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Congress sticks it to U.S. farmers with passage of food safety bill that will actually cause fresh produce to be more dangerous
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2751 yesterday with a 216 to 144 vote (yes, many members of the House did not even vote). The so-called Food Safety Modernization Act now heads to the President to be signed into law.
When witnessing such a moment in history when the federal government greatly expands its power over an entire industry, it's important to understand the Law of Unintended Consequences. Virtually everything bad that happens after a bill gets passed is due to this Law of Unintended Consequences.
On the surface, the intention behind the food safety bill seems innocent enough: Let's all protect the food supply and prevent people from getting sick due to e.coli and salmonella exposure. But the reality of the result that emerges from the law is quite different.
Get ready for more dangerous, pesticide-ridden food from south of the border
Because the S.510 / HR 2751 food safety bill places an enormous new burden on U.S. farmers -- yes, even small farms that are supposedly "exempt" -- it's going to drive many farmers out of business.
It will also erect new barriers to farmers entering the food production business, and this is especially true for the small local farmers who grow food for local co-ops, farmers' markets and CSA organizations (Community Supported Agriculture). What we're going to see from all this, then, is the following:
• A reduction in the available SUPPLY of fresh local produce.
• A loss of local farming know-how and food sustainability.
• The financial failure of CSAs, food co-ops and small local markets.
• The loss of countless jobs that were related to local food production.
• An INCREASE in the price of local food, especially organic food.
Food safety bill does nothing to address food imports
At the same time these huge regulatory burdens are thrust upon U.S. farmers, there are no new regulations required for food grown outside the United States.
This means that food coming into the USA from Mexico, Chile, Peru or anywhere else does not have to meet S.510 food safety regulations at all. The FDA, after all, doesn't inspect greenhouses in Mexico or grape farms in Chile which export their products to the United States.
Furthermore, many dangerous chemical pesticides that have been banned in the USA are legal to use elsewhere, and foods treated with those pesticides are perfectly legal to import into the United States. So instead of buying food grown in the United States on small, organic farms, more U.S. consumers are going to be buying food grown elsewhere that's treated with extremely toxic pesticides.
Here are some of the unintended consequences of all this:
• An INCREASE in the importation of fresh produce from other countries.
• A worsening of the agricultural trade imbalance between the U.S. and other nations.
• An INCREASE in the pesticide contamination of fresh produce sold at U.S. grocery stores.
• An INCREASE in agriculture jobs in Mexico, Chile, Peru and elsewhere, even while agriculture jobs are lost in the USA.
• A DECREASE in the overall safety of the food supply because now the proportion of foods imported from foreign countries with little or no regulatory oversight will greatly expand compared to U.S. grown foods.
In effect, then, what Congress has done is impaired the competitiveness of U.S. farms, shifted farming jobs out of the country, increased the pesticide residues in fresh produce sold in U.S. grocery stores and harmed local food security and sustainability by driving small, local farmers out of business.
Such is the nature of the Law of Unintended Consequences. And such is the nature of just about everything that Big Government tries to do when it threatens to "solve problems" by expanding its regulatory control over almost any industry.
We need food security in America
What Congress fails to understand is that we need food security far more than we need more FDA regulations. The knowledge base of local farmers who know how to grow, harvest and distribute food is far more valuable to the security of our nation than preventing a relatively small number of people from getting sick from e.coli each year (even if such a trade-off were a simplistic equation, which it isn't). Because if we lose food security, then we become slaves to the big corporate food producers who are attempting to centralize food production and place food, seeds and crops under their absolute control.
A cynic might even suggest that was the whole purpose of the food safety bill in the first place: To destroy small farmers and centralize food production power in the hands of a few wealthy corporations. Whether that was the intent or not, it is certainly going to be the effect.
What Congress has done with this food safety bill, in effect, is to cripple America's food production know-how and poison the population with far more dangerous pesticide-ridden produce that will now be imported from other countries instead. This bill should have been called the "Mexico Farming Jobs Act" because it's going to shift countless jobs south of the border as farms in the USA realize they simply can't operate under the immense burden of FDA regulatory tyranny.
What's the definition of insanity?
It all makes you wonder what the members of Congress are really thinking. Don't they ever step back and attempt to consider the real-world ramifications of their actions?
Time and time again, the U.S. government seems to do the opposite of what would reasonably be required to solve problems. Think about it: When the U.S. government wanted to stop Wall Street bankers and investment firms from wasting money, it simply handed them a few trillion dollars in new money so they could waste more.
When the government wanted to end debt spending, it spent more debt money out of the foolish belief that you can somehow end your debt by going deeper into it.
When the government claimed it would reduce your health care costs and cover everyone with health insurance, it passed a sick-care law that has only seen health care costs spiraling out of control while insurers cancel policies and end coverage for many children.
And now, the government claims to be making your food safer even though the real impact of the new law will be to make your food far more dangerous while destroying U.S. farming jobs.
This is why those who really know government also know that they who govern best govern the least. Instead of trying to "fix" all the nation's problems by meddling with the actions of hard-working people trying to make a living (such as organic farmers), the government needs to simply get out of the way and let farmers produce their food without the heavy regulatory burden of the FDA -- an agency that we know is frequently engaged in actions that can only be called criminal in nature.
Get ready for skyrocketing food prices in 2011 - 2013
With the passage of this food safety bill, I am now publicly predicting skyrocketing food prices over the next two years. We will see fresh, local produce become increasingly more expensive and more difficult to acquire. Many local farmers will shutter their businesses, and farming know-how will be lost for perhaps a generation. The damage that will be done to America's food security and agricultural base is incalculable.
Such is the price we shall all pay for allowing our representatives in Washington to once again violate our Natural Right to grow food and exchange it for goods or cash with our neighbors. The reason this Natural Right was never even mentioned in the US Constitution, by the way, is because the right to grow your own food without government interference is such an obvious "Natural Right" (a God-given right, or a right that is self-evident) that our forefathers never imagined such a right would be infringed by the federal government.
Or if a right were ever infringed by the federal government, our forefathers were certain that the citizens of the United States of America would exercise their other Constitutional rights to nullify the attempted overreaching authority of the federal government and thereby restore their freedoms. Sadly, such a solution does not work when the majority of the population is lulled into a false sense of freedom by a government that deliberately lies to them on a daily basis. Freedom does not exist with the vast majority of the population has no interest in defending it.
Vegetable gardeners can learn something from marijuana growers
Better buy yourself some heirloom seeds while you have the chance. Plant your stealth garden and cover it with camouflage so the government can't see it and order you to destroy it. Soon, backyard vegetable gardeners will need to operate like marijuana growers and start hiding their food from government's prying eyes.
No doubt the U.S. federal government will start using spy satellites to identify "unregistered gardens" that will be targeted for termination. Soon, small farmers may even be raided by armed FDA agents who terrorize their operations and seize cabbages. Seriously.
It sounds crazy today, I know. But a decade ago, no one thought the government would ever outlaw raw cow's milk and arrest ranchers for selling milk to their neighbors, and that's now happening on a regular basis.
In five years, FDA farm raids may be routine. That is, if there's anything left of the federal government (as we know it) in five years. I'm not sure how long they can keep up the financial house of cards, frankly. Always remember this enlightening fact: The entire federal government is just one paycheck away from collapse. I wonder how long FDA inspectors will keep harassing farmers if their paychecks stop? Remember, FDA employees have no loyalty to anything other than their paychecks. Once the money from Washington stops, the army of FDA mercenaries collapses virtually overnight.
And the resilient farmers of America will win in the end, I have no doubt. If I had to choose to live on a deserted island with either ten North Carolina farmers or ten FDA bureaucrats, the choice would be a no-brainer. Farmers can keep you alive. FDA bureaucrats will only stab you in the back, steal your coconuts, and refuse to do any actual work on their own.
They are, after all, parasites who feed on taxpayer dollars and lend nothing of value to society. If the FDA actually did anything useful at all, it would have banned mercury fillings to protect the public from mercury toxicity.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Congress sticks it to U.S. farmers with passage of food safety bill
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Some flowers, called everlastings, dry exceptionally well, keeping their shape and color. Listen to learn more about how to prepare these blossoms for long-lasting enjoyment.
This segment of The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden Musings podcast series was written by George and Becky Lohmiller and is read by Heidi Stonehill, an Almanac editor.


