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Wine 101: The Proper Way to Taste (5 S’s)
This blog post is a summary of the first lesson I teach in all of my Wine 101 classes, and some may argue the most important…how to taste wine.
Now there are a thousand ways to taste wine, some proper and some improper. When I’m casually drinking wine, I typically observe no set method, at trade tastings the 5S method, and for formal evaluation I use the WSET approved tasting method (this is usually when I’m taking a test or studying for a test for the WSET). Why are there such formal ways to taste wine? Wine is made primarily to be enjoyed, and unfortunately sometimes during that enjoyment we forget to pay attention to whats actually going on in our mouth. Formal tasting methods help give us a structure about what we should be looking for and how our palette is reacting to a specific wine.
The 5S method is something I’ve used for quite some time. It’s been adapted from a number of articles on tasting methods, input from trade friends and partners, and adjustments I’ve made to make it easier. Simply just follow the 5 S’s…
Begin your evaluation by looking at (and through) the wine. I often hold my wine up to a white background and look for three key things: color and clarity. The color of the wine can give you an indication not only of what grape you are about to taste but the body of the wine, flavor, and sometimes even oak treatments. The clarity will alert you to any sediment in the wine.
Swirling wine is not just something wine snobs do. It actually has a very clear purpose…to break apart the aroma molecules (by hitting them against the glass) so it is easier for us to identify those aromas in the wine.
Someone once told me that everyone has a dominant nostril. I never believed it, until I tried it. My dominant nostril is my right. In this step take a sniff of the wine. Some take on long, deep sniff…others a few short ones. I play around with each wine until I can clearly identify some aromas. My beginners tip is to always shoot for the target, not the bulls-eye when identifying aromas. It is completely acceptable (at any level) to say ‘citrus fruits’ if you can identify if its lemon or lime. Try picking aroma categories: red fruit vs. black fruit, oak vs. spice, mineral vs. earth.
Here is the fun part. First, take a quick sip and then swallow (or spit) the wine immediately without thinking about it. This wakes up your palette and prepares it for the wine. After that, I issue you a challenge. Take a sip of the wine, swirl it around your mouth and pay attention to what happens in your mouth…for a full 30 seconds. Don’t speak, don’t think about anything else except that wine. Is your mouth watering from the acidity? Is the tip of your tongue awakened from the sweetness? Are you gums drying out from the tannins? After you’ve completed your 30 second test, take another sip and try to identify the flavors in the wine. Are they the same or different from the aromas you found?
This is the evaluation part of the tasting. How long is the finish (how long the entire flavor of the wine stays on your palette)? Did you like the wine? Would you buy it again? How much would you pay for it? How would you pair this with food?
Learning how to appropriately evaluate a wine is important for wine connoisseurs at any level. After all, would you continue to buy a particular flavor of ice cream if you disliked it…correct? I’ve found the 5S method a good starting point for formal wine evaluation (and a relatively quick one). But for more detailed evaluations and resources, visit the links below. | <urn:uuid:c38b8025-7886-45bb-9f0d-9c64e2a9f50f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://decantedwines.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/wine-101-the-proper-way-to-taste-5-ss/ | 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 | 0.948117 | 825 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Latest DevelopmentsClearly, advertisers are already finding a variety of ways to reach gamers. Anarchy Online has displayed several different real world products on in-game billboards, and there is a neon AXE deodorant sign baked into Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. There.com was conceived partly around the idea of product placement, with virtual Nike shoes and Levis jeans appearing in the world. EverQuest II has added a /pizza command in the game that brings up the online order form for PizzaHut.com.
What has brought this issue to the forefront recently is Massive Incorporated's creation of "the world's first video game advertising network." They have some big advertisers like Intel, Honda, and Dunkin Donuts onboard, and claim that around 40 games will be using their service by the end of 2005.
BackgroundIn the case of Web games, advertising became commonplace quite a while ago. This ranges from running a standard Internet ad in the same browser window as the game, to "advergames" which incorporate product promotion into a broad selection of free games, such as Candystand and Planters Games.
The use of ads in retail games, however, is still in its infancy, but a growing interest in online gaming is definitely one reason for the impetus. Massively multiplayer games seem to be particularly well-suited for this type of advertising, because they offers a variety of ways to place ads, they are easily and frequently updated, and they tend to have high concentrations of players in certain locations. | <urn:uuid:16f8694e-b797-492f-b1fa-10226ac37093> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://internetgames.about.com/od/gamingnews/i/ingameads.htm | 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 | 0.967326 | 308 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Bustos unveils government waste reduction bill
STERLING – U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos hopes her first piece of legislation will make government more efficient by eliminating waste and overlapping resources.
Bustos, D-East Moline, introduced the Government Waste Reduction Act on Wednesday. The bill is intended to put into practice the recommendations from two reports by the Government Accountability Office.
In a conference call Wednesday, Bustos said the recommendations would “reduce duplication of government, save taxpayer money, enhance revenue, and very importantly, root out waste in government.”
The bill would establish an independent, 15-member government waste reduction board: six representatives and six senators, three Democrats and three Republicans each; and three members chosen by the administration.
The board would develop legislative proposals that “implement the Government Accountability recommendations and send them to Congress,” Bustos said.
Congress then would vote up or down on the proposal, Bustos said.
The proposals would not cut benefits for veterans, members of the Armed Forces or seniors, she said. That includes Medicare and Social Security.
For example, Bustos noted the federal government now has 47 job training programs, 44 of which overlap.
Other examples of overlap Bustos cited are programs in the Department of Transportation. The report describes surface transportation as “fragmented, lacking clear goals and not accountable for results.”
She said more than 100 programs in five agencies within the department are involved in surface transportation programs.
The idea is to “smartly consolidate” programs, she said.
Bustos is working to find co-sponsors.
“We absolutely will be reaching out to Republican members,” she said.
Bustos represents the 17th Congressional District, which includes all of Whiteside County. | <urn:uuid:bfcb26b9-86a8-405f-b143-93cf515b04eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saukvalley.com/mobile/article.xml/articles/2013/02/06/0b4ea75f261e411fb0579d2894477d15/index.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956408 | 378 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Monsanto won EPA approval in late December to sell a transgenic corn seed, and immediately took full advantage, buying Holden's Foundation Seeds—whose seed is used in 35 percent of U.S. cornfields—for $1 billion.
But Wall Street took heed of continued protests in Europe, where consumer groups worry about the health risks of genetically engineered crops. Investment bank NatWest Securities warned that the protests threatened the company's seed sales.
When we exposed the backdoor lobbying effort to privatize Social Security ("Up in Smoke," November/December 1996), President Clinton's Social Security Advisory Council was still keeping its study of privatization quiet—and out of the 1996 presidential race.
But in early January, the council endorsed a general plan to privatize, and stories of the securities industry's massive lobbying began to surface. One council member, Thomas Jones of TIAA-CREF, the country's largest private pension system, says he was pressured by the mutual fund industry's trade group to support an extreme privatization plan. "My response," Jones told the Washington Post, "was that I was appointed as a public member of the advisory council, not as a representative of a company or an industry." | <urn:uuid:60e7952b-5ea3-4e50-96bd-0becff479329> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1997/03/update | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969373 | 243 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The proposed Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) is a post-baccalaureate, entry-level professional doctoral degree. Applicants must have completed all the requirements for a bachelor’s degree prior to matriculation into this program. The OTD program is based on the reality that quality health care practice relies on bright, flexible practitioners that are accustomed to working collaboratively across disciplines in the delivery of patient care. From the curriculum to the layout of our new health sciences facility, interprofessional didactic and clinical interactions make our program unique.
It is anticipated, with the completion of the curricular process, that the total length of the program will be approximately 115 credit hours, 3.0 years (nine semesters). The curriculum will include two, 12-week fieldwork experiences and one, 16-week Doctoral Clinical Experience. Students must successfully complete a practical examination at the completion of their second year in order to begin Fieldwork II practicum. They must also take and pass a written practice exam National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) prior to matriculation to the final clinical experience (16 weeks). Successful completion of the terminal clinical practicum sequence and evidence of meeting the competencies for entry-level occupational therapy practice must be met in order to graduate.
The proposed Occupational Therapy curriculum is based on a carefully selected and sequenced set of courses. The Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) requires the following content areas be included in any OTD curriculum:
- Foundational Content Requirements
- Basic Tenets of Occupational Therapy
- Theoretical Perspectives
- Screening, Evaluation, and Referral
- Intervention Plan: Formulation and Implementation
- Context of Service Delivery
- Leadership and Management
- Professional Ethics, Values, and Responsibilities
- Fieldwork and Doctoral-Level Experiential Component
All content areas will be met by both the didactic and clinical portions of the curriculum. The Occupational Therapy Model Curriculum referenced on the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) website was used as a resource to support the proposed OTD curriculum. Mary Baldwin College has applied for accreditation through the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education
The AOTA listed as a key objective in their 2012 Centennial Vision “increasing the number of doctoral-level academic educators.” In addition to meeting the content areas designated by ACOTE the proposed curriculum of the OTD program has an emphasis on teaching and learning. There are three specific courses geared to this area. OTDs graduating from MDCHS will demonstrate effective use of pedagogical processes in the classroom. This will provide graduates with the tools to support their return to academia after independent practice. By providing specialized course work and threading this objective throughout the curriculum, the Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences will help support the goal of the AOTA to increase the number of doctoral-level academic educators as well as fulfill the critical need for OT practitioners.
The goals of the OTD Program, in keeping with the mission of Mary Baldwin College and the Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences, are to:
- Provide the appropriate learning opportunities for students to acquire the theoretical knowledge, applicable skills, and attitudes necessary to function as an entry-level post-baccalaureate occupational therapist (OTD).
- Instill in students a commitment to the core values and ethics of the occupational therapy profession.
- Model the integrative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative nature of the health care industry through interprofessional educational opportunities in the classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings.
- Provide a learning environment that fosters critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, reflection, and personal and professional growth with a commitment to life-long learning for faculty and students.
- Provide opportunities for faculty and students to contribute positively to the health of the regional community through service, research, and clinical practice.
- Provide an environment that supports students in obtaining the knowledge and skills for understanding and applying current and emerging evidence to clinical practice, as well as participate in and utilize research to advance the scholarship of the profession.
- Support students in gaining the knowledge and skills needed to support teaching and learning in both the classroom and clinic setting. | <urn:uuid:536f78cb-2507-4c61-8ec5-31c8f77f99bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mbc.edu/health_sciences/otd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931051 | 866 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Tours and Talks
Log on to Quest
Clerks Filing Forms
The Juvenile Justice Center is a multi faceted facility which houses a
variety of agencies that interact with the St. Joseph Probate Court, Probate
Clerk, Juvenile Probation,
CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates),
Office, Juvenile Justice Residential Program, Day Reporting,
Electronic Monitoring Program, Community Transition Program "Rebuilding
the Walls", and Central Academy.
- ST. JOSEPH PROBATE COURT
handles all juvenile cases in the County concerning delinquency, abuse,
neglect, dependency, adoptions, and the establishment of paternity. The Court also
has jurisdiction over wills, estates, and guardianships. With
the establishment of paternity, both parents will be ordered to attend an
educational class about parenting and support.
- ST. JOSEPH PROBATE CLERK
serves as Clerk of the Court for filing cases, and maintains the records of
the Court. The Clerk also collects support payments.
- JUVENILE PROBATION
the Assessment/Diversion Team receives referrals from police agencies, parents, and
schools. After an intake screening, called a Preliminary Inquiry, the
officer recommends and appropriate course of action.
The Case Planning Team prepares a social history report, called a
Pre-Dispositional, on adjudicated offenders and makes recommendations to the
Court. Juveniles placed on Probation are then supervised by the Case Management or Placement Case Management Teams.
- JUVENILE DETENTION
provides both pre and post adjudication detention for persons under age 18
subject to the jurisdiction of the Court. Juveniles detained undergo a
routine medical and mental health assessment and the appropriate treatment.
The facility operates on a value based level system. The daily routine
includes education, physical exercise and value based groups. Detainees
are also offered religious services and can request to speak with the facility
chaplain or a religious leader from another faith based organization.
Visits are restricted to parents, guardians and grandparents only. Special
visits can be requested by attorneys, clergy and counselors. The number of
visits and telephone calls are based on the value based level system.
Hours: 24 hours per day operations
Application procedure: must be referred by a police department or the
Fees: user fees are assessed on parents as part of the juvenile's
commitment to detention.
- A VARIETY OF SUPPORT SERVICES ARE OFFERED BY THE COURT
CASA (COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATE)
- COMMUNITY SERVICE
voluntary work performed by juveniles for a non-profit agency or governmental
- YOUTH JUSTICE PROJECT
is a two to six month diversion program sponsored by the Probation Deparment and the University of Notre Dame. Juveniles could be given a variety of projects to
complete depending upon the circumstances of their case, including, but not limited to: community service at various agencies, peer groups, and a reading program with volunteer community mentors.
- SUBSTANCE ABUSE TESTING PROGRAM
will also take walk-in urine drug screens. Parents must sign a contract
and the information will be released only to parents. (Fee: $25 -
- COURT ORDERED SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT PROGRAM (COSAT)
is an assessment, and if appropriate, a 12 week substance abuse treatment program that includes twice weekly
group therapy for both the child and family. (Total cost: $120)
this program trains volunteers who are assigned to abuse and neglect cases
currently before the Court. The volunteer meets with all parties, and
conducts an independent investigation to provide information to the Court on
what is in the best interests of the child.
JUVENILE JUSTICE CENTER RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT PROGRAM
operated by Madison Center in a contractual arrangement with the Court;
juveniles and their families are involved in intense treatment programming for
mental health, substance abuse and truancy issues.
is a family based program providing services to juveniles and families as a diversion from placement of the juvenile in the Indiana Department of Correction, or other out of home, restrictive setting. The Day Reporting Program will provide services to juveniles who need increased supervision while on probation. As a diversion program it is a privilege for the juvenile and family to be accepted into the program. Thus, both the juvenile and the family will be initially assessed as to whether there is sufficient amenability and motivation to complete the program successfully.
ELECTRONIC MONITORING PROGRAM
a home-based monitoring program used by the Court to closely supervise the
high risk juveniles under the conditions of home arrest. (Fees: $25
initial, $10 per week) In addition, probation has recently added a
Global Positioning System (GPS) option. This option can be made
available as an alternative to detention when approved by the Court.
COMMUNITY TRANSITION PROGRAM
provides a more structured and supportive release of a juvenile from an Indiana Department of Correction facility into the community. It does this by assisting parents in increasing their abilities to establish a healthy family structure, provide for the appropriate supervision and emotional support for their juvenile. Transition services begin before the juvenile is released from the correctional facility. Parents and their juvenile engage in family therapy in order to establish goals and expectations for the juvenile after discharge. After the juvenile is released into the community, the family continues to participate in services that focus on improving relationships, strengthening skills, and stabilizing the home environment.
is a court school created by Judge Peter J. Nemeth. All children who attend the academy must be on probation and "court ordered" to attend. The school is operated by the St. Joseph Probate Court for students who have been expelled, suspended, truant or at high risk of not completing their education. It is accredited by the Indiana Department of Education.
The school currently has two different programs:
- A Graduate Equivalent Degree (GED) program that is set up to help students earn a GED where the possibility of gaining a high school diploma is in question. Students have an individualized learning program crafted for them and they work at their own pace. Required testing for the actual GED test is given monthly. Those who pass the pre-test are sent on to take the GED test.
- The credit recovery program is set up to help students, who still have the possibility of earning a high school diploma, earn the needed high school credits for graduation. Students gain their credits by utilizing the Plato learning system under the direction of an accredited teacher.
The Juvenile Justice Center is always in need of volunteers to mentor a
child, assist in tutoring detainees in detention, or to provide the appropriate
religious services to detainees while in detention. In addition, a limited
number of practicum experiences for students is also provided in the Mental
Health, Day Reporting and Probation Departments. Please contact Mr. George
Kuta, Coordinator of Human Resources, if you are interested in volunteering or
wanting to be considered for practicum experience. Mr. Kuta can be reached
at (574) 235-5335. | <urn:uuid:4b85ad96-38b6-41f0-bae5-c401d2f6bfb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jjconline.org/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931772 | 1,509 | 1.601563 | 2 |
However, we have ended up forming a view that the USPTO's goals, in terms of reduction of the backlog of pending applications, and achieving and maintaining low pendency time, are quite attainable. Furthermore, the increase in size of the examining corps proposed in the Strategic Plan is more than adequate to achieve these goals. A number of current proposals, pilot programs and other initiatives are all likely to have a positive impact.
Over the 2009 calendar year, approximately 456,000 utility patent applications were filed at the USPTO. Of these, some 240,000 (ie over half) were of foreign origin. While the total number of applications filed in 2007 and 2008 was almost identical, the number of those that were foreign-originating was 215,000 and 225,000 respectively.
In 1963 the proportion of patents granted to foreign applicants was 18%. In 2008 this figure hit 50%, and based on current filing rates we can expect this figure to continue to grow.
It is clear that in a globalised economy, the health and efficiency of the US patent system is of concern not only to US residents, but to the whole world. We demonstrated previously that the now-defunct "Final Rules", seeking to restrict continuations, requests for continued examination (RCE), and overall claim numbers, struck directly at the applicant behaviours having the greatest impact upon the USPTO's ability to reduce the backlog. However, they would have achieved this at the expense of sacrificing some of the genuine needs of users of the patent system.
Director David Kappos is therefore to be commended for abandoning the Final Rules, and seeking to address the backlog of over 700,000 applications awaiting a first office action in a variety of more creative ways. His consultative approach to the process is also admirable. (On this point, we note in passing that the public meeting on the proposed three-track examination process is to be held this Tuesday, 20 July 2010, and will be simultaneously webcast - details here.)
The United States is one of the few jurisdictions in the developed world that has historically provided applicants with very little control over the progress of their patent applications. Relatively accessible expedited examination procedures are available in a number of patent offices, including those of Europe and Australia. Additionally, in jurisdictions with a seperate examination request requirement (eg Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, China, South Korea) applicants may elect to file an early request for examination, rather than waiting for the deadline to do so (which arises between three and seven years from filing, depending on the national laws).
Until the advent of recent initiatives, such as the various Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programs, the Green Technologies initiative and Project Exchange, the only available avenues for acceleration of processing were generally considered to be either excessively onerous, or unreasonably prejudicial to applicants' interests, or both.
REDUCING THE BACKLOG
Ultimately, however, the backlog of applications can only be reduced and then, more importantly, kept at bay, if there are enough examiners to handle the overall workload. At the end of fiscal year 2009, the USPTO employed 6,143 examiners. The recently-released Draft USPTO Strategic Plan for FY 2010-2015 proposes hiring 250 "IP-experienced" examiners in FY 2010, and a further 1000 in each of FY 2011 and 2012. However, with the attrition rate in FY 2009 being around 500 examiners, unless this can be successfully addressed as well, it is possible that the size of the examination corps by the end of FY 2012 may be no more than about 7,500. This does not seem, on its face, like enough to cope with a 700,000 application backlog.
Simple Queueing Model
We have described a simple model of the USPTO backlog as a queueing system, in which the filing of new applications represents "arrivals" to the queue, and the disposal of applications by the examining corps represents "service" of the queue. In this respect, both "arrival rate" and "service time" are statistically-distributed, but at any given point in time each has a mean value that depends, in the simplest case, on the rate at which applicants are filing new applications, and the size and efficiency of the examining corps.
In our simple model, we proposed treating RCEs as new arrivals, on the basis that the filing of an RCE effectively restarts the Examiner's clock for processing of the application. Our own experience suggests, as one might expect, that the Examiner does not have to do as much work after an RCE as prior to a first action on the merits, due to being already familiar with the application. However, this probably does not alter the general utility of the model, since the result may be simply to bring the effective average service time down a little.
Parameters of the Model
In order to apply the model, we need to know, during some representative period:
- the number of new applications filed;
- the number RCEs filed; and
- either the average service time (ie aggregate time spent by an examiner from picking up an application for the first time, until abandonment or the filing of an RCE by the applicant) or the number of services completed (ie allowances and Final Actions leading to rejections or RCEs).
A more difficult statistic to obtain is the average "service time", ie total time spent by an Examiner on each application. In their book The Patent Crisis and How the Courts Can Solve It Dan Burk and Mark Lemley use a number of sources to arrive at a likely figure of around 18 hours, although it would appear that the time varies significantly depending upon the technology, perhaps between 9 hours and 32 hours (Burk and Lemley, p 23 n 10).
Based on these estimates, and assuming that examiners have other responsibilities in the Office, we might assume that the service rate is about two applications per week per examiner. With 6,143 examiners. this results in a total average service rate of 12,285 applications per week.
Following the alternative "number of services" approach, the total number of utility patent disposals for FY 2009 was around 485,000. Again adding to this the 174,000 "services" that led to RCEs, the total is 659,000, equivalent to 12,800 applications per week, or 2.06 per examiner per week.
Both approaches therefore give roughly the same result, which gives us some confidence that our assumptions are reasonable, and that we are not missing any significant data.
Both figures are also higher than our estimated arrival rate of 12,150 per week. Since this "excess capacity" can be used to address the backlog, we would expect to see the total number of applications awaiting examination to be slightly reduced over this period. | <urn:uuid:b55a6474-222a-4fae-95e1-b606a0c08878> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.patentology.com.au/2010/07/statistics-ii-how-many-examiners-does.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959304 | 1,404 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Every secondary school is to get a Holocaust specialist to ensure that the subject is taught comprehensively and sensitively.
One teacher from every school will be offered a place on a Holocaust education training course to combat racism and intolerance.
TVNL Comment: What are they so scared of? This is very disturbing. They seem desperately frightened that people are questioning the details of the Holocaust. They have made it a crime to question it, and now they are placing agents at schools. This is scary. | <urn:uuid:1de28018-f4e8-4781-9437-326cb8cb4118> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/news/of-special-interest/5648-every-school-to-get-holocaust-specialist-under-anti-racism-initiative.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980143 | 99 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Politics, Taxes, The Constitution | Tags: Presidential Arrogance, The Constitution, The Fiscal Cliff
I wish you a Happy New Year in spite of an upcoming year that is not promising.
We dropped over the fiscal cliff at Midnight, and then the Senate passed their 157 page fiscal cliff bill which everybody passed without reading it. Didn’t anyone learn a lesson about passing unread bills? Obama is triumphal because he accomplished his two main goals. He stuck it to the Republicans and can now call it ‘a tax cut’ that he delivered to the middle class (Don’t fall for that pathetic meme), and he forced Republicans to forgo their insistence on not raising taxes.
Republicans want to keep taxes low for everyone, because low taxes will help the economy to grow. New layoffs have been coming at a furious rate as more small businesses let workers go, or shift more of their workforce to part-time to avoid the massive fines imposed by ObamaCare on those companies who have more than 50 workers. People and businesses respond to incentives. The rich will rearrange their finances, or move to a location more friendly to capital. Businesses will invest in more labor-saving devices — more telephone trees, robotic voices, more automated check-out stands, more factory innovations that save the cost of labor and it’s benefits. And although taxes will go up, the revenue will not yield as much as expected.
Republicans recognize government jobs as just another expense that will require increased taxes from the public, and yes, the middle class. They believe in smaller, less complicated government that regards its tasks as those enumerated in the Constitution, rather than one that feels it’s role is regulating our showers, our lightbulbs, our appliances. (Did you know there are new regulations for dishwashers that reduce energy and reduce the amount of water used from 6.5 gallons down to 5 gallons. This will, of course dramatically raise the cost of a dishwasher, and you will not have it long enough to realize any savings in either water or electricity).
Republicans don’t believe that it is the government’s task to control health care, nor to tell the healthcare industry just what care they may give to a patient. Republicans believe a lot of stuff that is very hard to explain in short slogans or clever bumper stickers. They think deeply about their philosophy, the meaning of the Constitution, and the maintenance of liberty.
Democrats believe in the maintenance of power. Theirs. They want to win.
Their fondest desire is to end the Republican party and all its influences. Including the U.S. Constitution, singularly restrictive on what powers are granted to the government by the American people. Democrats don’t like those restrictions that Republicans are always nattering about.
Obama has not the slightest intention of cutting back on spending in any way. He doesn’t see any reason for doing so. Economist Alan Reynolds remarked that “Barack Obama does not understand economics and refuses to listen to anyone who does.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office puts it this way:
“With the population aging and health care costs per person likely to keep growing faster than the economy (gross domestic product), the United States cannot sustain the federal spending programs that are now in place with the federal taxes (as a share of GDP) that it has been accustomed to paying.” $1 in spending cuts ($15 billion) for every $41 billion in tax increases ($620 billion).
The compliant (suck-up) media has accepted the Obama narrative that it it’s only Republican rigidity that makes negotiations so difficult and leads to deadlock, because Republicans want to protect the rich. This means that there is even less incentive for Obama and Congressional Democrats to engage in genuine bargaining. But the media has not performed their job as government watchdog for many years.
We are not getting a genuine debate that we deserve. The president is lying about having cut a trillion dollars from the budget. He increased it by a trillion. The President is playing ugly Chicago politics in the national arena. And Chicago, the murder capital of the country, is the nation’s most dysfunctional city. Obama’s already overbearing arrogance will swell even more. No leadership. No understanding.
You can’t have Big Government and low taxes. Doesn’t work. The president will have to come after the middle class, because that’s where the money is. The payroll tax returns. They’re already talking about your 401-ks as a source of revenue. More to come.
2 Comments so far
Leave a comment | <urn:uuid:75b57eb2-8bba-486a-93ed-2765adaf0abe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americanelephant.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/your-taxes-are-going-up-and-thats-only-the-beginning/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=aa068c7847 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954812 | 966 | 1.648438 | 2 |
(covers information from several alternate timelines)
|Crew complement:||at least 350|
|Armament:||Hypothermic charges, grapplers|
|Vessel of the class, deploying grapplers|
- You may also be looking for Vidiian starship (2371).
The Vidiian starship was a massive starship utilized by the Vidiians in 2371 and 2372. This class of vessel operated with a crew of well over three hundred, and was armed with hypothermic charges and grapplers, which was used to access captured ships.
In an alternate timeline, Kes contacted one of these vessels which was used to herd USS Voyager towards a subspace vacuole where it ambushed the ship. In this 2371 timeline, Kes betrayed Voyager in exchange for transport back to her homeworld. (VOY: "Fury")
In 2372, the USS Voyager was attacked by such a ship when it was trapped in a plasma drift. At the time, Voyager was experiencing the effects of a subspace divergence field, which effectively created two ships, one of which was unseen to the Vidiians.
The Vidiians attacked one of the Voyagers and destroyed its weapons array, before maneuvering the ship into grappling range and boring an access route through Voyager's hull on deck five, before Voyager was boarded by over 347 Vidiians.
Later that year, when Harry Kim suggested to Tuvok that they should contact the Vidiians in order to help find a cure for a virus contracted by Janeway and Chakotay, Tuvok reminded Kim that Voyager was recently responsible "for the destruction of a Vidiian ship, an act which killed over three hundred of their people. That alone makes it unwise for us to contact them." (VOY: "Resolutions") | <urn:uuid:38753460-e90f-4d84-90e2-37fbfc6cf355> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Vidiian_starship_(2371-2372) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960071 | 375 | 1.773438 | 2 |
TOXIC! DO You Have These Toxins In Your Home?
I have to admit, I was naive to all the chemicals and toxins lurking in my home and putting not only my health in danger, but my children’s health! Once I started looking at what those chemicals were and how they effected our health, I decided to make a change! There are so many choices as to what you can get that will make a healthier home, but have you ever considered that some of these manufacturing companies still produce bleach and other harmful chemicals? Why would anyone want to buy a so-called “green” product from a company that is clearly not as green as they say they are! Not only are we supporting companies who still manufacture dangerous chemicals, but our children are exposed to potential health hazards such as asthma, cancer, and other illnesses! Educate yourself and your family~ get these toxins in your home OUT!
Top Harmful Toxins In Your Home
1) Toilet bowl cleaners are one of the most dangerous chemicals, containing chlorine and hydrochloric acid. These chemicals are harmful to health just by breathing them in.
2) Carpet cleaner solution is found to be extremely toxic to children. Anti-dust-mite carpet treatments sometimes contain tannic acid or benzyl benzoate, both of which are skin, eye and respiratory irritants. Deodorizing powders often contain fragrances that irritate asthmatic lungs as well. These toxins can also cause cancer and liver damage
3) Glass cleaners contain ammonia have been known to effect the respiratory system and irritate skin and eyes.
4) Laundry detergents, pesticides and household cleaners have been linked to breast cancer.
5) Bleach is linked to reproductive problems in men and behavioral problems in children.
6) Formaldehyde, phenol, benzene and toluene are found in common household cleaners, cosmetics, beverages, fabrics and cigarette smoke. The are cancer causing and damaging to the immune system.
7) Household cleaners are 3 times more likely to cause cancer than the outdoor air you breathe! | <urn:uuid:df9e5f5f-0a9a-4c25-80fd-d469aebdad4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amberlymauszycki.com/toxins-in-your-home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969903 | 432 | 1.757813 | 2 |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama and his Republican rivals are focusing on economic inequality as an issue in the 2012 campaign as they argue about which of them can best help the middle class.
It comes as studies have shown a widening gap between rich and poor, even as unemployment remains stubbornly high.
Obama has called boosting middle-class opportunity "the defining issue of our time," but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accuses Obama of "class warfare."
There are risks for Obama and the GOP in the debate. Obama could get blamed because his economic policies haven't solved the country's problems in his first term.
On the other hand, voters agree with Obama that taxes should rise on the very wealthy.
|Get the ingredients you need to cook with Rach all week long.|
|Full length exclusive concerts from hot artists.|
|Take a break!
Classic Pacman, Frogger, Asteroids and more.
Sell almost anything locally. | <urn:uuid:6a77f7bf-a46e-423b-8b85-6e59502df71a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtvy.com/news/nation/headlines/Economic_Inequality_an_Issue_for_2012_Campaign_136187928.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974198 | 198 | 1.8125 | 2 |
There is this song by The Decemberists that reminds me of what Earth Day used to stand for, and what it stands for still for some all year long. I don’t think it really has anything to do with the intention of the songwriter(s), but that chorus will get stuck in my head… and I will have these images pop in to go with the music. And I can’t help but think they are speaking directly about fighting for change.
So that is what I am going to bring to you today. No calls to buy the latest and greatest eco-friendly something, even though I got numerous pitches to do just that. For Earth Day. No calls for specific action. Just this…
These are the three reasons I worry about screen-time, oil spills, water conservation, tragedies half a world away, and BPA and other chemicals with long term health effects we are still only just beginning to realize.
These are the reasons I will fight for chemical safety reform, to keep Nestlé away from our water, to pass legislation that bans BPA in children’s products and then will hopefully go farther, women’s rights which still leave less to be desired, and simply for change.
So, this Earth Day, I want you to find what you are fighting for. I want you to celebrate those reasons today, just simply enjoy them. Have fun. Get outside. Get dirty. Run, laugh, jump. Read. Write. Play. The real work can begin tomorrow because there is a long road ahead.
