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All images copyrighted by designer
Photographed homes may have been modified from original design. Construction plans are provided as per renderings.
© copyright by designerExisting First Floor Plan:
© copyright by designerRemodeled First Floor Plan:
Stories: 1
Total Living Area: 108 Sq. Ft.
Width: 15 Ft. Depth: 7 Ft.
Smart New Kitchen (KFD02)
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Plan Specifications
A smart, new, bright and cheerful kitchen, with a much more con-nected relationship to the adjoining family room, is the result of this trim 14'-8"x 7'-4" rear addition. Even the dining room gains a few feet in length, but the main beneficiary is the kitchen, which now includes some bulk storage, in the form of a pantry, and a serving buffet to the dining room. A stylish, angled, snack counter now separates the kitchen and family room, and an equally stylish half-round window is the focal point of the new rear wall. Skylites could be added to the kitchen addition if desired.

subset: commoncrawl


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WASHINGTON, March 29 (UPI) -- Washington's global footprint, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. diplomacy, frequently accompanied by military forces, has been greatly expanded in new regions, from North Africa through the Middle East to Central Asia.
One element that these regions share is that these arid regions are all "water stressed," presenting Washington with a new diplomatic conundrum: how to deal equitably with the competing claims of riverine states competing for limited aquatic resources.
As Washington's foreign priorities are primarily military and economic, local economic issues usually are of lesser concern. But a rising issue of local concern in regions where the United States is expanding its presence rarely merits a comment in Washington -- water.
The issue has raised concerns in other international forums, with the United Nations designating March 22 as the first "World Water Day" and 2013 as the "International Year of Water Cooperation."
Water is a finite resource and population increases are increasing pressures on its equitable distribution. One billion people have no access to fresh water and 2 billion lack access to basic sanitation.
Last September during a meeting of 40 former leaders in Oslo, Norway, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said the world needs to find the equivalent of the flow of 20 Nile Rivers by 2025 to grow enough food to feed a rising global population and avoid conflicts over water scarcity.
Accordingly, on World Water Day the United Nations issued a first working definition of water security, highlighting sustainable supplies to ensure human well-being, avert water-related disasters, conserve ecosystems and aid economic and social development.
Ten years ago, former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali observed, "Water will be more important than oil this century." Given this rising importance, the possibility of conflict over the precious resource is also rising.
The problem is most acute in transboundary river basins, where a number of countries share a river course. Among the most visible of these are the Nile River basin, which encompasses 11 countries; the Tigris-Euphrates, which originates in Turkey before flowing through Syria and Iraq to join as the Shatt al-Arab before debouching into the Persian Gulf; and the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, which arise in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan before flowing westward through Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan before reaching the Aral Sea.
Given rising U.S. diplomatic and military presence in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, the question for U.S. policymakers then, if whether to favor the interests of a particular nation in one of these contested waterways or seek a regional solution? For in many of these basins, the United States has clear favorites along with those nations with whom it has chillier relations. While Egypt, the last nation the Nile transits, is a U.S. ally, upstream neighbor Sudan is most certainly not. Father east, in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, Turkey is a strong U.S. ally but the same cannot be said of downstream neighbors Syria and Iran.
In Central Asia the United States is on relatively equitable terms with the five "Stans" -- Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan -- but the United States must be seen to be evenhanded in approaching the sensitive issue of transboundary rivers. The 1,500-mile-long Amu Darya and the 1,380-mile Syr Darya, whose combined flow before massive Soviet agricultural projects were implemented, equaled the Nile.
The rivers together contain more than 90 percent of Central Asia's available water resources but upstream states are interested in building massive hydroelectric projects that the downstream countries fear will lessen water flow. Kyrgyzstan wishes to build the Kambarata hydroelectric cascade, Tajikistan the massive Rogun dam, which downstream Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan all fear could damage their agriculture.
It isn't a problem that U.S. diplomacy can ignore forever -- worldwide there are 260 international river basins, covering nearly half of the Earth's surface, along which 40 percent of the world's population lives.
Fortunately for Washington a diplomatic solution exists, should it wish to avail itself of a key piece of U.N. legislation -- the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1997 after 27 years of negotiation, whose Article 5 states, "Watercourse States shall in their respective territories utilize an international watercourse in an equitable and reasonable manner."
Rather than attempt to craft endless bilateral treaties with riverine states, which is certain to cause additional diplomatic stresses in such watercourse basins, the United States should make it an integral element of its foreign policy to urge all disputing states to ratify and adhere to the convention's terms as a basis of negotiations.
And there are indications that Congress is beginning to take an interest in water issues. On March 13 a briefing was convened to look into water resource management issues in Central Asia. It was led by U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of the Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats Subcommittee of the House of Representatives.
Highlighting the importance in giving Washington an in-depth view of the region's water issues, among those speaking were Uzbek Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulaziz Kamilov; Uzbek Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs chairman Sadiq Safayev; Deputy Speaker of the Uzbek Legislative Chamber Bori Alihanov and Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Water Shavkat Khamraev.
As the United States downsizes its military footprint in Afghanistan, other regional issues will inevitably arise and if the United States makes supporting the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses an integral part of its foreign policy, its impartiality will win it friends not only in Central Asia, but throughout the world's arid regions.
Such a policy will still have obstacles -- as if underscoring the intricacies of aquatic issues, the convention has yet to enter into force, as to enter into force, it requires ratification by 35 countries but only 29 have done so. While Uzbekistan has ratified the convention, it is the only Central Asian country to do so.
If the United States wishes to retain its influence in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, its policies must be seen to be evenhanded, and given the rising importance of water, ratifying the U.N. convention and then promoting it as a model for negotiation would be a good place to start, as far from raising tensions, the convention can only ease them.
(John C.K. Daly, a former United Press International staff member, is a non-resident Fellow of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington.)
(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)


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ISBN: 978-0-745-69192-3 April 2018 Polity 264 Pages
Sexual violence has become a topic of intense media scrutiny, thanks to the bravery of survivors coming forward to tell their stories. But, unfortunately, mainstream public spheres too often echo reports in a way that inhibits proper understanding of its causes, placing too much emphasis on individual responsibility or blaming minority cultures.
In this powerful and original book, Linda Martín Alcoff aims to correct the misleading language of public debate about rape and sexual violence by showing how complex our experiences of sexual violation can be. Although it is survivors who have galvanized movements like #MeToo, when their words enter the public arena they can be manipulated or interpreted in a way that damages their effectiveness. Rather than assuming that all experiences of sexual violence are universal, we need to be more sensitive to the local and personal contexts – who is speaking and in what circumstances – that affect how activists' and survivors' protests will be received and understood.
Alcoff has written a book that will revolutionize the way we think about rape, finally putting the survivor center stage.
Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Rape after Foucault
- 1. Global Resistance: A New Agenda for Theory
- 2. The Thorny Question of Experience
- 3. Norming Sexual Practices
- 4. Sexual Subjectivity
- 5. "Consent", "Victim", "Honor"
- 6. Speaking As (with Laura Gray-Rosendale)
- 7. The Problem of Speaking for Myself
- Conclusion: Standing in the Intersection
- Notes
- References
- Index
"Alcoff's groundbreaking book draws on the author's decades of experience as a scholar, an activist, and a survivor. Her nuanced and richly informed work recognizes that violence is shaped by the ways in which we talk about it and yet that that it cannot be talked away. Alcoff's account attends both to the phenomenological irreducibility of sexual violence and to the variety of ways in which it is conceptualized across the world. She argues that different understandings of violence not only affect the ways in which we think about victims and survivors; they also shape the possibilities for advocacy and resistance."
Alison M. Jaggar, University of Colorado at Boulder
"Linda Alcoff insists upon the need for — and then provides — a philosophical analysis of sexual violation that refuses to shy away from its political and social complexity. From her rejection of sexual libertarianism to her description of the ways in which sexual violence thwarts victims' ability to contribute substantially to their own sexual becoming, Alcoff's writing is as lucid as it is insightful. A major and timely contribution to the theoretical literature on a pressing social problem."
Ann Cahill, Elon University
"Alcoff's work is consistently insightful, clearly written, and well argued. She bravely tackles a number of contemporary challenges to feminist philosophy, including attacks on the epistemic authority of sexual assault victims, worries about making normative judgments about sex, difficulties with defining the concept of rape, and the political dangers of public discourse. ... The best book I have read in several years."
Debra L. Jackson, California State University, Bakersfield
"What Alcoff achieves is a deftly crafted exploration of not only how rape impacts the self, but of what constitutes 'the self' and how our selves are constantly in the making. She challenges us to rethink many of the concepts discussed so widely today, doing so in a deeply informed and reflective way."
Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books


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- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's a wonderful gift.
Häagen-Dazs last December committed $125,000 to the UC Davis Department of Entomology to establish a bee friendly garden at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, and today, the winner of the design competition takes center stage.
The winner...drum roll, please...a team from Sausalito.
The four-member team created a series of interconnected gardens with such names as Honeycomb Hideout, Nectar Nook and Pollinator Patch to win the international competition, which drew 30 entries--one from as far away as
Landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki submitted an amazing design that will be brought to life this summer on a half-acre site on the Laidlaw facility grounds. (View the 21-page design on this page
.The key goals of the garden are to provide bees with a year-round food source, to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees and to encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own.
It all started in February 2008 when Häagen-Dazs launched a national campaign to help the honey bees. They donated a total of $250,000 for honey bee research at UC Davis and Pennsylvania State University; launched an educational Web site, formed a scientific advisory committee, and created a new ice cream flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee.
And now comes the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. Or bee heaven.
"We'll not only be providing a pollen and nectar source for the millions of bees on campus, but we will also be demonstrating the beauty and value of pollinator gardens," said design competition coordinator Melissa "Missy" Borel, program manager for UC Davis'
"The winning design fits beautifully with the campus mission of education and outreach, and it will tremendously benefit our honeybees at Bee Biology," said Lynn Kimsey, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. "The garden will be a campus destination."
And it's a close destination for the 50-some colonies at the Laidlaw facility and for neighboring bees, native pollinators and other beneficial insects.
Worker bees live only four to six weeks during their peak season. Now they won't have far to travel to gather nectar, pollen and propolis in an environmentally friendly garden filled with some 40 different varieties of flowering plants.
Meanwhile, honey bee research to determine what's causing the declining bee population continues unabated.
Honey bees will never know the source of their gift, but the people who support them, care for their needs and admire them will.
It's a wonderful gift.


