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Premonitions Of War
Glorified Dirt/The True Face of Panic
Truthfully, I've never gotten around to listening to Premonitions Of War, despite the near-constant badgering of friends both distant and close. So this presents two immediate questions the moment the first song begins: is this as praiseworthy as everyone keeps saying, and do I feel like I've been missing out on a great thing for years? No, it's not, and no, I don't. Now I'm just concerned with what's wrong with my friends and if they just threw some band names into a hat and drew one to determine who they'd walk around talking about for the next year.
Right off the bat, the first thing I notice is the murky production which never lends itself to quirky, noisy, grinding metalcore. The vocals take a back-seat, however, it's hard to say what the hell really takes the front-seat when everything's equally lacking clarity. It's not unforgivable, but it becomes more difficult to critique something where the aspect that stands out the most are the time-changes. Their talented timing, however, isn't enough to save the band from their boring and monotone meat-gargling vocals, drudging breakdowns, played-out bends, and general discordance. There's an unnecessary hard and disjointed electronic interlude with "Time For Iron", but aside from that, everything's pretty homogenous, which is alright. But that's it: just alright. At least the sound their continually putting forth is something initially dynamic and interesting that takes a few minutes before frustrating you into lazily kicking your CD player off your dresser.
The only thought I'm left with after hearing Premonitions Of War is how they fit perfectly on Black Market Activities, a label I've always been rather lukewarm towards. Always far from being bad but never compelling, and maybe even inspiring to inexperienced listeners of brutal and grating music, but generally dull for the rest of us.


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Noetic Now: Blog
Moving from Vision to Action for a World Transformed
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Metaphysics of the Tea Ceremony
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Astronauts' life-changing stories of seeing the Earth from the outside
Edgar Mitchell is one of the astronauts featured in this short film by Planetary Collective about "The Overview Effect"
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Double-Slit Experiment
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subset: commoncrawl


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A few weeks ago McDonald's restaurants in the United Kingdom announced they would begin sourcing all pork from livestock suppliers who met animal-welfare standards established by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It was a move designed to appease customers who want two things: local food that is produced in an ethical, responsible way. Now all pork at UK's McDonald's restaurants will come from the farmer who agrees to grow livestock based on "Freedom Food" policies. You can take a look at the 80-page handbook here. Wal-Mart, the world's largest food store, is moving in much the same direction.
History lesson
Those of you who study history know that supply chins of the past were more adversarial than opportunistic. In this country from the late 1800s to the 1940s, the federal government often stepped in to help farmers with antitrust action against railroads and banks that were using monopoly behavior.
The Ag cooperative movement in the teens, 20s and 30's helped farmers level the playing field vs. big corporations. The union labor movement also helped level the power base during that period, but did not involve farmers to a large extent. It was also a period when the socialist movement in the U.S. was at its height, notes Purdue economist Chris Hurt.
"This was a time when the battle was between the farmer, their input supplier and the buyer of their products," he says. "It was viewed as a zero sum game. If the farmer got another penny for the grain, then the grain buyer lost that penny. This established an adversarial view between farmers and their input suppliers and the buyers of their farm products."
Now, says Hurt, agriculture is moving away from the adversarial view of the farmer battling participants above and below them.
"Today there is growing emphasis on supply chain cooperation and coordination," he says. "The emerging concept is that the entire chain can add value by improved technology, innovation, production, efficiency and coordination. Thus, everyone in the supply chain can be better off."
For farmers, the trick is to find ways to be involved as preferred suppliers in one or more of these value chains. That will often come at high cost if you need to put up new buildings, as many livestock farmers do when faced with changing housing requirements.
California's chicken producers had to make the choice to invest in new housing to accommodate that state's cage-free laws going into effect over the next few years. In England, the farmer will decide if the premium for growing McDonald's pork is worth the trouble to revamp buildings and management. A third of Britain's pig farmers already meet the standards.
More participants in the supply chain are seeking ways producers can add value to finished products through a host of specific attributes, management practices, or ways they produce --such as what drugs or feed ingredients go into crops or animals.
"This is a win-win philosophy, not win-or-lose," says Hurt.
Special attributes
The more commodity-driven the product, the more we tend to see the adversarial approach, like corn to export to Japan. Ten years ago when the world was awash in grain, Japanese buyers would use all kinds of excuses - usually the amount of damaged grain in a shipment - to buy corn on the cheap. But with genetic modification there may be more specific attribute commodity products, such as chicken corn, hog corn, or ethanol corn in the future. Hogs are now primarily produced in tight arrangements with packers. Milk production and marketing is now much more closely coordinated (often between multi thousand cow dairies and milk processors.