I know that if I am truly fighting for those little faces up there, I have to do it every day with purpose and meaning. Earth Day began as a wonderful way to bring people together to raise awareness about environmental issues. It was critical for people to realize common ground from all aspects of a fledgling environmental movement and to bring more of those issues to the forefront.
Earth Day now is really a celebration. So go out and celebrate. You know there will be work to do tomorrow. How can we let those little faces down?
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
~Native American Proverb
Why do you fight?
Listen: 09 This Is Why We Fight | <urn:uuid:7931dc51-c828-424d-8305-6994e97cab41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.almostallthetruth.com/parenting/fight-to-make-earth-day-every-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966072 | 466 | 1.515625 | 2 |
London: Digital storage of photographs is fast turning treasured albums into relics.
Eight out of 10 people in Britain now prefer to store photos on social networking sites or just on their laptops rather than print them out and stick them in an album, says a new survey.
While nine in 10 of Britons own a camera, only 40 per cent of them print out pictures - and that too less than 10 per cent of the photos captured on cameras, reports the Daily Mail.
Instead, more than half or 52 per cent prefer to display them on social networking sites.
The survey, by PC World, also uncovered that people are far more likely to treasure a favourite holiday picture (88 per cent) over the birth of a child (51 per cent) or family get-together (65 per cent).
Almost twice as many people would rather save their laptop or mobile phone from a house fire compared to a family photo album. | <urn:uuid:1cc02610-89a4-4975-b263-483258bdc5a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ibnlive.in.com/news/photo-albums-fast-turning-into-a-relic/136619-11.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947152 | 187 | 1.710938 | 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 |
December 23, 2011
When Malik Rhasaan first visited the Occupy Wall Street park at Liberty Square, he noticed that there was a lack of people of color. “Something needed to be done and I started the hash tag #occupythehood and from there it kind of swelled,” said Rhasaan, getting support from everyone from “professors down to cats who just got out of prison.”
December 20, 2010
On Dec. 9, 2010, thousands of prisoners in at least six Georgia state prisons initiated the largest prisoner strike in U.S. history, uniting across racial boundaries to demand an immediate end to the cruel and dehumanizing conditions that damage prisoners, their families and the communities they return to. Readers are invited to add their names to this solidarity statement. | <urn:uuid:cc34c9eb-e732-4551-b75f-7348b44e1bd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sfbayview.com/tag/paradise-gray/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950762 | 165 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Forcible Return of IDPs to Villages Regardless of Safety Concerns
Nona Suvaryani, Tbilisi
Internally Displaced People residing in the building of the Rustavi Vocational Institute # 17 has been forced to vacate the building prior to November 10. However, those who fled from the village of Knolevi in the Kareli district are still afraid of returning to their village. They state it is dangerous to go home because de-mining process has not been completed as yet and there is still unexploded ordnance. In addition, the village of Knolevi borders with Znauri district that is controlled by Ossetians.
Despite the clear and apparent danger, IDPs are offered no other option but to return to their village. In some instances there is no choice, as they have not received the little aid from the UNHCR in recent days. As officials from the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation explain this aid is now being sent directly to the villages. The IDPs are sure that in doing so, the authorities are actually expelling them from where they have found shelter in compact settlements. However, the method is mild, as IDPs officials are noted for using more severe forms coercion and intimidation of their eviction.
Ledy Birtvelashvili, an IDP from Knolevi: “We have nothing to eat, not even bread. They sent criminals to bully us - they tore our curtains and state if we do not leave immediately, we will find ourselves in the street. As they state, we have to do what is necessary our hold our positions. And this is not the first time I had to follow orders, as I have served Georgian army for 7 years. I have spent 19 in this war but now not me but those boys should reinforce the positions against those who carried out raids on us. If Georgia has such brave fellows let them have come to our village and stand besides us, and if they would have done that when there was war then we would not be facing such conditions.”
As residents of Knolevi stated the situation had become even tenser since Georgian police units have deployed in their area.
Natia Tsetskhladze, an IDP from Knolevi: “We are more unprotected now because since police was deployed in the region, Ossetians are shooting at us directly.”
Darejan Tsikubadze, a resident of Knolevi who is over 60 years-of-age, has already returned to her native village. She considers it as being an obligation but she categorically refuses to allow her daughter back to the village.
“They are shooting at night. Our side does not respond to the fire but Ossetians are still not stopping in their activities. I have to be in my village but I will not take my daughter home. Ossetians continue to threaten an attack on the village. Although our police are deployed in the village we know that nobody among them will actually manage to help and that leaves us to deal face-to-face to Ossetians on our own. The Police are only deployed behind us and not between us and the separatists. Demining specialists have not entered our village as yet. IDPs are still unable to take farm equipment to the field for fear of explosive devices, and this situation makes it impossible for carry out fall plowing operations.”
Darejan Tsikubadze states that the IDPs who had their houses destroyed in the war are being offered a sum of 15,000 USD as financial compensation for them to build new houses. However, many locals have not taken up the offer because the actual cost of construction needs much more money. In this situation people are compelled to shelter their neighbors who have their houses survived.
Since IDPs have not received the food, it has become very difficult for the pregnant Ledy Birtvelishvili to live in the shelter in Rustavi. However, she does not want to return to the village. Ledy is afraid because of the stories she has heard from her relatives and neighbors.
“One week ago, the other side started shooting at midnight and stopped only at 4:00 AM. Our village is located on the border. I can tell the color of the eyes of Russians who are standing at the checkpoint on the other side. Let them not give food for our men, but let them give aid to the women and children. As soon as we are sure there is peace in our village, we will go there. What the hell do we need in Rustavi? There is no single tree here while our people have left huge gardens with plenty of fruit trees in them. We spent 19 years in war but never abandoned anything. Now we were kicked out from there. They were burning our houses and people were harassed. When I called at the police station in Kareli they replied: “You should take care of yourselves now.”
Vladimer Jugheli, the head of the regional police department, has information about the situation in the village.
“There is a police station working in Knolevi. Special unit and observers are there too. There is no similar danger observed there. Nobody has fired at our police for almost one month and half. As for demining process it finished 10-12 days ago. People who are in the village have not faced similar problem. If some incidents happen there without reporting to me, I do not know. Any person can return home. Those who does not want because of danger, they should speak up to the end about the real threat.”
According to Ledy Birtvelishvili Merab Gelashvili, coordinator of the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation, creates more problems for IDPs and compel them to leave the building.
Merab Gelashvili, who we got in touch with yesterday, stated that return process of the IDPs might be delayed for sometime because it really was danger. He was sure that the issue would be solved in favor of the IDPs. However, he reported us about completely different decision. IDPs are to return to Knolevi because life there is safe.
“Generally it was ordered to send all IDPs from the villages on the list to their houses. They should take part in the reconstruction of their own houses. The life in Knolevi is dangerous but similar difficulties are in every village. In this case everybody can complain about it and will not return home.”
As Merab Gelashvili stated nobody will expel IDPs from the building of Rustavi Vocational Institute # 17 however they will not receive food from the UNHCR. IDPs have to choose: either to return to mined and dangerous village or to starve in safe Rustavi.
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No to Violence – Assembly in Batumi Georgia Ranked 94th Place among Best Countries to Be a Mother A Citizen Wounded When Combating Crime in Rustavi GNCC Members Got 331 00 GEL As Bonus Last Year Chairman of Parliament Talked About the Activities Security Members Archive
In 2005, American researchers estimated that political advertisements on TV have short (two-week) impact on voters. But the result is so rapid andArchive
How the detention process of former senior officials is going on; whether political motivation is detected in it and will the new initiativeArchive
How do you think, did the political prisoners, released by the Parliament of Georgia short time ago, deserve freedom? | <urn:uuid:27120a75-df21-4a6d-8f23-271d267a6d32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.humanrights.ge/index.php?a=main&pid=7412&lang=eng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981092 | 1,537 | 1.59375 | 2 |
HB 416/LM/CI (BR 1483) - J. Crenshaw
AN ACT relating to crimes and punishments.
Amend KRS 532.031, relating to hate crimes to change the name of the offense to committing a hate crime; reduce the number of underlying offenses; provide for a jury trial on the matter of whether the crime was committed as a result of hate; change the penalty to a Class D felony for a first offense and Class C felony for each subsequent offense.
Feb 10-introduced in House
Feb 11-to Judiciary (H) | <urn:uuid:7db1d6cd-50cf-4020-b538-62c6b1ecf7a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/03rs/HB416.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942563 | 118 | 1.8125 | 2 |
- Sketch me a revolution
February 16, 2013
A graveyard in Iran. Despair in Palestine. Hitler in manga. Comics Journalism is in a unique position to capture the darkness and the detail.
- 1947, A Lahore Story
February 16, 2013
Lahore Literary Fest doesn't want to be controversial for the sake of being controversial.
- The gentle atheist
February 9, 2013
British writer Alain de Botton, described often as a philosopher of everyday life. In his new book, he advocates a radical kind of atheism - one that…
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Landscape of pluralism
One of the marks of a thinker is that he understands man's place in a larger social context. So, a great musician is not merely an artiste in isolation but one who sees the role of music in society's evolution;and an architect isn't just a design specialist working with a client's specifications but also an environmentalist, a humanitarian, a historian and an anthropologist. It is this expansive vision that has dominated the work of Rahul Mehrotra, architect, urban planner, conservationist, writer and, of late, Harvard professor. For him, the built environment is far more than a culmination of brick and mortar. This is reflected in his latest book Architecture in India since 1990 which maps the landscape of pluralism that makes India so visually unique.
The hefty book looks at architecture in India that has emerged post-liberalization - an India filled with contradictions, complexities and massive transformations which often manifest in what he calls "bizarre visual and physical adjacencies" all of which are equally valid and relevant. For example, an evocative photograph showing slums right next to highrises speaks of how this duality has come to characterise most Indian cities.
Mehrotra writes about how, on one hand, there is this desperate desire to fit into a perceived global paradigm - what he calls "expressions of impatient capital" - which has unleashed the generic glass and chrome on the urban landscape, but on the other there is also a growing local resistance by architects moving towards sustainable models and local craftsmen - a movement that had been pioneered by Nari Gandhi and Laurie Baker. For example, Cidade de Goa hotel in Goa, designed by Charles Correa, and the School of Architecture in Ahmedabad, by Balkrishna Doshi, demonstrated the potential for extremely localized architecture, sensitive to climate and culture.
While most architecture books either focus on design or on the gorgeous homes of the elite, Mehrotra uses architecture as a metaphor for India. Modernity coexists with tradition. Generic looks grapple with local sensibilities. Of late, in keeping with a neo-spiritual and religious revivalism, ancient designs and practices are being drawn back into modern spaces, the biggest example being the Vedic principles of Vaastu Shastra. He documents some of the interesting new religious monuments that have sprung up across India - from the Bahai Temple in Delhi to the Vipassana Pagoda in Mumbai.
The book walks you through modern Indian architecture, visually documenting and commenting on how architecture reflects India's struggle with identity. For the British colonisers, architecture had a symbolic function - an assertion of authority. Naturally, the immediate architectural response to Independence was a revivalist phase throughout India, writes Mehrotra. Le Corbusier was invited to design Chandigarh and his proposals became "the symbol for the modern, independent India of Nehru's imagination". Over the decades, the state played a lesser and lesser role and regional identities took precedence over any one singular national identity.
At the very end, Mehrotra makes a plea for pluralism, especially in the face of globalisation, applauding how "diverse aspirations express themselves in completely different ways architecturally" and this is what distinguishes India's architecture from that of, say, China or the Middle East.
If there is one flaw in the book, it is that the typeface is a bit minute. Then again, the indefatigable Mehrotra has so much to say, that perhaps that was the only way to get it all in and still ensure that the handsome publication fits on your coffee table.
Register for Full Access to the Crest Edition
Don't have a Facebook Account? Sign up for Times Crest here. | <urn:uuid:490b304a-2199-4a08-bf1d-af251aded943> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timescrest.com/culture/landscape-of-pluralism-5997 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945425 | 902 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The Swedes love the black people and the brown people and the red people and the yellow people. That’s why they invite thousands of them in every year.
They love the Muslims and the Sikhs and the voodoo doctors. They love the Somalis and the Turks and the Pakistanis and the Samoans.
But there’s a limit of tolerance beyond which not even the Swedes will go. Want to guess where they draw the line?
Woman turned away by doctor — for being American
An American woman has been refused treatment by a doctor in Blekinge in southern Sweden because of her nationality. The woman’s husband has now reported the incident to the Medical Responsibility Board.
Valery Johansson, who lives in a small town just outside Nashville, Tennessee, was in Sweden to celebrate Christmas with her husband’s family.
On Christmas Day, worried that she may have contracted strep throat, she sought medical help. Her husband and niece made an appointment for her at a clinic in the town of Karlshamn.
“We went up there and the nurses were really nice. They did some swab tests, which they then passed on to a doctor,” Johansson told The Local.
But when the American woman, accompanied by her husband and niece, went to meet the doctor in his treatment room, he declined to examine her.
Rather than introduce himself, the doctor waved the patient’s papers and shouted “she doesn’t have strep throat, she doesn’t have strep throat”. He then added that he would not treat her.
“He said he didn’t like Americans,” said Johansson.
He also disliked hearing English spoken in his treatment room and soon walked out.
“We just couldn’t believe it. We were left standing there with our mouths hanging open,” said Johansson.
This doctor is a piece of work, eh? But there’s more:
- - - - - - - - - -
According to Johansson, the doctor was a Palestinian who objected to American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Mrs. Johansson, fortunately, knows how to play the game by Swedish rules:
In the report Johansson has claimed that she was discriminated against on ethnic grounds.
Before returning to the United States at the beginning of January she also intends reporting the incident to the American Embassy in Stockholm.
Stockholm. The worldwide center of human rights. The Olympus of Moral Superiority. The home of those high-minded folks who love to lecture the American barbarians on their misguided, ignorant, and benighted ways.
What goes around comes around.
Hat tip: LN. | <urn:uuid:308539ad-7fc2-432e-88dd-9f946aad732a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/12/those-racist-swedes.html | 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 | 0.975543 | 572 | 1.5625 | 2 |
HEARING IMPAIRED: Special Smoke Detector Installed
A second Des Moines homeowner received a specialized smoke detector Friday.
Local electricians installed an alarm made especially for people who are hard of hearing or deaf in a home on the 6200 block of Southwest 13th street.
The detector uses strobe lights to signal a fire in the home.
A grant from the State Fire Marshall’s office paid for the detector, which is hard wired, making it about 20-percent more reliable than a battery operated detector.
The first alarm was installed in May.
Fire officials say there are others waiting to be installed but the department is having trouble finding certified electricians to do the installations. | <urn:uuid:60c14f49-26fb-406c-9724-998ef546c46f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whotv.com/2012/09/28/hearing-impaired-special-smoke-detector-installed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954659 | 144 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Have you every diagrammed a sentence? I can still remember my eighth grade English teacher filling the entire blackboard with complicated diagrams of compound-complex sentences. I can still hear the sound of the chalk hitting the board, can still see the chalk dust flying.
Very cool, sentence diagramming. In fact, if you can correctly diagram a complicated sentence, you've got a COMPLETE grasp on sentence structure. It's an excellent skill (and one that I don't claim to have mastered).
Yes, there's an analogy in all this.
Each of us has our own "diagram", as it were, of the people who have influenced us along the way. From the first person who said, "You write well!" to the first-prize win in the seventh grade writing contest, to the first request for a partial manuscript. Everyone has a role, and our journey would look vastly different if even ONE name were removed.
I can't make a diagram here. But I can list some highlights from my own journey:
1. My third grade English teacher, who helped me compile a collection of poems and short stories to present to the school library at the end of the year.
2. My sister, who listened to me read pages of my diary-of-a-nineteenth-century-girl-who-sounded-alarmingly-like-Laura-Ingalls, and whose pages I listened to as well. (Hundreds of handwritten pages!)
3. DAVE, who read several chapters of my very first novel and taught me, patiently, that I had no idea what "point of view" meant.
4. MY AGENT FROM HELL, whose nightmare of a role led to the kick-in-the-butt I needed to really LEARN the industry--and ultimately land an agent who was right for me.
5. ELIZABETH, a then-assistant at an agency whom I randomly emailed for advice about extricating myself from the AGENT FROM HELL, simply because I liked the sound of her bio. (And she gave me gracious, helpful advice.)
6. JODI, whose first critique of my work was, as you already know, the catalyst of my moving from "consciously incompetent" to "consciously competent".
7. LAUREN, who understood my story, requested revisions, and ultimately passed on offering representation. She has been an integral, irreplaceable part of my journey.
8. BETH, who showed me what was broken.
9. JOSH. Well, yeah.
If I sat down with a twelve-by-eighteen sheet of paper and some colored pencils, my diagram would be more complex than the simple list above. So many voices of encouragement (and discouragement, too); so many pieces to fit together! I should really sit down and do it some day.
Your turn! Who has influenced your journey? There are probably dozens of names. But if you could choose the top three, who would they be?
Loving this journey! I know you are, too.
Well, most days. *grin* | <urn:uuid:64674e3d-036c-4ebc-abb0-b9ea979ccab1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/2011/04/friday-fricassee_29.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960775 | 649 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Laptops All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-14092-5
This is described as ten books in one and best of all being for notebooks you could even sneak your notebook out with you to try a few of what it says while catching some sun.
This takes you through the initial choices right through to getting help to solving those annoying problems.
The ten books included by Corey Sandler are Choosing the Best Laptop, Setting Up Your Laptop, Running Basic Windows Operations, Using Common Applications, Playing With Multimedia, Managing Your Power Supply, Upgrading Your Laptop, Networking and Linking to the Internet, Protecting Your Laptop, Troubleshooting Common Problems.
A total of 772 pages and 37 chapters spread over the seven books. The style gets things across and even subjects that the thought were beyond you become understandable with the simple way that Dummies books explain things.
I am pleased to say that the odd cartoon that has been missing in some resent offerings are here and a decent chuckle often helps stop brain overload.
The 30 pages at the end that form the index and once you have read the book then the index should soon point you to the section that needs revision for whatever the problem you face.
Books (like phones) are a nightmare to quote and all I suggest is that you search around yourself but remember if buying online find out if p&p is included or extra as this offering weights over a kilo. Amazon for example will ship for free for £12.99 :
Age-Proof Your Brain ISBN 978-0-00-723310-6
Mostly the books I look at are computer orientated, here is one that is likely to appeal to all especially those of more mature years. If you are like me you go into a room and once you get there wonder why you came. If you are lucky a few seconds thought and it comes back to you. If not you leave and maybe then it comes back to you.
Tony Buzan the author claims that you can 'Sharpen your memory in only 7 days' I have tried a piece of software he had a hand in and while my language skills are still poor I certainly remember more French than I though I did or maybe his skills output in that package really taught me it. (Collins French for Beginners 27-4-08)
This is 356 pages and you remember by trying some of the exercises in the book. At first your results will probably (if like me) be poor but mine anyway improved. The book is laid out over a seven week period and while some improvements should show is less you really should complete the course. Happily for me the answers to some of the puzzles are shown in the back.
Certainly I currently seem to go into rooms less often without knowing why, coincidence, maybe, only time will tell. Price from the link below is currently £8.99 including shipping.
|add to del.icio.us||Digg this review| | <urn:uuid:1e4a535b-1fa2-4780-9726-5ec11e7bf813> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gadgetspeak.com/gadget/article.rhtm/755/533472/Laptops_All-In-One_Desk_Reference_for_Du.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959955 | 622 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Also in Gwardamanġa is the Villa Gwardamanġa (also referred to as the Villa G'Manġa), a large two-storey building, best known for its elaborate porch which is reached by a flight of steps from each side. The first has a convex configuration over which is a wide elliptical arch. Scroll corbels support the lintels of the sides, while a square-headed doorway is set in an elliptical arched recess. On top of the porch are a series of segmentally arched, louvred windows. Other features include semi-circular wrought iron balconies on each side of the porch, louvred windows and a 'remissa' doorway. The façade lacks decoration apart from a balustraded parapet wall.
The Villa was leased by Lord Louis Mountbatten in about 1929. At various times between 1946 and 1953, the then Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth II, stayed at the villa while her fiancé, and later husband, The Duke of Edinburgh was stationed in Malta as a serving Royal Navy officer. Philip and Elizabeth lived in Malta for a period between 1949 and 1951. (Malta is the only foreign country in which the Queen has ever lived.) It has been suggested that it is here that her son Charles was conceived. The Queen re-visited the villa during her state visit to Malta in 1992.
- "Mystery of baby gender patterns". BBC News. April 26, 2002. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
- "Towns and Villages in Malta and Gozo: Tal-Pietà".[dead link]
- "Scheduled Property - Gwardamanġa". MEPA. Retrieved February 14, 2006.[dead link]
- "Map circa 1865".
- "Melbourne Argus 1950".
- "MEPA Schedule Pieta".
|This Malta location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.| | <urn:uuid:7039520c-fcbd-4943-9e54-84d4c68eaefa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardamangia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950088 | 412 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Marengo with Napoleon
What really famous horses can you name? There are few horses that cross all boundaries and become heroes in the minds of both the wider equestrian community and the non-equestrian world. Horses that would continually feature in quiz questions on more than two continents! High up on most lists would be Alexander the Great’s Bucephalus, Napoleon’s grey Marengo, Roy Roger’s
palomino Trigger, and Anna Sewell’s heart breaking creation Black Beauty.
DRESSAGE AND EVENTING
From Dressage the list is short. Possibly included would be those two multi Gold medalists, Swiss rider Christine Stuckleburger’s giant Granat and from Germany, Nicole Uphoff’s supercharged Rembrandt and the current wonder horse Totilas, ridden by Edward Gal. From Horse Trials the spring heeled pony and Pan Am Gold medalist Theodore O’Connor, ridden by Karen O’Connor of the USA, broke all records for column inches in the papers until his tragic accident and death last year. Karen had previously found similar fame with the Irish bred Biko, who was voted the USET horse of the century and was Chelsea Clinton’s favourite horse. I am proud to have found Biko as a three year old and produced him for almost three years before he went to the USA. In fact my wife Sarah was the very first person to jump him under saddle, which doesn’t say much for how I took care of her because Biko was an expert at dislodging riders!
Of course racing in all its’ forms reaches a huge audience and racehorses are therefore probably the most famous in the world. From the simply exquisite and legendary thoroughbred sire Hyperion, who was only 15.1 at the time of winning the English Derby, to the giant stride of Triple Crown winner Secretariat, one of only three horses to feature on the front cover of Time magaxine. From the most valuable
stallion in the world Saddler’s Wells to the people’s champion Seabiscuit,
whose life is now immortalized in the film of the same name. In the world of Steeplechasing a particular favourite of many was Jay Trump, with wins in both the Maryland HuntCup in the USA (3 times) and the British Grand National. However Red Rum, with his three wins and two second places the Grand National, holds all the audience records on his
way to becoming a true national celebrity. It is worth going to Aintree racecourse, near Liverpool, just to see the life size bronze statue of Red Rum.
In Steeplechasing there are few who would now argue with giving the Irish bred Arkle the accolade of being ‘the greatest.’ To this day he is
the highest rated chaser of all time. Winner of fourteen championship races, including a three time winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, he was even featured on Irish postage stamps in 1981. He also has the rare honour of a life size portrait owned by the State. It is by the brilliant artist Nicola Russell, and hangs in the Irish equivalent of the White House, Farmleigh House in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. He was not classically beautiful but what supreme ability and courage he had.
GEORGE STUBBS AND WHISTLEJACKET
A number of horses reach a large audience through great art and sculpture. There is none more famous than George Stubb’s masterpiece, Whistlejacket. It is simply breathtaking.
Show Jumping now has fewer horses that are household names as it no longer generates the vast audiences of the 1950’s and 60’s, when it was a top rated TV sport and the final competition in the main stadium in the Olympic Games. For
example pictures of Italy’s Piero D’Inzeo, with his Irish bred grey show jumper
The Rock, used to grace the front covers of all Europe’s top magazines and they
made the front page of the New York Times when jumping at Madison Square
STROLLER AND DUNDRUM
Being smaller than normal is always popular with a wider audience so it was not surprising that those two Irish ponies Stroller and Dundrum hit the headlines. Stroller won the individual silver medal at the Mexico Olympic games in 1968, ridden by Marion Coakes, when only five years earlier he was the top rated jumping pony in Britain. Dundrum’s story is even more extraordinary as he started life in a cart, bringing luggage from Tipperary station to local hotels. But he proved too unruly and was sold on to Tommy Wade who with him won everything from International Grand Prix, to Speed classes and Puissance. He regularly jumped over 7ft and was probably the best pound for pound show jumper of the last century. Every Irish politian at the time knew that the way to get their audience on side was to mention the name of Dundrum!
Dundrum was always described as a Connemara pony, but he was in fact by the TB Little Heaven, who was brought to Ireland as a stallion to add quality to the Connemara pony population. Sadly he died just four years later but he was so successful as a sire that it is now difficult to find a top performance Connemara pony without Little Heaven in the genes.
The same applies to all the horses I have mentioned in this blog. With one exception they all contain at least 50% TB blood…yes even Trigger was half TB! The one exception is the dressage horse Granat, but even he was 25% TB, although you would be hard pressed to find this in the press releases which just describe him as a Holsteiner.
The superb Shutterfly, recent third time winner of the World Cup with Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, is probably closest to becoming a household name in
modern showjumping. From a breeding point of view what is interesting is that although Shutterfly is described as a Hannoverian he is at least half TB and has more TB genes than those from any other stud book. What a shame it is that the TB influence in the modern sport horse is so often hidden. It leads us astray and often leaves us with inferior horses.
HEROES HAVE NAMES
It is also a shame that unlike horse trials so many modern international show jumping horses lack normal names. In my opinion this contributes to the reduced appeal of show jumping and why there are currently so few horses that are genuine household names. Thank goodness Shutterfly has a normal name. The public can relate to this but they cannot relate to long sponsor infiltrated names that change every coupe of years and have odd letters attached at the beginning or the end. I totally understand the need for sponsorship, but a big audience is the best financial stability any sport can have and to generate big audiences we need to praise and promote our best horses, who may well become heroes in time. To do this effectively they need normal names….Trigger, Black Beauty, Red Rum, Biko….there is a lesson here.
Of course most of us in Barnmice have our own heroes or heroines at home. Horses that make such a very real difference to our own lives. Happy Days. William | <urn:uuid:74b33948-6676-468a-acae-2d495ed55c12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://barnmice.com/profiles/blogs/best-of-william-micklem-13 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965812 | 1,519 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Daniel Sroka creates abstract, dream-like images out of the simple elements of nature, such as leaves, sticks, flowers, and seeds. He finds most of his subjects as he walks through the parks and gardens near his home, collecting the sticks and leaves that have fallen to the ground. In his hands, these overlooked natural objects reveal their complexity and subtlety:
"As a sculptor's chisel is guided by the veins of a stone, I let the unique characteristics of each natural object guide my hand and eye, allowing me to uncover patterns and forms hidden deep within the raw material."
The resulting photographs become sculptures of light, texture, and dimension that celebrate the physical and spiritual grace found within the simplest elements of nature.
The agapanthus is an interesting plant. It starts out each spring as a non-descript bush of leaves, then suddenly shoots out these long thin stems which explode into these perfect tiny buds. | <urn:uuid:dae31f0e-c42e-4e0d-8fef-03694118cfc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.danielsroka.com/photos.php?id=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957999 | 191 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Elizabeth Linington was a prolific novelist and writer, producing about 80 books in her career. Called the "queen of the procedurals," she was one of the first American women to write police procedurals — a male-dominated genre before that. Her novel Case Pending (1960), which introduced her most popular series character, Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, head of the Los Angeles Police Department's homicide squad, was awarded runner-up for Best First Mystery Novel from the Mystery Writers of America. Nightmare (1961) and Knave of Hearts (1962), in the same series, both were nominated for Edgar Awards in the Best Novel category. Her interests in archaeology, the occult, gemstones, antique weapons, and languages were reflected in her works. As noted below, she wrote under numerous pen names. | <urn:uuid:94b559c9-1b8a-4ae9-a04d-de1a460dcbf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.librarything.com/author/shannondell | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981453 | 168 | 1.546875 | 2 |
After every hurricane there is a run on chain saws at local hardware stores, and neighborhood trees that have withstood the winds begin to topple. As many trees fall from fearful homeowners taking them down as do trees uprooted by the storm. Before you avail yourself of an ax, take a look at Daily Advertiser naturalist Bill Fontenot’s column this week. Bill lives on 50 acres at the edge of a wetland in north Lafayette/south St. Landry Parishes. He lost half a dozen trees in Ike, mostly water oaks and sweet gums. Those are on his "you-don’t-want-this-kind-of-tree-next-to-your-house" list. However, he does recommend some storm resistant varieties as buffers rather than house crushers. On the list are cypresses, live oaks and green ash trees. There’s a nicety of balance between extremes of planting groves of trees for shade and clear cutting the lot because of storm jitters. Fontenot is a great resource if you have questions before cutting. You can reach him at
, or call his nursery, Prairie Basse, 896-5576, for arboreal aid.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May. | <urn:uuid:5ab85fd8-cd6c-4865-b2a4-5a98878b57db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theind.com/component/content/article/44/3147 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936957 | 393 | 1.554688 | 2 |
What should we expect from artists in their “mature” phase? What does the term “mature” even mean when applied to an artist? Two uses come immediately to mind, both pejorative, one more so than the other. First, it’s used as a synonym for staid and boring. When artists no longer provide us with any surprises, they are said to be mature. The other side of this coin is that artists are said to be mature when they settles into a style. The frivolous vicissitudes of youth are cast off in favor of a mortgage and a steady income. Reliability. Both connotations are polite ways of sounding the death knell of the creative phase of an artist’s career. And to be fair, this is representative of a large number of artists who either become lazy or complacent or just begin pandering to their audience. There’s even a fairly robust critical discourse dedicated to venerating these artists in their creative twilight. Critical acclaim for a “mature” artist is akin then to the Academy Awards recognizing a lesser late-period film of a once great director in a misguided attempt to make up for not lauding the worthwhile films from a few decades prior.
I began thinking about this idea while listening to Built to Spill’s new album, There is No Enemy. It can arguably be said that seven albums into their career, with the last three sounding remarkably similar, that BtS are “mature” artists. But while listening to Enemy, it seemed like neither of the derogatory connotations seemed to fit, and I began to think about what it is that we should really be expecting from artists as they age, as their own concepts of themselves solidify. Because that’s the positive connotation that’s left out of the idea of “maturity”: artists can be called “mature” when they begin to honestly understand who they are as creative people and when they begin to engage with the things they make from that place of honesty. Maybe people find the process of finding more engaging than the process of being. There’s something to be said, though, for the confidence that comes with that knowledge.