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Marian, Iowa-based Berthel Fisher Services said Monday that it's nearly completed the transition of 26 ex-Milkie Ferguson Investments financial advisors and about $450 million in assets under management. (This represents about $26 million in average AUM per advisor.)
"This adds to our base and is a nice expansion in the Dallas area and in Texas," said Thomas Berthel (left), CEO and director of Berthel Fisher & Co. Financial Services, in an interview with AdvisorOne on Tuesday. "Strategically, we like this concentration."
Berthel Fisher says it did not acquire any assets or liabilities of the Milkie Ferguson firm, which closed recently due to expenses tied to the sale of shares in Provident Royalties.
Berthel Fisher has independent broker-dealer operations in 50 states through 385 representative offices. A unit of the company, Securities Management & Research, operates as a separate broker-dealer with 300 reps. Acquired about 18 months ago, it has traditionally focused on the insurance side of the business, though it also includes an RIA.
The parent company expects to make more purchases and expand by recruiting over the next few years, as it is "poised for future growth," said Berthel.
Its plans have a lot to do with industry consolidation, he notes. "Broker-dealers are looking at what to do as they have to increase efficiency and lower costs. These are interesting times for the business."
Berthel Fisher said it received regulatory approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for a transfer of the Milkie Ferguson accounts on May 18. The client account transfers took place in June, and the relicensing to Berthel Fisher is almost finished.


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UK must adapt for weather extremes, says Environment Agency
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst
- Published
Britain must become more resilient to both drought and flooding, Environment Agency chairman Chris Smith has said.
New figures from the agency show that one in every five days saw flooding in 2012, but one in four days saw drought.
Rivers such as the Tyne, Ouse and Tone fell to their lowest and rose to their highest flows since records began, within a four-month period of the year.
Lord Smith said urgent action was vital to help "prepare and adapt" many aspects of Britain for such extremes.
Meteorologists fear that extremes of weather may increase as global temperatures slowly rise.
Met Office analysis has suggested that the UK could experience a severe short-term drought, similar to the drought experienced in 1976, once a decade.
Transferring water
With the population of the water-stressed south-east of England projected to grow by almost a quarter by 2035, Lord Smith argued that the number of smaller reservoirs needed to be increased immediately and that new ways of transferring water from areas where it is plentiful to areas where it is scarce must be established.
Lord Smith, whose agency covers England and Wales, insisted the reservoirs would be needed not just by farmers, but also by commercial turf growers, golf clubs, sport stadiums and race courses.
There are currently about 1,700 small-scale storage reservoirs across England and Wales, supplying 30% of total irrigation needs.
He also said more homes would need to be protected from flooding.
Lord Smith said: "The extremes of weather that we saw last year highlight the urgent need to plan for a changing climate.
"In 2012 we saw environmental damage caused by rivers with significantly reduced flows, hosepipe bans affecting millions and farmers and businesses left unable to take water from rivers.
"But we also saw the wettest year on record in England, with around 8,000 homes flooded. Interestingly 2007, which saw some of the most severe flooding in recent memory, also started the year with hosepipe bans.
"More of this extreme weather will exacerbate many of the problems that we already deal with including flooding and water scarcity, so taking action today to prepare and adapt homes, businesses, agricultural practices and infrastructure is vital."
Boggy land
He pointed out that modelling suggests that a changing climate could reduce some river flows by up to 80% during the summer in the next 40 years.
Part of the UK's flooding problem is due to previous policies.
For decades, farmers were paid to drain boggy land in order to improve it for grazing. This caused water to rush off the fields into rivers, whereas previously it would have been held in the bogs to smooth out the flow into rivers throughout the year.
In addition, many flood plains have been built on.
Follow Roger Harrabin on Twitter @rharrabin