McDonald's potatoes for French fries are not purchased on the commodity market; they are grown by preferred suppliers under some guidelines established between the growers and McDonalds.
Moving away from simple, lowest-cost commodity production is a decision only you can make. Many farmers have already touched these waters through contract production for livestock, as well as grain such as edible beans or non-GMO corn.
The more nimble your business, the better your chances of success.
Mike Wilson has spent the last 25 years as a writer, photographer and editor for various U.S. agricultural magazines. He grew up on a grain and livestock farm in Ogle County, Ill., and earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural journalism from the University of Illinois in 1981.
He served as editor of Prairie Farmer magazine from 1990 to 2001. He has been executive editor of Farm Futures since 2004.
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That assassinations occur after a planning process like this is an insight from the U.S. Secret Service, Ash said. If agents come across someone who has been tracking the president's movements for six months, that's a much higher-risk situation than someone who just has an idea about attacking.
In the April 20, 1999, Columbine High School shootings, Harris and Klebold had clearly done significant planning. Officials found a piece of notebook paper "showing a diagram of the Columbine High School cafeteria with two X's next to the pillars," and a list of how many people were there before and after the first lunch period, the sheriff's department said. Both boys had written an itinerary for the day of the shooting.
The largest single school shooting in U.S. history, which occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007, was perpetrated by Seung-Hui Cho. Cho had been declared mentally ill and "an imminent danger" to himself by a Virginia special justice, CNN reported in 2007.
The massacre, in which Cho killed 32 people before turning the gun on himself, was not spur-of-the-moment, either. During the two hours between the two shootings he committed at different dormitories on April 16, 2007, Cho mailed a package with 27 videotaped messages and an 1,800-word statement to NBC News. "You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option," he said in one of the videos.
Schizophrenia is a diagnosis that has come up in some instances of mass killings -- for instance, Jared Loughner, who killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords outside an Arizona supermarket in 2011.
Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber," received a diagnosis of schizophrenia from court-appointed psychiatrists. This is an especially likely diagnosis in cases when the shooter is in his late teens or early 20s, because symptoms often do not develop until that age, Levin said.
But in other cases, the shooters' "pathology" is more clearly tied to their situations, Levin said. They have given up hope for the future, and they seek revenge. They believe they are the victims, and the people they are shooting are villains.
School shootings
School shooters specifically tend to come from middle- or upper-class families, Garbarino said. In poorer areas already rife with violence, kids with the same vulnerabilities may drop out of school or end up in the criminal justice system much earlier than in a resource-rich community, so school itself might hold less meaning for them.
"For school shooters, they're sort of emotionally living and dying in high school," Garbarino said.
Kipland P. Kinkel, a freshman at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, killed his parents and two students in his school's cafeteria in 1998. His parents were both teachers. His family had taken him to therapy, concerned about his obsession with guns and explosives.
"They got every possible resource, and it still didn't work," Garbarino said.
Garbarino interviewed a young man who had brought guns and bombs to school on Valentine's Day of his senior year of high school. The boy had studied the Columbine shooting and contemplated killing himself or his tormenters, who had been bullying him. Before he acted, a couple of girls saw him and found his behavior odd; one of them went to get a police officer. He surrendered and went to jail. He said in retrospect that he didn't want the girls to get hit if he started shooting.
School shootings by students dropped significantly after Columbine because schools took action to encourage everyone in their communities to bring threats to school officials' attention, Ash said.
"We've averted a number of mass killings at schools around the country in recent years because young people are beginning to inform when they hear one of their peers threatened in the hallway," Levin said. "They may inform a resource officer, a parent, a teacher, a school psychologist."
In the past, "It wasn't cool for teenagers to inform on their peers, and they didn't," he said. "More and more young people now recognize the seriousness of these threatening utterances at school, and they're much more likely to inform someone."
What have emerged instead are instances where members of the general public have taken up arms and killed innocent people.
Garbarino also points to a culture of gun violence, where killing people may seem like a viable and available solution to life's problems.
Stepping in
The good news is that most people who have these risk factors will never take the next step, Garbarino said. They may play violent video games, talk about violence with friends and research it on the Internet, but they would never implement a full plan.