With Built to Spill, as well as say Yo La Tengo and even Destroyer’s last album, is it fair to chastise them for not continually changing? I feel like there’s often a pull, especially from the critical end, that demands constant novelty, and when that expectation isn’t met, there is disappointment and the artist is said to have lost it, to become a shade of her former self. But the pleasure that comes from listening to this music isn’t the pleasure of discovery, but the pleasure of watching them play their aesthetic game, exploring the ideas they’ve already discovered and finding new and interesting ways to hit those concepts. Maturity isn’t just the realm of monotony and routine, but rather the phase where artists have the ability to start on the same page as their audience and thus investigate the aesthetic the artist has created in concert with their listeners.
Enemy takes the game Built to Spill has been playing for a while now and hits the right emotions in the right way, and unlike someone like say, Bob Dylan, who completely abandoned exploring the game he created, haven’t become irrelevant simply for doing what they do well. | <urn:uuid:076e725e-fa82-4d78-bd1f-f9b3e8e0204b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/5305 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973417 | 712 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Credit Unions and Banks Partner to Help Serve the Unbanked
(September 28, 2007 – New York, NY) New York City’s Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) recently launched a new program aimed at banking previously unbanked low-income families and individuals through Opportunity NYC, a new incentivized savings account program. The pilot for the project includes four banks and four community development credit unions (CDCUs).
The CDCUs that are offering the Opportunity NYC accounts during the current pilot phase are Bethex FCU (Bronx, NY), Brooklyn Cooperative FCU (Brooklyn, NY), Lower East Side Peoples FCU (New York, NY), and Union Settlement FCU (New York, NY).
The new starter accounts are offered on a “no fee” basis, have no minimum balance requirement, they have no monthly fees, and provide all account holders with ATM cards. As an incentive, new account holders will receive $50 just for opening the accounts. Qualified low-income residents with existing bank accounts are also eligible to receive the $50 bonus.
“Community Development Credit Unions are a natural partner in this type of initiative,” explained Federation Executive Director Clifford N. Rosenthal. “CDCUs are community-controlled financial cooperatives with strong ties to the neighborhoods in which they operate. Many CDCUs already provide financial education, business, and homeownership counseling services, and these new accounts should help them reach even further into the low-income communities they serve.”
Jack Lawson, CEO of Brooklyn Cooperative FCU, agreed. “Many people simply don’t know about credit unions and the services we provide,” Lawson said, “but this program brings people through our front doors so they can see the benefits of opening a new account and taking advantage of our services.” Lawson said that new members typically find multiple ways that the credit union can help them save money. “Once a new member realizes that they are also shareholders in this cooperative,” he said, “they never want to pay fees to a check-casher or borrow from a payday lender again.”
Nearly 3,000 of the targeted 5,100 families have already entered the program, with full enrollment expected by October. Participants have already started to earn financial rewards for completing specific activities related to education, health, and employment and training. Program families can earn over $5,000 annually, depending on family size and level of targets met.
“The successful partnership with banks and credit unions in this pilot project paves an exciting path toward new and more targeted approaches to financially empowering New Yorkers,” said Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) Commissioner Jonathan Mintz. “Moving more workers with low incomes into smart – and safe – financial service products is a critical first step in building economic security, and a key focus of DCA’s Office of Financial Empowerment.”
Participating banks include Amalgamated Bank, M&T Bank, North Fork Bank, and Carver Federal Savings Bank, the largest minority-owned thrift in the United States. Carver Federal Savings Bank is also a federally-certified community development financial institution (CDFI) and has worked extensively with the Federation through its involvement on the Steering Committee of the New York Coalition of CDFIs, a program that has been staffed and operated by the Federation for over a decade.
OFE is the first program to be implemented under the Center for Economic Opportunity and it is part of Mayor Bloomberg’s aggressive efforts to combat poverty in New York City. Coordinating closely with local, state, and federal government agencies, non-profit and community- based organizations, as well as the private sector, OFE provides targeted watchdog protection through impact litigation, targeted enforcement, advocacy and outreach efforts; helps New Yorkers get the Earned Income Tax Credit and other financial credits they’ve earned; is establishing a dynamic network of financial service providers; and is identifying best practices locally and around the world.
Opportunity NYC is privately funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, The Starr Foundation, The Robin Hood Foundation, The Open Society Institute, the American International Group (AIG) as well as Mayor Bloomberg. The Rockefeller Foundation provided initial research and development capital for this effort.
The Department of Consumer Affairs’ Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) is working to educate, empower and protect those with low incomes so they can build assets and make the most of their financial resources. OFE is the first program to be implemented under the Center for Economic Opportunity and it is part of Mayor Bloomberg’s aggressive efforts to fight poverty in New York City. Coordinating closely with local, state, and federal government agencies, non-profit and community-based organizations, as well as the private sector, OFE provides targeted watchdog protection through impact litigation, targeted enforcement, advocacy and outreach efforts; helps New Yorkers get the Earned Income Tax Credit and other financial credits they’ve earned; is establishing a dynamic network of financial service providers; and is identifying best practices locally and around the world.
The Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) was established by Mayor Bloomberg to implement innovative ways to reduce poverty in New York City. Led by Executive Director Veronica White, the CEO works with City agencies to design and implement evidence-based initiatives aimed at poverty reduction. The CEO manages an Innovation Fund through which it provides City agencies annual funding to implement its initiatives, and it will oversee a rigorous evaluation of each initiative to determine which are successful in demonstrating results towards reducing poverty and increasing self-sufficiency among New Yorkers. The City of New York and the Center for Economic Opportunity, in collaboration with MDRC and Seedco, are responsible for the design, management, and implementation of Opportunity NYC.
© 2007 National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions. | <urn:uuid:7590610c-6f13-4988-babe-f579e8a4b60a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cdcu.coop/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1244 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947231 | 1,201 | 1.609375 | 2 |
In the olden days of tech, way back when people used Palm Pilots, you could send contacts, calendar dates, and other information directly from device to device by beaming the information. But that was ages ago, when people still used PDA’s (personal digital assistants) and mingled with dinosaurs.
Then smartphones appeared that took pictures and people wanted to share their pictures. But the only way to share them was to either attach them in an email or send them via text message.
Bump, available for free in the iTunes App Store and Android Market, allows you to transfer contacts, photos, music, calendar dates, apps and your information from one smartphone to another by bumping the phones together. Not only is the app free and fast, it’s fun! I dare you to use this app without a big grin on your face.
The great news is that the app works between devices so you can send information from Android phones to iPhones and vice versa. The app also works on iPad and iPod Touch devices so you can share information among all of these.
The iPhone version of the app has a few more features than the Android version. The iPhone version gives you the ability to send music and calendar dates as well. With the iPhone app you can also send your contacts, photos and messages to other Bump users without having to be close by.
With the iPhone app you can add friends which gives you the ability to send messages and all the Bump information you could send if you were close to each other. Your friends need to have Bump loaded and then you can share information with each other.
Here’s a video explaining how Bump works:
Let’s say you’re at a business conference and want to exchange contact information with someone you just met. You pull out your iPhone, she pulls out her Android phone, you open your Bump apps, bump and share your contact information. Fun, fast and way cool!
Or let’s say you’re at a family reunion. You take a bunch of pictures with your phone of your kids playing with their cousins. You can Bump with your family members to share the pictures right away.
Handy Tip: Allow the Bump app to use your location for quicker results. I’m not a big fan of apps knowing where you are if they don’t need to (see, Apps: To Push Or Not To Push?). But with Bump, you will be much more successful transferring your information if you allow the app to determine your location.
If you have an Android phone, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you should grab this free app now. You will be happy you did next time you want to share contact information, photos or other information with others. You may not be sharing just your information, you may also be sharing a giggle!
Do you share photos and contact information with others? How do you share the information? Have you used Bump? Let us know in the Comments section below!
* Image by Marlo Gayle
** Image by Katkamin | <urn:uuid:6bd98153-6653-4a42-ac79-30202007cadb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wonderoftech.com/bump-the-fun-fast-and-free-way-to-share/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933068 | 641 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Project Awakened wants you to break rules, create your own hero, and mod the world
Project Awakened by Phosphor Games will allow you to create the hero you've always wanted and set them loose on an open, mod-friendly world. Want to play as Master Chief, but with Prototype-like game play? Maybe you're a fan of an obscure comic book hero who likely will never get their chance to have a starring role. Maybe you're ready to see Dexter Morgan in his own video game. Maybe you want to see your favorite D&D character come to life in 3D rendered glory. Awakened is an ambitious project that pulls inspiration and design from games like inFamous, Prototype, Assassin's Creed, Arkham City, and more. It's been in development for more than half a decade, but Chip Sineni, co-founder of Phosphor Games, believes it's finally within reach - with your help. Project Awakened is live on Kickstarter, with a goal of $500,000.
Don't call it a sandbox
Phosphor Games is comprised largely of ex-Midway developers, and in many ways, the existence of the studio itself revolves around Project Awakened. When Midway shut down and development was halted on its games, a title known as Hero was left to die, never finished. Sineni explained that the idea was too good to let go. The team wouldn't be able to use the code or assets from Hero, but its premise could live on in Project Awakened. Come hell or high water, gamers would have a title where they could create their own hero.If you're a City of Heroes fan mourning the recent server shutdown, good news: Sineni said that the game was heavily inspired by Cryptic Studios' MMORPG. “Some of our first inspirations were that we looked at MMOs. Stuff like City of Heroes. We thought, 'It's too bad there's no action game like this,'” Sineni told the Report. That being said, the team wanted something that felt more active. “As cool as City of Heroes was, it's very much an MMO, it's clicking on things,” Sineni said. “The situations were never quite like something Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell would encounter, like a really detailed scenario where there's a key over there, but I have to take this guy out, I can't be seen over here… there was never anything like that to it. You kind of just went into a big space and clicked on people til they died.” So what kind of title is Awakened? Sineni said that the game doesn't quite fit the idea of an open-world game or a scripted one. He said the team has tried both of those extremes.“The first thing we thought when we started this game in 2006 was, 'This game has to be open world, has to be open world.' Games like GTA were huge and a lot of other games were going open world.” “We found that it was fun to just go around and destroy stuff, but whenever we tried to do a mission, it was just so easy to break and leave and ruin the tension. You almost had to go out of your way as a player to engage with the mission, because otherwise you just kind of left it,” he told me. “It was just a shallow experience.” Moving from one design philosophy to the other, the game became much more scripted, full of designed sequences which were more unique. But in a game where you can give someone almost any superpower you want, it was too limiting to set players down a pre-determined path. “You lost some of that freedom,” Sineni said. “'What if I just wanna mess around? What if I want to just wanna cause some ruckus or destruction or test my stuff?'” Sineni also admitted budget was a concern for the game if the team was to pursue a more crafted direction. “That kind of content is very expensive to make a lot of.”
Psi-Ops: The Flying Mindcrate Conspiracy
Sineni described Awakened not as a sandbox, not as open-world game, nor as a directed narrative adventure. He likes to think of it as a “kit” that will present players with a situation and give them almost unrestricted freedom in how they choose to solve it. I brought up the structure of Dishonored, which became relatively infamous post-release for the myriad ways in which players would “break” the game, a player behavior the developers actively encouraged. Sineni concurred that was a good point of reference, but he had also seen first-hand what happens when players twist the game's code to suit their will when we worked on Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy. “One of the things we discovered when we were developing is when you used telekinesis, you could get on top of an object and pick it up and you'd start flying on the object,” Sineni said. “Everyone's first reaction to it was, 'Oh, that's super cool, but we gotta figure out how to turn it off, because people are gonna break the game with it.'” The problem sat for awhile, and the team re-assessed the situation. They'd had a change of heart. “The next reaction was, why turn that off? It's so neat that the character figured out how to fly! We never had a fly skill, but if you pick up a crate while you're on the crate, you're actually flying around the world,” Sineni told me. “We actually had to re-do all the levels so you couldn't just fly out of the world, because we had all these spots where we just never thought the player could be, and all of a sudden the player could be there.” Instead of punishing players for being creative and thinking outside the box, Sineni and the Psi-Ops team took the extra work on themselves so that the game could still have boundaries and a firm direction, but those who wanted to exploit the game could. It's a design philosophy they plan to carry into Awakened. “Why not just allow that stuff?” Sineni asked. “If the player wants to choose something where they go out of their way to try and break something, they should absolutely be allowed to do that. They're the people saying how they want to have fun with it, not us. So if they've figured out how to do something and that's the way they like playing, that's great.”
The power of Valve and Minecraft
With all the premise and talent behind Awakened, not to mention the needed funds, I asked Sineni why the game hasn't been picked up by any larger publishers. He said one of the major stumbling blocks was that the game was pitched in a pre-Minecraft world. “You know, before Minecraft, people would say, 'Nobody wants to create anything, nobody wants to put any work into anything, they just want to sit down and be wowed by what you've developed for them, like the rollercoaster thrill ride.'” Sineni was adamant that such a view was wrong, and he pointed to the success of Minecraft and Dishonored as proof. Even today though, Sineni said publishers don't quite understand and aren't willing to support a game that doesn't come finished in a box. We've discussed this lack of open-ness before on the Report, in what Ben calls “the Minecraft problem”: publishers and platforms are going to have to become a more welcoming place for ideas and games like Awakened, which Sineni said will follow the Minecraft model of development. “You get this very early beta, and the people out there get to help shape the game further,” he told me. “If people say 'I love the way the story plays, you have to blow out the story more,' then we'll start blowing out the story more. If people say 'The story's great, but I'm more into the multiplayer aspect,' we start focusing our effort there. Or maybe they say co-op, they want to go through this with a friend and play two characters that could never be together in another game. Or the modding, people say they don't care about the content we made, they want to create content, they want to make their own multiplayer games, their own campaign modes.” “The goal is to come out with all these features supported to some extent, and then we blow it out to the community on where they see the game going.” Sineni wants the community to be as engaged as possible in Awakened, from feedback to mods. The game won't shut its doors to modders, in fact just the opposite: it will come with some of the same Unreal Engine 4 tools the Phosphor team will use to create the game. Sineni even theorized the possibility of working with modders so that their creations could be sold to other users. Now there's a familiar-sounding idea. I asked Sineni if he had watched or heard Gabe Newell's D.I.C.E. keynote about that very concept, and he admitted he hadn't. Shortly after we finished our interview, Sineni watched Newell's speech and shared his thoughts on the irony: “It is funny coincidence that in Gabe Newell's talk today, he discussed how they saw games heading towards becoming “productivity platforms”, because that is exactly what Project Awakened is,” he wrote. “The Create-A-Player itself is making a character and changing the game you play, but the types of multiplayer games people could create, as well as the modding players could do to make anything- it really is about us providing people a kit do to stuff, and then players changing it to be what ever they want. It is empowering them to be the creators, and Project Awakened is the tool they can use to do it.” “I think it's awesome to hear Gabe talk about that, because it's still a new idea people don't get. They're like, 'So you're not gonna have all these things, and you're not gonna be rigidly defined, and you're not going to hand us this thing in a box and it's done?'” Sineni said. “It's a lot easier to explain that Assassin's Creed is gonna come out, it's gonna have these features, and then it's gonna work the way they said it's gonna work.” Despite the easier route, Sineni said it's worth it to push forward with the new way of thinking about games. “I feel like the other way is a way to create a game that lasts for a long time, that isn't just out for one season and then it's over.”
The hero this Kickstarter needs
When a superhero dies in comic books, it's almost always in quotations. Yes, Peter Parker is “dead.” Sure, Batman “died.” The “death” and return of Superman. But a good hero can't stay dead; there are people in need! Gamers are in need too, and so Hero has returned from death in glorious fashion as Project Awakened. But this hero needs your help. Look through your library of games. Scan your movie collection. Peruse your books. All those characters are waiting. I've already pledged my money to the Awakened Kickstarter and started a list of heroes I'd like to create. Who will you play as after you donate? Disclosure: Steve Bowler, Lead Gameplay Designer at Phosphor Games, designed the Penny Arcade card game Paint the Line. | <urn:uuid:9bfd9b8c-25b5-4e01-a4e4-5e53398a78e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/project-awakened-wants-you-to-break-rules-create-your-own-hero-and-mod-the- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984303 | 2,473 | 1.578125 | 2 |
No doubt Feller's reputation overshadowed Lemon to a greater or lesser extent, but taking them as pitchers on the same staff, Lemon didn't become a regular until Feller's time as a dominant figure was nearly over. Counting from 1948, Lemon's first big season, Lemon won 192 games; Early Wynn won 163 games for the Indians; Mike Garcia won 142; and Feller, 108.
Lemon got off to a slow start and didn't last well into his late thirties, so his career numbers are mostly not really good. He was in the top three among AL pitchers in wins eight seasons out of a nine-year stretch, yet he's only 100th in career wins. A couple of approximate contemporaries, Milt Pappas and Billy Pierce, are both a few slots above Lemon in career wins, yet between the two of them they were in the top three on the seasonal leaderboards only three times.
Warren Spahn is well known for having gotten off to a slow start because of the war, but Lemon missed two years to military service himself and was also delayed in maturing by his late conversion from third base. So Spahn ran ahead of Lemon in total wins every year from their respective 25-year old seasons on. Judging them strictly by their standing on the wins leaderboard -- a very superficial comparison, but viewed over the long run of several seasons a good simple approximation of their standing -- Spahn remained in the top three with great consistency until he turned forty, while Lemon never did it after 35 and won only six more games from 36 on.
Sandwich in five more big seasons of the kind he was putting up in the early '50's, and Lemon still would not quite match Spahn for longevity, but he would have 300 wins and be a lot better remembered.
I had forgotten that, the famous "Spahn, Sain and pray for rain" poem notwithstanding, 1948 was one of the worst years of Spahn's career. Not a bad year, but worse than almost all the others.
“Money, money, money; that is the article I am looking after now more than anything else. It is the only thing that will shape my course (‘religion is nowhere’).” - Ross Barnes | <urn:uuid:52d8e710-5fcd-4533-9002-6b069edccf41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?102883-Bob-Lemon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988322 | 465 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The federal income tax rules have changed every year for the past decade, and this year is no exception. Fortunately, Congress decided to hold the line on tax hikes for at least two years and to throw in a two-percentage-point cut in the Social Security payrolltax, too.
Still, in your quest for a smaller tax bill or a bigger refund, you need to make sure you're armed with the latest information when you tackle your 2010 tax return. If you're a procrastinator, you'll be happy that you have an extra weekend to sweat the details. Your 2010 tax return is due April 18, 2011 -- three days later than usual. In the meantime, we have answers to your most pressing questions.
What's new this year?
High-income taxpayers get a big break on their 2010 return: There's no cap on the itemized deductions and personal exemption amounts they can claim to reduce their taxable income. Over the past 20 years, the wealthiest Americans have had to forfeit some or all of their personal exemptions and up to 80% of their itemized deductions when their income topped certain thresholds.
All taxpayers can choose between claiming the standard deduction and itemizing deductible expenses -- such as mortgage interest, real estate taxes, state income taxes, charitable contributions and, in some cases, a portion of their out-of-pocket medical costs and certain miscellaneous expenses.
For 2010, the standard deduction is $5,700 for individuals, $8,400 for heads of households and $11,400 for married couples. If your deductible expenses exceed the standard deduction, it makes sense to itemize.
Normally, the squeeze on itemized deductions begins when adjusted gross income tops about $83,000 for individuals or $167,000 for married couples (amounts have been indexed for inflation each year). But this year is different. High earners may use the full value of their itemized deductions to reduce their taxable income. (Deductions for charitable contributions still can't exceed 50% of adjusted gross income, but excess deductions may be carried over to future years.)
Personal exemptions, worth $3,650 each in 2010, are now available to every taxpayer, spouse and dependent, regardless of household income. Previously, the personal exemption phase-out kicked in when income exceeded roughly $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. Now a family of four, for example, can subtract $14,600 from their AGI when calculating their taxes for 2010, no matter how wealthy they are.
Originally, the high-earner tax-squeeze relief was scheduled for 2010 only, but Congress extended it through 2012 as part of the massive tax package approved just before Christmas. That gives upper-income taxpayers a two-year window to accelerate their charitable giving and other itemized deductions.
Q: I converted my traditional IRA to a Roth IRA last year. When do I pay the tax?
You must pay income taxes at your ordinary tax rate on the entire amount you convert from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, except for any nondeductible contributions. But for 2010 conversions only, you have a choice of when to report and pay the tax: all at once when you file your 2010 tax return, or half on your 2011 tax return and the balance on your 2012 return.
Now that Congress has extended current income tax rates through 2012, you can easily estimate how much your conversion will cost under each scenario. File Form 8606 to report your Roth conversion on your 2010 return (or to calculate what you'll have to report on your 2011 and 2012 returns). And you have until October 17, 2011 -- the due date of the tax-filing extension for 2010 returns -- to change your mind and undo, or "recharacterize," a 2010 Roth conversion without paying any tax.
Q:How do I claim the home buyer's tax credit?
If you bought your first home between January 1 and April 30, 2010 (or entered into a binding contract by then and went to settlement by September 30, 2010), you can claim the First-Time Homebuyer Credit for 10% of the cost of the house, up to a maximum of $8,000. You're eligible for the full credit if you are single and your AGI is $125,000 or less, and you can get a partial credit if your income is as high as $145,000. For married couples, the income limit for the full credit is $225,000, and up to $245,000 for a partial credit.
Longtime homeowners who closed on a new home by September 30, 2010, are also eligible for a 10% tax credit, up to $6,500. They must have lived in the same principal residence for at least five consecutive years out of the past eight; the income-eligibility guidelines are the same as for first-time buyers. To claim either break, you must file Form 5405, "First-Time Homebuyer Credit and Repayment of the Credit," and attach a copy of your settlement statement or certificate of occupancy for a newly constructed home.
Longtime homeowners must also attach proof of five consecutive years of ownership, such as mortgage interest statements, property tax records or homeowners insurance. Because of the requirements for documentation, you can't file your tax return electronically if you claim the home buyer's credit. You'll need to mail your paper forms.
For taxpayers who took advantage of the original home buyer's credit in 2008, it's time to pay the piper. In its initial form, the maximum $7,500 credit was essentially an interest-free loan that had to be repaid in installments. The first repayment is due with your 2010 return. If you claimed the full $7,500 credit, for example, you'll owe $500 a year for each of the next 15 years. (If you sell the house before then, you'll have to repay the balance of the credit all at once.) Record your payment amount on Form 5405. No repayment is required for the tax credit given to those who purchased their homes in 2009 or 2010.
Q:What is Schedule M, and who needs to file it?
Most taxpayers with earned income from a job or self-employment should file Schedule M to claim the Making Work Pay Credit, worth up to $400 for individuals and $800 for married couples. (If you file the 1040EZ, use the worksheet on the back of the form to figure your credit.)
Schedule M will help you determine whether you have received the full credit in your paycheck throughout the year or if you are due more money -- which could result in a refund. But some people may have to give back what they have already received. You cannot claim the credit -- and you don't have to file Schedule M -- if your income tops $95,000 if you are single or $190,000 if you are married filing jointly, or if you can be claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return.
Q:Can I write off college expenses?
Yes, some of them. You have several ways to do it. For taxpayers who qualify, the American Opportunity Credit, which Congress extended through 2012, is probably the best choice.
The American Opportunity Credit is worth up to $2,500 per student per year during the first four years of college. It covers 100% of the first $2,000 of expenses, including tuition, fees and books, and 25% of the next $2,000. You can claim the full credit if you are single and your AGI is $80,000 or less ($160,000 if you're married filing jointly). You get a partial credit if you are single with income up to $90,000 ($180,000 for joint filers).
Use Form 8863. A portion of the credit -- 40% of up to $1,000 -- is refundable, meaning you could get money back if the credit exceeds your tax bill. If you're paying for graduate school, the American Opportunity Credit won't help you because it applies only to the first four years of college. But you have other options. You can choose between claiming the Lifetime Learning credit or a tuition tax deduction.
The Lifetime Learning credit covers 20% of the cost of any postÐhigh school classes, up to a maximum of $2,000 per tax return. For the full credit, your income can't top $50,000 if you're single ($100,000 if you're married). A partial credit is available to those with income up to $60,000 ($120,000 if married). Claim it on Form 8863.
If your income is too high to claim the Lifetime Learning credit, consider claiming a tuition deduction worth up to $2,000 or $4,000, depending on your income. Unlike a tax credit, which reduces your tax bill dollar-for-dollar, a tax deduction merely reduces the amount of income that is taxed. For example, if you're in the 25% bracket, a $2,000 deduction reduces your taxes by just $500, but a $2,000 credit reduces your taxes by the full $2,000. You can claim the full $4,000 tuition deduction if you earn less than $65,000 ($130,000 if you're married filing jointly). The deduction is limited to $2,000 if your income is between $65,000 and $80,000 ($130,000 and $160,000 if married filing jointly). Use Form 8917.
Q:I installed replacement windows last year. How do I claim the home-energy tax credit?
You may claim a credit for 30% of the cost of eligible energy-efficient home improvements on your principal residence, up to a maximum of $1,500. The credit applies to insulation, exterior doors and windows, heat pumps, furnaces, central air conditioners and water heaters. Use Form 5695 to claim the credit, but note that the $1,500 maximum applies to 2009 and 2010; if you claimed the full credit on your 2009 return, you are not eligible in 2010.
Q:Who qualifies for tax-free capital gains?
Investors in the two lowest income tax brackets will pay no taxes on their long-term gains and qualified dividends again this year. That means if you held an investment, such as a stock or mutual fund, for more than a year and you sold it at a profit in 2010, you will owe no tax on your gains if your taxable income doesn't exceed $34,000 if you are single or $68,000 if you are married filing jointly. (This provision does not apply to investments held in retirement accounts.) Any gains that lift your income above that level would be taxed at the maximum 15% capital-gains rate. Use the Schedule D tax worksheet to compute your capital-gains tax.
Q:Are the unemployment benefits I got last year taxable?
Yes, all the unemployment benefits you received last year are taxable. In 2009, up to $2,400 of unemployment benefits was tax-free, but that tax break was not extended for 2010. A few other popular tax breaks also expired. You won't find a property tax deduction for nonitemizers or a special sales tax deduction for the purchase of a new car (unless you paid the tax in 2010 on a car you bought in 2009). But itemizers will still be able to choose between deducting their state income tax and their state sales tax.
Q:Is there anything else I can do to lower my tax bill for 2010?
If you haven't done so already, you can contribute up to $5,000 to an IRA ($6,000 if you are 50 or older by the end of 2010) and may be able to deduct the contribution on your 2010 tax return. Even if you participate in an employer-provided retirement plan, you can still deduct some or all of your IRA contribution if you are single and your income doesn't exceed $66,000 or if you are married and your joint income doesn't top $109,000. And if you're not covered by a retirement plan at work but your spouse is, you can deduct some or all of your IRA contribution as long as your joint income doesn't exceed $177,000. You have until April 18 to make a contribution. | <urn:uuid:cc545b13-a4c2-45d9-80df-68546a122414> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C000-S001-maximize-your-tax-refund.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965674 | 2,541 | 1.757813 | 2 |
McDonald’s Corp. is in hot water over its food, but the problem this time isn’t calorie counts—it’s the restaurant’s alleged failure to comply with Muslim dietary law, despite its advertising to the contrary.
The fast food chain advertises halal food at two of its locations near Dearborn, Mich., which is home to one of the country’s largest Arab and Muslim communities. Local resident Ahmed Ahmed brought the suit against McDonald’s and one of its franchise owners, Finley’s Management Co., in November 2011, two months after he ordered a chicken sandwich at one of those locations and allegedly discovered that it wasn’t halal.
Ahmed’s lawyer claims that the restaurant sold non-halal food when it ran out of halal products. Islamic dietary requirements prohibit the consumption of pork and call for God’s name to be invoked before an animal is slaughtered.
The settlement applies to any customer who bought purported halal products from the two Michigan locations between September 2005 and last Friday. But because of the difficulty of identifying these individuals, both sides have reportedly agreed to pay much of the settlement money to local charities that benefit Muslims, with about $270,000 going to a Detroit free clinic, roughly $150,000 going to the Arab American National Museum, $230,000 to lawyers and $20,000 to Ahmed.
McDonald’s did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement. Finley’s Management said in a statement that it has a “carefully designed system” for preparing halal products, and that it trains its employees on that process.
Read more at the Washington Post.
For more religion-based lawsuits on InsideCounsel, see: | <urn:uuid:4711180e-77dd-4b9a-b4bb-0d859060ab5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidecounsel.com/2013/01/22/mcdonalds-pays-700000-to-settle-suit-over-non-hala?t=e-discovery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9631 | 367 | 1.835938 | 2 |
TUESDAY, Oct. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with a poorer cancer prognosis recalled less information following an initial visit with their oncologist, according to a report published online Oct. 20 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Jesse Jansen, of the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and colleagues analyzed data from 260 adults with cancer who were making an initial consultation with a medical or radiation oncologist. The consultation was audiotaped, and researchers measured subjects' recall of details about diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.
The results suggest that older patients had more trouble remembering information from longer consultations in which more information was presented to them. In addition, patients with a worse prognosis had poorer recall, the researchers found. Also, when patients were given more information about their prognosis, they remembered less, regardless of their actual prognosis, the report indicates.
"In this study, more than half of the provided information was forgotten. Older patients were particularly vulnerable to information overload. However, our results also clearly suggest that 'the frail are not always the elderly,' as a poorer prognosis seems to reduce recall of information independent of age," the authors write, who recommend that clinicians "tailor information to patients' needs; prioritize to the most important, personally relevant information; organize and categorize; repeat and summarize the most relevant information and review it on subsequent visits; use simple language; and provide written materials or audio-recordings for later referral."
Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
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I was pretty amazed to see 3D graphics coming to mobile phones
, and now it looks like TV is coming to them too
! Texas Instruments has started work on a chip that would allow users to receive digital television broadcasts on mobile phones in time for the technology's rollout in 2007. The new chip, code named "Hollywood", will allow mobiles to contain the tuner, demodulator and channel decoder necessary on a single chip. Video has been available to mobiles for a while, but only via the existing network. This new technology will will take advantage of over-the-air digital broadcasts, displaying the digital TV feed just like a portable television at 24 to 30 frames per second. | <urn:uuid:75e2a184-f916-4c88-a953-ec7ae8396e8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techspot.com/news/16147-mobile-phones-to-get-tv-reception.html | 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 | 0.954577 | 143 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Conservative Christian approach to AIDS evolves toward compassion
WASHINGTON — Under a canopy of skylights in a modern church two blocks from the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., worshippers are dancing and singing an African American spiritual: ”We are Marching in the Light of God.”
On the wall hangs parts of the quilt commemorating AIDS victims. And Reverend David North preaches that the dead are not really gone.
“You’re still here!” he says, referring to the names on the colorful quilt. ”All the beauty and the wonder that you as an individual were, is still here. It’s still alive.”
North was a Baptist minister when he tested HIV positive in 1991. He was kicked out of his church, and his wife refused to let him see his children because he is gay.
“I lost everything – job, family, everything,” he said in an interview after one of the daily devotional services that was held during the July 22-27 AIDS conference.
AIDS has presented many Christians with a dilemma. Should people with HIV be condemned for behavior that may have given them the virus? Or should they be helped, in the name of compassion?
