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Q: I have been dating a man for about a year who is quite good friends with his ex. They shared the children as they grew up and now that the kids are adults, the parents have quite a friendly relationship. My problem is the ex is getting married and has invited my boyfriend, and of course, he has asked me to join him. I'm a little uncomfortable with the invitation. I don't care if my boyfriend goes; I just don't want to get too friendly with his ex. What's good ex-etiquette?
A: Since you were invited as your boyfriend's guest, it's quite easy to decline this invitation with an "I already have plans" excuse. However, I want to alert you to the fact that this is probably only the beginning. If these parents are friendly, you will probably be attending Mother's Day and Father's Day celebrations, and the kids will invite both parents to their homes for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Once they have children there will be grandbaby birthdays and other holidays — all spent with the ex. So, although it would be fine ex-etiquette to not attend the wedding, there are two very important reasons why you should attend:
First, your boyfriend has asked you to accompany him. You may not realize what a big deal this is. He is going to the wedding of his children's mother and he's going as a couple — with you. His kids will be there. His former relatives will be there. Family friends will be there. He is making a statement by asking you to go with him. If you do not attend at his side, I think you will be missing a huge opportunity. Take a look at what you are saying, not only to him, but to family and friends, if you stay home.
Second, good for you for not asking him to stay home. He obviously has a relationship with his children's mother and if he has been actively interacting on this level prior to you entering the picture, he should continue to interact with her on the same level now. Beware of a red flag: If exes are too friendly it will not only make you uncomfortable, but also give his kids a false hope for possible reconciliation. Of course he may want to pull back somewhat since you and he are now the primary relationship, but not so far back that he changes the way he celebrates with his children. Both parents need to be especially conscious of their behavior.
Finally, it's understandable that you may not want to be friendly with the ex, but take care that when you do see her, you do not openly snub her. The last thing you want to do if you want to be close to your boyfriend's children is be unkind to their mother.
Dr. Jann Blackstone is the author of "Ex-etiquette for Parents: Good Behavior After Divorce or Separation," and the founder of Bonus Families, www.bonusfamilies.com. Reach her at:
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Mystery surrounds killing of Orthodox NY developer
NEW YORK -- Two masked men grabbed New York City real estate developer Menachem Stark outside his office one snowy night and thrust him into a waiting van. His burned body turned up a day later in a smoldering trash bin, miles away in suburban Long Island.
Stark, a member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, has been described as an honest family man eager to help his neighbors and friends, a man who had no enemies. But he's also been called a slumlord. Some of his buildings were in disrepair, and he owed millions to creditors and had declared bankruptcy in 2009.
Investigators have no solid leads in the mysterious death this month, which shocked the close-knit Satmar Hasidic community in north Brooklyn.
"Everybody here is shattered," said Rabbi David Niederman, who has known the family for decades. "We're dealing with a very difficult, almost unbearable situation, and the most tortured people of all are his family."
Stark, 39, is seen on surveillance footage being strong-armed into a Dodge minivan the night of Jan. 2. One of his brothers-in-law contacted the shomrim, the Hasidic community's volunteer neighborhood patrol, when he didn't return home. When the patrol members found his car and his office locked, they checked surveillance camera footage and then called police. The body was discovered the next day in a trash bin at a gas station in Great Neck, about 20 miles east of his office.
Stark, nicknamed Max, was a husband and father of seven, the youngest barely 2 years old, the oldest about 16. He lived in a stately brick building in Williamsburg, a neighborhood where hipsters in skinny jeans live alongside ultra-Orthodox men with ear locks and fur hats and women in modest dresses. Brooklyn is home to the largest group of ultra-Orthodox Jews outside Israel -- more than 250,000. Stark came from a large family, and his funeral this week was flooded with mourners.
"He really was a loving husband and father," said Abraham Buxbaum, married to Stark's older sister. "I don't ever remember getting a 'no' from him. He helped people get into the real estate market. He was there for every individual, and the community."
Stark and his business partners owned and renovated buildings throughout Brooklyn as the borough became increasingly trendy. Court records show they often borrowed money from banks to finance new ventures.
But they filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and landed in court several times. He and his primary business partner, Israel Perlmutter, were sued in 2011 after defaulting on a $29 million loan, according to federal court records. In 2012, he was ordered to pay more than $4 million for defaulting on a $2.5 million loan for a separate renovation, court records show.
A bankruptcy judge on Thursday ordered the company to account for $2 million owed to creditors involved in one of his buildings in 2009. They had filed paperwork saying they were concerned about the money being repaid following Stark's death and his apparent "financial dire straits."
Stark had about 1,000 tenants, maybe more, his family said, and several described him as a terrific landlord. Jordan Brown, 30, said he'd lived in a building owned by Stark for about three years and he thought very highly of him.
"I knew Max well, and he was actually the only landlord I ever knew who wasn't a slumlord," he said.
Another tenant, Melissa Manning, rented commercial space from him and said he was friendly, flexible and responsive.
"We had no conflicts, no disagreements, nothing. He was great," she said.
But many of his buildings had dozens of serious violations, including working without proper permits. And he was also the target of dozens of complaints of mismanagement, prompting a Sunday headline on the front page of the New York Post that read: "Who didn't want him dead?"
Heather Letzkus runs a blog about real estate in north Brooklyn, something she described as a "wailing wall" for residents with bad landlord tales, and Stark and his buildings have played prominently. There are particular complaints about a hotel of single rooms once raided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and an industrial building billed as luxury lofts. Stark was fined $25,000 in 2009 for unsafe working conditions at the loft site, according to records. A stop-work order is in place there because of unpaid fines.
"There's a pattern," Letzkus said. "One of the things that really jumped out at me is that you had similar complaints and citations," she said.
The Satmar community was horrified by the Post headline, and many friends point out that a landlord with 1,000 tenants is bound to have some critics. Buxbaum, the brother-in-law, said it would have been impossible for Stark to maintain such split personalities.
"You can't hide forever. If you're a bad person, it comes out," he said. "No one ever said anything bad; I only heard people say how good he was."
But, then, who wanted him dead? Rumors have swirled on the possibilities, from contract killers to angry acquaintances.
Police have released additional video of a masked suspect, and they're looking for the van. Stark's official cause of death has not been released. His business partners are cooperating with police, and investigators are probing his financial dealings. Police are making headway.
"The investigation is advancing," Commissioner William Bratton said this week. "We are getting a lot of evidence and additional video and getting a lot if information regarding the dealings of the victim and his partners.
"It's a complex investigation."