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New plug-in for Photoshop® and Aperture™ incorporates proprietary U Point® Technology for precise selective tonal and contrast control
San Diego, CA – July 10th, 2008 – Nik Software today announced the new Silver Efex Pro photographic plug-in for use with Adobe® Photoshop® and Apple® Aperture™, the most advanced, complete, and straightforward black-and-white solution. Silver Efex Pro uses a range of advanced imaging algorithms that protect against unwanted artifacts, a comprehensive collection of 18 emulated black-and-white film types, and a state-of-the-art grain engine that truly mimics the silver halide process and creates the highest quality black-and-white images possible from scanned or digital color photographs.
With Nik Software's patented U Point technology, Silver Efex Pro provides easy-to-use tools for direct on-image control of tonality, contrast, and structure. Precisely controlling specific areas of a photo can be achieved easily using just a few mouse clicks without the need to create complicated selections and layer masks. Silver Efex Pro combined with U Point technology offers users unprecedented control over selective tonal and contrast adjustment in black-and-white images.
"For many photographers, black-and-white is their preferred outlet for creative expression. Previously available tools often required acceptance of a one-size-fits-all solution or complex conversion techniques and endless fine tuning," said Michael J. Slater president and CEO of Nik Software. "Silver Efex Pro is truly a comprehensive and easy to use software product that is specifically designed to address the challenges that photographers face when converting images to black-and-white."
Working seamlessly within Photoshop and Aperture, Silver Efex Pro begins by presenting photographers with a basic "neutral" conversion of their color image to black-and-white. One-click adjustments can be made from a choice of over 20 preset styles from nostalgic processes like the ambrotype and tin type to classic artistic renderings, trendy high contrast, soft focus or grainy images that emulate the most popular film types and shooting styles.
This initial set of creative options can be used as is or as a starting point for photographers who wish to create and even share their own customized black-and-white styles. In addition, color filters, variable toning controls (includes sepia, selenium, split-toning and user-defined colors for maximum flexibility), vignettes, and more only add to the number of advanced stylistic effects photographers will enjoy with Silver Efex Pro.
Additional sliders for global brightness, contrast, and structure, as well as Smart Filter compatibility within Photoshop and multi-image support in Aperture provide the ultimate level of control. With U Point powered Control Points photographers have the flexibility to specifically fine tune tonality, contrast, and structure and create stunning black-and-white images.
Pricing, Availability, & Promotion with Gekko-brand Fine Art Papers Silver Efex Pro is available now for electronic delivery directly from Nik Software (www.niksoftware.com). Boxed versions will be available from Nik Software and through specialty camera retailers in August 2008. A complete list of resellers may be found at www.niksoftware.com/resellers.
Through September 15th, 2008, every copy of Silver Efex Pro sold in North America will include a free sample pack of the Gekko Fine Art Collection of papers from Pictorico. Designed especially for black-and-white prints and for use with inkjet printers, the sample pack has a retail value of $15.99 and includes two sheets each of 4 paper types: Gekko Green (Glossy) winner of the 2008 DIMA Award for best black-and-white print from a color inkjet printer; Gekko Blue (Luster); Gekko Red (Cotton); and Gekko Black (Matte).
The suggested retail price of Silver Efex Pro is $199.95. Silver Efex Pro installs as a plug-in for either Adobe Photoshop or Apple Aperture 2.1 and is available for Windows and Macintosh operating systems, including Vista and Leopard. For more information about Silver Efex Pro, including video tutorials showing the software running within Photoshop and Aperture and a free 15-day fully functional trial version, please visit www.niksoftware.com/silverefexpro.
About Nik Software Nik Software, Inc. is a privately held company that develops software solutions for the growing digital imaging and photography markets. Established in 1995, Nik Software has become the recognized leader in digital photographic filter development and produces award-winning technology and software products for digital photography and imaging professionals including U Point® technology (www.upoint.com), Dfine®, Viveza™, Color Efex Pro™, Silver Efex Pro™, and Nik Sharpener Pro™ software.
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Easter is over. My house and I breathe a conflicted sigh of relief and regret. We have been stretched to the breaking point these last few days-- full of laughter, activity and rich food. We now both rest in silence and remember the joy of the last 24 hours. It is a comfortable, easy silence, but we have not always been in such harmony, this house and I.
When we first met, I was still post-partum, breastfeeding, lonely and homeless. Not house-less, but Homeless. I yearned for my little rose-covered cottage and my cozy Small-town Southern life.
I was dazed from a long progression of low-slung block houses, wrought-iron barred windows, bright green swimming pools (some complete with families of tadpoles) and terra-cotta roof tiles.
The house search had not been kind to me. Nary a white columned front porch, picket fence, or rose arbor had I seen. Second story dormers are scarce in Orlando. Claw-foot tubs and farm sinks even scarcer. The suburbs of this city rose out of the swamps in the 80s when popcorn ceilings, florescent lighting and patterned linoleum reigned supreme.
When I first met this house, I saw not what she was, but what I thought I would make of her.
I saw the magnolia tree, but I saw it ringed with hostas. I saw the live oaks towering over a lush green yard rimmed by flower beds full of gladiolas, tulips, camellias and crocuses-- not fireant hills, aloes, pineapples and palmettos. In my mind's eye, the living room ceiling held rough-hewn beams and cozy-cushioned Adirondack chairs ringed the pool deck.
We bought the house and I waded into the warfare with a will. But I reckoned not with the force of the hundreds of years of being Not Virginia. This house has a mind of her own. She will not be made a cottage. She fought back. Her obdurate tropical foreignness resisting my attempts to re-establish the familiar Southern shabby chic ambiance of my former life, her very soil rejecting my gladiolas, tulips, camellias and crocuses. Here there be no English Tea Gardens. Here grow cacti, hibiscus, bananas and palms.
But today as I sit in my pajamas, recuperating from The Party Of The Year, I suddenly realize that over the last three years, we have reached a tentative peace, this house and I. We have formed a tentative alliance. I have not been allowed roses, but she has given me bright red geraniums.
There are no rough-hewn beams or Adirondack chairs, but she has given me pineapples, gardenias and a water slide and the back yard is strewn with confetti and egg shells, and the live oak branches echo with the laughter of friends and many children.
I do not know if this is the house where J and I will grow old, where our grandchildren will visit us and we will "retire", with the puttering and the sleeping late that we always joke about, but don't really believe will ever happen. But I do think we are no longer Homeless.


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(CBS News) On Friday, the Treasury Department will implement its "Go Direct" campaign requiring everyone getting federal benefits by paper check to switch to electronic payments. This includes Social Security and veterans benefits as well as many others.
The change might make some people, especially seniors, who like receiving their checks in the mail every month, a little nervous. In particular, this might be stressful for those over 65 years old because 45 percent of seniors do not even own a computer.
Details of government switch to paperless payments
CBS News contributor and analyst Mellody Hobson suggested that this change came about because of three main reasons.
"The big one, of course, is money. They say over 10 years they'll save about a billion dollars, and $120 million in the first year alone," she said. "The second reason is security. In 2011, 440,000 checks were lost or stolen, and $70 million worth of money was fraudulently endorsed on those, so that's a bad thing. And, lastly, for convenience. Seniors won't have to go to the banks to make deposits."
Can boomers afford to leave a legacy?
There are two ways to receive payments in place of a paper check. The first is a typical direct deposit into a bank account. However, there's also the option of a Direct Express MasterCard. It's a debit card that works just like an ATM card.
There are some exceptions to this new rule. Hobson explains that the government includes an automatic waiver for those born on or before May 1, 1921, as well as some people living in remote areas where banks are few and far, but they must apply for the waiver, and it's rumored that only about 20 percent of people who wanted a waiver were approved.
With the deadline to enroll just six days away, Hobson explained that once people have enrolled online correctly they should be very careful with their account information and confirm the money has been deposited.
"Be totally be aware of fraudsters. They're going to come out of the woodwork on this one," she said. "If you get any inbound phone calls, inbound computer solicitations, do not respond and do not give anyone your personal information."