When the AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s, some Christian leaders chose the former. “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals. It is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals,” said televangelist Jerry Falwell.
But attitudes have evolved since then, in part, because of clergy who found themselves with the virus that causes AIDS.
Christo Greyling is a Dutch Reformed pastor from South Africa. He is also a hemophiliac. His congregation took it in stride when he told them he contracted HIV from tainted blood.
“And then one person came after church to me, and he said, ‘You know, I’ve got sympathy with you because you contracted HIV in an innocent way. But those people, those people who got it through sex, they brought it on themselves,” Greyling recalled in an interview at the AIDS conference. ”And that’s for me where the penny dropped, that as people of faith, as church leaders, we cannot work with the concept of those and us.”
“God’s will is that we live our lives according to his will – to be abstinent, to be faithful in our relationships,” he says. ”But we realize that not everyone might be able to make those choices.”
During the conference, Greyling spoke at a summit of evangelical and other Christian leaders concerned about AIDS. He praised them for a pragmatic approach that he says was in short supply back when he disclosed his diagnosis.
“Since 1991 until now, I think we can celebrate that the church and the faith community has moved way out, further, in terms of our advances, from the way we were,” he said.
Their prodding led one evangelical Christian, former President George W. Bush, to start an AIDS initiative that is credited with saving many lives.
As for Reverend North, his life has also changed. He won a precedent-setting custody battle and reconciled with his biological family. His HIV has been suppressed.
“So all that I had lost,” he says, “I’ve not only gained, but I’ve regained even more”, including a gay-friendly church where he can serve God. | <urn:uuid:75ba7c7c-f601-4bab-b217-b5e4681155ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theundergroundsite.com/2012/07/28/conservative-christian-approach-to-aids-evolves-toward-compassion-28582 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980181 | 738 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Much has been written about Microsoft’s allegation of patent infringements in Linux (by which I’m sure they mean GNU/Linux ). I don’t think Microsoft is the real threat, and in fact, I think Microsoft and the Linux community will actually end up fighting on the same side of this issue.
I’m in favour of patents in general, but not software or business method patents. I’ll blog separately some day about why that’s the case, but for the moment I’ll just state for the record my view that software patents hinder, rather than help, innovation in the software industry.
And I’m pretty certain that, within a few years, Microsoft themselves will be strong advocates against software patents. Why? Because Microsoft is irrevocably committed to shipping new software every year, and software patents represent landmines in their roadmap which they are going to step on, like it or not, with increasing regularity. They can’t sit on the sidelines of the software game – they actually have to ship new products. And every time they do that, they risk stepping on a patent landmine.
They are a perfect target – they have deep pockets, and they have no option but to negotiate a settlement, or go to court, when confronted with a patent suit.
Microsoft already spends a huge amount of money on patent settlements (far, far more than they could hope to realise through patent licensing of their own portfolio). That number will creep upwards until it’s abundantly clear to them that they would be better off if software patents were history.
In short, Microsoft will lose a patent trench war if they start one, and I’m sure that cooler heads in Redmond know that.
But let’s step back from the coal-face for a second. I have high regard for Microsoft. They produce some amazing software, and they made software much cheaper than it ever was before they were around. Many people at Microsoft are motivated by a similar ideal to one we have in Ubuntu: to empower people for the digital era. Of course, we differ widely on many aspects of the implementation of that ideal, but my point is that Microsoft is actually committed to the same game that we free software people are committed to: building things which people use every day.
So, Microsoft is not the real patent threat to Linux. The real threat to Linux is the same as the real threat to Microsoft, and that is a patent suit from a person or company that is NOT actually building software, but has filed patents on ideas that the GNU project and Microsoft are equally likely to be implementing.
Yes, Nathan, I’m looking at you!
As they say in Hollywood, where there’s a hit there’s a writ. And Linux is a hit. We should expect a patent lawsuit against Linux, some time in the next decade.
There are three legs to IP law: copyright, trademark and patents. I expect a definitive suit associated with each of them. SCO stepped up on the copyright front, and that’s nearly dealt with now. A trademark-based suit is harder to envisage, because Linus and others did the smart thing and established clear ownership of the “Linux” trademark a while ago. The best-practice trademark framework for free software is still evolving, and there will probably be a suit or two, but none that could threaten the continued development of free software. And the third leg is patent law. I’m certain someone will sue somebody else about Linux on patent grounds, but it’s less likely to be Microsoft (starting a trench war) and more likely to be a litigant who only holds IP and doesn’t actually get involved in the business of software.
It will be a small company, possibly just a holding company, that has a single patent or small portfolio, and goes after people selling Linux-based devices.
Now, the wrong response to this problem is to label pure IP holders as “patent trolls”. While I dislike software patents, I deeply dislike the characterisation of pure IP holders as “patent trolls”. They are only following the rules laid out in law, and making the most of a bad system; they are not intrinsically bad themselves. Yes, Nathan, all is forgiven . One of the high ideals of the patent system is to provide a way for eccentric genius inventors to have brilliant insights in industries where they don’t have any market power, but where their outsider-perspective leads them to some important innovation that escaped the insiders. Ask anyone on the street if they think patents are good, and they will say, in pretty much any language, “yes, inventors should be compensated for their insights”. The so-called “trolls” are nothing more than inventors with VC funding. Good for them. The people who call them trolls are usually large, incumbent players who cross-license their patent portfolios with other incumbents to form a nice, cosy oligopoly. “Trolling” is the practice of interrupting that comfortable and predictably profitable arrangement. It’s hard to feel any sympathy for the incumbents at all when you look at it that way.
So it’s not the patent-holders who are the problem, it’s the patent system.
What to do about it?
Well, there are lots of groups that are actively engaged in education and policy discussion around patent reform. Get involved! I recently joined the FFII: Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, which is doing excellent work in Europe in this regard. Canonical sponsored the EUPACO II conference, which brought together folks from across the spectrum to discuss patent reform. And Canonical also recently joined the Open Invention Network, which establishes a Linux patent pool as a defensive measure against an attack from an incumbent player. You can find a way to become part of the conversation, too. Help to build better understanding about the real dynamics of software innovation and competition. We need to get consensus from the industry – including Microsoft, though it may be a bit soon for them – that software patents are a bad thing for society. | <urn:uuid:2bce7959-c618-4721-8cc6-1a5043c3aa9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/118 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958461 | 1,285 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Disclaimer: Petinfo4u.com is provided as a free pet care resource and is not intended to replace veterinary care, advice or treatment. Your first resource should always be your veterinarian.
Copyright Petinfo4u.com 1999-2013
Pet Rating System: 1= Lowest 5 = Highest
Sugar Glider pictures provided by Melissa Benson
Caring For Your New Sugar Glider
Essential Care Items:
Our Rating: We have given the sugar glider an overall pet rating of 3 stars because they need precise care and diet to keep them healthy, they can be difficult to tame, and require a lot of attention. You should consider how much time you will have for your new sugar glider for bonding purposes. Gliders can become depressed very easily if there is no interaction or activity. You may want to get two so that they will have company. There have been many advances in sugar glider care in recent years, making it much easier to meet the needs of this wonderful "pocket pet". A glider's large expressive eyes and "pocket" size have resulted in their recent gain in popularity. Not a pet for everyone, a glider requires specialized diets and lots of attention. Because of this specialized care, they are an expensive investment. It is also difficult to find a veterinarian that knows exotic medicine in an emergency. Endearing qualities of the sugar glider are their large eyes and special bond they develop with their owner. If you decide to make the commitment to a glider, you will be rewarded with a pet that is curious, playful and loving. Visit our Advanced Small Animal and FAQ's for more info on gliders.
Sugar Gliders are marsupials which are mammals that carry their young, called a joey, in a specialized pouch. Sugar gliders are unique because they have webbed bodies that enable them to "fly". Their flying is actually more like gliding downhill when descending from the top of a tree. Gliders are nocturnal doing most of their foraging at night. Be prepared for a pet that is active at night. The sugar glider is a native of Australia.
Housing - Try to get the biggest cage you can afford. We recommend a cage that is no smaller that 4 feet tall by 3 feet wide. A large powder coated bird cage with no more than 1/2 inch spacing between bars or a large ferret cage with multi or different levels are a perfect choice. Since sugar gliders cannot be litter trained, it is important to get a cage that has a pull-out tray for easy cleaning. You can use corn cob litter in your pull-out tray. Be sure to put in several sized bird perches and/or eucalyptus branches for lots of exercise. Try adding vines and ropes for added stimulation. Plastic bird perches work well because they are easily washed and do not hold urine smells.
Your cage should be kept out of direct sunlight and drafts. Since they are nocturnal, they do not like a lot of light and will be more active in the evening. Gliders should be kept in areas where the temperature is a range of 70 - 90 degrees. A general rule is... if your comfortable, your sugar glider is comfortable. In the wild, sugar gliders gather in holes in trees and line the holes with leaves for sleeping. Therefore, your sugar glider will be more at home if you supply sleeping quarters. Since the sleeping quarters will need to be cleaned regularly, a plastic house lined with washable fleece is a good choice. Baby wipe containers work well. For an extra treat, supply eucalyptus branches with leaves and watch them strip the leaves for bedding material. Be sure to change the soiled leaves. Another idea for sleeping quarters is a fleece lined sleeping pouch or hammock.
Food - Sugar gliders in the wild eat a wide variety of food ranging from sap on the trees, fruits and nuts, to insects. To provide the best diet, we recommend a base of good quality sugar glider kibble. This can be found at most local pet stores now that gliders have become a more common pet. By base diet, we mean this kibble should be available all day for grazing. The base diet is usually high in protein. These base diets can then be supplemented with additional protein rich insects such as crickets and mealworms. Other foods can include boiled eggs, yogurt, baby food, corn, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, grapes, melons, very small pieces of cooked chicken (blended preferred). As a special treat, you can provide nectars specially made for sugar gliders. Visit our Pet Tips for ideas on toys and treats.
Potty Training - You can potty train a sugar glider if you are persistent and consistent. Remember that they are like most animals and they go potty after eating, sleeping and playing. Encourage them to use their "potty area" anytime they wake, eat or sleep. Since sugar gliders are known for being difficult to potty training, be sure to have plenty of baby wipes handy!
Grooming - Sugar gliders are good groomers, grooming themselves frequently. For those difficult nail trimmings, try fine grain sandpaper under the food bowl and on a ramp to reduce the number of nail trimmings.
Handling - This is the best part...sugar gliders become very attached and bond to their owners. It is critical in the first few weeks of getting your sugar glider that your spend as much time as possible "pocket training" and bonding together. Pocket training is accomplished by lining your shirt pocket with a piece of fleece or pre-made fleece pocket liners and keeping your sugar glider in your shirt pocket as much as possible. The pocket should be considered by your sugar glider as a safehaven. If it jumps off or out of the pocket, put it right back in the pocket. When you take your sugar glider out of the pocket, put it in your hand with food on your fingertip so that it will get used to you. Try using soft sticky food like yogurt and baby food. As soon as it is done eating, put it back in the pocket. If bonded correctly, your glider will go to the safehaven on its own. Soon you will have a cute and cuddly friend darting all over you and returning to your pocket for rest and security. If a sugar glider is scared, it will make hissing noises and roll over. Do not use discipline with the shy sugar gliders, patience is the only trainer.
Toys - Sugar gliders are active and require a lot of different stimulation. You can provide climbing ladders, plastic chains (baby links) for climbing, used paper towel rolls, balls with bells, ropes with knots to untie, and hamster tubes. Bird toys also make fun glider toys. Rotating the toys frequently keeps your glider interested. Visit our Pet Tips for ideas on toys and treats.
Health - We recommend neutering your male sugar glider due to the fact that they do develop scent glands on their head and chest. Although it is not a strong odor, they will rub their scent to mark their territory.
Sugar gliders can also develop hind-leg paralysis which is life threatening. It is caused by a vitamin deficiency from improper diets. Be sure to provide a calcium rich diet for strong bones.
For more information on sugar gliders: | <urn:uuid:2d1703f0-d399-43df-8237-33607acab080> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petinfo4u.com/sugar_glider.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951358 | 1,531 | 1.679688 | 2 |
A screening of the documentary film by Sami Shalom Chetrit. Languages: Hebrew, Moroccan and French, English subtitles. Running time: 77 mins.
This is the story of my journey within my mother’s journey. My mother, Yakut (Pearl in Arabic), the film’s leading character, is going on a search for her classmates from the elementary school, Alliance, which she attended 60 years ago in the little village of Gurama in the Tafilalt region of Morocco. Through her and her classmates’ stories of past and present, Morocco is reconstructed and comes to life through vivid memories. It’s a story of transition, cultural crisis, social survival and also lots of faith, optimism, joy and dignity, told for the first time by Moroccan women of the first generation of immigration to Israel. (Sami Shalom Chetrit, the filmmaker)
Cost: Free and Open to the Public
Sponsor(s): Center for the Study of Religion
© 2013. The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:a0e0f5b5-3fe8-48ae-9ad9-f9ce9825a756> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://international.ucla.edu/calendar/showevent.asp?eventid=8940 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937528 | 222 | 1.703125 | 2 |
A degree that you can count on. The Master of Public administration (MPA) is a professional academic degree that addresses issues of public affairs on city, county, state, and federal levels, as well as within the nonprofit sector, NGOs and international organizations. The MPA examines public policy within theoretical and environmental context while developing skills needed for operational management of government and nonprofit organizations and networks. The MPA at Marywood University follows the guidelines set forth by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) for its curriculum. The program is designed for in-career and pre-career students and provides administrative and managerial skills development in public affairs by offering students comprehensive understanding of public service. Students become proficient in identifying important public issues, analyzing qualitative and quantitative information, communicating findings, and applying ethical courses of action.
The M.H.S.A. program provides graduate education in health care administration for persons seeking careers in the management and administration of health care organizations and facilities. This degree is also a career development opportunity for individuals in the health services field.
A Master of Science Degree in Gerontology will offer students an opportunity to be better prepared for a career in health care fields related to the elderly. It will offer health care professionals the knowledge and ability to make continuous changes and improvements in how the elderly are cared for. Health care providers and administrators with gerontology background will be very valuable in the changing market place.
For more information, contact us at [email protected] or (570) 348-6284.
Our Location: 340 Science Center | <urn:uuid:4600ce82-dbf1-41c1-9912-2949b2029064> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marywood.edu/pubadmin/graduate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939395 | 326 | 1.601563 | 2 |
From HR to CSR: management lessons from Mexico’s drug lords
MEXICO has 11 billionaires, according to Forbes magazine. Ten are often pictured smiling at charity dinners and other posh bunfights. One, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, has a rather different mugshot. Wearing a cheap anorak, he is pictured shivering in the rain inside the concrete walls of a high-security prison. Mr Guzmán, who is better known by his nickname El Chapo, or “Shorty”, is one of Latin America’s most successful exporters, having made perhaps $1 billion as chief executive of the Sinaloa drug “cartel”. There haven’t been many photos of El Chapo since he escaped from jail in 2001, hidden in a laundry trolley.
Other billionaires look down on Mr Guzmán. But unlike some of the entrepreneurs on Mexico’s rich-list, he seems to have weathered the American recession rather well. Conditions in his hideout in the Sierra Madre may not be luxurious, but his fortune is believed to have remained intact despite the efforts of the imbéciles on Wall Street that brought the Mexican economy to its knees in 2009. Armed with no more than a phrasebook and some Pepto-Bismol, Schumpeter went to the desert to see what lessons Mexico’s narcotraffickers might offer to other businesses.
These have not been easy times for the cartels, thanks to a declining American appetite for drugs. Encouragingly (at least from Mr Guzmán’s point of view), more American youngsters are smoking cannabis, much of which is imported from Mexico. But cocaine, the more valuable product, has been going out of fashion. America cut its habit by about a quarter between 2006 and 2010, according to the UN, and the number of employees failing workplace cocaine tests fell by two-thirds.
Dwindling sales in el norte are not unique to the drugs business. America’s imports of legal goods fell by more than a quarter in 2009, squeezing Mexican car factories as well as cocaine labs. But the cartels have been nimbler than legitimate businesses in switching to new markets. Eight out of ten legal exports still go to America, not down much from nine out of ten at the turn of the century. The cocaine business, by contrast, has switched its attention to Europe, which gets through twice as much coke as it did at the end of the 1990s. The average Brit now buys more than the average American, albeit of lower quality. Mexican sellers are also making inroads in Australia, another promising market.
The drug industry’s flexibility is partly due to its exemption from import duties. Whereas legitimate Mexican traders have free access to America and Canada via the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), drug smugglers are granted tariff-free entry to every country in the world thanks to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which prohibits the regulation or taxation of their product. Pesky rules of origin, which prevent many Mexican manufacturers from selling goods in America, do not apply to Colombian cocaine processed in Mexico.
Granted, prohibition requires narcotics traders to dig the odd tunnel. But it spares them other headaches. Californian liberals recently proposed taxing Mr Guzmán and his colleagues up to $1 billion a year by legalising cannabis. Fortunately for the industry, conservatives voted to keep the thriving pot business tax-free. Red tape is minimal too: though America sees a million emergency-room visits a year from drug abuse, manufacturers see no need to invest in quality control when the penalty for selling contaminated cocaine is the same as for smuggling the pure stuff.
Mexican regulators have killed or imprisoned many of the country’s leading drug entrepreneurs since 2007. Last month the marines announced that they had nabbed Mr Guzmán’s son, known as El Gordo, or “Fatty”. It turned out to be a false alarm: the arrestee was a car salesman called Félix, whose only crime was to be plump. Such incompetence is common. As in other sectors, competent regulators are often tempted away by the higher salaries on offer in the private sector. Many traffickers start off as policemen; the Zetas mob began as an elite army unit.
On head-hunting (and -chopping)
Human resources are still a problem for the cartels, unsurprisingly given that more than 10,000 employees are violently retired each year. Junior vacancies are easily filled from the pool of 10m ninis, youths who ni estudian ni trabajan (neither study nor work). But Mexico’s poor schools—the worst in the OECD—mean that drug exporters face the same problems as other multinationals in attracting highly skilled workers. ManpowerGroup, a recruitment consultancy, found that 42% of legitimate Mexican firms reported difficulties filling vacancies. Most said they had to recruit expatriates to senior jobs. This is also true in the drug business: the Zetas have turned to former members of Guatemala’s Kaibiles special forces to satisfy a growing demand for experienced killers. Visa requirements, at least, are minimal.
Public relations are delicate in a business which has caused about 60,000 deaths in Mexico in the past six years. That is why cartel leaders are very serious about corporate social responsibility. Senior executives remain free partly because people are unwilling to tip off the police. Fear is one reason; another is that drug lords spread their profits around. Contributions to the local constabulary are popular. Conspicuous philanthropy is also common. A gleaming chapel in Hidalgo state recently put up a bronze plaque thanking Heriberto Lazcano, head of the Zetas, for a donation. When the pope raised an eyebrow about such “narco alms”, a Mexican bishop, Ramón Godínez, replied that when Mary Magdalene washed Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume, he didn’t ask her how she paid for it. “There is no reason to burn money just because its origin is evil. You have to transform it. All money can be transformed, just as corrupted people can be transformed,” he said. With God as its money launderer, Mexico’s dirtiest industry should stay on a high. | <urn:uuid:e3833ebf-8511-42c8-a286-66f4920dcdb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com.hk/node/21559598?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966552 | 1,327 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Now that the dust has cleared a little bit and the first round of post-election analyses are in, one emerging storyline is that the electorate has grown more conservative. But before Republicans go off and claim a mandate, a couple of caveats are in order.
- Beware the shifting independents. Much has been made of the shifting independents, who, according to exit polls, went from breaking 57-to-39 percent for Democrats in 2006 to breaking 55-to-39 percent for Republicans in 2010. Independents, who made up 28 percent of the voters in this election, are a difficult category to analyze, since many actually vote a lot like partisans even though they call themselves “independent” (for various reasons). As I’ve explained in an earlier post, it makes the most sense to think of independents in shades of independence, and the more truly independent the voter, the less ideological but also the less engaged and less politically informed the voter. All of which is to suggest that the independent voters who shifted from red to blue probably don’t really care much about ideology. Rather, they are most likely anti-politics and above all want to see more jobs and a recovering economy. They didn’t vote for an ideological crusade; they voted for the hope of a better economy and out of a need to blame somebody (the party in power) for their woes.
- Beware the shifting electorate. It’s pretty clear that the voters who turned out in 2010 were, on average, a bit older and a bit whiter than the voters who turned out in 2008. Had younger voters and African-American voters –who remain the most reliably Democrat demographics – turned out at 2008 levels, at least a few of the close House and Senate races might have flipped the other way. In part, this was entirely predictable, since voter turnout in mid-terms is historically two-thirds of what it is in presidential elections, and youth and minority voters tend to be most likely to not be paying attention for mid-term elections. But if they turn out again in 2012 at 2008 levels (and as long as Obama is on the ballot, there is good reason to think they will), then a decent number of the Republican freshmen could be one-termers. Republicans should be careful of mistaking a more conservative voter turnout this time around for a more conservative electorate.
- Beware the pendulum. In 2006, Democrats picked up 21 seats, and in 2008, they picked up 31 seats. Many of those pick-ups were in solid Republican districts, and so of the Republican pick-ups on Tuesday, 22 were in seats that had been solidly Republican in 2002-2006, and 15 were in seats that had been solidly Republican in 2002-2004. In other words, almost two-thirds of the pick-ups were simply reversions to ideological-demographic expectations. But Republicans also expanded into blue territory, picking up 22 seats that were solidly Democratic in 2002-2006, seats they might not be able to keep. As Ed Kilgore has explained, like all waves, this one “definitely has an undertow.”
America continues to be a 50-50 country, with a soft non-ideological middle of anxious, cranky, and sometimes fickle voters who don’t trust politicians and aren’t particularly happy with their choices. Majorities of voters now have an unfavorable view of both Republicans (52 percent) and Democrats (53 percent). Yet what’s remarkable is that even among those voters who had an unfavorable view of the Republican Party, almost one in four (23 percent) still held their nose and pulled the lever for the GOP. By comparison, only 10 percent of the voters who held an unfavorable view of Democrats voted blue anyway. Taken together, we now have more than a sixth of the electorate voting for a party of which they have an unfavorable view.
In short, this election can be explained simply by noting that older, whiter conservatives turned out in greater numbers than younger, more diverse voters, and non-ideological, performance-oriented independents decided to blame Democrats this time around. Neither of these reflect a dramatic change or are necessarily permanent conditions of American politics. | <urn:uuid:6a51159f-f3ef-464c-9c71-bf231c8103cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.progressivepolicy.org/2010/11/a-few-caveats-on-the-republican-%e2%80%9cmandate%e2%80%9d/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972484 | 859 | 1.6875 | 2 |
1st Place: Super Artist
Congratulations to first-place winner Cody E., age 7, of Pennsylvania! Cody created this submission using colored pencils, and he picked his “artistic powers” for his superhero.
When Cody is not drawing superheroes, “He loves to draw trucks,” his mom told us.
Cody’s other interests include playing baseball, Cub Scouts, camping, and pinewood derby competitions.
“He has even won for his pinewood cars,” added his mom.
Maybe one day, Cody will use his talents to design real cars!
2nd Place: Kindness Riley
Congratulations to our second-place winner Riley P., age 4, of New York. Riley used markers for her entry and said, “My superhero had kindness as her power.”
“Riley draws about three hours a day,” said her mom. “Even when she is outside, she draws with sidewalk chalk.”
Riley also sings, takes dance lessons, and plays with imaginary friends.
“She has a great imagination,” her mom says, “and she loves it when I read Humpty Dumpty to her.”
3rd Place: Angiebell
Congratulations to third-place winner Emma B., age 6, from Ohio. Emma used markers for her drawing of superhero Angiebell, “who saves people from villains.”
“Emma loves to draw,” her mom told us. “She especially loves to draw mermaids. We bought her a dry-erase board, and she uses it all the time. Then when she goes outside, she draws with sidewalk chalk.
Emma also plays basketball and takes dance and piano lessons.
So what does this busy girl want to be when she grows up? A dentist and an artist, of course! | <urn:uuid:81717e6e-14bd-4400-97fd-969cd432c422> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uskidsmags.com/blog/2009/09/01/humpty-dumpty-2009-humpty-dumpty-cover-contest-winners/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977613 | 398 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Song of songs, erotic element
"No book furnishes a better test than does the Song of the
depth of a man's Christianity. If his religion be in his head only, a dry form
of doctrine... he will see nothing here to attract him. But if his religion have
a hold on his heart, this will be a favourite portion of the word of God"
(McCheyne). An ancient fable mentions the man who had the ability to turn
everything he touched into gold. Some minds possess the ability to turn
everything they consider into intellectual gold. On the other hand, there are
minds that turn even the grace of God into an excuse for immorality (Rom 3:8;
6:1), and the most exalted truth into a lie (Rom 1:21-23; 2Th 2:10-12). This may
not be too far from the meaning of Paul's words: "To the pure, all things are
pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In
fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted" (Tit 1:15).
What do men do -- what SHOULD men do -- with the Song of
It is plain that there is a distinctive erotic element in the
Song of Songs. Whenever and however they were first written, and whatever else
they might symbolize, the songs are about a man and woman who are deeply in love
with one another, and who celebrate their love for one another in tender and
poignant, yet strongly sexual, terms. It is true that euphemisms are used
abundantly, but many commentators have pointed out that these euphemisms appear
often in other "love songs" of the ancient Near East -- where their meanings can
scarcely be denied. The songs are about human love, love expressed physically
It is this element in the Song of Songs, scarcely if at all
concealed, that has caused some men to mock, and that has "turned off" other
Bible students. Some students have gone so far as to question how such
"literature" could ever have been included in the Bible in the first place.
It must be recognized, and remembered, that the expression of
love in and through physical intimacy is -- according to the Bible -- one of the
greatest of God's gifts to mankind. It is a wonderful blessing, but only to be
enjoyed in the bonds of marriage. Although it is, or should be, private and
exclusive -- it is not something of which anyone should be ashamed, and it is
certainly not sinful! The descriptions of such love in the Song of Songs, even
if a bit embarrassing at times, should remind us of these facts. While modesty
is certainly a virtue, to go beyond this into being "Victorian" or "prudish"
about sexual matters is not necessarily to be more spiritual! "Marriage should
be honored by all, and the marriage bed is undefiled" (Heb 13:4).
And the erotic element in this Book serves a further purpose:
it emphasizes the link, or bridge, between natural marriage and spiritual
"marriage" in the Word of God. This connection is very strong, and very
In a blending of Old Testament and New, the "marriage of the
Lamb" may be seen as God's true marriage with His people Israel (the spiritual
Israel). Here is the real reason for such pervasive Bible language as "to know
God" (where, in Bible terms, "to know" one's spouse may mean to have intimate
relations with him or her), and "to be one with God" (where Adam and Eve were
told to become "one flesh").
Such terms for the spiritual union of God and His children,
through Jesus' work, are no accident; they are intended to be reminiscent of
marriage. Just as there is joy to be found, naturally speaking, in human
marriage... so also (and so much more so!) will there be spiritual joy in the
joining together of Christ and his "bride" -- physically, mentally, and
emotionally -- at his return.
This erotic element in the Song, then, should be no embarrassment. Rather, it is
God's promise that He will withhold "no good thing" from His loved ones
(Psa 84:11; cp Psa 34:10). It is His pledge that the joys in store, at the
Marriage Supper of the Lamb, will far surpass any joys that they may previously
have experienced or even imagined (Mat 6:33; Phi 4:19). | <urn:uuid:c434dede-f6f0-4f6b-9e79-c52efcc52943> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christadelphianbooks.org/agora/art_less/s24.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951438 | 979 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Janet Novack, Forbes Staff
I write from D.C. about tax and retirement policy and planning.
As you’ve probably noticed, there’s been a lot shooting at the tax corral recently. In a New York Times op-ed page, billionaire Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett set his sights on his fellow super-rich folk, saying they needed to be “coddled” less and taxed more, particularly on their capital gains. Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Rick Perry took aim at some low and middle income folks, saying (in a statement announcing his run for the Republican presidential nomination) that he was “dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.” (You can read what fellow members of the Forbes 400 such as Donald Trump, Eli Broad and Ken Fisher think about Buffett’s aim here.)
Now that the smoke has cleared a bit, there’s an interesting point to be made. From the opposite ends of the political spectrum, the billionaire and the buccaneering governor were both shooting at targets with a big red “tax expenditure” bulls-eye on them. Tax expenditures are those special tax loopholes, deductions, exclusions and credits that have gotten so much attention from deficit closers of late.The Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Six, President Obama’s bipartisan deficit reduction commission, and other bipartisan groups have called for a tax reform that would eliminate most tax expenditures, lower tax rates and bring in more dough for Uncle Sam. (There is even talk that Congress’ new 12-member “Super Committee” that will begin deliberating next month on how to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over 10 years might propose a reform, although that seems doubtful.)
The big reason that the super-rich pay taxes at a lower rate than the somewhat rich or the merely very well paid is that most of the richest folks’ income comes in the form of capital gains, now taxed at a top rate of just 15%, versus the 35% top rate on “ordinary” income such as salary and interest. This special 15% rate is the third most expensive individual tax expenditure and will cost Uncle Sam $403 billion over the next 10 years, according to Congress’ Joint Committee on Tax.
Incredibly, the 400 highest-income Americans reaped 13.1% of all net capital gains reported to the Internal Revenue Service in 2008. By contrast, they reported 1.31% of all income, overall and just 0.15% of all salary and wages. Here, for 2008 (as reported by the IRS and calculated by Forbes) are the average effective individual income tax rates, as a percentage of adjusted gross income, for various income groups.
|Size of AGI||Average Tax|
|(in $) 2008||% of AGI|
Remember, AGI comes before you apply itemized deductions or credits, so the tax rates above reflect the impact of tax breaks for the poor, such as the earned income tax credit, and those that most benefit the upper middle class, such as the mortgage interest deduction. (Howard Gleckman has more here on who gets those breaks.)
What about Rick Perry’s dismay that 46% of lower and middle income Americans pay no income tax? As economist Len Burman points out, two thirds of the folks who pay no income taxes do pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. But let’s stick to the income tax.