subset: commoncrawl


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A few weeks ago, a list of retailers from which you'd be able to pre-order Battlefield 3, surely the biggest PC game of the year, was released. Popular online shopfront Steam wasn't among them.
At the time, that didn't seem too big a deal. Other recent EA games, like Alice: Madness Returns, had not been available for pre-order on Steam either, but had shown up for purchase once released.
Well, things are looking a little more dire, with EA now releasing a list of retailers from which you'll be able to buy Battlefield 3. Not pre-order, buy. And Steam is not listed.
This of course all boils down to a little spat EA and Valve are having at the moment over who as the right to do whatever.
Now, it's not the final word in the matter. Like I said, there's been precedent for EA games suddenly appearing for sale on Steam recently. But given the way the pair's showdown has escalated of late, it certainly doesn't look promising.
We've contacted EA for final confirmation on the matter, and will update if we hear back.
Digital Retailers [Battlefield 3, thanks Salari!]
You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at email@example.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.


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Planet Fitness has a new employee handling its public relations, and he's a name you might recognize.
John Craig, editor of the now-defunct Fitness Business News, came to Planet Fitness about two weeks ago. John and FBN and our magazine became direct competitors when FBN was launched early last year. John, formerly of the Boston Globe, and I share a bond of being former newspaper men. (Don't get me started about the cuts being made in the newspaper industry these days). It was always good to see John at trade shows a couple of times a year, and it was good to hear his voice when he called me today.
There's mixed feelings, of course, when a competitor like FBN, which ceased operations last month, goes away or is somehow eliminated. You're excited about the opportunity to get more stories and have more people read your stuff. But competition is good because it keeps you on your toes. There's nothing like the highs of beating the competition on a story or the lows of getting beat on a story.
You worry about people losing their jobs when you hear about a publication ceasing operations, especially in these troubling times. Fortunately, John has landed on his feet, and so, too, has FBN managing editor Brian Davidson, who John says is working at another magazine within the company that owned FBN.
The good thing for John is that he gets to drive 10 minutes to work now as opposed to about an hour to his old job. With gas prices the way they are, that's definitely a company perk.


text: Nictarion #1 Posted March 28, 2017 Like most, I was dissapointed with S2, but David Milch being involved with S3 would be enough to get me hyped. https://www.google.com/amp/ew.com/tv/2017/03/27/true-detective-season-3-david-milch/amp/ Let's face it, the Deadwood movie is never going to happen. He might as well help fix a series that desperately needs a return to form. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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All events for Marsfield Minis Playgroup
06 Feb '20
Marsfield Minis Playgroup
Marsfield Minis Playgroup meets every Thursday morning during school term at Marsfield Community Church. We provide a safe, caring and stimulating place for babies and preschool-aged children in the local area to play, develop and socialise with other children. Our structured music and movement session is followed by a casual morning tea and an opportunity for parents/carers to meet members of our church and other parents from the community. Enquiries can be made via email: email@example.com


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The Icons signed football memorabilia shop was initially a small part of the popular personal players website of leading footballers www.icons.com. At the outset in 1999, Icons.com provided personal websites for Ryan Giggs, Dennis Bergkamp and Henrik Larsson amongst many others.
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Call Us +44 (0)20 3904 7600Mon-Fri 9am-5pm (GMT)
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Playing this video requires the latest flash player from Adobe.
Download link (right click and 'save-as') for playing in VLC or other compatible player.
In this talk, I will outline a quantum generalization of causal networks that are used to analyze complex probabilistic inference problems involving large numbers of correlated random variables. I will review the framework of classical causal networks and the graph theoretical constructions that are abstracted from them, including entailed conditional independence, d-separation and Markov equivalence. I will show how to generalize the definition of causal networks to the quantum case, such that the same graph theoretic constructions apply, and give an explicit representation of the states supported on the graph as the Gibbs states of certain classes of Hamiltonians.


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Neilson Media Research
From Conservapedia
(Redirected from Nielsen ratings)
Nielsen ratings refers to Nielsen Media Research, the premier organization that tracks television viewing habits of homes across the country. For over fifty years, Nielsen has been a pioneer and industry leader in audience measurements. The company is known as neutral observer and does not influence results for special interests.[1]


