species Pelagornium; they are not true geraniums. Pelagorniums and geraniums are members of the same botanical family, Geramiaceae, and some varieties have similar looking foliage, which probably accounts for the common designation. The name pelagornium and geranium both have Greek roots and refer to the long, bill like seed that each plant produces. Pelagornium means "stork", and geranos means "crane".
Scented geraniums are considered tender perennials. Outside, they wither at the first frost. However, if kept inside, they will continue to thrive and possibly even produce blooms. Scented geraniums are actually well suited for growing in pots or cascading from hanging baskets, since they like their roots to be crowded, but not root bound. Whether indoors or out, they like warm conditions, bright direct sunlight, and good drainage, even preferring to be kept a bit dry. Be careful not to over fertilize them, as too much nitrogen will lessen a plant's fragrance.
When planting scented geraniums in the garden, I like to place them along the edge of a path. This way, as someone walks along the path and brushes up against the leaves, the fragrance is released since it is the leaves that contains the volatile oils, not the delicate flowers. This path side position also allows me quick and easy access to the plants so I can keep them trimmed back. Otherwise, scented geraniums tend to get leggy.
There is a great diversity among the varieties themselves, in the shape of their leaves, the color of their blossoms, blooming time, and intensity of their fragrances. I love one variety of rose scented geranium (Pelargonium graveolens) for its large, lacy snowflake leaf pattern: three lobes of deeply toothed foliage, rich green in color and outlined in ivory. It makes a great garnish for fruit platters or cookie trays. Despite its fancy name, Lady Plymouth, it doesn't have much of a fragrance. By contrast, another of my rose scented geraniums is less decorative. Its leaves are much smaller, and they lack the edging color and the deep grooves. However, it is much more fragrant. The fragrance is strikingly reminiscent of a freshly cut bouquet of roses. Another favorite is lime scented geranium (P.x nervosum). It has very tiny leaves, shaped like curly maple leaves. Their fragrance is sharp and undeniably citrus. An added benefit of the citrus scented geraniums is that they contain citronella, a known mosquito repellent -- a good reason to plant lemon and lime scented geraniums around your garden patio. One other variety I enjoy is peppermint scented geranium (P. tomentosum). Its large, heart shaped fuzzy leaves make a wonderful contrast to the rest of the foliage in the garden, and its strong minty oil makes it a tasty addition to tea.
In the kitchen, scented geraniums are used in the making of sweet syrups to be added to candies or drinks. Rose scented geranium is often used to flavor jellies. Any of the leaves can be steeped in milk to extract their particular flavor (such as nutmeg, cinnamon, or apricot), and then added to custards, puddings, or sauces. Fresh leaves can be added to fruit dishes. Lemon scented geranium is often used whole or chopped to add citrus tones to tea cakes. Float lemon or lime scented geranium leaves in finger bowls.
It is fun to use the leaves to make scented sugars. Just fill a sealable glass jar with alternating layers of sugar and the scented geranium leaves of your choice. Seal the jar tightly and place it in the sunlight for 2 weeks, turning the jar occasionally. Sift out the leaves at the end of the time, and enjoy the scented sugar sprinkled on desserts or used to flavor cookies, cakes or custards.
Scented geraniums have a long history of use, although more for decorative purposes than for culinary use. From their native South Africa they were brought to England in the early 1600's by John Tradescent, botanist and plant "head hunter" for Charles the First of England. The plant he brought back was P. triste, one of the few scented geraniums with fragrant blossoms.
Scented geraniums became popular for use in making perfumes, and soon were cultivated in the warm coastal regions of France and Spain, as well as Algeria and the coast of what was the Belgian Congo.
The colonists brought scented geraniums with them to the new word. Even Thomas Jefferson grew them in his gardens at the White House.
Growing scented geraniums became a popular pastime of the people in Victorian England, where they would raise them in heated greenhouses. This trend continued until 1914 when fuel to heat the green houses was banned due to the war.
Today scented geraniums continue to be used in the making of perfumes. Synthetic rose oil is made using rose scented geraniums. The dried leaves are also used in sachets and potpourri. In aromatherapy rose scented geranium is used for facial steams as it is reputed to have anti-aging effects on the skin. It is also reputed to ease insomnia and have an antidepressant effect.
With so many varieties of scented geraniums available, the best way to choose a variety is to find a well stocked nursery and let your sense of smell lead the way.
Rose Scented Geranium Shortbread
makes 8 wedges
These cookies are rich and buttery, with the delicate floral scent of roses.
12 T. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp.
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. rose water*
2 Tbs sugar or scented sugar
8 large rose scented geranium leaves, washed and dried
Cream the butter and confectioner's sugar until light and fluffy. In another bowl, mix the flour and salt. Add this to the butter mixture. Add the rose water and mix well. Gather the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 to 6 hours. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow it to soften a bit. Butter and flour the bottom of an 8" round baking pan. On waxed paper, pat the dough out to the size and shape of the pan.
Take the geraniums and place them in a circle on the dough, about 1" in from the edge. Press them into the dough. Lay the dough in the pan and pat it out all the way to the edges. Score the dough lightly, dividing it into 8 pie shaped pieces. Sprinkle with the sugar. Refrigerate the dough for another 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 325ÉF. Bake the shortbread for about 20 minutes or until it just starts to change color. Allow it to cool in the pan. Remove the shortbread from the pan, take the baked leaves off the bottom. Cut into wedges along the marks and serve, garnished with additional rose scented geranium leaves.
*rose water is available in liquor stores, specialty food stores, and Middle Eastern delis.
Linda Gilbert is a Bay Area freelance journalist, a cooking class instructor, and co-owner of a Sonoma catering company, Broadway Catering and Events. | <urn:uuid:0a8b459e-64bb-4aff-9993-1bccc9c4f252> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sallybernstein.com/food/columns/gilbert/geraniums.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94867 | 1,757 | 1.882813 | 2 |
a person or thing that couples
or links together.
a rod or link transmitting force
and motion between a rotating part and a rotating or oscillating part.
3. Also called coupling. Railroads.
a device for joining pieces of rolling stock.
a device in an organ or harpsichord for connecting keys, manuals, or a manual and pedals, so that they are played together when one is played.
a device for transferring electrical energy from one circuit to another, as a transformer
that joins parts of a radio apparatus together by induction.
(in color photography) a chemical that reacts with the developer to produce one of the colors in a print or transparency.
is always a great word to know.
So is callithumpian. Does it mean: | <urn:uuid:8c5a6404-0aea-43df-85d3-ac98588f6463> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coupler | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915012 | 161 | 2.78125 | 3 |
His anger was everywhere, fed by a spring, deep and paradoxically hot.
Avvocato Tapinella had been for years somewhat of a joke in the Calabrian town of Nocera Terinese, known as the good-natured lawyer who could be counted on to lose any case entrusted to him. Until . . .
His two-year-old son had developed intractable seizures, and the once precocious little boy had begun an inexorable developmental slowing, mental and physical. The town doctor, Dottore Cotrolaò, had referred the boy at once to the University of Naples, and from there he had seen medical experts in Rome and Milan as well, but there was nothing that could be done. He died in status epilepticus in 1932 at the age of five, no longer precocious. At the cemetery on the day they interred his little boy, Tapinella told Cotrolaò that the experience had been like watching his son, clamped in the jaws of a beast, shaken and slowly eaten alive.
Before the fury, there had been bewilderment regarding the role of the Almighty in all of this. “My dear doctor, why?” Tapinella asked, between anguished sobs.
Why, indeed? The practice of medicine had taught Dottore Cotrolaò, now nearing sixty years of age, more than he had ever wanted to know about the extent of God’s injustice to man, if little about the reasons underlying it. The younger Avvocato Tapinella, on the other hand, had spent his professional life learning—albeit slowly, it appeared from his record as a trial lawyer—about man’s injustice to man. Now life had taught him brutally that there was no injustice, no evil greater than the death of a child, and the pain and suffering that surround it.
Oddly, it was at such times that Dottore Cotrolaò was most convinced of the soundness of his choice of professions. To have taken up the law? No. Lawyers like Tapinella had, until tragedy befell them, no idea of how unjust the Judge Eternal could be. They were always taken by surprise because they had never learned that one must expect such treatment. Being spared undeserved pain and suffering was not a right but rather akin to winning the lottery, not the norm but an aberration. And what of those who had instead studied divinity? Their lot was the worst! Cotrolaò shook his head to himself. What an impossible situation to be in, he thought. Priests, after all, concerned themselves chiefly with man’s injustice to God. Yet when confronted with the human misery occasioned by a deity who was by all appearances either not all-good or not all-powerful or not all-knowing, what could the agents of God do? Formulate a theodicean argument? Useless at best. Apart from Tapinella, the person Cotrolaò actually felt sorriest for was Don Pontieri, the parish priest at San Giovanni Church, though not sorry enough to avoid distancing himself from his unfortunate friend.
“Avvocato, I’m not a priest. I have no idea why. Why?” he went on, shrugging, “Because, that’s why.” Though he had not meant for it to sound brusque or dismissive, he realized that it had, and cursed himself silently for his unkindness. Cotrolaò, surveying the cemetery, avoided Tapinella’s gaze momentarily before relenting and meeting it. For just an instant, Cotrolaò thought he saw something flash in the lawyer’s eyes. Then it was gone and Tapinella broke down and wept uncontrollably.
Thereafter, Dottore Cotrolaò saw little of Tapinella until one September afternoon in 1935, on the eve of Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. In the interim, Tapinella had been very busy. Cotrolaò had seen much in his life, but he had never before seen a person transformed so dramatically as Tapinella. He had thrown himself into the law in a way that Cotrolaò would have believed impossible. The law became his obsession, and not just the cases he was trying, but the law in general. He spent every waking hour engrossed in the law. What time he did not spend preparing for his cases he spent learning everything there was to learn about the law—contract law, property law, trusts and estates, torts, criminal law, constitutional law, administrative law, international law, conflict of laws, civil law, common law, legal history, legal philosophy, and religious and canon law. It seemed he slept little if at all. On countless occasions Cotrolaò would be summoned on a house call to visit a sick patient in the middle of the night. Not once was the oil lamp in Tapinella’s study extinguished.
Following the death of his son, Tapinella would never lose another legal case. He had become the consummate legal advocate, and on one memorable occasion had convinced a wavering magistrate to decide in favor of his client against the weight of the evidence, arguing “Do not be troubled, your honor; your decision will be just because justice is what you will decide!”
The lawyer who had once been the object of derision became the object of the townspeople’s respect; but this respect was short-lived, quickly morphing into a contempt that was mutual. Tapinella had no time for anything or anyone else. He spoke seldom and smiled never. If addressed by another, Tapinella would most commonly ignore the remark without even deigning to look at the speaker. And yet those he so treated, humiliated though they were, did well to limit their response to smiling like idiots to hide their embarrassment, while hoping that no one had witnessed the episode. Those unfortunate few who, taking offense, refused to desist or—worse still—chided him for his incivility were treated far worse. Tapinella would freeze in his tracks for an instant, turn his head turret-like, and, using his by then considerable and unparalleled linguistic skills, unleash a barrage of personalized, caustic invective that would eviscerate his target.
Dottore Cotrolaò at first had thought that Tapinella’s immersing himself in the law was a psychological salve or a balm of sorts, the lawyer’s way of distracting himself from his immeasurable grief; it wasn’t until that afternoon in 1935 that he began to suspect that there might be more to it than that. On that occasion, Cotrolaò was seated in the piazza speaking with Don Pontieri when Tapinella happened by. Pontieri good-naturedly called out to Tapinella, asking him why he was working so hard and advising him to slow down a bit. The lawyer seemed inclined to ignore the priest and walk on by until Pontieri, seeing that Tapinella meant to do so, said resignedly “Very well, good evening then, my son.” Tapinella stopped, menacingly. Cotrolaò grimaced. Tapinella looked at the priest for an instant. Then his arm pistoned out, and he grabbed a fistful of priest by his Roman collar and the flesh of his neck.
“Have you no remorse?!” he exclaimed, spittle flying from his lips as he shook the stunned priest to and fro. “I will make you hang your head in shame! In shame!” before roughly releasing him from his grasp.
“Avvocato!” exclaimed Dottore Cotrolaò, flabbergasted.
Tapinella, his chest heaving, stared momentarily at the doctor, then turned and moved away. Cotrolaò asked Don Pontieri if he was hurt and began to attend to him, but the priest, adjusting his collar automatically, waved him off. “I’m fine, I’m fine, but . . . what did I do?” he asked, perplexed.
“Perhaps, Don Pontieri, it would be best if one avoided using the word ‘son’ around him?” Cotrolaò opined. Don Pontieri nodded in understanding. As he thought more about the matter, Cotrolaò realized that he himself had made the amateur’s error of mistaking a chronic wound for an acute wound. Tapinella’s immersion in the law was no salve, no healing balm. Rather, it was a complication of the wound inflicted by the death of his son; it was the psychological equivalent of “proud flesh.”
Partly by chance and partly by design, Cotrolaò would have no further contact with Tapinella until 1939. Italy was by then on the eve of a still greater war when an unwelcome Tapinella appeared in Cotrolaò’s office late one afternoon.
“Dottore, I’ve started to wear down.”
Cotrolaò, anxious to keep the encounter as brief as possible, asked simply, “How can I help you?”
Tapinella proceeded to share with the doctor his concern over having recently been unable to recall the name of a legal case. Cotrolaò tried to reassure him that minor forgetfulness was a part of the aging process and was not necessarily a cause for concern, but Tapinella cut him short. “You remember, Dottore, my father suffered from dementia?”
Cotrolaò nodded, remembering and trying to anticipate the lawyer’s next question. Would it be about prognosis? Prevention and treatment? Either way, their conversation, he knew, was apt to be a short one, since there was little to say.
Tapinella surprised him. “Dottore, does my resurrected father recognize his own grandson? Is my little boy without seizures wherever he is now? Or will your failures in this life be perpetuated in the next?”
Cotrolaò recoiled in his chair as if he had been struck, and felt himself flush with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. Before he could respond, Tapinella continued. “And I’ve begun to wonder . . . When someday I stand before the Creator with an opportunity to address Him, will it be as I was in my prime? Or will it be as the blithering idiot that I will likely become?”
Cotrolaò collected himself before answering. “Avvocato, though not nearly as much as do you, I miss your father and your little boy. What you have unfairly characterized as my failings—if failings they were—were failings of what we call modern medicine. As for the other questions you ask . . .”
“Yes, yes, as for the other questions I asked,” Tapinella interrupted, rising from his chair and putting on his hat while he made for the door, “you have already made clear that you’re no more a priest than you are a doctor. Good evening.” Tapinella closed the door behind him.
Cotrolaò sat in chagrined silence. He considered going after the lawyer, but to what avail? Besides, he realized, there were patients to be seen; and just as he prepared to turn his attention to the next patient, he heard a commotion in the street below outside his office. He hurried downstairs and outside to see a 1934 Fiat 508S Balilla coupé stopped in the street before him, its anguished and visibly shaken driver standing next to it, crying “O mio Dio! Oh my God! He never looked! He never looked! He was looking at the ground!” Cotrolaò nodded his head in understanding, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder as if to calm to him, then moved quickly over to where Tapinella lay, he having been thrown some distance by the force of the impact.
Cotrolaò knelt down at Tapinella’s side. He was breathing still, his eyes open but apparently unseeing. A rapidly enlarging blood stain appeared on the right side of the front of his pants.
“Avvocato . . .”
Tapinella turned blindly toward the sound of Cotrolaò’s voice. Cotrolaò used a Bergamasco folding knife to cut open the front of Tapinella’s trousers, revealing a compound fracture. Blood spurted into the air from a femoral artery laceration, an apparent complication of the fracture. Cotrolaò applied pressure to the artery in an effort to stop the bleeding. What other injuries have you suffered, he thought? As he began to turn his attention to this matter, Tapinella grasped his arm and asked, angrily, “Why?!”
Why what?, Cotrolaò wondered to himself. Just as he opened his mouth to ask the question aloud, Tapinella asked forcefully, “May it please the Lord, why?!”
Cotrolaò was familiar with the American jurisprudential phrase “may it please the court,” having come across it in Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson some years earlier. He knew now that Tapinella, already more in the next world than in this one, was addressing his question to the Almighty.
Someone had run to San Giovanni and summoned Don Pontieri, who appeared now at Cotrolaò’s side.
Cotrolaò thought back to 1935. “I will make you hang your head in shame!”? No. “I will make You hang Your head in shame!” Cotrolaò remembered, understanding only now that all along Tapinella had been steeling himself for oral argument before the throne of God. All along he had been preparing to debate the Deity Himself; and his “slowing down” had no doubt concerned him because of his uncertainty about the effect it would have on his skills as an advocate.
“Mi rispondi!” Tapinella hissed, angrily. “Answer me!”
The priest and the doctor exchanged glances, each realizing that the other had understood. Don Pontieri began the last rites, anointing Tapinella with holy oil and whispering so softly that even Tapinella could not hear him: “Through this holy unction and His own most tender mercy may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed by sight, by hearing, by smell, by taste, by touch, by walking, or by carnal delectation.”
Cotrolaò had learned early on in his training that the practice of medicine could be reduced to asking and answering a single question: what can I do to help this patient? Watching as Don Pontieri administered extreme unction, Cotrolaò knew two things at once: that he could not continue to remain silent in the face of Tapinella’s supplications; and that he could not continue to apply pressure to Tapinella’s damaged artery, because from Tapinella’s standpoint he was doing more harm than good. Why?, Tapinella had demanded to know of the Godhead. “Te lo faccio spiegare tuo figlio,” Cotrolaò whispered in Tapinella’s ear, releasing his pressure on the artery and hoping that he sounded appropriately God-like. “I’ll let your son explain it to you.”
Cotrolaò saw all of the tension leave Tapinella’s body, and the lawyer smiled for the only time since the first of his little boy’s seizures.
Later, as the priest and the doctor walked side by side in twilight to the three fountains (referred to as “la testa”—the head—by the townspeople) on the edge of town, Don Pontieri heard Cotrolaò’s confession as it related to his handling of Tapinella’s wound. Had he done the right thing, he wondered, in allowing the lawyer to die? Or had he been motivated, at least in part, by rancor occasioned by Tapinella’s stinging comments to him a few moments earlier? He wondered aloud, also—too late now, he knew—whether he might have facilitated a suicide.
Don Pontieri shook his head in refusal. “I don’t believe it was a suicide. He was too God-fearing. He had too much faith.”
Perplexed, Cotrolaò stopped and stared at Don Pontieri. “He had too much faith? He was so angry, so unaccepting of the Lord’s will. He had no faith.”
Pontieri paused. “My dear friend, could you be more wrong? Did you know, Cotrolaò, that he never stopped coming to church?” Pontieri asked, smiling. “But, no, that was something you couldn’t possibly know.”
Now it was Cotrolaò who smiled, sheepishly. “Still, I imagine that ministering to him must have been for you as it as for me when I minister to noncompliant patients.”
“Cotrolaò, those patients you speak of—the ones who refuse your ministrations—how do you know they exist?” Cotrolaò started to answer, but the priest answered for him. “You know because they come to see you, noncompliant though they are. They believe in you. Those that don’t believe in you, well . . .”
Cotrolaò thought for a moment and realized that the priest was right, about Tapinella as well as about the patients. The two men resumed walking. Perhaps, Cotrolaò thought, the noncompliant were indeed more medical sinners than medical skeptics, and perhaps one of the iatrogenic stimuli for their visits was the need for medical absolution?
“If the truth be told, Cotrolaò, I needed the lawyer as much as he needed me, or more.”
Cotrolaò realized that his theory regarding the professions might be in need of revision, that their relationship might be more akin to a morra Cinese than a hierarchy.
“And too, I’d like to believe that I will have a formidable advocate above from now on,” Pontieri said.
As they washed the blood off their hands in the cool water of the fountains, Cotrolaò looked up at the trees on the mountains before them. Their branches, well rebuked it seemed, hung lower than usual. | <urn:uuid:4f4eace1-129a-4fb0-9a9d-7368f0637261> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scholarsandrogues.com/2012/06/19/sr-fiction-professio-by-fred-paola/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983761 | 4,071 | 1.695313 | 2 |
On Sat, 22 Dec 2012 18:39:29 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> On Sat, 2012-12-22 at 09:19 -0800, Len Ovens wrote:
Indeed they are analog circuits, so not as much conversion as Len's point.
They're stereo so 12 inputs required if panning is to be preserved. 1.5 ADA
> Many musicians just use a keyboard amp, they don't use computers or do
All good points, thank you.
> > The problem with ADAT is that it came from the ADAT (no kiddin') and is
Two ADA8000s here so far. No complaints on the sound quality yet.
> Regarding to the needs of the OP. He starts a professional carrier, I
True. :) but I now have about 24 mic. inputs and I expect I'll have many
more before my home studio is finished. I guess I must pay for versatility
I don't need. Better tailored products would perhaps be more expensive, as
they would cater to a smaller market.
Linux-audio-user mailing list | <urn:uuid:d626b1db-33d9-43f5-9cb8-df9cc858e84b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://linuxaudio.org/mailarchive/lau/2012/12/22/195183 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932846 | 234 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Newsweek on post-Katrina Houston
Katrina's Latest Damage
Crime is up. Schools are overcrowded. Hospitals are jammed. Houston welcomed a flood of hurricane evacuees with open arms. But now the city is suffering from a case of 'compassion fatigue.'
In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Houston earned a loving moniker among many of the evacuees who sought refuge there: the Big Heart. This, after all, was the city that housed, fed and mended more than 150,000 survivors in a herculean effort that won national acclaim. Houston officials mounted what is believed to be the biggest shelter operation in the country's history, including MASH-like megaclinics that took on problems ranging from emergency care to eyeglass prescriptions. Then, just as quickly, officials disbanded those facilities to usher evacuees into more-permanent housing, offering them generous vouchers that covered rent and utilities for a year. "No other city really provided the resources and assistance Houston has," says Angelo Edwards, vice chair of the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association. "If not for Mayor [Bill] White and his administration, a lot of us would've been lost."
But six months after the evacuees arrived, the city's heart seems to be hardening.