A major problem is that often, interventions happen when a person becomes dangerous or threatening. A young person should receive help when he or she is merely "troubled," Levin said -- for instance, if he or she is being bullied and harassed, and feels a profound sense of powerlessness.
Anti-bullying laws can help, he said. Parents, teachers, principals and school psychologists should step in when they realize a young person feels terrorized in school, Levin said. Most school shooters had been bullied chronically; bullying is not necessarily just a part of growing up.
"When we see those red flags in the life of a youngster, we should intervene," Levin said. "Not to prevent a murder, but to do it because it's the right thing to do.
"We would improve the quality of life for lots of people," he added, "and in the process we probably would prevent a murder or two."


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Cheap ski holidays in hundreds of ski resorts worldwide.
Nb: infants must be under the age of 2 and children must be under the age of 12 at the time of return.
The Val Rogoney is a comfortably appointed and conveniently located chalet by the side of the nursery slopes. It boasts skiing to the rear of the chalet in normal snow conditions and the centre of the village and Val d'Isère's nightlife is only a few minutes' walk away. The bedrooms are comfortable whilst the large lounge has a magnificent welcoming open fireplace.The best things come in small packages and Chalet Val Rogoney is no exception. This one-time family home is charming and homely. There is no better way to relax after a hard day on the slopes than to curl up with a book on one of the comfy sofas in the lounge, with the light flooding in from the floor to ceiling windows and a roaring fire in the feature copper-hooded fireplace. The bedrooms, although small, are comfortable and inviting with plenty of wooden furnishing. With the vast Espace Killy ski area and the famous Val d'Isere nightlife both on your doorstep, this chalet really is a little gem.
Lower Ground Floor: Open-plan kitchen/dining areaWC Ground Floor:Lounge with open fireplace and large windows overlooking terrace First Floor: Room 1 = twin Room 2 = twin (beds end to end, limited storage)Bathroom (no WC) Second Floor:Room 3 = doubleBathroom with separate WC
Chalet staff live in
The chalet host will have a day off during the course of the week, during which you will be required to eat out.
Iglu acts as a travel agent for disclosed principals/tour operators, further details of which will be made available at the time of booking. Your holiday contract will be bound by the tour operators terms and conditions.
Prices are shown for a basic room or unit, can be subject to change and are indicative until time of booking. Please call on 0208 544 7114 for prices for other travel and room options for this property. The price shown includes 7 nights accommodation (unless otherwise stated) , with flights from Gatwick. Ski Pass is not included. Prices shown are Per person per week based on maximum occupancy. Descriptions and quality ratings are provided by the Tour Operator (or one of the Tour Operators where similar holidays are offered by more than one supplier). We reserve the right to make minor adjustments to the description or rating based on staff and customer feedback. For payments by credit card, a 2.5% credit card charge (4% for AMEX) will be added to your invoice. If you pay by a UK issued debit card, there is no charge. All bookings are subject to a £5 per person Passenger Admin Fee charged by Iglu.com.
Please note: the above prices are not inclusive of tourist tax which in this instance is payable in resort (approximately £3 - £10 per person per week in local currency).


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Presentation Alphabet
This is an alphabet to help with presentations and speeches. (For instance, 'A is for Authentic - Be Real.' There is sound with this slide show. See also: Language Arts -Writing and Composition - Steps In Composition - Drafting. See also: Computers and Technology - Video Production. See also: Language Arts - Broadcast Journalism - Broadcast Scriptwriting.
Sculpting Details of a Horse Mane: Part 2
Learn how to sculpt the details of a horse's mane on a clay horse head sculpture in this ceramic art video lesson with expert Jorge Benlloch. English captions. (2:12)
War of The Century - Part 18
This part of the video refers to East Prussia population that was on the move by mid 1945. There are accounts of the terrible things East Prussian women refugees had to go through to save their lives. There is also reference to those that were glad to see the Red Army as they had previously been war prisoners. However, more suffering was to come. They were taken to camps and treated as traitors. There is reference to the way in which Stalin did his best to enhance his reputation. He ordered p
Learn How To Identify Main Idea and Details
This video captures students' imagination through fantasy interwoven
with reading comprehension strategies. Students will identify with
Norbert as he learns how to be a Storylord and saves the citizens of
Mojuste from the evil Thorzuul. It will teach how to identify the main idea and details - The students in the clip must read and organize a set of sentence strips into a paragraph that makes sense.
Touchdown Taco Salad
This video helps kids work together to make a yummy taco salad. It also talks about and shares lots of healthful information.