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Our parents and teachers drummed it into our heads from a young age: "If you want to make a lot of money, you have to go to school."
While there is truth to that for the general populace, it really seems to be the case for some celebrities.
No, you don't have to have a doctorate to play the Terminator, but for some celebs, they hedged their bets and did the right thing -- they got their education under their belts, and then went on to tackle Hollywood.
Some on our list are no brainers -- you'd expect them to have rich educational histories. But some you barely expect to be able to spell, let alone have advanced degrees.
Keep that in mind before challenging one of the following five celebs to a friendly game of Trivial Pursuit. You'd have a great story to tell, but you'd also likely lose big.
Up first? Bueller .... Bueller ...
No. 5: Ben Stein
Ben Stein is so smart that he can actually spell "Bueller" without having to stop and figure out if the u goes before the e.
Stein is one smart dude. He earned a degree in economics from Columbia University, and then received a law degree from Yale. He was a lawyer, a professor, a historian, and a speech writer for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (Time magazine even speculated that he was the infamous Deep Throat).
Stein became a consultant to Hollywood and then came to fame with 1986's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" as the monotone economics teacher who was trying to take attendance. From there he got his own game show ("Win Ben Stein's Money") and has gone on to become a celebrated media personality.
While we are in awe of Stein's intelligence, he's not perfect. He also predicted that the mortgage crisis would "blow over." Oops.
Next up, a dumb "Friend" who's actually smart ...
No. 4: Lisa Kudrow
It is a well-known fact that it is easier to act drunk when you are sober than to act sober when you are drunk. The same must hold true for intelligence.
Lisa Kudrow became famous playing dim bulb Phoebe Buffay on "Friends," but the reality is that she's smart.
Kudrow comes from a line of smart people. Her father is a doctor and her brother is a neurologist. Before she even decided to pursue a career in acting, she was training in the family business, and was conducting tons of medical research.
Kudrow earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Vassar and worked for her father for eight years, even being credited for research on cluster headaches.
Later, she went on to join the cast of "Friends" and gave the world another gift: Her rendition of "Smelly Cat."
Up next, he must break you ...
No. 3: Dolph Lundgren
Dolph Lundgren. Surely that must be a typo. Dolph "I must break you" Lundgren is smart? The giant, flat-topped, blond guy known for his roles in "Rocky IV" and ... uh ... well ...
Yes. Apparently Dolph is more than just an on-screen Soviet crippling machine.
The gigantic Swede boasts an IQ of 160, putting him in the club with the smartest people in the world.
Wait. Dolph LUNDgren? THE Dolph Lundgren? Yes. And there's more.
Lundgren graduated from Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology, and he also has a master's in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney. It doesn't stop there. Lundgren was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to M.I.T. Unfortunately for science (but fortunately for the entertainment world), Lundgren quit after two weeks to pursuer a career in acting.
Up next, redheaded, pale, funny and smart ...
No. 2: Conan O'Brien
Even if you didn't know better, you'd suspect that Conan O'Brien was an educated gentleman. And it's not just because he had to turn to books because there wasn't much call for lanky, pale redheads in Hollywood.
O'Brien graduated from high school as valedictorian and then parlayed that high school awesomeness into an Ivy League education at Harvard. O'Brien didn't just graduate; he was a magna cum laude graduate with a bachelor's degree in history and literature.
For anyone else, those might sound like wasted degrees (unless the History Store needs a manager), but time has shown differently.
While at Harvard he wrote for the "Harvard Lampoon" for four years, and then went to scribe for "Saturday Night Live" and "The Simpsons" before overtaking late-night television.
Our last smart celebrity is the former child star who has it all ...
No. 1: Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman has it all. She's gorgeous, a great actress and she's very smart.
In fact, she was smart enough to know that even though she found success early in acting, she needed to hedge her bets and get some education. After all, Hollywood is littered with the drugged-out shells of old child stars, and Queen Amidala wasn't about to let that happen.
But Portman didn't settle for just attending part-time classes at Los Angeles Community College. After graduating high school with a 4.0, she headed off to Harvard, where she received a bachelor's degree in psychology. She did graduate studies at Hebrew University and is fluent in Hebrew, French and Japanese.
She even managed to continue working while pursuing all that education.
It's good to know she has something to fall back on if this whole "acting" thing doesn't pan out for her.
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A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets. A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
The Utilitarians were 19th century British political theorists and journalists who believed that the principle which should govern the actions of government is that which will produce "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" of people. The founder of the school was Jeremy Bentham (the school is thus sometimes called the "Benthamites"), who greatly influenced James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill. Within classical liberalism there was a split between the supporters of natural rights and the utilitarians with the latter eventually becoming the dominant force. The school of English radical Individualists continued to support a natural rights approach but they became the minority by the end of the 19thC.
For more information see;


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Mailsafe is a secure software solution for email archiving, mailbox management and migration. Integrates with both Microsoft's Exchange and Outlook. Available On Site, Cloud and Mobile.We've been established since 1998, are a nice company to deal with, are customer focused and passionate about our Mailsafe product that we've designed, sell, install and support. Our customers range from Small Accountant practices with four users, up to large NHS sites with over 19,000 users. We've listened and learned what our customers want from an email archiving product and incorporated their suggestions into today's market leading email archiving product.An Outlook Addin means that Mailsafe is easy to use. With a Microsoft SQL server at its core together with a separate single instance Mailstore the searching, finding and email retrieval process is very fast. Most of the pain points that both the IT Department and Outlook users suffer from have been cured with modules that have already been integrated into Mailsafe. For example email compliance, individual Personal Folder details are retained, user side archiving, PST File issues, automatic Mailbox size reduction to name just few. For details of all of the modules please scroll down.
+44 (0)1252 758124
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Manti Te'o wasn't the person Ronaiah Tuiasosopo tried to fool with his lies.
It turns out, Tuiasosopo has concocted at least one other intricate fake story. US Weekly reports that he lied to the producers of The Voice when he auditioned for the upcoming season.
A source tells the magazine that Tuiasosopo told the producers that he and his cousins, who had formed a Christian band, were on the way to a gig at a youth conference when they got into a car accident. Even though their car was struck by a truck and flipped along the freeway, every was miraculously saved.
Breaking down linebacker Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend hoax
His lies were apparently so believable, he even passed a psych evaluation and background check. Despite performing for new judges Shakira and Usher, as well as Blake Shelton and Adam Levine, no one turned their chairs around.
Tuiasosopo was allegedly behind hoax that had Te'o believing that Lennay Kekua, the woman he had been dating online, had died of cancer. Despite the death, Te'o hit the field and helped lead Notre Dame to a 20-3 victory over Michigan State. After the inspirational win, Te'o made various media appearances, sharing details of their relationship and letters she wrote him while ill. The linebacker even sent a letter to the parents of a sick child, sharing his experience and his grief.
But according to Deadspin, Te'o's uplifting tale is nothing but a hoax. On Wednesday, the website claimed that there are no records of Kekua's passing or the car crash which Te'o also claimed she was in. In fact, outside of Twitter and Instagram, there are no records of her existence. The photographs that online reports and TV outlets have identified as Kekua are actually of a California woman who has never met Te'o, been in a serious car accident and is very much alive.
After Deadspin's story broke, Notre Dame held a news conference, during which athletic director Jack Swarbrick asserted Te'o was unaware their relationship was a hoax because it was conducted entirely online and on the phone, according to CNN. Swarbrick went on to explain that a woman claiming to be Kekua called Te'o in December to tell him she wasn't dead. While the woman kept calling after that, Te'o never answered. Swarbrick's story sharply contradicts an article in the South Bend Tribune, which reports that the couple met after a football game. "Their stares got pleasantly tangled, then Manti Te'o extended his hand to the stranger with a warm smile and soulful eyes," the paper wrote. "They could have just as easily brushed past each other and into separate sunsets. Te'o had plenty to preoccupy himself that November weekend in Palo Alto, Calif., back in 2009." The newspaper has since pulled the article from its website and claims the story was built on information from Te'o, his family and coaches.
Golden Globes: Fashion hits and misses
On Wednesday, Te'o released a statement, claiming that he is also only a victim of someone's "sick joke." "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her," Te'o explained. "To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating."