But perhaps no city has been as convulsed as Houston, which took in the greatest number of survivors. As some see it, the city is suffering from "compassion fatigue." Public services are overwhelmed, city finances are strained and violent crime is on the rise. When city leaders in New Orleans made comments two weeks ago suggesting that they wanted only hardworking evacuees to return, some Houston city-council members erupted in protest—fearing that politicians in the Big Easy were trying to stick Houston with their undesirables. "We extended an open hand to all kinds of people," says Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. "If they want to return home, it's their right." And if they want to stay, she adds, they "need to stand up, get on their feet and get jobs."
From there it goes on into more depth on crime, education, and health care impacts, concluding with:
All of which leaves Houston Mayor Bill White scrambling to keep the city's finances afloat. He's taken heat from political opponents who carp that he should have sought greater assurances of federal support before welcoming evacuees so magnanimously. "This is going to create turmoil for many years to come," says Steve Radack of the Harris County Commission. But White responds that the city couldn't exactly shut its doors to desperate, dislocated people. Last month he announced that FEMA had agreed to reimburse the city for its housing-voucher program—expected to cost $300 million to $400 million—and to pay $6.5 million in police overtime costs to boost patrolling. And he continues to campaign for additional education and public-safety funds. Six months after Katrina, he says, "there is still an emergency." The city that so generously opened its heart could now use a little generosity itself.
I may be a bit insulated, but I think the article makes it sound like things are more desperate and worse than they really are. It's clearly a strain, but they give the impression we're some sort of massive, lawless refugee camp. That said, the concluding plea is a nice one, and let's hope the Feds hold up their end of the deal. Maybe a certain prominent local citizen and ex-president can give his son a call and explain the situation from a first-hand perspective?... | <urn:uuid:ee8edcbf-4ee2-47d4-8741-b501424146d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2006/03/newsweek-on-post-katrina-houston.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973005 | 744 | 1.96875 | 2 |
I did some work on the pattern for my 1830s/40s shift/chemise today, based on the Workwoman’s Guide instructions from 1838.
I decided that instead of reproducing the Workwoman’s shift exactly, I wanted to alter the instructions slightly to copy a shift identical to the pattern below, an 1835 shift from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London:
First, I read the Workwoman’s Guide instructions, which are in yards and “nails,” an antiquated measurement that is about the size of an index finger from the tip to the largest knuckle, aka 2.25”. There are 16 nails in a yard (36”). I translated all the nails/yards measurements to inches, to get an idea of the size of the various pattern pieces I would need to cut out.
I decided to make the second-smallest size. Interestingly the Workwoman’s Guide lists the sizes from the largest to the smallest. What a change in perspective from today!
I then cut out small pieces of extra fabric, to mock-up how the shift would go together (note: pieces are not to scale):
Here you can see the gores that are cut out from the top of the shift, which are sewn to the bottom to make a triangular/polygon type of shape.
The Workwoman’s Guide helpfully gives the measurements for the shoulder straps. I decided that rather than follow the WG’s instructions to make a single piece of fabric into a shift, I would alter the pattern to include separate shoulder straps, sewn onto the straight seam at the bosom and back. I also decided to make the sleeves puffy and sewn to a band at the cuffs (band not present in the model below), rather than straight sleeves like in the Workwoman’s shift.
You can see how it all fits together:
Below I’m sewing on the last part, the gores underneath the sleeves:
And the pattern-mockup is finished. Now I’ll go about making a human-sized, hand-sewn version (without all the raw edges ;) !
Whenever I’m making a pattern from measurements only, I always find it’s easier to work out the confusion in half-scale, or even quarter-scale. Easier to work with, easier to sew, etc. You can use this technique to do flat pattern-making from any standard book you’d find in fashion school. It saves a lot of money on fabric! Then, when you have the pattern figured out and you understand it all, you can make it in a bigger size and make only minor adjustments.
Next up: sewing the real thing! | <urn:uuid:d0b0bfdf-6b60-4e06-b9d4-21efdb398e9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://costume-and-construction.tumblr.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917999 | 580 | 2.109375 | 2 |
I get really stressed over the holidays. Do you have any suggestions to help me cope?
Can't find what you're looking for? Our health information specialists are here to help. Contact us at 800-233-4050 or online.
If you, your spouse or your child has ADHD, the key to a calmer more enjoyable holiday is to create traditions that suit your lifestyles. No single solution will fit everyone, but here are some suggestions to help create calm instead of adding to the chaos.
- Be flexible. Create holiday patterns that suit the needs of your family
- Hold a family meeting. Discuss what traditions are important to each of you and do away with the rest.
- Ask for help. The holidays should be a family affair.
- Look for creative solutions. This might include buying a smaller tree to decorate, going out to dinner, having a pot luck instead of fixing everything yourself or bringing two families together to celebrate the holidays.
- Don't give in to unreasonable demands. If you or your children with ADHD are exhausted by expectations that you fly home for the holidays, or that you visit with multiple relatives, let them know that this is stressful for you. Make sure you give your family early notice of the change in plans this year.
- Try to keep to your familiar routine even when visiting. Make sure your child with ADHD continues to take his or her medicine on schedule and that bedtime stays as close as possible to normal.
- Plan ahead. Shop early and avoid taking a tired child with ADHD with you.
- Order gifts. Use mail order or the Internet. Free shipping is usually found on many Web sites during the holidays. | <urn:uuid:f8404c6f-c43b-4fa4-ad38-4abeb491e1ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.help4adhd.org/faq.cfm?fid=32&tid=170&varLang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959209 | 342 | 1.789063 | 2 |
As you may already know, being a female puts you at risk of developing osteoporosis and broken bones. There are multiple reasons why women are more like to get osteoporosis then men. First of all, women tend to have smaller, thinner bones than men. In addition, estrogen is a hormone in women that protects bones; therefore, the chance of developing osteoporosis increases around the time of menopause, when estrogen levels drop sharply. In fact, in the five to seven years following menopause, a woman can lose up to 20% of her bone density.
Here are some facts:
- Of the estimated 10 million Americans with osteoporosis, about eight million or 80% are women.
- Approximately one in two women over age 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis.
- A women's risk of breaking a hip is equal to her combined risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.
Thirty years ago, most people considered osteoporosis and broken bones to be a part of normal aging. That view has changed. Today, we know a lot more about how you can protect your bones throughout your life by eating healthy, exercising and making healthy lifestyle-choices. And although it's never too late to start protecting your bones, the best time to begin is while you're young. But, if you already have osteoporosis or are at risk for it, the good news is that there are many things you can do to prevent bone loss and broken bones.
important to build strong and healthy bones in your early years to avoid bone
problems later in life. A diet rich in vitamins and calcium, along with
exercise, are the best defenses against the most pervasive condition affecting
women—osteoporosis. This is a condition where the bones lose their density
and become fragile making them more prone to fractures. This condition, while
thought to be exclusive to the elderly, can strike at any age. In advanced stages, bones may break with the
least amount of stress, such as lifting a bag of groceries or tugging on a
After age 30, a woman should talk to her doctor about osteoporosis. Older women should be particularly concerned as estrogen deficiency has been
identified as a significant cause of accelerated bone loss in women during
and after menopause. Risk factors include:
- Small, thin frame or excessive thinness
- Personal and/or family history of broken bones as
- Diet low in calcium
- Excessive alcohol consumption
- Inactive lifestyle
- Low testosterone levels in men
- Advanced age
- Anorexia nervosa
- Long term use of certain medications; prolonged | <urn:uuid:8ea72980-255b-4917-bfbd-e8b66c250dc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mayaangelouwomenscenter.org/home/services/bonehealth.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939416 | 558 | 3.0625 | 3 |
I was talking to a colleague who is taking a class for her master's (and I thought I was tired :) where they talk about grouping kids this way for small group instruction-and I am in love with this idea! We do small group twice per day-once in reading and once in math. We have always brought the kids to work with us based on where they were on the academic spectrum. Are they working on letters and sounds, are they already reading fluently? We work with those kids together on the same reader or math activity. And I think I will still have to do that because I'm not sure the powers-that-be would go for an extreme makeover of our small group system. However, I think I am going to start grouping kids to work together in their stations by learning styles. There are lots of surveys out there to determine what their style is or I think I could easily create one that's early childhood friendly with happy/sad faces to circle.
We'll see if that makes any difference. Has anyone ever grouped their kids this way before? I'd be curious to hear how it worked. | <urn:uuid:e93dfc80-ca70-4a6b-955b-c291fce73502> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://notjustchildsplay.blogspot.com/2012/06/grouping-by-multiple-intelligences.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987129 | 230 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Bob - different conversations will require different types of responses. And when many people are active in social for the business, it helps tremendously to have a plan on who and how to respond. Increasingly, this also means having a plan on how to communicate this internally, as well. For example, if someone in your network asks a question about a product issue, who should respond? And if someone from another team or department monitoring sees the conversation first, what is the process for the getting the right person aware and responding? Having this plan in place helps make sure your team(s) are always in sync and your network is always getting the proper response. | <urn:uuid:68be006b-c402-444a-9bb3-52796777cf07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socialmediatoday.com/comments/user/64862 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962518 | 131 | 1.585938 | 2 |
by Allan Maraynes, Dateline Senior producer
As of this writing, our 'To Catch a Predator' team has visited 6 states, 8 locations, and has broadcast almost 15 hours. What's been eye opening to all of us is, especially recently, is that many of those who are now coming to the undercover houses have actually seen our broadcasts. They actually worry out loud that the person on the other end might be part of a Dateline investigation.
And still they come.
They finish their sexually graphic chats online with individuals clearly identified as underage, they get in their cars, sometimes driving hours, and most shocking of all, they open the door to a stranger's home and walk in!
You tell me. Is there a problem here? If so, what does it tell us?
What I do know is Dateline didn't discover the problem. Everyone knows that the Internet has some very bad neighborhoods; ones we warn our children to stay away from. For years, law enforcement has conducted stings of those who try to use the Internet to exploit sex, either involving children, or simply selling pornography.
What we did do was find a way to illustrate the problem.
When we decided to observe what Perverted-Justice does, I knew it would be interesting to see, in real time, how online predators communicate with someone they believe is a minor. But I wondered if one of them would actually be brazen enough to leave the cocoon of cyberspace, get in his car, and try to meet the "child." And if they did show up at a house, would they run?
I asked if we could actually get one of them to come inside a house. If we did, could we get him to talk?
What I was looking for was person-to-person conversation. Some sustained communication that might shed some light on how online predators think. How would they explain what they do and why they do it?
I was the first to think this was a long shot. Why would an online predator stop to chat once he knew he had stepped into a very different situation than the one he'd expected?
Producer Lynn Keller along with our hidden camera team went to work. A house was rented. Multiple cameras were installed. The Perverted-Justice volunteers (posing as minors) went into the chat rooms were almost immediately approached by adults for sex, and proceeded to "invite" those adults to our house.
Then our team waited. What happened next was astounding. When Correspondent Chris Hansen greeted these men instead of a young child, most froze like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Except these deer were talking. And talking… and talking.
What resulted was an incredible glimpse into the mind of the predator. What I am convinced Dateline has done for the first time, is illustrate that these predators don't look like snakes, or worms, or whatever creatures run for cover when rocks are turned over.
These are often normal, average, next door neighbors. Respected members of society. Teachers, doctors, clergymen. That's what I think has triggered it all. And this is why I truly believe the Dateline series has made us pay much more attention to the problem.
When we began our investigation we had no idea it would evolve into a series of broadcasts. But since these men continue to arrive at our undercover houses, all looking for sex with a minor, we're still asking what it means? Is it merely an Internet problem? Or does it say something about deeper social ill that needs to be explored?
We're still trying to figure it out, and we hope our viewers are trying to learn along with us. | <urn:uuid:d6de36fe-9e0b-4b0a-a648-664fa03fb4a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://insidedateline.nbcnews.com/_news/2006/11/10/4374240-predator-internet-or-social-problem | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983277 | 750 | 1.523438 | 2 |
How to buy a camera
Greetings heroes/citizen. I like to take pictures, and since I started this website, I need to take a lot of pictures for the reviews. I started with regular digital camera and thanks to god I’m now able to own a DSLR. How do you find a great deal of DSLR/Digital Camera? There are tonnes of information out there that can overload your mind.
So how do you know what camera to buy? It’s simple just visit this website “how to choose a camera”. There is a guide not only covering how to choose a camera, but also let you know about types of storage and some books for you to read to make photography your skill better.
About ShopWiki, it is a shopping search tool designed to help users to find specific products on the Internet with no hassle. It is the only shopping search engine that combines advanced Web-crawling technology with consumer-written wiki.
The Superheroes Base by Baseguardian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.superheroesbase.com.
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The Po Leung Kuk institution was established in Hong Kong on November 8, 1878 to rescue women and children who were victims of human trafficking and abduction. The organization provided shelter and education for these victims. Since then, the Kuk gradually evolved into a diversified organization in line with the ever-changing social and economic needs of the present.
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Patt Morrison Asks: New master Ed Ruscha
Most of the dozens of art spaces now showing off Southern California art history weren't even around when Ed Ruscha set up his easel and his style in Los Angeles in the 1950s. Ruscha's classic, defining works are keystones in Pacific Standard Time, a series of exhibitions whose 1945-to-1980 range takes a stab at framing two of the biggest and most elusive concepts around: "art" and "Los Angeles." Ruscha's vision has had a defining hand in both.
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New Public Art Captures Historic Moment and Timeless Saint Leo Values
January 23, 2013
Students and other Saint Leo community members dedicated the university’s newest sculpture, “A Spirit of Belonging,” on Martin Luther King Jr., Day. The life-sized sculpture stands elevated in the courtyard between Apartment Buildings 5 and 6 at University Campus and commemorates the integration of Saint Leo in 1898. That is when the Benedictine monks who founded the institution admitted a black student, Rudolph Antorcha, even though integration was not yet legal in Florida.
The creator of the sculpture is prominent Tampa artist Steven Dickey.
Dickey told the assembled guests that the sculpture commission was “a wonderful project to have, and it’s quite a piece of history.” He had no photographs to work from so he tried to capture the emotions that would naturally accompany such a moment, the sculptor said. The student, Rudolph, must have been intelligent, but also probably had “a sense of trepidation,” Dickey surmise, while the monk’s stance represents a “welcoming” attitude.
Monks now living at the neighboring Saint Leo Abbey were present for the event, as well as the Benedictine Sisters of Florida who are also neighbors, living at Holy Name Monastery. Both Benedictine communities have played important roles at Saint Leo, which was founded in 1889.
Also on Monday as part of MLK Day programming, students and campus community members packaged 100,000 meals for the hunger relief organization Feeding Children Everywhere. Students asked that the meals be directed to Nicaragua. Additionally, some students attended an educational presentation with speaker Brent Scarpo called “Journey to a Hate Free Millennium.” | <urn:uuid:817c1bc3-5c74-4611-9106-205275530d03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saintleo.edu/news-events/news/saint-leo-in-the-news/new-public-art-captures-historic-moment-and-timeless-saint-leo-values.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968142 | 364 | 2.25 | 2 |
In government contracting law, a “set-aside” is a procurement in which only certain businesses can compete. Set-asides can be exclusive or partial, depending upon whether the entire procurement, or just part of it, is so restricted. Eligibility for set-asides is typically based on business size, as well as demographic characteristics of the business owners. Currently, federal law provides, in various ways, for set-asides for (1) small businesses generally, (2) small businesses located in Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZones) (HUBZone small businesses), (3) service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs), (4) small businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals that are participating in the Minority Small Business and Capital Ownership Development Program authorized by Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act (8(a) small businesses), and (5) womenowned- and-controlled small businesses.
On September 27, 2010, President Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (P.L. 111- 240) which amends several provisions of the Small Business Act pertaining to set-asides. P.L. 111-240 changes certain language in the provisions regarding HUBZone set-asides to make clear that agencies may—but are not required to—use HUBZone set-asides when there is a reasonable expectation that at least two qualified HUBZone small businesses will submit offers and the award can be made at a fair market price. P.L. 111-240 also expressly authorizes agencies to set aside parts of multiple-award contracts for small businesses; place orders under multiple-award contracts with small businesses without complying with certain procedures ensuring that firms holding such contracts generally have a “fair opportunity to be considered” for orders under them; and “reserve” one or more awards for small businesses under “full and open multiple award procurements.”
P.L. 111-240 was enacted in response to a series of decisions in 2008-2010 by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) interpreting the provisions of the Small Business Act establishing or implementing the set-aside programs for small businesses. One of these decisions, DGR Associates, Inc. v. United States, issued by the Court of Federal Claims on August 13, 2010, permanently enjoined the government from using an 8(a) set-aside when there is a reasonable expectation that at least two qualified HUBZone small businesses will submit offers and the award can be made at a fair market price. The court did so based, in part, on the interpretation of the Small Business Act set forth in its March 2, 2010, decision in Mission Critical Solutions v. United States. In Mission Critical Solutions, the court held that set-asides for HUBZone small businesses have precedence over those for 8(a) small businesses because HUBZone set-asides are mandatory while 8(a) set-asides are discretionary, and mandatory agency actions take precedence over discretionary ones. Another decision, Delex Systems, Inc., issued by GAO on October 28, 2008, recommended that orders issued under certain multiple-award contracts be subject to set-asides for small businesses because they are “acquisitions,” and any acquisition over $150,000 is subject to set-asides for small businesses.
While P.L. 111-240 did not amend the Small Business Act to explicitly provide for “parity” among the set-aside programs, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council amended the Federal Acquisition Regulation in April and May 2011 to establish that “there is no order of precedence” among the set-aside programs. Also, in February 2011, a court awarded attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act to a firm that had challenged the government’s argument that there was parity among the set-aside programs prior to the enactment of P.L. 111- 240. The court did so because it found that the government’s position in this litigation was not substantially justified.
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To order, e-mail Penny Hill Press or call us at 301-253-0881. Provide a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover card number, expiration date, and name on the card. Indicate whether you want e-mail or postal delivery. Phone orders are preferred and receive priority processing. | <urn:uuid:216f3c6f-5edb-4050-b158-99b3f010a31e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://economic-legislation.blogspot.com/2011/08/set-asides-for-small-businesses-recent.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942639 | 952 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Buesch Family History
Buesch Surname History
This Buesch origins and history page contains the accumulated history of the Buesch surname made up of user-submitted content from other users interested in the Buesch family. Buesch family history has rich origins whose details have been accumulated over the years by Buesch family researchers. The Buesch family name is an old lineage that has spread all across the world for many generations, and as the name Buesch has migrated, it has evolved making its origin a challenge to uncover.
No content has been submitted here about Buesch. The following is speculative information about Buesch. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The evolution of Buesch starts with it's early ancestors. Even in the earliest days of a name there have been changes in that name simply because last names were infrequently written down that long ago.
It was not unusual for a family name to change as it enters a new country or language. As these families emigrated between countries and languages, the Buesch name may have changed with them. Buesch ancestors have moved around different countries all throughout history.
Buesch country of origin
No content has been submitted about the Buesch country of origin. The following is speculative information about Buesch. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The nationality of Buesch can be complicated to determine in cases which countries change over time, leaving the nation of origin a mystery. The original ethnicity of Buesch may be in dispute as result of whether the surname came in to being naturally and independently in different locales; e.g. in the case of family names that come from a craft, which can appear in multiple places independently (such as the surname "Bishop" which may have been taken by church officials).
Meaning of the last name Buesch
No content has been submitted about the meaning of Buesch. The following is speculative information about Buesch. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The meaning of Buesch come may come from a craft, such as the name "Carpenter" which was given to woodworkers. Some of these craft-based family names might be a profession in another language. Because of this it is important to understand the country of origin of a name, and the languages spoken by its progenitors. Many names like Buesch originate from religious texts like the Bhagavadgītā, the Quran, the Bible, and other related texts. Commonly these family names relate to a religious phrase such as "Grace of God".
- Sterling Charles Buesch 1926 - 2008
- Addison Buesch 1909 - 1981
- Anna Buesch 1885 - 1974
- Charles Buesch 1907 - 1979
- Calvin A Buesch 1922 - 1997
- Robert Harold Buesch 1931 - 2010
- Dorothy Buesch 1914 - 1979
- Joan A Buesch 1929 - 2006
- Hildegarde Buesch 1905 - 1971
- Arthur Buesch 1898 - 1965
- Marie E Buesch 1913 - 1997
- Laverne Buesch 1911 - 1984
- Arthur Buesch 1914 - 1992
- Edgar F Buesch 1914 - 2007
- Lydia Buesch 1878 - 1969
- Laura Buesch 1896 - 1986
- Ruth H Buesch 1916 - 2007
- Betty J Buesch 1925 - 2004
- Elson G Buesch 1910 - 1988
- Berenice O Buesch 1906 - 1995
Buesch Family Tree
Famous people named Buesch
No famous people named Buesch have been submitted. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
Nationality and Ethnicity of Buesch
No content has been submitted about the ethnicity of Buesch. The following is speculative information about Buesch. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
We do not have a record of the primary ethnicity of the name Buesch. Many surnames travel around the world throughout the ages, making their original nationality and ethnicity difficult to trace.
More about the name Buesch
Fun facts about the Buesch family
We have no fun facts about Buesch. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
Buesch spelling variations
No content has been submitted about alternate spellings of Buesch. The following is speculative information about Buesch. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
In times when literacy was uncommon, names such as Buesch were transcribed based on their pronunciation when people's names were recorded in government records. This could have resulted in misspellings of Buesch. Knowing misspellings and spelling variations of the Buesch surname are important to understanding the possible origins of the name. Family names like Buesch transform in how they're written as they travel across villages, family lines, and languages across time. | <urn:uuid:a42c81ae-04f7-445d-915e-cb0d945fc5bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ancientfaces.com/surname/buesch-family-history/666628 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914639 | 1,036 | 2.21875 | 2 |
To Have Illusions
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
What do you want to be when you grow up? What are your hopes? What are your dreams?
Throughout my childhood, these questions constantly attached themselves to the most prosaic daily interactions. In a sense I, and most of my peers, were conditioned to be ambitious dreamers, convinced of the limitless possibilities our futures held (and still hold).
When speaking with borrowers one of our unstated goals as Kiva Fellows is to uncover their latent sense of possibility and excitement at the prospect of success. During interviews I attempt to understand what aspiring entrepreneurs want for themselves and for their children. But one of the harshest realities that I confront concerns the occasional and precise absence of aspiration.