Well, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis, about half the non-payers are simply too poor to pay income tax once the standard deduction and individual exemption for each person are taken into account. Of the rest, the largest group excluded from tax because of tax expenditures are seniors, who get a bigger standard deduction than younger folks and more importantly, special tax treatment for their Social Security benefits. In all, 16.7 million elderly households will pay no tax in 2011 because of those two breaks and a special credit for elderly low income folks. By comparison, the earned income tax credit, the child credit and the child care credit combined keep only 11.5 million households with kids from paying income tax. | <urn:uuid:074dac19-d1ce-46e6-8348-c1f20d48160a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2011/08/26/warren-buffett-gets-special-tax-breaks-and-so-does-your-grandma/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957287 | 873 | 1.726563 | 2 |
This major group includes special trade contractors who undertake activities of a type that are specialized either to building construction, including work on mobile homes, or to both building and nonbuilding projects. These activities include painting (including bridge painting and traffic lane painting), electrical work (including work on bridges, power lines, and power plants), carpentry work, plumbing, heating, air-conditioning, roofing, and sheet metal work. Special trade contractors primarily engaged in activities that are clearly of a type specialized to heavy construction, such as grading for highways and airport runways; guardrail construction; installation of highway signs; underwater rock removal; and asphalt and concrete construction of roads, highways, streets, and public sidewalks are classified in Major Group 16. |
Special trade contractors may work on subcontract from the general contractor, performing only part of the work covered by the general contract, or they may work directly for the owner. Special trade contractors for the most part perform their work at the site of construction, although they also may have shops where they perform work incidental to the job site. | <urn:uuid:3e2fa83b-8ff4-44de-ae2e-5952e66b284a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/sic_manual.display?id=12&tab=group | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965654 | 215 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The Bible mentions that one of the miracles Jesus performed was the healing of Peter's mother-in-law. This makes it quite clear that Peter himself was married, and Peter is the considered the first ...
I understand that when people go to confessional in the Catholic Church, the priest will often prescribe certain things for them to do for penance in order for their sins to be forgiven. I have heard ...
As I understand it, in Roman Catholic practice, people regularly confess their sins to a priest, who then instructs them what they must do in order to be forgiven. However, it is apparently possible ... | <urn:uuid:66df38c7-d8cd-489f-835c-90073790d96b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/priests?sort=active | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980951 | 125 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Originally Posted by Denwishy
Is feeding raw really that much better than a kibble? He is on wellness fish and potato right now. He seems to be ok but not great. He was on Eukanuba before and when he started getting allegies, i changed to Wellness.
I always thought that you are not supposed to feed then bones, especially chicken/ turkey bones which when broken, are very sharp and can tear their their intestines and tummies? It is safe? Is there a difference between raw and cooked bones?
Feeding raw vs. feeding kibble is a contentious issue- some feel one is better than the other but the only proof is in the pudding. You have to try it and see if it is better for your dog. I know that many allergic dogs do much better on high end kibble, and even better sometimes when switched to raw.
You can feed soft uncooked bones to dogs but weight bearing bones (leg bones of beef, bison for example) can be more dangerous. For larger dogs, they have no problems eating a chicken leg. For a chi, I'd be looking at starting smaller (backbone maybe?) You should never feed cooked bones as they are drier and can splinter. | <urn:uuid:428f4c17-bcbe-415e-b4c3-9f8d506e63e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pets.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=256110&postcount=90 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977349 | 257 | 1.515625 | 2 |
This mysterious animal noise was recorded near Big Rapids, Michigan by local hunter Les Morey. It was submitted for review to the Card Wildlife Education Center. This sound was recorded at night in the deep woods in October 2002.
There is a 15 second wait until you first hear the sound. The entire sound file is 5:57.
These animal activity sheets are in PDF format and may be downloaded and printed for a classroom project. | <urn:uuid:5cc6f4d8-36c9-45e9-ac41-43f17f8da213> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/card/Kids_Corner/Multimedia/nitesound.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977563 | 87 | 1.5 | 2 |
For the third consecutive year, UBS Financial Services executive Colleen Schuhmann visited the St. Vincent Ferrer School to talk to students about smart money habits.
Schuhmann, vice president of investments and chartered retirement planning, spoke to third-grade students about saving money, making a budget, investing for the future and knowing the difference between needs and wants. She also talked about credit and debit cards, and the distinct difference between the two forms of commonly used payment.
"Do you want to be a millionaire? Then put money in an Individual Retirement Account and 401K. My mom used to say that money doesn't buy you happiness; it buys you choices," Schuhmann said. "Think of a credit score as an SAT score. If you get a good SAT score, you get into college. When you have a good credit score, you get lower interest."
Schuhmann also talked to the students about income, bills, taxes, new financial applications, insurance and medical costs.
"[The way] to get the things we need is to earn it," she said. "You have to have money on hand to meet these basic needs."
Schuhmann was married at the St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church. Her son Matthew attends third grade at the school, while daughter Rose is in fifth grade. This is the third year Schuhmann returned to the school to speak with students about finances.
Schuhmann ended her presentation by handing $100, divided into $10 bills, to third-grade student Tripp Lesane. As Lesane stood in awe and his classmates celebrated, Schuhmann took away one $10 bill at a time to pay various expenses. Lesane held the money tightly, but Schuhmann kept subtracting the bills, illustrating how quickly expenses add up. | <urn:uuid:913b4175-c1d6-40e4-977e-7ca756a5a28b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-05-30/news/fl-drf-schumann-0530-20120530_1_credit-score-students-money | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975021 | 370 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The new AIG report reveals how the Treasury secretary—and U.S. taxpayers—were fleeced by Wall Street banks.
The issue has been festering for months: Why were AIG's counterparties—including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS—paid 100 cents on the dollar when the feds rescued the insurance giant, helping raise the cost of the bailout to nearly $200 billion? A new report issued by Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky now reveals that government officials, notably then-New York Fed President and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, grievously damaged the nation and capitulated to the very banks they should have been supervising.
Barofsky's report reads like a case study in failed negotiation. The New York Fed didn't have the backbone to stand up to Wall Street, didn't understand its capacity to protect taxpayers, and didn't appreciate that its responsibility was to taxpayers.
Geithner and the Fed have proffered a series of spurious reasons for their willingness to pay AIG's counterparties—the leading Wall Street banks—in full while demanding concessions from every other entity with whom the Treasury or the Fed dealt. Geithner suggested he could not use the threat of AIG's default in the absence of a federal bailout to get concessions from AIG's creditors. Why not?
That is exactly what the government did with the auto industry, and rightly so. The entity providing financing to a near-bankrupt institution must always seek contributions from everyone else at risk. The fact that the Fed had a strong predisposition against letting AIG go into bankruptcy didn't mean the Fed shouldn't have used every opportunity to wrangle concessions from the other parties. For Geithner to say it would have been "unethical" to negotiate for concessions is sheer silliness. It is akin to saying that having decided that you are willing to pay up to $250,000 for a house, it is unethical to negotiate to buy it for $225,000.
Geithner also claims that using the possibility of AIG's default as a negotiating opportunity would have cast doubt on the government's commitment to financial stability. What? Seeking to get other parties to share the burden demonstrates a lack of commitment to restoring financial stability and market-based realities? Pressuring Goldman and the other counterparties to offer concessions would have forced them to absorb the consequences of making suspect deals with an insurance company that was essentially a Ponzi scheme. Forcing them to give concessions would have been one small step toward ending the moral hazard the Fed had allowed to flourish for years.
Geithner also claims that refusal to pay 100 cents on the dollar might have been misinterpreted by the rating agencies and so cast a shadow on AIG's credit rating. Huh? AIG was flat-lining. The only way to restore its credit rating was for the government to bail it out—and to negotiate the best possible deal while doing so.
Perhaps most remarkable is that Geithner claims the "sanctity of contract" prevented renegotiating with the counterparties. But the government wasn't a party to these contracts! The government was stepping in with taxpayer money to save a broken company on terms to be set by the government. The counterparties had the contractual right to refuse the terms, throw AIG into bankruptcy, and suffer the consequences. In a workout context, the entity with cash—here, the government—can set the terms, and the other parties can either accept those terms or walk over to bankruptcy court. The government had absolutely no contractual obligation to do anything.
Also amazing is Geithner's assertion that he and the Fed were acting on behalf of AIG. Perhaps nothing is more fundamental than knowing whom you represent. Geithner and the Fed were supposed to be acting on behalf of taxpayers and citizens, not AIG. Their effort was supposed to get the best result for taxpayers: preserving the structure of the economy and stopping a free fall. That—not preserving AIG's market value—was the rationale for intervention. Once tax dollars were at stake, Geithner should have been asking how to achieve the best economic result while minimizing taxpayers' exposure.
Geithner has tried to deflect some of this criticism by suggesting that it is "untainted by experience." I would suggest that it is Geithner who displays lack of experience in his dealing with the financial community. He doesn't know how to negotiate, doesn't understand what cards he holds, and doesn't understand the need for fundamental reform. | <urn:uuid:0a8311d1-44ec-41cc-ad04-ebb138043d1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_best_policy/2009/11/geithners_disgrace.single.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974197 | 924 | 1.632813 | 2 |
When you apply for a credit card, you sign or agree to a cardholder agreement with the bank that issues the card. The cardholder agreement is a contract with terms and conditions that are still applicable and enforceable even after the account has been charged off by the card issuer. A card issuer will typically charge off an account when no payment has been received on the account for more than 180 days. A charge-off is merely an accounting procedure that requires the bank to move the account from an asset to a liability. It's their way of saying that they have doubts about you ever paying your debt. It doesn't affect their heartfelt hope and desire that you "will" pay your account. So, the charge-off does not affect the original cardholder agreement, and you still owe the money. Your account was likely closed by the card issuer when you fell behind, but closing the account still doesn't end the contract.
What that means for you is that any fees that were included in your cardholder agreement will be assessed on your account as long as you still have a balance due on the account. Late and over-the-limit fees can and will be applied to your account if you are not making payments on time and if your total balance is more than your credit limit on the account. Also, interest charges as set forth in your cardholder agreement will be added to your account each month. At this point, with no payments received your penalty interest rate is most likely at 29 percent or more. But wait, there's more ... if there are any legal fees or court costs incurred to collect the account, you get to pay those, too.
The account will not drop from your credit report until March 2016, or seven years from the date the account was charged off. Even then, you'll still be on the hook for the debt. However, how the account is reported is the least of your worries. It is quite likely the creditor or a collector will have you in court and go after your wages, particularly if you have a large balance due on the account.
You can check the statute of limitations in your state for collecting a debt using the courts. My guess is that if you have not heard from a collector yet, you will before you cross that statute of limitations threshold. Many states have a four- to five-year statute for collecting credit card accounts. You are nearing the four-year mark. Should the limit be three years or less in your state, the collector cannot legally use the courts to collect because the debt is older than three years. If you are called into court on an expired debt, you still must appear or submit paperwork, whichever is required, informing the court of your statute of limitations defense.
Should the statute in your state not yet be expired and as interest rates and fees are continuing to be added to your account, I suggest you work out an affordable payment plan with the creditor sooner rather than later. If that's not possible, I suggest you speak to a lawyer or a nonprofit credit counselor to explore your other options.
Ask the adviserTo ask a question of the Debt Adviser, go to the "Ask the Experts" page and select "Debt" as the topic. Read more Debt Adviser columns and more stories about debt management. | <urn:uuid:ccf1c6b3-5e9d-48a9-b9c0-d5a668dd93b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/charged-off-credit-card-still-issuing-fees.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974403 | 664 | 1.78125 | 2 |
At GEIL we also saw the first DDR3 modules. Regarding which chips were used the answer was "No, it's not Nanya. But I can't say more at this time". At least this shows us that several manufacturers are working on DDR3 chips and that the first samples are ready. As latencies something like CL7 is used, like at A-DATA.
For server products which need A LOT of memory (no, A LOT more than 4 GB) the fully buffered FB-DIMMs have been developed. They have a small driver chip on the module which reduces the electrical stress on the signal lines of the motherboard. GEIL doesn't see this as a too big market, but still they want to show that they have the technology to do it.
Have you ever wondered how the chips on the memory modules are picked? That's what this tester is for. You put in a bunch of memory chips into the slots and define settings like clock speed, timings and voltage. After that comprehensive memory tests are run, similar to Memtest86+, just with more in-depth testing.
These SD cards are waterproof and burn-proof. If you look inside the watertank you can see the modules in there. As I was told the burn-proof feature lets me put my lighter under it and the plastic would not melt. In addition to that a circuitry is in place which makes sure that there is no risk of destroying the memory from static electricity. Last but not least a small attachable connector is sold with the package that allows you to plug the module straight into a regular USB port on your PC. As with the A-DATA solution there is no need for data conversion or special driver software.
This is an AM2 platform running at breathtaking DDR2-1200. No, the timings are not CL7 this time. GEIL managed to get this memory to run at fast CL4, which is nothing but impressive. Unfortunately these modules are not sold yet, but they are looking into offering modules with default speeds beyond DDR2-1066.
If you are into heay-duty USB sticks, these might be for you. They have an aluminum shell which makes the stick almost impossible to break. In addition to that the USB connector is retractable which mean there is no cap you could lose. | <urn:uuid:e48d4628-e66e-4c7c-8884-95b42bdef93c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Computex2006/GEIL/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971017 | 476 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Central African Republic rebels seize central town, defying foreign troops
BANGUI (Reuters) - Rebels in Central African Republic seized the central town of Kaga Bandoro on Tuesday despite the presence of foreign troops meant to support the government, a government official said.
The fall of the town, 333 km (207 miles) north of the capital Bangui, came hours after the Seleka rebel alliance said they would suspend their push and means they now have a firm grip on the north and east of the fragile nation.
"They took the town after a short battle despite the surprising lack of action from the Chadian (soldiers)," Rigobert Enza, who works in Kaga Bandoro's mayor's office, told Reuters after he fled to Sibut, the next town to the south.
Foreign soldiers in Kaga Bandoro include Chadians dispatched in the last few weeks to help Bangui tackle the latest rebellion as well as members of a regional stabilization force made up of soldiers from across Central Africa.
Neither rebel nor government officials were available for comment. But the daughter of a second local government official in the town said she had received a call from her father confirming the town had been occupied by rebels.
CAR, a mineral-rich but land-locked former French colony, has been plagued by insecurity since independence in 1960.
President Francois Bozize came to power in 2003 after a brief war and has won two elections since then.
But facing several internal rebellions and the spill-over from conflicts in neighboring Chad and Sudan, he has struggled to stabilize the nation.
"The situation has become very serious," a senior official in the president's camp told Reuters, asking not to be named.
The rebels are made up of fighters from several previous rebel groups and complain that Bozize has failed to stick to the terms of a 2007 peace deal.
(Reporting by Paul-Marin Ngoupana; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)
© Thomson Reuters 2013 All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:4c42e9e4-6713-4dac-8543-4cfb653285b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE8BO06P20121225 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974256 | 419 | 1.648438 | 2 |
What is On and Off Page SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and using on and off page SEO will help you gain higher ranking in the search engines. When the Google Panda update swept through the online world, about a year ago, it changed the way SEO works for everybody. There are some old strategies you should be aware of before working on the new ones.
With on page SEO, the old strategies had nothing to do with providing good quality content for the reader. They were all about stuffing a keyword phrase into some content a certain number of times to get listed high on the search engine results for that keyword. This leads to many low quality sites being listed very high in the rankings.
With off page SEO, the only thing that mattered was the number of backlinks coming from other sites, blogs, directories, and other web entities. This has changed quite a bit and you can no longer expect to out rank your competition just because you gain more backlinks than they currently have.
Good On and Off Page SEO Today
Good on page SEO consists of high quality content the reader can actually use for what they are after. For example, if you found this post because you searched for SEO, search engine optimization, on page SEO, or off page SEO, then this is considered high quality content for you. There are tips here and knowledge about the subject you were searching for.
If you don't give your readers what they are after, then they will not stay on the site, and the search engines will not rank you as high as they used to. Now you must provide content that delivers what the reader wants and it is a good rule of thumb, to always post 500 words or more. The best results have been seen with 700 to 1,200 word posts and pages of high quality.
You must also use your keyword phrase properly and not over use it. A density of 1% to 3% is plenty and you want to use it in any heading you have along with the title of the page or post. You also want to use it in the first sentence of the content and last sentence of the content. Bolding it once and putting it in italics, is also recommended.
You can also boost your on page SEO by using an image with an "ALT" tag that is your keyword phrase. Once you have your content properly optimized for the search engines, you can move onto the off page SEO portion of gaining higher ranking in Google, Yahoo, Bing, and the other search engines.
The best ways to achieve good off page SEO is to get backlinks from other blogs and websites, in the same industry, to your website or blog. The higher the page rank or PR of the sites, the better, but this is not the only thing factored in. You want a mixture of very high quality backlinks and lower quality backlinks, so that it looks natural to the search engines.
You can use articles syndication, guest blogging, blog commenting, forum marketing, and link swapping to help you get the high and low quality backlinks you need to your website or blog. Most of these methods can also result in some direct traffic from where your links are and every little bit of traffic helps.
Being Careful with Off Page SEO
There are many services that promise to blast your link out to thousands of sites in a matter of days, but you have to be very careful with off page SEO. These services can be very dangerous because they don't look all that natural and most of these backlinks will be very low in quality. Make sure your off page SEO efforts happen over a course of time and not all at once. | <urn:uuid:dff5b1fc-6af4-49f8-a0c1-d1ad564f1b00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webhostingmasters.com/seo/off-page-seo-tips | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955854 | 745 | 1.710938 | 2 |
“With the exception of My Dinner with Andre, very few films can sustain interest in one type of location for too long. Mix it up with day and night scenes, interiors and exteriors. Too many scenes in one type of location will hypnotize a reader like the centerlines on a highway.
Common Screenwriting Mistakes
“I’m a little bit country…I’m a little bit rock-n-roll”
Donnie & Marie
On Tuesday morning in Cedar Falls, Iowa I got tired of trying to scrape the ice off my SUV windows and ended up riding my bike to work on the snow packed roads. (My office is only a few blocks away.) Three days later I was riding a bike on the beach in a much warmer and sunnier New Smyrna Beach, Florida. That’s quite a contrast.
And that got me thinking of how contrast is used in screenwriting and in film/video/TV production.
It may only be something you become aware of in the rewriting stage or editing stage but how you handle contrast effects the flow of your story. If you’ve ever seen a production board of a feature film you’ve seen that there are different color strips for interior or exterior locations. Also listed are characters needed for certain scenes.
It helps producers and production managers get an overall feel of what is needed each day to bring a film in on time and on budget. It also helps a producer who is running over budget to know where to cut. And some contrasts begin to emerge in the story.
Some writers find it helpful to lay out their story in a similar way to see if there are any problems that jump out. Laid out in sequence you can see if there are x-amount of pages where your protagonist isn’t on screen ( a common problem).
Are there too many scenes in a row inside the same house? (Granted this works in a movie like Halloween, but is best to mix it up and move it around.) Let me give you another visual contrast from New Smyrna Beach of a sign a took yesterday.
The mostly white sign pops against the deep blue sky. Contrasts are used across the board in production from the script, to the way the script is shot and edited.
By contrast I mean things like:
As basic as this is many writers neglect addressing contrast favoring a more intuitive approach. But if we look over at our fellow creatives in the painting field they understand contrast very well. They are deliberate in their approach to color and composition.
Films are a visual medium and audiences enjoy seeing a contrast on screen. This can be seen in the biggest blockbuster of all time in how James Cameron deals with the world of the upper class wealthy and working class represented by Leonardo Dicaprio in Titanic.
It also contrast the arrogance of those who thought they had built a ship that couldn’t be sunk with the realities of hitting an iceberg. The film deals with a contrast between life & death as the unsinkable ship begins to sink. Another way to look at contrast in this story is wet/dry.
On the Legally Blonde DVD commentary the production designers talk how they designed Reese Witherspoon’s California sorority lifestyle to be a pastel and playful world to contrast the serious world of East Coast Harvard law school..
In both Jaws and Cold Manor Creek there is a contrast between families leaving the mean evil big cities seeking calm small town living –only to have those small town utopias turn into dangerous places. (Just for the record New Smyrna Beach with all its charm is the shark bite capital of the the US if not the world.)
Romeo & Juliet is the contrasts between two families.
In Fatal Attraction & The Godfather the calm demeanor of the Glenn Close and Marlon Brando characters are just one side of who they are.
Hitchcock built suspense in many a scene and movie using contrasts.
You get the picture. And of course the reasons for the contrast goes back to conflict. (If you a haven’t read the post Everything I learned in Film School (tip #1), that covers much of this ground.)
So the equation looks like this: CONTRAST=CONFLICT
Look for it everywhere in your script.
And look for it when you watch film and TV shows. Watch how they handle contrasts.
When you watch A Place in the Sun look see how Elizabeth Taylor is dressed compared to Shelly Winters, both of whom are of interest to Montgomery Clift. Listen to the music and sounds associated with each character. Great writers and directors are intentional in their choices.
Watch how directors and directors of photography and editors use wide shots, medium, and close-ups (and some times ultra wide & extreme close-ups) in making a scene effective.
In the circles I travel in we call this shooting a sequence, other people call it coverage. Where you are shooting the same action in wide, medium, and close up shots. Without that coverage you have no contrast and it can make it difficult for an editor to make a scene work.
If photographers don’t have contrasts in their photos they talk about the photo being flat. While at times you can use that to your advantage, it is best to avoid writing flat characters. And the way you do that is adding contrasts to every scene.
Extra Credit: Since the opening quote mentioned My Dinner with Andre, I’d like to know if anyone has heard the rumor that it was written by Wally Shawn in the Black Hawk Hotel in Cedar Fall, IA–not a half a block from my office. Several people have said that Shawn lived at the Black Hawk Hotel for a time in the 70′s and performed with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony. I’d like to read some confirmation of that.
Update: The day before I flew back to Iowa it was 80 degree in Orlando and a windchill of minus 20 in Cedar Falls, that’s a 100 degree difference. Quite a contrast indeed.
Copyright ©2008 Scott W. Smith˙
Read Full Post » | <urn:uuid:b078857c-5785-46c3-9a91-aa6d6dec56e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://screenwritingfromiowa.wordpress.com/tag/the-godfather/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944511 | 1,274 | 1.578125 | 2 |
This newspaper for just as many years has editorially supported the concept – not because elected superintendents are automatically inferior to their appointed counterparts but because elections greatly restrict local school districts in choosing their leaders.
A bill requiring appointed superintendents in all Mississippi districts probably has more momentum this legislative session than ever before. Both House and Senate education committee chairmen support the change, and it appears to have broad support.
Part of the reason is that in recent years some elected county superintendents have taken a more aggressive posture in legislative races, supporting or opposing candidates based on their stances on education. This hasn’t set well with many legislators. But political conflicts aside, there are genuine advantages to moving to an all-appointed system.
The most compelling argument is that it expands the potential field of candidates dramatically. Elected superintendents must live the county in which they will serve. This automatically restricts the talent pool.
That’s not to say that there aren’t highly qualified individuals living in many school districts who choose to run, and there certainly are a number of elected superintendents who do an excellent job. But why, when Mississippi districts are trying to compete nationally and even internationally, should a superintendent search be restricted to one county?
Political skills in a broad sense are a requirement for any effective superintendent, elected or appointed, but an elected superintendent must by definition be overly preoccupied with keeping political fences mended if he or she is to achieve or stay in office. It’s a distraction that takes away from what the focus of the job should be, and it also blurs accountability since school boards have no real authority over an elected superintendent.
If the law is changed and the state transitions to all-appointed superintendents, many boards would no doubt rehire the sitting school leader. But they should have the choice of looking elsewhere.
Nationally, only 1 percent of superintendents are elected. Nearly half of those are in Mississippi. Our results don’t justify sticking with a system so clearly out of sync with the rest of the nation. | <urn:uuid:0d8df7e3-88fd-4280-a3f4-8a00eb5f8b14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://djournal.com/pages/full_story/push?article-OUR+OPINION-+Elected+school+chiefs+mean+limited+choices%20&id=21478339 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96054 | 426 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Americans are famous both for being weight conscious, and at the same time unable to come to terms successfully with their bloated waistlines. The same paradox has applied to how the public looks at budget deficits for a very long time.
Note a 2006 Pew Research Center survey that reported "Americans See Weight Problems Everywhere But In the Mirror." An overwhelming number of the public found their fellow Americans overweight, yet significantly fewer said this was true about "the people they know." And, of course, just four-in-ten considered themselves overweight. A follow-up report observed that among the many Americans who said that they were exercising, dieting or both, few were having much success.
This is not all that different from what polling has found consistently about how Americans look at the fight against their government's bloated budget deficit.
The issue seems to be a political fight everyone is willing to join. The Republican Party has added deficit fighting to its political resurgence rallying cry. President Barack Obama has gone to great length to promise that his new health care plan will not add a cent to the deficit. But are American really ready to shed all that deficit weight?
Read the full commentary Battle of the Budget Bulge on the Pew Research Center's Web site. | <urn:uuid:2906d1f7-f50b-4f52-919b-9e5ef85cbe4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=56055&category=296 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982434 | 250 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Spell check brick? Anyone?
I mean c’mon! What do you expect from someone who would put something like that on their vehicle anyways! If they can’t speak english they can’t read english genius! lol
Thanks Beth! I feel better about myself now that I know that . I’m one step closer to being as smart as you! :) What about c’mon?? Is that proper? Thanks in advance for helping me with this..
What better would you expect from a Yankee fan?
Ahhh, the days of yore…….
Yankees fans… ha
He spelled “you’re” wrong. Has nothing to do with the Yankees logo.
that is dumb! I hope you know that’s the New York Yanees logo and not some oriental writing.
I get what you’RE saying but it is still english either way. Its not funny either way. I know someone who actually thought that logo was chinese writing…blonde girl
it reads “Your” it should be “You’re” nothing to do with the NY Yankees logo :)
Scott = fail!
No it’s not English “either way”, it is meant to say “You are” which can be abbreviated to You’re, “your” is a different word with a different meaning.
It may not be proper english, but it is english. So you saying that the black people that have their own lingo are not speaking english?
we just had this discussion in my critical thinking class, and you my friend are a racist if you think that isnt english lol! Oops I forgot an apostrophe in “isnt” so that means that I am speaking a different language now and you can’t understand me.
You’re a cunt….
very witty and well thought out reply!
Woah woah…Scott, back it up. No one said anything about this being racist. Yes there is slang, and not everyone uses the correct punctuation marks where they should be as we all learned in english class. This is just over the words “Your” and “you’re or You are” just like “There, Their, They’re” all sounds the same all spelled differently all meaning something diffrent.
Can’t spell and jeez he’s a fucking Yankees fan too. | <urn:uuid:cdd1ae1f-68bf-42d7-b26f-a43de1a2a3ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://9laughs.com/he-said-speak-not-write/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94876 | 524 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Women Smoking More, Starting Younger
New research finds women who smoke today have a much greater risk of dying from lung cancer than they did decades ago.
That is partly because they are starting younger and smoking more than women used to.
Women have caught up with men when it comes to the risk of dying from smoking-related illnesses.
Copyright 2013 Newport Television LLC All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:d873f935-7b6e-4bd3-b0db-db726e01bbb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.9wsyr.com/news/state/story/Women-Smoking-More-Starting-Younger/N_oyAB75eUqzNdmxgjXWwg.cspx?rss=113 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957649 | 92 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Wireless music appears to be the latest frontier being tackled by tech’s big names. Over the past several months Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) have each launched their contribution to the field and Google (GOOG) is the latest company to throw its hat in the ring. The company unveiled Google Music during the middle of November, offering uploads of songs from three of the four top music companies. Sony Music Entertainment (SNE), Vivendi SA’s Universal Music (VIV) and EMI Music have all established deals with Google so that members of the new cloud platform will be able to upload and access songs anywhere.
The uploads, which cost $1, comparable to Apple’s iTunes song price of 99 cents, are integrated within Google’s social networking platform, allowing users to share the songs to friends for up to one free listen. The sales of the songs could help drum up greater interaction with the Google + platform and give the Android another feature to compete with Apple’s iPhone, but the fact remains that Google is coming a little bit late to the cloud computing field.
Apple may have only just launched its iTunes Match several weeks ago, but the original iTunes was a pioneer in digital music downloads. As a result Apple appears to have a better understanding of the “need it now” sentiment that people look for when they listen to music. NPR said Apple’s iTunes Match beat out Google Music only by a “wisp,” but with an interface many are familiar with and a long history in the business of selling music, Apple is simply more seasoned in creating projects in this realm that people are attracted to. Among the other benefits to Apple’s Match is a “scan and match,” feature that permits users to skip the process of uploading songs into the cloud by automatically transferring over songs it recognizes.
Google seems as though it’s perpetually trailing Apple in terms of its mobility updates. Even the Android smartphone, which has been well received, debuted well after the iPhone and seems to continually look to Apple for innovations. The same appears to be the case with Google Music, which seemed to use the iTunes structure as the measuring stick. In addition to the competition from Apple, Google also faces pressure from competitors like Amazon and Spotify. Spotify, which already has 10 million active users in 12 countries, is especially threatening in terms of snatching up market share, as it allows users to listen to a massive selection of songs, anywhere at any time, free of charge. The free of charge aspect is the major appeal that Google Music has over its key cloud competitors, Apple and Amazon, as both of those companies charge $15 to inhabit the cloud. Google on the other hand will allow users to store as many as 20,000 tracks for free and will instead gain revenue by taking a 30 percent share of each track sold.
Beyond attempting to convince customers to give into its plodding, bulky file uploads with the free cloud, Google has added several other features in an attempt to make it more appealing both to users and to artists. During its product launch, the company listed a number of well-known artists who would be launching their music exclusively with Google Music before it was available anywhere else. Google is also looking to attract independent artists to its platform through its Artists Hub, which allows unsigned musicians to create a profile for a one-time fee of $25. Through the payment, an artist will be entitled to download an unlimited number of songs, upload and control photos and set costs for their music. This element may help attract the enthusiasts of underground music that Google fails to entice with the exclusive right to the new Pearl Jam record.
Whether people will embrace Google Music after the long years they have spent with iTunes, or the recently popularized Spotify, will remain to be seen. The fact that it is free to the user, however, may be Google’s greatest tool against those who came before it. | <urn:uuid:af524910-5902-4ef1-9c1d-377b896821b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://editorial.equities.com/technology/can-google-music-compete/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967612 | 817 | 1.523438 | 2 |
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a Syrian man, left, stands in front of a building that was damaged after two bombs exploded near a military compound, in the city of Idlib, northwestern Syria, Monday, April 30, 2012. / AP Photo/SANA
(AP) UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. peacekeeping chief said Tuesday that U.N. military observers in Syria are reporting cease-fire violations from the government and opposition and he demanded an immediate halt to all violence.
Herve Ladsous refused to say which side was responsible for the most violations. But he said the unarmed observers have documented a number of Syrian heavy weapons deployed in populated areas including armored personnel carriers and Howitzers despite the government's claim that it had withdrawn tanks and troops from cities and towns as required under international envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan.
Syrian forces fired mortar shells into a farming village near the Turkish border Tuesday, killing 10 people, among them two young children.
"The level of violence in Syria has been appalling," Ladsous said at a news conference. "I think the violations that are observed come from both sides. I would not establish a ratio. Now is not the time ... The important fact is that violations do come from both sides."
Twenty-four observers were in Syria on Tuesday in five locations Damascus, Homs, Hama, Daraa and Idlib all hotspots in the 13-month uprising that by U.N. account has killed more than 9,000 people, Ladsous said at a news conference. In each place, he said, they conduct mobile patrols during the day and sometimes at night.
He said the U.N. has commitments for about 150 observers which are now being processed, with new pledges coming in daily, and expects a rapid increase that will see the authorized total of 300 observers on the ground by the end of May.