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Thursday, June 16, 2016
Mercer Island pest control: AMPM PEST COMMERCIAL EASTSIDE CONTROL HAS BEEN PERFORMING COCKROACH EXTERMINATION SERVICES FOR COCKROACH INFESTATION MULTIPLEXES AND FOOD PROCESSING AREAS
A professional inspection is the first step in eliminating cockroaches. An exterminator will asses the extent of the problem, offer a comprehensive plan for extermination and provide a written quote. Exterminators use a variety of methods to get rid of cockroaches, including pesticide foggers, gel baits and traps. The most effective method is usually a combination of two or three. You can help by keeping your home as clean and sanitary as possible. Cockroaches won't be attracted to your home if you remove sources of food and water. Proper sanitation also cuts down on the amount of pesticide required. Even with professional extermination and proper sanitation, don't expect the cockroaches to disappear overnight. The amount of time it takes to get rid of them depends on the type of cockroach, the severity of the infestation and the control methods used, but the process often spans several months, with follow-up inspections required for a couple years.
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30 Second TV spot for Zack Snyder's Man of Steel has some new footage! Enjoy!!
Yep! There you have it. Bennifer himself. The cowl has been officially given to Ben Affleck. I have to say, I am ok with this. Many years ago, no. But now, he has matured to the point that he has been involved in some of the best films in the past 5-7 years. The Town was awesomesauce, Argo was really effing good, and his new movie with Justin TImberlake, Runner-Runner, looks to be like a strong flick as well.
If you ask me, Affleck definitely has the acting chops pull this role off and between his physicality, charm, and smarts, he is an excellent choice to play Bruce Wayne. Maybe not THE perfect choice, but an excellent one, nonetheless. And you need someone just as pretty as to stand next to Cavill on the big screen.
SOOOOO now that the trigger has been pulled on who will be playing the Bats, let the speculation begin as to what story line they will draw from. Worlds Finest, The Dark Knight Returns…whichever direction Snyder and co. decides to go in, I am all-in. 100%!
The next time you see the Bat and the Boy in Blue on screen, it will be together. And it will be the ……….
So by now, everybody knows I saw Man of Steel….twice. Will probably see it more, if I can.
First, let me say that this was the movie I hoped it would be. From the first trailer I saw, to the last spoiler I read…it lived up to the hype, and more importantly, mine. I loved it. The movie garnered some bad reviews and had a very low score on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics (they can get the finger, the middle!!). Do not listen to the critics. I feel that most of them have a biased agenda one way or the other. Go see for yourself and bask in the all the glory that is Kal-el.
Zack Snyder did what almost every other Superman movie has failed to do. He brought action to the franchise. And an S-load of it too. ("S" pun totally intended). And this wasn't that type of unrealistic action where buildings get destroyed and no one dies. The action in this movie was cataclysmic. Punches that leveled city blocks. A Superman that has not yet learned how to control his anger and rage, and many people lost their lives because of it. This was the first time we've seen a Superman that is not yet fully in control of his abilities and is still learning what some of them are. Some powers we've come to know as fans, did not even make it in this movie.
Yes, we got another origin story. But it was unlike any we've seen before. Seeing Krypton on the big screen, with it's sweeping landscapes and high-tech horizons, was something I have always wanted. And to get a glimpse of the wildlife on the planet, was TIGHT.
And before everyone starts complaining about Zod being the villain AGAIN…Michael Shannon knocks it out of the park. I'm pretty sure he didn't have to get into makeup for this role. He is just disturbingly menacing. The overall look of the Kryptonian army was perfect. The armor, the ships, and the guns were all tons of awesomesauce.
Before I get to Henry Cavill, let me get through the rest of the cast the I liked. Be small minded and say what you want about race, but Laurence Fishburne was GREAT casting as Perry White. I generally just prefer to see him fighting Keanu Reeves in the Matrix, but I really, enjoyed his take on White. He was forceful, but also had this fatherly aire about him. It was great. And Antje Traue, as Faora was just…..just….yes.
Honestly, I think the only bit of casting that really did not work for me was Amy Adams. She wasn't bad at all. And I think part of the problem was how she was written, but all I could think while sitting there was "Where is Erica Durance and why isn't she on screen right now?"
Maybe more than Cavill, I liked the two Robin Hoods. Costner and Crowe were amazeballs. Costner was born to play Pa Kent, and Crowe was awesome as Jor-El. Not the old, idling portrayal of Brando, but a Jor-El that could whoop some @SS. Loved it. As for the rest of the casting, you probably remember seeing alot of them on a certain show called Smallville. Hopefully, Snyder's nod of respect to a tv show that kept Superman somewhat alive and kicking in the mainstream for 10 seasons.
Now on to Cavill. When Superman Returns came out in 2006, I thought Brandon Routh was perfect casting as a continuation of the Superman Christopher Reeve's put on the screen in the late 70's, early 80's. That was his job and he pulled it off perfectly. But Cavill….He IS the Man of Steel, Kal-El, and Clark Kent all rolled into one. And he pulled it off effortlessly. From his look as a young Clark Kent, to the first time he dons the suit. Cavill is Superman. I really can't say enough about him. Man-crush territory?
While he didn't have a ton of lines, or heart felt monologues….the Man of Steel's presence on screen well made up for that. My only complaint (because I'm a fanboy of old), was the S-curl. It was nowhere to be seen. And the red tights were gone!! Thank the lord baby jesus! They are gone! One would think a civilization so intelligent and technologically progressed as Krypton would realize that you don't wear your undies outside of the outfit. I mean come on, thats Fashion101, amirite?
Anyway, I loved the movie. I was extremely lucky to win tickets from a website to see the movie at Tysons AMC 22. I felt very special. I saw it once in 3D and once in 2D. Go see it in 2D. Save yourself the risk of stroke. Watching those fight scenes in 3D, I definitely started to get the shakes.
(There is one thing I will not talk about right now. The ending. I will let you decide for yourself)
Everyone should go see this movie. Even non-comic book readers will have a great time. Take your friends. Take your wifey. Take some kids. Introduce them to the Man of Steel. They will love it.
My plea to DC and Warner Bros? Savor this success. Don't get over zealous and try to fast-track the next movie. Which, sadly enough, is what they are doing. Man of Steel took almost 3 years to make and it showed. This movie has the potential to setup a shared universe much in the same way Iron Man did for the Marvel Universe. They just need to take their time and realize what a goldmine they have in the Man of Steel.
30 Second TV spot for Zack Snyder's Man of Steel has some new footage! Enjoy!!
Know what May 4th is??? Free Comic Book Day!!!
That's right citizens!!!…… Free comic book day is coming!!!
Go to your local comic shop on May 4th, 2013 and enjoy the great lineup of free comics and any other goodies the shop may have. You may even run into one of your favorite superheroes 🙂
Make sure you go to Laughing Ogre Comics in Ashburn for all your comic and nerdly needs.That's where I'll be….so, pretty much, you should be too. http://www.laughingogrecomics.com/wordpress/
Not much I need to say about this, though Glorious comes to mind
Man of Steel – Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, and Lawrence Fishburne
In 2011, two friends and I went to San Diego Comic Con. While I was there, I became very adept at taking pictures of celebs when they didn't want them taken. I also got an up close and personal view with some of them. Here's how it all went down…..
First we take a look at the celebs that got salty when I took pics….
" The original Black Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" – Not a soul stopped by his booth so this pic was easy to take.
"Next up is the very, very polarizing, Rob Liefield. Love him or hate him, he's done a lot. He was def a bit on the douchey side. Hiding behind his table, not signing autographs"
"Last but not least, Eddie McClintock from Warehouse 13. His strategy was too look as bad as he could so no one would take a pic. Didn't work out too well! Love the show though!"
And now we get to some of the celebs, that were really cool. The either let me take a pic, or actually took one with me! Enjoy!
From top to bottom – John Barrowm (Torchwood, Arrow), Brian Posehn, Season 1 Game of Thrones Cast, Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers), Geroge R.R. Martin, Robert Kirkman (comic artist – The Walking Dead, Invincible), Steven Lang (Terra Nova, Avatar)
Think you know what the S on Supermans chest stands for? Click here to find out!!!!!
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Maine apportionment commission begins work
New state commission starts work on redrawing Maine's 186 district lines
A new state commission has a big job ahead of it as it starts work on redrawing Maine's 186 House and Senate district lines.
A mix of Democratic and Republican legislators and party leaders begin their work Friday afternoon in the State House. The Maine Constitution requires redistricting every 10 years in order to ensure that state legislative districts comport with population changes.
The apportionment panel will meet throughout the winter and spring to complete its work.
Two years ago, Maine's two congressional districts' lines were redrawn.
The Legislature has 130 days from the convening of the session Dec. 4 to apportion the district lines. If it fails to do so, the state Supreme Judicial Court must do the job within 60 more days.