In no way am I implying laziness or even a lack of imagination; rather, survival tends to distract many Kiva clients from the potential realities that accompany success. And then I had an a-ha moment. While interviewing Yesenia Esmeralda Bances Morales (click to contribute to her loan), who seemed bemused when she heard the question ‘what are your hopes or dreams in life’ it dawned on me that it might have been the first time anyone had ever asked her that question.
Imagine that no teachers, no mentors, no leaders ever asked a child to dream big (Perú has yet to find its Obama). Adults here are in no way cynics but many times they are realists. Even linguistically speaking, Spanish comes designed with an icy grammatical irony. ‘Tener ilusiones’ translates literally into English as to have illusions and translates figuratively as to have hopes or dreams.
After a few minutes of talking to Yesenia about the ilusiones she holds most dear she efficiently described her plans to expand her business, and then the educational opportunities she hopes to make available to her daughter. Incidentally, the same young daughter organized fish and prepared for the day’s sales feverishly in the background.
One of the most important contributions we make as members of the Kiva community – lenders, fellows, administrators, etc – can be romantically understood as giving people the opportunity to dream big and then explicitly asking them to do so.
If I could do the interview again, I would only have changed one thing – I would have asked Yesenia’s daughter what she wants to be when she grows up.
Shereef Zaki is serving as a Kiva Fellow working with the new field partner EDPYME Alternativa in Chiclayo, Perú
To view currently fundraising loans from EA click here
To become a member of the “Friends of EDPYME Alternativa” lending team click here
Entry filed under: Americas, Countries, KF9 (Kiva Fellows 9th Class), Kiva Field Partners, Peru. Tags: Chiclayo, development, dreams, EDPYME Alternativa, Kiva, Kiva Fellow, microfinance, microlending, Peru, Shereef, social entrepreneur, sustainable development. | <urn:uuid:e0282d24-f676-4878-b575-5920b6430b23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kivafellows.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/to-have-illusions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95369 | 645 | 1.859375 | 2 |
|May2-11, 09:13 AM||#1|
Understanding how the genes actually work
I have understood that one gene on the chromosome is coding for one special proteine (RNA), but a gene is also deciding which qualities we get. Is my human qualities based on genes or proteines? Is it the same thing, or is it two very different things?
I asked the teacher and he said that our qualities can not work if we are lacking important proteines, for example that I need some specific proteines to have a good concentration, run fast etc. This may be true, but this is quantitative qualities and I am _very_ that this is not true if we are speaking about qualitative qualities such as eyecolor.
Thanks for answering :)
This is first year in highschool btw.
|May6-11, 02:46 PM||#2|
Okay, so here is a simplified flow of information.
1) DNA acts like a template, and it stays in the nucleus.
2) mRNA (messenger RNA) takes a specific sequence and transfers it to a ribosome (located outside the nucleus).
3) tRNA and mRNA then work with the ribosome to sort of cobble together a polypeptide (amino acid)
4) the 20 amino acids that this process can form combine to make all the variety of proteins in your body.
So the answer to your question is both, sort of. Genes are the template that tells your cells what qualities you possess, and proteins help with the expression of phenotypes.
As for the second part, all qualities are determined by your genes and your teacher is correct. You need to synthesize proteins and such for qualities to work. However, keep in mind that we don't ALWAYS need to synthesize these proteins because of gene expression. A good example of this is the brain in the latter stages of life, where neurons cease to grow.
Also, eye color is controlled by the same things that create proteins. It is a polygenic (meaning its controlled by multiple genes), and the protein primarily associated with it is melanin (a pigment). However running isn't necessarily controlled by your genes alone, since things like that are multifactorial (also controlled by the environment).
Genetics is a vast and complicated field of study, and its hard to pinpoint the causes behind each quality since there are so many factors that can be influences. But that's the gist of it, sort of. I hope that made sense!
|May6-11, 03:31 PM||#3|
Yes, it did. :) Thanks!
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A clay tablet found in Song Shaozu’s tomb identifies him as “Song Shaozu of Dunhuang prefecture, regional inspector of Youzhou and Duke of Dunhaung, buried in . . . the first year of the Taihe reign of the Great Dynasty.” The Song appear to have been an established and powerful family from the northwest of Gansu when the Northern Wei Emperor Taiwu (reigned 424–452 CE) conquered the province. In one of many forced relocations during this turbulent era, Song Shaozu and his clan were probably compelled to migrate to the Northern Wei capital of Pingcheng (modern-day Datong). Song attained high rank at the new court and earned the right to an especially fine tomb that included the most elaborately carved stone sarcophagus yet found in China.
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9:37 am in 19th century, admiration, clout, contempt, discrepancy, economic development, Editorials, elite units, Foreign policy, Greatness, habsburg empire, hungarians, indulgence, liberate europe, modern artillery, neglect, neutrality, rational assessment, swedes by George Handlery
Duly Noted. George Handlery
Clout and Contempt.
The use, overuse and neglect of power.
Arguably, a Great Power is one that, while it acts rationally, can afford to consider the local consequences of her move and mulls only thereafter the reaction of the world. The word “afford” is the critical term of the attempt to formulate a rule.
Disregarding this rule, to their peril, lesser communities are apt to overestimate their significance. This indulgence might have historical reasons, such as having been enabled, under earlier and different conditions, to be a major power. France in the course of the last century is an example of the delusion. Others might add to the implied error by mistakenly overestimating their past role or because they extrapolate from a unique situation. In 1849, it took the united armies of two Great Powers – of the Habsburg Empire and Russia- to defeat the Hungarians who set out to “liberate Europe”. This convinced some circles that, therefore, they were a major power. Even today, the consequences of that misguided policy are the source of pain. The rational assessment of the discrepancy of what a nation might desire and what it can have is difficult. Therefore, indulging in overestimation is seldom practiced without paying in blood the price of the resulting failing adventures.
This writer has great admiration for the Swedes and the Swiss. They have escaped the trap of the pursuit of greatness under altered conditions. At one time, both have played a major and successful role. Switzerland’s glory ended in 1516 when her forces fighting abroad were cut down by modern artillery. Thereafter, until the 19th century, she continued to furnish disciplined elite units for governments willing to pay for quality and the determined fulfillment of contracts. Meanwhile, in her own behalf, Switzerland concentrated on economic development. Shrewdly, her foreign policy emphasized neutrality and offered her good offices to mediate between hostile parties.
Sweden has also used her internal unity to play successfully in what today appears to have been a league above her size. In 1709, deep in invaded Russian territory, the basics of the limited resources, distance, and General Winter, pierced the outdated illusions. Sweden, too, resisted an understandable temptation. It was to attempt a second round to correct what could have been rated as a case of ill luck. Instead, Sweden concentrated on making Swedish steel, on neutrality, and on supplying my Oregon’s timberlands with good workers.
Indeed, sometimes it takes wisdom, much farsightedness, to mount the courage of daring to be “small”. Essentially the idea here is that, like organisms in the process of evolution, states need to find their niche and cultivate those traits that make them successful in their chosen role. “Do what you can but do that well” could be the rule. In this case, too, the error of exaggeration lurks. Limited power can be used as an excuse to misuse it by not resorting to the means one has. In this case, being small can serve as an intellectualized cover for unnecessary submission. Capitulating is not necessarily an act of reason in policy. Nor does cowardice deserve to be called practiced rationality.
There is a telling cold-war era joke about Denmark. Punsters claimed that the Danes have an answering device that informs the caller that declares war “We capitulate”. Indeed, several small countries during Hitler’s rise have gambled that defenselessness, paired with the reluctance to use their available means, will deter aggression. Continuing with that reasoning, it had been assumed that quick submission would make the conquest’s consequences more pleasant and that cooperation will lead to an easier rule under occupation. Possibly, as Quisling thought, as a reward for good behavior, one could even join the victor. Meanwhile, if others defeat the aggressor, victim status can be claimed. The latter expectation “worked”.
During the cold war, a number of countries in the threatened West had neglected their duty to prepare their effective self-defense. Membership in an alliance led by a certain superpower contributed to the sense of security at little cost. The misuse of the alliance and of national power is an error of those that enjoyed the luxury of guaranteed protection. Some blame rests upon the “protector” that tolerated, and thereby encouraged, security at a discount. The fault is not invalidated by the luck that the dreaded attack did not materialize.
The past might be behind us but the tendency that shaped it reaches into the present and therefore it imperils the future. In the case of Europe, the inclination to indulge in self-anesthetics and to pick harmless enemies is still alive. The illusion prevails that “nothing can happen” and of a world, whose conflicts will be, through the intervention of the good fairy, settled in the spirit of multiculturalism. Therefore, those that point to potential threats are conveniently branded as racists, scaremongers, and fascistic extremists. This creates a weakness. Weakness tempts the potential aggressor. This is so even if popular mythology teaches that weakness protects, as aggressor is only a reaction to misperceived threats.
While the means and the preparedness to resist decline, the profits of extorting Europe grow. This is so because the discrepancies of national or per capita wealth are on the increase. Some poor societies are becoming poorer because their ways add up to unproductive and self-destructive values. Self-handicapped, they only stumble forward, while others accelerate their progress. Thereby, the total to be redistributed if a “just” global order is imposed grows. As the motive and the ideologically enhanced goal for forcible re-allocation hardens, the will to achieve that goal by violence increases. At the same time the physical, but especially the mental, ability to resist what would be “socialism” if implemented within a society, is on the vane. The assertive belligerence of Tunisian “refugees” that force themselves on the welfare states of Europe tell a story. Their comportment contradicts their claim of being refugees – from a country that just overthrew a dictatorship!- while their arrogance signalizes a rising storm.
In looking ahead, the pacific commitment of China and Russia should not be assumed to be unalterable. Their role in the Syrian conflict confirms this. Furthermore, in other world neighborhoods, forces rise that do not pursue the sharing of expertise, governance and institutions, to elevate themselves. What is craved is not the transferable factors that create successful societies. They ascribe achievement to “exploitation”, to “luck” and the lack of worthy values expressed by religion. Convinced of this by confirming ideologies, the way to correct the inequity is through the rightful struggle to take back what had been grabbed from them.
The proper reaction to this is a highly nuanced approach that judiciously combines help with determined resistance backed by might against incursions. Too much or too little of either will mean a misuse of power. In time, the consequences caused by dreaming can become a costly and irreversible error of policy. | <urn:uuid:797bcf13-227a-4370-994e-df0dd733b8f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://teapartywire.com/blog/category/hungarians/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95949 | 1,559 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The elbow is a hinge joint between the lower end of the humerus bone in the upper arm and the upper end of the radius and ulnar bones in the lower arm. The arm is bent and rotated at the elbow by the biceps muscles in the upper arm. Ligaments located at the front, back, and sides of the elbow help stabilize the joint.
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Definition of Lip, cleft
Lip, cleft: A fissure in the upper lip that is due to failure of the left and right sides of the fetal lip tissue to fuse, an event that should take place by 35 days of fetal age. Cleft lip can be on one side only or on both sides. Because failure of lip fusion can impair the subsequent closure of the palatal shelves, cleft lip often occurs in association with cleft palate. It is one of the most common physical birth defects, and it can be corrected with surgery.
Last Editorial Review: 3/30/2012
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New Gamma-Ray Space Telescope to Launch
Set to launch on 3 June, NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope will explore the universe's most powerful phenomena
PHOTO: Jim Grossmann/NASA
29 May 2008—Next week, NASA will launch a new US $690 million gamma-ray space telescope, designed to explore the most energetic regions of the universe, where photons some billion times as energetic as visible light originate. The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), a 4.3-metric-ton observatory, is set for launch on 3 June. A joint effort of NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy, the project also has electronic hardware contributions from international partners in France, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. Because Earth’s atmosphere provides a natural shield against gamma rays, GLAST must be put into low Earth orbit to observe them.
GLAST’s main mission during its expected five-year life is the study of gamma-ray bursts from stars collapsing to form black holes and other celestial sources. These brief events, lasting from a few milliseconds to several minutes, radiate the most energetic form of light in the universe—8000 electron volts to more than 300 billion electron volts. GLAST will be 30 times as sensitive at detecting these elusive bursts than its predecessor, the NASA Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, which operated from 1991 to 1999.
To hunt its quarry, GLAST is equipped with two unique instruments: the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM). The LAT is a 3-ton particle detector and tracker that can observe one-fifth of the sky at any given moment—it can cover the entire sky every three hours when in orbit. The detector is made up of 70 square meters of silicon-strip detectors—similar to those that detect particles in high-energy physics experiments. When a gamma ray strikes one of 16 thin tungsten sheets in the LAT, it is converted to an electron and a positron. A tracker made from silicon strips then measures the path of the electron and the positron, which in turn reveals the direction of the gamma-ray source. (The LAT is designed to reject cosmic rays from outside the solar system and those gamma rays that originate from the sun.)
One of GLAST’s 16 towers, which house its gamma-ray converters and detectors.
The observatory’s other instrument, the GBM, will work in tandem with the LAT to determine the source of the gamma rays. While the LAT can cover one-fifth of the sky, the GBM can view the entire sky. When it picks up a bright gamma-ray burst, the GBM will immediately send a signal to the LAT to observe that portion of the sky. The GBM contains 12 flat-disk detectors made of sodium iodide. When struck by a gamma ray, they produce a faint but detectable flash of light. Astronomers can then use triangulation to determine where in the sky the flash came from.
Gamma-ray bursts won’t be the only phenomena GLAST tracks. It may also play a role in figuring out the nature of the mysterious dark matter that physicists say makes up 22 percent of the universe. One popular theory on dark matter is that it is made of as-yet-undetected particles. Astrophysicists have postulated that these alleged particles interact weakly with their environment but can interact with one another to produce gamma rays in an energy range that GLAST can detect. ”If GLAST can find evidence of such particles, it would provide an astrophysical measurement that would complement direct searches for new particles being conducted at particle accelerators like Fermilab and the Large Hadron Collider,” says David Thompson, a physicist with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the deputy project scientist for GLAST.
Other intriguing phenomena that GLAST will look for include odd objects called blazars, which are jets of extremely energetic radiation emitted from the centers of some galaxies. ”These highly variable jets are seen across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to gamma ray, and the relationship in time and intensity between different parts of the spectrum is a key diagnostic of how these jets are formed and how they work,” says Thompson.
GLAST is expected to help answer some questions left behind by its predecessor observatory, but it’s just as likely to generate new questions. ”We know that over half the sources seen by the previous high-energy gamma-ray telescope [Compton] remain mysteries. In solving those mysteries, GLAST has a high potential for discovery. My greatest hope is that GLAST will provide surprises. That is an exciting prospect,” says Thompson.
About the Author
Barry E. DiGregorio is a science writer and astroenvironmentalist from Middleport, N.Y. Earlier in May 2008 he reported on the development of an electric sail for spacecraft propulsion. | <urn:uuid:428b3822-1f15-4da7-b6fa-f7e2354259c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/new-gammaray-space-telescope-to-launch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918458 | 1,018 | 3.4375 | 3 |
However, in the wake of past doomsday embarrassments (the world didn’t end in the year 1000, and the hoopla over the 1987 Harmonic Convergence turned out to be the spiritual equivalent of 8-track tape), few latter-day prophets are willing to stick their necks out and name a drop deadline. “What the prophets try to do is make predictions and leave the fulfillment vague,” explains Stephen D. O’Leary, a millennial scholar at the University of Southern California. The most successful millennial prophets remain “strategically ambiguous,” he says. He prophets who do get specific tend to be the more marginal ones.”
It’s no surprise that the Internet, a haven for marginal oracles of all strips, is home to millenarians who are bold enough to set a date. In fact, the Internet has assumed an important role on the end-times stage. “The Internet will be to the twenty-first century what the printing press was to the sixteenth,” says medieval historian Richard Landes of Boston University, who, with O’Leary, cofounded the Center for Millennial Studies. Just as the printing press made apocalyptic tracts available to the public five hundred years ago, the Internet disgorges a vast literature of alternative doomsday scenarios.
“The Internet has increased the amount and the kind of information people have at their disposal to construct millenial scenarios,” says O’Leary. “It also gives people a chance to try out different interpretations and prophecies in electronic discussion groups.” In effect, he says, “the Internet provides a kind of social reinforcement,” a public-address system for “people who might otherwise be relegated to the fringes as crackpots.”
Well, in the lottery of multiple Armageddons, today’s crackpot may turn out to be tomorrow’s messianic seer. So how can the rest of us plan for the ultimate end and/or final beginning? The handy guide to doomsday chronologies is a good place to start, and a good place to determine if any of these are in fact true:
July 1999(Nostradamus): This end date arrives in the summer of 1999 (just in time for that Prince song). Everybody’s favorite sixteenth-century doomsayer was uncharacteristically specific when he prophesied that “in the year of 1999 and seven months will come a great king of terror from the skies….” Rather than interpreting that to mean Stephen King skydiving, latter-day pessimists are thinking nuclear missile strike. And the pessimists’ tent is big enough for everyone: Everyone banking on the end of the world wants a piece of nuclear Nostradamus – New Agers, psychics, fundamentalist Christians, and Tom Clancy fans alike.August 18, 1999 (Criswell): Ed Wood’s favorite phony TV psychic was brazen enough to narrow down Armageddon to the precise day: “If you and I meet each other on the street that fateful day, August 18, 1999, and we chat about what we will do on the morrow, we will open our mouths to speak, and no words will come out, for we have no future…. You and I will suddenly run out of time!” Of course, Criswell never explained exactly how the world would end, only that future generations will wonder “what on earth was meant by the words ‘Henry Ford’ or ‘Hollywood.’” But how accurate was Criswell? Well, his record speaks for itself: “Meteor destroys London [in] 1988″; “I predict embalming by radar, where the body is turned to indestructable stone”; “I predict that by 1980 you will be able to lift your own face in your own home for only $5.00.”
1999 (Edgar Cayce): The “sleeping prophet” pinpointed 1999 as the year of the Armageddon, to be followed by the New Age and the Second Coming of Christ. In between, we can expect a number of Hollywood comet/meteor movie-style special effects: A shift in the earth’s axis leading to melting polar caps and the sinking of England and Japan. Also, the destruction of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York by earthquakes and floods, making it difficult for big-city swells to continue to sneer at small-town America; on the plus side, Atlantis will rise up from the depths of the ocean, opening an entirely new real estate market; and as if that weren’t enough, Christ will initiate a “New Age of Peace.” Of course, Cayce’s loose time line will allow Armageddon to slip until 2001 or 2002, if absolutely necessary.
2000ish (Jack Van Impe): The perpetually grinning televangelist is, well, impish when it comes to naming dates: He won’t do it. He does, however, offer an “Overview of Major Future Events” somewhat more convoluted than a Thomas Pynchon novel: The Antichrist takes center stage during the seven-year tribulation, followed by sundry judgments, “War in Heaven,” and the “battle of Armageddon” (neatly illustrated on Van Impe’s Internet web site as a horde of marauding Huns), the Second Coming, more judgments, and a thousand years of peace with “Satan Bound,” a period that closes with “Satan Loosed,” again, kind of like the surprise return of Freddy Kruger at the very end of those slasher movies, after you think he’s already been killed. It’s all very confusing (did I enter the millennium in a mortal body, or do I need to trade up for resurrection?) which undoubtedly helps Van Impe sell those twenty dollar explanatory videos.
May 5, 2000 (Richard W. Noone): The author of the book 5/5/2000: Ice – The Ultimate Disaster, is refreshingly specific: “On May 5 of the year 2000, Mercury, Venus, Mars Jupiter and Saturn will be aligned with the earth for the first time in 6,000 years. On that day the ice buildup at the South Pole will upset the earth’s axis, sending trillions of tons of ice in the water sweeping over the surface of our planet.” Though the book jacket claims that “astonishing evidence points to worldwide disaster in our lifetime,” said evidence turns out to be culled mostly from the works of fringe scientists such as Emanuel Velikofsky, making It likely that 5/5/2000‘s major event will be El Torrito’s Cinco de Mayo happy hour.
2000 or 2007 or 2048 (Hal Lindsey): The bestselling author of our day (more sales than Stephen King) is bearish when it comes to setting the big date. In his earlier books (including The Late, Great Planet Earth), however, the modern bard of Christian Apocalypse did let a few numbers loose: Armageddon in the year 2000 and the Second Coming of Christ in 2007 (forty years after the reunification of Jerusalem). However, Lindsey has also cited 2048 (see Bede below) as a possible drop deadline.
2001 (Uranus Society): Per interstellar thought messages received by Southern California UFO disciples, a “Pleiadean starship will land on a rising portion of Atlantis in the area of the Bermuda Triangle…in the year 2001!” At that point, Earth will become the final world to join “an alignment of 33 planets,” forming an “Interplanetary Confederation for the Spiritual Renaissance of Humankind on Earth!” Though our Pleiadean “Space Brothers” are wise to tie their arrival to the classic Stanley Kubrick film, the previous E.T.A. for ET of 1985 (when neither starships nor star children showed up) proved that Unarians aren’t averse to issuing a cosmic raincheck.
2003 (Kalki Avatar): According to the Hindu calendar, the Sree Vishiva Karma Veera Narayana Murthy, avatar of Krishna, will arrive in 2003 to establish the reihn of dharma (Righteousness). “He will rule over the universe for a period of 108 years, and return to His abode, Vaikunta. Preceding that, the world will be full of calamities and situations will be changing every instant.” For example, from 1999 to 2003, we can expect a “rain of blood in towns, villages and forests. Poor quality coins will be used as currencies. The males of goat and ox will sport mammary organs, and will be milked. Blood will flow from the limbs of elephants and horses….Many incurable diseases will be present. A man will have ten women after him, which will result in extreme behaviour in human beings.”
December 21, 2012 (Mayan Calendar): Turns out the “Harmonic Convergence” of 1987 wasn’t a bust, after all; it opened a transitional period of cosmic change that will culminate on the day of the winter solstice in the year 2012. So forecasts Jose Arguelles, the New Age visionary who organized the harmonic festivities of a decade ago. Arguelles is not alone in pinpointing 2012 as the date of the looming end-time. A convergence of New Age thinkers has arrived at the same fateful date, based on the Mayan “Long Count” calendar, a kind of mystical Daytimer which measures a “Great Cycle” of 5,125 years and which runs out of refill pages on – mark your calendar – December 21, 2012. Most Mayan calendar counters expect major “earth changes” of the cataclysmic, rising-Atlantis, sinking – Los Angeles variety. Because the Mayans synchronized their calendar to the skies, spectacular astrological alignments are expected in 2012. Per Arguelles, the year 2012 will transport humankind from the “third dimension” to the “fourth dimension,” a new galactic state of consciousness. Other Mayan calendar countdowns peg the New Age apocalypse to December 22, 2012.
