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United States District Court, Ninth Circuit
October 24, 2013
GEORGE VAKLIN, Plaintiff(s),v.FEDERAL EXPRESS CORPORATION, Defendant(s)
[Reassigned Case]
PHYLLIS J. HAMILTON, District Judge.
The above matter having been reassigned to the Honorable Phyllis J. Hamilton. It is hereby ordered, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(b) and Civil L. R. 16-10, that a Case Management Conference shall be held in this case on December 12, 2013, at 2:00 p.m., in Courtroom 3, 3rd Floor, Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street, Oakland, California.
Counsel shall meet and confer as required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(f) prior to the Case Management Conference with respect to those subjects set forth in Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(c). Not less than seven (7) days before the conference, counsel shall file a joint case management statement addressing each of the items listed in the "Standing Order For All Judges of the Northern District - Contents of Joint Case Management statement, " which is attached to this order and can also be found on the court's website. A proposed order is not necessary. Following the conference, the court will enter its own Case Management and Pretrial Order. If any party is proceeding without counsel, separate statements may be filed by each party.
Each party shall appear personally or by counsel prepared to address all of the matters referred to in this Order and with authority to enter stipulations and make admissions pursuant to this Order. Any request to reschedule the date of the conference shall be made in writing, and by stipulation if possible, at least ten (10) days before the date of the conference and must be based upon good cause.
Commencing July 1, 2011, all judges of the Northern District of California will require identical information in Joint Case Management Statements filed pursuant to Civil Local Rule 16-9. The parties must include the following information in their statement which, except in unusually complex cases, should not exceed ten pages:
1. Jurisdiction and Service: The basis for the court's subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiff's claims and defendant's counterclaims, whether any issues exist regarding personal jurisdiction or venue, whether any parties remain to be served, and, if any parties remain to be served, a proposed deadline for service.
2. Facts: A brief chronology of the facts and a statement of the principal factual issues in dispute.
3. Legal Issues: A brief statement, without extended legal argument, of the disputed points of law, including reference to specific statutes and decisions.
4. Motions: All prior and pending motions, their current status, and any anticipated motions.
5. Amendment of Pleadings: The extent to which parties, claims, or defenses are expected to be added or dismissed and a proposed deadline for amending the pleadings.
6. Evidence Preservation: A brief report certifying that the parties have reviewed the Guidelines Relating to the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information ("ESI Guidelines"), and confirming that the parties have met and conferred pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(f) regarding reasonable and proportionate steps taken to preserve evidence relevant to the issues reasonably evident in this action. See ESI Guidelines 2.01 and 2.02, and Checklist for ESI Meet and Confer.
7. Disclosures: Whether there has been full and timely compliance with the initial disclosure requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 26, and a description of the disclosures made.
8. Discovery: Discovery taken to date, if any, the scope of anticipated discovery, any proposed limitations or modifications of the discovery rules, a brief report on whether the parties have considered entering into a stipulated e-discovery order, a proposed discovery plan pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(f), and any identified discovery disputes.
9. Class Actions: If a class action, a proposal for how and when the class will be certified.
10. Related Cases: Any related cases or proceedings pending before another judge of this court, or before another court or administrative body.
11. Relief: All relief sought through complaint or counterclaim, including the amount of any damages sought and a description of the bases on which damages are calculated. In addition, any party from whom damages are sought must describe the bases on which it contends damages should be calculated if liability is established.
12. Settlement and ADR: Prospects for settlement, ADR efforts to date, and a specific ADR plan for the case, including compliance with ADR L.R. 3-5 and a description of key discovery or motions necessary to position the parties to negotiate a resolution.
13. Consent to Magistrate Judge For All Purposes: Whether all parties will consent to have a magistrate judge conduct all further proceedings including trial and entry of judgment. ___ Yes ___ No
14. Other References: Whether the case is suitable for reference to binding arbitration, a special master, or the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.
15. Narrowing of Issues: Issues that can be narrowed by agreement or by motion, suggestions to expedite the presentation of evidence at trial (e.g., through summaries or stipulated facts), and any request to bifurcate issues, claims, or defenses.
16. Expedited Trial Procedure: Whether this is the type of case that can be handled under the Expedited Trial Procedure of General Order No. 64 Attachment A. If all parties agree, they shall instead of this Statement, file an executed Agreement for Expedited Trial and a Joint Expedited Case Management Statement, in accordance with General Order No. 64 Attachments B and D.
17. Scheduling: Proposed dates for designation of experts, discovery cutoff, hearing of dispositive motions, pretrial conference and trial.
18. Trial: Whether the case will be tried to a jury or to the court and the expected length of the trial.
19. Disclosure of Non-party Interested Entities or Persons: Whether each party has filed the "Certification of Interested Entities or Persons" required by Civil Local Rule 3-16. In addition, each party must restate in the case management statement the contents of its certification by identifying any persons, firms, partnerships, corporations (including parent corporations) or other entities known by the party to have either: (i) a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding; or (ii) any other kind of interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.
20. Such other matters as may facilitate the just, speedy and inexpensive disposition of this matter.
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Disk-error-alert.com is a clear example of fake Technical Support Website. It will display bogus warnings and alerts about troubles presently bugging your computer. There are times that sub domains were used to represent a clean and nice looking web page for its online services to fix ailing computer. The primary goal of Disk-error-alert.com is to deceive people in order to compel them into calling Technical Support number like 1-855-229-8044. Most people who avail of the services rendered by Disk-error-alert.com considered the paid assistance as rip off.
Redirecting or seeing Disk-error-alert.com on your web browser program like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox doesn't necessary mean that computer is infected with a virus. The redirect may occur when you visit a web site that was put-up for malicious intent. Although, there are still chances that some web browsers who are redirected to Disk-error-alert.com are affected by malware. This has to be determined by running various anti-malware and anti-malware scans on the system.
Screen shot image of Disk-error-alert.com:
Scammers have found other way to steal money from Internet users by acting as if they are legitimate online technical support specialist. In order to get hold of patron, these online fraudsters are issuing various fake alerts and diagnostics through malicious web sites such as Disk-error-alert.com. A bunch of adware, including freeware and shareware were also used to modify browser settings so that it makes a forceful visit to fake technical support web site like Disk-error-alert.com.
Aside from targeting web browsers, cyber criminals are also investing to dozens of web sites that are prepared to make a redirect to Disk-error-alert.com when visitors interact with it. Either way, when you bumped into Disk-error-alert.com, we highly suggest closing the page and avoid clicking on any buttons. Immediately run an anti-virus scan to remove any malware if Disk-error-alert.com or related web sites have managed to drop one on your PC.

subset: commoncrawl


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NYPA Will Sponsor White Plains Event for Minority-, Women-Owned Firms
June 14, 2004
WHITE PLAINS—The New York Power Authority (NYPA) will sponsor its 14th annual supplier diversity purchasing exchange for minority- and women-owned business enterprises (M/WBEs) on Thursday, June 17 from noon to 4 pm at NYPA's offices at 123 Main St. in downtown White Plains. Eugene W. Zeltmann, president and chief executive officer of NYPA, will give keynote remarks to kick off the event.
"The Power Authority philosophy toward supplier diversity is that it's good business to do business with minority- and women-owned companies because we all benefit when more of us succeed," said Zeltmann. "As part of Governor George E. Pataki's efforts to promote economic development, supplier diversity helps New York's economy prosper and become more vital by giving everyone the opportunity to contribute to economic growth."
The purchasing exchange enables qualified M/WBEs to explore business opportunities with purchasing representatives from NYPA, other public agencies and private corporations. Those planning to participate this year include: Bank of New York, Colgate-Palmolive, KeySpan, the New York State Dormitory Authority, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Hertz Corporation, Con Edison, IBM, Battery Park City Authority and New Jersey Transit, among many others.
M/WBEs attending the purchasing exchange should specialize in supplying professional services, construction-related goods or services or high technology goods or services. Interested M/WBEs can respond by using the on-line Purchasing Exchange Confirmation Form available at the link on the NYPA homepage, www.nypa.gov. For more information, call 914-681-6976 or 6453. It is not necessary for M/WBEs to be certified by New York State to attend this purchasing exchange, though representatives will be available to assist those interested in the certification process.
The Power Authority operates a multi-million dollar supplier diversity program, under the direction of Debra White, supplier diversity program manager, to ensure that M/WBEs actively and successfully participate in NYPA's procurement process.
NYPA has held annual purchasing exchanges in New York City or Westchester County for the past 13 years and, in 2002, conducted its first upstate purchasing exchange in Utica. It held a second upstate exchange last year in Buffalo. The exchanges have resulted in numerous contract opportunities for M/WBEs, and expanded vendor pools for participating private corporations and public agencies. These efforts, along with NYPA's overall supplier diversity program, have resulted in more than $380 million in NYPA business, and other significant business opportunities, for M/WBEs.
The Power Authority has established many professional affiliations with minority and women's organizations, trade associations and purchasing councils. NYPA's advocacy of supplier diversity has been recognized with numerous awards.