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SACRAMENTO — California schools would get $1 billion more than proposed in January to enact stringent new "common core" academic standards, plus almost a quarter-billion dollars more as part of his education-funding overhaul, under a revised but still-tight budget proposal Gov. Jerry Brown released Tuesday.
The added K-12 funding is made possible by a cash windfall of almost $4.6 billion that the state has enjoyed in the first 10 months of this fiscal year, mostly due to better-than-expected personal income tax revenue. Proposition 98, an education funding measure passed by voters in 1988, requires that a significant chunk of that money go to schools.
But the May revision also includes a downward shift in the short-term economic outlook because the federal government did not extend the partial payroll-tax "holiday" that was in place for 2011 and 2012. That means forecasted personal income growth in 2013 has been almost halved, from 4.3 percent to 2.2 percent. That fact, coupled with the federal budget sequester, calls for renewed fiscal caution in California, the budget proposal says.
So while the picture is a bit brighter for schools, Brown's proposed general-fund spending is now $96.4 billion for the budget year starting July 1 — and that's $1.3 billion less than he proposed in January.
"For the first time in more than a decade we've got a balanced budget and it's solid," Brown said at Tuesday morning's news conference, adding: "We have money to invest in education because of Proposition 30," the sales tax and income-tax hike for the wealthy that voters approved in November.
"There are risks," Brown cautioned. "We have to be planning for the next 14 months, and the next 14 months have not yet happened. … This is a prudent budget."
Brown's revised budget still includes his plan from January to revamp education funding, directing more money to schools with disadvantaged students and giving districts more control over how to spend the state's money. The plan he released Tuesday would boost the money under local control by $240 million, to a total of $1.9 billion.
When fully implemented, it's projected that the new local-control funding formula will spend 80 cents of every dollar on base grants for every district; 16 cents in supplemental funding for every English learner, student from a low-income family, or foster child in a district; and four cents for those districts with a particularly high concentration of these students.
The "concentration funds" would only be a small part of education spending, the governor's office says, but are vital to districts facing the biggest challenges. The May revision also strengthens the proposal's accountability measures to make sure the targeted, at-risk students benefit from the money.
"I think the idea, in a Democratic Legislature, of helping the less advantaged is very persuasive," Brown said, citing the big differences in school funding between rich communities like Piedmont and poor communities like Compton. "This formula recognizes the differences in a way that is not only just, but is crucial to our future well-being."
MediCal's costs are $467 million higher than anticipated in January, mostly due to the federal government and courts either rejecting or delaying approval of earlier legislative actions, Brown's new budget plan says. But on the brighter side, the cost of borrowing for short-term cash and long-term infrastructure investments has been cut by $484 million — a result of the state's improved fiscal condition.
The new budget plan proposes $48 million more in CalWORKs welfare-to-work funding for job training and subsidized job opportunities, and $72 million more for county probation departments that are grappling with their added workloads under the state's prison realignment plan.
But although plagued by downsized staffs, service reductions and darkened courtrooms because of bone-deep budget cuts over recent years, "the judiciary is getting the same amount of money they were given the year before," Brown said. The courts will have to struggle to contain growing costs without any receiving any new resources, he added.
Environmentalists expressed dismay that Brown's revised budget plan shifts half a billion dollars of the funds generated by new cap-and-trade fees — part of the state's landmark law to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change — as a one-year loan to the state Finance Department.
"This means the governor will be delaying opportunities to use those funds to actually get critical reductions in global warming pollution at the time when all science shows that we must reduce those emissions as much and as quickly as possible," Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club California, said in a statement. "This shift in funds is extraordinarily disappointing. The governor is using bizarre accounting to 'balance' the budget and making future generations pay the price with climate disruption."
Brown in January had unveiled the first good-news state budget California has seen in years, which he said would boost investment in education, implement health-care reform and maintain fiscal stability while projecting surpluses for years to come. That budget blueprint aimed to pay down debt and create a $1 billion reserve, offering a degree of stability the Golden State hasn't seen in more than a decade.
Brown at that time had called it "a breakthrough" after years of stormy fiscal seas, but had acknowledged that California still faces budget risks such as a huge federal deficit, an uncertain economic recovery, federal or court blockage of proposed state budget cuts, and potential increases in health-care costs. And Brown had said his plan relied upon being disciplined enough to disappoint any over-exuberant lawmakers who wish to instantly restore many of the deep cuts made in recent years to social services, health care and other sectors.
Assembly Democrats last week rolled out their "Blueprint for a Responsible Budget," calling for "fiscal responsibility, a stronger middle class and less government red tape." Their plan includes putting a rainy-day fund measure on the 2014 ballot, to replace one that Democrats accepted in 2010 but don't like. They also want to speed up the state's debt payments.
But they also hope to help the cash-strapped court system, improve services for veterans and create new middle-class scholarships for college students. And state Senate Democrats hope to restore funding for MediCal adult dental care, mental health services, and job training for the poor.
Health and human services advocates and recipients planned rallies Tuesday in Oakland, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Riverside and Fresno to call for restored funding, pointing out the Golden State's sorriest claim to fame: More than one in five California children live in poverty.
California's cash situation has improved since January. State Controller John Chiang announced two weeks ago that total revenues for the fiscal year's first 10 months exceeded Brown's January projections by $4.6 billion (6.1 percent), due largely to $4.4 billion (8.5 percent) in better-than-expected personal income tax revenue. In fact, for the first time in nearly six years, California closed out a month without borrowing from internal state funds to pay its bills.
But the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office has warned that this is probably a one-time surge, largely from tax receipts of wealthy people cashing out capital gains and dividends before Congress raised their federal tax rates in January. And a more recent LAO report says that under Proposition 98, much of the new money might have to go to schools and community colleges to make up money "deferred" in previous years. Around $40 billion has been cut over the last five years, much of it from public schools, higher education and social safety-net programs.
Schools will get some relief from Proposition 30. Brown's January proposal called for spending $56.2 billion of a $97.7 billion budget on K-12 education and community colleges — up from $47 billion just two years ago.
Yet "this is not the time to break out the champagne," Brown said Tuesday, saying no matter what estimate you use for the state debt, it's still big enough to require prudence, not exuberance.
Asked about pending legislation and a proposed ballot measure to enact an oil-severance tax to raise more money for education, Brown replied: "We just got a nice tax … and I think we ought to take a deep breath and let people see how we're spending it in a wise way before we ask for anything else."
Staff writer Steven Harmon contributed to this report. Josh Richman covers politics. Contact him at 510-208-6428. Follow him at Twitter.com/josh_richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.


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Ecuador Exchange Program
Study at Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Quito or in the Galápagos Islands
Students study at one of two campuses of the Universidad San Fransisco de Quito: Cumbaya campus in Quito or at the San Cristobal campus in the Galápagos islands.
- Fall or spring. There is also an academic year option for Quito
- Curriculum:
- Quito: Enroll directly in regular university courses with Ecuadorians and other visiting students. Courses are generally worth .75 Beloit units and are taught in Spanish. Most disciplines are available including music, studio art and lab sciences.
- Quito in Transition (1 Beloit unit) may also be offered as a course taught remotely by a Beloit professor while students study in Quito
- San Cristobal: Three-week orientation in Quito includes the first of 5 modular courses. In the Galápagos students enroll in 4 additional modular courses focusing on 1) evolution ecology and conservation, 2) people politics and environment, or 3) marine ecology. Each course is worth .75 unit. Coursework is in English and includes classroom and field learning.
- Grades are awarded using the US system of A-F.
- Housing in both locations is with host families.
- Costs: Beloit College tuition, room and board, the Beloit activities fee, $50 overseas administrative fee, and a $90 wellness fee.
- Eligibility:
- Two years of college Spanish (or equivalent) required, more Spanish is preferable. Foundation in art or art history for those courses in Quito.
- San Cristobal requires a 3.0 gpa.
- Program highlights: Study Spanish and Quichua Ecuadorian cultures, volunteer opportunities, field study opportunities in the Galápagos, host family stay.