2058 (Bede the Venerable): The eighth-century theologian calculated that Jesus was born 3,942 years after the creation of the world, which means that the six thousand-year millennial week will end in 2058. So far no one has decided to champion Bede. Alas, latter-day millenarians seem uninterested in his old-school dating.
2076 (Year of the Haj): 2076 is the year 1500, according to the Muslim calendar, which has led several Sufi sects to declare 2076 as the end day. My prediction: American Tricentennial hype will probably overshadow the Muslim eschaton.
2240 (Jewish Calendar): The year 2240 is the year 6000, according to the Jews. If by then the other doomsday scenarios haven’t swept us into either the dustbin of history of a state of cosmological harmony, nothing is going to knock us off our self-satisfied perch. Except maybe the Klingons. | <urn:uuid:09f54647-6d1b-48ed-bffb-2e7839d6b33a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carpenoctem.tv/conspiracy-theories/judgement-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917137 | 2,363 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Metro riders have a new way of telling time -- and soon will be able to get information about delays, elevator shutdowns and the like before entering Metrorail stations.
The transit agency has been installing new liquid crystal flat screen displays at station entrances. Already 88 kiosks have them and in coming weeks all 112 will be outfitted with them, according to Metro.
Metro turned the first ones on this week.
|Metro chief says human error caused daylight saving mistake|
|Metro's failure to keep running trains an extra hour as promised during the seasonal time change was due to a human error in the control center that day, according to Metro.|
|The agency had told riders it would stay open an hour later, as it typically does, when clocks changed on Nov. 4 from daylight saving time to standard time. But then it actually closed the system at 3 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, meaning 2 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, stranding riders counting on the extra hour.|
|The agency apologized for the mistake but had not explained what went wrong.|
|General Manager Richard Sarles told The Washington Examiner on Thursday that the agency had intended to run trains an extra hour but a communication problem happened that day in the control center.|
|When asked if anyone faced any discipline, Sarles said everyone makes mistakes.|
|"The person will never ever make that mistake again," he said.|
They currently only show a clock with the agency's official time. By the end of the year, though, every kiosk will have them and they will show real-time advisories about delays, similar to the ones shown in e-alerts, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said. They also will show the status of all five lines, plus elevator outages so riders can make decisions about whether they want to enter the system before they have swiped their farecards. Currently, riders who enter a station, then leave before taking a train get charged upon exiting.
"The objective here was to respond to customer feedback," Stessel said.
Riders have said they especially want more information about service during massive service meltdowns. Not all of the stations have cellphone service yet -- and likely won't until late 2015 -- leaving some riders without the emails, texts and tweets that could warn them of delays. Some riders don't have cellphones and station announcements are notoriously difficult to hear, especially as noisy trains enter and exit the stations.
The screens do not replace the existing screens that show when the next train is slated to arrive, though. Those signs will remain on the station platforms and at some station entrances, Stessel said.
The new supplemental screens started going up this summer. Much to some riders' annoyance, however, they covered up the existing clocks on the kiosks but stayed blank for weeks on end. For riders trying to time their trips outside the higher-costing peak fare periods, that meant uncertainty as to whether Metro's fare gates showed 9:31 a.m. or 7:01 p.m. like their own clocks for what could mean a few dollars of savings.
Stessel explained that the agency only just received the final equipment to make the screens work and has been turning on the clocks as a way to test them. It takes time to install the screens, he said, as crews can do one or two at a time. Metro got the control boxes that connect to the computer system in the past month, he said, so crews have returned to stations to connect them. | <urn:uuid:24c9d80a-5e2f-407a-8cc1-4ae46b5ee1a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/metro-adds-screens-to-kiosks-to-show-train-delays/article/2513620 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96888 | 722 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Atrial Fib: Q&A
This Slow “Burn” Can Fire Up Health Hazards
Anyone who has ever skinned a knee knows about inflammation. Those familiar symptoms of heat, redness, swelling and pain are all part of the body’s healthy immune response to injury or infection. Without this kind of inflammation — the "acute" kind — our wounds and infections would never heal.
But inflammation isn't always a good thing. In chronic inflammation, the body's immune defense goes haywire and destroys cells instead of healing them. Scientists think this hidden process may be at the root of heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, allergies, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and many other serious conditions.
Mysterious though chronic inflammation may be, there are tests to measure its impact on your heart and things you can do to keep it on the back burner. We asked Dr. Peter Oettgen, Director of Preventive Cardiology and the Cardiovascular Health and Lipid Clinicat BIDMC, to help us understand this silent scourge.
Q. What is acute or "good" inflammation?
Dr. Oettgen: The body’s white blood cells rush to our defense in an attempt to rid the body of foreign matter. This increases the blood flow to the area, causing warmth and redness. Chemicals emitted by the white blood cells can cause fluid to leak into tissues, which results in swelling. If nerves in the area are affected, pain can occur. This is short-term inflammation, which subsides as healing begins.
Q. So far so good. What happens when inflammation goes bad?
Dr. Oettgen: In certain chronic diseases inflammation can continue at levels that are not necessarily associated with symptoms initially. The causes can be numerous — smoking, a poor diet, diabetes, or high blood pressure can all keep the process going. So, inflammation makes itself at home in the body, like an unwanted guest. When inflammation persists, a multitude of health issues can occur, depending upon the part of the body where it settles.
Q. How does this affect the heart and cardiovascular system?
Dr. Oettgen: Chronic inflammation can build in the cardiovascular system when cholesterol and fat deposits accumulate within the walls of arteries. The fatty lining in arteries can cause plaque to form within the vessels, reducing the flow of blood. This process can lead to hardening of the arteries — atherosclerosis — which can result in coronary heart disease. Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death in America.
When the lining of arteries is damaged by high cholesterol, smoking or high blood pressure, atherosclerosis and the formation of plaque in vessel walls begins. Unfortunately, atherosclerosis often has no symptoms until middle age or later.
Blood vessels can become filled up with so much plaque that blood flow is severely limited, causing pain or angina as a symptom. The real danger occurs when the plaque lining ruptures or forms a blood clot resulting in the total blockage or occlusion of the blood vessel. This leads to a heart attack.
Q. Can inflammation cause any other kind of heart disease?
Dr. Oettgen: It has also been associated with congestive heart failure, valvular heart disease, peripheral artery disease and sudden cardiac death.
Q. How can a person know whether he or she has atherosclerosis before it becomes symptomatic?
Dr. Oettgen: Blood tests are sometimes used to identify markers for inflammation, such as C-reactive protein (CRP), to determine whether patients have underlying inflammatory conditions. CRP is a molecule produced by the liver in response to certain inflammatory signals. Transient elevations of CRP are normal after an injury or infection. But CRP levels that are consistently elevated over time are a sign of systemic inflammation.
Testing CRP levels in the blood can be a way to assess cardiovascular disease and help predict the risk of heart attack or stroke and direct treatment and therapy. A CRP test is most effective for individuals who are in the intermediate risk category for developing cardiovascular disease.
Q. Is there anything one can do to "turn down the heat" — to prevent inflammation-related disease?
Dr. Oettgen: Low-grade inflammation can be kept simmering by unhealthy lifestyle habits such as cigarette smoking, a high-fat diet, high salt intake, stress and lack of exercise.
You can “cool down” or calm inflammation through healthy living habits, including diet and exercise and, if needed, proper medication. An anti-inflammation diet is similar to the Mediterranean diet and emphasizes fresh fruits, vegetables, poultry, fish, whole grains and healthy fats such as extra virgin olive oil. Avoid sugar, salt, processed or fast foods and saturated or trans fats such those in red meat. Maintain a healthy weight, get plenty of sleep each night and exercise regularly. Quit smoking and only drink alcohol in moderation.
For those who can’t regulate their cholesterol or high blood pressure through diet and lifestyle alone, a physician can prescribe medications that will slow or stop the progression of atherosclerosis, while reducing the risk of heart attacks and stroke.
Above content provided by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
For advice about your medical care, consult your doctor. | <urn:uuid:3cc7daa2-bbdb-441b-a396-ad57edabcc43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcvb.com/Sponsors/bethisrael/Atrial-Fib-Q-A/-/9239880/17996894/-/view/print/-/adp7q6z/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913013 | 1,086 | 3.109375 | 3 |
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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME
By Joseph Mercola, MD •
October 10, 2012
New research shows there’s a definite connection between low vitamin D levels and obesity, Dr. Mercola explains. But how do you know how much D you need? This information, first published Mar 21 & Aug 21, 2012, is reproduced with kind permission from Dr. Mercola's educational website (Mercola.com). See footnote* for links to more.
Why You Need More of This Crucial Vitamin If You are Heavy
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble, hormone-like vitamin, and many therefore believe that if you're obese you need more of it because body fat acts as a "sink" by collecting it.
However, muscle and fat may well act the same when it comes to storing vitamin D for future use. New research using mathematical models has shown that a heavily muscled man and an obese man who weigh exactly the same would need the same amount of vitamin D.
The key to determining how much vitamin D is appropriate for an individual appears to be body weight rather than body fat.
This was not previously widely appreciated by most experts.
Your Body Weight May Dictate How Much Vitamin D You Need
If you're overweight or obese, you're therefore likely going to need more vitamin D than a slimmer person - and the same holds true for people with higher body weights due to muscle mass.
Your best source for this vitamin is daily exposure to the sun, without sunblock on your skin, until your skin turns the lightest shade of pink.
While this isn't always possible due to the change of the seasons and your geographic location (and your skin color), this is the ideal to aim for as it will optimize your vitamin D levels naturally. To use the sun to maximize your vitamin D production and minimize your risk of skin damage, the middle of the day (roughly between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.) is the best and safest time. During this UVB-intense period you will need the shortest sun exposure time to produce the most vitamin D.
[To determine whether and at what hours on any given day the sun will be above an angle of about 50 degrees from the horizon at your latitude (required to generate vitamin D in your skin) see the US Naval Observatory Azimuth table and select your state and town. When we checked for Santa Barbara on October 9, the sun was no longer reaching 50 degrees altitude even at noon.]
If sun exposure is not an option…. then you should take an oral vitamin D3 supplement – and this is where the dosage becomes of crucial importance.
What's the Correct Dose of Vitamin D?
Based on research published by GrassrootsHealth from the D*Action study, the average adult needs to take 8,000 IU's of vitamin D per day in order to elevate his or her levels above 40 ng/ml - the bare minimum requirement necessary for disease prevention. Ideally, you'll want your levels to be between 50-70 ng/ml.
[GrassrootsHealth’s 5-year D*action Project is collecting data on vitamin D status & health, “to help eliminate the vitamin D deficiency epidemic." Vitamin D test kits are easy to order online, but for the reasonable price of $60 plus $5 shipping you can order a test kit from the nonprofit D*action site and report your test results/health status. If you like you can continue with the study and order test kits at six-month intervals to track changes.]
As Carole Baggerly, director and founder of GrassrootsHealth, noted:
"We just published our very first paper. We have about 10 people in this study now that are taking 50,000 IU a day and they're not reaching a potential toxicity level of 200 ng/ml. It should be noted, however, that this is not a recommended intake level. The study reported data on over 3,500 people. …
"One very significant thing shown by this research was that even with taking the supplement, the curve for the increase in the vitamin D level is not linear. It is curvilinear and it flattens, which is why it's even hard to get toxic with a supplement."
This means that even if you do not regularly monitor your vitamin D levels, your risk of overdosing is going to be fairly slim - even if you take as much as 8,000 IU's a day. [Ed note: However, as ProHealth product labeling stipulates, individuals taking more than our recommended dose of one 1,000 IU softgel daily should consult and be monitored by a physician.]
As an aside, there is evidence that the safety of vitamin D is dependent on vitamin K, and that vitamin D toxicity (although very rare with the D3 form) is actually aggravated by vitamin K2 deficiency. So if you take oral vitamin D, ideally you should take vitamin K2 as well or use organic fermented foods [such as cheeses, sauerkraut, kimchi, natto] that are high in vitamin K2, as you need about 150 mcg per day.
That said, 8,000 IU of vitamin D is only a ballpark estimate of what most people likely need - it is simply impossible to make a general recommendation that will cover everyone's needs. For instance:
• The lighter your skin, the more vitamin D you will produce from sun exposure,
• And the closer you live to the equator, the more vitamin D the sun on your skin will produce.
• Similarly, the more you weigh, the more vitamin D you need.
So it is an inexact science trying to figure out how much vitamin D your body is able to produce naturally via sunshine and balancing that with how much you need in supplement form.
You really need to be your own vitamin D level sleuth, and I strongly suggest you do the necessary work, because this is truly one of the most powerful vitamins available for your health, and one that the majority of people currently are deficient in.
The only way to truly optimize your own vitamin D levels is to:
• Work with your doctor,
• Take the 25 OH D blood test,
• And then get sun exposure and/or supplement with a dose somewhere in the range of 5,000-40,000 IU,
• Retesting your blood levels after a few months of supplementation.
For children below the age of 5, I recommend 35 IU per pound per day and for pregnant women I recommend anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 IU per day.
But again, there really is no "right" amount unless you take the time to have your blood levels checked, as the amount it takes to keep your levels within the optimal range (see table below) is the one that is right for you.
Vitamin D Levels (25 Hydroxy D)
Deficient less than 50 ng/ml
Optimal 50 to 70 ng/ml
Heart Disease 70 to 100 ng/ml
Excess more than 100 ng/ml
Is There a Link Between Low Vitamin D Levels and Obesity?
There is a connection, yes. Vitamin D levels tend to be low in obese individuals as well as in those who are physically inactive [See “Low vitamin D status is associated with physical inactivity, obesity and low vitamin D intake in a large US sample of healthy middle-aded men and women”].
And one researcher even went so far as to state that “Vitamin D deficiency is the cause of common obesity” and metabolic syndrome. According to this paper:
"There is evidence for a central control mechanism which maintains body-weight to a set-point by the regulation of energy intake and energy expenditure through homeostatic pathways. It is suggested … that common obesity occurs when the set-point is raised and that accumulation of fat mass functions to increase body size. Larger body size confers a survival advantage in the cold ambient temperatures and food scarcity of the winter climate by reducing surface area to volume ratio and by providing an energy store in the form of fat mass.
"In addition, it is suggested that the phenotypic metabolic and physiological changes observed as the metabolic syndrome, including hypertension and insulin resistance, could result from a winter metabolism which increases thermogenic capacity. Common obesity and the metabolic syndrome may therefore result from an anomalous adaptive winter response. The stimulus for the winter response is proposed to be a fall in vitamin D.
"… It is here proposed that a fall in vitamin D in the form of circulating calcidiol is the stimulus for the winter response, which consists of an accumulation of fat mass (obesity) and the induction of a winter metabolism (the metabolic syndrome) … It may be possible to reverse the increasing prevalence of obesity by improving vitamin D status."
Several studies have also confirmed a link between vitamin D deficiency, abdominal obesity and visceral fat ("Successful weight loss with dieting is linked to vitamin D levels"), while:
• A new study of more than 4,600 women age 65 and older shows that having low vitamin D levels can contribute to mild weight gain (“Associations Between 25-Hydroxyvitamin D and Weight Gain in Elderly Women,” Jun 2012). According to Medicine.Net: "The study can't say whether low vitamin D is causing the weight gain or just reflecting it. 'The study is the first step that we need, to evaluate whether vitamin D might be contributing to weight gain,' [lead researcher Erin] LeBlanc says. But there are some theoretical ways that low vitamin D could contribute to weight gain, she says. Fat cells do have vitamin D receptors. 'Vitamin D could affect where fat cells shrink or get bigger.'"
• Research even shows that increasing your vitamin D levels may improve weight loss if you're following a reduced-calorie diet.
• Interestingly, new research also found that weight loss among overweight and obese women is associated with increased vitamin D levels. [“Obesity is Associated with Increased Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in Overweight or Obese Women.”
So there appear to be strong links between vitamin D status and your weight, through various mechanisms working on multiple levels.
Why is Vitamin D So Important, Anyway?
We've addressed ways to optimize your vitamin D levels… but you may be wondering why this is so important, especially if you're still under the impression that vitamin D is mostly a nutrient for your bones. Many people think that vitamin D is really a vitamin, but in reality, the active form of vitamin D is one of the most potent hormones in your body, and regulates more genes and bodily functions than any other hormone yet discovered.
Vitamin D is produced as a pro-hormone in your skin after sunlight exposure, and is then converted to the potent hormone form.
Without adequate levels of this hormone, you could die, and indeed, many do die from vitamin D deficiency-related causes.
• Vitamin D could rightly be described as a "miracle nutrient" for your immune system, as it enables your body to produce well over 200 antimicrobial peptides, which are indispensable in fighting off a wide range of infections.
• Furthermore, when your organs convert the vitamin D in your bloodstream into calcitriol, which is the hormonal or activated version of vitamin D, they can then use it to repair cellular damage, including damage associated with cancer cells and tumors.
Theories linking vitamin D to certain cancers have been tested and confirmed in more than 200 epidemiological studies, and understanding of its physiological basis stems from more than 2,500 laboratory studies, according to epidemiologist Cedric Garland, DrPH, professor of family and preventive medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Other research has linked vitamin D deficiency to a number of chronic and acute health conditions including heart disease, infertility, influenza, colds, respiratory tract infections, depression and more.
Vitamin D Study Participants Needed
[As discussed above] D*Action is a worldwide public health campaign organized by GrassrootsHealth, aiming to solve the vitamin D deficiency epidemic through focus on testing, education, and grassroots word of mouth. And while one paper has already been published, the international GrassrootsHealth study is still ongoing and accepting participants.
[According to GrassRootsHealth (GrassRootsHealth.net), results to date based on tracking of serum level vs intake in IU/day for 3,667 participants are that:
• 9600 IU/day or less had no toxicity (toxic level might be 200 ng/ml or more)
• 9600 IU/day would be required to get 97.5% of the population above 40 ng/ml
• Rule of thumb changes: Per 1000 IU/day,
- 10 ng/ml rise starting at 10 ng/ml;
- Only 8 ng/ml rise starting at 30 ng/ml;
- Only 5 ng/ml rise starting at 50 ng/ml]
When you join D*action, you agree to test your vitamin D levels twice a year during a five-year program, and share your health status to demonstrate the public health impact of this nutrient. [See the confidential questionnaire that participants fill out to provide a research database on factors affecting vitamin D sources, levels, and health status.]
There is a $60.00 fee + $5.00 shipping each 6 months for your sponsorship of the project, which includes a complete new test kit to be used at home, and electronic reports on your ongoing progress. You will get a follow up email every six months reminding you "it's time for your next test and health survey."
To join now, please follow this link to the sign up form.
|This article was brought to you by Dr. Mercola.
Founder of the world's #1 natural health site, he gives you the low-down on cholesterol. Discover why you actually need Cholesterol in this FREE report.
Note: This information (©1997-2012 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved) has not been reviewed by the FDA. It is general information, based on the research and opinions of Dr. Mercola unless otherwise noted, and is not meant to prevent, diagnose, treat or cure any condition, illness, or disease. It is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified healthcare professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is always very important that you make no change in your healthcare plan or health support regimen without researching and discussing it in collaboration with your professional healthcare team.
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Natural Solutions to Chronic Stomach Problems [more] | <urn:uuid:9dc5f493-2282-447d-9c80-f6dd20aca8be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?fontSize=large&libid=17255 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918706 | 3,263 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Criminality is often the result of a consistent pattern of distorted thinking errors (forgetting the Imago Dei in everyone and listening to the lies of the enemy) that results in irresponsible and hurtful behavior. One of the most common errors in thinking is the failure to consider injury to others.
As a general rule, young people (and many adults) do not consider the effect of their actions on others. Brief moments of guilt or remorse are quickly replaced with feelings of being a victim themselves or self-righteousness for the harm they have caused. When offenders express what appears as sincere regret, careful examination will show that these overtures are typically used to tell others what they want to hear. They are often more sorry they were caught than remorseful for harm they have caused by their actions.
Congruent with failing to consider injury to others, youth involved in criminal behaviors also don’t consider themselves bad people. The drug dealer will argue he isn’t forcing anyone to buy drugs. The drug addict will claim she isn’t hurting anyone but herself. The violent or aggressive individual will say he didn’t mean to hurt anyone and the thief will say she has to make a living somehow. When adolescents with criminal thinking heed the advice of scripture and can honestly think about the injury they have caused, they begin to change their distorted sense of self worth and align it with the Imago Dei. They can then more accurately conclude that they are a victimizer more than a victim and have deeply harmed others. They can do so because the faith community lives and dies by grace and mercy, seeking to restore people with their God and those around them.
Replacing the thinking error of failing to consider injury to others involves becoming aware of the full impact of abusive and criminal behavior. It is important that one not only look at legally defined criminal behavior, but also examine irresponsible actions such as lying, deceit, conning, game playing, vindictiveness, and other tactics. For lasting change to occur it is essential that these students go beyond immediate injury and consider the “ripple effect.” For example, in the case of property theft, consideration should be made regarding the crime’s affect on the business owner’s attitude, feelings, friends and family.
The effect on the offender’s attitude, friends and family should also be explored along with the ripple effect of the crime in relation to property values, feelings of safety, insurance rates, and a host of other consequences. The purpose of this activity is to aid the young person in developing, expanding and sustaining a moral conscience by aligning it with the Holy Spirit. God gives us the gift of guilt but it is only of value if it is used to break our heart of undesirable behavior and develop a sensitive, well formed conscience that is in sync with the Father’s. Criminally-minded youth do have a conscience but render it inoperative through repeated patterns of corrosion and dissociation. Feelings of guilt and remorse are corroded and thoughts about the impact of their behavior are cut off.