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Skip to comments.Putting Themselves to Sleep
Posted on 11/24/2012 11:24:40 PM PST by neverdem
Hitting the wall in the middle of a busy work day is nothing unusual, and a caffeine jolt is all it takes to snap most of us back into action. But people with certain sleep disorders battle a powerful urge to doze throughout the day, even after sleeping 10 hours or more at night. For them, caffeine doesn't touch the problem, and more potent prescription stimulants aren't much better. Now, a study with a small group of patients suggests that their condition may have a surprising source: a naturally occurring compound that works on the brain much like the key ingredients in chill pills such as Valium and Xanax.
The condition is known as primary hypersomnia, and it differs from the better known sleep disorder narcolepsy in that patients tend to have more persistent daytime sleepiness instead of sudden "sleep attacks." The unknown cause and lack of treatment for primary hypersomnia has long frustrated David Rye, a neurologist at Emory University in Atlanta. "A third of our patients are on disability," he says, "and these are 20- and 30-year-old people."
Rye and colleagues began the new study with a hunch about what was going on. Several drugs used to treat insomnia promote sleep by targeting receptors for GABA, a neurotransmitter that dampens neural activity. Rye hypothesized that his hypersomnia patients might have some unknown compound in their brains that does something similar, enhancing the activity of so-called GABAA receptors. To try to find this mystery compound, he and his colleagues performed spinal taps on 32 hypersomnia patients and collected cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the liquid that bathes and insulates the brain and spinal cord. Then they added the patients' CSF to cells genetically engineered to produce GABAA receptors, and looked for tiny electric currents that would indicate that the receptors had been activated.
In that first pass, nothing happened. However, when the researchers added the CSF and a bit of GABA to the cells, they saw an electrical response that was nearly twice as big as that caused by GABA alone. All of this suggests that the patients' CSF doesn't activate GABAA receptors directly, but it does make the receptors almost twice as sensitive to GABA, the researchers report today in Science Translational Medicine. This effect is similar to that of drugs called benzodiazepines, the active ingredients in antianxiety drugs such as Valium. It did not occur when the researchers treated the cells with CSF from people with normal sleep patterns.
Follow-up experiments suggested that the soporific compound in the patients' CSF is a peptide or small protein, presumably made by the brain, but otherwise its identity remains a mystery.
The idea that endogenous benzodiazepinelike compounds could cause hypersomnia was proposed in the early 1990s by Elio Lugaresi, a pioneering Italian sleep clinician, says Clifford Saper, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston. But several of Lugaresi's patients later turned out to be taking benzodiazepines, which undermined his argument, and the idea fell out of favor. Saper says the new work makes a "pretty strong case."
Based on these results, Rye and his colleagues designed a pilot study with seven patients using a drug called flumazenil, which counteracts benzodiazepines and is often used to treat people who overdose on those drugs. After an injection of flumazenil, the patients improved to near-normal levels on several measures of alertness and vigilance, the researchers report. Rye says these effects lasted up to a couple hours.
In hopes of longer-lasting benefits, the researchers persuaded the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche, which makes the drug, to donate a powdered form that can be incorporated into dissolvable tablets taken under the tongue and a cream applied to the skin. One 30-something patient has been taking these formulations for 4 years and has improved dramatically, the researchers report in the paper. She has resumed her career as an attorney, from which her hypersomnia had forced her to take a leave of absence.
The findings are "certainly provocative," Saper says, although they'll have to be replicated in a larger, double-blind trial to be truly convincing.
Even so, says Phyllis Zee, a neurologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois: "This gives us a new window into thinking about treatments" for primary hypersomnia. "These patients don't respond well to stimulants," Zee says, so a better strategy may be to inhibit the sleep-promoting effects of GABA—or as Rye puts it, releasing the parking brake instead of pressing the accelerator.
The next steps are clear, Rye says: Identify the mystery compound, figure out a faster way to detect it, and conduct a larger clinical trial to test the benefits of flumazenil. However, the researchers first need someone to fund such a study. So far, Rye says, they've gotten no takers.
Did that neurologist think to recommend patients to an endocrinologist to have calcium and parathyroid levels checked?
When I'm forced out of bed before I'm adequately rested, I'm tired all day. I just blew off making the 900 mile drive home for Thanksgiving because my employer sent me to a very expensive security training class, then my niece stole the only sleep day I was going to get for a memorial for her dad. 11 days of forced 6:30 AM starts with work finishing at midnight to 1 AM. I was too burned out to safely drive.
When I'm forced out of bed before I'm adequately rested, I'm tired all day. I just blew off making the 900 mile drive home for Thanksgiving because my employer sent me to a very expensive security training class, then my niece stole the only sleep day I was going to get for a memorial for her dad. 11 days of forced 6:30 AM starts with work finishing at midnight to 1 AM. I was too burned out to safely drive.
Been going on for a while. I think it is caused by an unusual delay after people click "Post" which causes one to either forget that you already posted, or think that it didn't take and click again. Apparently the software does not have a way to tell that you only clicked "Post Reply" once before multiple "Post" clicks.
By now all old hands presumably know to wait till the browser itself complains of a time out.
It looks like he refers them to the Social Security Administration for a check.
That's what I was thinking. Great way to get more freebies.
Wonder if they ever considered these people are easily bored?
Thanks again neverdem, your posts contain a ton of interesting info!
Myrddin...if I'm understanding correctly, what you experience with GABA supplementation is the opposite of what it's 'sposed to be. Like Ritalin(!?) for hyperactivity - GABA is causing a paradoxical reaction in you. That's very interesting.
Could it be the source of supplementation that's "off"? IDK, but I feel for you. There are lists of various GABA-containing foods, I wonder if your reaction to them would be different?
Also, I'm not as up with the research, but I wonder if it's a GABA problem, or a hyperactive GABA RECEPTOR problem.
I agree with the poster who mentioned checking endocrine function...
just me, but I'd go for blood testing with an eye toward 'treatment' with whole food supplements...YMMV.
It is a major principal of meditation to "turn off the noise in your head" before meditating. However, I finally got an interesting hypothesis as to why.
Some people who were very expert at meditation discovered that with extended periods of silence in the head, the mind tends to drift to either an unusual degree of focus, which allows it to consider a narrow situation at hand, ignoring distractions; or the mind becomes very unfocused, a very inspirational state of mind for both creativity and "quantum leaps" in problem resolution.
However, the "internal dialogue" disrupts these shifts in either direction, sticking the mind in the middle, where the mind is involved with the overall situation of a person in the here and now.
This middle position is optimal, they concluded, if you are "being chased by a tiger." That is, it is survival oriented, far more so than with a state of narrow focus *or* inspiration.
So, in the shadowy past, our ancestors came up with the trick of talking to ourselves, and parents unknowingly indoctrinate their children in this technique to this day, "even though tigers are few and far between these days."
Thus they concluded, if you use any of the techniques to shut up the internal dialogue, that little bit of mind discipline will give you access to both a strong state of focus, and an inspirational unfocused state.
In practical terms, say if you were doing your SAT test. Just the ability to focus on the test and ignore all the distractions around you might be worth 10-20 IQ points. A much more enhanced ability to concentrate.
Likewise, when faced with an irresolute and complicated problem, or just needing a big shot of inspirational creativity, unfocusing your mind could open the gates.
However, there is more to it than that. The internal dialogue, and the vacillations between a slightly more focused and a slightly more unfocused state of mind are very energy consumptive. A person too skilled with talking to themselves both sounds like an "airhead surfer", and are exhausted by all the energy used to keep them in that state.
When such people use one of the techniques to control their internal dialogue, the change is dramatic. I knew one such surfer airhead type who applied himself to a technique for a good two week, and he was like a different person.
Not just speaking in coherent sentences, but full paragraphs, and his brain filled with energy and good ideas. He was very pleased with the result, but somewhat apprehensive, because were that rate of improvement to continue, he imagined it would be overwhelming.
He did describe his new ability as like having "a knife switch in his head", so he could turn his dialogue on or off at will.
Look up "First sleep and Second sleep" for another idea about how we might be wired and why some of us struggle with going back to sleep.
Unless we develop our will and intent, we are ego ruled creatures, slaved to its whims and desires.
In all fairness, most people do not know that they can, and few would be willing to try even if they did know.
There is no motivation unless with are inspired and encouraged by forces beyond ourselves. Otherwise, we live and die, until something comes along and fractures our zeitgeist. Then most people die, and the few that remain either cling to the old ways, or try something new.
Many of us are essentially lazy, often fearful creatures who do little more than necessary.
However, we bore easily and thus there are a few seekers, inventors, explorers and adventurers who will boldly go where others fear to tread, either on their own or by following another's example.
Outside factors can change the nature of things and whether we look outside or inside. For example, I wonder how much has been displaced/lost by the ubiquitous television/idiot box.
" ...who applied himself to a technique..."
What does that mean?
He took the technique seriously and performed it a lot.
Which technique?
What helped him so much?
Any doc worth his/her salt would order standard chemistry tests that include calcium just to have a baseline after getting a chief complaint as well as complete prior medical and surgical history. Parathyroid levels would be checked only if the calcium result is abnormal, possibly only if that calcium result is confirmed by a repeat test.
I wonder how much genetic/epigenetic testing might explain it, what the bill would be and if you could get a definitive answer. It's possible that they could just rule out what they know to test for on a routine basis.
I always thought of GABA as an inhibitory neurotransmitter, but medicine always has something new to teach me.
Coexistence of excitatory and inhibitory GABA synapses in the cerebellar interneuron network.
Myrddin just has a weird brain.
Computer programming in his dreams. I can't even get something in a dream to stay constant from one "look" to the next. Occasionally when very intensely involved with a project I get prolonged dreams about generalities and that's about it.
The dream connection is more interesting. I have some dreams that go "on hold" in the morning and resume during the night. Most of it is in 3D and color. Who needs a TV with that going on :-) GABA interferes with that experience by tossing in noise and distractions. It was a harmless investigation to be avoided in the future. The anomaly isn't something I need to have fixed.
hey, why fix a winning formula. when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!
Yup. Might as well turn it into an advantage.
Detecting cancer cells and parasites
Doctor disputes common acceptance of brain death The link in comment# 19 is quite a read.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
This brain death thing looks like it sure has gotten sloppy. In the name of getting transplant organs, they've killed or "killed" many humans or "bodies" in conditions outwardly identical to those in which some degree of recovery to a recognized living state has occurred, if not also recovery to lucidity. We trusted doctors to be sane, humane, and moral. Instead too often it's nod and wink, and Obamacare can only make it worse.
And, trying not to run ahead of the customer is only logical. You haven't really solved the problem until you maximally understood what the problem IS. Knowing the right questions to ask helps a lot, of course.
Calcium could vary from normal to high normal, to above normal. I've been borderline above normal for years and I'm only 27.
I didn't say what I wanted to. Calcium doesn't have to be above normal to have parathyroid disease.
"Those idiots! I could have written that program in my sleep!"
My condolences. I don't dream of software coding but I do have occasional insomnia -- my blood sugar crashes at 4:00 AM and I am unable to go back to sleep.
(The middle setting would be *very* advantageous for a programmer, when one has has the intuition, and needs to turn it into working code.)
I wonder if they've ever been treated with Ritalin or other ADHD drugs as a child?
It's very easy to clear one's mind. Meditation, self-hypnosis, and the ability to concentrate can all be learned and practiced to great effect.
It takes effort, but it can be accomplished with perseverance.
My favorite technique comes with an explanation of why it works.
It is based on the idea that the small part of the brain responsible for the internal dialogue is the same part of the brain responsible for attention in general, and that as more attention is needed, it takes priority over maintaining the internal dialogue.
It is difficult for the brain to provide the energy needed to even support attention, much less the internal dialogue, so we use lots of brain tricks to shut out data that might be considered extraneous, and thus conserve energy.
For example, when we look at a picture of a person, we do not try to focus our attention on the entire image, but only on a "darting point", looking at a small part, then another small part, then another, using our short term memory to imagine the whole picture at once. Importantly, when we look at a picture of a human face, the most frequently looked at points are the eyes. Here is a scan of eye movements of the darting point.
So the trick of the technique is to create more and more demand on our attention, which deprives the internal dialogue of the energy it needs to function, so it is quieted. And the longer it can voluntarily be turned off, the greater our control over it becomes.
The technique involves walking. Just ordinary walking is not easy, and demands considerable attention directed towards the legs. The next part is as you are walking, to hold the fingers in some unusual way, it doesn't matter how, as long as it is unusual enough to attract your attention to your arms as well. Your arms just hang normally as they do when you typically walk, so it's just the fingers that are odd.
So now your attention is in two directions. But the third part is the real attention grabber. By unfocusing your eyes, you defeat the "darting point" of your visual focus, and instead, everything in a 180 degree view in front of you becomes of equal importance to your attention. Which consumes an enormous amount of attention.
It takes just a little practice to learn how to walk with unfocused eyes, either looking at the ground 10-15 feet in front of you, or over the horizon, but it is not terribly difficult to learn.
So there is the technique. Walking, holding your fingers in an unusual way or ways, and unfocusing your eyes. Not very hard at all.
A few personal observations about the technique:
Don't carry physical objects in your hands, as it can get annoying. I dislike even wearing a wristwatch when doing this. Rings are right out.
Never listen to music while you are doing this, or you may get a ferocious "ear worm", the song endlessly repeating in your head. But if you have an annoying "ear worm" on its own while doing this technique, it will totally burn itself out and won't trouble you any longer. Yippee!, if such things annoy you.
You can do the technique day or night, as long or short a walk as you like, because the effects are generally cumulative. Some people stop after a couple of weeks because even though they are getting a better state of mental focus and unfocus, they dislike the feeling of silence, like some people dislike quiet, so bring a boom box with them when they go camping.
One thing that some people notice after doing this technique for a while is that they start to get unusual sensations. Typically we ignore or block the vast majority of sensory input available to us, and sustained silence is bound to let some sensations we previously ignored through. I've never quite understood why a few people find this so disturbing, but a few do. Most just think it is cool.
I wouldn't go chasing borderline numbers without a complaint. Is your albumin also borderline high? Most of the ionized calcium is bound to it.
Never heard of that, what is it? I'd look it up myself but I need to get ready for an overnight job, so that the information might be there when I get home.
After you're finished reading it, click on Home at the top of the page on the left. It's a good source for the general public's medical questions. Save it for future reference.
A reminder for after I've slept. I'll make sure to check out that link. Thank you
I checked it out; I don't think I have a problem metabolizing protein, but I won't dismiss it completely because I haven't had it tested.
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text:
Nike Men's Foil Skin Jammer
NOW: $39.99 (20% off!)
Was: $50.00*
Product Information:
Get secure coverage and a comfortable fit with the Nike® Men's Foil Skin Jammer. This jammer provides full coverage and security while allowing for full range of leg motion. Constructed of durable Nike® NX Fabric, this jammer is chlorine resistant and has excellent shape retention. Represent your team and shatter records in the Foil Skin Jammer.
- Durable Nike� NX Fabric
- 81% nylon, 19% spandex
- Ideal for competition
- Excellent shape retention
- Chlorine resistant
- Provides full coverage and complete security while allowing for full range of leg motion
- Style: TFSS0008
- Nike
Country of Origin: VietnamWeb ID: 18390456
Customer Reviews:
Rated 3 out of 5�by 2 reviewers.
Rated 5 out of 5�by zack3140 Great Suit Love this suit. Very comfortable. Its a great training suit March 21, 2014
Rated 1 out of 5�by BC Good early I was pleased upon receipt at first. Cool colors, reasonable price, fair coverage, etc. But after only 8 weeks of use, two / three times per week, the color must now all be in the pool because it's certainly no longer in the suit. I have a competition next week for which I will not be able to wear them as the material has degraded to the extent they're almost obscene. June 20, 2013
1-2 of 2