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text: Bermuda's 300 subtropical islands, located 900 miles out from the USA in the Atlantic should provide the region with great surf. However fringing reefs and fickle winds conspire to make this a consistent but less than perfect location with swells. Hungry Bay is the most consistent spot on islands with the highest quality waves arriving during the hurricane season, from August to November. The islands' south shores can have surf all year including winter with the north working best in winter or early spring. However, these north facing reefbreaks require boat access as they are isolated from main island. The Gulf Stream warms the islands' waters with a winter low and a summer high of 19-27°C or 66-81°F.


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DateBetter.com brings you a better way to meet quality people you've been looking for online. A simpler way to meet like minded individuals face to face that takes the guesswork out of dating in a safe familiar setting.
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Read the Internet Dating Safety Act.
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U.S. to begin meetings with Taliban in Qatar
KABUL, Afghanistan -- American officials say U.S. representatives will begin formal meetings with the Taliban in a few days at the group's new office opening in Qatar.
Senior Obama administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, described the Taliban's move to open a political office Tuesday in Doha as a stepping stone to full Taliban renouncement of al-Qaida.
In Doha, a Qatari official confirmed that the Taliban office was open.
The administration officials say the U.S. and Taliban representatives will hold bilateral meetings, then it is expected that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's High Peace Council will follow up with its own talks a few days later.


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Lawmakers have little appetite for undoing legislation that allowed the sweeps.
Despite the political and media furor surrounding the recent news about data collection by the National Security Agency, the appetite among some top lawmakers for undoing the legislation that allowed the sweeps is meager.
The revelations that the government obtained millions of Verizon customers' phone records, and that the NSA directly accessed information from top Internet service providers, prompted libertarian and liberal lawmakers alike to decry the news.
But congressional leaders have been reticent to suggest legislative changes. It's a signal, insiders say, not to expect Congress to roll back the laws that empowered the secret courts to authorize the programs.
"I can't imagine any legislative proposal to amend some of these programs will be passed by Congress," said Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
For one, Congress has twice authorized the legislation first crafted during George W. Bush's presidency, and with President Obama's approval. The imperative to provide security has been strong and deeply ingrained among lawmakers since Sept. 11, 2001.
"I know for a fact the programs saved lives," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., coming off the floor after adjourning the Senate for the week.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including leaders from both parties, pointed to the security benefits of the sweeps, first reported in The Guardian and The Washington Post.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., issued a joint statement noting the intelligence community has "helped protect the nation." Chambliss earlier this week said the surveillance was "nothing new," and Feinstein pointed out that Congress received briefings on the NSA's activity.
Reid said this week that people should just "calm down." A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, referred a reporter to the committees of jurisdiction, avoiding the topic. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., noted that the program has halted attacks.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina even defended embattled Attorney General Eric Holder this week, arguing the NSA and FBI's telecommunications collection is an effective national security tool.
"Most members of Congress would rather err on the side of security than on the side of privacy," said John Feehery, who was an aide to former Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
Not all lawmakers support the programs, though. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced a bill on Friday "to stop the National Security Agency from spying on citizens of the United States." Paul, who is considering a presidential run in 2016, called the programs an "assault" on citizens' rights, putting him in the same camp as left-leaning colleagues like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Politically, though, some insiders predict efforts like Paul's won't gain traction. "Privacy is important to a small segment of the population, but security is important to a bigger section of the population," Feehery said.
This article appears in the June 10, 2013, edition of National Journal Daily as "Government Data Grabs Unlikely to Prompt Hill Action."
NEXT STORY: Every Library and Museum in America, Mapped