Regularly and thoughtfully contemplating injury to others helps redevelop the criminal conscience and strengthens it for deterring insensitive and criminal acts in the future. This is only effective if there is an abundance of grace awaiting them when they are ready to let go of their criminal behaviors and they are only likely to do this if there is an open and loving community expressing the love and restorative mission of the Father. | <urn:uuid:9903895c-36e2-464d-86e3-fc5c9d00d49a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conversationsonthefringe.com/category/teens/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965558 | 708 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Photos and VideosMore Photos and Videos
Here's an Earth Day story that will make you smile and prove that it's easy being green everyday, no matter what species you might be.
A San Francisco pug named Puglet is a YouTube superstar and a 4-legged role model after his "human," Amanda Bradshaw, made a video to show how simple it is to recycle. Bradshaw, a dog photographer, told us she made the video for Puglet's Earth Day blog as part of his campaign to help recycle dogs.
"First it started out just as recycling." Bradshaw said. "He got that so fast that it turned into a whole big long three-minute video just to prove how easy green can be."
Puglet has done several still pictures and he's very food motivated, so picking up on the commands for the video was a snap. But video is a new medium for Puglet, so it took a couple days to make the whole thing.
The clip shows Puglet sorting his recyclables, riding public transportation and shopping for energy-efficient light bulbs at Home Depot. The hardest part wasn't getting Puglet to do any of the tasks, Bradshaw said, but keeping him from snacking on the message. In the part that encourages eating less meat, Puglet kept eating the veggies.
The adorable little star doesn't just practice recycling, he's also a recycled item, of sorts.
"He was a little guy that came as a foster and never left. So he was recycled as 6-month-old." Bradshaw said. "He wants everybody to know you don't need to start as a brand new little puppy to get a good dog."
How are you making your everyday Earth Day? Leave your comments below or share your tips with us on Twitter @nbcbayarea. | <urn:uuid:c6fa00f5-9838-45db-8dc3-278467e4b54b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Pug-Proof-It-IS-Easy-Being-Green-91814064.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974008 | 376 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Many power users, not just developers, are familiar with the basic meaning of the expression "Web site". At this level of abstraction, a Web site is the place where you go following a few links. So, abstracting, a Web site is the repository of a number of HTTP-based endpoints. Overall, this definition is correct, but it doesn't shine as far as precision is concerned.
Up to Windows Internet Information Services (IIS) 6, you could have used the following as a more precise definition for what a Web site actually is: a collection of virtual directories. However, the truth is that you can even call that "a virtual directory", but what it actually does is much more. It is, in fact, more akin to a virtual application than just a plain directory under a segment of a Web site. With IIS 7, the naming conventions around the official documentation have made it clearer. So at the end of the day, under IIS we have three concepts that form a hierarchy:
- A Web site is a collection of virtual applications
- A virtual application is a collection of virtual directories
- And finally a virtual directories contains resources that can physically invoked from the users.
While this definition works great for people looking for a simple but not simplistic explanation, it leaves room for a lot of details. So let's expand on.
A Web site is essentially a container for applications and virtual directories. A site is associated with protocols such as HTTP and HTTPS and binding information including IP address and ports. The list of binding protocols is not limited to HTTP and HTTPS; in IIS 7, in fact, the component known as the Windows Activation Service (WAS) enables the use of additional protocols thus decoupling IIS from HTTP.
Within a Web site, you find a collection of virtual applications. Each site must have at least one (default) application. A virtual application is identified by its absolute virtual path attached to the Web site name. For each virtual application, the WAS registers a list of URLs in the HTTP listener service (http.sys). Each application can support a number of protocols and is not limited to HTTP. A virtual application must belong to an application pool. An application pool is a pool of virtual applications run under the aegis of the same instance of the IIS worker process. Pooled applications share the same security account and IIS settings such as process recycling, debug, idle time, Web gardens. All requests directed at the application, except those for static resources not otherwise configured, are served within the pool.
A virtual directory is just a container of files and at least one virtual directory must be present in any virtual application. The directory is said to be virtual because it doesn't necessarily map 1:1 to a physical directory in the Web server disk. You typically use a virtual directory to logically import in the site structure -- without moving -- content that physically belongs to other paths in the server machine. Up until IIS 6, the concept of a virtual application and that of a virtual directory were kind of blurred.
Virtual applications and virtual directories have been clearly defined as distinct objects in IIS 7. As a result, you now have a clear hierarchy that begins with the site object and ends with a virtual directory. This hierarchy also shows up nicely in the schema of the configuration file. | <urn:uuid:b0ba2a33-0f51-417d-9db4-574f53f94416> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/sites-applications-and-directories-in-ii/224900091 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92465 | 680 | 3.328125 | 3 |
A FINE LARGE WATERCOLOR PICTURE OF THE BELLEROPHON, DATED 1855 The large picture depicts the Bellerophon sailing out to sea past South Sea Castle off Spithead. ;Figures can be seen on board. ;She flies the Blue Ensign, a Union Jack and the Royal Standard. South Sea Castle is to her left and land with a row of houses on the right. An inscription below reads: ---The Bellerophon 74 Sailing OFF South Sea Castle 1855--- Dimensions: ;24 in x 18 in (60.9 cm x 45.7 cm) Bellerophon: ;A Greek hero who, with the help of the winged horse Pegasus slew the monster Chimaera Bellerophon: "Common" 74 gun 3rd Rate. Based on HMS Dublin of 1755, a total of 14 ships of the Bellerophon class were built, and a total of 93 "Common" class vessels were built in all. Reference: 1st Name: Talavera 1809 2nd Name: Waterloo 3rd Name: Bellerophon 1856 Built: 1809 Type: Originally Wooden Wall Naval Classification: Central Battery Ironclad 2nd/3rd Rate 80 guns (two-deckers) Dimensions: Length 159'' 10", Beam 49'', Draught 21'' Tons: 2041 Guns: Gun deck 30 x 32 lb pdrs, Upper deck 32 x 18 lb pdrs, Quarter deck 4 x 12 lb pdrs + 10 x 32 lb pdrs Forecastle Round House, 2 x 12 lb pdrs, 2 x 32 lb pdrs. Crew: 650 Port of Registration: Chatham Royal Naval Dockyard, Kent Service: Naval Service 1855 Hulked 1856 Became a receiving ship at Portsmouth Royal Navy Dockyard 1892 Seagoing service ended 1892 Survived until 1922 at Chatham Royal Navy Dockyard Mr Timothy Akers MA, B.Sc (Hon''s) Maritime Research Archaeologist. An Account of the Fitting out of H.M.S. "Bellerophon." This affords a brilliant example of what can be done in the Navy, when a ship''s company are commanded by officers possessing the requisite union of due seamanlike and administrative qualities, and I give it as a high standard by which all such may be measured, and as an appropriate pendant to the first section of our subject. On March 7th, 1847, orders were unexpectedly received for the 90-gun ships "Rodney", Captain Edward Collier, C.B., and "Albion", Captain Nicholas Lockyer, C.B., to fit out, respectively, the "Bellerophon" 78, and the "Calcutta" 84, then lying up in ordinary, the former in Portsmouth, and the latter in Plymouth harbour. These ships, in common with all the "advanced" ships in ordinary, had their lower masts, gun-carriages, chain cables, (in 12-fathom lengths), stowed in the tiers, and the lower tier of water-tanks on board; which state the "Bellerophon" was in when the "Rodney''s" commenced work Monday morning, March 9th. On the same evening the topmasts were fidded, and mizen top-gallant-mast pointed. By Tuesday evening the top-gallant-masts were fidded, running gear rove, and sails bent. At half-past ten on Wednesday morning she hauled off from the jetty, and that evening saw her at Spithead with three months'' provisions and stores on board, awaiting orders to proceed to sea. The ship''s company went ashore every evening, and had their full time for meals every day; and thus a line-of-battle ship was fitted out for a three months'' cruise, in every way ready to engage an enemy, in thirty working hours. H.R.H. Prince Albert having visited the ship, and expressed his admiration of the skill and energy exhibited in the accomplishment of so unexampled a result, she was dismantled and returned again into ordinary. Alfred Henry Alston: Seamanship, and its associated duties in the Royal Navy. By Lieut A.H. Alston, R.N. Together with a treatise on Nautical Surveying, for the use in of the officers on general service. With two hundred illustration. Routledge, Warne, & Routledge, London, 1860. pp 159-160. Transcribed by [email protected] The Maritime History Virtual Archives | Seamanship.
Art (paintings, prints, frames) | <urn:uuid:9ba2017d-b633-4bab-98bb-8ba1b3702af3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antiques.com/classified/35977/A-Fine-Large-Watercolour-Picture-of-the-Bellerophon-Dated-1855-Earle-D-Vandekar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940549 | 968 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Parshas Mattos - Masei
Not Very Promising / The Beginning and End of the Journey
By Rabbi Pinchas Winston
Mattos: Not Very Promising
Moshe spoke to the leaders of the tribes to tell the Children of Israel.
"This is what G-d commanded. If a man makes a vow to G-d, or swears an oath
to bind himself, he must not violate his word; he must do all that he
said." (Bamidbar 30:2-3)
Having discussed the sacrifices of the holidays and vows in last week's
parshah, the Torah continues in this week's parshah with a discussion about
nedarim (oaths), since many included promises to bring a sacrifice to G-d,
which were often fulfilled on the holidays.
In the past, we have discussed various different aspects of this section,
and for a good reason:
Rebi Elazar said: Do not let the section of nedarim be light in your eyes,
for, it was through them that the [members of the] Great Sanhedrin (High
Court) of Tzidkiyahu were killed ... (Eichah Rabbah 2:14)
The Midrash explains itself in detail. At the time of the First Temple,
when Nebuchadnetzar had virtually reduced Israel to a vassal state,
Tzidkiyahu, the king of Yehudah (the ten tribes had long ago been exiled to
Assyria), paid an unexpected visit on Nebuchadnetzar, who was preparing to
go to war against other nations. Apparently, part of the preparation
included the gruesome ritual of eating flesh from a living animal (a
rabbit), because somehow this made a warrior fearless.
Still, it was not something done in public, and Nebuchadnetzar had no
intention of revealing his barbaric act to anyone. Thus, when Tzidkiyahu
entered unexpectedly and caught Nebuchadnetzar in the act, the latter made
him take an oath that he would not reveal his secret.
Tzidkiyahu did anyhow. Therefore, says the Midrash, Nebuchadnetzar,
" ... sent for the Sanhedrin and said to them, "Explain Torah to me ..."
They immediately read from parshah to parshah, and when they arrived at the
section of, "If a man makes a vow ..." he said to them, "If one wants to
cancel [his vow], may he?" they answered him, "He should go to a wise man
and have him annul it."
Upon hearing this, Nebuchadnetzar informed them that he considered them to
have annulled Tzidkiyahu's vow, and promptly had them tortured to death. It
is to this, concludes the Midrash, the Yirmiyahu refers in Eichah ... "The
elders of the daughter of Tzion sit on the ground in silence; they have
strew ashes on their heads, and wear sackcloth. The maidens of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground." (a good connection to the Three
Weeks, which we now find ourselved in). (Eichah 2:10)
And all because of a vow, or at least, an annulled vow. Hence, Rebi
Elazar's warning, and also why the rabbis teach:
The annulment of vows "hangs in the air." (Chagigah 10a)
"The annulment of vows of which the Chachamim say can be performed by a
wise man, though hinted to in the Torah has very little support. Rather, it
is a law that was handed down as part of the Oral Law." (Tosfos)
Which is probably why Nebuchadnetzar also held the leaders of the Sanhedrin
responsible for Tzidkiyahu's breach of trust. All-in-all, one has to be
very careful in the first place not to make promises. Certainly, if a
promise is made, one should avoid annulling it unless halachah demands that
they do, for, the Torah and the Talmud are very, very strict about one who
does not stick to his word.
They [the Jewish people] waged war against Midian, as G-d had commanded
Moshe, killing every [adult] male. With the other victims, they killed the
five kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Tzur, Chur, and Reva-the five kings of
Midian. They also killed Bilaam son of Peor with the sword ... (Bamidbar
So far, so good. After recovering themselves from the onslaught of the
daughters of Midian (end of Parashas Balak), and after regaining their
spiritual composure, the Jewish people mounted a surprise attack against
the people of Midian in revenge for the havoc they caused. Well, at least
we thought they had gained full composure:
... The Children of Israel took all the women of Midian captive with their
And why not? Are they also not spoils of war? Perhaps, normally, but not
when those women were the very source of the sin. Hence Moshe's expression
of shock and anger:
... They brought the captives, prey, and the spoils to Moshe and Elazar the
priest, and to the congregation of the Children of Israel, at the camp in
the plains of Moav, by the Jordan, near Jericho. Moshe and Elazar the
priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went outside the camp to
greet them. Moshe was angry with the leaders of the army, the officers
over thousands, and the officers over hundreds, who were part of the army.
"Have you allowed the women to survive?" demanded Moshe. "These are
exactly the ones who were involved with the Israelites at Bilaam's
instigation, causing them to be unfaithful to G-d in the Peor incident,
bringing a plague on the community!"
Just like Moshe's hitting the rock in Parashas Chukas represented a major
historical turning point, so, too, did the bringing back of the Midianite
women represent another historical turning point-for the worst. In fact, it
revealed that Bilaam had not failed in his advice to Balak; it made clear
the Jewish people's infection from a spiritual "virus" that has not been
cured until this very day. It meant that the final redemption would have to
be postponed, it seems now, until much closer to the year 6,000.
In fact, the Midrash states that when the tribes of Reuven, Gad, and
Menashe asked to remain on the east side of the Jordan river, the
Babylonian Exile began-even though the Jewish people would not be exiled
into Babylonia for another 850 years! This is why the combination of
Balak's and Bilaam's names yield two words: Amalek, the nemesis of the
Jewish people, and Bavel, the place of the first exile (Zohar, Balak). It
is as if to say that the combination of Balak and Bilaam served to
intellectually confuse the Jewish people, which resulted in exile.
But what does this have to do with the daughters of Midian?
Bilaam was also a Midianite, and in many respects, a representative of his
people. From the moment he was first approached by Balak's men, Bilaam
struggled to both not anger G-d, yet, to also appear to others as if beyond
G-d's control and authority. This is what gave Balak the confidence to
contract Bilaam, in spite of warning signs that Bilaam was merely a
"puppet" of Divine will.
It was a Midianite trait, passed on to the Jewish people through
interaction with the daughters of Midian in Shittim. Hence, when the Jewish
people come back with the "women of sin," it is as if they are making a
statement: we are, and will be masters in our own homes. And, in spite of
the fact that Moshe cuts them down for this attitude and their mistake,
still, Reuven, Gad, and Menashe seek the same arrangement by choosing to
remain outside of G-d's palace--Eretz Yisroel--and making it on their own.
Such an attitude, indicates the Zohar, is Amalekian in nature, and leads to
exile. In exile, in a "land not our own," we are forced to be "guests" in
someone else's home, so-to-speak. That is, until we yearn to be at home in
the King's palace once again, willing to be "Makers-of-history" in G-d's
master plan for creation, not our own, subjective version of it.
Parashas Massey: The Beginning and End of the Journey
These are the journeys of the Children of Israel ... (Bamidbar 33:1)
So begins the last parshah of the fourth book of the Torah.
"Why are these journeys recorded here? To make known the loving acts of the
Omnipresent: although He decreed against them to make them move about and
wander in the desert, don't think that they wandered from place to place
the entire forty years and had no rest. Only forty-two journeys are
mentioned here, and fourteen of them occurred in the first year before the
decree ... Thus you find that for thirty-eight years they made only twenty
journeys ..." (Rashi)
That may be true. However, there is a different meaning to the inclusion of
these journeys, alluded to in the first four words of the parshah:
"These are the journeys of the Children of Israel ... This is an important
introduction [telling us that,] had it not been for the sin of the golden
calf, all four kingdoms (exiles) would have been incorporated into the
Egyptian exile. This is alluded to by the words, "These are the journeys of
the Children of Israel" [whose first letters are: aleph, mem, bais, yud,
the same] first letters of "Edom," "Madai," "Bavel," and "Yavan." Hence,
"This, Israel, is your god ..." (Shemos 32:4) caused all these journeys."
These, of course, are the four exiles into which the Jewish people were
prophesied to go. And, though we might have thought that the extra 38 years
of wandering was the result of the sin of the spies, it turns out that
they, and the subsequent exiles of the Jewish people throughout history to
this very day, are, in the end, the result of the sin of the golden calf.
This is what the Talmud means when it says,
No punishment comes to Israel without a little payment for the sin of the
golden calf. (Sanhedrin 102a)
As if to say, it is only because of the sin of the golden calf that the
Jewish people ever find themselves in a predicament that results in any
kind of suffering. Had it not been for that "original sin," the Jewish
people would have happily received the first set of Tablets, achieved
spiritual perfection, and would have ushered in the Days of Moshiach.
(Therefore, it is no coincidence to hear from the Arizal that the sin of
the golden calf was a repeat of the sin of eating from the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil.)
Perhaps this is also why there were exactly forty-two stops in the desert,
which, the Pri Tzaddik says, correspond to the forty-two letter name of
G-d. The Erev Rav (Mixed Multitude) enticed the Jewish people with the
words, "This, Israel, is your god that took you out of Egypt." Each of the
forty-two journeys and destinations, therefore, were a way to move away
from that false line of thinking to reconnect to the real G-d and savior
from Egypt servitude.
Likewise, each exile that followed over the millennia (including the exile
of Edom, which we are presently living through), also comes to rectify the
mistake of the golden calf, and the Erev Rav's impact on Jewish belief in
one G-d, the G-d of the Egyptian Redemption, the G-d of Torah from Mt.
Sinai. Each redemption from each exile has been, in a very real sense, the
acquisition of another few letters of G-d's forty-two letter Name, just as
each of the stops in the desert were as well.
The Final Redemption, undoubtedly, will come precisely at the very moment
we "acquire" the final letters of that Name--the one prophets used to
meditate on in order to enter a state of prophecy.
Usually, I spread out the writing of the four divrei Torah over the course
of four days. However, I find on these half-day fasts that I have more
difficulty concentrating on learning than on the full-length fast days, so,
I am going to write this vort today instead. It is just as well, since I
planned to write about the "Three Weeks" anyhow, and it is more meaningful
to do so tired and hungry from the fast.
The number "three" in hashkofah is always significant, for a variety of
reasons. However, the "root" reason is the three hours that Adam HaRishon
did not wait before eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He
was commanded not to eat from it in the ninth hour of Day Six, and ate
anyhow in the Tenth Hour. Divine permission to eat from the tree would have
been forthcoming on Shabbos itself.
This is one of the central reasons why we don't eat the fruit of a tree
during its first three years, and why the fruit at that stage is called
"orlah," a concept which became a reality because of the sin. It is also a
reason behind the widely accepted tradition of not cutting a boy's hair for
the first three years of his life.
So why three weeks? Shiva Esrai b'Tammuz is a day on which many terrible
things in history occurred to the Jewish nation. Tisha B'Av is a day on
which even worse things happened to the Jewish people throughout history.
However, not every year that something went wrong on Shiva Esrai b'Tammuz
did something terrible happen on Tisha B'Av, and vice-versa. So why the
The answer is that, Kabbalistically, going back to before physical history
began, the roots of the Three Weeks were already planted. It is, until
Moshiach comes, a period that is rooted in spiritual darkness and
therefore, fraught with physical danger. But above all, it is a period of
time that corresponds to the three hours that Adam did not wait before
eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which plunged the world
into spiritual darkness and physical exile.
Awareness and appreciation of this idea is an important first step to
utilizing this unusual period of mourning as a rectification of Adam's
mistake, and all the sins that have followed since. In this merit, may we
merit to witness the comfort of Tzion and Yerushalayim--the ultimate end of
the journey, at least for this stage of history.
Have a great Shabbos, | <urn:uuid:60e46328-d90b-46ff-acb9-d1f925c218fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://torah.org/learning/perceptions/5759/matos.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961927 | 3,426 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Suborbital spaceflight training includes sessions in the NASTAR Center's centrifuge.
Researchers are going back to school this week to learn what they need to know to do science in a spaceship - including how to deal with jaw-clenching acceleration and how to avoid getting distracted by the out-of-this-world view.
The first trainees in the Suborbital Scientist-Astronaut Training Course gathered today at the NASTAR Center in Southampton, Pa., to begin two days of classes, exercises and centrifuge spins. Their aim is to get ready for research opportunities at the edge of outer space when they become available, one or two years from now.
"I think the next two years are going to be fascinating," said Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.
Stern and a colleague at the research institute, Dan Durda, are not only co-organizers of the training session - they're also among the trainees. Other scientists are coming in from Boston University, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Central Florida and the University Space Research Association.
"This is a group of highly motivated individuals who want to be ahead of the curve," Stern told me this week. Most of them already have experiments they want to fly in microgravity, and they're anxious to learn the ropes even though it's not yet clear exactly what kind of spaceship they'll be riding.
|A patch for the Suborbital Scientist-Astronaut Training Program has been designed by MIT student Tatsuya Arai.
Stern has called research a potential "killer app" for the suborbital spaceflight industry. For a tourist, the $200,000 fare for flying on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane may sound steep. But for a researcher, that's not a bad price for a few minutes of weightlessness. The cost of flying a comparable payload on a suborbital rocket could amount to a couple of million dollars, and there's no chance for scientists to ride along with their experiments.
So what should a scientist know before he or she takes the ride? During this week's session, trainees will get classroom training in spaceflight physiology, the ins and outs of the space business and how to manage your time when you have only four minutes or so to do your experiment.
They'll also spend time in a hypobaric chamber that simulates the low-oxygen conditions at an altitude of 18,000 feet. At that height, the air is thin enough to bring on the symptons of hypoxia, but not thin enough to cause serious injury.
Each trainee will get a turn in the NASTAR Center's centrifuge, which whirls riders around to simulate the 3.5 G's of acceleration you would feel from head to toe during a typical suborbital launch, and the 6 G's pressing down on your chest during re-entry. These are the kinds of acceleration levels that NASTAR has built into its training sessions for Virgin Galactic's future fliers, said Brienna Henwood, the center's business development and program manager.
Stern said the researchers will also be trained to focus on completing complex tasks amid the distractions that accompany spaceflight - such as fellow passengers who are whooping with excitement, bumping into you and gawking out the window.