text:
Real-Time Marketing
January 17, 2014
Connecting with consumers in real time has more to do with a brand's day-to-day activities than one "big moment." This Insight Brief explores best practices in organization, strategy, and content for success in real-time marketing. Learn how brands like MasterCard and Coca-Cola have created real-time command centers to maximize social listening and engagement.
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You may already be a member. Find out if your company is already an ANA member.


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Other pets in your family: Chloe' - CGC, KPETS | Nikkita (In Loving Memory) | Mickey (In Loving Memory) | Echo
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Visit Dogster


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June 21st may be the �official� first day of summer. But we say summer starts the moment you dust off the grill and are able to serve up a smorgasbord of barbecued goodies. Whether you prefer gas or charcoal, there�s something to be gleaned from the grilling methods utilized by top chefs like Rick Bayless and Curtis Stone. Which is why we asked them to share their favorite tricks for al fresco cooking. 1. Banking your coals to one side of the grill makes all the difference. Cook the meat until charred in the �hot spot� (that is, over the coals), then let it coast to perfect doneness in the �cool spot.� 2. Think beyond burgers and steaks! One of my favorite things to grill is mussels: Lay them on the grill, wait for them to open, take them off, douse them in sauce. It's really that easy. �Rick Bayless, Chef, Red O Restaurant 3. Know thy grill.�If you are using a gas grill to control your heat, there is no need to have it turned up all the way�you�ll burn that beautiful steak. If you are a charcoal aficionado, make sure�you let your charcoal burn down and let the briquets get nice and white-hot. Don't rush it; get your charcoal working a minimum of one hour before you plan on grilling. �Peter Vauthy, Chef/Partner, Red, the Steakhouse� 4. Organize and prep (wash, cut, oil, and season) everything in advance and place on a sheet pan ready for the grill. Organization will allow you to enjoy your grilling experience. �Paul Virant, Chef/Owner, Perennial Virant & Vie 5. Make sure the item you are grilling has been taken out of the refrigerator at least 20 minutes before it goes on the grill. This way the meat is closer to room temperature and will cook quicker and more evenly. Doing this will also cause the middle to cook faster, making it easier to avoid charring the outside. 6. If applying a glaze or sauce on the meat (chicken, ribs, pork chops), remember that it�s best to cook the meat on the direct flame of the grill to get those awesome char marks, then glaze and cook through on a cooler part of the grill. This will ensure the flavor still penetrates the meat but the charred, burnt carbon crust doesn't form due to burning at the early stage. �Graham Elliot, Chef/Restaurateur, Graham Elliot Bistro & Primary Food & Drink 7. Keeping your grill in good condition will make life a lot easier and allow you to enjoy the grilling season to the utmost. At the beginning of your grilling season, give your grill one good cleaning. This should involve a strong cleaning agent (there are lots of environmentally-safe options out there). Soak the grates and scrub the body as well. If you are using gas or propane, you really want to clean out all your ports and potentially replace any stones or ceramic plates, depending on your make and model. After each and every use, clean the grates using a stiff bristled brush; stuff comes off really easy when the grates are hot and this leaves you prepped for the next time you fire the grill up. �Albert Gonzalez, Chef,�Apothecary Caf� & Wine Bar� 8. Summertime is a great season to cook your freshly caught fish on the grill, but low heat and overcooking will quickly dry fish out. When grilling filets of fish, you must make sure you grill on high heat and have a good spatula on hand. Do not move your fish around once you place it on the grill, as it will break easily. Flip only once. Fish filets are best when a spice crust or rub is used. While grilling, use a basting of seasoned olive oil to help the fish ascertain its maximum flavor. �Sean Brasel, Executive Chef/Co-Owner, Meat Market 50. Most people don�t consider grilling vegetables when they grill steak or burgers,�but when you think about it, it�s the best way to complement the meal, especially using�charcoal or wood. To make it easier, pick up one of those grilling pans for vegetables�that help keep small pieces from falling through the grate. Potatoes cook in about 15 minutes if you cut them small enough. Always include onions; they will add a lot of flavor to any vegetable mix. You can even do fruits such as tomatoes, peaches and pears. The key is to cook the vegetables on the hot spot of your grill. If you grill steaks, pork chops, or even hamburgers, once you pull them off, stick your vegetables in that spot and you�ll pick up a little bit of that flavor as well. �Jack Gilmore, Executive Chef/Owner,Jack Allen�s Kitchen 51. My favorite thing to grill is probably soft shell crabs, because they're incredibly easy to make. Little bit of salt, pepper and oil�tossed in a little bit of garlic�is all you need. After grilling, add a squeeze of roasted or crushed lemon and a little drizzle of olive oil to finish it off. �Govind Armstrong, Chef/Owner, Post & Beam and Willie Jane 52. Be careful when it comes to oysters. The super hot, dry heat of a grill is not the best thing for oysters, so when grilling it is best to create a moist environment. One way to do that is to keep the grill at a fairly low temperature and cover the oysters by putting the top down on the grill or covering them with a pan. You can also put the oysters on a medium to low heat grill and cover them with a wet towel or burlap sack, which helps to steam them. �Dylan Fultineer, Chef, Rappahannock Restaurant Recipe:�Grilled Lamb Chops with Kiwi Mango Relish 53. When grilling lamb, you want to make sure you�re not losing any moisture. To make sure I keep all the natural juices in, I grill lamb whole before chilling it all the way through, slicing and marinating in red wine. Once marinated, I�ll finish it off in the oven. With this technique, the lamb gets the delicious smoky flavor from grilling while still staying juicy and tender. �Jeremy Lieb, Executive Chef, Boca 54. My secret summer cocktail ingredient: Tarragon. All that heat from the grill is going to make you thirsty. Make a refreshing cocktail with tarragon. It�s a great herb for lighter summer cocktails and spirits like gin, vodka and even tequila. �Brian Dayton, Beverage Director, OAK at fourteenth & Acorn 55. Try grilling seasonal fruits for dessert. They will pair perfectly with cheese! �Sarah McIntosh, Chef/Owner, �picerie� For more sage grilling advice along with some amazing�recipes, see below... This article originally appeared as on Relish
Location, ST | website.com


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A collection of stories from individuals with disabilities, families, friends, and disability service providers in Tennessee
Showing stories 1 - 2 of 2
Results related to: Future Concerns / 22 to 35 years / Down syndrome
"Every father deserves to know what will become of his child once he is no longer able to provide for their needs anymore.
"My favorite part of my job is just getting things done and having a smile and having a good attitude. I am a go-getter.


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Collaborative Summer Library Program
Quick Links for Librarians
Welcome CSLP Partners! Are you looking for reading and activity resources? This page is your map to navigate the National Fossil Day website. Each of the links below will help get you started with and involved in National Fossil Day. We also have helpful hints for how to use each of these pages to benefit your library's celebration.
NFD Overview
This page explains the National Fossil Day official mission and objectives. From here, there are also links to our 'Get Involved', 'Getting Started', and 'Event Hosting' pages, which have useful information about how to become an official National Fossil Day partner, and how to plan a National Fossil Day event.
Activities PageThe National Fossil Day 'Activities' page lists educational activities for all ages, focused on paleontology and fossils. This is a great place to look for ideas for National Fossil Day events you may be planning. The National Fossil Day 'Events' page is also a great place to look for activity and event ideas.
Learn more...
For Kids Page
The "For Kids" page is a fun place to explore online. Read about kids and professionals doing amazing things in paleontology. Also, the 'Paleontology Online' tab links to resources like Web Rangers, and online geology and paleontology tutorials. The 'Games and Activities' tab is where you can find our Jr. Paleontologist program, Earth Science Week, the Evolve or Perish board game, the National Fossil Day Art Contest, and some recommended reading. More recommended reading is on the 'Parents and Teachers' tab, as well as some other goodies.
NFD Events
The National Fossil Day 'Events' page archives all National Fossil Day events from previous years, as well as listing events that are planned for the current year. The National Fossil Day 'Partners' page lists each of our official partners. We have one in every state, so you should be able to find one near you! There is also a 'Libraries' partner category, so if your library is interested in officially partnering with National Fossil Day, please contact us.
Used together, these pages are a way to find National Fossil Day partners near your library. We strongly encourage you to contact National Fossil Day partners near you, to share ideas, resources, and event to collaborate in event planning.
NFD Logo
Want to download the National Fossil Day logo? We have the logo artwork for each year available. This page also includes instructions for how to use the logo.
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Last updated: February 25, 2014