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Comment. your name and any other details you would...
The Jealousy Game.121365168
- by kylalovesonedirection!! & lovelyu0
- Rating:
- Published: 21 Jun 2013
- Updated: 8 Jan 2016
- Status: In Progress
What if your boyfriend Harry Styles left you for some blonde rich pretty girl? What if you wanted to make him jealous ? but not just making him jealous with any old guy , but with ''the'' Justin Bieber? What happens when the no strings attached plan ends up not working out? Read to find out.
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The laser is a very special light source: the spatial, temporal, and frequency aspects of laser light can be exquisitely controlled. This control has enabled much of modern life, and it has had a major impact on research itself. But even the smallest laser is rather large. And many of the things we like to do with light, like imaging, are limited by the fact that normal optical elements can only focus light to a spot with a diameter that is something like the wavelength of light.
To compensate for this shortcoming, researchers have turned to the world of surface plasmon polaritons. The nice thing about plasmons is that they involve an interaction between electrons in a metal and a light field that leads to the wavelength becoming much shorter. The result is that plasmon optics are much smaller and can focus light to much smaller spot sizes.
The dirty little secret of plasmons is that they decay away very quickly, making them tough to work with. To overcome this, researchers are working on plasmonic laser sources, called spasers.
If you're thinking, "I've been here before," you're not wrong. In 2009, a group of researchers published the first results on a spaser. In that work, the researcher took what might be considered the chocolate-coated nut approach. Take a small gold ball and coat it in a plastic material that lases. To make the spaser go, you simply put millions of them in water and shoot a enormous laser pulse into the water—voilà, a small number of the plastic-coated gold balls will start to lase. Of course, the light goes in every direction and it isn't much use unless you were looking for a weakly glowing cell of cloudy water. More work was certainly required.
The latest work is a natural extension of that previous effort. Instead of spheres, the researchers used gold and silver wires. These were also coated in a plastic material that could lase. Like the previous work, the researchers used another laser to excite the plastic.
In this case, however, the details of the laser action are a little different. The plastic material absorbs light and emits photons at a lower frequency. Some of this light is captured by the wire, exciting a surface plasmon polariton that travels around the circumference of the wire. The field of the plasmon passes through the plastic material, stimulating more emission into the plasmon, increasing its intensity.
The wire that supports the plasmon is not perfect, however. So, whenever electrons encounter these imperfections, they either heat the wire up or emit light. The emitted light is the output of the spaser, while the heat generated is a waste process that is natural to plasmons (it's why it is so difficult to make a spaser work properly).
The big advantage of this work is that the wires can sit on a substrate and be individually excited. The light, however, is still emitted in every direction except out from the ends of the wire. Which, if I was Alanis Morrisette, I might describe as ironic. You see, the most useful plasmons would be those that travelled along the wire and were emitted from the ends. These could then be thought of as optical circuit elements, and the spaser would be a repeater. Unfortunately, this spaser doesn't provide much in the way of amplification for plasmons traveling along the wire.
In fact, making a plasmon amplify light along a wire is going to be a major hurdle that must be overcome for the field to progress much further. The problem is that, to get a useful output, the amplification of the device has to be huge, and most laser gain materials are very weak amplifiers—this is why lasers need mirrors. To make matters worse, the best laser gain materials are dyes (hence the plastic gain material), but dyes don't last for very long, and the wavelength range over which they emit light will be a limiting factor in their use.
Although you can't hook a mirror up to a spaser, there might be a way to create a feedback structure—a sort of plasmonic mirror set for spasers. In fact, this current work already uses that: the circumference of the wire forms what is called a whispering gallery mode resonator, and it is about as good as you can get as far as amplification goes.
Doing anything more would involve structuring the metal that supports the plasmon so that the plasmon is reflected. This works in principle, but fabrication inaccuracies tend to make the plasmons prefer to radiate as photons and heat rather than reflect from the mirror. The end result is that you need even more gain.
You might think that with rather negative take, I am ready to doom the entire field. I am not. There are some very clever people working on plasmonics, and they are well aware of these issues. They believe they can be solved, and I await the papers describing those solutions.
Physical Review Letters, 2011, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.183903


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Diaper Bags
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Another home to be demolished on Plum Island
Officials to meet to discuss storm damage
Plum Island homeowners and local leaders are meeting to assess damage from Friday's storm.
They'll also be looking for ways to prevent any more homes from falling into the ocean.
A third home is set to be torn down Tuesday. Demolition was delayed during the weekend because the area is littered with so much debris.
View a slideshow of the destruction on Plum Island
"We have to do an assessment of where we are with damage on island. What's the next risk?" homeowner Bob Connors said.
Officials say 13 homes are uninhabitable and as many as 40 are considered "at risk."
Homeowners are worried about public infrastructure on the fragile strip of land.
"We're 30 feet from the sewer and water system that could be breaching in next storm or two. Then we'd have sewerage going into the waters because we don't have permission to protect private property with private funds," Connors said.
The battle to protect homes has been difficult and emotional, and the permitting for possible fixes is no easy task.
Homeowners have taken emergency action, but critics worry that more solid protection could cause even more erosion.


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Americans feel they're in good shape physically but don't have them same confidence about their financial health. Principal's Financial Well-Being Index found that although 53% of Americans rate themselves as physically healthy, only 31% rate themselves financially healthy.
The Financial Well-Being Index is part of a quarterly survey conducted by Principal Financial Group among workers at business with 10 to 10,000 employees. The latest iteration found 84% of workers believe their physical health is an investment in their financial future.
This connection is clearly seen in the cost of health care later in life. Nearly 70% of respondents said they believed it was "extremely important" or "very important" to stay in good shape in order to avoid major health expenditures down the road. In May, Fidelity found a 65-year-old couple retiring in 2012 could need as much as $240,000 to cover medical expenses throughout retirement.
Survey results show that although respondents aren't ignoring their financial health entirely, there's plenty of room for improvement. Less than half of respondents said they are monitoring their spending levels. Twenty-eight percent have created a budget and 26% have re-evaluated their investments. Only 17% have a financial strategy.
The good news is that the number of workers with an emergency cash fund is climbing. Two-thirds of respondents report having an emergency fund, up from 61% in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Still, just over a third of respondents said they're saving enough to retire comfortably, and 51% say they're on track to achieve their financial goals. Those who work with an advisor are doing a little better; 62% say they're on track, compared with 46% of workers without an advisor.
The top three reasons for poor financial health were not saving enough, debt and not starting saving early.