Spacefliers can't let themselves get caught up in the "pretty scenery" when there's so much work to be done in just a few minutes, Henwood said. The researchers will probably have to adopt the no-nonsense, stick-to-the-checklist attitude that's long been associated with NASA astronauts. "When they actually go to space, they're not looking out the window so much," Henwood said.
The standard rate for the two-day course is $6,000 - but Henwood said the trainees were paying half-price for this week's class, thanks to the recruitment efforts by Stern and Durda. "Volume discount," she joked.
There was a waiting list for the session, and Henwood said another class (with another round of discounts) could be scheduled once 10 to 12 researchers sign up. "We're getting close to that," she said.
You can follow this week's exercise by tracking the Twitter updates from @theNASTARcenter, @AlanStern, @spacepurple (Joanne Hill from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center), @ad_astra2 (MIT's Erika Wagner), @awhizin (Akbar Whizin). Among the scientist-astronaut-bloggers are Joanne Hill, APL's Charles Hibbitts and UCF's Josh Colwell. There'll be updates from OnOrbit and NASA Watch as well.
Stern sees this week's session as just another step along the way to a new age of suborbital research. Next month, a larger group of scientists and space entrepreneurs are due to gather in Boulder, Colo., for a conference on the subject, with NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver as the opening keynote speaker. Stern said the event is shaping up as a "watershed moment in the growth of research and education applications for these new commercial spacecraft."
Is this trip really necessary? Few full-time researchers have been to the final frontier so far, but Stern insists that space has to become a place where science is routinely done ... by humans, and not just by machines. "If operating unmanned was such a great thing for science, then every lab in America would have been automated long ago," he told me.
Update for 8:15 p.m. ET: The first day of training held chills and thrills for the 11 trainees, according to Twitter updates passed along via the NASTAR Center's Suborbital list page. One of the trainees reportedly passed out during the altitude chamber tests. "Only 1 of 11 scientists lost it. That's a 91 percent success rate, folks," Stern reported in one of the updates.
Join the Cosmic Log team by signing up as my Facebook friend or following b0yle on Twitter. And pick up a copy of my new book, "The Case for Pluto." If you're partial to the planetary underdogs, you'll be pleased to know that I've set up a Facebook fan page for "The Case for Pluto." | <urn:uuid:4c5a34d6-9c28-47e0-974d-f25c00dab438> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2010/01/12/4350409-scientists-learn-space-smarts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954801 | 1,330 | 2.59375 | 3 |
In search of freedom
“Gradually I turned into a machine. My body no longer registered pain; I had no
more tears left to cry.” In Contempt of Fate, by Beatrice Fernando
Across the globe, 27 million people live in bondage today. Billions of dollars are made each year through their exploitation. Despite the scale of this crime, their stories go unheard.
Beatrice Fernando contracted with an agency to work in Lebanon as a housemaid to provide for her son and family in Sri Lanka. However, upon arriving in Beirut, Beatrice was sold to a wealthy woman who beat, starved, and verbally abused her. After months of backbreaking labor and endless suffering, Beatrice escaped by the only means available – she jumped off the fourth story balcony and miraculously survived.
Today, Fernando lives in the United States and speaks out about her enslavement while sharing her faith: a promise she made to God during her recovery. After publishing her memoir, In Contempt of Fate, Fernando has appeared on
numerous television and radio programs, spoken at universities and religious institutions, and testified before the United States House of Representatives on March 9, 2005.
For more infor visit: www.bearopublishing.com | <urn:uuid:c60c5e25-64d2-4e7d-a15b-a4513f55bb51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worldpulse.com/node/615 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962574 | 255 | 1.945313 | 2 |
The NAS Building
The Lecture Room and the Board Room
To the right of the main entrance, on the east front of the building, is the Lecture Room, now used for meetings and lectures, but originally designed to permit the demonstration of actual laboratory experiments. Its walnut paneled walls have the same columnar motif as the Library and Members' Room. Restored and modernized in 1981, the room is equipped with excellent lighting and acoustical facilities. Of interest are the marquetry on the exterior of the sound booth and grilles near the ceiling, which function as part of the ventilation system. They are in the form of elaborate knots of the type favored by Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer.
Beyond the Lecture Room, at the easternmost part of the building, is the Board Room, of the same size and proportion as the Members' Room at the west end of the building and similar in design. The painting by Albert Herter above the marble fireplace depicts President Abraham Lincoln with the founders of the Academy signing the Academy charter of March 3, 1863. Herter's lifelong interest in tapestry is reflected in his choice of a tapestry as background for the painting. Left to right: Benjamin Peirce, Alexander Dallas Bache, Joseph Henry, Louis Agassiz, Lincoln, Henry Wilson, Charles H. Davis, and Benjamin Apthorp Gould.
Another feature of the room is the electrolier, a globe-shaped ceiling fixture representing the world painted in accordance with ancient concepts, notably Leonardo da Vinci's map dated 1515.
... A Temple of Science Recognition of Need The Architect The Setting and the Grounds Description of the Building The Façade The Window Panels The Doors The Main Foyer and the Great Hall The Library and the Members' Room The Lecture Room and the Board Room The Wings The Auditorium The Albert Einstein Memorial
Photos by Carol M. Highsmith | <urn:uuid:1876a8d1-1c9d-4627-b829-a53a26b53dc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nasonline.org/about-nas/visiting-nas/nas-building/the-lecture-room-and-the.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914498 | 396 | 2.609375 | 3 |
| Milk Thistle Production in California |
Answered by: Rick Miller
Question from: Susan Calfee
Posted on: February 04, 2010
We have 90 acres in Tuolumne, CA, near Sonora. about 10 acres are flat and I have just realized that the plant we have been paying each year to have sprayed and killed, is Milk Thistle. How can I get information about possibly turning this into a commercial milk thistle farm, even if only on a small scale. It definitely grows WELL here.
A weed is a "plant out of place," one which cattle won’t eat. The reason this crop is classified as a noxious weed is because of the thorns and the cow’s soft pallet. It is the seed from this thistle which is marketed. At one time, this thistle was confused with others (like Russian), because they tend to look similarly, and had similar biblical references. With more careful observation one can notice distinct differences in the diverse thistle plants, include their distinct air floating seed
Originally from the Mediterranean region in Europe, today milk thistle grows and thrives in natural conditions all over Europe as well as in California and Australia (now classified as a noxious weed). Milk Thistle grows best and flourishes in uncluttered regions. It requires a sunlit position and self-seeds fast. Currently, Milk Thistle is commercially grown as a decorative plant.
The flower heads are harvested when they are in full blossom during the early summer season, while the plant’s seeds are collected in late summer. Because it grows in warmer climates, its seed tends to also cluster larvae from the previous winter’s Mediterranean Flour Moth. The seed usually either requires an insecticide, or be sterilized after harvest. This is the primary problem with cultivating this crop.
And, this is the primary reason there are now shortages on availability for COG seed, and the upscale manufacturer uses for silymarin products. Import prices have increased to almost $8.00/lb, FOB, with a need now for more than 2,000 cultivated acres in North America. Total world production is now down to less than 12,000 acres, with an annual; growth curve need of more than 2,000 new acres each year.
That makes this a very interesting crop for domestic production. The flower heads will most likely need to be taken by hand, and then the seed gassed, or somehow fumigated for the larvae. How this might be done may require working with a certification board (like the State of California, at UC Davis). In California, I would suggest try working with their Small Farm Center, My guess is that the larvae is a common problem with other seed crops, and there may be some alternatives now available for consideration.
Lower Baja (Mexico) Peninsula was a primary source for years with this crop, but got hung up with this larvae problem (and hence, the COG need). That’s when shortages began to show, with such countries as Israel becoming a primary producer. Now, with growing demands, organic manufacturers have trouble locating "clean" seed that does not require sterilization.
There is now even some opportunity to export this to larger European markets, with the advent of a flower head harvester. With a generic harvester, a number of flower head crops become feasible for export (like Chamomile, Red Clover, and Pyrethrum).
By the way, even with exceptional crop yields, harvest techniques, and the elimination of insect problems, one pound of seed requires a huge volume of work. The seed itself is very light, and difficult to manage without some advanced technology. This is another reason why there are world shortages now. Most farmers are not willing to put this kind of effort into competitive returns, and having to work something by hand.
Before you actually consider this as a cash crop, be absolutely sure of your returns from the labor effort. It is very difficult to compete in this crop without some technological edge. Before I would personally consider this as a project, I would think about how the seed might be taken by some existing form of technology. | <urn:uuid:e52c0e1c-3059-46de-bada-70f682ae9afe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=./QandA/Commercial/20100204-2.html&cart_id=9240908.1468 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968667 | 862 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Summer at Bryn Mawr
Summer Camps at Bryn Mawr: Play hard, have fun!
The Bryn Mawr School offers summer sports and creative camps for boys and girls, ages 3-17. Enjoy soccer, field hockey, basketball, dance, crafts, astronomy, imaginative play, jump-ropping, and more! A free extended-day program is available, as are lunch and snacks.
Bryn Mawr Teaching and Learning Institute: Summer Academic Courses
Bryn Mawr is pleased to offer four exciting new summer academic courses to students from Bryn Mawr and other area schools. These courses will allow students to explore areas of intellectual interest that are not offered during the regular academic year. Learn more…
U.S. History Summer Institute
This summer, The Bryn Mawr School is pleased to host the second-annual U.S. History Summer Institute for teachers. This professional development opportunity will provide essential content knowledge and state-of-the-field United States history topics to high school U.S. History teachers. Learn more…
Teacher Workshop: Independent School Teaching in the 21st Century
In July 2013, The Bryn Mawr School will once again be offering an exciting professional development program entitled “Introduction to Independent School Teaching in the Twenty-First Century.” The purpose of this program is to provide an overview of key elements of independent school-teaching for teachers with zero to five years of independent school teaching. Learn more…
Teaching Workshop: Baltimore - Beyond "The Wire"
This innovative workshop will be led by Bryn Mawr history teacher Julie Clark, who will share her experiences in teaching her popular elective course “Charm City: Down to the Wire”. There will be several guest speakers and participants will be provided with readings, teaching and assessment ideas, and other resources. The workshop is especially appropriate for teachers of courses in U.S. history, Maryland and Baltimore history, and related elective courses, but all are welcome! Learn more...
Learn more about Bryn Mawr through our school infographic! | <urn:uuid:6066c794-4d54-4383-9686-4a4b2f537265> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://brynmawrschool.org/page.aspx?pid=905 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927354 | 431 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Salting With Sugar?!
One of the main topics discussed in Sefer Vayikra is that of Korbanos (loosely translated as sacrifices). Due to their complicated nature and exacting minutiae, as well as the relevant Parshiyos falling out during the hectic “Arba Parshiyos” Purim - Pesach season, they sort of get lost in the shuffle. But the most common reason why many do not appear so well-versed in this topic is the general feeling that the subject of Korbanos doesn’t really “speak” to us, as it just does not seem that relevant to our daily lives, in view of the fact that our daily Tefillos have replaced them ever since the Beis HaMikdash’s destruction.
Yet, there are some aspects of Korbanos that do have more of a noticeable effect on our everyday lives. For example, the Mitzva to have salt on the table when having a meal is directly based on the requirement to have salt on every Korban, as our tables are compared to the Altar and our food to a sacrifice.
Another practice based on Korbanos is the proper size of salt needed to salt our meat and chickens when Kashering them. The Shulchan Aruch rules that medium-sized salt should be used (not too big, not too small, just right!). Rabbeinu Bachaye famously comments that this can be inferred from the verse regarding Korbanos, “b’melach timlach”, “that you should salt them with salt”. The fact that the Torah uses the same word twice to describe this action shows that it should be done with medium-sized salt. This affects everyone’s lives (even if many think their kosher chickens are magically grown on the supermarket shelves), as the proper way to remove the blood from a slaughtered chicken, and thereby rendering it fit for kosher eating, is via this salting.
However, over the years, there are some who have stretched this Korbanos connection even more. The Mahar"i Chagiz addresses the issue of whether sugar can be used as a substitute to “salt” a Korban. He maintains that it is indeed permissible to use sugar, as, although sugar is sweet, nevertheless, since it can be used as a preservative, it is considered a true salt. Rav Daniel Tirani, the famed Ikrei HaDa”T, takes this comparison a step further, noting that sugar in his time was in fact called by many “Indian salt”. Interestingly, he concludes that just as sugar may be used to salt a Korban, so too, if one has no salt available to kasher his meat, he may use sugar instead!
Several authorities ruled similarly, allowing sugar as a substitute for kashering their chickens. The Avnei Nezer even testified that the Gaon from Lisa, the great Chavas Daas, once used sugar to salt his meat!
Opposition was not long in coming, though. Many decisors vehemently argued against permitting sugar for salting. Their main objection was that the jump in logic equating Korbanos to salting our meat was tenuous at best. Even if sugar fits into the salt category as a preservative to allow it to be offered on the Altar, nevertheless, in order to be used as salt to kasher our meat and chickens, its proficiency in drawing out blood on an equal level as salt would have to be proven! The Yad Yehuda even recorded that when he asked scientists whether sugar can draw out blood as salt does, he was laughed at.
Due to this, the majority of Halachic authorities through the ages, including the Divrei Chaim, the Maharshak, the Ksav Sofer, and the Ben Ish Chai, forbade salting meat or chicken with sugar. Many contemporary poskim as well, including Rav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, the Kaf Hachaim, Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Klausenberger Rebbe, Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner, the Tzitz Eliezer, and Rav Ovadiah Yosef, write very strongly that salting with sugar is not a viable option. Several authorities maintain that if one transgresses, he might even be required to kasher his utensils used.
Nowadays, most of us would consider this whole issue to be moot. However, there have been those who allowed this scenario in extremely extenuating circumstances. Rav Moshe Halberstam zt”l told this author that during the 1948 Israeli Independence War, in the former Arab village now known as Har Nof, the Jews there were cut off from supply lines and were forced to rely upon sugar for salting!
So, the next time we add a “spoonful of sugar” (or a “salt substitute” substitute) into our coffee, we can remind ourselves of the intricacies of the Korbanos that are woven into our daily lives and hope we will soon merit to actually bringing them in the rebuilt Bais Hamikdash.
See Gemara Taanis 27b and Megillah 31b. According to the Talmud, these prayers that are in lieu of Korbanos,are currently “holding up the world!”
Shulchan Aruch and Rema O.C. 167, 5.
Vayikra Ch.2, verse 13.
Gemara Brachos (55a), Beis Yosef (O.C. 167, quoting the Shibolei Leket 141), Rema (ibid), Mishna Berura (ad loc. 30). See also Shla”h (Shaar HaOsiyos, Eimek Bracha 66) and Halachic World (vol. 2, pg. 151, “Table Salt”).
Y”D 69, 3 and relevant commentaries.
Well, actually not so famous, but it should be. This astounding comment of Rabbeinu Bachaye’s (a Rishon!) was first shown to this author way back when, during his Semicha Test from Rav Moshe Halberstam zt”l, member of the Badat”z Eida Chareidis and author of Shu”t Divrei Moshe.
Vayikra Ch.2, verse 13. Another aspect of modern day salting inferred from this verse is how long the salt must stay on the piece of meat to do its job (Shiur Melicha) - approximately 18 minutes me’ikar hadin - as ‘b’melach’ has the same Gematriya as ‘Mil’ (80), the distance that takes approximately 18 minutes to walk. (Issue V’Hetter 1, 9, cited in Baer Heitiv Y”D 69, 21).
Gemara Chullin 113a, in the statement of Shmuel’s; Tur/ Shu”a Y”D 69, 4. This is done in order to remove the blood, as eating blood is prohibited - see Vayikra (Parshas Acharei Mos) Ch.17, verses 10 - 14 and Tur / Shulchan Aruch Y”D 65 - 68.
Shu”t Halachos Ketanos (vol. 1, 218). The Ya’avetz (Mor U’Ketziah 318, s.v. kyotzai) appears to accept this as fact, that sugar is considered a type of salt (by bishul on Shabbos).
Ikrei Dinim (O.C. 14, 36). This widely quoted commentary was standard in all older versions of the Shulchan Aruch. He writes that if salt is unavailable, one can use sugar instead without a second’s hesitation. See also Darchei Teshuva (69, 328).
Including the Minchas Chinuch (end Mitzvah 119), the Ma’aseh Avraham (Shu”t Y”D 30), the Misgeres Hashulchan (Y”D 69, 21), the Mizmor L’David (116) and the Mei Noach (Shu”t 29).
Shu”t Avnei Nezer (O.C. 532). However, the Piskei Teshuva (pg. 71) posits that it is possible that he wasn’t referring to our commercial sugar which “obviously cannot be considered salt”.
Which is also not so clear cut, as honey is also a great preservative, yet is banned from being considered a salt substitute on the Altar - Vayikra Ch.2, verse 11. It is worthwhile to read Rav S. R. Hirsch’s commentary to this verse.
Yad Yehuda (69, Pih”A 97).
Including Shu”t Divrei Chaim (vol. 1, Y”D 25), Shu”t Tuv Taam V’Daas (Mahadura Kamma, 111), Shu”t Ksav Sofer (Y”D 37), Ben Ish Chai (Shu”t Rav Pe’alim vol. 2, Y”D 4; Ben Ish Chai - Year 2, Parshas Tazria 22), Shu”t Chessed L’Alafim (72), Rav Chaim Falag’i (Ruach Chaim Y”D 69, 5), Arugas HaBosem (Y”D 69, 17), and Shu”t Maharam Brisk (vol. 1, 7). It should be noted that the Mahar"i Chagiz himself was unwilling to make that much of a jump in logic, and only would allow sugar-salted meat if it was nullified with 60 against it.
Including Shu”t Salmas Chaim (vol. 2, 3 - old print), Kaf Hachaim (Y”D 69, 322), Shu”t Igros Moshe (Y”D 3, 23), Shu”t Divrei Yatziv (vol. 2, 14 - 15), Shu”t Shevet HaLevi (vol. 2, 24 & 26), Shu”t Tzitz Eliezer (vol. 9, 35), Shu”t Yabea Omer (vol. 4, Y”D 2 & 3), and Sefer Bris Melach (8, 6, pg. 69a).
Including Shu”t Kol Mevasser (vol. 2, 15), Shu”t Rav Pe’alim (ibid.), Arugas HaBosem (ibid.) and Shu”t Tzitz Eliezer (ibid.). See also Shu”t Yabea Omer (vol. 4, Y”D 3), and Rabbi Yaakov Skoczylas’ Ohel Yaakov (on IV"H, expanded edition pg. 22 - 24) on this topic.
See Shu”t Rivevos Efraim (vol. 7, 388) who allows salting with sugar for a sick person who can not have salt. However, the Shevet HaLevi (ibid.) sharply disagrees and instead allows chalita (sort of flash-searing; which ordinarily is not permitted for kashering purposes - see Shulchan Aruch Y”D 73, 2; Rema Y”D 67, 6; Shach Y”D 67, 13 & 73, 10; R’ Akiva Eiger Y”D 73, 2; and Mishna Berura 454, 11 & Biur Halacha 454, s.v. layka). This is also the opinion of the Minchas Yitzchak (Shu”t vol. 9, 73) and the Shmiras Shabbos K’Hilchasa (Ch. 40, 87; - new print Ch. 40, 100; quoting the Shu”t Yeshuos Moshe 47). See also Shu”t Yad Yitzchak (vol. 2, 164, 1), Shu”t Maharash Engel (vol. 3, 121, 2), Shu”t Tirosh V’Yitzhar (178), Shu”t Har Tzvi (vol. 2 - Y”D, 66), and sefer Darchei Halacha (on IV”H 69, 3, s.v. b’davar) for various scenarios of mixtures that some allow if sugar was substituted. See also Rav Y. S. Elyashiv’s Ha’aros B’Meseches Chullin (113a) who does not rule conclusively on this topic.
For any questions, comments or for the full Mareh Mekomos / sources, please email the author: [email protected]
Disclaimer: These are just a few basic guidelines and overview of the Halacha discussed in this article. This is by no means a complete comprehensive authoritative guide, but rather a brief summary to raise awareness of the issue. One should not compare similar cases in order to rules in any real case, but should refer his questions to a competent Halachic authority.
Disclaimer: This is not a comprehensive guide, rather a brief summary to raise awareness of the issues. In any real case one should ask a competent Halachic authority. | <urn:uuid:a20e28ba-38e2-4449-b446-f727955c23e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5138 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908235 | 2,904 | 2.328125 | 2 |
The NVCA applauds today's announcement by the White House of the Start-Up America campaign that seeks to create jobs through investment in and support of our country's most promising start-up companies. The spirit of this campaign is consistent with the goals and objectives of the venture capital community. We remain committed to supporting a public policy environment that fosters entrepreneurship and innovation, as it is key to our country's long term economic growth.
We have been fielding specific press inquiries today regarding the proposal by the White House to make permanent the zero percent cap gains rate for investment in small business. The NVCA supports public policies that reward long term investment in our nation's start-up companies and believe this proposal is well intended. As a candidate President Obama called for encouraging entrepreneurs through long term capital gains incentives. And throughout his presidency he has supported this particular zero capital gains incentive.
Unfortunately the complexity of the tax code inhibits most entrepreneurs and those who fund them from enjoying the benefits that the President espouses. In practice, this section of the tax code (Section 1202) is riddled with complexities that historically have made it very difficult for venture investors to take advantage of this zero percent rate. It’s important to remember that these provisions were originally enacted under President Clinton. Since that time, our understanding is that very few venture investors actually have been able to apply and qualify. By making the rate reduction permanent, perhaps more investors will explore this opportunity and find a way in which to participate, but we are skeptical that many will overcome the significant hurdles imposed by the regulations. We continue to urge tax policy makers to examine a simplification of this section in order for it to reach its potential in terms of spurring increased investment in the nation’s start-up community.
More from this author:
NVCA on Twitternvca: Venture capitalists & social entrepreneurs have similar ambitions and challenges. Read on http://t.co/BRg9moM7sZ
nvca: NVCA: VCs Talk Accelerator Bubbles, Accelerator Success http://t.co/VRHTo5djVt
nvca: VentureScape Keynotes Inspire and Inform (and bring some of us to tears) http://t.co/K91O7MW6qS
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Two years ago, John Brennan got the nod to build a new kind of intelligence organization. But to do it, he had to persuade the most powerful, turf-conscious agencies in government to donate staff and money.