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human rights in the United States
While the human rights record of the United States of America has featured an avowed commitment to the protection of specific personal political, religious and other freedoms, it has also had a long history of legally-sanctioned slavery, and both de jure and de facto racial and ethnic-religious discrimination, and occasional violation of those freedoms, particularly in times of "national security" crisis. In the early 21st century, most notably following September 11 and the ensuing War on Terror, invasions of privacy, intrusive inspections, and questionable detentions under the USA PATRIOT Act, as well as the alleged use of torture at prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, and the verified use of torture in Iraq represent predominant issues.
As with the most developed countries, the government and press attempt to engage in continual public review of alleged human rights abuses. Given that the modern concept of human rights developed primarily out of 20th century liberal Western thought, assessments of the United States human rights record often tend to measure its conformity to that political model. Nonetheless, several of the most prominent issues, those arising from the treatment of prisoners in the war on terror, fall under activities least open to public scrutiny due to their national security and military nature.
The principles of legal egalitarianism underlying the United States Constitution, upon which the United States is founded, were and are tempered with a political pragmatism that has occasionally undercut the human rights ideals that the document espouses. The Constitution created what was, in 1787, a distinguished progressive democracy that guaranteed unprecedented social and economic rights for much of its citizenry. Yet at the same time, the very same founding document implicitly [1] sanctioned slavery, which was not completely abolished until 1865 after the American Civil War, and lynching of blacks was relatively common into the middle 1900s. Only in 1968 did the Supreme Court rule explicitly against racial segregation laws.
This mixture of idealism and compromise has produced a paradoxical human rights record. The American system claims to aim at a free society where life, liberty and a host of inalienable human rights are guaranteed by its Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Human rights in the United States of America are built on the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with natural human rights. Some confuse equal rights with equal authority and thus assume that those with less authority lack these rights which gives birth to the mistaken hypothesis that by "men" the Declaration of Independence meant, white males.
The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, equal suffrage, and property rights. Such affirmations of human rights are the product of nearly four centuries of struggle and social progress aiming for a fair and just society, with its beginnings in 1634 when the first colonies in Maryland were founded on the basis of religious tolerance. However, some Americans attempting to exercise these fundamental human rights have been persecuted at various times throughout the country's history.
Most citizens tend to be optimistic about the United States Constitution and point out it is still a work in progress and changes to it are continuously under consideration as the needs of the society of the United States change. An example of this is how the status of human rights in the United States recently have come under scrutiny for the government's positions on capital punishment, police brutality, the War on Drugs, and sexual morality.
Finer points which are sometimes debated are a perceived media concentration that might drown out voices of dissent, campaign finance in the United States preventing a "fair" election, details of the justice system minimum sentencing guidelines, coercion into plea bargains and inadequate public defenders. Such issues often come up because of different interpretations of what is constitutional by the various authorities. Some rights issues are portrayed as a political split, pitching the rights of one group against another. For example, Americans have the right to form trade unions but some states have passed laws to guarantee an individual's right to work, a right not guaranteed in states with Collective bargaining statutes, and which have made it difficult for unions to negotiate contracts. However, in the vast majority of states, at-will employment (an employee can be fired for any or no reason) is the norm and unions have very little power to fight this. Also, in the more conservative states (red states), generally in the Deep South and Midwest, union influence is limited in general. In regards to abortion, the right of women to terminate a pregnancy is generally contrasted with the rights of unborn children.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, pressure from the government for more surveillance of suspected terrorist cells activities has led to heightened criticism of the government's violation of people's privacy and of control measures that do not respect suspected terrorist prisoners' dignity. In the aftermath of those attacks, there have been signs from the Federal government of a noticeable shift away from Constitutional safeguards traditionally afforded American citizens, notably:
- Two Pakistani Americans allegedly affiliated with the Islamic militant group Harakat ul-Ansar were arrested in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities and held and allegedly tortured in a Pakistani jail. The two allege that they were interrogated by men flashing FBI agent shields. [2]
- The detention without charge, for months on end, of United States citizens suspected of ties to insurgents in Iraq (for instance, for carrying washing machine timers in their car trunks). [3]. (The Associated Press reported on July 7 2005, that the United States was holding five Americans in Iraq.)[unverified]
- The arrest, without charge, of large numbers of Muslim men as "material witnesses" in cases related to Terrorist activities in the United States.[4].
Slavery and racial discrimination[edit]
At the time of the American Revolution, slavery was an established institution, especially in the southern states. The "peculiar institution" was a potentially contentious issue at the Philadelphia Convention. In order to maintain unity among the former colonies, the Three-Fifths Compromise counted slaves as three-fifths of a person, for the purposes of allocating Congressional representation, and a guarantee of tax-free slave imports was written into the document, but only for a limited time. Slavery continued, but remained a controversial national issue, generating considerable regional conflict over the practice and its expansion into new states. Half the states in the Union maintained slavery until 1865.
Most historians consider the economic and ethical conflicts over slavery to be one of the primary causes of the American Civil War, which began in 1861. The wartime Emancipation Proclamation of Union President Abraham Lincoln turned northern soldiers into slave liberators. Following the northern victory, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established Black citizenship rights and "equal protection".
These legal protections did not change popular sentiment, especially in the southern states, and substantial racial discrimination persisted. Discriminatory practices continued to be institutionalized in law for the next century, including Jim Crow laws and the separate but equal theory endorsed by the Supreme Court in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. It was not until 1954 when the Court reversed its decision, in Brown v. Board of Education. In time, slow cultural changes and the Civil Rights Movement won the passage of strong anti-discrimination legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Strong federal guarantees now provide the ability to sue any national, state, or local government agency for racial discrimination. Private prejudice is somewhat protected as a form of free expression and free association, but in many business dealings is illegal. Significant economic inequality exists between different racial groups.
Various Supreme Court rulings have restricted some types of affirmative action, on the grounds that they descriminate against the majority white population and non-underrepresented minorities.
Torture and abuse[edit]
Certain practices of the United States military, civilian agencies such as the CIA, and private contractors are widely criticized, with some practices allegedly amounting to torture. It should be noted that fierce debate regarding non-standard and enhanced interrogation techniques exists within the US civilian and military intelligence community, with no general consensus as to what practices under what conditions are acceptable. These practices include: extended forced maintenance of "stress positions" such as standing or squatting; psychological tricks and "mind games"; sensory deprivation; exposure to loud music and noises; extended exposure to flashing lights; prolonged solitary confinement; denigration of religion; withholding of food, drink, or medical care; withholding of hygienic care or toilet facilities; prolonged hooding; forced injections of unknown substances; sleep deprivation; magneto-cranial stimulation resulting in mental confusion; threats of bodily harm; threats of rendition to torture-friendly states or Guantánamo; threats of rape or sodomy; threats of harm to family members; threats of imminent execution; prolonged constraint in contorted positions (including strappado, or "Palestinian hanging"); facial smearing of real or simulated feces, urine, menstrual blood, or semen; sexual humiliation; beatings, often requiring surgery or resulting in permanent physical or mental disability; release or threat of release to attack dogs, both muzzled or un-muzzled; near-suffocation or asphyxiation via multiple detainment hoods, plastic bags, water-soaked towels or blankets, duct tape, or ligatures; gassing and chemical spraying resulting in unconsciousness; confinement in small chambers too small to fully stand or recline; prolonged underwater immersion just short of drowning (i.e. dunking); and extended exposure to extreme temperatures below freezing or above 120 °F (48 °C). These practices have resulted in a number of deaths. According to Human Rights First, as many as 46 detainees have been murdered or tortured to death in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. [5]
Torture and abuse is strictly illegal and punishable within US territorial bounds. The legality of abuse occurring on foreign soil, outside of usual US territorial jurisdiction, is however somewhat murky. Accordingly, the United States Administration creates an ad-hoc category called unlawful combatants, that have no basis in U. S. or international law, to deprive such persons of protection under the Geneva Convention as prisoners of war, and are keep and interrogated them on foreign soil. Both United States citizens and foreign nationals are occasionally captured outside of the United States and transferred to secret US administered detention facilities, sometimes being held incommunicado for periods of months or years. Overseas detention facilities are known to be or to have been maintained at least in Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Cyprus, Cuba, Diego Garcia, and unspecified South Pacific island nation(s). In addition, individuals are suspected to be or to have been held in temporary or permanent US controlled facilities in Indonesia, El Salvador, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Israel, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, Germany, and Scotland. There are also allegations that persons categorized as prisoners of war have been tortured, abused or humiliated; or otherwise have had their rights afforded by the Geneva Convention violated. In 2004 photos showing humiliation and abuse of prisoners leaked from Abu Ghraib prison, causing a political and media scandal in the US.
The detention camps at the US Naval base of Guantánamo Bay, hosting over 500 detainees, have gained notoriety in recent years. Some detainees have been held for up to four years without charge or trial. Detainees have included American citizens and children as young as 11 year old. Though often criticized for being denied due process, all detainees have received review before Combatant Status Review Tribunals subsequent to US Supreme Court rulings.
Freedom of expression[edit]
- Main article: freedom of speech in the United States
In the United States, like other liberal democracies, freedom of expression (including speech, media, and public assembly) is seen as an important right and is given special protection. According to Supreme Court precedent, the federal and lower governments may not apply prior restraint to expression. There is no law punishing insults against the government, ethnic groups, or religious groups. Symbols of the government or its officials may be destroyed in protest, including the American flag. Significant legal limits on expression per se include:
- Crimes involving sexual obscenity, solicitation, fraud, specific threats of violence, or disclosure of classified information
- Civil offenses involving defamation, fraud, or workplace harassment
- Federal Communications Commission rules governing the use of broadcast media
- Ordinances requiring mass demonstrations on public property to register in advance, and sometimes to use specific venues (see free speech zone)
Some laws remain controversial due to concerns that they infringe on freedom of expression. These include the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Such laws can be brought before the federal courts to determine their constitutionality, but the expense and time required is often prohibitive. Other recent issues include military censorship of blogs written by military personnel in Iraq.
In two high profile cases, grand juries have decided that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller must reveal their sources in cases involving CIA leaks. Time magazine cooperated with authorities after exhausting its legal appeals, and Mr. Cooper eventually agreed to testify. Ms. Miller was jailed for 85 days before cooperating. U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that the First Amendment does not insulate Time magazine reporters from a requirement to testify before a criminal grand jury that's conducting the investigation into the possible illegal disclosure of classified information.