But Ladsous said this requires Syria to give visas to the observers and it has already denied visas to three observers without reason. He declined to disclose their nationalities.
He said there were "verbal comments" from the Syrians about the Friends of Democratic Syria, which includes more than 70 nations including the U.S., many European countries and a number of Mideast nations. President Bashar Assad's government said it would refuse visas to observers from the "Friends" group.Syria's cultural treasures are also conflict victims
Ladsous said it is the U.N. peacekeeping department's responsibility to appoint observers and if Syrian authorities don't cooperate, "we report to the Security Council," as he did last week.
He said he expects the U.N. and Syria to sign an agreement "very rapidly" on the operation of the U.N. mission.
But Ladsous said Assad's government still refuses to allow the U.N. to use its own helicopters and air assets, and discussions are continuing on that issue.
Even though only a small number of U.N. observers are on the ground, "already they have had a visible impact, an effective impact," Ladsous said. Not only do the observers see what is going on, but "their presence has the potential to change the political dynamics."
"They help build calm, and calm helps the political process that Mr. Annan is leading," he added.
Ladsous said that 35 U.N. civilian staff members are already in Syria and more will be deployed to support the observers and monitor the implementation of other aspects of the peace plan.
The civilian staff will establish contacts "with various components of the political landscape in Syria, talking to the greatest number possible of people," he said. They will also work on human rights and gender-based violence issues "which are a part of the drama that is happening in Syria."
He said the observers and civilians already deployed some redeployed from U.N. missions in the Mideast and elsewhere come from 24 countries.
With the Syrian government responsible for their security, Ladsous said, their safety is an issue.
"I have to say there have been several incidents of various concern, in particular with some opposition members," Ladsous said, without elaborating. | <urn:uuid:e95aeadf-54e7-4bfb-9bab-e4d5c1626fd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57425707/un-both-sides-in-syria-are-violating-the-truce/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977513 | 870 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Twitter / AMSPresElect: My research focuses on ...
My research focuses on human-caused #climate change -Urban heat isles, pollution, & urb floods. Refutes claim humans can't change climateMarshall Shepherd voted president-elect of American Meteorological Society | UGA Today
Athens, Ga. - Marshall Shepherd, professor of geography in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been voted president-elect of the American Meteorological Society.
Shepherd, who directs the university's Atmospheric Sciences Program, will begin a one-year term as president-elect on Jan. 22 at the annual meeting of the society in New Orleans. In 2013, he will assume the presidency of the society, which was founded in 1919 and has a membership of more than 14,000 professionals, students and weather enthusiasts. | <urn:uuid:49f8ccd8-0f98-4c7b-a0ff-ab9944782f5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2012/09/wait-what-ams-president-elect-argues.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93082 | 172 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The Arts Council, Inc. firmly believes that art of every form:
- reflects the diversity and heritage of the entire community
- leads to higher academic success and SAT scores among students
- helps develop critical problem solving skills
- provides a higher quality of life in a community which leads to increased economic development.
Therefore, The Arts Council seeks out groups and organizations that support this belief and works together to foster the arts at the local, state and national levels. The Arts Council also advocates with legislators to provide arts funding and support and we send Arts Action Alerts to our affiliates and members regarding House and Senate Bills that impact the arts both positively or negatively.
Advocacy Group Memberships
The Arts Council is a member of the following arts advocacy groups and organizations, holding board seats on many:
ALL-GA, a state advocacy group, board seat held by Arts Council Executive Director, Gladys Wyant
Georgia Assembly of Community Arts Organizations (GACAA), a state arts organization and advocacy group; previous board seat held by Arts Council Executive Director, Gladys Wyant, past GACAA president
Southern Arts Federation (SAF), a regional arts organization and advocacy group; member
Americans for the Arts, a national arts advocacy group; member
The Arts Council is also a board member of the following organizations, which enables arts advocacy at the local level:
Lake Lanier Convention & Visitors Bureau, board seat held by Arts Council Executive Director, Gladys Wyant
Main Street Gainesville, board seat held by Arts Council Executive Director, Gladys Wyant
Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce, member | <urn:uuid:7aee25c1-d9c6-4b66-aa58-eda157eeefbe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theartscouncil.net/advocacy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947646 | 328 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Our student organizations are an important part of the Law School community and the engine behind many exciting programs. They offer an opportunity for students to explore their academic work beyond the classroom, through events that bring them together with others of similar (or different) cultural backgrounds or philosophical beliefs. These student organizations are also an effective way for you to participate in activities that will broaden your knowledge of specific areas of the law, become involved in pro bono work, and connect with the Law School's alumni and other members of the legal community.
There are more than 40 student organizations within the Law School, representing a variety of practice areas and cultural groups. Members develop substantive and informative student programs throughout the school year, as well as organize school-wide social events. Early in the academic year, the Student Bar Association conducts its annual Organization Fair when representatives from the association's various organizations are available to meet with students interested in joining.
Visit the links on this page to learn more about the Law School's student organizations. | <urn:uuid:7751ba6a-247b-44d2-affa-ba973ae8bc7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brooklaw.edu/cityandcampus/studentlife/studentorganizations/recreational.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975881 | 201 | 1.703125 | 2 |
News | Published: Wed 2 Nov 2011
New light, new colour, new display
One of the most popular galleries at the Fitzwilliam Museum has undergone a full renovation and reinstallation. Gallery 5, housing the museum’s remarkable collection of paintings and sculpture by the French Impressionists and other late 19th and early 20th-century artists has re-opened with a striking new look, colour and display.
Featuring artists such as Monet, Matisse, Cézanne, Pissarro, Degas, Sisley and Renoir, the refurbished Impressionist gallery follows on from the restoration in 2010 of its sister-space housing 19th and 20th-century British art, Gallery 1. The works have involved many of the same improvements, including enhanced natural lighting, restoring the richly-coloured scagliola (imitation marble) of the Grade I-listed building and a dramatic dark blue-grey wall covering.
The new, more atmospheric, space will offer visitors the opportunity to re-encounter some of the most famous works in the Fitzwilliam’s collection, and includes more information on the history of Impressionism and how these works came to be at the Museum.
Highlights of the new displays include:
- Famous works such as Le Printemps (Springtime) and Les Peupliers (Poplars) by Claude Monet, La Place Clichy by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Degas’s enigmatic Au Café (At the Café)
- 19th-century French sculpture including work by Rodin, Renoir, Degas and Jules Dalou
- Recently conserved paintings including The Flood at Port-Marly by Alfred Sisley and Monet’s Belle-Île
The Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Dr Timothy Potts commented: "The Fitzwilliam is engaged in a staged programme of refurbishment of its galleries which provides an opportunity not only to refresh the displays but, just as importantly, to bring the fruits of new research and interpretations to bear on the understanding of our works. The beautiful new Impressionist gallery, one of the jewels of the Founder’s Building, achieves all of these aims in what is sure to be one of our most popular displays."
The curator of the gallery, Jane Munro, commented: "The Museum’s collection of Impressionist paintings is one of the finest in the UK. Built up over more than a century, it owes its existence to a number of far-sighted and generous individuals whose pioneering taste for the Impressionist’s work came to enrich the collection through gift and bequest. Collectors such as the textile manufacturer Frank Hindley Smith, and Captain Stanley Sykes, a Cambridge languages graduate later called to the Bar, began to acquire works by Degas, Renoir, Seurat, Pissarro, Monet and Sisley at a time when their posthumous reputations were still far from established - as one critic lamented at the turn of the century, Monet was ‘more familiar in American backwoods towns’ than in Britain.
On this core, the collection has expanded to be able to represent the wider aspects of these artists’ work: Pissarro as a painter of snow, Monet’s extraordinary sensitivity to the changing moods of the sea, and Renoir’s and Degas’ different approaches to chronicling the Paris of their day. The displays at the Fitzwilliam, mixing paintings, sculpture, furniture and decorative arts, allow their work to be more fully contextualised, so that Renoir and Degas can be shown as sculptors as well as painters, and Rodin’s sculpture can be seen in potent juxtaposition with Monet’s paintings, as they were in their landmark joint exhibition of 1889.
The museum is fortunate in being able to display in the gallery works by Seurat and Cézanne on long-term loan from King’s College, Cambridge, bequeathed to the college in 1946 by the economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes not only played a key role in ensuring the nation acquired works at Degas’s posthumous sale in 1918, but as a collector himself showed a keen appreciation for Cézanne’s work.
The Impressionists enjoyed exhibiting their works on strongly-coloured backgrounds - sometimes several different colours in the context of a single exhibition! It is wonderful to be able to redisplay their works in an appropriately vibrant setting that allows their innovative, light-infused paintings to be seen and understood as never before in the museum."
The restoration of Gallery 5 has been generously funded by Daniel Katz. The newly restored gallery re-opened on 1 November and admission to the Fitzwilliam Museum is free. On 30 November visitors can find out more about the renovation and new displays with a lunchtime gallery talk by its curator Jane Munro French Impressions: The re-display of the 19th century collections.
Image: Les Peupliers (Poplars) by Claude Monet © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge | <urn:uuid:59cdc4bf-a612-4ccd-b765-bf5cb65b1206> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/news/article.html?3168&sf_function=textonly | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951205 | 1,070 | 1.726563 | 2 |
It’s hard not to feel guilty when, after reading a news story or listening to a class professor rehash the Illegal Downloading Debate, you sit down at your iTunes library (or whatever Zune equivalent you’ve got going on) and try to determine how much of your music you legitimately purchased. If you’re like most kids I know, the answer is pretty close to zero.* There are some bands you really love and want to support, but according to your library, you have all seven of their albums but didn’t shell out a cent for any one of them. It’s kind of a problem. The thing is, at about a dollar-per-song, your library would be worth three or four grand by this point and you never, ever could’ve paid for all that.
With LimeWire shut down and the Beatles’ entire catalog now available on iTunes, it’s never been a more appropriate time to take a look at your options. We’re here to counsel you through your ethical impasse and help you sort out all the pros and cons of getting music illegally or taking the high road—and the hit to your bank account.
1. Most artists don’t make a substantial amount of money from album purchases, anyway. The majority of their profits come from touring, ticket sales, and merchandising.
If you’re just seeking some justification for downloading without paying, you might take solace in the fact that record labels are notorious for skimming off the top of album sales. Although you should keep in mind the fact that contracts vary greatly from artist to artist, according to ASCAP, they tend to take home ten to twenty-five percent of the sale price of a CD. However, labels deduct fees for things like the amount of studio time used to record an album, and paying the producers who worked on the record and for the costs of packaging and promoting it. The figures get even more difficult to understand when you start to consider paid digital downloads (although this infographic might help your case if you can follow it). If you take this information to heart you might be able to keep downloading without your conscience nagging at you—only if you make sure to support your favorite artists by buying posters or a tee shirt and seeing them live in concert.
2. Buying the music can be more rewarding, especially if you have a physical copy rather than digital.
In addition to the fact that downloading illegally is … not legal, it’s also not as gratifying. There might be something comforting about knowing you paid for the music you’re enjoying so much, especially when you know that at least in some small way the musicians are getting a piece of the money you’ve paid. While that fuzzy feeling could happen for you if you pay to download a digital copy, there is something even stronger to be said for not downloading at all, opting for the all-but-forgotten record store route. If you’re one of those people who haven’t bought a physical copy of an album in years, you may want to think about it sometime. You don’t need to invest in vinyl and a record player, but just having a CD can be a better experience than shuffling through a digital library. Having the music, reading the liner notes and looking at the album art up close is an experience and something that gets lost with downloading MP3s, legally or otherwise. So, go ahead, spend the $20 on that CD. You’ll feel almost righteous for doing that as opposed to downloading. Plus, if appearances count, you might look like a slightly more authentic fan for actually owning a tangible copy of the album.
3. There are some pretty awesome free and legal ways to download songs and listen to full-length tracks.
Not all downloading is bad. Although calculating the cost of your whole library might be astounding, the legal download that costs 99 cents a song really isn’t that bad. You might need to download at a slower pace to figure it all into your budget, but it is possible. In addition, Napster (yes, the same Napster that the RIAA hates has returned, albeit under legal restrictions) and Rhapsody offer monthly subscriptions to download with them, often with trial periods you can use to make sure the monthly fee is worth it.
You can supplement all the expensive legal music with free downloads as well. Both websites and artists themselves offer music up for free and it’s still legal for you to have. Hip-hop heads know all about this idea, as up and comers often put up links to their own free mixtapes to get themselves heard. (Lil Wayne, Wale, and other well-known rappers do the same thing, but the legality of their mixtapes is often disputed if they have used the music from songs that were recorded and released by other people without paying royalties). Free downloads from sites like Last.fm and Fuse.tv come from the same idea, music made free by bands that still want to make names for themselves or just want to put out some music for fans, free of charge. Sites like Pandora, Stereomood, and 8tracks also have free streaming music and, although they lack the benefit of free downloads, they have bonuses like ready-made playlists and other features.
4. If all these legal options still haven’t satisfied you, the end of LimeWire isn’t the end of the illegal download.
It would be nice if all the free, legal options could sway us from breaking all the rules, but if you still need to stand up to the Man—or are simply incredibly cheap—you can download without paying in other ways. There are always methods of music piracy that the record industry has yet to defeat, most lately the MP3 converter. Torrents and other peer-to-peer software are so 2003, but converting Youtube videos of popular songs into MP3s is the newest way to do it. Plus, the RIAA says its finished suing individuals for pirated music. We’re not encouraging you to go illegal, but if you’ve decided on taking the low road, at least you don’t have to live in constant fear of litigation.
As a college kid or just a serious music junkie, downloading illegally is always going to sound like a better option than paying exorbitant fees for music when the artists typically don’t receive much of the revenue from album sales. Even still, we know its “bad,” if only because it’s not the legally acceptable way to get music. There are other free, legal ways to hear good music, you just have to use them. Of course, not every song can be found for free, and in that sense you’ll eventually have to pay for something. Maybe using free sites to soften the blow of buying songs can keep you up to date with new music without the expense of going illegal, feeling guilty that the musicians didn’t get their cut. If not, at least you have some talking points next time you have to debate your way out of the issue.
- Olivia Yankey
*Disclaimer: If you’re reading, RIAA, of course this statement doesn’t include myself. I really don’t need one of those $1.5 million lawsuits on my hands because back in 2005 iTunes didn’t have those three Gloria Estefan jams I needed to hear. | <urn:uuid:3563bf1a-f498-4e3e-a4f0-663ce587a3c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://georgetownradio.com/downloading-vs-buying-helping-you-through-the-moral-dilemma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958127 | 1,561 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Correction Appended: July 31, 2009
They call it "the switch." Alcoholics who take an anticraving medication called baclofen say the drug allows them to resist the most powerful triggers of relapse: former drinking buddies, a favorite bar, the sight of alcohol or even the most potent drinking cue of all, having a single drink.
Bob, 62, a business owner in the Midwest, who asked not to be identified by his real name, experienced his switch at a dinner party two years ago. Bob had battled alcohol dependency for several decades, regularly drinking at least 35 beers a week. Normally he would have downed several glasses of wine before dinner, he says, but that night, after taking baclofen for two weeks, he found himself sipping soda water instead, engrossed in conversation. "I realized I wasn't having that nagging feeling in my head, 'I should really get a drink,'" says Bob. "It never appeared during the dinner either so that was the eureka moment." He continues to take baclofen and now drinks about two or three times per week, no more than a beer or two at a time.
A similar experience prompted French cardiologist Dr. Olivier Ameisen to write the highly publicized memoir The End of My Addiction (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009). A longtime alcoholic, Ameisen had checked into various rehabilitation centers at least eight times and attended nearly 5,000 Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, without being able to maintain sobriety. More than five years ago, he began taking baclofen, and since then, he says, he has consistently been able to abstain from drinking altogether or drink moderately in social situations, without having cravings or other addiction-related problems.
"I never understood how people could leave liquor in a glass," says Ameisen, "Now you could give me a sip of champagne and I could leave it. That was impossible in my wildest dreams. And it's effortless. Complete suppression, not reduction of cravings. I'm indifferent to it."
Despite such anecdotal successes, so far there is little scientific data in humans to support them. Past studies in animals suggest that baclofen does have a powerful anticraving effect, however, and two large, randomized controlled trials of high doses of baclofen are under way. Meanwhile, more and more American doctors are prescribing baclofen for their alcoholic patients, based on experiences like Ameisen's. And yet even if the apparent anti-addiction benefits of the drug which is currently approved by the government to treat muscle spasms are borne out in human trials, it might do little to persuade most American addiction-treatment providers to use it.
At issue is the definition of treatment. In the U.S., successful treatment of addiction has traditionally been an all-or-nothing undertaking, involving complete abstinence as promulgated by supporters of 12-step programs like AA rather than a regimen of moderation. For many, that definition includes abstinence even from drugs that would help fight cravings. Indeed, for decades, experts have debated whether drug addicts who cannot or will not quit should even be offered ongoing treatments that would reduce harm related to their drug abuse. Although many providers have recently become more open to new options, the majority of American addiction treatment continues to use the 12-step abstinence model.
But in many other countries harm reduction is a widely accepted treatment model. In Europe and Canada, government-funded antiaddiction programs routinely help alcoholic patients reduce drinking, even if they won't quit; in Sweden, health officials suggest that cigarette smokers switch to snus (smokeless tobacco), which, unlike smoking, is not associated with lung cancer or cardiovascular disease. American proponents of moderation also argue that by demanding complete sobriety, it is possible that we are missing the chance to improve the health of smokers or problem drinkers who cannot or are not ready to stop entirely.
Download the new TIME BlackBerry App at app.time.com. | <urn:uuid:8334336c-0018-4724-aa61-e4470ec359de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1913016,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968737 | 825 | 1.671875 | 2 |
'There were two days a couple of weeks ago when the call-ins stopped," says Menashe Amir, Israel Radio's Farsi broadcaster, whose shows have attracted millions of listeners in Iran for the past 50 years. "But then they resumed."
The going-on-70-year-old, who officially retired five years ago, yet continues to transmit on a daily basis, attributes this to the courage of his former countrymen (Amir made aliya in 1959).
In a September 2006 interview..., Amir asserted that a majority of Iranians opposed their regime, yet were helpless in the face of the repression under which they were living. Amir quoted Iranians who told him that if they had someone to lead them in their struggle, "it would be possible to topple the regime very quickly."
This week, in light of the popular uprising that began in the streets of Teheran after the results of the June 12 election were falsely called in favor of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - when the real victor was reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi - I asked Amir for his latest assessment.
Amir says opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi "is certain he won the election - and I can confirm that he did. According to all the information I have received, he garnered twice the amount of votes as Ahmadinejad....
The elections are a perfect example of how Ahmadinejad manipulated the system in order to declare himself the winner....Those who determine policy in Iran decided a year ago that Ahmadinejad was going to win the election."
As election day approached, they pulled a trick to raise voter turnout. Why? Because there is a new president in the White House, and he has to be shown that the Iranian regime enjoys the support of the people. So they set up a televised debate, in which each candidate freely raised issues and expressed criticism, thus creating the illusion that this time the elections in Iran would be free ones - something they have never been in Iran. This raised the expectations of the people, and brought a whopping 85 percent of the public to the polls. Well, the level of disappointment was as great as the level of expectation. This 85% of the public turned out to vote, and afterward felt the victory had been stolen from them. This is what caused the people to protest, en masse. And these people today have a leader in Mousavi.
The protests have been extremely sophisticated as a whole. Half a million people who took to the streets and didn't even chant slogans, so as not to give the security forces an excuse to kill them. This has made it necessary for the regime to create a justification to suppress the demonstrators, so it sends in its Basij militia, as well as plainclothes police, to destroy homes and go after protesters, some of whom have been killed. Of course, we know all this, thanks to the technology that has been enabling the citizens to document the goings on there with the cameras on their cellphones.
But then came Khamenei's Friday sermon, in which he declared his complete support for Ahmadinejad. At that moment, the people understood they had no chance - that change cannot come about through demonstrations, because when the supreme leader rules, his ruling cannot be appealed. What Khamenei said was, "If you people have complaints, submit them through the legal channels."
But what are the "legal channels" in Iran? The legislative council that is Khamenei's puppet, which itself was complicit in the election fraud. This is why Mousavi said that this body wasn't acceptable to him, and that he would only trust a neutral committee.
Over the past two weeks, I have been asked by every reporter from every TV and radio station and every newspaper whether the protest is petering out. And my answer is always a decided no. And it won't peter out as long as Mousavi remains steadfast.
...It won't die out... Because something else has happened, as well. The people have seen that with this regime, nothing is possible. It won't make the slightest compromise. Thus, since that speech of Khamenei's, the slogan has become, "Death to the dictator," and the demand has become to change the regime.
Khamenei climbed a tree from which he can't come down, by saying that everything was OK in Iran; Mousavi did the same, by saying that nothing in Iran was OK; and in between them is [Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani, who is very worried about his own personal fate, the fate of his family and fortune, on the one hand, and on the other, he is worried about the future of the regime, that might collapse. So, he's saying, "Come and let's find a solution involving a compromise that will satisfy everyone."
That's impossible, because if Khamenei makes even the slightest concession, it will harm his status. A supreme leader can never make a mistake, and if he admits to one, it will bring about the end of his reign. Then there's Ahmadinejad, who is a merciless fanatic. One of his past jobs was as a final executioner. He would fire the last bullet into the heads of people put to death. His nickname is "the man of a thousand bullets," since he used to boast that he had shot bullets into the heads of 1,000 executed people. He will not concede on anything. Nor will he ever forgive Mousavi or his family.
Already, they are holding Mousavi responsible for the deaths of innocent citizens, killed during the protests. It's a case of turning the victim into the aggressor. And Mousavi knows that if he gives in on anything, his life will be in danger.
This is why I keep saying that the events in Iran have not begun to die down; they've only just begun. This is because the Iranian people have proved that they finally understand the nature of their regime, which is why their demand has become regime change, rather than reforms.
Obama worries me very much. Watching him on TV on June 12, when the election in Iran was held, I was amazed to hear him praise the welcome process going on in Iran. Here I am, a small fry with no access to classified material, who simply reads what is going on, and I have known for an entire year that these would be fraudulent elections. Since then, I have briefed the Mossad, as well as written and lectured extensively to this effect.
So, I ask myself, if I understood the situation, how is it that the leader of this superpower doesn't get it?
"On the nuclear issue...it makes no difference whether the president is Mousavi or Ahmadinejad. In any case, even Mousavi declared openly that, if elected, he would continue Iran's nuclear program, as well as its policy of supplying weapons to Hizbullah and Hamas."
What is going on in Iran has only just begun. And if the world grasps the enormity of this moment, and does what it can to help the Iranian people in their struggle, it will not be necessary to bomb the nuclear facilities, because the Iranian people will rise and do the job themselves.
But does Israel have the luxury of time to wait and see if the world truly grasps the meaning of the Iranian people's struggle? And ought Israel to help accelerate the revolutionary process in Iran through technical and other avenues as was indicated in this recent IRIS post? | <urn:uuid:7d9a4526-3aa0-443f-b3ba-504c1064f755> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iris.org.il/blog/archives/3095-The-Revolution-in-Iran-Has-Only-Just-Begun.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985579 | 1,537 | 1.6875 | 2 |
SAN FRANCISCO -- Though he frequently balked at answering questions from an opposing attorney, Google (GOOG) CEO Larry Page testified Wednesday that his company built the popular Android mobile operating system without purchasing a license to use Java software technology -- because, he said, the company didn't need one.
"It would have saved us a lot of time and trouble to use their technology," he said of Java's creators at Sun Microsystems. But he added, "we ended up making a big investment in our own technology, and it works really well."
Page's statement came after he was laboriously grilled for more than an hour in federal court by an attorney for tech rival Oracle (ORCL), which bought Sun Microsystems and is now suing Google in a closely watched case that turns on the value of popular software and the ownership of widely used programming tools.
Oracle is seeking nearly $1 billion in damages for what it says are violations of Java copyrights and patents that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun in 2010. Google says it didn't use any proprietary elements of Java technology.
"You've got to say 'yes,' 'no' or 'I don't know,' " Alsup scolded Page at one point. "You must do that."
Page also insisted he didn't remember or wasn't familiar with the details of documents or negotiations that Boies was asking about -- including emails in which Google engineers and executives seemed to be advising that they needed a license to use Java in their development of the Android mobile system.
One memo from Google executive Andy Rubin, sent to Page in 2005, proposed to "pay Sun for the license" to use Java and obtain Sun's approval of Android.
The memo referred to a negotiation for the right to use other Java programming tools that Sun had kept as proprietary technology, Page told jurors.
Under more friendly questioning by Google attorney Robert Van Nest, Page added that Google "tried long and hard" to negotiate a partnership with Sun. When those talks broke down, he said, Google decided to proceed with the Android project using only the Java programming language, which was in the public domain.
"When we weren't able to reach terms on a partnership, we went down our own path," Page said.
Google attorneys had previously shown jurors a video recording in which Oracle CEO Larry Ellison acknowledged that "nobody owns the Java language" and that it is available for anyone to use.
Oracle attorneys have argued that Google used other, proprietary elements of Java because the company was in a hurry to build Android and secure a beachhead in the growing mobile computing business.
But when Boies asked if Android is "critical" to Google's success, Page responded, "I believe Android is important; I wouldn't say it's critical."
Boies also showed Page a 2010 email from Google engineer Tim Lindholm to Rubin, in which Lindholm said his team had evaluated technical alternatives to using Java for Android "and think they all suck." The email adds, "we conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need."
Google attorneys have said the memo was written after Oracle threatened to file its lawsuit in 2010, but it was not a legal opinion. Page testified he didn't recall the memo and only vaguely knows Lindholm as a Google employee.
Earlier, when Boies asked Page if Google has a policy against copying other companies' software, the CEO said he wasn't aware of specific policies but added, "I think we do a lot to respect IP," or intellectual property.
Page may be called back later in the trial, which is expected to take eight or more weeks, Alsup said. Ellison testified Tuesday.
Contact Brandon Bailey at 408-920-5022 or follow him at Twitter.com/BrandonBailey. | <urn:uuid:7ca934b9-1052-492d-96ed-b83b4daa6a20> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siliconvalley.com/companies/ci_20424638/google-oracle-trial-larry-page-admits-android-java-licence?source=pkg | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972876 | 778 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Employment-Based Health Benefits: Trends in Access and Coverage, 1997-2010
April 30, 2012
Since 2002 the percentage of workers with health coverage has been declining, mostly because fewer workers have access to coverage, says the Employment Benefit Research Institute.
- Both the offer rate (the percentage of workers offered a health benefit) and the coverage rate for employment-based health benefits declined between 1997 and 2010.
- Between 1997 and 2010, the percentage of workers offered health benefits from their employers decreased from 70.1 percent to 67.5 percent, and the percentage of workers covered by those plans decreased from 60.3 percent to 56.5 percent.
- The take-up rate (the percentage of workers taking coverage when offered by their employers) declined from 86 percent in 1997 to 83.6 percent in 2010.
Cost has become an increasing factor in why workers decline coverage when offered.
- Between 1997 and 2010, the percentage of workers who declined coverage because of cost increased from 23.2 percent to 29.1 percent.
- In 2010, two-thirds reported that they declined coverage because they had other coverage, down from 78.9 percent in 1997.
- In 2010, one-half of workers whose employers did not offer health benefits were uninsured, up from 44.1 percent in 1997.
- Among workers who were not eligible for their employers' health plans, 38.7 percent were uninsured in 2010, and 41.1 percent had employment-based health benefits as dependents.
Eligible workers with access to health benefits through their own jobs were less likely to be uninsured and more likely to be covered by employment-based health benefits as dependents. Specifically, 24.8 percent were uninsured in 2010, whereas 62.8 percent had employment-based health benefits as dependents.
Source: "Employment-Based Health Benefits: Trends in Access and Coverage, 1997-2010," Employee Benefit Research Institute, April 2012.
Browse more articles on Health Issues | <urn:uuid:0b33fc92-0727-4cfb-a045-74e94048e7f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21870 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982759 | 406 | 1.703125 | 2 |
This week brings fascinating news from two colleges. The two institutions are facing almost opposite situations, and the contrast between them is both remarkable and illustrative. Because change occurs constantly, Christian organizations are constantly required to apply their principles to new situations. Cedarville University and Faith Baptist Bible College provide a clear contrast in terms of how new applications might take place.
The school that is now Cedarville University started out as a Bible institute in Cleveland. During the early 1950s it acquired the name and campus of Cedarville College, formerly a Presbyterian school. For many years, Cedarville College staked out its identity as a fundamentalist, Baptist institution. Under the leadership of James T. Jeremiah, it was one of the flagship schools identified with the Regular Baptist movement.
In 1978, Paul Dixon became president of the college. He brought with him a vision to make Cedarville into a world-class university. Regular Baptists, however, had neither the numerical nor the economic strength to fulfill his dream. Dixon needed a larger constituency and broader appeal, and in pursuit of these goals he began to downplay some of the distinctives that Regular Baptists thought important. There was a softening of ecclesiastical separation as the platform featured a broader variety of evangelicals. There was an increasing openness and even friendliness toward the more current trends in popular culture. There was even a shifting of the criteria for faculty selection. By the early 1990s, Cedarville professors were putting themselves publicly on record for their (belated) support of the Equal Rights Amendment—legislation that was almost universally opposed by conservative Christians of all sorts. read more | <urn:uuid:4166f750-e35e-4447-91d9-94e1840b4262> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sharperiron.org/tags/christian-organizations/cedarville-university | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978283 | 325 | 1.820313 | 2 |
SULLIVAN, Ind. — A group of high school students and parents rallied Sunday at a local church in Sullivan, Ind., calling for a “traditional” high school prom that bans gay students from attending.
Officials at Sullivan High School say there’s nothing they can do legally to prevent gay students from attending the school prom, and that has prompted students and parents to take matters into their own hands, reported WTWO-TV.
“We don’t agree with it and it’s offensive to us,” said Diana Medley, a special education teacher at North Central High School in neighboring Farmersburg, Ind, who attended the meeting Sunday at the Sullivan First Christian Church.
Medley told WTWO-TV that she believes homosexuality is a choice, that no one is born gay.
“I don’t believe that they were born that way. I believe that it was life circumstances and they chose to be that way; God created everyone equal,” said Medley.
“I have kids come to me because of their sexual preference and they know I don’t agree with it, but I care about you. And the same thing for special needs. You know, God puts those people in our life for different reasons.”
Asked by WTWO-TV reporter Paige Preusse if “the same goes for gays? Do you think they have a purpose in life?” Medley responded: “I personally don’t, I’m sorry. I just don’t understand it… A gay student, or adult, or person isn’t going to come up and make some change unless it’s because they realize, ‘You know what, it was a choice and I’m choosing God.’”
Several local pastors support the separate prom movement.
“Christians have always been prepared for a fight. Jesus gave us armor for the front, not the back; we’re not running anymore,” said Bill Phegley with Carlisle Church.
But some residents say they disagree, and said the group is just casting stones, instead of spreading love.
Update: The Facebook group referenced above has since been hidden or deleted. An alternate page has been created by supporters of an LGBT-inclusive prom.