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John Boehner's (momentary) dismissal of Barack Obama as a partner in deficit-reduction talks has the effect of making him a "lame duck president," Sarah Palin wrote last night on her SarahPAC website — and she's pretty happy about it, too. Palin praises the leadership of the Republican caucus for sticking to their promises, and then reminds readers about the history of this President and the deficit:
This is the same president who proposed an absurdly irresponsible budget that would increase our debt by trillions of dollars, and whose party failed to even put forward a budget in over 800 days! This is the same president who is pushing our country to the brink because of his reckless spending on things like the nearly trillion dollar "stimulus" boondoggle. This is the same president who ignored his own debt commission's recommendations and demonized the voices of fiscal sanity who proposed responsible plans to reform our entitlement programs and rein in our dangerous debt trajectory. This is the same president who wanted to push through an increase in the debt ceiling that didn't include any cuts in government spending! This is the same president who wants to slam Americans with tax hikes to cover his reckless spending, but has threatened to veto a bill proposing a balanced budget amendment. This is the same president who hasn't put forward a responsible plan himself, but has rejected reasonable proposals that would tackle our debt. This is the same president who still refuses to understand that the American electorate rejected his big government agenda last November. As I said in Madison, Wisconsin, at the Tax Day Tea Party rally, "We don't want it. We can't afford it. And we are unwilling to pay for it."
Now the President is outraged because the GOP House leadership called his bluff and ended discussions with him because they deemed him an obstruction to any real solution to the debt crisis.
He has been deemed a lame duck president. And he is angry now because he is being treated as such.
Palin also warns the House leadership not to "get wobbly on us now," but says that the main problem with Obama is that he "leads from behind." That may not be any more clear than in the deficit/debt ceiling crisis. Obama has been boosting the crisis mode with dire warnings about a failure to act, but to this moment has not come forward with any plan to deal with it. Obama and the Democratic majority in the Senate have sat on their hands while Boehner and the House passed two specific plans to deal with the deficit, both of which the Senate rejected.
That's not just "leading from behind," it's an abdication of responsibility. My friend Hugh Hewitt wants to have all sides show their hands on negotiations right now, and isn't happy about what he hears from the Republicans, either:
President Obama and Speaker Boehner have been negotiating in public for weeks, but the public has been kept in the dark. Now both are accusing the other of unfairly presenting the facts, so it is time –long past time, in fact– for the two men to show their hands to the public.
What does the president propose to cut and by how much? What taxes does he propose to raise or deductions curtail or end, and what revenues does he predict will materialize as a result?
What are the $800 billion in new revenues the Speaker offered up? (This is a shocking number and unwise concession by the Speaker, and it may represent an enormous breach with the Pledge to America. The Speaker would be greatly served by putting these details out asap before anger on the right grows.)
"I'm not going to negotiate in public" is simple code for "the public won't support what I am proposing." The president has bluffed, cajoled and filibustered his way through a month of closed door theatrics with the assistance of a compliant MSM, and the public is weary to the bone with the Community Organizer in Chief. His petulance, self-regard and overbearing ego combines into an unprecedented persona that is both ludicrous and also alarming in that he may truly be as clueless about the economy as he often sounds.
The $800 billion seems to come from a comprehensive reform of the tax code that lowers rates, flattens the code, and — most importantly — broadens the tax base so that more people are paying into it. Better enforcement is also part of the proposal, as well as an assumption of better economic performance resulting from the tax reforms proposed. However, that information comes from leaks on the GOP side; it would be better, as Hugh says, to have these proposals made public. Most Republicans would support higher revenues that come from these kinds of systemic reforms, probably even most Tea Party supporters as well, as long as that is how the revenues get raised.
It still underscores that all of the ideas, all of the intellectual work, and all of the energy for deficit reduction has come from the Republicans. Democrats have simply refused to participate in any forward thinking of their own, and have since 2009, when the Democrats passed their last budget resolution. That's the reason that Obama is a lame-duck President, for all intents and purposes, and for that matter, Reid is thus far a lame-duck Senate Majority Leader.


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Please I'm trying to learn Tajweed on my own coz there is no qualified teacher in my area. Can you please give me some help or advice on how to go about it? Thanks
Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
There is no doubt that having a qualified teacher of the Qur'an is an essential part of learning tajweed correctly, but if it is not possible because of your location, some steps can be taken to help yourself learn. The goal though should always be to seek out a qualified teacher and this may require traveling.
1. Use a good quality recording of a known master of tajweed to listen to and try and imitate the sounds of the letters and tajweed from them. Sheikh Al-Husary and Sheikh Abdullah Basfar are both excellent reciters and their recordings are available both online and in cassette tapes.
2. Do not assume you read correctly. Always be hard on yourself in trying to evaluate the quality of your recitation. Record yourself reading and with a tape player with the two cassette feature, play the master of recitation reading an aayah, then critically listen to yourself reading that aayah and try to find the mistakes or differences in the way they read and you read.
3. There are some teachers that make themselves available online for listening and correcting students. You may need to seek them by searching on the Internet. If possible and affordable, finding a teacher that you could call and read to would be another option. This is not as good as reading in person, but certainly better than reading to no one.
4. Make a lot of dua' that Allah will provide you with a qualified teacher. It may require that you save money to travel to a teacher. This is the way of our righteous predecessors and a noble thing to do. Allah is indeed able to make the seemingly impossible, possible.
May Allah grant that you read with correct tajweed and grant you the best of teachers for the Qur'an.
You are welcome. Wa assalaam alaikum.


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Santa Cruz campus police were unwelcome crashers at a 4/20 party, confiscating a giant joint which violated pot weight limits.
University of California, Santa Cruz students rolled a 2-pound joint for their annual weed day party Saturday, far exceeding the legal weight limit of one ounce.
The students seemed pretty disappointed, booing the campus police as they departed with the joint, which appears to be around two feet long.


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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), formerly the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), administers Medicare, Medicaid, related quality assurance programs, and other programs. It also makes certain that its beneficiaries are aware of the services for which they are eligible, that services are accessible, and that they are provided in an effective manner. CMS ensures that its policies and actions promote efficiency and quality within the total health care delivery system. Questions concerning Medicare or Medicaid can be made to the above number or sent by mail or electronic mail to the agency.
Review Date: Wednesday, July 06, 2011
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The American Society of Consultant Pharmacists was founded in 1969 to represent the interests of its members and promote safe and effective medication therapy for the nation's long-term care residents. ASCP members serve the full spectrum of long-term care settings, including nursing homes, subacute care and assisted living facilities, psychiatric hospitals, facilities for the mentally retarded, correctional institutions, hospices, and home care.
Review Date: Tuesday, October 06, 2015
This is a multidisciplinary professional organization dedicated to promoting excellence in death education, bereavement counseling, and care of the dying. Visit this organization's web site and get information on certification, browse the calendar of events, and access educational resources.
Cancer Care is dedicated to helping people face the many challenges of a cancer diagnosis. Cancer Care provides free professional support services including counseling, education, financial assistance and practical help to people across the country. Since its inception in 1944, Cancer Care has offered help and hope to thousands of people with cancer, their family members and friends, as well as healthcare professionals. Cancer Care's services are available to people of all ages, with all types of cancer and at any stage of the disease. All services are provided by professional oncology social workers in three ways: online, on the telephone and face-to-face at Cancer Care locations.
Review Date: Thursday, January 15, 2009
Children's Hospice International (CHI) was founded in 1983 as a non-profit organization to promote hospice support through pediatric care facilities -- providing support and resources for children with life-threatening conditions and their families. CHI also provides education, training and technical assistance (such as international conferences) to the health care professionals who care for this patient population.
Review Date: Wednesday, October 05, 2011
This is a nonprofit organization that grants wishes to adults age 18 years and over, its mission is to enhance the quality of life for individuals and families battling terminal illnesses. This organization serves all fifty states from one small office based in Santa Barbara, and a satellite office in Los Angeles.
Review Date: Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association is a professional membership association, the purpose of which is to exchange information, experiences, and ideas; to promote understanding of the specialties of hospice and palliative nursing; and to study and promote hospice and palliative nursing research.
Review Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Hospice Foundation of America (HFA) is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to provide leadership in the development and application of hospice and its philosophy of care for terminally ill people, with the goal of enhancing the American health care system and the role of hospice within it. HFA meets it's mission by conducting programs for professional development, public education and information, participating in policy initiatives and fostering communication among those interested in end-of-life issues.
Review Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Hospice Patients Alliance, Inc. (HPA) was formed by hospice staff and other health care professionals to promote quality hospice services for all patients, whether enrolled in a licensed hospice, residing at home or in a facility. HPA provides information about hospice services, directly assists patients, families and caregivers in resolving difficulties with hospice services, and promotes better quality hospice care throughout the United States.
Review Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2013
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) was founded in 1955 as a professional organization for social workers from a merger of seven predecessor organizations. It promotes the professional growth and development of its members, establishes and maintains professional standards of practice, and advances sound social policies and legislation. Major areas of concern include social work services, employment and economic support, health and mental health, education, human and civil rights, and quality assurance. NASW is also dedicated to the elimination of racism, sexism, and poverty.
Review Date: Friday, February 12, 2010
The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) is the oldest and largest nonprofit membership organization representing hospice and palliative care programs and professionals in the United States. The organization is committed to improving end-of-life care and expanding access to hospice care with the goal of profoundly enhancing quality of life for people dying in America and their loved ones. NHPCO also works closely with other organizations that share an interest in end of life care.
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The Visiting Nurse Associations of America (VNAA) is a national association that supports, promotes and advocates for community-based, nonprofit home health and hospice providers that care for all individuals regardless of complexity of condition or ability to pay. The association's mission is to support, promote and advance the nation's network of VNAs, home healthcare and hospice providers who provide cost-effective and compassionate home healthcare to some of the nation's most vulnerable individuals, particularly the elderly and individuals with disabilities.
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If you are a creative person: stuff to make your own dread goodies. For example wool roving to make wool dreads.
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VMware in quest to marry internal, external clouds
Dreams of virtual data center
VMworld VMware plans to erase the boundaries between internal and external clouds, and it's working with over 1000 external-cloud service providers - including AT&T, SAVVIS, Terremark and Verizon Business - to pull it off.
According to VMware president and CEO Paul Maritz, speaking during the opening keynote address Tuesday morning at the VMworld conference in San Francisco, "The next stage of the journey that we're on is basically bridging to the external cloud."
The internal cloud, Maritz feels, is already handled well by the VMware's vSphere, which the company describes as a "cloud operating system" and which Maritz described as being based on "cloud mojo."
But once an enterprise establishes an internal cloud, Maritz asked, "How do we open up more choice for customers so that they can, at their discretion, decide whether they want to provision resources internally, or rent them on one of these external clouds?"
The key to answering that question, from Maritz's point of view, is the "virtual data center."
"What we're trying to do," he said, "is to work with the service-provider community so that as you build up your internal cloud, there will be a very rich ecosystem willing to work with you. And one of the key steps that we are taking to enable that is introducing over the coming months a new top-level management concept, that of the virtual data center. So we will be extending our management tools to allow you to think about your computing requirements as a collection of virtual data centers."
A virtual data center, as Maritz explained it, is "an organizational and management construct." VMware's vCloud Initiative aims to make the physical location of the resources supporting a virtual data center transparent from a management point of view.
"You can break your space up into a series of virtual data centers and address different business units, different functions - whichever way you want to slice it," he said. "And then, we will work with the service-provider community to make sure that there are external clouds that can basically take those virtual data centers, so down the road you will be able to pick up a virtual data center and slide it into an external cloud."
That's all well and good, but transparent management is also key, according to Maritz. "You want to make sure that the management looks the same, so that when you now have some of your virtual data centers inside and some of them outside, you still have a single pane of glass to manage them with."
Without identical management, he said, "If we make it so that when you move things to an external cloud and all of a sudden the management looks radically different, we haven't achieved much. We can't force you to live in a schizophrenic world."
With transparent management of virtual data centers, whether they're on an internal or external cloud, "It doesn't matter where your physical resources reside, the interface that you see - the user interface that you see - should be the same, and you can continue to do things the same," he said.
Maritz also emphasized the two-way nature of virtual data center management: "This is important for not only getting things into the cloud, but actually for getting things out of the cloud."
Confusing the Eagles with a Roach Motel, he continued, "If you think about it, if we're not careful the cloud could become the ultimate California motel - where you can check your applications into that cloud, but you can't check them back out again. So when you think about utilizing a cloud, it's as important to think, 'How am I one day going to get that application out of that cloud?' as it is to think 'How am I going to get it into that cloud?'
In its vCloud Initiative, VMware is working with external-cloud service providers to ensure that checking out is as simple as checking in.
Every new initiative needs its own tagline and logo, and Maritz provided them. A new VMware Virtualized logo can be used by service providers who, in Maritz's words, "want to signal to you their compatibility and readiness to take your loads."
The logo will identify service providers "who are willing to accept and ready to accept enterprise loads - serious computing loads - that are highly compatible with what you have inside your environment so that you can not only move [applications] out, but one day move them back if you need to."
VMware's vCloud Initiative partners, it was announced on Tuesday, include AT&T, SAVVIS, Terremark and Verizon Business, among others.
Maritz also announced two related initiatives, vCloud Express and the vCloud API Specification. The former is an on-demand, pay-as-you-go compute-access service that Maritz described as "fast and cheap - or fast and cost-effective, I should say." The latter is, as its name implies, an API set that the company has submitted to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) that's intended, according to a canned statement, "to enable consistent mobility, provisioning, management, and service assurance of applications running in internal and external clouds."
VMware turns 11 this year, and the vCloud Initiative, vCloud Express, and vCloud API Specification each are aimed at increasing its growth from a company that COO Todd Nielsen described during his keynote opener as a an outfit that simply made "cute little hypervisors". ®