Other journalists who've been legally pressured to provide information to investigators include Tim Russert, who moderates NBC's "Meet the Press," Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, and syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak.
Several foreign journalists including British reporter Elena Lappin who arrived in the USA without an I-visa have been jailed and deported since the 2001 terrorists attacks. Citizens of many Western countries are exempt from a U.S. visa requirement intended mainly for tourists. However, they must declare that they are not representing the "foreign information media." This requirement is outside the norms of other democratic countries, and many journalists entering the USA were not aware of it. In 2005, the United States territory was ranked 44th in the annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders.
Death penalty[edit]
- See also death pentalty
The United States, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore are the only "developed nations" to use capital punishment in practice. This practice is controversial. Death penalty opponents regard the death penalty as inhumane and criticize it for its irreversibility and claim that it lacks a deterrent effect. Further, opponents often point to overrepresentation of blacks on death row as evidence of the unequal racial application of the death penalty (2003 [6]). It is the official policy of the European Union and of a number of non-EU nations to achieve global abolition of the death penalty. For this reason the EU is vocal in its criticism of the death penalty in the US and has submitted amicus curiae briefs in a number of important US court cases related to capital punishment. While criticism of the death penalty within the United States is strong among activist groups, public support varies regionally. The death penalty has been largely abolished in the Northeast, while the South and West continue to conduct executions. Texas overwhelmingly leads the United States in executions, with 359 executions from 1976 to 2006. The second-highest ranking state is Virginia, with 94. A 2002 Houston Chronicle poll of Texans found that when asked "Do you support the death penalty?" 69.1% responded that they did, 21.9% did not support and 9.1% were not sure or gave no answer.
A ruling on 2005 March 1 by the United States Supreme Court prohibits the execution of people who committed their crimes when they were under the age of 18. Between 1990 and 2005, Amnesty International recorded 19 executions in the United States for crime committed by a juvenile.
National security exceptions[edit]
The United States government has on several occasions claimed exceptions to guaranteed rights on grounds of protecting national security. It typically invokes exceptions in wartime or during international conflicts short of war (such as the Cold War). In some instances the federal courts have allowed these exceptions, while in others the courts have decided that the national security interest was insufficient.
Sedition laws have sometimes placed restrictions on freedom of expression. The Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by President John Adams during an undeclared naval conflict with France, allowed the government to punish "false" statements about the government and to deport "dangerous" immigrants. The Federalist Party used these acts to harass supporters of the Democratic-Republican Party. Congress passed another broad sedition law during World War I. Its provisions were so strict that the government imprisoned one Hollywood director for making a film about the American Revolution because it depicted the British unfavorably. These laws lapsed or became inactive at the end of the conflict.
Presidents have claimed the power to imprison summarily, under military jurisdiction, those suspected of being combatants for states or groups at war against the United States. Abraham Lincoln invoked this power in the American Civil War to imprison Maryland secessionists. In that case, the Supreme Court concluded that only Congress could suspend the right of habeas corpus, and the government released the detainees. During World War II, the United States interned thousands of Japanese-Americans on fears that Japan might use them as saboteurs. In the recent campaign against terrorist groups, the government has detained suspected al Qaeda affiliates like Yaser Esam Hamdi, who also had his citizenship revoked.[unverified]
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution forbids unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant, but some administrations have claimed exceptions to this rule to investigate alleged conspiracies against the government. During the Cold War, the FBI established COINTELPRO to infiltrate and disrupt left-wing organizations, including those that supported the rights of black Americans. More recently the USA PATRIOT Act has been attacked as eroding Fourth Amendment protections.
National security, as well as other concerns like unemployment, has sometimes led the United States to toughen its generally liberal immigration policy. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 all but banned Chinese immigrants, who were accused of crowding out American workers. Today foreign nationals can be detained or deported for minor infractions, although deportation is uncommon. The government is sometimes accused of skirting the required legal procedures. Tracking of immigrants has also increased as part of the anti-terrorism campaign, so that foreigners arriving by air are now subject to mandatory fingerprinting and photography. Since 2002, male adults from any of two dozen countries, most of them Muslim, have been subject to Special Registration. The United States is sometimes criticized for the effects of its border control efforts; for instance, between 1998 and 2004, 1,954 persons are officially reported to have died along the U.S.-Mexico border.
As of 2004 the United States had the highest percentage of people in prison of any nation. At a rate of incarceration of 726 inmates per 100,000, the United States has the highest reported rate in the world, well ahead of the Russian rate of 532 per 100,000. In 2004, more than 2.1 million Americans, or roughly 1 out of every 138, were in prisons or jails, a figure which represented one third of the world's prison population. To illustrate these figures, if the United States had the same rate of incarceration as Japan or China, only about 100,000 people would be in jail. [7]
Because the legal system has imposed liability upon employers for negligence in hiring ex-convicts and in supervising them, many employers now make background checks a mandatory part of the hiring process. As a result, prisoners who are released often have difficulty finding jobs and often return to crime to support themselves.
According to Human Rights Watch, "black men [in 2000] were eight times more likely to be in prison than white men". [8] According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, approximately 40.2% of the prison population is black, while 32.1% of the population is Hispanic, [9] with several enquiries and critics commenting negatively on the use of racial profiling and the overrepresentation of minorities in American prisons.
Sexual abuse in United States prisons is believed by many to be widespread. It has been fought against by organizations such as Stop Prisoner Rape, some of whom allege that some wardens use sexual abuse as a control tool in the prisons.
The United States also has "supermax prisons", where the most dangerous prisoners are kept in soundproofed solitary confinement for 23 hours a day with almost no human contact. They are often defended as appropriate for mass murderers, but there have been reports that some nonviolent prisoners have been sent to supermaxes.[unverified]
In many states, those convicted of felony offenses are banned from voting. These laws have a much greater effect on minorities, especially African Americans, as they are more likely to be convicted of felonies. In some United States cities, for example, half of all black men cannot vote, and in states such as Florida and Alabama, as many as a third of black men cannot vote. For this reason, the constitutionality of this practice is likely to be tested in the United States Supreme Court in due course. (see Count Every Vote Act)
Health and the family[edit]
In recent years several human rights issues regarding health and the family have been widely debated across the United States. The first is the question of whether a woman has a right to terminate a pregnancy or, as it is cast by opponents of abortion, whether the unborn child has a right to life. Although a Supreme Court decision (Roe v. Wade) established that most laws against abortion violate a constitutional right to privacy - it should be noted that this "right" appears nowhere in the Constitution - opponents of that decision have been pressing for the appointment of judges who might reverse that ruling.
At the other end of life, are the questions of whether a terminally-ill person has the right to decide the time of death (euthanasia) and whether the families of patients who have permanently lost all brain activity can end medical care or stop feeding. Both questions have been hotly contested and families are sometimes forced to endure lengthy court battles.
Unlike many other industrialized countries, the United States does not treat health care as a fundamental human right and provides publicly funded medicine only to people falling into certain limited categories. This has resulted in a wide gap in the quality of treatment between those who can afford health insurance, or who have it provided as an employee benefit, and those who do not. On the other hand, some have alleged that the US federal government pays more for health care than some other national governments, in part because the uninsured tend to seek care only once conditions become serious, and to use emergency rooms (which are required by law to serve even those who cannot pay) as primary-care facilities for conditions such as ear infections. (See Health care in the United States and Canadian and American health care systems compared for more details.)
A major reason for this is the ascendancy of the Republican Party (especially in 1980 and 1994), which strongly opposes universal health care as "socialized medicine" and "big government". Another reason is the opposition from powerful insurance lobbyists, who worked in concert with the Republicans to defeat the health care reforms proposed in 1994 by then-President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton. The Republican Party and insurance industry has promulgated stories (many unverified) of substandard care and waiting lists in Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries as reasons for the United States to not adopt universal health care.
While some countries such as Canada and Spain have recognized same-sex marriage, the issue remains hotly contested in the United States. There has recently been talk of defining marriage as one man and one woman by directly writing it into of the U.S. Constitution; which would rule out all homosexual marriages. As of 2005, same-sex marriage has official status only in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, though some states offer similar privileges to same-sex couples. (See Same-sex marriage in the United States).
Assessments of human rights organizations[edit]
Amnesty International states for the year 2000:
- Police brutality, disputed shootings and ill-treatment in prisons and jails were reported. In May the U.N. Committee against Torture considered the initial report of the USA on implementation of the U.N. Convention against Torture. Eighty-five prisoners were executed in 14 states bringing to 683 the total number of people executed since 1976. Those executed included individuals who were children under 18 at the time of their crimes, and the mentally impaired.
In 2005 the organization expressed alarm at the erosion in civil liberties since the 9/11 attacks. According to Amnesty:
- The Guantánamo Bay detention camp has become a symbol of the United States administration's refusal to put human rights and the rule of law at the heart of its response to the atrocities of 11 September 2001. It has become synonymous with the United States executive's pursuit of unfettered power, and has become firmly associated with the systematic denial of human dignity and resort to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that has marked the USA's detentions and interrogations in the "war on terror".[10]
Amnesty also condemned the Guantánamo facility as "the gulag of our times," which raised heated conversation in the United States. The purported legal status of "unlawful combatants" in those nations currently holding detainees under that name has been the subject of criticism by other nations and international human rights institutions including Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC, in response to the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan, published a paper on the subject The legal situation of unlawful/unprivileged combatants (IRRC March 2003 Vol.85 No 849). See Unlawful combatant. China has criticized racial discrimination in its annual China's Human Rights Record of the United States. HRW cites two sergeants and a captain accusing U.S. troops of torturing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. [11]
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
- U.S. Department of State- Human Rights
- United Nations- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- United Nations- Human Rights
- UN investigator who exposed U.S. army abuse forced out of his job
- Current US-related reports from Amnesty International
- China section of "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices -- 2001" (United States Department of State)
- China's report on U.S. human rights records (all from People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China):
- "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2000"
- "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2001"
- "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003"
- "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004"
- Human Rights Record of the U.S. in 2005
|This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article Human_rights_in_the_United_States on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article