Filed under: Indiana | <urn:uuid:28888b65-6c9e-47a0-a852-a1a6a9bb4312> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2013/02/ind-students-parents-want-to-hold-traditional-prom-ban-gay-students/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959186 | 499 | 1.765625 | 2 |
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (WUSA) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the flu has surpassed an 'epidemic' threshold because of the number of deaths associated with the flu.
Twenty children have died from the flu this season. All but three states have reported widespread flu cases and doctors' offices and pharmacies are running out of the vaccine.
One place that hasn't is at Inova Fairfax Hospital, which has added open flu clinics because of the high demand.
Four-year-old Harper Ogden was one of the patients in line and the last in her family to get the vaccination.
It's especially important for the Ogden family, especially with mom, dad and the baby that's on the way.
But the Ogden family has had trouble finding places that still have the vaccines in stock until they came to Inova Fairfax Hospital.
Rikki Ogden, mother: "her pediatrician, my doctor's office were out. CVS' had them but they weren't giving them to kids or they didn't have the mercury free ones for pregnant women."
The hospital's flu clinic is a great one stop shop. There are no age restrictions and they have the flu mist. They have different dosages for all age groups from infants to senior citizens.
The CDC says the influenza vaccine, on average, is only 62% effective and it can take up to two weeks to kick in. But the CDC still recommends getting the flu shot.
If you've missed Saturday's flu clinic you still have opportunities. Saturday 1/19/2013 at Inova Fair Oaks Hospital 9a-12p. Saturday 1/26/2013 at Inova Fairfax Hospital at the Women's Health Atrium. 1-4p | <urn:uuid:643bc735-256b-4af8-86f3-f3a120d5bab6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/237896/373/Inova-Opens-Flu-Clinics-Due-To-High-Vaccine-Demand | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978996 | 361 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Color Traffic 2: Could you be a good and trustworthy traffic control manager when you grow up? In Color Traffic 2, direct the various colored traffic in this fun and challenging traffic management game. You need quick reaction skills to ensure all traffic is directed safely. Make sure to send the different colored cars in the right directions for that color (Look out for the colored markers along the road). The faster you direct the cars along the correct route, the more points you earn. Prevent collisions and traffic jams on the roads. There are lots of routes (levels) to complete. Levels increase in difficulty as you progress, so be ready! Have fun directing traffic. Beep Beep!
How to Play: Use your computer mouse to control the traffic flow by clicking on the markers and arrows to change the driving direction of the cars, and prevent accidents and traffic jams. Some of the arrows allow you to adjust the speed of the traffic by clicking on them and dragging forward to increase the speed and dragging backward to decrease the speed. You will earn more points by directing the cars through quickly. The colored cars have different routes to follow depending on the color of the car. There is a timer located in the top right corner of the game screen. To pause, reset or quit the game, click on the icons on the bottom of the screen. Once the level is complete – you may quit it and play another one. The next level is unclocked only when the previous one is complete. | <urn:uuid:a9566d45-e746-46df-9bb2-d49a737265cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.learn4good.com/games/educational-learning-activities/traffic-control-management.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94746 | 298 | 1.53125 | 2 |
WaterGEMS and Hammer software integrated with city's existing GIS
Bentley Systems Inc. announced that Salt Lake City selected and deployed Bentley´s WaterGEMS V8i modeling and analysis software and Hammer V8i transient analysis software to analyze, design and operate its water distribution system. The system serves approximately 450,000 residents and includes about 1,380 miles of pipes.
Salt Lake City has a complete geographical information system (GIS) for its water, sewer and storm water infrastructure, for which each pipe in the various systems has been surveyed. The city´s goal was to create a hydraulic model of its water distribution system using its existing GIS so that it could maintain a one-to-one relationship between the two.
Bentley´s WaterGEMS and Hammer products enabled the city to accomplish this and helped make the model building and updating processes more efficient.
"Our first priority when selecting our water modeling software was to make sure the water model could be integrated with our GIS and maintained or updated easily. The city chose Bentley´s WaterGEMS and Hammer due to the software´s ease of use and full interoperability with Esri´s ArcGIS," said Brandon Arnold, GIS specialist at the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities.
The new water model was built from scratch using WaterGEMS and the city´s GIS. Once the pipe layout and connectivity were established, the software´s LoadBuilder and TRex tools, which are common to both applications, were used, respectively, to allocate water demand and elevations to the hydraulic model´s nodes. Pressure reducing valve (PRV) settings were imported from the GIS, and pump curves and controls were added.
"WaterGEMS´ Network Navigator and Pressure Zone Manager were extremely helpful in picking out the small system details and locating the few errors that existed. With 55 zones modeled, which include more than 38,000 pipes, the Salt Lake City water system can be a little overwhelming at times. The Pressure Zone Manager was great for zone-by-zone analysis, and it also made model building much more efficient,” said Arnold. “Tracking down a missing closed valve sometimes can be tricky.With the Pressure Zone Manager, it is easy to tell where the zones are connected. Once the zones have been established, the data that the WaterGEMS model calculates and displays, including the boundary nodes and total flow into and out of the zones, is very helpful. Overall, the model building process was relatively simple."
The city’s hydraulic analyses now can include fire flow analysis, pipe sizing for new design projects and some master planning. Many of the city´s ongoing projects rely on the WaterGEMS model. Future projects will be challenging, since model assumptions evolve as population grows, the distribution system expands, and the pipe infrastructure ages. For these reasons, both the GIS and water model need to be kept up to date.
"Keeping the GIS and hydraulic model synchronized is one of the biggest challenges, as we certainly want to avoid having to rebuild the water model from scratch every time the GIS is updated,” said Arnold. “The GIS-ID feature in WaterGEMS will be a big help in maintaining that relationship between the model and our up-to-date GIS. It is particularly handy to be able to split a pipe or add a valve in the model without altering the relationship to the GIS. It makes updating the model a cleaner and easier process." | <urn:uuid:690fab74-512d-4fe1-8e79-7e4882aad683> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwdmag.com/salt-lake-city-implements-bentley-analysis-software-its-water-system | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95201 | 721 | 1.789063 | 2 |
In response to controversy over court citations to students as young as 10, the police chief of Los Angeles’ largest school district said he’s working with school officials to reduce such tickets and establish, by mid-August, more out-of-court counseling options for kids who are cited.
But Chief Steven Zipperman, who leads the nation’s largest school police force, defended his 340 sworn officers’ authority to issue citations when officers believe it’s appropriate. Students have been cited for everything from truancy to vandalism to possessing a marker that could be used for graffiti. They’ve also been summoned to court for jaywalking, cigarette and pot smoking. Large numbers of students have additionally been cited for fisticuffs and for being disruptive inside and outside school.
“Our number one priority is for these to be handled administratively,” inside schools, Zipperman said in a recent interview. “But sometimes a court visit is something that’s necessary.”
Zipperman has been meeting regularly with community organizers since the Center for Public Integrity and Southern California Public Radio reported this spring that Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) police had issued more than 33,5000 tickets over three years to students between 10 and 18 years of age. The Los Angeles Unified district is about 74 percent Latino, but Latinos and especially black students have received tickets at disproportionate rates. Los Angeles Unified is not the only school district in the city of Los Angeles, but it is by far the largest.
Examining previously unreleased data, the Center found that more than 40 percent of the tickets issued from 2009 through 2011 for minor offenses went to children between 10 and 14 years of age. One of the top citations for middle school pupils was fighting or disturbing the peace.
In fact, out of nearly 2,380 citations for disturbing the peace issued to all kids between 10 and 18 last year, far more than half of them — in excess of 1,520 — went to students between 10 and 14 years old.
Zipperman, who took over as school police chief in 2011, said he doesn’t dispute the Center’s analysis. But he’s not convinced that the pace of ticketing during the time analyzed, about 30 a day based on a full calendar year, was excessive, given that the district has about 670,000 students. Since the release of raw school police data is relatively new, it’s hard to compare districts. Records recently made public show that New York City’s school police, who are facing lawsuits for alleged excessive force, appear to issue an average of about six tickets a day year-round.
Zipperman said he is concerned about ticketing of young children, and open to talking more about the circumstances of those citations. “If we are giving 11- and 12-year-olds citations,” he said, “I would like to look at those.”
Last year, LAUSD officers gave out 21 court summonses to children between the ages of 7 and 10. All these students were black or Latino.
More than 170 citations were also issued to 11-year-olds. Nearly 770 were issued to 12-year-olds. And more than 1,550 were issued to 13-year-olds. Citations were concentrated in more than a dozen middle schools where the number of tickets issued ranged from 60 to more than 100 in a school year. All these schools have majority Latino and black student bodies.
Given the size of the LAUSD police force, the department’s response to accusations of excessive ticketing could influence how other school districts nationwide treat school-based incidents. Schools throughout the country are rethinking “zero tolerance” policies that have led to increases in students getting suspended, expelled and sent to court.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Division, which investigates allegations of disproportionate punishment of minority students, is scrutinizing the history of citations in the LAUSD as part of a review of the district’s promise to reduce disproportionate suspensions of black students. The division last year began asking districts nationwide to submit data detailing how many students are referred to law enforcement in a school year. The Los Angeles Unified District failed to turn in records.
In mid-June, budget cuts forced the city of Los Angeles to close a series of lower-level, informal traffic and juvenile courts where students accused of minor offenses were summoned to appear with parents. The charges often carried monetary penalties, but court referees could impose community service.
With the lower-level courts shut down, officials are devising a new system.
Zipperman expects that truant students, at minimum, will be referred directly to counseling at about a dozen community-based centers in Los Angeles that have received funding for this purpose. Other offenders are already being referred to the Los Angeles County Probation Department, which is setting up a diversion program its officers will supervise. Some students could still end up in full-blown juvenile court.
Manuel Criollo, an organizer with the Los Angeles Labor-Community Strategy Center, a civil rights group, has been meeting with Zipperman. He’d like to see fewer tickets issued overall. “It’s totally inappropriate to give a 10-year-old a ticket,” he said.
Criollo, whose group did its own analysis of citations numbers, said that because schools have had to slash staff due to budget cuts, police have become a default disciplinary authority in some schools.
But a number of juvenile judges and other legal experts are concerned that introducing students to the criminal-justice system at a young age is backfiring, and hardening some kids’ behavior instead of improving it. Los Angeles high schools with high rates of ticketing also have some of the worst graduation rates. Middle schools with large numbers of citations feed into these same high schools.
Some parents also question if police scrutiny is harsher in certain neighborhoods.
Zipperman, a 30-year veteran of the Los Angeles city police, strongly disputed that his officers are guilty of discrimination. Officers aim to establish “mentoring” relationships with kids, he said, and are generally posted evenly throughout the district, not just in low-income schools where kids have been more heavily ticketed.
“Unfortunately, there are a higher percentage of kids involved in these activities in those schools,” Zipperman said. He said the district and community need to ask: “What do we need to put in place in these challenged areas?”
Los Angeles mother Shalice Davis, whose 15-year-old daughter was ticketed in March, said she was disturbed that when her daughter got into an altercation at school, the response was not to suspend her, or require her to submit to some other disciplinary procedure. She was instead immediately issued a court citation. Her daughter attends Thomas Jefferson High School in South Los Angeles, and had never been in trouble before, Davis said.
The teenager had been struggling with being bullied, Davis said, a problem for which she had sought help at school. She was ticketed after another student began repeatedly taunting her out on a blacktop area at school, Davis said, and a security guard stood by, doing nothing, until a physical fight broke out.
“Instead of security taking the girls aside and the school trying to resolve this, they radioed school police officers to come and give them tickets,” Davis said. “Somebody told her she could go to jail.”
With a lawyer from the Labor-Community Strategy Center at their side, Davis and her daughter appeared in court weeks later, successfully arguing for a warning.
No one was available at the Thomas Jefferson High School to comment. Zipperman said he couldn’t comment on individual cases whose details he doesn’t know.
But he said his own internal department records are showing that citations are already on the decline. Between January and June, officers issued 50 percent fewer truancy, or daytime curfew, tickets compared to last year, he said. Disturbing-the-peace citations, he said, appear to be down by about a quarter.
The fall in curfew tickets follows a long campaign by parents, judges and Los Angeles elected officials who objected to what they viewed as overly aggressive police enforcement. Officers were catching students as they walked up to school minutes late, sometimes handcuffing and searching them. In February, Los Angeles’ city council voted to drop large fines for daytime curfew violations and limited police from ticketing students clearly on their way to school.
Zipperman said he’s considering the possibility of a plan to refer a portion of students accused of disturbing the peace and tobacco violations to community-based counseling, along with truants. “No matter what we have in place,” he said, “we have to keep revisiting this to make sure we are doing the best we can for kids.” | <urn:uuid:c2cf6755-8f35-4982-b0ae-e70c7b27024f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/07/20/9961/los-angeles-school-police-chief-rethinking-discipline-policy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978996 | 1,855 | 1.757813 | 2 |
PELHAM — Town officials are trying to save about a half-dozen memorial trees endangered by the Route 111A roundabout project.
Selectmen’s Chairman William McDevitt expects the board to sign off on the plan as soon as tonight.
The Conservation Commission has agreed to commit about $5,000 for the job.
The trees would be relocated from in front of Town Hall along Marsh Road and replanted near the library, McDevitt said.
Two crabapple trees memorialize a longtime Pelham teacher, Ruth Richardson, he said. Oak and ash trees also would be spared.
“The major reason for them being saved is a number were planted in dedication to the memory of individuals,” McDevitt said. “The selectmen have been supportive of this all along.”
Utility preparation work already is taking place for the new roundabouts.
Gov. John Lynch and the Executive Council recently awarded a $2.8 million contract for the roundabouts to Londonderry-based Continental Paving.
State transportation officials see the roundabouts improving the flow of traffic through the town center, as well as improving traveler safety. There are frequent backups now during rush hour.
Most of the work is expected to take place next year, with completion set for 2014.
Planning Director Jeff Gowan, in a recent status report, told selectmen utility and drainage work now underway is expected to take four to five months.
Gowan said more visible work on the roundabouts development is expected as soon as March.
Selectman Ed Gleason recommended state transportation officials come to town to provide updates and Gowan said they are amenable to doing so.
Selectmen have asked Gowan to see that school officials are kept informed because of the potential impact on school busing.
The Pelham Gardeners Group has offered to help the state design landscaping within the roundabouts.
The group has raised the idea of placing in the roundabouts a piece of New Hampshire granite, possibly quarried in town, symbolic of the community’s granite heritage.
The twin roundabouts will be constructed at the same time and will have no impact on the Town Common triangle. Land and sidewalks will be added outside the old granite and iron fencing.
Town officials are coordinating with state officials so the work won’t disrupt Old Home Day next year. | <urn:uuid:49b38dce-d105-4f8d-b0d1-ce13e65c7487> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eagletribune.com/newhampshire/x520553556/Roundabout-work-requires-replanting-memorial-trees | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966561 | 490 | 1.539063 | 2 |
WASHINGTON – Today, Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.), and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced legislation to provide critical financial incentives for the investment in offshore wind energy. Joining Sens. Carper and Snowe as cosponsors are Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
Specifically, the Incentivizing Offshore Wind Power Act provides the offshore wind industry with enhanced stability by extending investment tax credits for the first 3,000 MW of offshore wind facilities placed into service – which is an estimate of 600 wind turbines. These tax credits are vital for this new clean energy technology because there is a much longer lead time for the permitting and construction of offshore wind turbines, compared to onshore wind energy. Once awarded a tax credit, companies have five years to install the offshore wind facility. Companies cannot receive other production or investment tax credits in addition to the offshore wind investment tax credit.
The bill defines offshore facilities as any facility located in the inland navigable waters of the United States, including the Great Lakes, or in the coastal waters of the United States, including the territorial seas of the United States, the exclusive economic zone of United States, and the outer Continental Shelf of the United States.
"This legislation is essential to encourage the continued growth of this fledgling industry," said Sen. Carper. "Guaranteeing these tax incentives for the first 3,000 MW will spur the industry to get these projects up and running, and encourage further development even in these challenging economic times. This support will allow companies like NRG Bluewater Wind to continue to invest in clean, stable wind energy off our nation's shores in places like Delaware. Harnessing our nation's offshore wind will give us reliable, clean energy; create good-paying American jobs in manufacturing and construction; and reduce harmful pollution that damages our lungs and impacts our climate."
"Offshore wind is an American resource that has enormous electricity generation potential that is more consistent than onshore wind while located adjacent to major cities," said Sen. Snowe, a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax issues. "This legislation provides a clear and consistent tax credit that will put our nation on the path to achieving our goal of operating 20 percent wind energy by 2030 and develop an incentive for energy companies to invest in this breakthrough technology. I applaud Senator Carper's leadership in developing this legislation and look forward to working with my colleagues on the Finance Committee to enact this bill into law."
Offshore wind offers enormous potential for producing clean domestic energy and good jobs in areas located close to large population centers along the coasts. Because offshore wind blows faster and more uniformly at sea than the wind on land, it is a huge untapped resource for clean American power. According to the University of Delaware, the winds off the Atlantic Coast have the potential of generating 330 Giga-watts of power. That is enough power to replace about 300 dirty, large coal plants and enough power to support nine states from Massachusetts to North Carolina.
"Offshore wind has great promise to generate tremendous amounts of clean, affordable energy," said Sen. Menendez. "This targeted, temporary incentive will be critical in jumpstarting the industry and creating thousands of jobs."
"An investment in offshore wind energy is an investment in our country's economic future and national security," said Sen. Coons. "I've seen the opportunities from the NRG Bluewater Wind project off Delaware's coast and understand the hurdles this company and many other developers are facing to get their projects off the ground. However, I'm encouraged by this bipartisan legislation to expand offshore wind energy through targeted tax incentives. By tapping the offshore wind energy sector, we are further ensuring our country remains a leader in clean, renewable energy development that will create a wealth of new high-tech jobs in the region."
"While offshore wind has the potential to create good jobs, limit our dependence on foreign sources of energy, and reduce carbon pollution, the industry needs the long-term planning horizon this bill would provide," said Sen. Whitehouse. "Sites such as Quonset Point in Rhode Island stand ready to create jobs by building turbines for offshore wind farms, creating a new domestic manufacturing industry and bringing much-needed economic development."
A number of proposed offshore wind projects are moving through the development process – including projects in Delaware, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. Projects have also been discussed off the shores of Massachusetts, Maine and the Great Lakes states.
In Delaware, NRG Bluewater Wind has estimated it will create 1,200 jobs during construction – and approximately 300 jobs for operation and maintenance throughout the life of the project. | <urn:uuid:8d3656c1-3ea5-4c1d-b7c7-2aa1ef2e9ece> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/featured-items?ID=ae69723d-bb02-4a32-bafe-173b9126cfb5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942435 | 982 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Business Taps Into Green OpportunitiesBy Samuel Greengard | Posted 2012-09-18 Email Print
Green IT is changing the way business and IT leaders make decisions. But companies are discovering that they’ve only begun to tap into the opportunities.
As companies focus on building a more energy-efficient infrastructure, metrics—such as The Green Grid's power usage effectiveness (PUE)—often drop markedly. In recent years, companies such as Google and eBay have frequently reduced their PUEs from above 2.0 to below 1.2.
"Many companies have become far more efficient in deploying the right number of systems, and, through virtualization, using these systems more effectively," Monroe states.
At Organic Bouquet, an online floral delivery firm that contracts with growers globally, the greening of IT has meant taking things a step further and moving systems into the cloud. A couple of years ago, the company turned to infrastructure hosting provider Rackspace so that it can scale up and down IT resources dynamically. When there's a surge in traffic—during Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, for instance—the firm can immediately dial up capacity and then drop it back down afterward.
"This approach saves a tremendous amount of energy because we don't have to operate as large a data center with excess capacity," says CEO Robert McLaughlin. He estimates that green IT initiatives have reduced the need for electricity-drawing equipment by as much as 65 percent.
The company also operates a LEED-certified headquarters building with smart systems that control cooling and lighting systems. The design of the structure allows cool air to enter from below and warm air to exit from above. "This allows us to run cooling units 10 to 15 degrees warmer," he reports.
Accenture's Rihani says that the flexibility provided by cloud computing makes perfect sense for organizations looking to go green. In many instances, he explains, cloud providers that focus on operating a data center at the core of their business manage energy requirements far more effectively than a firm that has to layer green computing on top of its business and IT demands. "Cloud providers and hosting companies think about these issues because they directly affect the bottom line," he notes.
But green computing is continuing to evolve in other ways. Rihani says that organizations must focus on various other emerging challenges, including the growing use of tablets and smartphones.
"Different devices and systems are changing power requirements, and organizations must monitor how they're using power and what's required," he says. All of this makes it necessary to drill down into systems and assess how everything from devices to applications draws power. For instance, "There is a growing focus on how software code impacts compute processes and performance," Rihani explains.
Some companies also are venturing into new territories. They are building data centers in locales that provide favorable climates for cooling. For example, Facebook announced a facility in Lulea, Sweden, last October, where it will use arctic air to keep the equipment sufficiently cool eight months of the year.
Google already operates several data centers near the Arctic Circle, and both companies, and others, have facilities located in areas of the United States, including the Pacific Northwest, where environmentally friendly hydroelectric and wind power are more plentiful. "There is a growing focus on looking at all aspects of green IT," Rihani explains.
The green movement is an issue that’s vital to countries around the world, transcending do-good companies and feel-good sustainability reports. For example, in the Republic of Ireland, it has become a core economic issue that drives investment.
Industrial Development Agency (IDA) Ireland, the country's investment promotion agency, is leveraging the island's geographic location, mild climate and abundant renewable resources to attract many major businesses, including IBM, Microsoft, Dell, Accenture, Citi, Google and Pfizer.
George Bennett, divisional manager of clean technology for IDA Ireland, says that as energy costs rise and availability issues emerge, companies are looking to build data centers and other facilities in locations where power is inexpensive and available. Ireland will cross over from being a net consumer of energy to a net exporter over the next several years, he notes. The country is particularly strong in wind energy.
"Companies are looking at renewable energy sources more favorably all the time," Bennett says. "Clean, renewable energy increasingly drives business and IT decision making.”
And Ireland is not alone. Several other countries—including Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Belgium—have jumped into the fray in recent years. In the United States, several states—including Oregon, North Carolina and Utah—have attracted economic investments due to favorable tax policies and an overall availability of sustainable wind, water or solar energy. | <urn:uuid:fec22771-4b02-496e-b420-cf4eacc26da1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baselinemag.com/infrastructure/business-taps-into-green-opportunities-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95649 | 968 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Jargon that refers to the quality of a Web site's link power, as in page rank, number of link votes, etc. - that are obtained from backlinks. This expression was coined by SEO consultant Greg Boser, for example "I need to get some more link juice for my latest site."
NetLingo Classification: Online Jargon
Subscribe to Word of the Day - Email this Definition to a Friend | <urn:uuid:e3559103-541c-4d65-9183-4ff30f255d91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netlingo.com/word/link-juice.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936587 | 85 | 1.789063 | 2 |
By Tom Jenkins, Texas
While taking a long weekend trip with a fellow rider in South Texas, I was abruptly brought to a conclusion that anything can happen when you are riding a motorcycle. We were riding in perfect weather, maybe a little warm, in what we call ranch country. I've always been keenly aware of livestock which seem to escape their fences or the occasional deer that darts into your lane at the most inopportune time. However, I was caught completely by surprise by what appeared in the road on this day.
Since I had been riding for more than 20 years on various sized motorcycles, I felt capable of handling almost anything. On one occasion I had even had the misfortune of having to ride in heavy snow when getting caught in a freak storm at an early April rally. But today was to be a new lesson. As we were riding along at about 60 mph and I was in the lead when I noticed a discoloration on the pavement ahead. My first thought was that sand had washed over the road and that I immediately should slow down to a safe speed to negotiate it. I kept slowing as I approached the "discoloration" until I was only riding at about 30 mph when I reached it. But of course, it was then that I realized that what I had seen wasn't sand or gravel on the pavement. It was much worse. My friend and I found ourselves trying to keep our rides "shiny side up" on what seemed to be greased ball bearings. After we negotiated the impediment and regained our composure, we stopped to examine the road only to discover that some rancher had lost a load of cow pellets. For those who aren't familiar with this product, it consists of very hard, compressed mixtures of feed and grass to form a cylinder about 1/2 inch in diameter and about 2 inches in length. In essence, we were riding over a patch of "roller bearings".
To this day, I don't see how either of us was able to negotiate the hazard without mishap. I can only attribute our success to slowing to a speed with enabled forward progress without losing control. The only alternative to what we did would have been to have stopped and swept the road before passing. Needless to say, now I watch for "cow pellets" along with anything else that should appear up ahead.
Submit your story
Every rider has a favorite story about a lesson learned on the road. We'd like to hear yours. Whether you are a new rider or an old hand, tell us your story. What safety tips can you pass on to others? Stories should be limited to about 250-500 words. E-mail them to [email protected].
Call (800) 446-9227 for the rider course nearest you. | <urn:uuid:736beabe-0cef-4ed1-bcbd-cb8256b84541> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://msf-usa.org/index_new.cfm?pagename=RiderCourse%20Info&content=4CE3A769-A0CC-53D5-64A0C6505FCF9CF3&referer=MSF%20RiderCourses | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989658 | 572 | 1.726563 | 2 |
I was an eighth-grade student at Morgan Village Middle School in Camden, New Jersey, when you, my Language Arts instructor, reprimanded me in front of my classmates and uttered those malicious words in frustration.
You probably weren’t aware that your astute ability to “put me in my place” signified your own.
Your whiteness is not an inconsequential detail in this story. That you were a white teacher in a mostly black and brown urban public school in a city that was heralded in media as one of the most economically devastated U.S. cities in the post-Reagan 1990s absolutely made a difference. But this is really not about you, Mis(s)-Education.
While this letter is addressed to you, I wrote it to speak to a larger issue. You represent thousands of self-professed, self-possessed educators of various racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds who daily slaughter students’ dreams and mutilate their imaginations with calculated words. But it is also meant to address the systemic structural conditions (i.e. schools segregated by race and economic status; market-driven, neoliberal approaches to education that shape policy and misallocation of resources; curriculum and assessment protocols that dismiss the cultural/social/economic contexts of students of color; et cetera) that have impacted and continue to negatively impact the educational pursuits of black, brown, poor and working class, and immigrant youth in the U.S.
To be sure, as I write, public school educators in Chicago, the third largest school district in the U.S., are on strike because of the ways that these same structural issues continue to create the conditions for mis-education and non-success and to deteriorate the pipelines that would otherwise connect our young people to transformative and world-changing higher educational and vocational opportunities in their futures.
Interestingly, however, I also remember you doing a lot of good work in our school. You chaired the district-wide poetry contest where I, shocking myself and probably you, was selected as the winner. Yet, what impacted me the most is not the good that you’ve done, but the demeaning words you offered to a teenage black boy.
Why? I am certain that you can recall that it was within these United States that the illiteracy of non-white people was a state-authorized project of spiritual and corporeal disempowerment, and of mental and material disarmament. Reading and writing were deemed criminal acts that were thought to catalyze insurgency. For example, the General Assembly of the state of North Carolina ratified a bill in 1830 that sought to prevent all persons from teaching slaves to read and write. A portion of that legislation read:
Whereas the teaching of slaves to read and write has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion to the manifest injury of the citizens of this state: Therefore
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that any free person who shall hereafter teach or attempt to teach any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, Shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in the State having jurisdiction thereof…
You see, you did what you–despite your liberal desires to help the perceived underclass–were encouraged to master, namely, intellectual colonization. You learned well that when one can successfully assassinate any thought of freedom, of self-worth in the mind of another, one lessens the possibility of transformation, of forward motion, of the type of insurgency that dismantles mental and material shackles. Subconsciously, you had to have been aware that black words on white paper, like black bodies in a white-centered world, obliterate monochromatic space and ideologies. The words of long-oppressed people of color always incite social and psychic insurrections. When they appear, things change.
How dare you, Mis(s), attempt to cut my tongue that day, to metaphorically lacerate my fingers and my desire to use them to pen a new world.
Didn’t you know that writing is a revolutionary act for those bodies for whom whippings or death were the “reward” for writing and reading? Didn’t you know that in 1870, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, “black or other” people comprised a looming 79.9 percent of the Americans who were illiterate? Didn’t you know that I had no choice but to write because of the legacy of racialized violence inflicted upon the bodies and minds of my ancestors?
Yes, I am certain that you did.
Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports show that many years after these unjust laws were formally repealed, we still have much to do to help black and brown boys and girls embrace and master the power of their own voices. Moreover, according to a report from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, “Problems acquiring needed literacy skills are heightened for students who do not speak English as their first language, who have disabilities, and/or are black, Hispanic and Native American. Reading and writing performance of these groups of students on the 2007 NAEP was significantly lower than the literacy performance of students who were native English speakers, who did not have a disability, or who were white.”
And that is why I write.
Yes, I said it. You were wrong.
I am a writer.
I am a writer.
With the help of other teachers at Morgan Village, like Mrs. Dunham and Miss Harrison, and other mentors who came into my life, I have finally come to own this truth. It has taken me years outside a formal classroom—years in which my writings have been published, often to my own astonishment, always to silence the voice that told me that my words, my voice would never be good enough—to make such a bold, liberatory proclamation. As a friend recently reminded me, it takes courage to become that which we have always known ourselves to be, despite others’ attempts to suffocate our identities.
I am a writer because I know that our words matter: every word conjured in the minds of black and brown people, especially those inscribed on unadorned paper, matters. We must write to recover the words that have been snatched from our tongues, erased from America’s textbooks, or otherwise rendered worthless altogether.
So, it was never about whether I can or cannot write, Mis(s) Education. That’s what we both had wrong.
No, the fact is: I must write. Indeed, we, black and brown people, must write.
My initial drafts actually made reference to my teacher’s real name, but after some thought (and gentle encouragement from a friend) I decided to write a response to my teacher using a fictive name. While she had no problem censuring me, I refuse to do the same to her. | <urn:uuid:97ed1b8b-ef98-4723-a5b8-db4765467fe7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thefeministwire.com/2012/09/a-letter-to-miss-education/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970119 | 1,452 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The ruling came after a review of the 1996 case, Jose Carachuri-Rosendo vs. Holder, in which an immigration court in Texas initiated deportation proceedings against Rosendo, a legal resident, for the possession of a prescription pill for anxiety and a joint. The justices ruled unanimously, that his offense was a minor crime.
Under the laws of criminal justice, the court ruled, the possession of drugs is considered to be a minor or non-criminal offense, which is how it should be viewed under immigration laws as well. The Supreme Court also established that intent to sell or distribute should be factored into any ruling.
Manuel Vargas of the Immigrant Defense Project, a New York-based organization that helped in the defense of Carachuri, said, “The decision might impact any immigrant who has been accused more than once for possession of drugs, and there are thousands of persons who are in this category."