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string HTML_QuickForm_Page::getButtonName (
string $actionName
Returns a name for a submit button (or an <input type="image"> control) that will invoke a specific action. This means the following: if you do
$this->addElement('submit', $this->getButtonName('foo'), 'Foo');
inside the buildForm()
method and the user later uses this button to submit the form, then the
'foo' handler (added
via addAction()
will be called.
Name of the action
returns "name" attribute for a submit button
throws no exceptions thrown
This function can not be called statically.


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On the heels of merging Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin, both Linux-based operating systems, to form MeeGo OS, the two companies have announced they are open sourcing the MeeGo repositories and moving ongoing development work into the open.
The MeeGo distribution infrastructure and the operating system base from the Linux kernel to the OS infrastructure up to the middleware layer. The MeeGo architecture is based on a common core across the different usage models, such as netbooks, handheld, in-vehicle, and connected TV. The MeeGo common core includes the various key subsystems including the core operating system libraries, the comms and telephony services, Internet and social networking services, visual services, media services, data management, device services, and personal services.
The downloaded images will boot into terminal from a USB stick or directly flashed on the device from a Linux PC. The images being made available are: Intel Atom-based netbooks, ARM-based Nokia N900, and Intel Atom-based handset (Moorestown). These images can be downloaded from meego.com/downloads. The corresponding package (RPM) repositories are at repo.meego.com/MeeGo and the git source repositories are available at meego.gitorious.org/. Bugzilla is at bugzilla.meego.com/.


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No Croutons Required - The Winner for December and the Theme for January
A new year begins and as No Croutons Required enters its 7th year, it is time to announce some changes to this long running event. It is hard to believe Jacqueline and I have been hosting this event for so many years. A huge thanks to everyone who has contributed their inspired dishes over the years to help us make NCR a success. As far as I am concerned, you can never have enough recipe ideas for soups and salads. They are a staple on most tables and it has been a pleasure to share fellow bloggers' creations with our readers.
As regular contributors will know, the focus has always been vegetarian soups and salads, and up until now, each month there was a different theme. After some discussion, Jac and I decided we are going to make the event more general for 2014. Instead of specific themes, we are going to open it up to any soup or salad that is suitable for vegetarians so that it is easier for cooks to participate each month. There is no restriction on the ingredients used in your dish and any type of cuisine is welcomed.
To participate:
Make a soup or salad that is suitable for vegetarians and showcase it on your blog.
Link back to this announcement and my blog as I am the host this month.
Add your post using the linky tool at the end of this post by the 20th of this month. Only one entry per blogger please.
The roundup will be posted at the end of the month.
And now for the winner of last month's festive photo challenge. There were three winners, but first place goes to Camilla of Fab Food 4 All. She submitted this creative and certainly delicious Festive Chocolate and Pistachio Wreath. Congrats Camilla.
Serve it up in No Croutons Required
7 comments:
- janet @ the taste space said...
+1 for destressing the food event! (and I love to contribute, go figure)
Kudos for both of you for continuing such a quality monthly blog event, girls. I always appreciate the time and effort that goes into each round-up. New veg-based soups and salads are always in season. :)
- January 1, 2014 at 7:36 PM
- Jacqueline Meldrum said...
I think it was a good decision too, I was running out of ideas, haha! Happy New Year to us and No Croutons Required Lisa xx
- January 2, 2014 at 7:42 AM
- Anonymous said...
I'm looking forward to all the healthy recipes this month.
- January 5, 2014 at 8:21 AM
- kellie@foodtoglow said...
Camilla's wreath is so pretty! Funnily - and you probably saw it - over at Lavender and Lovage, a za'atar wreath won her latest challenge. I've popped my own healthy veggie recipe onto this month's No Croutons required challenge. A perfect fit for my plant-based recipe blog. Looking forward to seeing all of the month's entries. Thanks for hosting. All best, Kellie
- January 10, 2014 at 3:59 PM
- Johanna GGG said...
I am really pleased you and Jac have decided to have open categories for the event. Too often recently I have made nice salads and soups I would have liked to enter in NCR but the themes were out of my ballpark. And I do love to support this event - one of my favourites
- January 16, 2014 at 7:53 AM
- Lisa Turner said...
Your support is always appreciated Johanna. Love your creations.
- January 16, 2014 at 9:47 AM
- Pravina Parikh said...
Looking forward to round-up. I just submitted vegetable soup using slow-cooker or crockpot.
- January 19, 2014 at 4:49 PM


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This page is a collection area for thoughts on how to construct a strategy for partnerships with independant software vendors (ISVs) and system integrators (SIs) as well as implementation notes for same. Other partners are surely on the map as well, but right now we are focussing on the ISV/SI issue.
The immediate game plan is:
As this plan is fleshed out and we achieve points one and two, the results will be taken to the MWG, e.V. and then the general community. This will allow a staged introduction with peer review at each point.
The challenges we hear from ISVs tend to fall into a few common categories:
The first two are out of scope of KDE itself, but we need to stress in our communications that we are involved in significant ways with both the LSB and Portland.
The initial target SIs will be regional companies with 5-500 employees. Obviously these are not the "big boys" but they are probably more accessible targets. The goal is to raise the number of companies that provide service and support for KDE based installations.
There is obvious appeal to SAs and companies built around their professional services given the information on the wiki. There is overlap here with SIs, but it may be worthwhile to look at the implications unique to SAs.
The SMP relies on parties with vested interests in KDE. While there are many such entities today, this partner program will be used to widen the top of the prospects funnel by creating vested interests and identifying existing ones. It should be a natural consequence for those most involved with this program will become interested over time in the SMP.
In one sense, this program and the SMP work in opposite directions: this program gives information and interface to the outside world and the SMP is a means for the beneficiaries of the program to give back to KDE.