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This session looks at the question of how students can master basic skills. Three approaches are highlighted--college readiness partnerships, summer bridge programs, and learning communities--, followed by a discussion of where to invest scarce college resources.
Download the PDF.
Type: Lectures & Talks
Location: Orlando World Center Marriott, Crystal Ballroom, Salon F
Date & Time: 4/23/2012, 9:15:00 AM - 10:15:00 AM
Website: http://www.aacc.nche.edu/newsevents/Events/convention2/Pages/default.aspx


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Latest Hairstyles
This is such a flattering hair style. She has a long deep side part which allows for a sweeping fringe. The hair especially at the top is full of body. The ends of her hair have been flicked out and this is very easy to do. Add some gel onto the finger tips and then form the ends of the hair into the desired position.This hair has been layer cut which is to the shoulders. The long fbangs gives a sultry look. This cut is fresh, flirty and fun.Here is an incredible lush hair colour of medium brown with red highlights.
L Salon & Color Group


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Playing Field Location
Playing Field Information
We are providing only the address at this time, there has been an error in the MAPQUEST link application. While we work on a resolution, we are providing the street address information and provided notes to playing fields. In addition, we are providing a DIRECT link to MapQuest - from which you can generate driving directions. Shortly we will restore the Mapping function.
Below you will find the address to Playing Field PADDOCK for LINNOTES: 95/ 128 North. Take exit 28B(Trapelo Road-Lincoln). Follow Trapelo Road from the exit for about 2 1/2 miles. Turns left at the large cement planter -this will be Lincoln Road. Proceed on this road for about 1/2 mile; you will see school signs on the right. Once on Ballfield Road (the Lincoln Campus) bear right around the field circle.
|Field Name
|Street Address
Get your Directions
Clearly we want to restore the old functionality between BAYS and MapQuest. However, in the mean time we have prepopulated the MapQuest address box with the field address above. If you click on the submit button you will be REDIRECTED to MapQuest, and can then generate your personal directions. We appreciate your patience while we correct this mattter.