How to Make Tortilla Chips From Scratch
Make some homemade tortilla chips with directions from a
professional chef. The chef gives instructions on how to cut either white corn or yellow corn tortillas into large triangles, tossing them in a bit of oil, spreading them out evenly on a cookie sheet and baking them at 400 degrees until golden and crispy.
St. Francis of Assisi
Video is a series of pictures of St. Francis of Assisi. Video gives many interesting facts about St. Francis of Asissi.
St. Francis of Assisi Feast Day
Catholics around the world will commemorate St. Francis of Assisis feast day October 4th. St. Francis who founded the Franciscan Order, is the patron saint for animals, the environment and Italy. Video gives the history of St. Francis of Assisi, such as where he was born, his early life, the order that was named after him, and his death. Short video, but full of information.
A History of the Popes chapter 1 part 4
A continuation of the History of the Popes series.
A History of the Popes chapter 1 part 6
A continuation of the series A History of the Popes.
What about infant baptism?
Describes what baptism means at the time it is done, when they are baptized as infants.
"Hogzilla" - do pigs get very large in the wild?
Wild Detectives investigates the legend of the giant "pig monster" named Hogzilla. A hunter shot a giant wild boar and claimed it was over 3 meters long; investigators dig it up and measure it. A documentary for kids. 3:07.
Bible Book Bop
Memorize the books of the Bible with the Go Fish Guys! Song will help kids learn the books of the Bible.
Half Lion, Half Tiger - It's a Liger
This short film features ligers at a German Zoo. (Ligers are only bred and raised in captivity. Scientists are doubtful that a liger could exist in the wild.) Run time 01:22.
Demonstrative adjectives in Spanish part 2
In this video, the speaker explains how to use plural demonstrative adjectives-these and those. The pictures and words printed are very helpful.
Mrs. Burk's Area and Perimeter Rap
Mrs. Burk's Area and Perimeter rap explains how to measure a perimeter by adding all sides and calculating the area by multiplying the length times the width. The music is loud making the lyrics difficult to hear at times. (0:59)
How to Build Organic Soil
Building organic soil requires a good compost-to -soil ratio in
order to keep organic matter and nutrients available to the soil. In this clip a professional landscaper shows how to build organic soil.
Funny Speeches: Don't Telegraph Humor
This video teaches you not to preface, or telegraph, your joke. Just tell it. Learn how to give a funny speech from professional speaker and communications instructor Tracy Goodwin in this public speaking video.
How to Give a Funny Speech : Funny Speeches: Practice Humor
In this video you are reminded that it isn't always easy to get a laugh when making a speech. Tracy Goodwin, professional speaker and communications instructor, gives you tips on how to be better prepared for sharing humor through speech.
Google Maps: How do maps benefit our society?
In this video 6th and 7th grade teachers Katie Facto and Kim Mayher use Google Maps with their students. This video is helpful to Social Studies teachers who are on map skills. This is also a great way to show a teacher how to integrate technology into a social studies class.


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Certain formulas I really enjoy looking at like the Euler-Maclaurin formula or the Leibniz integral rule. What's your favorite equation, formula, identity or inequality?
closed as no longer relevant by Robin Chapman, Akhil Mathew, Captain Oates, Qiaochu Yuan, Pete L. Clark Aug 22 '10 at 9:00
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$e^{\pi i} + 1 = 0$ | |||||||||||||||||||||
Stokes' Theorem | ||||
There are many, but here is one. $d^2=0$ | |||||||||
Trivial as this is, it has amazed me for decades: $(1+2+3+...+n)^2=(1^3+2^3+3^3+...+n^3)$ | |||||
There's lots to choose from. Riemann-Roch and various other formulas from cohomology are pretty neat. But I think I'll go with $$\sum\limits_{n=1}^{\infty} n^{-s} = \prod\limits_{p \text{ prime}} \left( 1 - p^{-s}\right)^{-1}$$ | ||||
1+2+3+4+5+... = -1/12 Once suitably regularised of course :-) | |||||
Mine is definitely $$1+\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{9}+\cdots+\frac{1}{n^2}+\cdots=\frac{\pi^2}{6},$$ an amazing relation between integers and pi. | |||||||||
I'm currently obsessed with the identity $\det (\mathbf{I} - \mathbf{A}t)^{-1} = \exp \text{tr } \log (\mathbf{I} - \mathbf{A}t)^{-1}$. It's straightforward to prove algebraically, but its combinatorial meaning is very interesting. | |||||||||||||
$$ \frac{24}{7\sqrt{7}} \int_{\pi/3}^{\pi/2} \log \left| \frac{\tan t+\sqrt{7}}{\tan t-\sqrt{7}}\right|\\ dt = \sum_{n\geq 1} \left(\frac n7\right)\frac{1}{n^2}, $$ where $\left(\frac n7\right)$ denotes the Legendre symbol. Not really my favorite identity, but it has the interesting feature that it is a conjecture! It is a rare example of a conjectured explicit identity between real numbers that can be checked to arbitrary accuracy. This identity has been verified to over 20,000 decimal places. See J. M. Borwein and D. H. Bailey, Mathematics by Experiment: Plausible Reasoning in the 21st Century, A K Peters, Natick, MA, 2004 (pages 90-91). | ||||
1/(1-z) = (1+z)(1+z^2)(1+z^4)(1+z^8)... Both sides as formal power series work out to 1 + z + z^2 + z^3 + ..., where all the coefficients are 1. This is an analytic version of the fact that every positive integer can be written in exactly one way as a sum of distinct powers of two, i. e. that binary expansions are unique. | |||||||||
$V - E + F = 2$ Euler's characteristic for connected planar graphs. | ||||
It's too hard to pick just one formula, so here's another: the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality: Simple, yet incredibly useful. It has many nice generalizations (like Holder's inequality), but here's a cute generalization to three vectors in a real inner product space: There are corresponding inequalities for 4 vectors, 5 vectors, etc., but they get unwieldy after this one. All of the inequalities, including Cauchy-Schwarz, are actually just generalizations of the 1-dimensional inequality: or rather, instantiations of it in the 2nd, 3rd, etc. exterior powers of the vector space. | ||||
For a triangle with angles a, b, c $$\tan a + \tan b + \tan c = (\tan a) (\tan b) (\tan c)$$ | ||||
I always thought this one was really funny: $1 = 0!$ | |||||||||||||
I just cannot get this thing to make the 2 by 2 matrices of letters I want. Wait, fixed it myself. There is a thread in Meta about Latex/jsMath inconsistencies, one known problem is backslash being interpreted as an escape. So where I intended double backslash I just put three backslashes and that works for now. If it fails later I will switch to four or five backslashes. Given a square matrix $M \in SO_n$ decomposed as illustrated with square blocks $A,D$ and rectangular blocks $B,C,$ $$M = \left( \begin{array}{cc} A & B \\\ C & D \end{array} \right) ,$$ then $\det A = \det D.$ What this says is that, in Riemannian geometry with an orientable manifold, the Hodge star operator is an isometry, a fact that has relevance for Poincare duality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodge_duality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_duality But the proof is a single line: $$ \left( \begin{array}{cc} A & B \\\ 0 & I \end{array} \right) \left( \begin{array}{cc} A^t & C^t \\\ B^t & D^t \end{array} \right) = \left( \begin{array}{cc} I & 0 \\\ B^t & D^t \end{array} \right). $$ | ||||
$196884 = 196883 + 1$ | ||||
I think that Weyl's character formula is pretty awesome! It's a generating function for the dimensions of the weight spaces in a finite dimensional irreducible highest weight module of a semisimple Lie algebra. | ||||
Gauss-Bonnet, even though I am not a geometer. | ||||
Euclid, Elements, Book1 Prop 47: Ἐν τοῖς ὀρθογωνίοις τριγώνοις τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς τὴν ὀρθὴν γωνίαν ὑποτεινούσης πλευρᾶς τετράγωνον ἴσον ἐστὶ τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν τὴν ὀρθὴν γωνίαν περιεχουσῶν πλευρῶν τετραγώνοις. That is, In right-angled triangles the square on the side subtending the right angle is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle. | ||||
It has to be the ergodic theorem, $$\frac{1}{n}\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}f(T^kx) \to \int f\:d\mu,\;\;\mu\text{-a.e.}\;x,$$ the central principle which holds together pretty much my entire research existence. | ||||
$2^n>n $ | |||||
The same statement for number fields essentially describes the Galois theory. Now the idea that those should be somehow unified was one of the reasons in the development of abstract schemes, a very fruitful topic that is studied in the amazing area of mathematics called the abstract algebraic geometry. Also, note that "actions on sets" is very close to "representations on vector spaces" and this moves us in the direction of representation theory. Now you see, this simple line actually somehow relates number theory and representation theory. How exactly? Well, if I knew, I would write about that, but I'm just starting to learn about those things. (Of course, one of the specific relations hinted here should be the Langlands conjectures, since we're so close to having L-functions and representations here!) | ||||
Riemann-Roch, and its generalizations: Grothendieck-Hirzebruch-Riemann-Roch Atiyah-Singer (which is also a generalization of Gauss-Bonnet) Is it cheating to put all of these in a single answer? :-) | ||||
E[X+Y]=E[X]+E[Y] for any 2 random varibles X and Y | ||||
My favorite is the Koike-Norton-Zagier product identity for the j-function (which classifies complex elliptic curves): j(p) - j(q) = p-1 \prodm>0,n>-1 (1-pmqn)c(mn), where j(q)-744 = \sumn >-2 c(n) qn = q-1 + 196884q + 21493760q2 + ... The left side is a difference of power series pure in p and q, so all of the mixed terms on the right cancel out. This yields infinitely many identities relating the coefficients of j. It is also the Weyl denominator formula for the monster Lie algebra. | ||||
$ D_A\star F = 0 $ Yang-Mills | ||||
It may be trivial, but I've always found $\sqrt{\pi}=\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}e^{-x^{2}}dx$ to be particularly beautiful. | |||||
Addendum to $e^{i \pi}$Benjamin Peirce apparently liked this mathematical synonym for the additive inverse of $1$ so much that he introduced three special symbols for $e, i, \pi$ — ones that enable $e^{i \pi}$ to be written in a single cursive ligature, like so:
| ||||
$(A-\lambda _1) (A-\lambda _2) \ldots = 0$, the Cayley-Hamilton theorem. | |||||
Var[X+Y]=Var[X]+Var[Y] for any two independent random variables X and Y, which is the statistics equivalent of the Pythagorean Theorem. | ||||


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so, for anyone who likes fiji water, they had been long accused of being bad environmentalists. then, they came out witha fiji green initiative to make themselves look cool to everyone.
now mother jones came out iwth an article, attacking their progressive image.
fiji water responds
and in the comment, is another response by coeditor in motherjones... i'll paste that here just in case fiji decides to remove it, which i hope they don't...
From Clara Jeffery, Co-Editor of Mother Jones. What follows is our reply to Fiji Water spokesperson Rob Six, courtesy of writer Anna Lenzer:
Sixs key points are the same he and other Fiji executives have repeatedly made, and which are reflected in detail in my story: Donating money for water access projects or kindergartens is laudable, and I discuss Fijis charitable projects in Fiji (despite numerous requests, Fiji wouldnt disclose how much it spends on most of these projects). The piece also makes it clear that Fiji Water accounts for significant economic activity in Fiji, and company executives are quoted to that effect.
Six doesnt address the key questions raised in my Mother Jones story, from the polluting background of Fiji Waters owners past and present, to the companys decision to funnel assets through tax havens, to its silence on the human rights abuses of the Fijian government. My piece doesnt argue that Fiji Water actively props up the regime, but that its silence amounts to acquiescence.
We cannot and will not speak for the government, Six writes. I didnt ask them to speak for the government, I asked them to comment on it. Though Fiji Water casts itself as a progressive, outspoken company in the US, it has a policy of not discussing Fijis regime unless something really affects us, as Six was quoted in the story.
The regime clearly benefits from the companys global branding campaign characterizing Fiji as a paradise where there is no word for stress. Fijis tourism agencies use Fiji Water as props in their promotional campaigns, and the company itself has publicized pictures of President Obama drinking Fiji Water. This is a point repeatedly made by international observers, including a UN official who in a recent commentary (titled Why Obama should stop drinking Fiji water) called for sanctions on Fiji, and singled out Fiji Water as the one company with enough leverage to force the junta to budge. Yet the most pointed criticism the company has made of the regime was when it opposed a tax as draconian; it has never used language like that to refer to the juntas human rights abuses.
Its worth remembering that there arent very many countries ruled by military juntas today, and Americans prefer not to do business with those that are. We dont import Burma Water or Libya Water.
As to Six point that the company didnt know I was in Fiji: I did contact Fiji Water before my trip, and Six mentioned that the company takes journalists to Fiji; I didnt follow up about joining such a junket. Despite news reports showing that Fiji wouldnt cooperate with journalists who went there independently, I chose to do so and visited the factory on a public tour. I had planned to speak to Fiji Waters local representatives, and to visit the surrounding villages, afterward. But it was at that point that I was arrested by Fijian police, interrogated about my plans to write about Fiji Water, and threatened with imprisonment and rape. After that incident, personnel at the US embassy strongly encouraged me not to visit the villages. I did discuss my trip to the islands with Six after I returned, and had extensive correspondence with him on numerous questions, many of which he has not addressed to this day, including:
Why wont the company disclose the total amount of money that Fiji Water spends on its charity work? Do its charitable contributions come close to matching the 30 percent corporate tax rate it would be paying had it not been granted a tax holiday in Fiji since 1995?
Will Fiji Water owners Lynda and Stewart Resnick, who in the companys PR materials contrast our tap water supply with the living water found in their bottles, disclose the full volume of pesticides that their farming and flower companies use every year? Could limiting those inputs create better water here at home?
Fiji touts its commitments to lighten its plastic bottle (which is twice as heavy as many competitors) by 20 percent next year, to offset its carbon emissions by 120 percent, and to restore environmentally sensitive areas in Fiji, but its public statements never acknowledge that these projects are, in many cases, still on the drawing board or in the negotiating stages. Why?
We welcome further dialogue with Fiji Water on these important issues.Clara Jeffery, Co-Editor, Mother Jones
no clue who/what mother jones is but they do a good job of listing a bunch of stuff, and talking about how she got harrassed in fiji, and so couldn't really do her investagatory reporting.... which ends up as being a bunch of data anyone could've done from the web....(sans harrasment part)
i've long stopped fiji water, because no matter what numbers fiji may try to throw at me, to me it makes no sense to drink water that's been shipped from 1/2 way around the world.


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The Melbourne Game1 expedition runs this weekend in Melbourne. The event will be coming to Sydney on the 2nd and 3rd of December and is run in collaboration with AutoSalon, which is a massive car showcase. Game1 is one of several gaming shows being held this year, with the eGames expo following in two weeks at the same venue. Tristan, Mark and I decided to attend Jeff's shed to take a look what was on offer. With E3 now a much smaller event the opportunity is there for these public events to take some of the limelight.
About one quarter of the space in the centre was devoted to the Game1 show, with the rest occupied by Autosalon. The first thing all of our staff headed towards was the Wii, which was making it's public debut in Australia today. Unfortunately everybody was gravitating towards Nintendo's large, prominent display and we were forced to wait in line for two hours before having a go on Nintendo's new piece of tech. Four games were on display, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wii Play, Wii Sports and Excite Truck (or Truck Excite as the Nintendo representative kept calling it). At the beginning, visitors were allowed to have a go at every game, but by the time Tristan and I had grown older by two hours we were only allowed to play on one game.
The obvious choice for our first experiences on the Wii was Wii Sports. We played the tennis mini game and after strapping the little holders on our hands we were ready to play a game. Whilst only an extremely quick introduction to the Wii, the tennis mini game was thoroughly enjoyable and everybody who played it appeared to pick it up really quickly. However, there were a few concerns. The game didn't always pick up my movements, during one stroke I would over exaggerate my movement and it wouldn't sense it but other times the Wii would sense my movements perfectly. The Wii remote also provides no force feedback, so you won't be feeling your shot, you'll certainly hear the shot and you'll see your character execute a shot, but (unlike other games) there appeared to be no rumble at all in the tennis game.
After Wii Sports, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was easily the second most popular game. We watched quite a few people try their hand at fishing and must admit that the game looked pretty impressive visually. Excite Truck was also surprisingly smooth, the game didn't impress visually but the frame rate was silky smooth and didn't appear to miss a beat. Despite my initial reservations about Excite Truck the game does look like it could be a lot of fun, especially in multiplayer. The final game we witnessed was Wii Play, which will come bundled with a controller for a budget price on December the 7th. We got to see two of the games in action, the shooting gallery mini game and the air hockey mini game.
After spending two hours at the Nintendo booth we moved along to some of the other publishers. THQ had a booth set up in the corner and was showcasing Sonic the Hedgehog, WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2007 and Destroy All Humans! 2. For WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2007 it was the first time that the game had been shown in public in Australia and visitors were able to go hands on with plenty of the wrestling modes. We must admit that the game looked rather impressive visually, which is surprising because the graphics aren't normally a strongpoint in the Smackdown titles. Sonic the Hedgehog was also on display and it seems that Sega have updated the build, so you can get a better feel of how the final game will look. If you attend the THQ stand you'll also be given posters, stickers and possibly even a demo for Destroy All Humans! 2.
Activision's stand was consistently busy, as they bought along some recent code for Call of Duty 3, Tony Hawk's Project 8, World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions and the crowd magnet, Guitar Hero 2. At the centre of the Activision display was a Pimp My Ride car, which was used to promote the upcoming game, though the car itself didn't looked too pimped... maybe it's a work in progress. As always, Guitar Hero 2 was popular. Whilst the lines for Guitar Hero 2 weren't as lengthy as the Wii wait, there were still quite a few people lining up for their quick chance to act like a rocker. Call of Duty 3 was also a draw card for the audience and whilst the game looks similar to it's predecessor, it demonstrates just how popular the Call of Duty series is.
The local developer Auran were also in attendance and had quite a few PC's set up showing off their latest title, Call of Juarez. Auran's next big title is Fury, which is the first massively multiplayer online game produced in Australia. Fury will also be on display at the eGames expo. We'll have an extensive preview of Fury very shortly, so keep checking back to PALGN. Fury looks like it is going to be one of the biggest titles developed in Australia for a long time and despite the build on display being a little old, the game was still extremely smooth.
Aside from this there wasn't too much else on show. EA had a large booth which basically focused on Need for Speed: Carbon. The Xbox 360 version looks incredible, but the PlayStation 2 edition didn't look quite so good. Every hour a presentation takes place on the centre stage, the presentations started with Nintendo and were followed by EA, THQ & Activision. During the intervals some lovely ladies came onto the stage to dance. There were also a few technology booths; NRG showcased some of their high-end game systems and Samsung displayed their new HD TV's which support Blu-Ray.
The Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) had a booth where they talked about their courses available for people interested in getting a foot into the ever-growing gaming industry. The booth was an interesting insight into one of Australia's most successful video game focused schools in Australia, and no doubt something that future artist and programmers will find interesting. We also went over to have a chat with Yug and Matt at the Australian Gamer booth. Free M&Ms and something to sit on made it a highlight of the afternoon. The Game1 expo also featured a 36 hour tournament. There was a lot happening with the space and at any one time there were about twenty five gamers playing Call of Duty 2 for the XBox 360.
Overall the Game 1 expo was a little disappointing. It was relatively small with not enough to do. This leaves us with hope that eGames will be bigger and better with its increased focus on video games. However, this is only the beginning for games conventions in Australia. It was clear by the number of attendees that the idea to include a gaming segment was a success, although it would have been better if there were more games publishers in attendance. Don't forget that Game1 is coming to Sydney on the 2nd and 3rd of December, if you're a Melbournite and your craving wasn't fulfilled by Game1 then we suggest you attend the eGames expo, where PALGN will be participating. For all our photos from the event , check out our media panel.
04 Nov, 2006
04 Nov, 2006
Game1 2006 Expo Report
PALGN Feature | The Australian public's first chance to play the Wii.
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This V-neck top features a decorative ring joined at center front neck with stylized front yoke seam. Patch pockets, back elastic and side vents complete this look. Center back length: 26 1/2"
Fabric: Brushed 60 Cotton/40 Polyester Poplin
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Cars > Trigger's Garage
About Trigger's Garage
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The Bandit Run Enthusiast
Save this URL into your Favorites: " www.TheBanditRun.com " Call or email anytime 402.465.5756 or firstname.lastname@example.com This years stops are as follows: Lincoln, NE July 13th Valentine, NE July 14th Rapid City, SD July 15th & 16th Laramie, WY July 17th Golden, CO July 18th & 19th...
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- Jul 23, 2012 at 5:01 pm
- I really love your T.A. very gorgeous looking and just pure funn !
- Mar 28, 2012 at 6:16 am
- My TA was used in a photo shoot with a very nice model named Jody Lynn. I would appreciate it if you all would go to this page and vote for her as she is trying to make the cover f a magazine that my car will be featured in. That site it. http://www.kc...r.com/?p=3834
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Re: Ryan Pics
I just happen to work on a political campaign for a US Senator who was on a subcommittee who was more than willing to listen to what I had to say on the issue. We spent more than an hour on the phone discussing it. She said she learned more in that one hour than 4 days in a locked room with a bunch of doctors. Sometimes they just need to hear it in plain english as well...kind of like give it to me straight, I can handle it. The incandescent bulbs that won't be done away with are the 25 watt, the 40 watt, 7 watt, 4 watt, and I do believe the 60 watt...but I am not 100% sure on the last one. It is a huge change considering it was originally just the 7 and 4 watt bulbs that were staying.