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When the shuttle program ended almost a year ago, America became unable to send a man to space, so now the U.S. has to rely on others, and that means the Russians. And that can be a little scary.
In the past year Russia's space program has had a series of close calls and even crashes. So before a recent liftoff, Russia invoked a higher power. OK. But that is far from the only superstition that comes into play at Russia's Cosmodrome.
Tradition says that the crew gets haircuts two days before launch and they drink a glass of champagne on launch day. And the final superstition, as Yuri Gagarin did before he became the first man in space in 1961, they relieve themselves on the wheels of the bus that carries them to the launch pad.
Let's see if it works.
Related: Unmanned private rocket launches
What a worthless article
You clicked on it.
I agree. completely worthless. except when I read your response and almost choked.
I actually enjoy useless trivia; it sure beats the other "news." =)
i agree total crap, cold war smell is still in the air
I hope they mean #1 only and not #2...
Hey Brent! What's up? Funny article...
Actually the record of the space shuttle is worse then the Russians in terms of manned launches. The proton and soyuz are the most reliable rockets around. Having said that having to rely on Russia for launching American astronauts is a little embarrassing though.
It is not germane to compare the Proton or Soyuz to the shuttle. The shuttle's weight, mission capability and complexity are far greater than the Proton or Soyuz. The Atlas and Delta rockets would be a closer match to capability, and their reliability record is very similar to Proton/Soyuz.
Actually the record is even. Two incidents with loss of crew for Soyuz (Soyuz 1 and 11) and two incidents with loss of crew for the space shuttle (Challenger and Columbia). Since the shuttle holds more people more were lost. In terms of number of space flight disasters there are only two for each. If you want to split hairs the Soyuz has a worse space flight record since one of the disasters actually killed the crew in space while the others happened in the atmosphere.
Already in the old days of the Soviet Union Russians sought comfort in their customs which were more often seen as supersition.
These rituals were the only comfort they had if you consider the poor safety standards the Soviets subjected their cosmonauts to.
There have been more US deaths than Russian.
Svann, while your statement is true it is somewhat misleading. There have been 135 shuttle missions with two accidents resulting in 14 fatalities. There have been (I believe) 113 Soyuz flights thus far, also with two accidents but resulting in four fatalities. The shuttle usually flew with seven crew (though as little as two and as many as eight). Most Soyuz flights have had two or three crew (though sometimes just one). So I'd say the safety record for both is very similar. But when something happened to a shuttle, more people were in danger.
Already in the old days of the American Europeans sought recognition in their "smart comments" which were more often seen as stupidity.
What in the world?
Read a book called "Too Far from Home". It details many more Russian pre-flight rituals... and you're right. This really was a worthless article.
I admire the Russians and their space program. In fact, had not all the German top flight rocket scientists and engineers come to America right after WW2, the Russians would still be ahead of us in space.
If Bush wouldn't have bankrupt our country on two useless wars...we would be building bases on Mars by now.
But if we were able to expel all the idiots like Norm to North Waziristan, we'd be prospering today.
I could not agree more,you are so right!!!!
I couldn't agree more, with you NORM, YOU ARE SO RIGHT!!!!!!
I'm sorry, did I miss the rest of this article? The "teaser" article sounded interesting 😛
So what is this article about? About useless writers at CNN?
Why don't you just go back to Fox.
Oh yeah...you can't post your ignorant filth there anymore.
F u * k CNN and Fareed Zakharia
The above not to offend anybody, but to check CNN censorship filter program. I gues, I am blacklisted as an internet hooligan. Ok, it passes through. Let's now try to post something more meaningful:
As far as the general state of decline of Russian space industry, the rumor are slightly exaggerated. Year-after-year Russia conducts more space launches than the rest of the World altogether combined. By a significant margin.
During this year alone (up to May 23) nine 9 launches have been completed.
The last one took place on May 17, Proton M launches SS Loral's Nimiq-6 satellite into geostationary orbit.
One-before-last was on May 17 (same day, but several hours before) a Soyus with with surveillance satellite took off from Plesetsk.
Before that a manned Soyuz took off on May 15.
Before that another Proton with commercial satellite to geostationary orbit on April 24.
Another Soyuz with Progress cargo ship to Int. Space Station on April 20.
Another Proton carrying surveillance satellite on March 30.
Proton launching Intelsat-22 into geostationary orbit on March 25.
Proton launching NNS-14 into geostationary orbit on February 14 (this launch was delayed twice, originally scheduled Nov. 2011).
Another Soyuz carrying cargo ship to Int. Space Station on January 26.
The next flight is scheduled on June 1, a commercial satellite to geostationary orbit to be launched by Zenit-3SSL.
The next commercial Proton launch is scheduled somewhere in June.
The next manned Soyuz flight to ISS is scheduled in July (the exact date is not announced yet).
Russia had completed a total of 24 space launches in year 2011, 21 of which were successful and 3 failures.
Why don't you just go back to Fox.
Oh yeah...you can't post your filth there anymore.
We need Newt Gingrich leadership. lol
In America you use rocket fuel.
in Russia, we drink champagne and then pea rocket fuel before launch.
america are the dolts that ended their space program without researching new vessels ahead of time... now we rely on the russians. thank goodness that the dragon capsule will hopefully fulfill the role. we need to keep active in space and keep progressing to catch the minds of young people and aspire them to become engineers, physicists, scientists, and more. the space program is quite important. its too bad the administration can't see the light. i was pro obama when he started, but now i just want him gone. but there are no good candidates to replace him... the GOP are a bunch of backwater, dark age mindset woman haters. unbelieveable. should we just all let anarchy rule in 2012?
Awwwww....whats the matter Foxtard.
Mommy shut down the comments areas over at Racist Central?
Strange article considering we just had our first commercial launch....what....yesterday?
America can restart the space program anytime it wants.
Oh BTW....has everyone noticed all the Obama bashing Foxtards here at CNN since Fox shut down it's comments sections?
LOL....pathetic...they must be going crazy.
Crazier than normal that is..........
I knew it was just a matter of time before the FCC shut that circus down.
Now how would you know unless you're a libtard lurker on Fox? Typical left-wing hypocrite.
Sounds like American professional baseball. I wonder what they'd do with two on and two out in the bottom of the 9th....
We aren't the country we used to be. We are more concerned about how people 'feel', instead of leaping forward in science and business. To America, it is more important to be fat and embrase the fringe elements than focus on what should come first. Our current administration has spent more money that any previous, and our homeless population grows and are left to fend for themselves. We are broke financialy and moraly.
Quite true, Tuco. We spend far to much on our military machine and foreign aid because of the control that the M.I.C. has on both Congress and the White House and as a result, we'll remain perpetually broke!
I think it is as much the American character, the average home-owner is too lazy to mow their own damn lawn. Gotta pay to have someone do our dirt. Compare today with the fall of the Roman Empire.
still the greatesst nation on earth...IF we stop sending jobs overseas so corporations can save more $$; its quite simple evenutally usa will be consumed by her own greed....wake up usa before its too late...and btw 4 MORE YEARS
After Chinese...
Sorry! It is not if, it is when...
who the hell wrote this article. I thought Freed was smarter than this; he is dumber than Greta.
Slow news day?
CNN – The Most Trusted Name in crappy news.
CNN stands for China Negative News. It has a lot of those typical American kwok zucking kwok zuckers employed as writers to bad mouth China. They love to accuse the Chinese for hacking into their azz and stealing their virginity.
Wow, I agree. we definitely spend way too much on our military machine! Blast obama for starting all those wars and spending trillions of dollars on "defense"!
Gotta love it!
And the idea of this crappy article is?????
Please tell me the female cosmonauts had more sense than that.
I wish Soviets have sent you instead of "Belka and Strelka" dogs in the test stage of their space program. Wasted some good smart doggies – with tons of sense, compared!
more smug foreigner bashing.
I would like this CNN correspondent to try to relieve himself "on the wheels of the bus that carries them to the launch pad" being in the space suit and in front of the farewell party! The man is intellectually challenged!
something crazy but not the article
Article stinks, but he has one point. Russian confidence is serious flagging. Ever serious mishap gets blamed on the United States.
1. Fall of USSR. American capitalist plot, details are lacking, but they know we did it. The fact that they had a Premier who failed the Political Reform 101 class, notwithstanding.
2. The loss of the Kursk submarine. The Kursk couldn't have possibly blown up all by itself due to a defective torpedo, there must have been an American submarine in the area that crashed into it.
3. The recent loss of Russia's interplanetary satellite. American radar brought it down.
4. Most recently, the loss of the Superjet 100 that crashed in Indonesia was caused by American interference using some kind of an EMF device. The fact that we know the air traffic controller in Indonesia approved the aircraft to descend to 6000 feet, with a 7000 foot mountain in front of them, in bad weather, had nothing to do to it.
You remember the Indonesia flight controllers. They were the ones that allowed a BA 747 to fly through a volcanic plume 50,000 feet high, twice.
And finally, the protests in Russia are an orchestrated campaign by the USA to discredit Vladimir Putin. The fact that Putin plays a shell game between the presidency, and prime minister positions every few years has nothing to do with the discontent.
So, Russia has her problems, and a decided campaign to blame the United States for everything that goes wrong, thereby avoiding responsibility, is one of them.
Congratulations! Your comment stinks too! And I could not even find the point!