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June 7, 2013Events
Tiffany & Co | S/S 2013 Campaign
Enamored with this Tiffany's campaign! So romantic + glamorous. -- Tiffany & Co Models: Doutzen Kroes, Arizona Muse, Liu Wen, Shalom Harlow, Liya Kebede + Karen Elson Photographer: Michael Thompson Styled by: Paul Cavaco Hair + Make-up: Serge Normant + Gucci Westman


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-T / T / +T | Comment(s)
Thursday, November 14, 2013
BAE Systems Satcom for UAS Test Proves Successful
British engineers have demonstrated the use of Ka-band satellite communications (Satcom) to transfer large amounts of data between unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), BAE Systems said Tuesday.
[Taranis, a prototype unmanned combat aircraft developed by BAE Systems was unveiled in 2011. Photo, courtesy of BAE Systems.]
As aviation authorities in the U.S. and Europe prepare to integrate more unmanned aircraft into civil airspace, they need to be able to securely and rapidly transfer large amounts of data during missions. Satellite communications networks have become increasingly more congested, making it difficult to find enough spectrum for unmanned aircraft to securely operate on.
To address this issue, engineers from BAE Systems, space systems provider Astrium and satellite provider Avanti Communications have been collaborating over the past two years to develop a method for using Ka-band satellite communications to transfer data between unmanned aircraft.
Ka-band is a fast and rarely used satellite network that enables greater volumes of traffic to be transmitted compared to C-band and Ku-band. Over the next decade, demand for Ka-band satellite capacity is expected to keep growing, according to NewSat, a satellite communications company based in Australia.
During a recent trial at Astrium's manufacturing facility in Poynton, Cheshire, the team connected a BAE Systems UAS mission system and ground control station to the Astrium Air Patrol Ka-band satellite communications system, which was in turn absorbed by an Astrium-built communication platform, BAE said.
In an effort to replicate a moving unmanned aircraft, the mission system was bolted down to a moving platform and the systems were tested as if they were on an aircraft flying a real mission.
According to BAE Systems, the team transferred mission system software over the satellite network completing four "hops" from the testing facility in Cheshire, to the satellite and from the satellite to the Goonhilly Downs station in Cornwall and back again.
"Transferring data in this way offers distinct advantages especially for UAVs which need to quickly and securely transfer large amounts of data during mission phases," said John Airey, of the Future Combat Air Systems business.
"This latest trial proved our software and hardware can operate over such an advanced satellite communications link without presenting any major integration problems.
"As UAV technology becomes more complex and the demand for these kind of connections greater; it will be those businesses at the forefront of this technology which will prosper," said Airey.


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Student strike against tuition hike #5
An agreement has been reached. Infos to follow.
The student organizations will not be doing a press conference. Hmm.
I can't think or comment right now about the injuries to demonstrators, while the delegates were cheering Charest inside.
As for an agreement being reached, Nadeau-Dubois made a comment yesterday about no agreement being possible unless fees are not increased in fall 2012. I'll look for the exact quote - but it sounded like a signal that CLASSE might be prepared to end or suspend the strike if there were a postponement (or moratorium) of the hikes, while further talks continue. Maybe it's just my too-long union experience looking for cryptic messages. But the PQ had also previously called for the hikes to be cancelled at least for 2012.
Short of that, I can't imagine all the student organizations agreeing to stop the strike without declaring total surrender.
We shall see.
Our post-secondary school system is fucked big time, so it is no wonder the Cons are trying to bring in foreign-workers at lower wages. And of course this is not a racist policy. Sure it isn't.
Guidance counsellors in secondary schools are basically a waste of time.
For a better future these students would be much better off going into the trades, at least for 90% of them. Where else will you be able to eventually earn $100,000 a year and have no school debts.
I do agree however that schooling should be free to the students and paid for out of general tax revenues.
If young Canadians want to have a good future take a serious look at Germany. Now that is a country with a future.
..i wait with bated breath!
UQAM Sociologist Eric Pineault gives a message to Canada's anglophones
great video
UQAM Sociologist Eric Pineault's message to English Canada in regards to Quebec civil society uprising.
http://cutvmontreal.ca/videos/1102Austerity can be fought !
One element that is new is the determination of the movement to continue on and on, even though day in day out columnists, editorialists and the media in general are supporting Charest's position, publishing their supporters Op ed pieces calling for law and order, repression and painting the students as dangerous and violent terrorists. And this bullying is not working, the movement is evermore determined, and public opinion is less and less supportive of the government. This weekend will be a big test. The liberals are holding a strategic congress, which they have moved from Montreal to Victoriaville, a mid size town outside of the Monteal – Québec corridor. Hundred of buses have been reserved.
The pundits (like Margerat Wente's ridiculous column this week, so Marie Antoinette….) have been predicting the implosion of the movement since March… they are so disconnected. The don't understand the movement, nor the political culture that underpins it.
We are seeing a political rift in Québec society between those mobilized for change and a chummy and tired elite that is clinging to a model that people don't believe in anymore. The students, some workers in the manufacturing sector, members of the northern communities, all are now mobilized against this government.
The strike is not over yet. The "proposition", which all student groups apparently signed on, will be submitted to members. Details of the proposition will be made public at 8 PM. (Unless they leak out earlier...)
Good news: doctors no longer fear for the life of the student who was said to be between life and death. Nobody is in a coma.
Bad news: one student has definitely lost an eye.
Quebec student leaders agree to end boycott
Quebec's education minister has confirmed that student leaders have reached a deal with the Quebec government to end the students' boycott of classes.
Quebec's four student groups, leading the fight against proposed university tuition fee hikes, have been in closed-door negotations in Quebec City with Education Minister Line Beauchamp and the head of the Treasury Board, Michelle Courchesne since 4:00 p.m. Friday.
So far no details of the agreement have been announced.
The announcement follows the news that one student suffered a serious eye injury as well as life-threatening head wounds during a demonstration in Victoriaville, Que. Friday night. He will need surgery. Another man is in hospital with non life-threatening head injuries....
A protester lost use of an eye after he was wounded in a savage riot in Quebec that broke out during a protest over tuition increases, health officials said Saturday.
The demonstrator is one of two young men admitted to hospital with serious injuries following the violent confrontation outside a Quebec Liberal Party convention in Victoriaville.
The other man was admitted with fractures to his face and skull, along with a cerebral contusion.
A local health official, Josee Simoneau, also said Saturday that a woman was also hit in the face suffering serious injury.
In all, nine people were taken to hospital, including three police officers.
Quebec provincial police made 109 arrests in connection with the riot _ many of them after pulling over school buses that were returning late Friday to Montreal.
Nicole Lamy, a 51-year-old mother with two children who are taking part in the protests, blamed the escalation of violence on Premier Jean Charest's government.
``It's very sad to see this happen,'' she said. ``The contempt this government has shown students...''
Quebec provincial police, meanwhile, pointed the finger at a small number of people who chose to stick around after things turned violent.
``We never lost control,'' Capt. Jean Finet said at a Saturday news conference.
``Most of the people who didn't want that kind of thing to happen, they left.''
The Liberals moved their convention to Victoriaville from Montreal to try to get away from the protests rocking Quebec.
(QUÉBEC) Une entente de principe pour dénouer le conflit étudiant a été convenue entre Québec et les quatre associations étudiantes, a annoncé le gourvernement samedi.
google translate:
(QUEBEC) A tentative agreement to resolve the conflict student has been agreed between Quebec and the four student associations, Governement announced Saturday.
The representatives of the Quebec Federation of University Students (FEUQ), the Quebec Federation of College Students (FECQ), the Coalition off the Association for Student Labor Solidarity (CLASS) and the Table de concertation du Québec student (TACEQ) have all signed the agreement.
"To end the current conflict, we arrived at common ground between all parties involved. I salute the friendly nature of the exchanges that took place during the last hour, "said Ms. Beauchamp, in the press release issued by the government.
Student leaders refuse to disclose the contents of the government's offer. The striking students will vote on the bid meeting.
The main union leaders, Réjean Parent (CSQ), Louis Roy (CSN) and Michel Arsenault (FTQ), which were around the table, were satisfied.
President of the Federation of CEGEPs, Jean Beauchesne, who also attended the meeting, provides a return to classes of students who are on strike.
There are currently 164,508 students and college students on 485 832 on strike.
More details to come.
There are rumors flying around that (a portion of...?) the hike would be maintained but "compensated" by a reduction in ancillary fees ("frais afférents").
ETA: yep, this seems more and more likely. I wonder what the details are—I'm told a certain "devil" lies there. Really doesn't seem like it's a given that this is going to be accepted.
The thing is, however, that ancillary fees vary widely from one institution to the other. And often, they don't come close to reaching the 1778 number... We'll see.
ETA2: new rumor: on top of that, a 6-month moratory. Now this makes more sense.
This is a real question. Not a troll. I just received an email from someone very senior in my Canadian operation. His question was very simple. "How do I know who was involved in this mess or do I simply have to refuse to hire anyone that is/was a student in Quebec this year?"
Wish this was a joke but it isn't.
"How do I know who was involved in this mess or do I simply have to refuse to hire anyone that is/was a student in Quebec this year?"
Fair question. Tell him the safest course is to refuse to hire any current Québec students. No matter where they stand on the tuition issue, they all hate shitheads and are prone to sabotaging their operations.
Unionist, you seem to think this is a bit of a joke. Fact is, this was a real question from a major Canadian employer.
And I'm not sure if these students have thought about what their actions mean to the students behind them. Since they (or at least the ones who are participating in this) won't complete their year, what happens to positions for students who are trying to gain entrance. Or doen't they count?
Amir Khadir, MNA, speaks to Russia Today concerning the student movement in Quebec.
Unionist, you seem to think this is a bit of a joke. Fact is, this was a real question from a major Canadian employer.
That's what worries me. It augurs poorly for the Canadian economy, having major employers who are driven by prejudice and ignorance.
And I'm not sure if these students have thought about what their actions mean to the students behind them.
That's the amazing thing about this movement. Many thousands of the strikers will be affected very little, or in some cases not at all, by the fee hikes, given the phasing over five years. The main beneficiaries of a victorious strike will be future cohorts of students who are now in high school or younger. The sheer selfless determination of the students is one of the most inspiring features of this movement. I can see how that would instil confusion and even fear in those who live only for themselves and who see society as their enemy.
That's the amazing thing about this movement. Many thousands of the strikers will be affected very little, or in some cases not at all, by the fee hikes, given the phasing over five years. The main beneficiaries of a victorious strike will be future cohorts of students who are now in high school or younger. The sheer selfless determination of the students is one of the most inspiring features of this movement. I can see how that would instil confusion and even fear in those who live only for themselves and who see society as their enemy.
Hell, yeah!
There are rumors flying around that (a portion of...?) the hike would be maintained but "compensated" by a reduction in ancillary fees ("frais afférents").
The Quebec government said it would not reduce the impending tuition hikes set to and maintains its offer made on April 27. The offer would see tuition increased by $254 each year for seven years, resulting in a total increase of $1,778. However, the amount students pay would be offset by a reduction in ancillary fees.
From fall 2012 onwards, a hike of $127 per semester – amounting to $254 per year – would be offset by a reduction of $127 in ancillary fees per semester.
According to Martine Desjardins, the FEUQ president, ancillary fees consists of 20 per cent of students fees. She cited McGill students as paying around $1,000 a year in ancillary fees as an example.
To reach the offset, the government is to create a provisional council to look into ways of reducing university spending. The money that will be reduced by the council will be reinvested into universities to reduce student contribution. A permanent council is also to be established.
"We're saying that it's possible to free up billions and billions of dollars, and that money will be reinvested into students." said Léo Bureau-Blouin, the president of FEUC.
"But the strike is not over. It's going to be up to students to decide whether or not to accept the offer," he added.
Here's an interpretation, along with links to images of the leaked document, which is troubling, inasmuch as it suggests that the actual document which the student reps signed was different from the understanding they had reached. If accurate, this would mean that the annual "savings" returned to students could not exceed the annual amount of "frais afférents", or non-tuition fees, which are said to average between $500 and $800 per year. That would mean that after 2 or 3 years, the annual fee increases (which are unchanged from Charest's announcement last week) would exceed the maximum possible savings returnable to students - even if the actual savings generated by improvement university management were potentially much higher.
Here it is (in French) along with links to the document:
Offre du 5 mai: Seulement 550$ de réduction possible?
Where's Bärlüer, or anyone else who cares to weigh in??
Pact would offset tuition increase Student assemblies to vote on offer The three main leaders of Quebec's 12-week tuition strike explained Saturday night that the tentative agreement they reached with the government calls for creation of a "provisional council'" that would review spending by universities, turning over the savings the council finds to reduce extra fees that students pay on top of their tuition fees.
In the first year the offer calls for reducing extra fees by $127, while the two sides work on transforming the provisional council into a permanent council, with an ongoing mandate to review university spending and to return 100 per cent of the savings back to students.
Extra fees in Quebec universities average $537 a year, and the students estimate they will rise to $900 as the $1,778 tuition hike, which they would agree to as part of the settlement, is implemented.
"The strike does not end," said Léo Bureau-Blouin, adding, "there will be no recommendation" to students on whether to accept the offer.....http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Pact+would+offset+tuition+increase/6573471/story.html#ixzz1u3d5acSj
The tentative agreement doesn't really amount to much as far as I can see, unless there's more than has been publicly released so far. I don't see any movement to abolishing tuition fees altogether, which some have argued would be possible if the government had its priorities right. I was hoping for the Quebec students to set the precedent which would eventually spread aceross Canada. I guess that'll remain just a dream for now.
106 arrested in the most violent police intervention since the beginning of the strike.
After 4 hours of a demonstration that saw the SQ severely injure four demonstrators, one fighting for his life and another that lost an eye, CUTV and the Students left the town.
Three buses of students returning from the protest were later stopped en-route to Montreal and returned to Victoriaville. The passengers were processed by the SQ, receiving charges of illegal assembly and rioting, finally returning to Montreal in the late morning.
Another take (very negative) on the substance of the "offer" or "agreement" (whichever it is):
Résumé de l'offre du 5 mai 2012
Jean-François Lisée has put together pages 2-5 of the "agreement", as photographed by Antoine Robitaille of Le Devoir, who has his own explanatory article here.
It's not really my place to comment on the quality of the content. Students have been waging a courageous and self-sacrificing struggle, and the decision will be up to them. I should note, though, that the Twitterverse is running very heavily against, but I've seen "silent majorities" quietly develop in cases similar to this. We will see what people have to say in the hours and (few) days to come.
Why does Martine Desjardins say this:
Martine Desjardins, présidente de la FEUQ, estime qu'il sera «facile» de dénicher des économies équivalentes aux 125$ ajoutés par session pendant sept ans (254 $ par année, 1778 dollars au total) par le plan du gouvernement Charest de hausse des droits de scolarité.
First, even assuming that:
- the Conseil provisoire (which is composed of a majority of members who, a priori, as a matter of principle, are favorable to raising student contributions [11 against 8]) agrees on the savings to be made;
- the Minister agrees to implement on the recommandation of the Conseil provisoire (it is a "recommandation");
the savings that are to be deducted from the mandatory institutional (or ancillary) fees are limited by the ceiling of what those ancillary fees are. So there is no possible universe, even accounting for an eventual increase over the years in ancillary fees that would comply with government regulations, in which the entirety of the tuition fees hike can be compensated by an equivalent decrease in ancillary fees. (I note in passing that the mechanism by which the savings are to be deducted from the ancillary fees is only formally envisioned for Fall 2012. I assume the understanding is that the exercise of "finding" the savings/deducting them from the ancillary fees would only be done once.)
The other question is, how is this going to work, concretely? Suppose the Conseil provisoire agrees on a shitload of savings—say 1000$. Are McGill students, who have (some of?) the highest ancillary fees going to benefit more from the exercise than UQ students, who pay much lower ancillary fees? That seems so insanely inequitable as to not make any sense.
I think that the agreement is actually mostly intended to push back the issue so that it becomes a post-electoral matter.