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The Gear Pro-Tec line of X2 Air shoulder pads provide a traditional pad design with the added benefit of a moisture management foam system for enhanced cooling power while maintaining maximum protection. The AC notch-out with cradle pad provides Acromioclavicular joint protection. Adjustable cap system follows arm and shoulder movement for full range of motion and additional protection. Vent holes in the arch allow for quicker colling and drying. Adjustable and removable Air-Release clavicle pads provide a custmomized fit for maximum comfort and safety. Traditional style with modern technology for demanding performance.
- Light weight low profile flat pad design
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- Adjustable air release clavicle pads
- Swing Gate Deltoid Pads
- Front lock stabilizer for sternum protection
- 1" belt with no-snag buckles


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Deployment Manager
Advanced 9 Steps 1 day 57 积分
If you're looking to take your Google Cloud application to the next level, look no further than Deployment Manager. By automating the creation of GCP resources and services, Deployment Manager lets you focus on developing rather than maintaining. In this advanced-level quest, you will get hands on practice with Deployment Manager by building custom templates, automating Python and Jinja application instances, and scaling custom networks.
Prerequisites:This Quest requires proficiency with GCP computing services and hands-on experience with network configuration and application deployment. It is recommended that the student have at least earned a Badge by completing the hands-on labs in the Cloud Architecture and Stackdriver Quests before beginning. Additional experience with the labs in the Deploying Applications Quest will be also useful.
Quest Outline
Deployment Manager: Qwik Start
This hands-on lab shows you how use Deployment Manager to create a simple configuration file, and deploy that configuration to create a running environment in the Google Cloud. Watch the short video Easily Manage Resources with Google Cloud Deployment Manager.
Configuring Deployment Manager Templates
This lab creates a basic Deployment Manager (DM) configuration for deploying resources in Google Cloud Platform.
Create a Cloud SQL Instance Using Deployment Manager
In this hands-on lab you'll access a repository which contains sample deployment manager templates, and practice launching a CloudSQL instance with an example template. The template you'll practice with launches one master database instance along with a read replica.
Deployment Manager for Appserver
You'll create a YAML Deployment Manager template from scratch, configure the properties and identify and resolve YAML syntax issues in a template.
Deployment Manager - Package and Deploy
In this lab you will develop an advanced Deployment Manager template using JINJA and YAML. You will learn how to install and run a Python application on an instance through Deployment Manager.
Deployment Manager - Adding Load Balancing
In this lab you will package and deploy a more advanced load balancing and autoscaling version of the Echo service. The infrastructure that Deployment Manager templates will create places Echo
Deployment Manager - Full Production
In this lab you will launch a service using Deployment Manager, and monitor it using Cloud Monitoring. You will set up basic black box monitoring with Cloud Monitoring Dashboard and establish uptime check alert notification to trigger incident response.
Create a Network Load-Balanced Logbook Application
This lab shows you how to build a logbook application using Node.js as the frontend and MySQL on the backend. You'll also create a network load balancer and an autoscaler to watch the frontend instances and scale when necessary.
Deployment Manager - Automating Network Deployment
In this lab, you create a Deployment Manager configuration along with templates to automate the deployment of a custom network.


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10 Green Alternatives for Everyday Services
Whether you're moving into a new home or getting your car washed, do things the greener way!
As the initiative to "go green" becomes more widespread, the good news is that so have the number of eco-friendly services. From dry-cleaning your clothing to washing your car, it's never been easier to get things done in a greener way. Not sure where to get started? Check out this list of green alternatives.
A Greener Dry Cleaner
The chemicals used in traditional dry-cleaning can threaten both the environment and your health. When released into the environment, these chemicals can contaminate the air, make their way into groundwater, and contribute to smog. But there are many kinds of chemical-free cleaning: GreenEarth, a liquid silicone dry-cleaning solution used by many eco-friendly cleaning services, is both nontoxic and non hazardous; dry-cleaning machines that operate on liquid CO2 are healthier for the Earth, though expensive to purchase; and "wet cleaning," a financially sound option, uses water and nontoxic, biodegradable detergents to safely and effectively clean garments.
Mean Green Pest Control
Looking for a less toxic method to combat indoor and outdoor pests? It's probably a good idea because the traditional pesticides used to kill insects, weeds, and vermin can significantly harm both the environment and your health. Integrating less toxic pest control strategies — from identifying possible pest triggers to trapping and weeding out pests — can prove highly effective. A pest control company that promotes green tactics can help you devise a plan that works for your household.
Print It Green
The paper industry is one of the most Earth-unfriendly industries out there. Its environmental costs include large-scale use of energy, mass destruction of trees, and production of harmful waste (through the use of chemical printing materials). If you need a printing service, choose one that uses renewable sources of ink, recycled paper, and water- and- energy-efficient printing technologies. Otherwise, e-mail is the way to go!
Travel the Green Way
You already know that fuel-efficient vehicles and public transportation are environmentally friendly ways of getting around town, but now you can even travel green via taxi and limousine. Green car services have popped up in the United Kingdom and in major U.S. cities. If you haven't seen them around your town, let your local car service know that you'd appreciate some eco-friendly options.
A Sparkly Green Car Wash
If you've got the environment in mind, frequenting a car wash — any car wash — is better than washing your car at home. Driveway washing wastes a lot of water and allows hazardous chemicals to end up in sewers and groundwater. Car washing services use water more efficiently because they wash many cars at once and dump wastewater into specified sewers for treatment. A greener car wash may even go a step further by filtering and reusing its water supply, or by using waterless cleaning techniques.
A Greener Lawn
Organic lawn-care services are a useful option for those who want some assistance in maintaining a pretty lawn but who don't want to harm the Earth while doing so. Green lawn-care companies use natural alternatives to fertilizers and pesticides, implement a watering schedule that reduces waste, and use eco-friendly mowers, so there's no danger to the health of your family, your pets, or the environment!
Eco-Friendly Plumbing
If you're considering an upgrade to your home plumbing system, a green plumber can help you save water, energy, and some money. For example, the plumber can install water-conserving faucets, showerheads, and toilets. A green plumbing service can also help insulate hot- and cold-water pipes for maximum energy efficiency, replace pumps and water heaters with greener technologies, and remove pipe blockages without the use of harsh chemicals.
The Green Sweep
Hiring a professional to clean your home? Why not do it the green way? Most green cleaning companies bring along high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) vacuums that trap small particles, such as airborne chemicals and toxins, which are hazardous to the environment. They also use nontoxic household cleaners that are better for the Earth and your family's health. Best of all, with a greener clean, you won't feel guilty about needing a little help around the house!
Earthly Events
No matter what big day you're celebrating, an eco-friendly event planner can help you create a better — and greener — affair. Working with someone in the know about eco-friendly options can ensure that all aspects of your event, from the venue to the food, are arranged in an environmentally friendly fashion.
A Smooth, Green Move
As frustrating as moving into a new home can sometimes be, the good news is that there are ways to soften the blow to the Earth. Eco-friendly moving companies can provide sturdy, reusable boxes and packing materials that save trees and prevent waste. They can also deliver you to your new home in gas-efficient vehicles. Before the actual move, host a yard sale and recycle or hand off items you no longer want, to further reduce waste.