text:
DETROIT – It may have taken a bit longer than expected, but the excitement was still the same for Gustav Nyquist.
Nyquist, who was the last restricted free agent the Wings had to sign, received a two-year deal with an annual cap hit of $950,000.
"I'm real excited to know that I'll be a part of the organization for two more years," Nyquist said in a phone interview Tuesday. "It's such a great organization to be a part of. I've learned so much from all the guys there over the last couple of years so it's a great feeling for sure."
Nyquist, 23, will earn $850,000 next season and $1,050,000 in the final year of the deal.
"It feels great," Nyquist said. "I'm real happy to be here for two more years. The negotiations went well and it all worked out."
Nyquist will still be a restricted free agent when the deal expires.
Nyquist played in 22 games during the regular season last year and had three goals and three assists. He played in all 14 of the Wings' playoff games where he contributed two goals and three assists.
He really blossomed playing on the third line along with Joakim Andersson and Damien Brunner.
"We had a lot of young guys last year that developed throughout the year and it was a real good learning experience for us all," Nyquist said. "For us to be around the guys, especially in the playoffs, they all know what it takes to win. You really learned a lot. It's a great experience for us young guys to be able to learn through the experience of playing in it. A lot of these guys have been through it all and won the Stanley Cup."
Andersson, who was also a restricted free agent, signed a two-year deal last month, while Brunner was not re-signed.
"It was a real exciting year last year being able to play with Brunner and Andersson there on the third line and I think that went well," Nyquist said. "We have added some great additions to our team (this offseason). The whole thing is looking great and it's real exciting that we got (Daniel) Alfredsson and (Stephen) Weiss as well."
Nyquist is still in Sweden and attended the Olympic team camp.
"The Olympics would be something special, but I'm real excited to get the season started," Nyquist said. "It would be an unbelievable experience to be a part of an Olympics. We have such a great team in Sweden, so it all depends on how you start the season, obviously. It's going to be tough, but I'm going to try to make the team, for sure."
With Nyquist signed it puts the Wings two players over the 23-man roster limit and close to $4 million over the salary cap. Teams can go 10-percent over the salary cap during the offseason.
The Wings do have a bit of flexibility with this year's cap if they choose to apply nearly $3 million in potential bonuses to next season's number since it's expected to rise.
There is some concern about the health of Darren Helm, who was limited to playing just one game last season due to a slightly torn disc in his back.
If Helm is unable to start the season the Wings could place him on long-term injured reserve and thus create a roster spot there. It would also allow his $1.75 in salary to not count against the salary cap.
If he's healthy the list of players that could be trimmed from the roster via trades or being waived include Jordin Tootoo, Mikael Samuelsson and Patrick Eaves.
Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement teams receive only limited cap relief ($100,000 for players who signed at age 35 or over and a maximum of $925,000 for others) for players who clear waivers.
Eaves' game is comparable to that of Drew Miller.
Cory Emmerton appears safe on the roster if Helm is unable to regain his pre-injury form to center the Wings' third line.
If they're unable to trim or trade players to get down to 23, the Wings could send Nyquist and defenseman Danny DeKeyser to Grand Rapids since they both are exempt from waivers.
Rosters are due two days before the start of the regular season on Oct. 2.