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Sad story encourages me
To the Editor:
Any charges of child abuse are extremely hard and depressing to read about, but in the recent case of Father Leo Koppala of Blue Earth, there are three crucial "silver linings."
First and foremost, an 11-year old girl was so brave and thankfully found the courage to immediately tell a trusted adult what she allegedly experienced at the hands of Father Koppala. Secondly, the trusted adult was brave and smart enough to contact local law enforcement immediately. And third, the police and prosecutors moved quickly to arrest Father Koppala. There is no doubt in my mind that the actions listed above will serve to protect others and prevent future harm.
These actions are encouraging to me. As a girl who grew up in rural Minnesota, I was repeatedly molested by a Catholic priest. Sadly, in my situation, he managed to flee overseas to his native country of India. But my case and these new charges against Father Koppala show that times are changing and that sometimes, when victims speak up about such heinous crimes, their actions help to protect other children.
My hopes are that the people in the Blue Earth area will take time to feel their emotions, reach out to others and start a community conversation on protecting the vulnerable. Also, I hope that others who learn about or suspect child sex crimes, by anybody, will step forward, get help and contact their local police department.
Megan Peterson, co-leader
MN and NY Survivors Network
of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)
Woodside, N.Y.


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by Anton Shilov
Fujitsu, a maker of various electronics and also a developer of microprocessors, this week disclosed some additional details regarding its Venus processor. Unfortunately, the company is still unsure about availability timeframe for the chip as well as systems on its base.
According to Fujitsu, 128GFLOPs peak performance of eight-core SPARC64 VIIIfx (Venus) is 2.5 times higher compared to Intel's top-of-the-range dual-core Itanium 2, however, even with built-in memory controller Venus consumes only 33% of what Itanium 2 uses, hence, about 35W, according to PC Watch web-site.
Fujitsu SPARC64 VIIIfx processor. Image by PC Watch
It should be noted that Intel Itanium 2 chips only have two processing cores and are made using 90nm process technology, meanwhile, Fujitsu's SPARC64 VIIIfx (Venus) is made using 45nm low-power process, sports eight processing cores and is not yet available on the market. Intel plans to unveil a new breed of Itanium chips with four cores and produced using 45nm technology. It is highly likely that Fujitsu's Venus will have to compete against those chips.
Fujitsu SPARC64 VIIIfx processor, die shot. Image by PC Watch
At present Fujitsu is only testing the new processors and so far it has made no comments regarding actual availability. The only official clue is that the chips "will find themselves in applications in the course of the following years" can hardly be considered as an update.
Fujitsu's SPARC64VIIIfx is aimed at supercomputers and enterprise-class servers from Fujitsu. Theoretically, the chip could be found inside Sun's servers, however, given that Sun Microsystems was recently acquired by Oracle, the destiny of SPARC-based servers from Sun is not completely clear.