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Radio head: Tucker is Charlottesville's ticket master
"I make it my business to like everything," he says. Even so, every once in a while he can't quite hide the twinkle in his eye, and you know he's hit a special one.
When Radiohead asked him to run their direct ticket and merchandise sales during a recent tour, Rob Tucker jumped at the chance even though it meant trading a prominent position at Crozet-based Musictoday for an entry level road crew job. Then again, Radiohead is clearly one of his eye-twinklers.
Nearly five years ago, Tucker began as the sole employee in direct ticketing for the Dave Matthews Band, fulfilling orders for tickets from dedicated fans.
Soon enough, Tucker came up with a way to reward their enthusiasm. "We expanded the concept of the guest list to include all the hardcore fans."
This essentially involved upgrading the most rabid fans from a mere ticket to a non-comped spot on the guest list. The process avoids putting excessive middleman surcharges on the fans while routing more revenue to the artist.
"The whole concept of the business was giving back to the fans," says Tucker. "By servicing the fans better, the artist benefited more."
Initially, the only clients for Musictoday's ticketing department were Guster, Santana, and Medeski, Martin and Wood. Once word began to spread, however, Tucker found himself with more than 150 high-profile acts. "I signed Radiohead personally," he says, eyes all a-twinkle yet again.
One of the system's victories came in 2003 in the second year of Tennessee's answer to Woodstock. "We found a way to sell out Bonnaroo, a 90,000-person festival, in two weeks," says Tucker, who also notes that he helped bump attendance at the All Good Music Festival in West Virginia from 6,000 to 9,000. And his inaugural "Amsterjam" festival sold out months in advance– without paid advertising.
Even his WTJU Radio Show, "Nocturnal Transmissions," has an element of promotion, as Tucker has 200 subscribers for his weekly playlist. "His music collection is ridiculous," says co-host Matt Simon, "and with our time slot, there's no pressure. You really get to play some crazy stuff."
These days, Tucker has found that he is once again the sole employee for one of Coran Capshaw's musical ventures. This time it's Starr Hill Presents, which stages shows at the Music Hall, the Charlottesville Performing Arts Center, and at the Pavilion under construction downtown.
"I've almost had three separate careers in the music industry each time starting at the bottom and working my way up," says Tucker.
Yet he says he still feels as much a part of the audience as of a promotional team. "I am still a huge fan," he says, "I am an experience junkie."
Rob Tucker


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George Osborne left small business lobbyists spluttering today over the lack of an explicit commitment to helping SMEs in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
Meanwhile, tech vendors reacted with a flurry of pre-canned statements, mainly claiming that their products and services are just the thing to help hard-pressed public sector IT departments. Presumably none of them were involved in the projects that so inflated government spending in the first place.
The Federation of Small Businesses said the "missing link" in the CSR unveiled today was a Small Business Programme for Growth.
It said that small firms recognised the need to cut public spending, and welcomed plans to increase the number of adult apprenticeships, boost the low carbon economy and upgrade some national infrastructure.
But it argued there was no programme for growth, which would increase the tax base and help small firms grow and innovate. It called for an extension to the national insurance contributions holiday for smaller firms, a cut in VAT for the construction industry, and concentration of business support budgets on "micro businesses".
The Forum for Private Business added, "High tech industries – and the people that work in them – are extremely important for a strong economy in the future and it is good that funding for science is being ring-fenced." But, it warned, "these measures alone will not be enough to allow small businesses to substantially create employment in order to replace the 490,000 jobs that will be lost in the public sector".
Meanwhile, IT vendors shot out their "comments" on Osborne's speech - some even before the chancellor took to his feet in the Commons.
Spooky security consultancy Detica unsurprisingly welcomed the increase in cyber security spending, which the government seems to prefer to traditional defence spending. MD Martin Sutherland said: "It is exactly right that cyber-crime should be treated as one of the nation's greatest threats and that the Government is taking this opportunity to overhaul the UK's approach to combating cyber-crime."
Bindi Bhullar of outsourcing giant HCL said: "Public sector departments need to look to alternate providers that can deliver a fresh approach to management and offer accountability through outcome-based pricing models. The next four years will be extremely challenging for managers, but by outsourcing operational workloads, they can deliver much greater efficiencies to public services over the next four years."
Whether the government believes this to be the case is open to question. Consultants and mismanaged outsourcing projects are high on the list of public spending enemies, supposedly.
Security software vendor Sophos meanwhile suggested: "All areas of government could benefit by opening a dialogue with their vendors to find innovative ways of reducing transaction costs."
Or put another way, they should ditch the idea of using multiple suppliers. Sophos said: "Using one vendor to provide several services instead of three separate vendors, for example, not only takes advantage of economies of scale but also simplifies internal processes."
Presumably there is no advantage then to playing off multiple suppliers against one another to secure the best deal for taxpayers.
Tech recruitment agency Greythorn predicted little problem for cast-off public sector workers in finding new jobs - presuming they're techies.
"When it comes to IT and telecoms, the private sector will easily make up the jobs lost in the public sector," MD Paul Winchester claimed. "The private sector job market is in rude health and the industry is big enough to take care of itself. There is no reason to imagine the pace of consolidation envisaged in the Budget will undermine the recovery." ®