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SOLD OUT until 2021
SOLD OUT until 2021
Built to order; purchase today, and your product(s) will ship between and .
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and classy look. I love the case and highly recommend it.
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(The Root) — Did you know that President Barack Obama promised at the beginning of his term that he would create a 5.6 percent unemployment rate?
Oh, you didn't? Then allow the American Crossroads super PAC to clear that up for you in its anti-Obama ad, released this week. The ad suggests that Obama has not kept his promise on unemployment and has driven America $5 trillion deeper in debt.
My response, like that of many folks who have been watching all of this unfold, was to let loose a highly audible sigh and think, "But no one knew exactly how hard we were hit by the economic collapse of 2008. We were still losing jobs by the crapload!" Yes — crapload is a recognized unit of measurement. Obama simply spoke from under the shared, nationwide blanket of ignorance on how bad the economic collapse was.
But then I caught NBC News' senior political editor, Mark Murray, on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown, with Chuck Todd.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
And it turns out that Obama never made that promise. The number in the ad is from a report that came out before Obama was sworn in as president. When he was sworn in, all hell was breaking loose, and yet this ad — and many pundits — have been hammering the president on a report that came out before he took the reins? I assumed that Murray was just throwing out some sort of liberal media spin. This simply can't be. Then I found this (pdf).
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In a report titled "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Investment Plan," economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein — members of Obama's transition team — explained the necessity of the stimulus plan. The chart that has set everyone buzzing is this:
The chart was a prediction as to how the stimulus plan would work and curb unemployment. This was not a promise made by Obama, but instead a prediction by economists that was connected to the implementation of the stimulus package and based on what many believed to be the state of the economy in early January 2009.
In January 2009, America lost 598,000 jobs. In February 2009: 651,000. And March 2009? 741,000. By April 2009, we were at an 8.5 percent unemployment rate. The economists' predictions had already been blown out of the water simply because of the economic horrors that the Obama administration walked into.
Can anyone genuinely say that Obama had failed America by April 2009? Don't answer that. Many folks were trying to claim that by February 2009. But all of this highlights the frustration that's causing much of the tension in this election cycle.
Is the case against Obama fair?
Now, if you're anti-war and anti-drone, then yes. Your critiques of Obama can be argued strongly. Not everyone will agree, but there is a solid argument. However, the case being made by the Republicans isn't based on any of that. It's based on the narrative that the president is an incompetent despot changing the very fabric of America — and if he's not stopped, we will be living in a Soviet Union-style country in a matter of years.
The Republican argument is that Obama undermines American values, desires to redistribute wealth, has weakened our standing in the world and has failed the American people by not fixing the economy. This is what causes the bitterness between ardent Obama supporters and conservatives.
Just watch the ads by Mitt Romney and the Republican super PACS. Obama gutted welfare. Obama is lazy. Obama just wants to be famous. Obama lied about the economy. None of these are fair descriptions of what the past three-and-a-half years have actually been.
Conservatives cry about how the president had two years of complete and total control. I won't lie to you; I've simply grown tired of saying and writing how untrue that is. Obama had to have a supermajority to pass anything. He never had one in the House and had one in the Senate for only seven weeks. Republicans abused the filibuster but continue to pretend that they were powerless.
So what that the American people had voted for those they wanted to represent them? So what that the majority of representatives and senators were Democrats who wanted to work with Obama? Republicans decided that they knew better than the majority of Americans, and now they run around screaming how they were simply helpless and run over for two years by the mean old Democrats.
Political ads like the one Crossroads America produced aren't going to stop. Crossroads just bought $11 million in advertising to push this sort of skewed narrative. With 32 days left before the election, misleading seems to be the overall plan.
I think I'll need way more scotch to get through this.
Elon James White is a writer and satirist and host of the award-winning video and radio series This Week in Blackness. Listen Monday to Thursday at 1:30 p.m. EST at TWIB.FM and watch at TV.TWIB.ME/LIVE. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr.
Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
Elon James White is a writer and satirist and host of the award-winning video and radio series This Week in Blackness. Listen Monday to Thursday at 1:30 p.m. EST at TWIB.FM and watch at TV.TWIB.ME/LIVE. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr.


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An LDAP directory is organized into a tree of directory entries. Each directory entry is uniquely identified by its distinguished name (DN). The root point of the tree is represented by a special entry whose DN is called the directory suffix.
For example, a company directory for Quincy Funds might have a directory suffix of
o=quincyfunds.com. Branching off the tree root, there may be entries for the various departments within the organization, such as
ou=Marketing,o=quincyfunds.com, and so on. Under the organizational unit subtrees, there might be entries representing individual people, for example,
As you can see above, a DN consists of a series of comma-separated attribute name/value pairs. The hierarchy is represented right-to-left in a DN, with the right-most pair indicating the top of the hierarchy. For example,
ou=Finance,o=quincyfunds.com is a child of
o=quincyfunds.com. The left-most attribute name/value pair is called a relative distinguished name (RDN).
The examples in this section demonstrate some standard attribute names, such as:
ofor organization
oufor organizational unit
cnfor common name
These standard attribute names are inherited from the X.500 standard, which preceded LDAP. Their use is not required, but is a good convention to follow when possible. Note that you can also define an organization like this:
The directory tree may be highly branched, with the entire organizational hierarchy reflected in the tree structure, or it may be almost flat, depending on the needs of the organization. An example of an almost flat directory structure is one where all the people entries reside under the same organizational unit entry, such as
ou=person,o=quincyfunds.com. There may also be organizational unit entries for storing other types of information, for example,
ou=Devices,o=quincyfunds.com, and so on.
A directory may have more than one directory suffix. This typically comes into play with very large directories which are spread across multiple machines, extranets, and ISPs. For example, an ISP whose directory service needs to support multiple enterprises might have a separate directory suffix for each of the enterprises.


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Adam Deen is an international public speaker on Muslim Apologetics.
A former Islam channel presenter who has been working in the field of Muslim apologetics for almost a decade. He has contributed to debates on issues ranging from religious philosophy and theology. His work draws on contemporary philosophy to defend Islam in debates. He has regularly appeared on mainstream TV.
Eid Mubarak, may Allah except our fasting and prayers.
Post a comment