On May 1, 2003, the top echelon of the U.S. intelligence community gathered to cut the ribbon on a warren of new offices on the fourth floor of CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Intelligence chief and CIA Director George Tenet was there, along with FBI Director Robert Mueller III. John Gordon, President Bush's homeland security adviser, was present, as well as top intelligence officials from the Homeland Security, Defense and State departments.
The offices behind the ribbon held a dismal surprise: a mere 30 analysts, mostly novices, working furiously in temporary space tracking a flood of data on terrorist money, movements and identities. Between their desks, haphazard tangles of cable fed classified and unclassi- fied information to their computers. It was the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, charged with keeping the president informed. And it could barely fly.
"It wasn't fun," says Deborah, who served the center's chief of staff in the early days. She declined to be identified by her full name for this article. Most of the analysts had less than a year of experience, and only five or six could be counted on "to dig into something, understand it and . . . come to the right conclusions," she says.
Later expanded and renamed the National Counterterrorism Center, the program today is markedly more able. In a shiny new Northern Virginia facility, more than 130 analysts read traffic from nearly 30 classified and unclassified networks, including operational details of ongoing counterterrorism operations. The center hosts three video teleconferences a day to update the executive branch on recent threat information and maintains a 24-hour watch center. In addition to fusing terror intelligence, it recently has been charged with coordinating the U.S. government's counterterrorism strategy.
TTIC was the nation's first permanent joint center, intended to harmonize the efforts of various agencies rather than become a locus of power in its own right. The men cutting the ribbon were only grudgingly part of history: Each had to sacrifice money, staff and authority to create the center.
Key to the historic effort was John O. Brennan, a longtime Tenet aide and confidant. Brennan was deputy executive director for Central Intelligence when he left; before that he served as Tenet's chief of staff. Together with a hand-picked team of senior managers, Brennan scrapped with some of the biggest, strongest, most entrenched bureaucracies in the federal government to build his center to the specifications of the White House edict that created it.
The idea grew out of meetings of a group of high-level national security officials. The team was convened in late 2002 by the White House to address the information-sharing problem that hindered U.S. intelligence efforts leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Brennan was a part of the group, along with Pasquale D'Amuro, the FBI's executive assistant director for counter-terrorism and counterintelligence; Richard Haver, special assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; and Richard Falkenrath, senior director for policy and plans and special assistant to the president in the White House Office of Homeland Security. The chairman was Winston Wiley, then Tenet's top official for homeland security.
In six weeks, the group hashed out the basic idea for the center. The sum of the many counterterrorism efforts of the U.S. government, it would fall under the Director of Central Intelligence but get its information from all relevant agencies and be staffed by analysts from those agencies. "There was a lot of jockeying at the time to try and protect turf," recalls Falkenrath, now a fellow with the Brookings Institution. It was clear, however, that the White House wasn't going to let one agency handle the job. With legislation, Congress had assigned the task to DHS, but the White House disregarded that. By mid-January, the plan for TTIC was forwarded with approval from all parties.
At that time, the president's staff was preparing his State of the Union speech. "They wanted to incorporate [the idea] into the [speech]," Brennan recounts. "Officials felt the idea had merit, even though it wasn't fully formed and no one knew what it was going to look like." But a strong idea absent a strong plan was good enough for Bush; he inserted a fateful line. "Tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, the CIA, the Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center," he told the world on Jan. 28, 2003, "to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location."
At the time of the announcement, major questions still had not been answered. Where would the center be located? What were its specific responsibilities? Who would pay for it? The White House was mum. "It was left intentionally vague," says Brennan, "because the details, the engineering, was not done." That would quickly change. The White House gave the project a May 1 deadline.
In March, Tenet tapped Brennan to head the center. In six weeks, he was expected to have staff, an office, computers and access to enough information to produce a credible analysis of the terrorist threat for the president. With the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still fresh in American's minds, failure was not an option.
The easiest problem was finding space. There were offices on the fourth floor of the CIA's headquarters that fit TTIC's needs-they were secure and had good network connectivity. Moreover, he didn't have to go far to request them. "I was chair of the [CIA office] space board," Brennan recalls, chuckling. "I knew what space might be available."
A bigger challenge was building a team. As a joint center, TTIC would rely on its partner agencies-the CIA, the FBI, Defense, Homeland Security, State and others-for analysts. Brennan wouldn't get to cherry-pick his experts; he would get whomever the agencies decided to send over. Given the lack of warm feelings among his center and those agencies, he wasn't expecting their best people.
"I knew I was going to get a bell curve that was on the left side of the experience spectrum," Brennan recalls tactfully from his office at The Analysis Corp., a private intelligence consulting firm in Northern Virginia, where he is president. He joined the company after retiring from NCTC in August 2005. "I wanted to have stars in the management positions. I knew I was going to be putting a lot of responsibility on them. They were the ones who were going to be the quality control."
He brought over his chief of staff, Deborah, whom he trusted implicitly. He also stole away the CIA's deputy chief financial officer, Cindy Bower. He plucked a senior technologist from the Defense Intelligence Agency. By design, he had deputies from DHS and the FBI. "It was important to have an ecumenical leadership," Brennan says.
One major unknown was the source of the center's funding. Congress had appropriated the budget for that year. Already the center was usurping the authority of its "partner" agencies and stealing their staff. Could it pass the hat for contributions, too? The White House said yes. "[The Office of Management and Budget] ended up taxing each of the partners," recalls Bower. "It did not go over well."
"Anytime an organization is 'taxed,' they don't like it at all," says Brennan. "A lot of organizations dragged their feet. . . . Sometimes we had to keep knocking on certain doors," he remembers. "[But] it was something OMB had decided."
To make the case, Brennan's team used reason and openness. "We built a pretty responsible, realistic budget," says Bower. "It [included] training and travel, desks and phones." Then they offered to brief each of the partner agencies on what their money would pay for. That way, "They would at least feel comfortable with what we were going to do, and see that we weren't asking for unrealistic things."
When that didn't work, Brennan says, he swapped the carrot for the stick. "If I needed to, I raised it with George [Tenet]. He would have his meetings, and it would be one of the agenda items." In the end, the center got the money.
The biggest challenge to making TTIC a success, Brennan says, was establishing it as the primary integrator and analyzer of terrorist threat information. The squabbles over territory that started when the White House first convened a working group never dissipated. Homeland Security had a congressional mandate to consolidate terror intelligence that arguably trumped the center's presidential direction. The FBI always had primacy over domestic terror threats; how could it be sure constitutional protections for Americans would be respected?
Perhaps the most aggressive competitor was the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. It had done TTIC's job, and officials there saw no reason to give up turf.
The bureaucratic battle escalated. Despite having several hundred of the most qualified counterterrorism analysts in the government, CTC refused to give TTIC an adequate number of assignees, according to a 2004 White House inquiry. Instead of building a joint capacity to share and analyze terror intelligence, each player was developing its own intelligence capabilities, undermining TTIC's ability to succeed.
"We kind of just showed up in three months out of nowhere," says Deborah, Brennan's one-time chief of staff. "We spent a lot of time talking with partner agencies, trying to deconflict things." The threat integration center struggled to explain that instead of becoming a new power site, it sought to meld existing capabilities. "We want to do this in a complementary fashion," she says, "as a joint venture, an orchestration of effort. This isn't about NCTC grabbing all the glory."
Ironically, despite the conflicts with the CIA, some partners suspected the new center was really a CIA operation. After all, Brennan had spent most of his career with the CIA, the center was housed in CIA headquarters, and most of its staff and budget came from the CIA.
"I spent lots of time on the phone with [FBI Director] Mueller, explaining to him I don't fall under the CIA," Brennan recalls. Even on Capitol Hill, Brennan says he was accused of being CIA. Despite pressure from senior CIA officials, however, Brennan says he refused to give them preferential treatment. He went out of his way to create an image of the center as independent, going so far as to create identity badges that sported the center's logo, not the CIA's. "A lot of times people got stopped at the gate because [the guards] didn't recognize it," he says.
He also laid down to his staff a rule of the road: Being at the center of terrorist intelligence, you have access to information your home agency doesn't. Don't share unauthorized intelligence with your buddies back at the FBI or Customs or the CIA. We're only trusted with agencies' secrets because we can keep them. "I had two instances in the first year of [analysts'] unauthorized sharing with their home organizations," Brennan recalls. "I dismissed them immediately." That sent a strong message to partner agencies, he believes.
While conflicts between the center and its partners appear to have subsided, they have not disappeared. "That never goes away," says retired Navy Vice Adm. John "Scott" Redd, who has held the reins at NCTC since Brennan resigned in August. "Even today . . . the natural reaction of an agency is, 'Wait a minute, we've got a dog in this fight.' Sometimes there is [an] issue of authorities." With the CIA in particular, Redd admits his center's relations aren't strong. "I won't tell you that everything's rosy." While he says he has a good relationship with current CIA Director Porter Goss, "We're still working through how to do this the right way."
Asked about the joint center's progress since its first days, Russell Travers, a former Defense official who is now NCTC's deputy director for information sharing, waxes philosophic. "This is a revolutionary change for the community," he says. "We've got to crawl, walk, [then] run." Right now, "we're jogging." | <urn:uuid:7e0233a6-951a-4f5a-9776-6e781308d8e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.govexec.com/magazine/features/2006/04/threat-connector/21552/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98137 | 2,585 | 1.859375 | 2 |
This exhibit highlights a few of the hundreds of Zines (9 linear feet) housed in the Sophia Smith Collection. Zines are self-published small magazines. The Girl Zines in our collection were created primarily by young women and girls, created circa 1980s to the present. The numerous topics include politics, "third wave" feminism, fat liberation, sexuality, relationships, art, music, and much more.
The collection is comprised primarily of individual issues, mostly dating from the 1990s, some of which were used in the book, A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World, edited by Karen Green & Tristan Taormino (NY: St. Martin's, 1997).
This exhibit provides just a taste of the riches to be found in the physical collection. For the complete list of our zine titles, see the finding aid for the Girl Zines Collection.
Created by Joanna Johnson '12, SSC Fraenkel Intern | <urn:uuid:61c5e2e8-4d98-4fe3-95f3-b6ab4a2e3c88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smithlibraries.org/digital/exhibits/show/girlzines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954162 | 193 | 2.234375 | 2 |
When three Columbia professors submitted their design for the new Boston City Hall little did they know their brutalist based concept would end up producing one of the most controversial and unique buildings to ever be built in the U.S. The 9 story building is almost completely made of poured in place or pre-cast concrete components. The most notable features of the building are the large cantilevered floors and the repeated use of concrete vertical louver systems. The ability to pass through the building's courtyard was a greatly heralded feature at the time of it's completion but due to security concerns the access to the courtyard has been heavily restricted for most of the buildings life. In 1969 Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles was awarded with an AIA Award for Architecture as well as the Harleston Parker Medal from the City of Boston for the building's design. The surrounding plaza known as government center was designed by I.M. Pei and has been regarded as one of the worst public spaces in existence by many planners and city planning organizations including the Project for Public Places. Model created by Nathan Kohrmann. | <urn:uuid:5f0a55ac-684e-4ea0-87a7-4311320ecb44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=b02fa9a56df2ee26545172f70efed474&prevstart=0&hl=pt-BR&ct=lc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985151 | 223 | 2.734375 | 3 |
He was trying to find his way.
While driving to the mosque for my Friday prayers, I saw him in my back view mirror, fidgeting with his GPS on a hot summer day. Driving up on Park Heights in Baltimore with a car full of children, this visibly Jewish man with a long wavy beard and thick black glasses was clad in a black suit. Say whatever you want, but this much was obvious: He had made some tough choices to please his G-d.
So why would your or my God not reward him for his commitment? What if this man was an organ donor? A volunteer firefighter? A caring neighbor? An honest trader? How could anyone declare with certainty that this man cannot go to heaven?
I don’t know how, but people say this all the time: “He cannot go to heaven because he does not believe in [insert your Prophet or God's name here].” According to a 2008 Pew survey, one in five Christians in America believe that non-Christian faiths cannot lead to salvation. That number soared to 60 percent for white evangelical Protestants who attend church once a weak.
Frankly, I would have checked out of my faith, Islam, if it took such a position. Thank God (or Allah) that it doesn’t.
Islam recognizes that the Jewish man mentioned above, who was probably lost and finding his way, is not alone; we are all trying to find “the way” in our own way. So it guards humans from the temptation of declaring who goes to heaven and who doesn’t by proclaiming that “grace is in the hands of Allah. He gives it to whomsoever He pleases” (57:30).
Then why do people from almost every major religious tradition, including Islam, insist on some version of “I am the way and no one comes to God but through me”? They love to quote those parts of their Scriptures without a broader context. You know why? Because it’s leverage — it’s self serving and it feels good. Did I tell you that a majority of such people are typically born into the same faith that they sell as “the way”?
On the contrary, Islam’s holy Quran provides not one, but many ways to the heaven (29:69). Yes, some are straight — like belief (3:85) and good deeds (5:10) — while others are convoluted. It’s like going to New York City. You could take the bridge, tunnel, ferry or simply fly into the Big Apple.
God’s grace though, truly leads the way to salvation. “He forgives whom He pleases and punishes whom He pleases (5:19)” to me, assures that no matter which way you take, you won’t hit traffic, accidents or bad weather.
To the Jewish man mentioned above, some Muslims may say: No way! How can a Jew or a Christian ever go to heaven? To them I present this from Quran: “Surely, the Believers, and the Jews, and the Christians and the Sabians — whichever party believes in God and the Last Day and does good deeds — shall have their reward with their Lord, and no fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve (2:63).”
How can the Quran charge Jews and Christians of the notion of an exclusive heaven and then turn around to claim the same?
This is not a fringe interpretation, applicable to Jews and Christians only. Prophet Muhammad (sa) paved the way to salvation — ultimately for all humans — in a famous narration from the book of Muslim, “A man said: By God, God will not forgive so-and-so. At this, God said: Who is he who swears by Me that I will not forgive so-and-so? Verily, I have forgiven so-and-so and have nullified your good deeds.”
Islam neither believes in an eternal hell nor in an exclusive heaven.
After the next traffic light, the Jewish guy driving behind me made a left turn. I came to the mosque, praying that may God guide him to the shortest, straightest, safest way to his destination.
Faheem Younus is an adjunct faculty member for religion/history at the Community Colleges of Baltimore County and a clinical associate professor at the University of Maryland. He can be reached at [email protected]
Follow Dr. Faheem Younus on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FaheemYounus | <urn:uuid:6e5421d9-90ce-4b4a-b984-4fe4113960eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.muslimerican.com/2012/04/in-islam-heaven-is-not-exclusive-the-huffington-post/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961696 | 967 | 1.945313 | 2 |
The Down to Earth Dad
Food for Thought...Keep the "Grazing Canister" in the Bag
By Patrick Mitchell
If some is good, more must be better. That's the reasoning some parents employ when giving their children snacks to keep them quiet, stop them from running around, or distract them from doing just about anything else. The trouble is, too many of the wrong type of snacks can result in underweight children (they're not hungry for dinner), or overweight kids (they'll eat dinner anyway, despite excessive snacking).
Parent Education Is Key
"This is preventable by parent education," says Bryan S. Vartabedian, a pediatrician specializing in helping young children gain weight if they're light, or slim down if they're heavy.
He describes a typical day at the office: "A toddler is brought in for evaluation. During the course of our visit, any type of whining, fussing, or protest "triggers the appearance of the grazing canister from mom's bag." Grazing canisters, he explains, are "small, colorful plastic snack containers suited for the fast, easy delivery of refined carbohydrates anytime, anywhere."
He watches as "the fish-shaped crackers or bear-shaped graham crackers disappear as fast as they appeared, wreaking havoc with their blood sugar. And when it comes time to eat, they really don't have the metabolic drive to eat at mealtime," he says. "It's like putting the mule bag on the mule."
Most parents perceive the grazing bag as innocent. I did, but speaking to Vartabedian wised me up. "Allowing children to graze represents a breakdown in feeding discipline," he says. "As a general rule, we tend to placate our kids with food. And we see this all around us--at airports, supermarkets, wherever. Parents are going for peace at any price. They're opening that grazing canister in exchange for peace and quiet."
There are other reasons all of this over-snacking on refined carbohydrates bothers Vartabedian: "It rewards marginal behavior and reinforces that we deal with boredom and other emotions with food. But unless it's a designated snack time, it isn't consistent with good feeding structure."
Parent education can help children maintain a healthy weight, he says, adding there may be a special role for dads in the feeding picture. "Moms are definitely more preoccupied with all the bad things that can happen if their child doesn't eat well. Fathers are less apt to be worried about a missed meal. Dads are funny because they are sometimes a little bit more laid back in their parenting style and, interestingly, sometimes, when kids are left alone with their dads, who can sometimes be a little bit more playful, the kids will sometimes do better food-wise.
"At dinnertime and other mealtimes, fathers interact with their children quite a bit differently than mothers do. Sometimes, when it comes to feeding (such as with an underweight child), [dads are] often more playful and less serious. Those are attributes that really work. So, dads may have something special to offer as far as feeding goes."
Presentation Is Everything
Vartabedian recommends planned snacks for children as follows: "Typically, with my own kids and my own patients, we recommend fruits and vegetables as snacks, sometimes offering a couple of options, such as cut grapes along with some crackers, giving the child a chance to try some new things.
"The way these foods are presented is very important as well. Fresh fruit is good, and things of that nature--offering cut grapes and cut celery, from a very early age, so the children only know how to do that.
"For the child who has started on this at a late age, when you give them no other option, and you give them cut fruit or nothing...they're going to take it. They may block it at first, but they will take it. I've seen this with my own kids. They'll protest for cookies and crackers. You cut the apple, you put it on the plate and walk away, and about ten minutes later they're back for the apple. You can give them Goldfish, but just introduce healthy options for the kids, including fruits and vegetables."
If some is good, more must be better: More parent education on diet, that is, and more grazing canisters replaced by a thoughtful snack plan.
A regular contributor to Children's Voice, Patrick Mitchell publishes a monthly newsletter, The Down to Earth Dad, from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and facilitates the Dads Matter! Project™ for early childhood programs, schools, and child- and family-serving organizations. He conducts keynote addresses, workshops, and inservice and preservice trainings. To reserve Patrick Mitchell for speaking engagements, or to implement the Dads Matter! ProjectTM for your families and community partners, call him toll-free at 877/282-DADS, or e-mail him at [email protected]. Website: www.DownToEarthDad.org.
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Back to Top Printer-friendly Page | <urn:uuid:97a0cb22-25ea-4b22-bbab-590138c80577> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cwla.org/voice/0709dad.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964064 | 1,098 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Cuba’s most prominent dissident group, the Ladies in White, complained on Sunday of recent rough treatment by government supporters and said it may have been prompted by the group’s spread to another Cuban city.
The Havana-based group started a new chapter in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba last month and plans to extend activities to other provinces in what Cuban officials might view as a challenge to their authority and more US-backed mischief.
“They know that the people are more discontented every day and what they want is to avoid at all cost an increase in opposition,” Ladies in White leader Laura Pollan said after the group’s weekly silent march from Santa Rita Catholic Church on Havana’s Fifth Avenue.
“They know they will have to put us in prison or kill us because we are not going to give up this space we’ve won. We’re going to continue fighting for freedom,” Pollan said.
She and others showed off bruises they said were inflicted on Thursday by more than 100 government supporters as they tried to stage a march protesting the treatment of the nascent group in Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city.
“I tell you — it was something brutal,” said Pollan as she described pushing, shoving, kicking and clothes ripping that went on before the skies suddenly opened up and a major downpour sent everyone scurrying for cover.
The Ladies in White have been subjected to previous “acts of repudiation” as they are called in Cuba, but the actions eased after the Catholic Church intervened last year.
The government has not responded to reports about the Thursday march, but the 30 or so women marched without incident on Sunday in a continuation of protests that began after 75 of their family members were jailed in a March 2003 crackdown on dissidents.
The women, who dress in white and each carry a single flower, are the most enduring symbol of government opposition in Cuba and powerful enough that last year Cuba freed 115 political prisoners, including those remaining from 2003.
The prisoner release was brokered by the Church in an agreement that also allowed the women to make their Sunday marches in peace.
Pollan said they continue protesting because they believe more than 60 political prisoners are still behind bars.
She said the Santiago chapter has 34 members, six of whom are said to have family members in jail for political reasons, and that more women want to join. There are about 60 members in Havana, she said. | <urn:uuid:351c5c66-0596-4cb3-8284-c5774c55469b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2011/08/23/2003511472 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978875 | 515 | 2.015625 | 2 |
E. O. Wilson, or Edward Osborne Wilson, was born 1929 in Birmingham, Alabama, and is an entomologist and biologist known for his work on evolution and sociobiology. He received his PhD from Harvard. Wilson's specialty is ants, in particular their use of pheromones for communication. He is also famous for starting the sociobiology debate when he wrote Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975.
Wilson has argued that the preservation of the gene, rather than the individual, is the focus of evolution (a theme explored in more detail by Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene). Wilson has also studied the mass extinctions of the 20th century and their relationship to modern society.
Wilson explains, "Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects."
Wilson adds, "Let us get rid immediately of the notion that all you have to do is keep a little patch of the old growth somewhere, and then you can do whatever you want with the rest. That is a very dangerous and false notion."
Wilson inadvertantly created one of the greatest scientific controversies of the late 20th century when he came up with the idea of sociobiology. Sociobiology suggests that animal, and by extention human, behaviour can be studied using an evolutionary framework. Many critics accused Wilson of racism and he was even physically attacked for his views. However, Wilson had never intended to suggest that human nature was static and independent of the environment. Nor had he intended to apply a 'survival of the fittest' model on human society as had been true of social darwinists. The controversy caused a great deal of personal grief for Wilson; many of his colleagues at Harvard, such as Stephen Jay Gould were vehemently opposed to his ideas.
His main works are: | <urn:uuid:ec894d5a-0ec6-4d82-905c-40012ab1e116> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fact-index.com/e/ed/edward_osborne_wilson.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982568 | 464 | 2.96875 | 3 |
By Jennifer Laloup (EveryONE)
Today we published an article by Mellmann et al. entitled, Prospective Genomic Characterization of the German Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O104:H4 Outbreak by Rapid Next Generation Sequencing Technology. The following is an opinion piece by Dr. Niyaz Ahmed, a section editor for PLoS ONE and the academic editor of this paper. He is an expert in the area of molecular epidemiology and genomics of bacterial pathogens at the University of Hyderabad, India.