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New Fla. Pre-K Test Draws Concerns From Educators
Social and emotional skills seen getting short shrift
Teachers at Orlando Day Nursery in Florida have always evaluated how well their 4-year-old prekindergartners—most of them poor and African-American—could recognize letters, isolate sounds in words, understand stories read to them, and show other hallmarks of early literacy.
Just as important, though, have been the teachers' formal observations of social and emotional development: Could children follow instructions, for example, and make friends and cooperate in a group?
But under a new standardized assessment required by the state to measure how the nearly 184,000 4-year-olds in Florida's voluntary prekindergarten program are doing in early literacy, numeracy, and language development, some early-education providers say those key social skills will be discounted as evidence of how well they are preparing pupils for kindergarten.
Voicing concerns that resonate around the country, early-childhood advocates fear that the state's pre-K providers—under pressure to demonstrate children's progress on academic indicators—will focus only on developing those skills.
"With the assessments we were using before, you could really get to know the strengths of each child and clearly identify what you needed to work on to help them develop," said Mata Dennis, the director of Orlando Day Nursery, which serves the children of low-income families in west Orlando, including 57 students in the voluntary prekindergarten program.
"The new assessment does not give us the same quality of knowledge about every child," she said.
Assessments Vary
The issues in Florida reflect an ongoing national debate over how best to evaluate the school-readiness skills of young children, especially as a growing number of states provide publicly funded preschool programs for low-income families and want to ensure that the money is spent well.
Roughly half the states now use some form of a kindergarten-entry or -readiness assessment, but there are huge variations in which skills and knowledge are measured and how states use the results to make policy and instructional decisions, said Kyle Snow, the director of the Center for Applied Research at the Washington-based National Association for the Education of Young Children.
And while momentum around using assessments to measure and improve quality has picked up even more since the U.S. Department of Education announced its Race to the Top Early-Learning Challenge grants for states last year, establishing broad agreement among early-childhood educators and K-12 practitioners on what constitutes school readiness and measuring that accurately is a work in progress everywhere, Mr. Snow said.
If states are going to require assessments, Mr. Snow said, it's imperative to proceed with care in deciding when, how, and why they are doing so, and to make sure all facets of a child's development and learning are evaluated.
"This is profound," he said. "To really understand where a child is, you have to look across multiple areas of development."
Samuel Meisels, the president of the Chicago-based Erikson Institute and a national authority on assessing young children, said that while states justifiably want to know if their pre-K investments are paying off, "readiness for school is not an absolute," and that assessments need to be able to detect nuances and different ways children display readiness.
"We're not talking about whether someone is ready to drive a car," he said. "It's about readiness for the ability to learn in a certain context and situation, which is going to look different for different kids in different classrooms, different schools, and different communities."
Dispute in Florida
Florida's voluntary prekindergarten program—known popularly as VPK—started seven years ago, and has grown into the nation's second-largest public prekindergarten program, after Texas.
In 2012-13, the state will spend $413 million to provide prekindergarten services through a network of private preschools and child-care centers, as well as some public schools. The estimated enrollment of nearly 184,000 children represents roughly 84 percent of all of Florida's 4-year-olds. Any child who turns 4 by Sept. 1 is eligible to participate; there is no family-income requirement.
The new assessment—developed by researchers at Florida State University in Tallahassee—was mandated by a state law that specified that a child's knowledge and skills in early literacy, math, and language be measured and used to judge how well a provider was performing, said Mary Jane Tappen, the state education agency's deputy chancellor for curriculum, instruction, and student services.
The assessment—which will be given at the beginning of the school year and again at the end of the school year—is also designed to give providers clear guidance on how to improve, she said.
"The assessment is based exactly on the Florida standards for 4-year-olds and is geared toward those early-literacy and -numeracy skills that we know are critical and predictive of how well a child is going to do in school," Ms. Tappen said.
Currently, pre-K providers are evaluated on how well their former pupils perform on a two-part kindergarten-readiness test that many educators say does not accurately discern what role a pre-K program played in children's preparation versus the role of parents.
Within three years, the test will determine whether prekindergarten providers must take prescribed steps to improve their services or risk losing their funding, Ms. Tappen said.
But to the dismay of many in Florida's early-childhood community, the new test does not evaluate children's social and emotional or physical development, even though those areas are in the state's standards for early-childhood programs.
"This does not assess all of the standards we have here in Florida, and it does not assess the exact standards that everything in the research literature is telling us are the most important ones," said Kathleen Reynolds, the chief executive officer of the Early Learning Coalition of Southwest Florida, a nonprofit organization that helps coordinate state-funded school-readiness programs in four counties, including voluntary prekindergarten.
"It's like saying your height will predict your reading ability," she said.
The same objections were raised earlier this year by members of the statewide advisory council on early-childhood issues, which urged Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, to halt the new assessments.
But Gerard Robinson, then the state schools chief, wrote in a letter to the panel in July that the test is a "sound assessment" that "provides Florida's VPK teachers with information related to children that drives instruction in the classroom."
Tests in English
The assessment is also administered only in English, despite the state's large population of English-language learners. Ms. Tappen said that's because the language of instruction in all voluntary prekindergarten programs is English, making it "inappropriate" to assess a child's skills in his or her primary language.
Ms. Reynolds said not offering the test in other languages, particularly Spanish and Haitian Creole, will only make providers reluctant to serve English-learners.
"It's penalizing the child, and it penalizes the providers who work with these kids," she said.
Despite the strong disagreement over the VPK test, providers are moving ahead with administering the first "pre-assessment" of the new school year. Many will also conduct their own formal observations of children to evaluate how they are developing socially and emotionally, Ms. Reynolds said.
For the 20-minute-long state assessment, a child is pulled out of the regular flow of activities by a teacher and is asked to answer a series of questions, mostly by pointing to answers on a flip book, said Ms. Dennis of Orlando Day Nursery, whose school was a pilot site for the assessment last year.
The children have a few opportunities to answer out loud, she said, "but mostly they just point."
Ms. Dennis said her teachers will still use the observation tool they have relied on for years to capture all dimensions of how children are developing.
"We are doing that because it's the right thing to do," she said. "But it does add another layer of responsibility for teachers on top of this new assessment."
Vol. 32, Issue 05, Pages 1, 18Published in Print: September 26, 2012, as Educators Decry Academic Focus of Fla. Pre-K Test
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