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Bad Seeds supersede the songs: Cave
It is a balmy day in Sydney and Nick Cave - hair swept back and suited - is in good spirits.
The Australian singer-songwriter is basking in a first number No.1 album Push The Sky, which also sits proudly at No.3 in the UK, the country he now calls home.
It is 30 years since Cave moved to London as the bile-spitting frontman of The Birthday Party, ushering a nomadic existence that took in Berlin and Sao Paulo before the musician, now 55, settled in Brighton.
In that time Cave has split a tumultuous but prolific career between music, novel and script writing: he's the author of 19 albums, two books and two films: 2005's award-winning The Proposition and 2012's Lawless.
He is here to talk about music, mainly about Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, who kick off their sold-out national tour this week, but first to clear up the confusion over Grinderman, the side-project he reportedly disbanded at Homebake Festival in 2011, but who are now mysteriously lined up for a couple of shows at Coachella in April.
"Grinderman can't really break up because it was never formed in the first place," Cave says, running a hand through his hair.
"There were reports about Grinderman breaking up because of something I said on stage and so we just didn't say anything to the contrary.
"There's kind of a robust structure to most of what I do, especially the Bad Seeds, but Grinderman is like a big sloppy whore who can do anything and it's been very liberating."
Cave denies keeping his fans deliberately guessing. Rather, he says, any change in direction is down to his lack of a long-term vision.
He took a step forward on Push The Sky, expanding his songwriting partnership with band mate Warren Ellis, who is a close collaborator through Grinderman and Cave's film projects.
"Certainly from the ground up we were writing songs together which I've never done with this band before," says Cave.
"That's been amazing for me because you're always looking for a way for the whole thing to continue, to keep the band alive.
"It's got to the point where the Bad Seeds is more important than the songs because I think historically there isn't another band which still has the ability to put out a relevant and interesting record."
The new album is a first outing without guitarist Mick Harvey, who was sacked in 2009 and was meant to be replaced until the band discovered a more free flowing style, exempt of what Cave calls "the classic Nick Cave ballad with its verse-chorus structure".
Recorded over three weeks at a residential studio in France, songs such as We No Who U Are and Water's Edge were also an attempt to moves away from the narrative approach of old.
"The writing is visual and voyeuristic but also fractured so it doesn't require a following of any story," Cave says.
"This album is very much about the songwriting process and there's a nice confusion between the songwriter and who I am as a person.
"You don't really know what's going on and you're made to think 'who is this guy watching people cavorting down at the water's edge'."
A deluxe edition offers a copy of Cave's notebook, from rough sketches to finished article.
"You see clearly how a song is written from the pages of shit swimming in rubbish to eventually lines that float to the top and separate themselves into a song."
Certainly the book offers insight into Higgs Boson Blues, a song that not only delves into the discovery of the subatomic particle by the Hadron Collider, but Robert Johnson, the death of Martin Luther King and Miley Cyrus, who ends up "floating in a pool".
The imagery is not typical of the album as a whole - it was actually inspired by a family trip to Madame Tussauds - and while previous records have lived in dark places plagued by violence, sex and the impending threat of Armageddon, Cave's home town of Brighton is the unlikely centre of Push The Sky.
The stand-out track Jubilee Street, lush with melodious strings, sees the protagonist reporting on the status of his neighbours, "pushing my wheel of love up Jubilee Street", and it's the relative anonymity of the English seaside town that keeps Cave locked away to his own devices.
"I'm basically left alone in Brighton and apart from the odd Italian tourist I don't get recognised," he says.
"You need to be invisible doing what I do and most the time you want to disappear - not reminded of who or what you are."
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds will perform at Red Hill Auditorium, Perth on March 6.
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1 item found
Aesthetic Movement
Est. Retail $2,500
A foyer is the first room you see when you walk through the door. Not only does it welcome you home every day, your entryway gives your guests their first impression of the rest of your place. If you've got a spacious entry hall to fill, consider a sleek entryway table or a nice storage bench where you can sit and take off your shoes after a long day. If you're working with a smaller entry area, simply hang up a stylish foyer chandelier to make a statement without taking up any floor space.


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The wind industry had been hoping for a large and long-time increase in annual budget funding for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and other Department of Energy (DOE) research labs. What it got was $93 million for a variety of research and development (R&D) and infrastructure projects, $25 million for a rotor blade testing facility in Massachusetts and $8.5 million spread over 53 smaller projects aimed at improving the market acceptance and deployment of wind power throughout the US. The $25 million for rotor blade testing represents first construction funding for a long planned blade test facility, initially announced in June 2007.
Of the R&D allocation, $45 million is earmarked for purchase of a new test bed to support an existing drive train analysis and reliability program being operated by NREL and the DOE (Windpower Monthly, May 2008). NREL wind program manager Brian Smith says there is uncertainty on how and where the funds will be awarded. "It's not clear to us exactly for what period of time and what are the requirements in order to spend that money. But it's definitely intended to be a one-time nature," says Smith.
DOE's stated goal for the new test bed, or dynamometer, will be for a test facility that creates loads up to 15 MW, which could test the very largest drive trains like offshore specific wind turbines, says Smith. It will not necessarily be located at NREL's currently drive train facility in Colorado, but will bid competitively for any number of federal facilities in the US. The same approach will be applied for the $24 million allocated for co-operative research between universities and the private sector. More details are expected to follow in June.
Hope remains in the wind industry that the annual US wind budget -- which on average has been $40 million each year for over a decade -- will see major increases. Annual DOE spending on wind was increased from $49 million in 2008 to $55 million for 2009. The latest budget proposal from President Barack Obama calls for raising it to $75 million, but that requires congressional approval and is still much lower than the wind industry says is necessary for wind to make major improvements on cost and efficiency.


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India has big opportunities in the home automation industry. Growing working population, increasing per capita spending and middle-class population attracts not only domestic players but foreign players too. It is anticipated that India home automation market will grow in double digit during the forecasting period and expected to cross the figure of INR 30,000 Crore by 2022. Our report Title "India Home Automation Market by Types (Lighting, Security, Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning, HVAC, Entertainment) By User (Residential, Commercial & Hospitality) Company Profiles & Forecast" describes the following points:
• India home automation market and market share analysis
• India home automation market analysis by product category (Lighting, Security, Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning, HVAC, Entertainment)
• India home automation market analysis by customer category (Residential, Commercial & Hospitality)
• Company Profile covers (Larsen & Toubro, Schneider Electric, Johnson Controls, AMX LLC, Crestron Electronics, Home Brain, Pert and Silvan Innovation Labs)
Get Free 10% Customization in this Report
Download full Report:
Startups are Keen to Enter in India Home Automation Market
Home automation industry in India has big potential to grow. So a lot of startups are showing interest in this marketplace. Some of them are Oakter, Inoho, IFIHOMES.com, Silvan Innovation Labs, SharpNode, Home Brain, Cubical Labs, Thasmai Automation, Metagan Technologies Private Limited, eDomotics etc. Reliance Jio is also entering home automation business. Jio offers home automation and surveillance system.
The World is Full of Innovation
Nowadays, a number of innovations are being developed across the globe and India is also becoming the part of this innovation process. Slowly but Indian consumers are in the process to change traditional home device with smart home devices such as Wi-Fi cameras, digital locks and smart switches, smart TV, smart refrigerator, digital music zoning system. Smart lighting and smart security products are also big demandable products by India consumers.
Indian Consumers Start with Home Automation Products Trail Base
Most of the Indian consumers are not aggressively adopted all types of home automation products or do not ready to change their home infrastructure with the automated smart home, suddenly. Instead of, they experience with one or two products and after that, they can ready to move further enhance in their home.
India Home Automation Market Analysis by Category
India home automation market belongs to several categories. On the basis of product features it is categorized by Home Automation Lighting, Home Automation Security, Home Automation HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) and Home Automation Entertainment; However on the basis of customer category, this market is divided into three category: Residential Home Automation, Commercial Home Automation and Hospitality Home Automation.
View more reports about Information Technology, Telecom & Internet by Renub Research at:
Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary
2. India Home Automation Market (2013 – 2022)
3. India Home Automation Share & Forecast (By Products, User Types) (2013 – 2022)
4. By Product – India Home Automation Market (Lighting, Security, HVAC, Entertainment) (2013 – 2022)
5. By User Types – India Home Automation Market (Residential, Commercial, Hospitality) (2013 – 2022)
6. India Home Automation Market Analysis by 19 Cities
7. India Home Automation Product Profiling
7.1 Established Companies Product Profiling – (Larsen & Toubro TELETASK, Schneider Electric, Johnson Controls, AMX, Crestron Electronics)
7.2 Startup Companies Product Profiling – (Home Brain, Pert, Silvan Innovation Labs)
8. Smart City Project Boost in India Home Automation Market
9. Indian Internet of Things (IoT) Market & Home Automation Market Share Analysis
10. Indian Internet of Things (IoT) Product Profiling
11. India Home Automation Market – Growth Driver
12. India Home Automation Market – Challenges
13. Home Automation Company Strategy in India (Established Companies, Startups Companies, B2B, B2C)
14. Established Company Profiling
15. Startup Company Profiling
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Bearing in mind that there's going to be a new Incredible Hulk movie next summer - written by Ed Norton, and with the first trailer being premiered during the Super Bowl because that worked so well last time - Marvel Entertainment have released plans of what they're planning to do to the Jolly Green Giant in comic form next year to tie in to the inevitable multimedia marketing plans. Namely, give him a paint job and a bastard son.
With this week's release of the final issue of the World War Hulk series - which saw the Hulk return to Earth from a year in space with the aim of kicking humanity's ass, only to get his own ass well and truly handed to him - Marvel also released three preview images for upcoming Hulk-related comics. First up is Hulk, which sees current Heroes and former Lost producer Jeph Loeb writing a new monthly comic starring a mystery bright red Hulk, while the existing Incredible Hulk comic gets a new star and new title, becoming Incredible Herc as Greek god Hercules takes over for a few months. Most soap operatic of all is the announcement of Skaar: Son of Hulk, another new monthly comic based around the bastard son the Hulk spawned during his year in the stars.
What do these changes say about Norton's movie plans for Dr. Robert Bruce Banner and his Gamma-spawned alter ego? Probably very little, but if any of this raises the possibility of stripping Norton naked and painted bright red, then really, who will complain that loudly? Image courtesy of Marvel Entertainment
The Hulk To Come? [Newsarama.com]