When a monstrously virulent strain of never-before-seen E. coli suddenly appeared in Germany last month, the rush to decode became an immediate focus. Several groups became engaged simultaneously to crack the genome of the underlying bug and then followed a huge crowd-sourcing effort on the internet as soon as the genome sequences were made available. Given that reasonable data were made available by these authors within 60 hours of the outbreak, not much of the evolutionary history of the organism had been dissected and a great deal of the interpretation remained vague.
An informed, scientific treatise was needed to help health control authorities and policy makers launch a serious mitigation campaign; this work, in that sense, constitutes the first official report on the genomic footprint of the underlying E. coli strain. The authors report chronological (step-wise) recombination of the genome in the outbreak strains over a period of ten years. This reveals the extraordinary capability of certain pathogens to recombine so that a devastating phenotype finally emerges with a multi-dimensional fitness advantage. Further, the study of Mellmann et al. demonstrates the might of present-day sequencing technologies such as Ion Torrent in enabling genome-guided epidemiology, diagnostics, and interventions.
I have no hesitation to say that the study carried out by Mellmann et al. is truly a technical masterpiece, a first time proof-of-principle whereby next generation sequencing could be harnessed in real-time when certain 'gold standards' such as serotyping failed miserably. This report has an important bearing on the new proposed field of 'epidemic forecasting' in which the spread potentials of a pathogen could be predicted based on genomic fingerprints – in other words, predicting if the infection will assume pandemic proportions. The finding that the E. coli strains analyzed were enteroaggregative (EAEC) could explain this. EAECs could persist in recovered or subclinical cases and that they could be carried by the latter on travel routes worldwide.
One of the possible shortcomings of the study could be that it is silent on the mechanistic details of 'adornment' of these bacteria with several layers of fitness – multiple antibiotic resistance, acid tolerance, enteroaggregative capacity and shigatoxin production all bundled up in one 'naturally' chimeric strain in just 10 years is extremely dramatic! The pace of evolution of the German outbreak strains has surpassed even Helicobacter pylori, an organism notorious for its speed of recombination, recasting its entire genome every forty years. We recently had an opportunity to sequence and look at H. pylori genomes hierarchically obtained across ten years. We did not find major insertion, deletion and substitution events.
Technology helped with the dissection of the E. coli epidemic in hours and days, but the editorial process also was seamless and prompt enough to enable rapid dissemination of results. Open and early access is very important for the dissemination of findings during epidemic times because much of the control and mitigation measures need planning in the light of latest research findings. | <urn:uuid:14eb5c0d-44f4-4242-a243-7cbec4ded319> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://niyazahmed.blogspot.com/2011/07/prospective-genomics-in-epidemics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949533 | 728 | 2.375 | 2 |
When wind power is NOT for you…
There is a real push online right now for renewable energy. In other words, clean energy that the do it yourselfer dreams of. The two types that are the most prevalent are wind and solar power. Both are clean, renewable and can really make a dent in your energy bills when done right.
That’s the key phrase – when done right. The problem is most people a) don’t know how to build effective and efficient systems, b) don’t understand the implications of their decision, and c) don’t know how much power they need to offset their energy bills.
Look, before you beat me over the head, let me just say this: It’s not your fault. The truth is you’ve been beat over the head quite a bit. The mainstream media and even more recently, the internet advertisers have just been relentless in pushing renewable and alternative energy on you.
Heck, even President Obama has made it a point, nay, a cornerstone of his administration.
Here’s the truth. Not everyone can have a wind generator, wind mill, whatever you want to call it, in their yard. In fact, not every neighborhood can have it.
There is a very simple reason – you need wind, a lot of it, to generate wind power that is useful to you.
Okay, you’re thinking. Big deal. I already knew that. But think of the implications here. Most windmills or wind generators require quite a few RPMs to generate 6-12 volts of power. Say 400 RPMs. For many generators thats about a windspeed of 15 mph. So, to steadily charge battery banks at around 12 volts you need a 15 mph breeze.
Okay, so you have that. Next hurdle. Usually to catch this breeze, the blades on your generator need to be about 4 feet for a diameter of 8 feet. For safety reasons, your generator should be far enough above the ground so the swooping blades won’t injure anyone. This usually means 10-15 feet above the ground, at least. The added bonus of this is the higher you go, the more wind there usually is (less resistance from structures).
The downsize is durability. The higher the windmill is from the ground, the less stable it is. In other words, the strong your tower has to be. The best way to overcome this is to mount it to a shed or garage, and utilize the structure as your base. Unfortunately, this can be difficult. Remember, the wind generator should stand straight, and be able to withstand a strong wind. It does no good if it lays broken on the ground. And the higher up your go, th eless stable the unit is.
Also, the blades have to be built and remain perfectly in balance. In other words, they all must be uniform size and equal weight. If not, and you don’t correct it, the shaft of the generator will be ruined because the blades will not spin properly and weight the shaft downward. Once this happens, the generator is finished and must be replaced. Balancing the blades is difficult (but not impossible) and we’ll cover it in a future entry.
Overall, wind power is not suitable for those who live in tight areas, such as heavily urban areas – as there are numerous safety concerns (i.e. what happens if the tower falls). Also, urban areas tend to get less wind than rural areas (more structures block the wind). There might also be an issua with building such a structure (absent of building permits). | <urn:uuid:ab22459f-dd7f-4322-b53b-08bf8f6eb019> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utilitybillbusters.com/articles/do-it-yourself-projects/when-wind-power-is-not-for-you/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94712 | 753 | 2.125 | 2 |
Whoa, when did I actually even mention the word sin? I'm going to assume you're a bit religious. What dictionary are you reading? Because after a quick google search this is what I got.
The belief that homosexuality is immoral is normally religiously motivated so its safe to assume that the word sin is appropriate for such contexts. I'm an atheist however.
Merriam-Webster as well as a few others. I'd provide links but website addresses aren't appearing in my browser for some reason.
Murder is a fact of life too when you consider the fact that people with various mental disorders are highly likely to commit it, the idea that just because something occurs naturally it has to exist outside of morality is nonsensical. I will say it again just to be safe, I don't think homosexuality is immoral. However whether or not you find something to be moral or immoral is not a matter of education (unless you count brainwashing), such thinking is only arrogant.
The very, very important thing here is that homosexual is something you ARE. You can't choose it. Just like you can't choose to be black, or white, or left-handed.
Murder is something you DO. It's a choice.
Nobody said "homosexuality is an opinion" in this thread.
Michael Lee said that believing homosexuality is good or bad is an opinion. And I don't want to make assumptions, but his comments seem to imply that he doesn't think it's "sooo bad to love someone of the same gender." | <urn:uuid:58c3afd8-bd7e-4476-8004-e869740b4a7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nerdfighters.ning.com/forum/topics/why-is-there-so-much-homoppphobia?commentId=1833893%3AComment%3A5158064&xg_source=activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9779 | 316 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Andrew Johnson, portrait by William B. Cooper.
Born in a log cabin on December 29, 1808, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Andrew Johnson knew abject poverty and personal tragedy almost from the very beginning of his life. Jacob Johnson, Andrew's father, a landless and illiterate worker in Raleigh, died unexpectedly a few days after Andrew's third birthday. At ten years of age, Johnson was apprenticed to work for James J. Selby, a tailor. In that shop, he learned two valuable lessons: how to perform the tailor's craft and how to read. After five years in Selby's shop, Johnson ran away from Raleigh, but he returned some two years later in an unsuccessful attempt to make peace with Selby. In 1825 or early 1826 Johnson again left, heading west to seek a better fortune.
He wandered to Mooresville, Alabama, and then to Columbia, Tennessee, and secured employment in tailor shops at both places. After a few months, however, Johnson returned to Raleigh and escorted his mother and stepfather Turner Doughtry to Tennessee. They eventually arrived in Greeneville in September 1826. There Johnson found work in a tailor shop, and, more importantly, he found Eliza McCardle. In the spring of 1827 the two teenagers (Johnson was eighteen and Eliza sixteen) married and made Greeneville their permanent home.
Two years later, twenty-year-old Andrew Johnson was chosen alderman, a post to which he was reelected several times, and in 1834 he became Greeneville's mayor. Meanwhile, his tailoring business prospered, and his family increased to include two daughters and two sons. As a consequence Johnson purchased a tailor shop and a fine brick residence. Once he learned to write, Johnson became increasingly absorbed in intellectual pursuits as he prepared himself for more impressive and prestigious areas of public service.
In 1835 Johnson successfully ran for a seat in the lower house of the state legislature. At this point in his early political career he generally maintained political independence while leaning toward the newly emerging Whig Party. In fact, he backed Hugh Lawson White for president in 1836. His refusal to support internal improvements legislation favored by his constituents, however, cost him reelection in 1837. Two years later, Johnson regained his legislative seat. By this time, he had made an irrevocable commitment to the Jacksonian Party. Democrats named him to be one of the two state at-large presidential electors in 1840, and Johnson campaigned throughout Tennessee. Subsequently, he sought and won a state Senate seat the next year. But after three legislative terms, Johnson looked for new challenges.
He found them in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served for ten years, 1843-53. Here he first introduced his famous Homestead Bill in the spring of 1846 and persisted until the House (but not the Senate) finally approved it in 1852. He sparred with President James K. Polk over patronage, supported the Compromise of 1850, and introduced constitutional amendments to provide for the direct election of the president and U.S. senators. During his tenure as a representative, he bought a larger house in Greeneville. In 1852 his fifth child, Andrew, was born; in that same year, the Whig-dominated legislature redrew the congressional districts to make Johnson's reelection nearly impossible.
Faced with this reality, Johnson made a successful race for governor, and he was reelected in 1855. The governor's office was weak by design, and Johnson accomplished very little, other than an increase in the revenues to support public schools. His principal achievement was to gain extensive public exposure, though, and thereby enhance his future career.
In the fall of 1857, the legislature's choice of Johnson as U.S. senator surprised few. Once in the Senate, he immediately proposed his Homestead Bill, and he reintroduced it two years later. The bill finally emerged from both houses of Congress in late spring 1860, only to be vetoed by President James Buchanan--much to Johnson's dismay. That year's real excitement emanated from the presidential campaign, which involved four political parties. Johnson had flirted with the possibility of his own nomination, but the breakup of the Democratic Party at the Charleston convention had ruined those plans. Johnson campaigned for John C. Breckinridge, the Southern Democratic candidate, but the state went for John Bell, the Constitutional Union nominee.
In the wake of Abraham Lincoln's election and amid threats of secession, Johnson returned to Washington. A few days later he delivered his famous speech against secession, in which he staked out his claim as a Southern Unionist. In a February 1861 referendum, Tennessee voters refused to endorse a secession convention call, yet Johnson knew he had to return home to fight against the surging tide of secession sentiment. He finally left in April, the month the Civil War began.
Back in East Tennessee, Johnson quickly allied with former political opponents such as Thomas A. R. Nelson, William G. Brownlow, Horace Maynard, and others who shared his strong support of the Union. Accompanied by these new friends, he toured the region and railed against secession and the Confederacy. After the June referendum, in which Tennessee voters embraced secession, though, a fearful Johnson hastily left the state and made his way into Kentucky and eventually back to Washington.
At that juncture he could scarcely have imagined his next assignment: military governor of Tennessee. After the Federal capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, followed by the occupation of Nashville (all in February 1862), President Lincoln sent Johnson to Tennessee for the purpose of restoring civil government and bringing the state back into the Union. Johnson arrived in Nashville in late March, and for the next three years, he struggled to accomplish this goal. In the process, he was often ruthless, dictatorial, accommodating, and strongly pro-Union. He arrested and imprisoned newspaper editors, local officials, and clergymen--anyone deemed to be a threat. But Federal and Confederate military activities in Tennessee had as much bearing upon Johnson's role as governor as anything else. Indeed, both his office and his person were jeopardized from time to time by Confederate successes in the Middle Tennessee area.
The slavery question drove a wedge between the state's Unionists, and Johnson eventually took a stance in favor of abolishing slavery, while the more conservative Unionists refused to do so. This schism also hampered the governor's efforts to restore civilian government. Moreover, Johnson set forth more stringent loyalty oaths than Lincoln required, further alienating substantial numbers of Unionists--particularly at the time of the 1864 presidential campaign.
Johnson, needless to say, had more than a passing interest in the election; after all, Lincoln had placed him on the ticket as the vice-presidential nominee. In the victorious campaign's aftermath, however, Johnson still had some unfinished business, namely, the establishment of civilian government in the state. Accordingly, he sanctioned a call for a January 1865 convention of Unionists. This unofficial Nashville gathering established dates for a referendum to abolish slavery and an election of gubernatorial and legislative officers. By late February, Johnson could delay his departure no longer if he wanted to arrive in Washington for the inauguration ceremonies. But the question of the readmission of Tennessee remained unresolved.
This longtime Democrat and resident of a Confederate state arrived in town to be sworn in as vice-president. Johnson's apparent intoxication that March day stirred negative reactions, but not for long. Six weeks later, on the night of April 14, an assassin's bullet ended Lincoln's life. The next morning, Johnson was sworn in as the seventeenth president.
The stunned nation expectantly awaited Johnson's leadership. He did not disappoint; indeed, the next several months constituted his "finest hour." With Congress adjourned, Johnson had a free hand, and he took advantage of the situation. In May, for example, he extended amnesty and pardon to all ex-Confederates who took an oath of allegiance (except for those who fell under fourteen different exemptions). Moreover, he appointed provisional governors for seven of the former Rebel states. Throughout the summer and fall months, these states went about the business of holding elections and constitutional conventions. Meanwhile, Johnson granted thousands of individual pardons to repentant ex-Confederates. When Congress convened in December, the president bragged that the restoration of the southern states had been accomplished.
But Congress had different ideas. Its members ushered in 1866 with two significant measures: the Freedmen's Bureau bill and the Civil Rights bill. Johnson vetoed both and thus assured that the year would be one of developing tension between the executive and legislative branches. Congress also approved the Fourteenth Amendment, but the president openly discouraged southern states from ratifying it. Ironically, his home state of Tennessee accepted the amendment (all other Confederate states rejected it) and thereby successfully gained readmission to the Union in July 1866. This enabled Johnson's son-in-law David Patterson to claim his seat in the U.S. Senate and permitted Tennessee to escape Reconstruction.
If 1866 was a period of developing tension, the following year was one of open warfare between the president and Congress. Johnson chose to veto every major piece of legislation, including the three Reconstruction bills, the Tenure of Office act, and the District of Columbia Franchise law. Congress had no problem overriding these vetoes. Johnson fought back in the summer of 1867 by removing two of the five district commanders and by suspending Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. These actions fueled Radical intentions to get rid of the president.
Not surprisingly, in 1868 the House voted to impeach Johnson, and the Senate convened to hear the case against him. The chief charge revolved around the president's alleged violation of the terms of the Tenure of Office act (by the removal of Stanton), but the real issue was political power. Eventually, in May, the Senate acquitted Johnson of the impeachment charges, but by then he was a greatly diminished leader. Yet he continued to veto congressional measures, including the admission of seven ex-Rebel states that had finally ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and sought to reenter the Union.
Even in his dark moments, Johnson clung to the unrealistic hope that he might be nominated for president by the Democratic Party in July. But Democrats named Horatio Seymour to be their standard-bearer, and Republicans rallied around General U. S. Grant. All knowledgeable persons accurately predicted Grant's victory in November. Meanwhile, Johnson simply marked time as he awaited the end of his troubled presidency in March 1869.
Cheered by friendly crowds, he returned to Tennessee. Shortly afterwards, a restless Johnson hit the campaign trail in order to line up support for election to the U.S. Senate. Despite his best efforts, however, he lost by a close legislative vote in October 1869. Undaunted by this setback, three years later he once more campaigned for public office; he did not seem to know what else to do. This time he sought the at-large U.S. representative seat, but finished third in the contest. That defeat only whetted his appetite for new challenges, and in 1874 he launched another bid for a U.S. Senate seat. In the January 1875 legislative voting, Johnson finally emerged victorious. "Thank God for vindication" was his ardent response. When he participated in a special session of the Senate in March, he assumed the seat vacated by his longtime foe William Brownlow. At the session's end, he returned to Greeneville, a place he had come to despise because it lacked the allure and fulfillment of the political arena. Four months later, he suffered a stroke and died on July 31. Wrapped in an American flag with his head resting on a copy of the Constitution, he was buried in Greeneville to await the judgment of history and historians.
LeRoy P. Graf, Ralph W. Haskins, and Paul H. Bergeron, eds., The Papers of Andrew Johnson, 14 vols. to date (1967- ); Peter Maslowski, Treason Must be Made Odious: Military Reconstruction and Wartime Reconstruction in Nashville, Tennessee, 1862-1865 (1978); James E. Sefton, Andrew Johnson and the Uses of Constitutional Power (1980); Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989).
Published » December 25, 2009 | Last Updated » January 01, 2010 | <urn:uuid:3c01b4ad-2a16-403a-8900-88ff23d68ac2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=706 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974888 | 2,559 | 3.171875 | 3 |
For those of you, like us, who are slow to get on the "paying bills online" bandwagon; here's a way to keep track of them so you won't miss a payment.
When the bill comes in open it immediately. Take out any advertisements and fluff, check to make sure the bill is correct, place the bill inside the envelope, and label the date to be mailed on the envelope. Simple.
This little bill holder has a history that is only appreciated and loved by me. My grandpa made this napkin holder in shop class in 1917. Grandma and Grandpa married shortly after high school graduation and used it to hold their napkins. Many years later, while visiting Grandma, we decorated it with crushed up Easter egg shells and covered it with a glue/water mixture to seal it. Grandma never broke down to buy Modge Podge because she had been making her own version for years.
My kids think it's weird looking, but every time I look at it I remember happy times with Grandma. She really taught me the joy of making things with my hands.
Maybe one day we'll pay our bills online, but for now we'll do it the old fashioned way with an old fashioned holder. | <urn:uuid:2fdcc3d1-40ca-4918-b0e8-1780ac1b13d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tidybrownwren.blogspot.com/2010/08/keeping-track-of-bill-paying.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973826 | 255 | 1.5625 | 2 |
UCB Studies Language of a Wrecked African Slave Ship Spoken by Very Few
UC Berkeley NewsCenter contributed to this report
UC Berkeley linguistics professor Lev Michael and nine graduate students studied the complex indigenous language of Garifuna, according to a UC Berkeley press release.
There are approximately 200,000 Garinagu living in Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. There are also some transplants to Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and New York City.
The group worked with native Garifuna (pronounced Ga-RIF-foo-nah) speaker Philip Tim Palacio of Rocklin, California.
The Garifuna people trace their origins to a wrecked African slave ship that washed ashore in the Caribbean in 1675. On the ship were Calinago, Carib and Arawaks who inhabited the Eastern Caribbean Islands including St. Vincent.
Intermingling of the Caribs, Africans and indigenous Arawaks resulted in the Garifuna language, which also was influenced by English, Spanish and French. Garifuna belongs to the Arawak linguistic family, whose members are mostly found in the Amazon Basin.
The language, music and dance of the Garifuna were collectively proclaimed a “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2001.
Palacio acknowledged that Garifuna can be challenging to translate. “For example, when my dad used to see any of his seven children were wasting time and not working as hard as they should, he would tell us that we were ‘ataha gañé’ (drinking eggs), ‘éleha mesu’ (peeling cats), or ‘adimureha dabarasi’ (talking pan). These expressions are similar to the English expression of ‘being in la-la land.’”
Students will present their work in a “Garifuna Fest” mini conference on campus on Monday, April 23. In the coming weeks and months, Palacio and the National Garifuna Council in his native country of Belize will print and distribute a Garifuna grammar book based on the students’ work for use by the general public.
The book will be helpful to Garifuna people in the Caribbean island country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines “who have lost the language completely, as well as people seeking to retrieve or learn the language throughout much of Central America and in the United States, too,” said Palacio.
“I am happy to do my little part to help save and retrieve the Garifuna culture,” added Palacio, noting that less than 5 percent of the population of Belize speaks Garifuna and most of those speakers are elderly.
“On a personal level,” he said, “my children do not speak Garifuna, and the same goes for the majority of Garifuna people that I know in my age group. If concrete steps are not taken to retrieve the language, it will definitely be lost.”
Take a listen to the NPR segment to hear some Garifuna language and music.
Tags: Calinago, Carib, Garifuna language, Garinagu living in Belize, Honduras, indigenous language of Garifuna, native Garifuna, Nicaragua and Guatemala, Philip Tim Palacio, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations Educational | <urn:uuid:237b83f4-55fa-48da-9a0d-f990c5a4c9c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://belize-travel-blog.chaacreek.com/2012/04/ucb-studies-language-of-a-wrecked-african-slave-ship-spoken-by-very-few/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933173 | 717 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Poverty in the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community
By Randy Albelda, M.V. Lee Badgett, Gary J. Gates, Alyssa Schneebaum
This report undertakes the first analysis of the poor and low-income lesbian, gay, and bisexual population. We find clear evidence that poverty is at least as common in the LGB population as among heterosexual people and their families. | <urn:uuid:92904e29-d3c1-490b-b4e8-ea054d80270a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-studies/poverty-in-the-lesbian-gay-and-bisexual-community/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936169 | 86 | 1.632813 | 2 |
|Critical Care News|
2011 Annual SimWars Competition Winners
An inter-professional team of nurses and physicians from the Pediatric Simulation Center at the Children's Hospital of Alabama and the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham was the winner of the annual SimWars competition at the 11th Annual International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare meeting in New Orleans in January 2011. SimWars is a competition where teams from around the world compete on stage in complex medical simulations. The competition focuses on teamwork, communication in addition to primarily adult-focused medical therapies. The winners are chosen by both audience response and expert judges. Members of the team included: Marjorie Lee White, MD, Amber Youngblood, RN, Julia Niebauer, MD, Lynn Zinkan, RN and Nancy Tofil, MD. | <urn:uuid:37dfe994-99f7-4281-9bb5-0d970ac6a1a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uab.edu/medicine/peds/criticalcare-faculty/cc-news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954159 | 165 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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