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Statement of Carolyn Colvin,
Deputy Commissioner for Programs and Policy, Social Security Administration
before the House Committee on Ways and Means
Subcommittee on Social Security
February 13, 1997
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am Carolyn Colvin, Deputy Commissioner for Programs and Policy of the Social Security Administration, and I will discuss the Administration's budget proposals for making changes in the welfare reform provisions affecting Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility for noncitizens. I also would like to bring you up to date on SSA's progress with the implementation of the welfare reform provisions relating to noncitizens.
At the outset I want to emphasize that the President remains committed to welfare reform and to the core issues related to his welfare-to-work initiative that he has supported in the past and that he has strengthened in this year's budget. The President, however, is concerned with the provisions of the law that deny most legal immigrants access to fundamental safety net programs, even though legal immigrants were admitted into this country as full members of our community and they work and pay taxes.
When President Clinton signed the welfare reform legislation into law, he said that:
We should not be punishing people who are working for a living already; we should do everything we can do to lift them up and keep them at work and help them support their children. We also believe that the congressional leadership insisted on cuts in programs for legal immigrants that are far too deep.
The President reiterated this message in his State of the Union address:
And we must join together to do something else, too, something both Republican and Democratic governors have asked us to do: to restore basic health and disability benefits when misfortu ne strikes immigrants who came to this country legally, who work hard, pay taxes, and obey the law. To do otherwise is simply unworthy of a great nation of immigrants.
The proposal in the President's FY 1998 budget would make exceptions to the restrctions in the SSI and Medicaid programs for certain noncitizens who become blind or disabled after the ir entry into the United States and allow SSI and Medicaid eligibility for immigrant children on the same basis as citizen children. The proposal also would extend the 5-year eligibility limit to 7 years for refugees, asylees, and noncitizens who have had their deportations withheld.
Overview of Welfare Reform Provisions
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 contains provisions that severely restrict the participation of noncitizens in the SSI program. These provisions include general bars to SSI eligibility. It also includes provisions requiring the "deeming" of a sponsor's income and resources to a noncitizen and obliging a sponsor to reimburse the government for benefits paid to the noncitizen. Although refugees, asylees, and noncitizens whose deportations have been withheld under section 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) may continue to be eligible for SSI, the new law limits their eligibility to only the first 5 years after they are granted such immigration statuses.
Legal immigrants may be eligible for SSI if they meet one of the SSI eligibility categories in welfare reform--i.e., they earn or can be credited with 40 quarters of work or if they are members ofthe military or veterans (and certain of their family members). In addition, the welfare reform provisions relating to sponsor-to-immigrant deeming and the sponsor's obligation to reimburse the Federal Government for any SSI benefits provided immigrants during the deeming period would apply.
Under welfare reform rules, only about one-quarter of the lawful permanent residents who received SSI in 1996 would meet one of the new SSI eligibility categories. Of the noncitizens on the rolls, 255,000 (33 percent) are disabled and under age 65, 321,000 (40 percent) are aged 65-75 and 227,000 (27 percent) are over age 75.
Exemption for Immigrants With Disabilities and Children
The President's proposal would provide SSI and Medicaid eligibility for individuals who meet the definition of "qualified alien"1 in the welfare reform legislation if their blindness or disability began after they were admitted to the United States. The proposal also would provide immigrant children the same access to SSI and Medicaid as our nation provides citizen children. Noncitizens who do not meet the "qualified alien" definition and persons who are in the country illegally or temporarily would not be eligible for SSI.
Many legal immigrants may face unforeseen problems before they can naturalize. Our country should assist legal inunigrants and their families when an accident or disabling illness prevents them from supporting themselves.
We must remember that these individuals who receive SSI on the basis of disability have severe medical impairments, little or no income or resources of their own, and limited (if any) earnings capacity. In fact, in order to be considered disabled for SSI, an individual must have a mental or physical impairment so severe that it prevents him or her from doing any work for a period of 12 months or would result in his or her death.
As examples, an immigrant who was paralyzed in a construction site accident, or an 80 year old immigrant widow with alzheimers who has outlived all her citizen children and is in a nursing home, or a young immigrant who develops inoperable cancer and is unable to work would be eligible for support. The Administration believes we should not abandon individuals in these circumstances.
In addition to the compelling needs of the affected immigrants, the Administration's proposal will prevent a substantial cost shift to State and local government, churches and nonprofit organizations. The nation's governors identified this problem and in a statement by the National Governors' Association urged "Congress and the administration to work in pannership with the National Governors' Association to ensure that the immigration system and its requirements are fair to both citizens and noncitizens and meet the needs of aged and disabled legal immigrants who cannot naturalize and whose benefits may be affected. "
The Administration continues to support holding the sponsors of immigrants responsible for those they bring into the country. Sponsors generally sign affidav its of support for those they sponsor . The Administration supported making these affidavits of support legally . enforceable documents. The immigration reform legislation enacted in September last year included this provision. The Administration continues to believe that sponsors should be held responsib le for the fmanciaI support of immigrants in most situations.
However, the Administration is concerned that when a sponsored immigrant experiences an unforeseen disability after entry into the United States, the potential financial impact on the sponsor could be devastating. If an illness or accident occurs that makes the immigrant unable to work, the sponsor would be liable not only for the immigrant's basic needs but also for the cost of his or her medical care and other expenses attributable to disability. Such expenses may be beyond the sponsors' means.
The President's proposal addresses this potentially adverse effect by allowing SSI and Medicaid eligibility and removing the deeming requirements, the 5-year ban, and the obligation of sponsors to reimburse the Federal Government for any SSI benefits received by immigrants who became disabled after entering the country.
While the President's proposal would permit SSI and Medicaid eligibility to children as well as adults who become disabled after they enter the country, the proposal also addresses the needs of children who are already disabled when they enter the country. Under the proposal, disabled individuals who enter the United States as lawful permanent residents before they are aged 18, would be eligible for SSI and Medicaid, and the exemptions for deeming and sponsor reimbursement would apply.
In a number of cases, disabled children who enter the country would do so accompanying their parent. Thus, even though sponsor-to-immigrant deeming would not apply, the child's parent's income and resources would be taken into account in determining the child's need for benefits.
The proposal creates a safety net for disabled children. Unlike adults who can become U.S. citizens after they have lawfully re sided in the country for a specified number of years, children cannot naturalize on their own until they reach age 18. Naturalization of one noncitizen parent can be accompanied by naturalization of the child. If both parents naturalize, the child automatically derives citizenship. Thus, if something happens to their noncitizen parents, these disabled children would have no means of support and could not otherwise be eligible for SSI until they became U.S. citizens.
Refugees and Asylees
The President's budget proposal also includes a provision for extending the time limit for SSI eligibility from 5 to 7 years for refugees, asylees, and individuals who have had their deportations withheld under section 243(h) of the INA.
Individuals in these three immigration categories are in the United States because they have been subjected to persecution in their homelands because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. An estimated 135,000 SSI beneficiaries are in these categories. They often have suffered much hardship and arrive in the country with little or no resources. If they are aged, blind, or disabled they may be eligible for SSI, Medicaid, and other programs for a period of 5 years after they are granted refugee, asylee, or deportation withheld status. Before welfare reform legislation, there was no restriction on the length of time that they could receive benefits. Now they are eligible for SSI for only a period of 5 years after entering the country.
Generally, immigrants who have been in the United States for 5 years may apply for citizenship. Although INS accepts naturalization applicat ions up to 3 months before the 5 year requirement is met, the naturalization process can take up to 6 months and, in some areas of the country, can be of even longer duration. Currently, the p.rocess is running much longer due to record application volume and additional procedures recently implemented. Thus , individuals who entered the United States as refugees, asylees, or who have had their deportations withheld, are very likely to lose their 551 eligibility even if they apply for citizenship at the earliest possible date. Such inunigrants generally do not have sponsors and would have nowhere to turn for assistance in the interim . The proposal would allow sufficient time for them to become U.S. citizens without an interruption in their SSI benefits.
Now that I've described the President's proposal let me turn to SSA' s efforts in implementing the noncitizens provisions in welfare reform
Implementation of Noncitizens Provisions in Welfare Reform
In planning for carrying out the noncitizens provision in welfare reform, SSA has put together a team made up of representatives from virtually every SSA component. The team has been meeting since August 1995, and has devoted innumerable hours to policy and operational issues involved with the provisions. Implementation policies have been coordinated with other Federal agencies such as the Deparonent of Agriculture, The Depa rtment of and Health and Human Services (including the Health Care Financing Administration), and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Numbers of Noncitizens Affected
Before I begin describing our implementation strategy, I would like to give you an idea of how many noncitizens on the SSI rolls would lose eligibility if the prohibition on SSI eligibility remains unchanged.
As of October 1996, there were approximately 800,000 recipients receiving SSI who entered the program as noncitizens. Nearly three-quarters of them were lawful permanent residents. The remainder were mostly refugees and asylees. Some of these individuals may have already naturalized but have not informed SSA. Also, given the fact that applications for U.S. citizenship are at an all-time high, a number-perhaps a significant number-of the noncitizens who currently receive SSI may become citizens by the end of the summer. SSA estimates that in the first full year of the prohibition (FY 1998), about 500,000 noncitizens will lose SSI eligibility according to CBO estimates. Noncitizens who remain on the rolls will be refugees and asylees who have not been in the country for 5 years, lawful permanent residents who have earned 40 quarters of coverage or who can be credited with 40 quarters earned by their spouses or parents, and military personnel, veterans, and their spouses and children.
Identifying Beneficiaries Potentially Affected
The major task that we faced in implementing the new law was to identify those SSI recipients who are to be made ineligible by the legislation. First we made sure that our records concerning immigration statuses were current. It wasn't until last fall that SSA was able to change the codes that indicated which immigration status an individual was in if he or she changed statuses. For example, if a person was a refugee when first eligible for SSI, he or she would still have been shown as a refugee even if he or she subsequently became a U.S. citizen. In addition, prior to 1981, SSA's computer records did not contain information about an SSI recipient's citizenship or immigrant status. When we began, we had an estimated 1.4 million SSI recipients in our records shown as either noncitizens or citizens whose citizenship had not been verified.
In order to correct our records, we initiated a series of computer matches. We matched the SSI records with our Social Security number records and the INS naturalization records. These matches allowed us to establish U.S. citizenship for approximately 320,000 recipients. We also marched SSI records of noncitizens to SSA's earnings records to determine which lawful permanent residents had earned 40 quarters of coverage and, thus, would be exempt from the SSI ban. In addition, as I mentioned, we are now able to update the SSI records when individuals bring proof of their citizenship status into our field offices. All of these efforts have left us with approximately 900,000 SSI beneficiaries who are either noncitizens or citizens who have not yet had their citizenship verified.
Informational Notices
Our next task is to notify the approximate 900,000 individuals of the new SSI eligibility provisions before March 31, 1997, as required. As you may know, we began mailing the first notices last week. Because of other workloads relating to the welfare reform provision on SSI benefits for disabled children and an earlier provision eliminating SSI benefits on the basis of drug addiction and alcoholism, we are sending the notices on a staggered basis of about 112,500 per week over an 8 week period. All these "informational" notices will be in the hands of the beneficiaries by the statutory deadline. It is important to note that this mailing is only the first of two notices that noncitizens will receive before their benefits stop.
The informational notices include a list of the categories of noncitizens who may continue to be eligible for SSI and explain what an individual has to do to prove that he or she is in one of the categories. The notices also say that SSA may be able to help the individuals get the proofs they need. We have put the most important message right at the top of the notice. That is, if it cannot be proven that a noncitizen is in one of the SSI-eligible categories, his or her SSI benefits will stop.
There are three different versions of this first notice tailored to individual circumstances. The notice going to beneficiaries shown on our records as noncitizens asks them to contact SSA within 90 days if they think that they may be in one of the SSI-eligible categories. The notice going to persons whose citizenship status has not been verified and to noncitizens who are likely to remain eligible2 tells them that we have to update our records and will be contacting them at a later date. The third version of the notice is being sent to refugees and asylees who have not been in the United States for 5 years. This notice will say that their SSI eligibility is now time limited and that we will contact them again shortly before the time-limit expires.
All of the notices include an enclosure in eight languages, including English, explaining that it includes very important information about SSI eligibility and if they cannot read English, they should take it to someone who can read it to them right away. For those recipients who have indicated Spanish language preference on their record, the notices will be sent in both Spanish and English.Individuals responding to these informational notices will create a large workload for SSA's field offices. In order to alleviate some of this workload and to provide better service to our customers, we have established 22 interviewing centers in areas across the country where large populations of noncitizen SSI recipients live such as Los Angeles, the central valley of California, Miami, and New York. SSA has hired over 1,000 temporary employees to assist with implementation of the welfare reform provisions. Of these 195 will be assigned along with experienced SSA employees to staff the interviewing centers. Notices being sent to recipients in these areas will include the address and hours of operation for the center nearest them.
Individuals who provide proof of their continuing eligibility for SSI wllU receive a notice from SSA verifying their eligibility.
Planned Action Notices and Suspensions
Individuals who do not contact SSA or who do not provide proof of continuing eligibility after they receive their informational notice will receive a second notice; a notice of planned action (NPA) informing them that their SSI benefits will stop. NPAs also will be sent out on a staggered basis. Noncitizens who received the informational notices in February will receive the NPA in July and those who received informational notices in March will receive the NPA in August. The NPA will state that benefits will stop the following month (August or September, as applicable).
Under our longstanding, due process rules, the NPA will tell individuals exactly why their benefits are being stopped and advise them of their appeal rights. If an individual requests appeal with 10 days of receipt of the NPA, benefits will be continued until a decision is made at the initial level of appeal. Although benefit continuation applies only if the individual files an appeal within 10 days, he or she may appeal the determination at anytime within 60 days after receipt of the notice.
We have made the policy decision that the stopping of an individual's benefits in these cases will permit us to reinstate an individual' s eligibility if, within 12 months from the suspension date, he or she becomes naturalized. The reinstatement would be effective as of the date of naturalization. While this may seem a mere technicality, it assures that former SSI recipients who become citizens will not have to go through the full SSI application process (including a disability determination in disability cases) and will again get SSI benefits as soon as possible after letting us know that they have been naturalized. This policy decision also illustrates SSA's commitment to implementing these changes in a way that is fair and causes as little stress as possible for our aged, blind and disabled beneficiaries.
Clearly, SSA and other Federal agencies have faced a huge task in implementing the provisions in the welfare reform legislation.
In conclusion, while we are working to implement the law, we strongly support and hope Congress will act on the Administration's proposal. The provisions relating to noncitizen eligibility for SSI that were contained in welfare reform are unnecessary to further the goal of welfare-to-work. The SSI and Medicaid provisions summarily cut children and disabled individuals off of benefits, putting at risk individuals who are permanent members of our society. The President proposes to restore eligibility for children and those disabled after entry.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these very important issues. I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
1 Section 431 of Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) defines "qualified alien" as lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, aliens whose deportations are withheld, parolees, conditional entrants, and certain aliens who have been battered or subjected to extreme cruelty.
2 For example, they receive Social Security benefits but we need to determine whether they have 40 quarters.