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Just a short blog this year – some of my previous ones have been quite epic! If you want to know more about my general Historic Environment Record work then please check my previous posts.
Recently I've been to a few archaeology events. It's been good to go to a few Festival of Archaeology things to remind myself how fun archaeology can be (sometimes when you're stuck in an office all day you start to forget!). Since my son is now 4 1/2 we've had fun dragging him round things..! Also my Father in Law is a flint knapper, and my Sister in Law assists him, so we've seen them as we've visited things. It's a bit of a family affair, really. 🙂
We went to the Bradgate Park Fieldschool Open Day at the beginning of July. This is a student training and research excavation project being run by the University of Leicester. They've been test pitting/excavating all sorts of things including a Scheduled Monument of a moated site, which has come up with some amazing results. And of course, at Bradgate Park there's always the Palaeolithic site to talk about. (I posted about that previously.)
The other big event we went to was 'Bringing the Past to Life' at Jewry Wall museum in Leicester. This is a major re-enactment spectacle in the museum and Roman Bathhouse ruins. It has to be said that my little boy was more interested in running around than paying attention to much, though we did get him interested in mosaic jigsaws and tic tac toe. Plus his Granddad was there, and his Auntie, and he was also very interested in the Leicestershire Industrial History Society display because they had a model of Stephenson's Comet.
Of course we also managed a summer holiday in Norfolk where we made him look at things such as windmills and castles. But I don't think we've had as much as a Busman's Holiday as my colleague, who has been off digging with local groups. Maybe that's yet to come!


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Service: Questions and answers about prelado
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Unfortunately, at direct top-ups some mobile network operators like PENNY MOBIL or ja!mobil sometimes update your balance in their systems with a delay time. We recommend you to check your actual balance using the key combination *100# or *101# a couple of minutes afterwards.
eVouchers are at your disposal right after successful transaction and can be redeemed anytime you want.
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General questions
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Via our contact-form, you can ask questions to our customer service. We'll handle your request as quickly as possible.
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1) At direct top-up and the amount should, as a general rule, be available within a few minutes. The entry of top-up codes is not necessary. Technical delays on the part of the mobile network operators can't be influenced by us.
2) If you choose an eVoucher product, the code will be at your disposal right after successful transaction and can be redeemed anytime.
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As the owner of a German prepaid-SIM-card, the top-up service is available to you as is usual. Please be aware that you will need to have an internet connection or a mobile data connection.
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What happens if my top-up fails, but money is deducted from my bank account?
Why do I have to verify my PayPal account?
Why don't I get displayed the just now topped-up amount?
Unfortunately, some direct top-up providers like PENNY MOBIL or ja!mobil sometimes update your balance on their website with a delay time. We recommend you to check your actual balance using the key combination *100# a little later again.
eVouchers are at your disposal right after successful transaction an can be redeemed anytime.
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Customer Account
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"My prelado" offers you several options to manage your personal data:
- Dashboard for a quick overview
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- Transaction history with quick top-up repetion
- Change of personal data settings


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The Holocaust is one of the darkest moments in world history. Systematically the Nazi's gathered together, tortured and murdered about 6 million European Jews and a total of 11 to 17 million people altogether. These murders were not in battle. Many of them took place in Concentration Camps with infamous names such as Treblinka, and Auschwitz. The records document what transpired. As Germany was defeated and the Concentration Camps were liberated, the condition of the survivors was noted with revulsion and anger. How could people treat human life with such disregard?
The Nuremburg Trials brought more horror to light. The results of testimony were so repulsive and atrocious that those receiving it were shocked and sickened. As the facts surfaced, the world was covered in a shroud of despair, for the victims, their families, and the survivors. FOOTNOTE, along with the National Archives, and the Holocaust Memorial Museum, have brought many of these records to light. The have been digitized, indexed and placed on the internet for public research. Through the study of Concentration Camp Records, as well as other content concerning the Holocaust, it is our hope that nothing like this will ever happen again!


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Complete protection from dust, dirt & abrasion.
Envelopes fit either 12 or 16 records and have a 1 exterior flap (without adhesive) to keep out dust & dirt. Seams are on the exterior of the envelope to prevent surface abrasion during storage and handling. The 10 point heavy-weight acid/lignin-free buffered envelopes (pH 8.5) are tan in color. Sturdy envelopes may be stored individually on shelves or in our phonograph record storage boxes.
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Human Capital Exchange Book Discussion06 April, 2012 | (01 hr)
Sign In to access this Webcast
To view the on demand recording of this webcast, please make sure to login to our website by using the sign in button on the right hand side of this page. You can also use this button to create a free account, which will grant you access to our entire book discussion series!
Join us for our next Human Capital Exchange Book Discussion, featuring guest speaker, John Boudreau. John is a USC Marshall School of Business professor and author of Retooling HR: Using Proven Business Tools to Make Better Decisions About Talent, in which he encourages human capital professionals to make better use of already existing business tools to address common issues surrounding human capital, such as talent acquisition, incentives, and leadership training.
Over the past few years, members of the profession have made significant advances in becoming valuable strategic partners. Yet, despite these efforts, many are still struggling to measure their real impact within a company. John will discuss how his new book helps address this challenge by advocating six powerful analytical tools already used by other business leaders which will help human capital practitioners create effective strategies and measurable solutions related to talent management.
Julian Kaufmann, Senior Fellow and former Senior Managing Director and Head of HR and Communications for AIG, will serve as the moderator. Join us for what promises to be a most enlightening discussion.
Audience: Human Capital professionals charged with strategic workforce planning, workforce readiness, diversity & inclusion, talent management, strategic human resources, employee engagement, leadership development or human capital analytics
John W. Boudreau, Ph.D.
John W. Boudreau, Ph.D., Professor and Research Director at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and Center for Effective Organizations, is recognized worldwide for breakthrough research on the bridge between superior human capital, talent and sustainable comp...Full Bio
Julian Kaufmann
Julian Kaufmann is a Senior Fellow, Human Capital at The Conference Board. In this role, Kaufmann supports the Human Capital Practice which includes The Conference Board Human Capital Exchange™, research, conferences, webcasts and programs in a broad spectrum of hu...Full Bio


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I have a strange job, and one that doesn't exist at too many other universities. My official title is 'Project and Fieldwork Officer' and, along with my partner in crime Anthony in the role of Computing Officer, you could say we act as a sort of half-way-house between the students and the lecturers in the Department of Archaeology at York.
We spend a lot of our time teaching the undergraduate and postgraduate students techniques like survey, geophysics, and computing skills such as GIS, but invariably this doesn't stop in class. As soon as a student decides to use a fieldwork technique, piece of kit, or computer in their dissertation, this means a lot of one-to-one support and coaching from us. This puts us in a nice position, as we really get to know the students well, in a more relaxed environment. It also means we are rewarded handsomely with wine and chocolate at the end of the year.
With the undergraduates away for the summer it's quiet in the department, but there's still plenty to do. The postgrads are still here, desperately trying to finish their dissertations and in need of GIS and other general computer help, but today I had other responsibilities.