"We like the decision of the Court," said Jorge Mario Cabrera, a spokesman of MUSSEL, a group dedicated to the legal defense of immigrants. “Not all social problems can be solved by deporting immigrants." he said. | <urn:uuid:e2c1b8ed-cb3f-4bc9-b212-43f0345bf652> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newamericamedia.org/2010/06/drug-possession-is-not-grounds-for-deportation.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966178 | 237 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Twenty-one years ago, Beatriz Rodriguez struggled to get enough food to feed her children. She and her husband, Juan, came to the Northern San Joaquin Valley from Mexico in hopes of finding work. But, she told a Bee reporter in the winter of 1991, she felt just as helpless here.
"Now my sons go to bed hungry at night and still there is nothing I can do," she said then. "They tell me not to worry; they'll eat some food at school in the morning."
The Rodriguez family has grown and spread across the country. Beatriz and Juan eventually had 13 children, many of whom have families of their own. While they wouldn't be considered wealthy, they're no longer going hungry.
"We talk about that time a lot," said José Rodriguez, one of those children. Now 33, José was 11 when his family emigrated to Turlock from Mexico in hopes of finding work. "It was hard, but it was a nice time, too. We were all together."
Rodriguez said his family didn't go hungry in the United States, thanks to outreach efforts that were plentiful.
Anna Parra, José's sister, was 22 and already had started a family of her own when she came with her parents to the United States. Today, she and her husband, also named José, live in a small rental complex in central Turlock with their youngest daughter, Vivian, 10. Several other relatives live in nearby units.
Their home is spotless, with a tile floor and a sign on the kitchen door that reads, "Welcome to Grandma's Kitchen. Open 24 Hours."
Recalling hard times
Anna Parra worked for many years at cannery jobs until an accident with a forklift injured her leg. Now she watches her grandchildren while their parents work.
Unlike her brother, Anna Parra isn't fluent in English, though she and her husband are taking classes through Turlock Adult School. Yanet Parra, the Parras' daughter, is 26 and has a daughter of her own. Her parents made their way by working hard for many years, she says.
"My dad used to have two jobs," Yanet said. "He left at 5 in the morning and he would be back at 5 (at night), and then he would go back to work at a restaurant."
It was a tough time, and it wasn't ideal. Yanet admits to problems she had in high school that led her to independent study and a 12-step recovery program.
He worked so hard, José Parra said in Spanish of his father-in-law, because he wanted to succeed for his family.
"He couldn't just sit there and watch other people," Yanet said. "He wanted a better life for us."
The Parras are working on getting citizenship, and they have hopes of owning a home soon. Their children and grandchildren speak Spanish, though they don't read and write it much. José Parra supports his family with a single job now, and has the sort of time for his grandchildren that he couldn't spend with his kids.
"He loves spending time with them," Yanet said. "He takes them to the park or McDonald's."
Yanet said her daughter, Daisy, 7, asked her recently whether she could grow up and be president. "Absolutely," Yanet responded.
No mansion yet
Political office isn't Daisy's only dream: "I want to live in a mansion," she said.
Beatriz and Juan Rodriguez live in a home near an industrial area in Turlock that doesn't qualify as a mansion. But it is theirs, purchased in 1996, and Beatriz said through a translator that the family is planning some remodeling.
Son José is married and has three children, ranging from 4 to 16 years old. He graduated from Turlock High School, spent two years at Modesto Junior College and works as an assistant manager for Foster Farms.
The Rodriguezes certainly are better off than they were 20 years ago. José said his father, now 64, has retired after several food- processing jobs. But making ends meet remains a struggle. José said his family still makes occasional use of the United Samaritans truck that distributes lunches throughout Modesto, Turlock and Ceres.
JoLynn DiGrazia, who runs the nonprofit Westside Ministries in Turlock, has known the family most of that time. She said Beatriz and Juan made good choices for their family, moving them out of a higher-crime area and maintaining regular employment.
"I also believe that they have made good use of available resources in Turlock: educational, spiritual and physical," DiGrazia said. "They have become a success."
DiGrazia said that, like the Rodriguezes, several themes resonate among families she has watched move out of poverty and into a level of stability: "Finding a support system, encouraging children to go beyond the parents' education level and staying employed long-term."
As an adult with a family of his own, José Rodriguez said he recognizes the courage it took for his parents to move from Mexico. "I had a disabled brother," he said. "They had three kids still on their arms."
At the time, 11-year-old José knew only of the adventure ahead. "I didn't know what to expect," he said. "I just thought, 'It's gonna be cool, it's gonna be great.' "
He doesn't know if he would have the same fortitude. "I'd probably hesitate at this age," he said. "I'd probably stay over there."
Bee staff writer Patty Guerra can be reached at [email protected] or (209) 578-2343. | <urn:uuid:ea937676-afaa-4ce8-b2de-15fe2ea9e0e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.modbee.com/2012/08/18/2335563/family-recalls-trials-of-securing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991633 | 1,198 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Studio Art Classes: Teachers’ Exhibition 2011
September 21 to October 11, 2011
The Kelowna Art Gallery proudly presents works of art created by the professional and talented teachers who lead classes at the Gallery. This exhibition showcases a range of art, reflecting the diverse classes we offer, such as oil painting, drawing, felting, acrylic painting, and mixed media.
Teachers are selected to instruct classes based on their skill level, and their ability to connect with students. This fall the Gallery is offering an exciting line-up of fall art classes designed to bring out one’s creative side. Classes are designed for both beginner and intermediate students, so there are programs that cover the basics of drawing and painting, as well as classes that provide inspiration for the more advanced student.
The Gallery offers day and evening courses in watercolour, acrylic painting, colour theory and mixed media, as well as special weekend workshops. | <urn:uuid:6afa926d-42c0-4c74-b2da-8cd1cae56a8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kelownaartgallery.com/exhibitions/the-front-project-space/studio-art-classes-teachers%E2%80%99-exhibition-2011/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967669 | 187 | 1.71875 | 2 |
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- Summary: "Loving," a soap opera created by Agnes Nixon & Douglas Marland in 1983, aired for 12 long years on ABC, but never was a success on daytime. The show premiered as a TV movie on primetime, and during it's early years, it centered around the blue-collar Donovans and the blue-blood Aldens. The stories revolved around alcoholism, post-traumatic stress syndrome, murders, and all storylines known to the world of soap operas.In 1995, ABC no longer wanted to keep "Loving" on it's schedule. The ratings kept falling. Yet, ABC didn't want to just make it disappear, so they asked the head writers to write a storyline which could allow some of the character to return in a spin-off called "The City." The show's last storyline about a serial murderer was one of the best of the show. The show ended on November 10, 1983 with 3,169 episodes.… Collapse
- Genre(s): Drama, Soap
- Show Type: Ended
- Season 6 premiere date: Jun 27, 1983
- Episode Length: 30
- Air Time: 11:30 AM
- More Details and Credits » | <urn:uuid:c07ecf51-b6d4-4543-a8b4-e114ea9edaa4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.metacritic.com/tv/loving/season-6?full_summary=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964032 | 262 | 1.515625 | 2 |
McCormick in the Media
Wall Street Journal opinion piece coauthored by Julio M. Ottino
An op-ed written by Julio M. Ottino, dean of the McCormick School, and Mark P. Mills, a physicist, founder of the Digital Power Group, and McCormick Advisory Council member, was published in the Wall Street Journal in January. In “The Coming Tech-led Boom,” Ottino and Mills name three breakthroughs that promise to transform this century much as electricity, telephony, stainless steel, radio amplifiers, and automobiles transformed the last one. “In January 2012 we sit again on the cusp of three grand technological transformations with the potential to rival that of the past century. All find their epicenters in America: big data, smart manufacturing, and the wireless revolution,” the piece states.
Backman featured in Nature as A top NIH grant awardee
Vadim Backman was featured in a February article in Nature as one of seven scientists who receive the most grants from the National Institutes of Health. Backman, professor of biomedical engineering, has received more than $3 million from the NIH to support his lab of 20 students. While the NIH is instituting a new policy requiring researchers who control more than $1.5 million in grants to undergo an extra review before further grants are approved, Backman doesn’t mind. He says competition among established researchers should be based on the strength of their ideas. “I like the idea of meritocracy,” he says in the article.
Malcolm MacIver: scientific adviser to the stars
When Malcolm MacIver isn’t teaching or conducting research on robotic models and large-scale simulations of animal behavior, he works as a scientific adviser to Hollywood. After working on the movie Tron: Legacy and the television show Caprica, MacIver has a better idea of how the industry works. “Story creators might think scientists are geeks, but there’s a sense of respect,” MacIver told Popular Mechanics magazine in January. “That respect is not always there in the other direction. Scientists feel that filmmakers dumb down everything to make a buck.”
Biomedical engineering professor featured in New York Times
Julius Dewald, professor of biomedical engineering and professor and chair of physical therapy and human movement science at the Feinberg School of Medicine, was featured in a New York Times article in January that highlighted his work in understanding strokes and developing rehabilitation robotics.
“Dr. Julius Dewald is trying to meld medicine, science, and engineering in a pathbreaking way to better understand such impairment and how robotic therapy might help people who have had strokes reach for a hamburger or pull on a fancy boot,” the article states.
Dewald uses EEGs and fMRIs to understand how joint control is linked to brain hemispheres after a stroke. His group has also developed robotics that can support the weight of a limb affected by a stroke, making it seem lighter and therefore requiring fewer brain signals to move. “Dr. Dewald’s team just concluded a pilot study with 10 patients and is starting a second with 20,” the article states. “A comprehensive clinical trial would follow. The goal is to produce robotic devices that cost less than $15,000, affordable for small clinics and some individuals.”
Senior among “15 Women to Watch in Tech”
Hannah Chung (mechanical engineering ’12) has been named one of “15 Women to Watch in Tech” by Inc. magazine. Chung is one of the cofounders of Design for America, a Northwestern student initiative that aims to effect social change through interdisciplinary design. “With a background in engineering and art, 22-year-old Chung is passionate about making the world a better place,” the article states. Among her creations with the group is Jerry the Bear with Diabetes (designed with Aaron Horowitz), an interactive robotic toy for children with type 1 diabetes. DFA has expanded to eight universities since its founding in 2009, and Jerry the Bear will soon be used in clinical trials. | <urn:uuid:5c59a90c-c69a-4f04-981d-92a1388171c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/magazine/spring-2012/mccormick-in-the-media.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955457 | 860 | 1.757813 | 2 |
i'm still on this messianic secret thing, but now i pretty much finished my paper (except for editing). but writing about the messianic secret reminded me of something i read by john d. caputo in "more radical hermeneutics." he's a philosopher i really like (not that i know a lot of them), and i especially like his book "on religion." but that's beside the point...
in "more radical hermeneutics" he starts out by talking about how the secret of life is that there is no secret--no one knows THE answer, no one knows what they're doing, no one has a more direct line of access to whatever deity might be out there than anyone else.
instead, the secret is "that we do not 'Know' ourselves or one another, that we do not 'Know' the world or God.... That, if anything, is who we are, the ones who do not know who they are, and whose lives are impassioned by the passion of that non-knowing."
i like this way of looking at life--it allows us to be the fallible, not-so-intelligent creatures that we often are, to admit that we don't know what's going on or who we are, and to passionately seek after what might be, with any luck, a glimmer of the truth. it also puts us all on an equal playing field: no one knows what's true in some sense, and yet, all of us have the potential of finding truth as we passionately seek after it, in the midst of mystery and paradox and beautiful confusion. i think this makes life and faith so much more fun and joy-filled. we're not just seeking after some dogma, making sure that we say the magic formulas or know the right behaviors. instead we're on this wild, breathtaking journey towards the ultimate, not knowing where we're going or what it will look like when we get there, just trusting that it will be good in a deeper sense than we can ever dream.
this, i think, is the secretless secret of the kingdom of God which mark tantalizingly whispers in his gospel, calling us to keep looking, keep searching, keep asking questions, don't give up hope. on the same theme, read the words to david wilcox's song "out of the question" (and buy his cd if you like--it's worth it!). | <urn:uuid:da8a8ede-e434-4c24-a1d5-c0e8f42f1d6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quakeroatslive.blogspot.com/2006/02/secret-is.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963435 | 500 | 1.554688 | 2 |
"Elementary and Middle School Math, Science, and History"
...Subjects I excelled at in school were science, math, and history. I feel comfortable tutoring elementary, middle school, and lower high school age students. One thing I pride myself in when it comes to school are my study habits. When I tutor I like to not do the work for the student but help facilitate the learning process and help them excel on... | <urn:uuid:0e9d2cef-060c-474e-9095-adb03afefedf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyzant.com/Rockwall_tutors.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956991 | 89 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger states in a halachic opinion sent Monday to rabbis and community leaders in Israel
that the IDF
must "honor the right of religious soldiers to avoid listening to a woman' singing – whether she is singing alone, with other women or even with a man."
On the backdrop of the dismissal
of religious cadets from an officers' course after walking out
during a female soldier's song, the rabbi writes, "It's certainly unjustified and inappropriate to deny them their status and rights for strictly obeying the Torah and its laws."
The eight-page document reviews the halachic aspects of the issue. In order to prevent friction in the future, Metzger suggests, the army must ensure that only men are allowed to sing in events held in the presence of many religious soldiers.
Chief Rabbis Metzger and Amar with IDF Chief Gantz (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Office)
Alternatively, he says, the army should make sure that in places where a large majority of the soldiers are religious, they will be allowed to avoid listening to women singing. If they are a minority, and the commander decides to invite a female singer or a band, the religious troops should be allowed to be late or leave the event early without interrupting it.
The rabbi suggests, for example, that the religious soldiers sit in the back, near the exit, and leave one by one, rather than as a group, so as not to hurt the band members or spark unnecessary arguments.
The debate over women's singing in the army began about three weeks ago, after nine religious cadets walked out of a military event when a female soldier began singing as part of a military band.
Four of the nine cadets were dismissed from their officers' course, and one of them petitioned the High Court of Justice,
claiming that the dismissal was illegal.
On Sunday, Chief Military Rabbi Rafi Peretz expressed his support for the religious cadets after keeping silent for three weeks.
"I stood by the soldiers," Peretz said. "It's not a coincidence that not all of them were dismissed."
He added that he believes the army and Halacha should join forces, stating that he has been working on a ruling on the issue for a long time but prefers to examine things thoroughly rather than make a "populist statement".
The Chief Rabbinate issued a halachic opinion recently, ruling that the army "should create a ceremony honoring the outlooks of all those present, and bring a male rather than a female singer."
Chief Rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar met with IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz
two weeks ago and told him they expected the commanders to let a soldier leave an event which includes women's singing in an honorable manner. | <urn:uuid:32d539e7-9089-4633-aeb7-c8ab17b1643c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4128078,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973231 | 581 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The MSDE Discipline Best Practices group consists of participants from local school systems as well as professional organizations representing school boards, superintendents, administration, student services, teachers, school resource officers, school climate initiatives, special education, early childhood, and professional development.
The purpose of this workgroup is to identify school discipline best practices and the professional development needs of teachers, administrators, and school resource officers to implement these practices. The group shares a desire to produce a practical guideline that not only incorporates research but is user friendly and serves the needs of all stakeholders.
Janice Briscoe from Prince George’s county and Dr. Sally Dorman from MSDE are co-chairing the workgroup. The Discipline Best Practices Group and the Code of Conduct Committee have aligned their timeline and efforts to conclude with a final report to the Maryland State Board of Education in January 2014. | <urn:uuid:e77fcf0f-a60e-45bd-8188-69798270138d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/studentschoolsvcs/student_services_alt/sdw/?WBCMODE=Pre%25%25%25%3E%25%3E | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953437 | 177 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
I’ve devoted hundreds of pages to dead people—people I don’t know other than by name or photograph. But despite the fact that these people are dead, they still talk to me. I began to write years ago because I thought this would stop the noise. I thought that perhaps by writing these spirits would be vanquished by reason. To this day, the act of writing hasn’t vanquished anything. I suppose I have my mother to thank for that.
When I was seven, my mother told me a story that I would never forget. “Buddha was living in Pou Tea, and he kept smiling at me. Smiling. Sitting. Smiling. My eyes became stuck on a candle. I was fifteen at the time. All of a sudden, something came into my stomach like a big lump. You can feel it, rising, rising.” She touched her neck, and it made me nervous. “And I knew something was in my body, and I tried to stop it. I knew what was happening. I kept trying to block it. I tried to close my jaw. I was fighting with the spirit. Since I wouldn’t let it talk, it made me shake my head like a peh, a bad angel. I didn’t let it because I knew if a spirit beat me once, spirits would always be able to come into me.” My mother pulled the bedcovers over me, and I held on to them tightly. “It happened to me – ” she said “ – So it is real. You must believe.”
My mother vouches for these spirits, telling me that they not only exist, but also are in many ways alive. To be alive means that they can hurt you, help you, become a part of your existence. How foolish of me, it seems, to try to kill them with pen and paper. When I was in America, Cambodia was still a place that existed only in books and photographs and stories. There was a separation between me and the land, which included the spirits living there. The spirits couldn’t catch me in America where they’d perish because they had nothing to feed on. No mudfish, or ground-up shrimp. No mounkout, or sai-mai, or lamout or pinkie-sized bananas. In America, they wouldn’t have bowls of rice for every meal. Yes, in America, they’d die. My reasoning that spirits needed physical nourishment may seem peculiar, but in Cambodian culture, spirits still need physical and emotional nourishment. I was successful in ignoring the spirits’ existence for some time, but how strange it is that I’ve now run to their home here in Cambodia.
Maybe they’ve reeled me into their soil because I’ve denied their existence for so long. I think I’m starting to believe my mother about these living spirits. Or, maybe I am starting to admit that I’ve been a believer all along, but feared admitting belief in something that wasn’t accepted by the Western culture I’d always known.
I went to a Kru two days ago, which is a person who has a spirit living in them like Pou Tea, the man in my mother’s story. My aunt took me to see Kru. This Kru lived in a beautiful wooden house that was built for him by one of the people he had helped. He asked for nothing from people who came to see him, but those who he had helped reach great success repaid him with land, villas and cars. This somewhat helped his credibility in my eyes, so I thought why the hell not.
Kru wore dirty white cotton pants and an equally dirty white tank. Otherwise, he looked like a normal man. He didn’t have a strange headdress or long overflowing beard as I’d imagined a Kru might. He spoke casually as we prepared to have what might be called a seeing. I lit five incense sticks as instructed to by my aunt and looked up at the Buddha shrine before me. I closed my eyes and prayed. That’s another thing I’ve found myself doing more since I’ve come to Cambodia. Praying feels less awkward. But I still feel strange and don’t really know what to pray for. I think I end up praying for the same thing—people.
My mother who did her seeing first began asking questions. While I usually divulge her secrets, I think I’ll let her keep these ones. In the middle of asking one of the questions, Kru looked up alarmingly. He pointed to me, and in that moment, I became afraid.
“Your daughter must be careful,” he said. He closed his eyes and listened to Buddha. “Pra-ong says that she must be very careful here in Cambodia. I see a tall man chasing her. A thief in a car. Yes, you must be very careful,” he said looking at my hands. “Give me your jewelry.”
I took off my bangles, watch and ring, and handed them to him. He held them for the next hour we were there, blowing on them and blessing them, so as to keep me out of harm’s way.
“I had a dream ten years ago that my daughter would face danger in Cambodia,” my mother told Kru. “Then I had a dream a week ago and saw I man jump out of a car and try to pull her in. He held a white kerchief and tried to wrap it around her mouth. I screamed and told her to get in the house. And, the day before my daughter came to Cambodia, my husband dropped a frame with her picture in it, and it broke.”
My mother looked at me. “See, Kru sees the same thing. You must be very careful.”
I don’t know how I felt at that moment. Confused, probably. A bit scared. I’ve always thought that I’d only be in danger if I put myself in a position to be harmed, which I don’t think I do. But when Kru looked at me, I felt something. I don’t quite know how to describe it.
Kru later asked me, “Do you get headaches often?”
I thought of the killer one I had a few nights ago, and the ones that never go away. “Yes, yes I do,” I said.
“Does your body hurt?”
My ass was killing me during that moment, but in general, my body aches much more than a twenty-two year old body should I think. I nodded.
“Can you not sleep, and do you see terrible things in your dreams?”
“Yes, a lot.”
Kru closed his eyes again, and listened to Buddha for some time. “You have a peh in you.”
“What?” said my mother with wide eyes. My aunt gasped, covering her mouth.
I looked at my mother. “A what?” I asked, forgetting the meaning of peh.
“An evil spirit.”
Great. I have a fucking evil spirit in me, I thought.
“Well, can you make it leave?” I asked Kru in a slightly irritated voice.
“I can try to chase it out of you,” he said.
“Ok,” I said to Kru. “Get out of me you stupid peh,” I said to the spirit.
Kru laughed, and pulled out a black stone that I’d seen him use earlier when healing a sick child. He placed it on my head as I faced away from him. My scalp began to feel hot and heavy, and I thought Kru had replaced the stone with his hand.
“What is on my head?”
“The black stone. Is it hot?”
“Is it heavy?”
“Not to worry. It will get better. It feels this way because the spirit is angry it must leave you,” he said.
“Here, feel the stone,” he said, bringing my hand to touch the stone atop my head. It was cold, but I felt hot. It was light as my bangle, but felt like a book. I looked at the floor confusedly. How could this be possible?
I decided to stop being so confused for the moment, and just be there. In my head, I chanted Get out evil spirit. Get out. Get out. Get the fuck out. | <urn:uuid:0284768f-e787-4d5e-9cd4-9dc413f0f966> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kanithaheng.blogspot.com/2010/02/catch-me-if-you-can-my-battle-with.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986852 | 1,860 | 1.546875 | 2 |
If the lead singers were a variable lot at Friday's premiere, the night was still a success because the real stars of the show—the conductor, the chorus and the set—all performed magnificently.
That set, designed by William Dudley for the 1978 John Dexter production, is a cutaway depiction against a black background of the H.M.S. Indomitable, a British gunship sailing toward battle with the French in 1797. When the action begins, we're on the main deck, but as scenes change, the ship seamlessly shifts and grows before our eyes, taking us down to the captain's cabin and the sailors' berths and even expanding to reveal seven levels at once.
In adapting Herman Melville's novella, Britten and his librettists—E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier—invented a prologue and epilogue in which Captain Vere, now an old man, reflects on the events of the story. In brief, a good-natured young foretopman, Billy Budd, is falsely accused by the master-at-arms, John Claggart, of fomenting mutiny. Tongue-tied, Billy strikes Claggart dead, and Vere—despite his conviction that Billy is innocent—feels he has no choice but to see him hanged.
The role of the captain (originally written for Britten's life partner, Peter Pears) was taken in this revival by tenor John Daszak in his Met debut. He sang with a bright, pungent tone and notably crisp diction, though his sound occasionally turned strident on high notes. Dramatically, he was persuasive both as an old man tormented by guilt and as an embattled captain facing an impossible choice.
Baritone Nathan Gunn performed the title role, looking the epitome of Melville's handsome sailor and acting with youthful vigor. He sang sweetly in quiet moments like "Billy in the Darbies," his haunting aria on the eve of execution, but much of the time one longed for a more powerful sound.
Bass James Morris has virtually owned the role of Claggart at the Met, but his voice has lost strength, especially at the low end. He etched a subdued portrait of a corrupt soul who cannot tolerate the presence of unalloyed goodness in the world.
There were many strong contributions from the all-male cast, starting with the chorus, whose role in this opera is vital. The fine trio of officers consisted of baritone Dwayne Croft—a former Billy himself—and bass-baritones Kyle Ketelson and the debuting Ryan McKinny. Tenor Keith Jameson was impressive as the Novice, the weak-willed sailor who does Claggart's dirty work.
David Robertson, making a too-infrequent appearance, conducted the Met orchestra in an energetic and moving performance of Britten's score, which is filled with surging melodic themes amid its spiky dissonances. | <urn:uuid:0cf5834f-9861-4440-bb43-86a7e4ca81f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yorkdispatch.com/entertainment/ci_20561220/rare-met-revival-brittens-shipboard-opera | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967446 | 621 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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Copyright © 2011 Lisa Kemmerer and Anthony J. Nocella II
We have been working for more than thirty years trying to awaken the churches and religious communities to return to their roots of living at peace with the whole of God's creation (humans, animals, and the environment), and not just a select group of human beings. We also strongly believe that when we learn to make peace with the animals, we will have peace in the world with our fellow human beings.
Call to Compassion: Religious Perspectives on Animal Advocacy, edited by Lisa Kemmerer and Anthony J. Nocella II, is an anthology of essays by 20 authors, including Lisa Kemmerer. All of these writers speak to the points of our three decade quest, and address all the major world religions, as well as indigenous religions, all of which have compassionate living with animals as part of their core values.
The common thread running through the commentaries is that these religions have allowed worldly exploitive practices, scapegoating, and the degradation of animals to enter into their teachings, and distort God's original intent that the founders based the religion. In today's modern world, where there is an abundance of plant foods, we should all be vegan and end the exploitation of animals.
We highly recommend Call to Compassion: Religious Perspectives on Animal Advocacy to everyone, for it will give us insights into these religions that will help us end the hardness of heart and indifference to the suffering of animals and the people who care about them.
About the Editors:
Lisa Kemmerer (B.A. in international studies, Reed College; M.T.S. in comparative religions, Harvard University School; Ph.D. in philosophy, University of Glasgow, Scotland) is a philosopher-activist, artist, and lover of wild places, who has hiked, biked, kayaked, backpacked, and traveled widely. She is the author and editor of several books, and is currently associate professor of philosophy and religion at Montana State University, Billings.
Anthony J. Nocella II, a Quaker and long-time animal advocate is finishing his Ph.D in Social Science at Syracuse University, while teaching at Le Moyne College, SUNY Cortland, and Hillbrook Youth Detention Center. He has written extensively for many publications and has edited 15 anthologies. | <urn:uuid:60b1514b-2c66-4b26-b85a-442c7da85f1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-creatures.org/book/r-calltocompassion.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943158 | 503 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Dr. Thomas Sterling wasone of the speakers. He is a senior computer architect with the Goddard Space Research Facility of NASA. Dr. Sterling not only was very impressed with Linux but was using it in several new research projects, including a parallel processing computer they were in the process of building.
One of the major benefits to the federal agnencies using Linux , and federally supported research labs, is that to acquire Linux you do not have to go through the standard procurement process; which can save up to six months on many projects!
Dr. Sterling expressed an interest in a Linux conference in the Washington DC area.
The manager of the FEDUNIX show, held each year in late November, expressed an interest in a Linux Conference in conjunction with FEDUNIX. Many Details need to be finalized, but reserve time in November. | <urn:uuid:bbdb282c-7406-4786-b035-08cf30b07ce1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/linuxjournal/articles/027/2763/2763s1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962279 | 170 | 1.710938 | 2 |
A federal judge said Wednesday he would permanently remove harsh restrictions on third-party voter registration groups that have handicapped registration efforts in Florida this year. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle said he would grant a motion to permanently remove the restrictions once he receives confirmation that a federal appeals court has dismissed the case (the state of Florida has agreed to dismiss their appeal).
The suit was originally filed back in December by the League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote, and the Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. The Justice Department opposed the restrictions in a separate lawsuit. From a Brennan Center press release:
“This order is a decisive victory for Florida voters,” said Lee Rowland, counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, one of the attorneys who argued the case for the Plaintiffs. “The Florida legislature has tried repeatedly to stifle access to voter registration opportunities, and once again a federal court has stopped them in their tracks. We are thrilled that voter registration groups can now get back to what they do best — expanding our democracy.”
“Florida’s anti-voter law created impassable roadblocks for our volunteers, who have been bringing fellow Floridians into our democratic process for over 72 years,” explainedDeirdre Macnab, President of the League of Women Voters of Florida. “Thanks to today’s ruling, we can finally put these roadblocks behind us and concentrate on getting Floridians registered to vote. We are grateful the court recognized that the Constitution does not tolerate these types of barriers to civic participation and voter registration.” | <urn:uuid:69ba67a7-3930-40a8-8b9d-494b0910d8b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/federal-judge-will-permanently-remove-florida-voter-registration | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956268 | 337 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Feng Shui Living Room simply mean to decorate a living room in Feng Shui style to allow free flow of healthy and positive life energy or 'chi' and improve the quality of our life in general. Feng Shui aims to help us gain perfect harmony in our surroundings and life. In the living room, dehumidifiers do not find favor with Feng Shui, while any corner and alcoves are believed to obstruct the flow of chi. Thus, you should place your lights in such a way that there are no dark corners in your living room and that they are also made a part of the living room by brightening them up. Placing a beautiful piece of art or a colorful painting there or a potted plant that has round leaves in such spaces can make them look interesting too and help the flow of chi.Make sure that you never put straight plants with thorns in such places. Wide wall spaces in the living room can be used to accommodate a mirror that makes your living room look spacious but they must reflect a beautiful view such as view from a window or the fireplace. Placing your mirrors incorrectly will only promote negative energy and can actually have opposite results. Cluttered living rooms are not a constructive living room idea according to Feng Shui. Do not try to accommodate too much furniture in the living room. If you really want to decorate your living room in Feng Shui style, your TV or sound system, should not be placed as one of the more important pieces or their electromagnetic waves may disrupt the flow of chi.
Feng Shui also refers to masculine energy called yin and feminine energy called yang and seeks to balance them both. Thus, incorporate feminine elements such as soft cushions on the floor or the sofa and fresh flowers on the center of the table in the living room. However, Feng Shui does not care for dried flowers and actually forbids there use while decorating living rooms. Decorating your living room in Feng Shui style means to promote the feeling of calm and relaxation. It suggests that furniture layout of the living room should be more intimate, circular at its best. Furniture should never be pushed up against the walls and the seating area should be so arranged that guests are comfortable and sit facing the door.To make sure that we are decorating living rooms, exactly according to the living room, you can use a Ba-gua or the Feng Shui plan that maps eight important areas of our lives, namely, family, career, education, fame, relationships, health, children and travel. You need to determine the direction of the house and then superimpose the Ba-Gua on the house map to find out which area represents what aspect of your life. Even inside the living room, you can place the Ba-gua and decorate it appropriately to ensure that everything goes well with you. A cactus in the wealth corner of your home may mean a thorn in your wealth aspect while a fish bowl or an aquarium, plants with round leaves, crystals or wind chimes there may bring in more money into the house and get you the desired promotion.You must keep the entrance of your home and living room clear of any clutter. It should have lots of light and open to welcome chi. Never place a mirror, directly opposite the door of the living room, so that chi is not reflected back. Avoid putting up photographs or pictures that are not actually happy or soothing to you as the first thing to see in the living room, as soon as you enter the door. Instead place the photograph of happy times you had or your most beloved person there, so that your mood lightens up as soon as you enter your living room. Be sure to put If your living room has an awkward shape, place mirrors strategically to direct chi all over the living room. While wind chimes can actually sound good and helps you to soothe your nerves, an organized clutter-free living room with good aesthetic sense speaks of a perfect Feng Shui living room. | <urn:uuid:97caee4b-a02e-4bc7-bac9-b6a5bcd96309> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homehues.com/view/22210/Feng_Shui_Living_Room | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952869 | 812 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits