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Green News — Feb/Mar, 2014
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Ace Hardware Acquires Emery-Waterhouse
Ace Hardware Corp., the nation's largest retailer-owned hardware-supply co-op, has acquired Portland, Oregon based Emery-Waterhouse, which distributes a wide variety of building materials to independent lumber, paint, industrial and hardware outlets.
Emery-Waterhouse's management team stay in place, and the company will continue supplying independent retailers as an independently managed subsidiary of Ace Hardware. Emery-Waterhouse has been a member of Distribution America, a national buying group composed of independently owned two-step distributors.
Building Science Online Training
Blue House Energy's on-line course, Building Science Basics, enables builders to hone their knowledge of building science and energy efficiency, and understand the 'why' behind energy efficiency measures. The coursework is graphically rich, interactive, and accessible. For instance, Building Science Basics, which qualifies for BPI continuing education credits, is made up of 3 modules that can be consumed in 10-minute chunks. There are practice exercises, quizzes, and a final exam that leads to a certificate of completion.
"For those who have been away from school for a long time, online, self-paced courses such as ours are a great way to step back into training," says Shawna Henderson, CEO of Blue House Energy. "The Building Science Basics course could easily become integral to certification programs for all tradespeople."
For a video preview, visit www.bluehouseenergy.com.
Trex 2013 4th-Quarter Sales Increase 38%
The Trex Company announced that net sales for the fourth quarter of 2013 totaled $63.8 million, compared to $46.2 million for the same period of 2012 – an increase of 38%. Net sales for all of 2013 totaled $343 million, an increase of 11% over the previous year. "We brought 2013 to a very strong finish," said Ronald W. Kaplan, President/CEO of Trex. "Our best-in-class high-performance product platform, coupled with our recently revised pricing strategy, is being well received in the marketplace."
Trex is the world's largest manufacturer of wood-alternative decking materials, with a product line produced from materials certified as 95% recycled.
50,000th Green Housing Unit Certified as LEED-H
Since 2007, t U.S. Green Building Council has certified that 50,000 residential units have met the standards for its LEED for Homes – making it the world's most widely used residential green building program. From 392 housing units LEED-certified in 2007, the figure jumped to nearly 900 units certified within the year 2008 and nearly 3,000 certified within 2009. In 2012 and 2013 alone, USGBC certified more than 15,000 and 17,000 housing units, respectively.
Of that number 74 percent are within multifamily buildings, and 44 percent are classified as affordable housing. More than 82,000 units under construction are in the pipeline for LEED certification. Advantage of LEED homes include enhanced property value, healthier indoor environments, and energy and water savings that average 20 to 30 percent.
Green Home Building Reached $36 Billion in 2013
Green homes comprised 23% of overall residential construction in 2013 and are expected to grow to as high as 33% of the market by 2016, according on a study released at the 2014 International Builders Show. In raw dollars, that represents a leap from $36 billion in 2013 to as much as $105 billion in 2016.
The market for green homes accelerated during the housing downturn when green builders specializer encountered more consistent demand than comparable firms. The study contends that the top drivers to increased green home building activity include changes in codes and regulations, increased energy costs, wider access to affordable green products, and competitive advantage.
In 2013, 16% of builders were dedicated to green building with more than 90% of their projects green, and another 20% were highly invested in green activity with 61% to 90% of their projects green. Remodelers are also increasing their green focus, with 16% reporting over 60% of their projects are green today, which is expected to grow 32% by 2018.
Eastman Chemical Discontinues Perrenial Wood Line
Eastman Chemical Company has discontinued its Perennial Wood™ product line and business operations. The extended-life wood product utilized an acetylization process similar to the more widely known Accoya Wood system. Perennial Wood products will remain available in the market while supplies last.
"A lot of talented Eastman employees and external partners worked very hard on this project, and this outcome is not a reflection of their dedication or hard work," said Tim Dell, vice president of innovation, marketing, sales and pricing at Eastman. "Additionally, this decision was not made based on product performance, but rather on the challenging economics of the product market."
Eastman will provide continued support, and will honor the 25-year limited residential warranty for product sold at retail under the Perennial Wood brand name. Warranties must be registered within 30 days of purchase at PerennialWood.com or through the customer center at 800-530-7495. To learn where products can be purchased, visit PerennialWood.com.
U.S. Mayors Plan Switch to LED Lighting
U.S. cities aim to significantly expand their use of energy-saving technologies over the next five years, according to a recent survey of nearly 300 mayors. 67% of municipalities plan to increase their deployment of new energy technologies over the next five years, with 82% of those cities looking to convert to LED and other energy-efficient lighting.
The study, which was sponsored by Philips Lighting, noted that LED/energy efficient lighting was rated as the "most promising" technology for reducing energy use and carbon emissions. Retrofitting public buildings ranked as a top priority in improving the energy efficiency of city infrastructure. Mayors expect to utilize community revenues, supplemented by partnerships with the private sector, as the sources of financing these technologies.
"This survey shows… how mayors are leaders in energy innovation, deploying new technologies, pursuing new efficiency systems, reducing their communities' energy use and lowering costs for their taxpayers. Their best practices as well as the findings of this survey confirm that investing dollars in city energy efforts is a very good investment for the private sector and the nation," said Mesa, Arizona Mayor Scott Smith.
"Mayors remain optimistic about the energy technology marketplace, with two in three cities anticipating increased investment, whether it is for state-of-the-art lighting or solar energy systems. It is not only cities who have a stake in this success, but the U.S. economy when new industries prosper because of these homegrown efforts," added Gresham, Oregon Mayor Shane Bemis.
The survey, titled "Energy Efficiency and Technologies in America's Cities," was unveiled during a meeting of The U.S. Conference of Mayors 82nd Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. The survey can be found at usmayors.org/2014energysurvey.
New Study Finds That Old Trees Grow Faster, Store More Carbon
Trees do not slow in their growth rate as they get older and larger — instead, their growth keeps accelerating, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
"This finding contradicts the usual assumption that tree growth eventually declines as trees get older and bigger," says Nate Stephenson, the study's lead author and a forest ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
The study was an international collaboration of 38 researchers from research universities, government agencies and non-governmental organizations. The researchers compiled growth measurements of 673,046 trees belonging to 403 tree species from tropical, subtropical and temperate regions across six continents.
This continuously increasing growth rate means that on an individual basis, large, old trees are better at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon that is absorbed or sequestered through natural processes lowers the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and can help counter-balance the amount of CO2 people generate.
Whirlpool Switches to Honeywell's Low-Emission LBA
Whirlpool Corporation has begun utilizing Honeywell's Solstice® Liquid Blowing Agent in the sustainable energy efficient insulation found in its U.S.-made refrigerators and freezers. The global warming potential (GWP) of the new foam blowing agent is 99.9% lower than the foam blowing agents most commonly used in residential refrigerators, with no loss in performance. This is the first use of the innovative blowing agent in home appliances.
Solstice LBA has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is listed under the EPA's Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP). Whirlpool has already voluntarily begun phasing out its use of hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) in its U.S. refrigerators and freezers, and when the company completes the switch to Soistice by the end of 2014, the impact on global warming will be the equivalent of removing more than 400,000 cars from the road.
Benjamin Moore Issues Color Trend Forecast
Benjamin Moore Paint has unveiled its Color of the Year for 2014 to be "Breath of Fresh Air" (color number 806) as part of its Color Trends 2014 palette. Announced by newly appointed Benjamin Moore Creative Director Ellen O'Neill at the opening of the company's New York City showroom during Fall Market 2013 for architects and designers, Breath of Fresh Air is a gorgeous, ethereal blue serving as a "new neutral" that is livable and functional.
For its 2014 Color Trends collection, Benjamin Moore displays a collection that is not only rich and enduring, but livable for today's designer, as each hue resonates with many different styles."We know that color is the ultimate form of personal expression," said O'Neil, "so we curated this collection to help consumers create beautiful spaces with confidence." As color rarely exists in isolation, Benjamin Moore designed a palette of 23 colors that not only stand each on their own but also work well in harmony allowing the transitions of spaces and colors to flow seamlessly.
New GSA Recommendation Alters Sustainable Wood Standard
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has updated its recommendation on the federal government's use of third party green building certification systems to include both the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED 2009 standard or the Green Building Initiative's (GBI) Green Globes 2010 certification system. At the same time, GSA announced that it will conduct more regular reviews in order to keep up with the latest green building tools that the market has to offer.
While there are a variety of key differences between the two certification programs, the most noteworthy is the certified wood credit. LEED issues credits only for FSC-certified lumber, while the Green Globes standard awards points for both the FSC and the less stringent SFI standard.
At the same time, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative - SFI - is in the midst of engaging its stakeholders to develop more sustainable practices for its SFI 2015-2019 Standard. A 60-day public comment period running from January 6 - March 6, 2014 is designed to provide a transparent opportunity for anyone interested in the future of the program. The draft SFI 2015-2019 Standard includes new performance measures to conserve biodiversity in fiber sourcing; limit conversion of one forest type to another; and expand the definition of "controversial sources," which are not allowed in SFI-labeled products.
Owens Corning Issues EPD for XPS Insulation
Owens Corning has announced a UL-certified Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for its FOAMULAR® Extruded Polystyrene (XPS) Insulation – a first in North America for XPS rigid foam insulation. The EPD describes the environmental impact of the products based upon an established set of product category rules and independently verified life cycle assessment (LCA) data from cradle-to-grave. The assessment of a product's environmental impact includes parameters such as raw materials extraction, transportation, manufacturing, packaging, use and disposal at end of life.
"EPDs help architects, designers, specifiers, and other purchasers make more informed sustainable purchasing decisions and meet industry standards, including the recently launched LEEDâ v4 rating system," said Gale Tedhams, director of sustainability for Owens Corning.
Study Finds 70-Year Expected Life For Accoya Wood
The independent Timber Research and Development Association (TRADA) has published a new report on the performance of Accoya wood, finding that its expected service life can extend to 70 years when used for window joinery and glazed doors.
Accoya is produced using Accsys Technologies' patented acetylation process, that modifies wood to the core. The process delivers outstanding levels of performance, including dimensional stability, class-1 durability and sustainability. Made with FSC certified wood from legal, manageable and sustainable forests, Accoya is in an attractive wood product which is Cradle to Cradle Gold certified, which is perfect for a variety of uses from windows and doors to external cladding, structural projects and decking.
Survey: Consumers Favor Eco-Friendly Packaging
Perception Research Services (PRS) recently conducted a survey among 1,515 shoppers to gauge perceptions of environmentally friendly packaging. Roughly two-thirds of shoppers surveyed said that they were concerned about the environment, and over 50 percent of Americans stated that they were more motivated to buy products that are supplied in environmentally friendly packaging.
"While many marketers are already taking steps to address environmental concerns, our research shows that they can benefit from doing more to help shoppers bridge the gap between their level of concern and taking action," stated Jonathan Asher, Executive Vice President at PRS.
2014 HVAC Expo Headed for Record Participation
The 2014 AHR Expo -- January 21-23 in New York City -- will be the largest HVACR event ever held in the Northeast. The Expo is co-sponsored by ASHRAE and AHRI. The Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Institute of Canada (HRAI) is an honorary sponsor. For more information visit the Show's website at www.ahrexpo.com.
Optimism for improvement for the HVACR industry continue to grow, according to a recent survey sent to more than 1,000 manufacturers. 90% believe sales will increase, with 32% expecting sales increases of more than 10%. When asked which HVACR market segments would be the most promising in the new year, "Hospitals/Health Care" ranked first, followed by "Light Commercial," "Heavy Commercial", "Data/Telecom Centers" and "Office Buildings."
The National Association of the Remodeling Industry's (NARI) third-quarter Remodeling Business Pulse (RBP) data of current and future remodeling business conditions continues to show soaring growth. Quarter-over-quarter increases are evident in nearly all components measuring remodeling activity.
Entering into the holiday season, which has been a slower season in recent years, remodelers are reporting the highest overall rating on business conditions for the sixth consecutive quarter. "Pent-up demand continues to drive the current remodeling market," says Tom O'Grady, CR, CKBR, chairman of NARI's Strategic Planning & Research Committee and president of O'Grady Builders, based in Drexel Hill, Pa. "The general sense is that consumers are tired of waiting and feel more secure about spending money, which is also reflected in the higher values in jobs sold."
Visit the NARI.org site for more information
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a final negative determination in the unfair trade investigation of Hardwood and Decorative Plywood from China. The Coalition for Fair Trade of Hardwood Plywood (CFTHP), the organization which filed the unfair trade petition in September 2012, expressed its deep disappointment over the ITC vote. Jeff Levin, counsel for CFTHP, noted that the ITC's vote came despite the fact that all Chinese imports of the product were found to be unfairly traded in the U.S. market by substantial margins.
Mr. Levin stated: "This industry, which has seen large portions of the U.S. market for hardwood plywood captured by unfairly traded imports to the pronounced detriment of this manufacturing industry, will face the continued threat posed by Chinese imports. We do not believe that the ITC's determination is reflective of the facts presented in this investigation -- or the realities of the marketplace."
But, Mr. Levin noted, "As an American manufacturing industry, producers in this country will continue its fight for fair trade -- even with a demonstrably unlevel playing field."
For more information, visit www.hardwoodplywoodfairtrade.org.
"These awards illustrate our industry's unwavering commitment to concern for worker safety and the environment," said VI President Dick Doyle. "Over the past 26 years this commitment has resulted in an 83 percent reduction in vinyl chloride emissions, while our industry's PVC resin production has increased by 76 percent according to EPA figures."
Vinyl Institute's winner for 22 consecutive years of outstanding performance was Shintech, Inc.'s Freeport, Texas facility. Other awards went to: Oxy Vinyls, LP's plant in Deer Park, Texas plant, for 12 consecutive years of achievement, and Oxy Vinyls, Pedricktown, New Jersey plant for 7 consecutive years of achievement; Formosa Plastics' Point Comfort, Texas plant for 5 consecutive years of achievement; Occidental Chemical's Ingleside, Texas plant for 5 consecutive years of achievement; and Westlake Chemical's Calvert City, Kentucky plant for 5 consecutive years of achievement.
The Engineered Wood Association (APA) has relaunched www.performancewalls.org, a free resource providing builders, architects, specifiers and code officials with tools to design and build safe, durable and code-compliant walls. The site compiles APA's extensive library of wall-construction content, including how-to instructions, technical information, and CAD details for wood-frame construction, all in one convenient location.((Recent enhancements to the site include:
• APA Simplified Wall Bracing(: This section features the new APA Simplified Wall Bracing Method, which offers a more flexible, streamlined approach to wall bracing. The APA method expands on the simplified method included in the 2012 International Residential Code to make it applicable to a greater number of house plans. Builders can download APA System Report SR-102: APA Simplified Wall Bracing Method Using Wood Structural Panel Continuous Sheathing, Form SR-102, for full instructions on how to apply the APA method, as well as a quick-reference brochure that highlights the method's benefits and four key steps.
• Advanced Framing: (In addition to providing the benefits of using advanced framing, this section offers APA's Advanced Framing Construction Guide, Form M400, which outlines tactics to eliminate unnecessary and redundant framing members, providing more space for cavity insulation while reducing material waste. Advanced Framing: Time to Green up Your Structure, is a one-hour recorded webinar that describes advanced framing concepts and techniques. The webinar is available to view on demand.
• CAD Details: (Twenty new Advanced Framing CAD details highlight several advanced framing techniques, including large-opening single headers, ladder junctions, and openings in non-load-bearing walls. All of the details are available to download free in several common file formats.
Lighting manufacturer Hubbell Lighting has developed a program specifically directed at helping commercial buildings upgrade their lighting by switching to LED lighting. The initiative, called creatchange®, helps building owners upgrade to new lighting technologies, resulting in up to a 3% increase in net operating income while at the same time improving the property value and attractiveness for tenants. Plus, the Cash Flow Positive program provides full project financing that can result in an immediate positive cash flow.
Commercial buildings represent over 80 billion square feet of space in the United States and consume 36% of all electricity. With studies showing over 36% of energy usage being wasted and lighting representing up to 30% of a typical building's energy usage, an energy efficient lighting retrofit can represent one of the best ways for a building owner or manager to reduce costs. A well executed lighting retrofit that reduces energy usage by 60%
To learn more about Hubbell Lighting's createchange® program for commercial buildings, visit www.hubbelllighting.com/solutions/retrofit/applications/.
Tarkett is now expanding the program by adding consolidators to the process. With trucks routinely delivering Tarkett product to distributors, the company realized those trucks could also transport materials slated for recycling on their return trip. Erv Parent and NRF Distributors, Inc. become the first distributors to take advantage of this new distribution/consolidation model.
The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Co. has earned USDA Biobased Certification for its traditional casein-based milk paint. The USDA Certified Biobased Product Label verifies that the paint's renewable biobased ingredients meet or exceed USDA standards. Biobased products are materials composed of agricultural, forestry, or marine materials. Old Fashioned Milk Paint and the company's newest formula, SafePaint for walls, are made from natural materials including milk protein (casein), crushed limestone, clay and earth pigments.(( "We are pleased to take part in the USDA's Biobased Labeling program and hope it will further set our natural paint apart from the many chemically produced paints currently on the market" said Anne Thibeau, the company's president. (
• "Reaching Maximum Daylight and Ventilation," presented by Karen Davis of Milgard Windows and Doors
Green Roof System Installed on the Empire State Building
"Xero Flor is a well-engineered system with the strength and durability required for the challenging conditions on the Empire State Building," said Rainer Gerbatsch, RRC, LEED AP, president, Commercial Roofing Solutions, Inc., Clifton, N.J., roofing and waterproofing consultant for the project. "Xero Flor has a long-standing record of reliability, and we have had success with the system in other projects, most notably on the Javits Convention Center."
The average cost residential solar panels continues to fall, thanks to a mix of federal solar tax credits, state subsidies, manufacturer rebates and solar installation loans have helped drive record sales and consumption of solar power.
The average installed price of residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) systems fell between 6-14% in 2012 depending on regional U.S. pricing, according to Tracking the Sun VI, a recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. As hard costs decreased, consumer use of solar has increased; solar energy consumption in the first four months of 2013 is a third higher than the same period in 2012.
The Rocky Mountain Institute has released a report that examines how to substantially reduce solar photovoltaic (PV) "soft" costs over the next eight years. The report, Non-Hardware "Soft" Cost-Reduction Roadmap for Residential and Small Commercial Solar Photovoltaics, 2013-2020, charts a pathway to achieve Department of Energy SunShot target costs of $0.65/W for residential systems and $0.44/W for commercial systems by 2020.
Soft costs account for more than 50 percent of total installed residential costs and over 40 percent of commercial costs. The report details the actions required to reduce these costs by 2020 across four key areas: customer acquisition; permitting, inspection, and interconnection; installation labor and financing. The report identified residential installation labor as facing the most uncertain near-term path toward roadmap targets.
"Even in light of drastic solar panel cost reductions over the past four decades, rooftop solar systems in the U.S. still are not economically competitive for the vast majority of commercial and residential customers," said Jon Creyts, program director at Rocky Mountain Institute. "Soft cost reductions represent a major challenge and opportunity for stimulating SunShot-level PV deployment in the United States."
Visit www.rmi.org for more information.
Throughout the year, EPA works proactively with professionals employed in the home and building renovation and repair trades to encourage their compliance with federal laws and regulations designed to prevent exposures to lead caused by renovation, repair and painting activities. EPA similarly strives to educate homeowners and consumers who do their own renovation, repair and painting, to follow lead safe work practices.
Information about EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Program is available online: http://www2.epa.gov/lead/renovation-repair-and-painting-program
New Website for Hardwood Specifiers
A new website has been launched to assist those using or specifying hardwood products, www.HardwoodDistributors.org. Specifically designed for woodworkers, architects, designers and hobbyists, this site provides a great deal of information on over 70 hardwood species.
The site allows users to compare working properties of multiple species at one time, as well as allowing woods to be sorted by their wood tone. For example, if you are designing a contemporary space and require a dark wood, you can simply sort for all of the available woods that fall into that category.
In addition to having wood grain photos and in-depth working properties for 26 Domestic woods and 45 Imported woods, there's also an Inspirations Gallery with photos of hardwood furniture, flooring, kitchens and woodwork. The site offers information on selecting the type of hardwood for a project, species specific information, finding a hardwood supplier, installation of hardwoods, repairing installation problems related to hardwood products, and finishing hardwoods.
The Hardwood Distributor's Association represents some of the largest and best-known suppliers of hardwood lumber, hardwood plywood, hardwood moulding and hardwood architectural millwork.
More Than One BILLION Tons of Steel Recycled
More than one billion tons of steel have been recycled by the North American steel industry since 1988, according to the Steel Recycling Institute (SRI), a division of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). SRI marks its 25th anniversary this year with this milestone achievement and the release of the 2012 steel recycling rates.
For 2012, the overall recycling rate for steel was 88 percent, with nearly 84 million tons of steel recycled. "The steel industry's internationally-recognized energy efficiency, coupled with the recycling rate that is the highest of any material, proves our commitment to sustainability and resource conservation," said Thomas J. Gibson, president and CEO of AISI. "For 25 years, steel's recycling successes have been spearheaded by the SRI and we look forward
CABA launches Home & Building Automation Marketplace
The Continental Automated Buildings Association has introduced a new online tool for the home and building automation industry. In collaboration with MultiView, Inc., a Web publishing company, CABA has launched the Home and Building Automation Marketplace, an industry-driven search engine that features the sector's best suppliers and vendors. To receive a complimentary listing go to: http://homeandbuildingautomationmarketplace.com
Two New Wood Environmental Product Declarations
The American Wood Council (AWC) and Canadian Wood Council (CWC) have announced the release of two new environmental product declarations (EPDs) for laminated veneer lumber and wood I-joists. This brings the available EPD total for North American wood products to six. The previous four (released in May) include softwood lumber, softwood plywood, oriented strand board, and glued laminated timber.
EPDs are standardized tools that provide information about the environmental footprint of the products they cover. The North American wood products industry has taken its EPDs one step further by obtaining third-party verification from UL Environment, a business unit of Underwriters Laboratories and an independent certifier of products and their sustainable attributes.
Based on international standards (ISO 14025 and ISO 21930), EPDs have worldwide applicability and include information about product environmental impacts such as use of resources, global warming potential, emissions to air, soil and water, and waste generation.
"With the U.S. Green Building Council membership's recent approval of LEED v4 and its point recognition for disclosure and optimization of building product life-cycle impacts, the value of these six industry-wide EPDs in green building rating systems has taken a significant step forward," said AWC President and CEO Robert Glowinski.
For more information and to download currently available EPDs and Transparency Briefs for wood products, visit http://www.awc.org/greenbuilding/epd.html.
Certainteed EPD for Sustainable Insulation
CertainTeed has become one of the first insulation manufacturers to provide third-party verification of its product's environmental performance by issuing its first Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for Sustainable Insulation®.
To create the EPD, UL Environment evaluated life cycle assessment data for CertainTeed's fiber glass Sustainable Insulation on critical environmental impacts, such as raw material extraction and use, production processes, packaging, logistics, through end-of-life – providing independent verification of the data in accordance with ISO 14025. The new EPD joins CertainTeed's library of EPDs for acoustical ceiling solutions, which includes data on more than 21 of the company's ceiling product families.
"By issuing an EPD for Sustainable Insulation, we are providing transparent, reliable environmental information on the product's performance so our customers can be confident in its true environmental performance from cradle to grave," said Drew Brandt, vice president of marketing and R&D for CertainTeed's Insulation Group. "The EPD positions CertainTeed as a leading manufacturer that is prepared for the release of LEED v4, as new credits are available for published life cycle data."
Sustainable Insulation includes both pre- and post-consumer recycled glass and a sustainable, plant-based binder that contains no added formaldehyde, acrylics, dyes, or unnecessary fire retardants and is GREENGUARD Gold Certified for low chemical emissions. Rigorous monitoring and energy management at the plants has reduced the amount of energy needed to manufacture the product, and Sustainable Insulation's highly compressed packaging allows CertainTeed to transport more products on one truck from strategically located distribution centers, minimizing transportation impacts.
Sustainable Insulation can reduce energy costs throughout the life of a structure with no additional energy or maintenance. It is available in a variety of R-values ranging from R-11 to R-38 and is designed for use in standard wood stud and steel-frame wall and ceiling assemblies. Sustainable Insulation resists moisture absorption and won't settle or lose its R-value over time. Kraft-faced batts and rolls also act as a vapor retarder to help prevent condensation and mold growth in the wall cavity.
For more information and to view the full EPD, visit www.certainteed.com/InsulationEPD.
In addition, U.S. and Canadian producers used more than 474 million pounds of recycled blast furnace slag in the production of thermal and acoustical insulation. Since the Industry's recycling program began in 1992, NAIMA members' plants have diverted over 43.8 billion pounds of recycled materials from the waste stream. "NAIMA members are committed to promoting sustainability by using recycled materials to produce energy-saving insulation products that improve a building's energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact," said Kate Offringa, President and CEO of NAIMA. "Fiber glass, rock wool and slag wool insulation are some of the best choices available for residential and commercial building."
While recycled content is just one indicator of a product's environmental impact, the survey results illustrate the significant impact that an industry can affect through the conscientious use of materials. For more information about the environmental benefits of fiberglass, rock wool and slag wool, visit www.naima.org or www.insulationinstitute.org today.
Dept of Energy's Free Electricity Storage Handbook
The Electricity Storage Handbook is a how-to guide for utility and rural cooperative engineers, planners, and decision makers to plan and implement energy storage projects. The Handbook also serves as an information resource for investors and venture capitalists, providing the latest developments in technologies and tools to guide their evaluations of energy storage opportunities. It includes a comprehensive database of the cost of current storage systems in a wide variety of electric utility and customer services, along with interconnection schematics. A list of significant past and present energy storage projects is provided for a practical perspective.
The Handbook is jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute in collaboration with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
New WaterSense Specification for Commercial Kitchens
The U.S. EPA's WaterSense program has released a final specification for water- and energy-efficient commercial pre-rinse spray valves, the first commercial kitchen product eligible to earn the WaterSense label. Pre-rinse spray valves – used in commercial food service establishments to remove food waste from dishes prior to dishwashing – can account for nearly one-third of the water used in the typical commercial kitchen. By utilizing a WaterSense modommercial kitchen could save more than 7,000 gallons of water annually and the amount of energy needed to power its convection oven for more than three weeks.
Free IAQ Guide from ASHRAE
To promote improved indoor air quality (IAQ) in buildings, ASHRAE is offering a free guide for achieving enhanced IAQ. The Indoor Air Quality Guide: Best Practices for Design, Construction and Commissioning provides strategies to achieve good IAQ using proven technologies and without significantly increasing costs.
First published in 2009, the guide is the result of collaboration between ASHRAE, the American Institute of Architects, the Building Owners & Managers Association International, the Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association, and the U.S. Green Building Council… with funding provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The guide can be downloaded for free at www.ashrae.org/FreeIAQGuidance.
The free download is being offered in support of the presidential theme of 2013-14 ASHRAE President William P. "Bill" Bahnfleth, Ph.D., P.E., Fellow ASHRAE, ASME Fellow. His theme, "Shaping the Next," focuses, in part, on making buildings safe, healthy, productive, comfortable environments in harmony with nature.
"As we move forward in shaping the next generation of buildings and systems, good indoor air quality must be a central focus of our efforts," Bahnfleth said. "The health and comfort of buildings occupants is too important to leave IAQ as an after-thought in design, construction and operation. By making this publication available to the industry, we are providing guidance to help ensure the use of best practices for good IAQ, allowing all of us to enjoy the benefits of a better indoor environment cost-effectively."
The book describes 40 strategies for achieving critical IAQ objectives related to moisture management, ventilation, filtration and air cleaning and source control. It also highlights how design and construction teams can work together to ensure good IAQ strategies are incorporated from initial design through project completion.
Target Announces LEED Certification for Additional 44 Stores
Target Corporation has announced that an additional 44 Canadian stores have been awarded Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certification. This announcement means that all 68 newly launched Target locations have been awarded LEED certification - a first for any major retailer in Canada.
Target is pursuing LEED certification for all 124 stores scheduled to open in Canada this year through the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) LEED Volume Program, which streamlines the certification process for buildings in both Canada and the U.S.
"Environmental sustainability at Target is fundamental to our business, and we have been working hard in Canada over the past few years to open our most sustainable collection of stores to date," said Derek Jenkins, senior vice president, External Relations, Target Canada. "We are confident that all 124 store locations opening this year will be awarded LEED certification, making Target a leader among Canadian mass retailers when it comes to having sustainable store buildings."
In order to obtain certification, remaining Target stores will undergo various rounds of audits throughout 2013, which must meet stringent criteria across five LEED categories including: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
NAHB Now Accepting Submissions for the 2014 NAHBGreen Awards
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is now accepting submissions for its 2014 NAHBGreen Awards. Each year, NAHB recognizes individuals, companies and organizations for excellence in residential green design and construction practices and for green building program and advocacy efforts.
The awards will be presented on Feb. 5 during an event held in conjunction with the 2014 International Builders' Show in Las Vegas.
"In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in green building, and the industry has responded by designing and constructing high-performance homes that reflect not only green and energy efficient principles, but also innovative design," said NAHB Chairman Rick Judson, a home builder from Charlotte, N.C. "Each year, NAHB recognizes the very best work in this sector in its NAHBGreen Awards."
In an effort to create a more streamlined submission process and to make it easier and quicker for applicants to apply, the applications for all Project of the Year categories have been revised this year and can be submitted online. The awards are open to both NAHB members and non-NAHB members. To be eligible for the Green Project of the Year categories, projects must have been started no earlier than January 2010 and substantially completed by December 2013.
Categories include: Project of the Year—Single Family, Project of the Year—Multifamily, Project of the Year—Remodel, Project of the Year—Green Site Development, and Advocate of the Year.
All homes and developments must be scored to either the 2008 or 2012 ICC-700 National Green Building Standard®, to ensure fair comparisons for judging purposes. This can be done by downloading the scoring spreadsheets at www.homeinnovation.com/greenscoring.
All entries must be received by Oct. 15, 2013. Application fees are $250 for Project of the Year categories and $150 for the Advocate of the Year award.
For more information, or to apply, please visit www.nahb.org/greenbuildingawards.
World Energy Council: New report highlights alarming slowdown in energy efficiency improvements
The World Energy Council (WEC) will soon release a report detailing how more still needs to be done to unlock the potential of energy efficiency to deliver energy and carbon savings.
"Over recent years there has been a general slowdown in energy efficiency improvements.
The main concern is that absolute energy demand is still growing…" stated Dr Christoph Frei, WEC Secretary General. "While the progress highlighted in this report is encouraging, it is clearly not enough. We will need to develop new policies and strategies to meet the challenge of securing tomorrow's energy today,"
The report, "World Energy Perspectives: Energy Efficiency Policies", reviews the latest energy intensity trends and analyses the policies in 85 countries representing more than 95% of global consumption. It finds that since 1990 energy productivity improvements have helped avoid 9.6 gigatonnes of CO2emissions.
The World Energy Council (WEC) is a UN-accredited global energy body with more than 3000 member organizations located in over 90 countries and drawn from governments, private and state corporations, academia, NGOs and energy-related stakeholders. Further details at www.worldenergy.org and @WECouncil
Archived Content:
Database of Green Building Products
Archived Content:
Bio-Based Growth Predicted for 2012


text:
Ben Saunders & The Scott Expedition 2013
Ben Saunders and The Scott Expedition
Bremont are thrilled to be showcasing for the 4th year running at SalonQP, the UK's premier fine watch exhibition which is held in London at the Saatchi Gallery 7th – 9th November 2013. This is a great opportunity to see the Bremont Codebreaker on exhibition and to find out about Bremont's support forWalking With The Wounded.
The event brings together an exceptional collection of leading horological names, from grandes maisons to a rare chance to meet independent watchmakers from across the globe. A hand-picked selection of top luxury brands will showcase their latest creations, while a carefully curated programme of interactive events will enable visitors to delve deeper into the stories behind these extraordinary pieces.
The event is a must for any watch aficionado and the location is perfect to combine with a visit to theBremont boutique in Mayfair.
Tickets can be purchased through the SalonQP website.
Photo of Bremont Ambassador Charley Boorman and Peter Howarth of Show Media on last year's Bremont stand at SalonQP

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Hey Guys,
Been a while.
Made it out this morning for my first morning of the 2012 Ontario Fall turkey hunt. We can take either sex, but only 1 in the season and the season is only 2 weeks starting the Tuesday, this week, after our thanksgiving.
Well, this morning was a bust for me. To be fair, was relying on my spring success to point me in the right direction. Went to the same farm and even set in the same spot. Boy, are the spring and fall seasons different for sure. Quiet as a graveyard and no sign anywhere. Decided after a while of absolutely zip going on to go for a walk. Only things I was able to see was a coyote, a long way off, some cows, came right into the same pasture, and the farmers dog, that I guess I startled as he howled like crazy. To top it all off, in the neighbouring field some guy is out in a wagon with a horse at day break? What's up with that.
Closest thing I had to game were some Canada geese flying over, but i don't like goose, so I let them fly.
Anyway, hope everyone else is having a better season. I hope to get to a different farm again before the 2 weeks is up but work's in the way.


text:
Easter Saturday in Newmarket
Trip Start Apr 10, 2009
3Trip End Apr 12, 2009
Map your own trip!
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By the time we got back, my mom and dad and my uncle's sister/husband had arrived. We didn't do much all day besides eat chocolates, baklava, smoked salmon, insanely delicious prime rib grilled on the BBQ, potatoes and roast vegetables, but not in that order.
We decided to go for a little tromp around the neighbourhood. I saw some kids who had neglected their bicycle, so I picked one up and pretended to steal it. They didn't really believe me, until I started running away with it. I ended up putting it down, and that's when they came out. Two of them got on their bikes and started following us, so I took a picture of them. That seemed to frighten them and they went back home.
After our walk, we went back home, had like, three kinds of cake, my mom and dad went home, and then we watched Slumdog Millionaire while drinking Pina Coladas.


text:
ACHICA > Monochrome Bed Linen > Black & White Roses Single Duvet Cover Set
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Black & White Roses Single Duvet Cover Set
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UK Delivery: Estimated 5th - 10th Jan - we'll email you once your items have been dispatched.
Returns: Click Delivery & Returns or check your delivery confirmation.
If you are ordering multiple items, ACHICA aim to send as few deliveries as possible for your convenience – you will only pay one delivery charge.
|Product Information
Please note that the pillowcase included is plain white and not patterned. The duvet cover also features a bottle neck closure for practicality and easy fitting.
Pillowcase dimensions: W75 x L50cm
Duvet cover dimensions: W140 x L200cm
Material: 100% Cotton
Care instructions: Machine washable at 40 degrees
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Product Code 8420778499349
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We hope you will be thrilled with your purchases but in the unlikely event that you want to return something, you can find full return instructions on the back of your delivery note or click here


text:
Fed's Bond Buying Pushes Assets to Record $3 TrillionJoshua Zumbrun
The Federal Reserve pushed its balance sheet beyond $3 trillion for the first time this week while undertaking open-ended purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to combat 7.8 percent unemployment.
The Fed's total assets climbed by $48 billion in the past week to $3.01 trillion as of Jan. 23, according to a release from the central bank today in Washington. Holdings of Treasuries climbed by $7.8 billion while mortgage-backed securities in the Fed portfolio rose by $35.6 billion.
The bond buying is part of Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's campaign to use the full force of the central bank's balance sheet to stoke the economic recovery. The Fed began purchasing $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities a month in September and this month added $45 billion in Treasury securities to that pace, bringing total monthly purchases to $85 billion.
"You're hard-pressed to find another example in history where the Fed pulled out all the stops to help a recovery along," said Michael Hanson, senior U.S. economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York, and a former Fed economist. "It's at least as revolutionary as Paul Volcker coming in and saying we're going to hike rates until inflation" declines.
The Fed has a dual mandate from Congress to achieve stable prices and maximum employment. Volcker, Fed chairman from 1979 to 1987, pushed interest rates to as high as 22 percent to rein in annual price acceleration approaching 15 percent. Now Bernanke is focusing Fed policy on the other mandate, aiming to reduce the ranks of the nation's 12.2 million unemployed workers.
Substantial Gains
Fed officials have said their $85 billion pace of purchases will continue until the labor market improves "substantially." Still, they disagree on how long they should press on with the buying.
The minutes from their Dec. 11-12 meeting Federal Open Market Committee participants "approximately evenly divided" between those who said it would be appropriate to end the purchases around mid-2013 and those who said they should continue beyond that date. A number of policy makers are concerned the size of the Fed's holdings "could complicate the Committee's efforts to eventually withdraw monetary policy accommodation," according to the minutes.
The central bank's balance sheet has provided record windfalls to the U.S. Treasury. The Fed uses interest income from its bond holdings to cover its own expenses and sends the rest to the Treasury. In 2012, that dividend to taxpayers was $88.9 billion.
Hit Zero
One risk from a large balance sheet is the possibility that the Fed's interest income could evaporate in coming years as rates rise, according to a paper released last week written by researchers in the Fed's monetary affairs division. The paper studied different scenarios and concluded that the central bank's payments to Treasury "will likely decline for a time, and in some cases fall to zero."
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index, the benchmark for U.S. equities, was little changed today at 1,494.82 at 4 p.m. in New York, while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note increased 0.03 percentage point, to 1.85 percent. The yield has increased from 1.72 percent on Sept. 13, the day the Fed announced its third round of quantitative easing, while stocks have climbed 4.8 percent.
The central bank's balance sheet is now more than triple its size before the financial crisis. Fed assets stood at $924 billion on Sept. 10, 2008, the week before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. helped spark a global financial crisis.
The Fed responded to the financial crisis first with emergency credit programs, and then with bond purchases known as QE or quantitative easing. In the first round of purchases, the Fed bought $1.7 trillion of securities. In a second round of QE, begun in November 2010, the central bank added an additional $600 billion of Treasuries to its holdings.


text:
My personal weblog is maintained at: http://naba.co.in
My personal weblog is maintained at: http://naba.co.in
New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser code is live. It needs further work but already handles most markup better than the original parser.
Keep up with the latest Advogato features by reading the Advogato status blog.
If you're a C programmer with some spare time, take a look at the mod_virgule project page and help us with one of the tasks on the ToDo list!


text:
Human ingenuity never fails to impress me when it comes to committing acts of idiocy.
I must be Hindu?!
Posted 10-05-2008 at 09:50 AM by PathMaster
Opened up a local newspaper a few days ago to see an article on Yoga being taught in school. I think to myself, "Great idea. Relaxation before tests would help so many." I then go on to read, then parents and community members are against it. Why you might ask?:
You have got to be kidding me. I understand the correlation, but to think that by breathing in and out while standing still teaches me Hindu beliefs you are off your rocker. It is absurd.
Reaching there I think. Honestly, Yoga is a great tool to relax, and it appears to be used as such in this case. I wonder what the dissenters might say if the students all had a Wii Fit.
A few vocal parents raised concerns about the separation of church and state at a meeting the previous week, saying that the district could not expose their children to Hindu rituals.
"Yoga, even in its most basic form, is tied into Hinduism," said the Rev. Colin J. Lucid, of Calvary Baptist Church in Massena. The Rev. Mr. Lucid was one of the dissenting parents at last week's meeting. "My concern is separation of church and state. I am not against Hinduism."
Total Comments 13
Dude some parents don't want kids to kid exercise at school.
|Posted 10-05-2008 at 10:11 AM by Xerxes
@Xerxes: Why would they not want kids to exercise at school?
|Posted 10-05-2008 at 02:51 PM by astranoir
I don't know. People are weird.
|Posted 10-05-2008 at 03:07 PM by Xerxes
Not wanting your kids to exercise at school seems a little counter-intuitive since there seems to be an over-emphasis on sports in a lot of schools. Also, youth obesity is becoming more of a problem...
|Posted 10-05-2008 at 03:27 PM by astranoir
I agree.
I don't have an article back me up, just saying their are always stupid parents wanting something off schools. Learned that on EvAv. lol
|Posted 10-05-2008 at 03:32 PM by Xerxes
My high school has a new principal since I graduated. The old gym teacher. Now the school is very sport centric, to the point where if you play a sport and do something wrong, you get off with barely any punishment. But if you do not, then the maximum punishment is yours.
So glad I am gone.
|Posted 10-07-2008 at 12:03 PM by PathMaster
Frankly, I am one of those people. I don't think schools should have gym class, sports teams, etc... All are a waste of already limited resources. I do agree that childhood obesity is a problem, but activity at schools really isnt even close to solving that problem.
As to the topic at hand... hey, what can I say... closed minds are closed minds.
|Posted 12-02-2008 at 07:54 AM by Serapth
@Serapth: I think your point of view makes more sense than what I was understanding as "we want to spend millions on sports teams, but no -- our children should not exercise at school." Personally I do not have a specific problem with physical education or sports teams in schools; however, I do have a problem with the inordinate amount of money often spent on them.
|Posted 12-02-2008 at 08:32 AM by astranoir
After primary school, I just don't think exercise is an ideal use of money and resources. Not to mention, the people behind it are ill trained and misapplied.
If you want manditory physical activity for our nations lard ass youth, thats fine, and do-able. Just don't do it at the schools. Give tax credits towards sport activity, gym memberships, etc... If you really want to get nanny state ( and their are good reasons, for example reduced health care costs ), make a membership or activity manditory for people under a certain age. Just keep it out of schools.
|Posted 12-02-2008 at 08:44 AM by Serapth
I think your right in that there is no reason that physical activities can't be done outside of school (preferably with or encouraged by parents). Still, I think PE in school, if done in the right way can teach things like team work, friendship.
|Posted 12-02-2008 at 03:28 PM by Chris_D
LOL, your school experience was much different then mine!
PE in high school was all about cliques, alpha male bullshit and various other pleasantries.
High school students are self absorbed shitheads. Adding a layer of competition to that mix is rarely a good idea.
|Posted 12-02-2008 at 03:33 PM by Serapth
Yea high school gym was overall a joke. It was mostly an excuse for the sport players to get easy grades. Sadly, I knew many that refused to even wear gym clothes and thus failed gym. I mean seriously how hard is it to change your clothes. Changing your clothes at least netted you a B.
But anything was better then gym in my old Catholic school. Square Dancing. No better way to sort out the losers then girls getting to pick what guy they want to dance with in gym class.
|Posted 12-02-2008 at 05:56 PM by PathMaster
Heh, my gym class was pretty bad too. Also I failed a lot of the components like gymnastics and athletics. ('B' in tennis though, woohoo!).
|Posted 12-02-2008 at 08:22 PM by Chris_D
Recent Blog Entries by PathMaster
- Parking Wars (01-10-2009)
- Malware..argh!! (11-10-2008)
- TV vs Commercials.. (10-05-2008)
- I must be Hindu?! (10-05-2008)
- Services... (10-03-2008)


text:
by Christopher Chantrill
January 26, 2005
The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West
Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities
Knowledge begins with a problem.
Christopher Chantrill, after John Dewey
But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.
Freddy Arbuthnot in Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison
Don Beck/Clare Graves. Don Beck wrote Spiral Dynamics with Christopher Cowan. Their book is a culmination of a century of developmental psychology that begins with the American psychologist James Mark Baldwin and reaches an apogee with the work of Clare Graves. Beck proposes to understand human behavior and motivation with an eight turn spiral of human consciousness, from barely self-conscious to tribal to impulsive, to purposeful, to creative, to communitarian, to integrated, to holistic.
Here are some Spiral Dynamics links: Becks own site here, Cowans own site here, an explanation of Spiral Dynamics here, here and here, and a site devoted to Clare Graves here.
Friedrich Hayek mounted the first great challenge to the welfare state with The Road to Serfdom, arguing that it would lead to the same all-powerful state as that desired by the fascists and the communists, but by easy stages. His Constitution of Liberty was an attempt to imagine a government free from the encroachment of administrative law and rational planning.
Ludwig von Mises was the genius who pointed out in the 1920s that socialism was impossible because it couldnt compute prices. His great Human Action was a mid-twentieth century masterpiece that attempted to extend economics into a general theory of human action.
F.S.C. Northrop was a Yale law professor who went to Germany in the 1920s to get his PhD and learned about modern physics. He learned how the Kantian tradition in Germany regarded the Anglo-American empirical tradition as hopelessly outdated and naive. He also understood, after World War II, how Kant had opened a Pandoras Box that led to the brilliant mistakes of Fichte, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche and the evil of Hitler. His Meeting of East and West written just after World War II was a work of true multiculturalism, showing how the great high cultures of the world were complementary, and that by joining the excessively deductive culture of the West to the excessively inductive culture of the East we could achieve a true meeting of East and West.
Michael Novak wrote The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism to challenge the liberation theology that was popular in the Catholic Church in the 1970s. He proposes a Greater Separation of Powers beyond the practical separation of government branches. He differentiates society into a political sector, an economic sector, and a religious/cultural sector. These jealous centers of power check and balance each other in our modern cosmopolitan society.
Camille Paglia is a feisty Amazon who has interpreted western art in early Nietzschean terms as the struggle between Apollo and Dionysius. Her Sexual Personae reminds us that civilization is just a thin Apollonian veneer that we have constructed to shut out the terror of the Dionysian turmoil just beneath the surface.
Roger Scruton is a British philosopher and conservative. He calls himself both a person of the rational Enlightenment and an old-fashioned Englishman. Son of an atheistic Communist he found that he had to make the choice between reform and revolution in the Paris student riots of May 1968. He describes his turn to conservatism eloquently in Why I Became a Conservative. But his conservatism was scandalous in the left-wing academy of Britain. He was for a time a Professor of Aesthetics at Birkbeck College but had to leave the suffocating left-wing atmosphere. He founded and edited the conservative Salisbury Review for many years and has written several books on philosophy, including Kant and An Intelligent Persons Guide to Philosophy. A cultural and political conservative Scruton has expressed his conservative politics in books like A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism, and his cultural conservatism in titles like Modern Culture. Scruton has written novels and two operas, and rides to hounds (i.e. foxhunting).
Rodney Stark and his merry men are sociologists of religion that have mounted an insurgency against the established notion that western society is in a process of irrevocable secularization and that soon, religion just wont matter much any more. Instead they argue in The Churching of America and many other books that religion evolves in waves of secularization and revival. Anyway, how do you account for the fact that religious adherence in the United States has gone from 17 percent in 1776 to over 60 percent right now? Particularly annoying to his critics is his symbolization of preachers as religious entrepreneurs and churches as religious firms.
Frederick Turner is an English professor in Texas. His Culture of Hope and his Shakespeares Twenty-first Century Economics describe his vision of a society that has vaulted optimistically out of the current elites death spiral into postmodernist despair. He proposes that modern business society is not just a matter of dry contracts and the cash nexus. The Merchant of Venice demonstrated, for anyone who would pay attention, that business requires not just rules and pounds of flesh, but mercy, that falleth like the gentle rain from heaven.
Eric Voegelin belongs to a generation of sadder, wiser Germans that responded to the disaster of 1914-45 by going back to the origins of the Judeo-Hellenistic-Christian tradition. In his monumental Order and History he attempted to refound the western experience as a search for order. Voegelin attacked the universal practice of stigmatizing old ways of thinking as superstition, your Lie that must be destroyed because it stands in the way of my Truth. He proposed that each advance in human understanding was a leap in being that led from compact ways of knowing to more differentiated knowledge.
Ken Wilber attempts to merge the eastern consciousness of Hinduism and Buddhism with western developmental psychology to produce a comprehensive world view in his Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and many other books. Central to his thought is the notion that we transcend and include old ways, rather than replace them, as we evolve. (Note the connection with the Voegelinian leap in being.) Powered with money from the 1990s tech bubble, he is developing Integral Institute into a vehicle for his ideas.
David T. Beito is Associate Professor at the University of Alabama. His books From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State told the story of the fraternal associations that thrived before the advent of the welfare state and The Voluntary City imagines the city freed from the dead hand of liberal compulsion. His books have surfaced important information about the road to the middle class.
John Boyd was a maverick Air Force officer who developed the basis of modern jet fighter tactics. His idea is called E-M theory, relating an aircrafts energy and maneuverability. Then he went on to military strategy, extending the state of military art from the German achievements in infiltration tactics and blitzkrieg to a concept that clearly belongs in the age of cybernetics, the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act). The idea is to run your OODA loop faster and more effectively than your enemy so that he becomes disoriented and demoralized. You can read a short article about Boyds life here. SeeBoyd's Patterns of Conflict presentation slides here.
David G. Green is Director the Institute for the Study of Civil Society. Dr David Green had been at the Institute of Economic Affairs since 1984, and Director of the IEA Health and Welfare Unit since 1986. He was a Labour councillor in Newcastle upon Tyne from 1976 until 1981, and from 1981 to 1983 was a Research Fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra. See his Reinventing Civil Society.
Buy the ebook: Road to the Middle Class: only $0.99.
[W]hen I asked a liberal longtime editor I know with a mainstream [publishing] house for a candid, shorthand version of the assumptions she and her colleagues make about conservatives, she didn't hesitate. Racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-choice fascists, she offered, smiling but meaning it.
Harry Stein, I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican
Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
[To make] of each individual member of the army a soldier who, in character, capability, and knowledge, is self-reliant, self-confident, dedicated, and joyful in taking responsibility [verantwortungsfreudig] as a man and a soldier. — Gen. Hans von Seeckt
MacGregor Knox, Williamson Murray, ed., The dynamics of military revolution, 1300-2050
For [the left] there is only the state and the individual, nothing in between. No family to rely on, no friend to depend on, no community to call on. No neighbourhood to grow in, no faith to share in, no charities to work in. No-one but the Minister, nowhere but Whitehall, no such thing as society - just them, and their laws, and their rules, and their arrogance.
David Cameron, Conference Speech 2008
Imagining that all order is the result of design, socialists
conclude that order must be improvable by better design of some superior mind.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
[Every] sacrifice is an act of impurity that pays for a prior act of greater impurity... without its participants having to suffer the full consequences incurred by its predecessor. The punishment is commuted in a process that strangely combines and finesses the deep contradiction between justice and mercy.
Frederick Turner, Beauty: The Value of Values
[The Axial Age] highlights the conception of a responsible self... [that] promise[s] man for the first time that he can understand the fundamental structure of reality and through salvation participate actively in it.
Robert N Bellah, "Religious Evolution", American Sociological Review, Vol. 29, No. 3.
But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family.
Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
[T]he way to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis,
Brown II, 349 U. S., at 300–301, is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. The way to stop
discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
Roberts, C.J., Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District
A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is merely relative, is asking you not to believe him. So dont.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy
presented by Christopher Chantrill


text: On the Block A sneak peek at some of the major pieces for sale at New York's fall art auctions. (See related article.) Updated Nov. 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET Updated Nov. 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET Article Not Supported We're sorry but this article contains media that is not currently supported in this app. You will be redirected to the article on wsj.com in 5 seconds. If you are not redirected automatically, click this link.... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In Most Popular Videos Film Trailer: 'Dunkirk' Why Trump Gets a 100-Day Review — When Others Don't China Launches First Home-Built Aircraft Carrier In Maduro Videos, Restless Venezuela Is at Peace Homes Frozen in Time Most Popular Articles Why Trump Decided to Back Off Nafta Threat Opinion: Trump's Finest Moment (So Far) U.S. Push for Tougher North Korea Policy Faces Resistance Opinion: Trump Has Been Lucky in His Enemies Who Picks Up the Tab for Credit Card Rewards?


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text:
Well! I certainly haven't written anything here in a long time.
I suppose I've been busy, but it's not easy to know just what I've done. I've learned a bit more about Zope and spent time working on a variety of documentation issues for Python. I've done a little bit more on the XML conversion project there, but mostly just maintenance so the preliminary conversion doesn't fall too far behind the actual definition of the markup in the LaTeX version. There have been a few new things added, but not too many.
Lately I've been working on a new profiler for Python, and this one shouldn't be so darn slow. Written entirely in C, HotShot never touches Python code and avoids the slow path calling PyCFunction objects; to the best of my knowledge, it's the first profiler that uses the new profiler/tracer API introduced in Python 2.2. I expect to check the code into the Python CVS repository tomorrow. It shouldn't be too hard to create a coverage tool using the same basic model, and that should be really fast -- the slowest thing about the profiler is getting the time using a system call. I guess the next thing to work on once we have a basic analysis tool will be to get timing information faster.
Oh, and I've written a book. Well, part of one anyway; I've never even met my co-author. The book, titled Python & XML, should be out by the end of the year. Watch for it!


text:
What: PSRC Member Training Day and BBQ
When: Saturday, June 11, 2005
Time: 10 am until we're done
Who: All current PSRC members, prospective PSRC members, spouses, family
members & friends of members/prospective members PLUS their dogs
Where: Dewatto--Bruemmer's Ranch (Horse Pasture) approximately 5000 Dewatto
Holly Rd.
There will be training tests set up for all ages and experience levels.
Hotdogs and Hamburgers will be provided. Please bring a side dish and your
own beverages.
For more info contact:
Harry or Nora at 360 firstname.lastname@example.com
Dale at 360 692-6789
Tim at 360 598-3818
We need to know if you are planning on being (# of people) there so we can have enough BBQ stuff. Please make it. HPW


text:
test of my xmlrpc client
updates should work
test of my xmlrpc client
updates should work
Great, SlashDot's crowd is happily tearing into yet another moronic "what language fits all the buzzwords" question. What a waste of mental energy.
Keeping off the daily buzz of php development lists has seriously improved the quality of my life. It's all working on well enough, considering I can still read them via news.php.net when I so desire.
Meanwhile, I decided to kick PHP-GTK up a notch and call the newly released version 0.5.0, since it is a fairly mature product at this point. Alan keeps doing cool stuff with it (but Alan, fix up the page so that other browsers can view it too). More and more translations of the doc are being done, and the doc itself is getting better.
ssb checked my tokenizer extension into the PHP repository for me. Hopefully it'll find a good use.
I've also been working on a set of functions to perform runtime object aggregation -- dynamically adding to/removing from an object methods and member variables from a certain class.
I've finished reading The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers - what an excellent book. Must check out other books by him. Ripped through Dust by Charles Pellegrino in about a day; interesting premise, science, bad characters. Blondie 24 by David Fogel is very good, even though it lacks any code behind the project. I've always been fascinated by neural networks, AI, etc. Slowly making my way through Pratchett's The Wyrd Sisters, don't know why, but reading the previous ones seemed to go much faster. Up next, The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll and probably Lenin's Tomb. Some days I will have to find time to re-read the good books I've already read.
I've been on a strict mass-preserving/fat-burning workout diet for the last 2 weeks: 300g of protein/60g of fiber a day, very few complex carbs. Also added flaxseed oil to my menu. Consuming prodigious amounts of whey protein, glutamine, and creatine and using fitday.com to manage all that. Workouts 4 times a week. Ugg, I hurt now.
I've been looking at Sony Cybershot DSC-S75 digital camera - $519 is the cheapest I can find. Maybe someone will be nice and give me a present.
Another year has come and gone. What transpired within this pretty much arbitrarily delimited period of time that matters to me? In no particular order:
I am finishing the year unsubscribed from all the PHP mailing lists and keeping my distance from it and the related projects for a while because I am feeling somewhat tired and burned out, and all the bulls**t going on in the community doesn't help. I hope to return to it after some time off.
I hope.. no, I know the New Year will bring all of us something wonderful, something that makes your soul tingle just thinking about it. May all your dreams come true. All I wish for is peace, love, and understanding. The rest will naturally flow out of this foundation. Happy New Year!
On PHP-GTK front, I've implemented support for compiling extensions into shared libraries and loading them dynamically which will prove useful in a few areas. Alan checked in his gtkhtml extension, and I added gdk-pixbuf stuff after hacking the code generator repeatedly. The stuff Alan has been doing with PHP-GTK is amazing.
After a poke from ssb, I made the 'overload' PHP extension support proxied method calls via internal __call() method. Stig says he has cool and immediate need for this.
I'll be visiting Vegas next week, for the first time ever.
My 25th birthday came and went. And this year I actually celebrated it properly, with a lively party and a big group of friends. Having something like that at my apartment would definitely result in a noise citation, so we held the party at my friend's basement. Great quantities of food and drinks were bought and prepared and the party started at about 8 pm with 20 people or so. The basement was outfitted with blinking lights, strobe lights, colored lights flashing to music, smoke machine and a cool laser light setup. Definitely better that most of the night clubs around here. So, an hour later everyone is grooving to the beat and consuming large quantities of alcohol. And more people showed up. With presents. Which prompted the presentation and toasting ceremony.
I ended up being driven home about 2 am feeling like I was in one of those full-body VR setups, because my body was trying to do something completely different from what I was telling it. Woke up the next morning just peachy though. Found out that people stayed around for an hour more. Then I looked at my camera and noticed that it had 22 frames shot, even though I put in a new film midway through through the party. Needless to say I haven't a slightest idea what might be on those frames. I guess the people at the photo lab might be in for a good time.
Pretty happy about my birthday though. Got some nice presents and also bought myself something too. A nice set of Infinity speakers, an Onkyo receiver, and a Toshiba DVD player. Finally, I'll be able to enjoy Police Academy in glorious surround sound. What, it's not available on DVD?! Aargh..
Not much news on PHP-GTK front. Markus did a talk at International PHP Conference on it, and it was well received. I will regroup and start on the build system soon.
Lately I've been getting an itch to work (probably from scratch) on a project that's separate from PHP and its subprojects (God knows I've been spending a lot of time on them). But when I try to figure out precisely what it is I want to do, I find that almost everything has already been written. Fifteen times over. Just take a look at Freshmeat. So, what's a developer to do? <preparing myself for an inevitable barrage of don't-start-new-projects-help-on-existing-ones replies>.
My workout routine has been going well. I take major portions of whey protein and 3 caps of L-Glutamine regularly, and in the last couple of weeks I started using Ripped Fuel before each workout to see how well it works. The feeling you get during and after weight lifting is great (all those endorphines), it charges you up for the whole day.
New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser code is live. It needs further work but already handles most markup better than the original parser.
Keep up with the latest Advogato features by reading the Advogato status blog.
If you're a C programmer with some spare time, take a look at the mod_virgule project page and help us with one of the tasks on the ToDo list!


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Creamware Pulsar
The Pulsar system from CreamWare is a Software / Hardware DSP-based music production environment for your PC. The hardware component is a PCI board for PC devices and MAC. The Pulsar DSP board brings it all together - integrating mixing, effects, sampling and synthesis, all at the highest digital standards, in one ultra-powerful and compatible DSP environment. This works with software integrating and giving you control of the mixing, effects, sampling, synthesis, routing, automation and so much more! And because it has 4 dedicated SHARC processors there is no audible latency, and no power is drained from your host processor.
For your external equipment, Pulsar functions just like a mixer - with 20 channels input you can connect your external effects and your sampling and synthesis hardware to Pulsar's I/Os and use them as inserts within the Pulsar environment. Pulsar features 'total recall' for easy storage and retrieval of your set-ups and mixes. The Pulsar is highly flexible and can function as a hub of your Midi studio where every driver, every physical I/O and every "device" (i.e. synths, effects etc.) is represented as a module that has audio (and or MIDI) connections ("pads"). Every audio pad can connect to any other audio pad connecting the different pieces of gear you use in your studio setup.
The Pulsar features a Modular Synthesizer section. It offers over 100 synth components or modules that you can freely connect and interconnect to design your own sounds, with virtually no limits! Patches for the Pulsar Modular can be saved and exchanged with other Pulsar users. The modular elements include a sample player, inserts and the Pulsar DSP effects. You can even use some Windows software source as an oscillator element. The Pulsar ships with a bonus Waldorf 3rd party 2-oscillator module using their famous wavetable synthesis.
The Pulsar also features a professional quality digital sample player. Load banks off of AKAI-compatible sound CDs with envelope and filter settings from your CD-ROM drive of your computer. It has a filter section, up to 64 stereo-voices and all the functionality of a pro-sampler.
Finally there is the 32-channel digital mixer. The mixer can be freely connected with other modules - such as external audio sources (via the I/O input channels), Pulsar software devices (e.g. a synth), or Windows software outputs (via virtual card drivers). Each channel strip of the 32 channels has 4-band parametric EQ, four Pulsar effects inserts, and 8 auxiliary busses for internal or external effects. The Mixer also has 16 record busses/subgroups allowing you to input the record signal via your Windows software. The master section of the Pulsar mixer features dithering to 16-bit. That helps to get your 24-bit productions down to 16 bit while maintaining the quality advantage.
Lookup Creamware Pulsar Prices
The link above will take you to an eBay search for this synth to see active listings with more images, specs and information. If you don't find it there, try looking in our forum marketplace. Our marketplace gets thousands of visits every week so make sure to check back often if you want to buy or sell a synth.
Related Forum Topics
User Comments & Reviews
Are you looking to buy or sell a Creamware Pulsar? Post an ad in Gear For Sale or a request in Gear Wanted. For spare parts and repair services check out Gear Services & Other Goods. Our forums also has a Buyer's Guide section where you can ask for advice on buying synthesizers.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - Up to 20 voices depending on structure
- Sampler - 16 stereo-voices per module (up to 64 stereo-voices)
- Synthesizer - 100+ different modules
- Mixer - 32-channel digital mixer; EQs, Dynamics; 20 channels In, 20 channels Out, 2 x ADAT, S/PDIF + analog, 96kHz support, 24-bit resolution
- Effects - delays, reverbs, limiting, compression, distortions, modular effect capabilities
- Keyboard - None (virtual synth)
- Memory - 14 finished patches (complete synths!) made by professional sound designers
- Control - Midi. Built-in Midi Interface. MME- and ASIO-drivers
- Date Produced - 1999
- Shop for Keyboards, MIDI & Gear
Guitar Center: Synths and MIDI
Sweetwater: Hot items in Keyboars section
The Musician's Friend: Keyboard gear
AMS: Brand synths and accessories
The Woodwind & Brasswind Store
music123.com: Synth Blow Out Deal Section
zZounds: Keyboards and MIDI equipment
- Resources & Credits
For more info visit the Creamware Modular Synths page.
Errors or Corrections? Send them here.


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|Getting Started The only dumb question is the one not asked
|Topic Review (Newest First)
Many good choices in that price range.
However, if you grow into a serious affliction with flyfishing (which is easy to do) you will upgrade in a few years anyway.
So find yourself a nice outfit, enjoy it, and put aside a few greenbacks for that heirloom rod and reel you will someday admire with pride by the streamside.
I'd recommend a St Croix rod. They're excellent quality and very reasonably priced. An Avid A804.4 will serve you very well ($210) and you could use it for the rest of your life. If you want something a little cheaper, their new Reign series is pretty nice too. You can either get an R804.4 (4 piece, $150) or R804.2 (2 piece, $130). If you're planning on traveling with the rod at all the 4 piece is worth it. You could even save yourself some dough and get a Premier series ($80-100), but I think the Reign is worth the extra money.
For a reel, just find something inexpensive for about $40. It's just going to be a glorified line holder so there's no need to spend much money on it. Just find something you like the looks of that balances the rod well. St Croix sells a Premier CLA 456 for $40 that would work fine. I have to respectfully disagree with jlsimithii, I think $100 is a horrible waste of money when you have a limited budget since the rod and line are the most important things for fishing like you'll be doing in the Catskills (grew up in the foothills of them).
Budget yourself $60 to get a good quality line. Don't skimp on line. Any of the major brands really work fine. I have a preference for Scientific Anglers for my freshwater lines and don't think you can go wrong with those.
So with the cheaper Reign rod, you're looking at $130 + $40 + $60 = $230. This leaves you some of your budget for the misc stuff like flies, leaders, tippet, hemostat, line clippers, etc.
FYI, you could go the Orvis route. Their Clearwater and Streamline series are good entry level rods in your price range.
look at the temple forks fly rods. the low end cast well and are priced under $100
match this with a orvis battenkill or mid arbor battenkill (again around $100) and you'll be set
Advise on a rod/reel set up please
Ok my buddy has been hounding me to get into this great sport. Fish mostly NY Catskill area waters. My budget is 250-350 totalling everything I need (if possible). He is telling me to get an Orvis set up, I can NOT afford it. What else do you recommend? I dont want to have to upgrade in a few years. I want something that will work and last but not no cheap set up either. I want a 8'6 5 weight from what he is telling me. Please provide me with specific rods/reels that are good from your expertise. Just a rod brand wont help me. Thanks.
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Intellectual Dry Rot and Spiritual Wet Rot
World-historical. Think about it. How on earth do the problems of a single man become everyone's problem? This is not the same as asking how a single person can become a problem, which any assoul can do. As they say, any idiot can make history, but it takes real genius to write it. Rather, we need to get beneath Hitler's "problem," to the deeper problem of a people blinded to the fact that, hey, this guy has a problem.
And when we say "German culture," there were, of course, exceptions -- people who saw through Hitler from the moment they laid eyes on him. Everyone would like to believe they were one of those clear-sighted volks, and in 1945 there were many more of them than there were in 1933, for the same reason that every Frenchman was a retrospective member of the tiny French resistance, or so many Americans now claim to have been "fooled" by Obama.
People don't want to believe they were party to a lethal failure of judgment, but even in 1946 "a majority of Germans held the opinion that National Socialism was a good idea but badly implemented," and it was equally widely believed into the 1950s "that without the war, Hitler would have been one of the greatest statesmen in German history."
Among other things, Voegelin wanted to debunk the self-serving idea that Germans were simply seduced by a charismatic demagogue, because not everyone responded to Hitler's so-called charisma, and many people were repelled by him. Voegelin, for example, escaped Germany in 1938.
To cite some examples closer to home, we are routinely told by the MSM that a Bill Clinton is "charismatic," or that Jimmy Carter is a conspicuously "good and decent man," or that Barack Obama is unusually bright. All of these are not just lies, but gross distortions for anyone with spiritual and intellectual discernment. Each of them makes a normal person slightly ill, in different ways.
I say this because no normal person appreciates being crudely manipulated in the manner of a Clinton, or scolded in the manner of a hateful, petty, and sanctimonious Carter, or talked down to by a half-educated affirmative action hire with a few fixed ideas he picked up in college.
Voegelin traces the rot in Germany to a distinct spiritual decline which he attempts to describe both empirically and theoretically. To back up a bit, recall what I was saying a couple posts back about psychopathology (mental illness). In order to define mental pathology, we must begin with an implicit or explicit notion of psychic health. What exactly is a healthy psyche? What was it designed to do?
I know my answer: to know truth, to love beauty, to will the good, and to create in such a way that the eternal pierces the temporal.
Right away you see the problem for any consistent materialist, since for them the psyche can have no purpose. Rather, it is just a meaningless side effect of the struggle to pass one's genes along to the next generation. From a purely biological standpoint, anything that gets the job done is "healthy," which is to say, adaptive: deception, rape, misogyny, polygamy. In fact, this is precisely why rape has survived, because it is indeed one effective way for losers to propagate their genetic material.
Hitler was just such a consistent materialist, but unlike most materialists, he actually drew out the ultimate implications of materialism, so give him credit for that. He was no hypocrite or waffler, that's for sure. He did not pretend to be elevated above his nature, because nature is all there is. Again: the utter rejection of transcendence.
Voegelin quotes one writer who observed that "no one before Hitler had actually made the consequences deduced from Darwin the basis of state policy, and no one before Hitler so consistently and ruthlessly carried those biological premises to their ultimate conclusions and put them into practice."
For as Darwin wrote, nature is "immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts," the difference being that Darwin was too constrained by Christian civilization to take this idea seriously and start killing his biological inferiors.
To say that Hitler was influenced by Darwin is, of course, to give the former way too much credit, since, like our troll, he was an anti-intellectual who never read a serious book in his life.
And besides, Darwin himself borrowed the phrase "survival of the fittest" from Herbert Spencer, the father of "social Darwinism." Thus, ironically, survival of the fittest is actually "biological Spencerism," which shows us how ideology -- i.e., second reality -- contaminates first reality, and is then taken as a simple "fact" of nature. But the most rigid and unambiguous facts are often, as is this one, just projections.
His ignorance of Darwin notwithstanding, Hitler was nevertheless a true metaphysical Darwinian and evolutionist, proclaiming that "the entire universe" is "ruled by just this one idea, that an eternal selection takes place in which the stronger in the end maintains the right to live, and the weaker falls. One will say that nature is therefore cruel and merciless, but the other will grasp that nature is thus only obeying an iron law of logic." Selfish genes, and all that.
And note how natural selection is now indeed being applied to the cosmos, in order to get around the problem of the big bang, which implies a creative intelligence. If we are just the beneficiary of natural selection applied to multiple universes, the problem is solved. (Not really, of course, but it is kicked a little further down the ontological road.)
When the intellectual barbarian collapses the world to a single level, the distinction between Is and Ought is obliterated, for the Ought is quintessentially and irreducibly transcendent. And once you've accomplished that, then anything goes, for nothing is impermissible.
This raises an interesting point about the nature of spiritual rot. It occurs to me that there are two main types, what we might call "dry rot," and its seeming opposite, "wet rot." But the two actually go together, and in many ways define one another.
For example, the rationalist or scientistic atheist, who suffers from spiritual and intellectual dry rot, is always doing battle with people who are characterized by a kind of religious wet rot. In yesterday's thread, for example, you will see someone suffering from dry rot using this blog as a vehicle to lash out at some neighbors who have religious wet rot. We, of course, do not advocate either form of rot.
Modern liberalism is a loose affiliation of people who have either wet or dry rot, both intellectually and spiritually, or noetically and pneumatically. Deepak Chopra, for example, is a quintessential case of wet rot, but the entire liberal media also falls into that category. Most of liberal academia suffers from wet rot -- we are speaking of the humanities, of course. Conversely, a scientistic academic such as Richard Dawkins might as well be the poster child for dry rot.
Man is situated in a hierarchically organized universe of meaning. That being the case, of course science is one vehicle for disclosing universal meaning on a particular level. But to suggest that science is in any way capable of disclosing the meaning of higher levels is the essence of postmodern barbarism: it is dry rot.
Conversely, a creationist yahoo who insists that the world is 6,000 years old is a case of wet rot. But both wet and dry rot come down to severe anti-intellectualism, since neither understands the book they pretend to criticize or embrace.
Now, just as there is psychopathology -- obviously -- there is, and must be, what we shall call "logopathology," i.e., the failure of intellect in the original sense of the term (nous), and "pneumopathology," which is the failure of spirit. For Voegelin, the essence of cultural pathology -- of the kind of pathology that made a Hitler possible -- is in these two areas.
In short -- and this is the key -- there is Reason (i.e., logos) and Spirit (pneuma), and our task is to maintain an open system in both realms. Conversely, to be intellectually or spiritually closed -- or closed off from logos and pneuma -- is a bad, bad, thing, as we will further discuss tomorrow.


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dB Logic EP-100 Earphones
Ultra-small in-ear monitors offer fantastic sound quality while reducing exposure to high sound pressure levels. Can be worn with cable behind-the-ear for on-the-go security or with cables straight down for quick fitting. Compact storage case is ideal for traveling and fits in any pocket. Three sizes of compliant eartips to fit any ear. dB Logic's proprietary Sound Pressure Level Limiting...
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text:
By Patsy R. Brumfield/NEMS Daily Journal
This is the second in a series of stories updating courts news from 2012.
By Patsy R. Brumfield
Daily Journal
TUPELO – Plans for a double-murder trial, other trials and two appeals mark headline cases in Lee County area courts this year.
Travon Brown, 27, will stand trial in Lee County accused of the shooting deaths of Cornellius Harris, 22, and Felicia Ruffin, 36, at a residence on Chapman Street.
Brown has been held in the Lee County Jail on $1 million bond since his arrest Sept. 29, 2011.
His trial is set to begin Feb. 5 before Circuit Judge Jim Seth Pounds.
The first circuit court term of 2013 begins Feb. 4 after a January meeting of a Lee County grand jury.
More than 450 cases are set on the docket dominated by drug and property crime charges.
Manslaughter plea
Thomas James Ward continues serving a 14-year sentence at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility for the 2010 shooting death of girlfriend Anna Catherine McCoy.
A Lee County jury could not convict Ward after an emotional, nine-day trial last May and Circuit Judge James L. Roberts Jr. declared a mistrial.
Ward, 25, insisted McCoy's death was a tragic accident, not the result of his negligence.
But in the face of a second trial, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 20 years, with six years suspended and credit for time he'd already served in jail.
McCoy was a popular 20-year-old soccer player at Itawamba Community College when she died. Her family also was well-known in the area, especially because her father, Cotton McCoy, was a longtime Tupelo police officer.
Death sentence
David Cox Sr. of Pontotoc County waits on death row at the state penitentiary for the 2010 shooting death of his wife, Kim, and seven other charges associated with holding her hostage with three of her children in Sherman.
In Union County, Cox pleaded guilty to the murder, a jail escape and the other crimes.
Last September, a Union County jury listened to two weeks of testimony and decided 42-year-old Cox deserved to die.
Circuit Judge John Gregory sentenced him, and the Mississippi Department of Corrections took custody of him shortly after.
Gregory recently denied Cox's attorney's requests for reconsideration in what is likely to be a lengthy appeals process common for death penalty cases.
In a long-running dispute over a bus with connections to Elvis Presley, its former owner Bill Kinard of Tupelo will appeal a court-ordered sale of the vehicle.
His attorney also filed a motion to halt the vehicle's transfer to new owner, Tupelo businessman Larry Michael, pending the appeal.
For the past two years, Kinard and Michael have disputed debts associated with retrieval of the bus from Washington State in early 2009 and some $134,000 in costs connected with that trip and the vehicle's partial "restoration."
Ultimately, Chancellor Talmadge Littlejohn ordered the bus put up for sale and Michael won the bid.
Throughout, Kinard – who sued as Legacy Hall of Fame Inc., a celebrity memorabilia facility – claimed he never intended to sell the bus and that he was under medication when he agreed to do so.
In another case, Tupelo attorney Kirk Tharp filed notice to appeal his Dec. 3 Lee County Justice Court conviction that he assaulted a Mooreville teenager last September.
The notice stated Tharp's intent to take the case to county court, although no other action was reflected in the county's electronic filing system.
Tharp, who also serves as Sherman's prosecuting attorney and Mantachie's municipal judge, insists he did not assault anybody as he responded to verbal threats coming from the vehicle drive by 18-year-old Kurtis Yarbrough.
The slender teenager said the much larger Tharp attacked him, injured him and broke at least one of his two hearing aids in the alleged attack.
After a 3 1/2 hour hearing Nov. 29, Judge Sadie Holland found Tharp guilty and ordered him to pay a fine.