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A red panda, that is. And the presidency she's seeking is that of Boston's Franklin Park Zoo. In honor of Presidents' Day, the Zoo has been holding a "PreZOOdential Election" since 2006 (when a gorilla named Kiki won). This year, Stella Luna the red panda faces off against another gorilla, a lion, an ocelot, an anteater, and a condor. It's going to be tough not to vote for Stella, though. Look at that face!
More from Jezebel
Not only are red pandas adorable, but their nickname, the firefox, is the inspiration for Mozilla Firefox.
Yay cute little firefox *and* saved-the-world-from-IE Firefox!


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- Project plans
- Project activities
- Legislation and standards
- Industry context
Last edited 16 May 2019
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LLMMC 2011 : Symposium on Learning Language Models from Multilingual Corpora
|Link: http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/aig/LLMMC/
Call For Papers
Symposium on Learning Language Models from Multilingual Corpora (LLMMC)
(Part of the AISB 2011 Convention, 4-7 April 2011.)
Call for Papers
International organizations, such as the UN and the EU, news agencies, and companies operating internationally are producing large volumes of texts in different languages. As a result, large publicly-available parallel paragraph- or sentence-aligned corpora have been created for many language pairs, e.g., French-English, Chinese-English or Arabic-English. The multilingual nature of the EU has given rise to many documents available in all or many of its official languages, which have been assembled in multi-lingual parallel corpora such as Europarl (11 languages, 34-55M words for each) and JRC-Acquis (22 languages, 11-22M words for each).
These parallel corpora have been used, both monolingually and multilingually, for a variety of NLP tasks, including but not limited to machine translation, cross-lingual information retrieval, word sense disambiguation, semantic relation extraction, named entity recognition, POS tagging, and syntactic parsing. With the advent of Internet, there has been also an explosion in the availability of semi-parallel multilingual online resources like Wikipedia that have been used for similar tasks and have a big potential for future exploration and research.
In this symposium, we are interested in explicit models, usable and verifiable by humans, which could be used for either translation or for modelling individual languages, e.g., as applied to morphology, where the available translations can help identify word forms of the same lexical entry in a given language; or lexical semantics, where parallel corpora can help extract instances of relations, such as synonymy and hypernymy, which are essential for building thesauri and ontologies. The results may be compared against existing approaches for the acquisition of language models (morphology, syntax, semantics) from monolingual corpora, or combined with these in order to use the best of both approaches.
The main purpose of the symposium will be to gather and disseminate the best ideas in this new area. Thus, we welcome discussions of previously published ideas alongside original contributions. The submission format is limited to a 4-page extended abstract, which may be a position paper, or one outlining an initial idea, work in progress or completed research. The camera-ready copy of the article to be published in the symposium proceedings can be the same extended abstract of up to 4 pages or a full-length paper of up to 8 pages in the AISB convention format: http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb11/style.html. All accepted papers will be allocated 25 minutes for presentation and questions. At least one of the authors will need to be registered for the event before a paper can appear in the proceedings. A considerable part of this one-day symposium will be dedicated to discussions to encourage the formations of new collaborations and consortia.
The symposium will take place alongside 9 other symposia on various aspects of AI-related research, drawing strongly on Computer Science, Psychology and Philosophy, among other disciplines. A number of plenary speakers of international fame (Alan Baddeley, Katie Slocombe, Mark Steedman, Stephen Wolfram) will add to the excitement of this interdisciplinary international event, which will take place in the historical city of York, one of the oldest and most visited towns in England.
Duration: a one-day symposium.
Important dates:
Submissions: January 19, 2011
Notification: February 14, 2011
Submission of camera-ready versions: February 28, 2011
Symposium: April 6, 2011
Dimitar Kazakov, The University of York, UK (kazakov AT cs DOT york DOT ac DOT uk)
Preslav Nakov, National University of Singapore, Singapore (preslav DOT nakov AT gmail DOT com)
Ahmad R. Shahid, The University of York, UK (ahmad AT cs DOT york DOT ac DOT uk)
Program Committee:
Graeme Blackwood, University of Cambridge, UK
Phil Blunsom, University of Oxford, UK
Francis Bond, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Yee-Seng Chan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Daniel Dahlmeier, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Marc Dymetman, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France
Andreas Eisele, Directorate-General for Translation, Luxembourg
Michel Galley, Stanford University, USA
Kuzman Ganchev, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Corina R Girju, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Philipp Koehn, University of Edinburgh, UK
Krista Lagus, Aalto University School of Science and Technology, Finland
Wei Lu, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Elena Paskaleva, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
Katerina Pastra, Institute for Language and Speech Processing, Greece
Khalil Sima'an, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Ralf Steinberger, Joint Research Centre, Italy
Joerg Tiedemann, Uppsala University, Sweden
Marco Turchi, Joint Research Centre, Italy
Jaakko V�yrynen, Aalto University School of Science and Technology, Finland


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NASHVILLE (BP) -- When President Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act in 1964, it codified into law provisions that many Southern Baptists had a reputation for opposing -- bans on racial discrimination in public accommodations and government programs.
But amid the opposition, there were pockets of Southern Baptists working for racial justice and equality. On the legislation's 50th anniversary, Baptist leaders are celebrating the fact that those pockets of activism have blossomed into a convention-wide emphasis on multiethnic cooperation to fulfill the Great Commission.
"The Civil Rights Act helped tear down so many walls that racial prejudice had constructed between members of the human family," Frank S. Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, said. "My passion is to see every man, woman, boy and girl trust in Jesus Christ and become active members of one of our churches ... not because it is politically correct, but because every person matters to the Lord."
Today more than 10,000 of the SBC's 46,000 churches are non-Anglo, comprised of a broad diversity of racial and ethnic members. About 15 percent of presidential appointments to committees were from non-Anglo ethnic and racial groups over the past two years, and nearly 100 members of racial and ethnic minority groups have served in SBC leadership positions.
About 400 North American Mission Board missionaries identify themselves as non-Anglo. Approximately half of SBC church plants are classified as non-Anglo, and nearly 15 percent of churches registered to assist in the Send North America church planting emphasis are from various racial and ethnic subsets of American culture.
All this led Page to call the SBC "one of the most ethnically diverse denominations in America."
A divided convention
Fifty years ago that wasn't the case. The SBC met in Atlantic City, N.J., in May, ahead of President Johnson's July 2 signing of the Civil Rights Act. At the annual meeting, the SBC's Christian Life Commission -- precursor to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission -- presented a recommendation that the convention pledge its support for civil rights legislation. When time came to vote on the recommendation, a pastor from Louisiana offered a substitute motion that didn't say anything about legislation.
The substitute motion, in a standing vote by messengers, was declared defeated, but the convention took a ballot vote because the margin appeared slim. On the ballot vote, the substitute motion was adopted and the CLC's motion to support civil rights legislation was set aside. When the Civil Rights Act became law, at least three Baptist colleges refused to sign "assurances of compliance."
But not all Southern Baptists were opposed to the new legislation.
The month after the Civil Rights Act became law, the CLC held conferences at the Ridgecrest and Glorieta conference centers addressing "Christianity and Race Relations." Speakers were bold in their advocacy of integration, and attendance outnumbered that at any previous CLC conference. More than 3,000 attended the two conferences, with 1,500 copies of the addresses distributed among Southern Baptists.
CLC executive secretary Foy Valentine believed his commission was in step with America's progressing attitudes about ethnic diversity.
"The fact is that in 1964, there was a new wave of interest in civil rights matters," Valentine said in a 1976 interview. "The civil rights legislation came on strong with the help of Lyndon Johnson and was passed, and it was the most important move forward for blacks in a hundred years. The commission again was at the blue point of the flame, with regard for social concern, because there wasn't anybody else in Southern Baptist life that was doing much open talking about this subject of civil rights and race relations."
Pockets of change
There may have been more open talking than Valentine realized because some pastors and churches were beginning to embrace integration.
In Louisville, Ky., an adjunct professor and a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary -- one white and one black -- decided to form an interracial ministry conference to meet monthly and discuss race relations in the city. The student, Emmanuel McCall who was black, and the adjunct professor, John Claypool who was white, each convened six pastors of his own race, and the group of 14 met for four months. McCall and Claypool then helped form the Louisville Baptist Interracial Pastors Conference, which met from 1962 to 1968 and included 800 ministers at its zenith.
McCall told Baptist Press the group's efforts contributed to the relative calm in Louisville regarding racial issues.
"Louisville went through that time without any racial conflict," McCall said. "Except there was one night when some guy who said he represented Stokely Carmichael gathered a group of people in the west end. From somewhere they came up with bricks, and they started a little bit of a riot. But it was the ministers' conference that said to the chief of police, 'We don't know this guy. Get him out of town. Arrest him or whatever.' And they did. So that was the only incident of any newsworthy note during that period."
McCall went on to become the first African American on staff at any SBC entity, when he went to work for the Home Mission Board in 1968. Claypool pastored churches in Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas and Mississippi.
Another member of the interracial pastors group, Carlisle Driggers, was pastoring Louisville's 23rd and Broadway Baptist Church in 1964. The congregation was ahead of its time in terms of racial inclusiveness and felt that the Civil Rights Act "substantiated" what it was seeking to do, Driggers told BP.
"I thought it was way past time for America to have legislation like that," Driggers said. "I know that it caused a lot of reaction, a lot of folks unhappy about it. But at the same time, my own personal reaction was that I thought it was very much in order. It needed to be done, and I was grateful to be a citizen of America when that legislation was adopted."
The law "supported what we were attempting to do at that time as a church," Driggers said.
A white congregation, 23rd and Broadway decided to stay in its longtime location even though the community around it was changing racially and culturally, with many blacks moving into the neighborhood. The decision to stay included a commitment to reach everyone around the church regardless of race.
The congregation ministered to hundreds of blacks during weekday programs for the community, and eventually 10 to 20 percent of its Sunday worshippers were African Americans. The church's outreach was so successful that the HMB appointed a missionary to work specifically with 23rd and Broadway -- the first time the board appointed a missionary to an individual church.
Still, when a black worshipper, Brenda Owens, presented herself for membership in 1966, Driggers felt a bit nervous, not knowing how the congregation would react. He received her during the invitation and called for a vote on whether to accept her as a member. After a vote without opposition, a thankful Driggers bowed his head to lead the closing prayer. He says he'll never forget what he saw when he opened his eyes.
"Our people, while I was praying, were getting up out of their seats, and they were lined up all the way from the front of the church to the back door -- lined up to come forward and speak to Brenda. It was a precious, precious moment," Driggers said.
Driggers gained a reputation for his work in interracial ministry, so much so that First Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., brought him on staff in 1969 to help with a tumultuous integration process. He went on to become executive director of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
Some Southern Baptist institutions were also ahead of their times. All six SBC seminaries accepted black students well before 1964. Southern Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, both admitted black students in the 1940s, with Garland Offutt becoming the first black graduate of any SBC seminary in 1944 when Southern awarded him a master of theology.
Martin Luther King Jr. preached in Southern Seminary chapel in 1961 to a warm reception by faculty and students -- despite objections from some Southern Baptists and eventually an apology from trustees for "any offense caused by the visit of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., to the campus of the Seminary."
In 1965, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary students and faculty donated funds to help a student travel from the seminary's California campus to the civil rights march in Selma, Ala. The student body also sent pro-civil rights telegrams to King and Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
At Southwestern, ethics professor T.B. Maston was a noted champion of civil rights.
A changing convention
Perhaps shocked into changing by the turmoil in America and perhaps convinced by the consistent appeals of leaders like Valentine and McCall, Southern Baptists broadly began to integrate and embrace interracial cooperation.
In 1968, the convention adopted by a more than 2 to 1 margin a "Statement Concerning the Crisis in Our Nation," with messengers vowing to "personally accept every Christian as a brother beloved in the Lord and welcome to the fellowship of faith and worship every person irrespective of race or class."
Many churches integrated in the 1960s and 1970s, and ethnic churches began to join the convention -- so much so that church growth expert C. Peter Wagner called the SBC the most diverse religious denomination in America in 1970.
Racist elements persisted, but they dwindled to a small minority. In 1995, the convention adopted a resolution apologizing for its racist past, asking African Americans for forgiveness. In 2012, the SBC elected Fred Luter Jr. as its first black president.
The vote "was a genuine, authentic move by this convention that says our doors are open," Luter said following his election. "And the only way can see that is not just putting up an African American president, but seeing other ethnic groups in other areas of this convention. Time will tell and I'll be a cheerleader promoting that."
Preserving the gains
Kelly Miller Smith Jr., an African American who has pastored National and Southern Baptist churches, told BP he believes Southern Baptists began cooperating with blacks in part because they realized how much Baptists of both races hold in common.
In years past, Southern Baptists "were more concerned with the pigmentation of the skin, and they didn't realize that if they could get beyond what they see in terms of the skin, there are a lot of black Baptists who have very similar kinds of theological perspectives," Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill in Nashville, told BP.
Smith added that despite their theological commonalities, white and black Baptists often differ in their social applications of the Gospel. Cooperative ministry in the future will depend on their ability to understand one another's perspectives on issues like poverty, discrimination, employment and healthcare, he said.
Thankfully, black and white Baptists already have begun to cooperate in missions, evangelism, theological education and other areas.
On the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, Smith said it is important for Baptists to preserve the legacy of that legislation in America and continue to break down racial prejudice in the church.
The "landmark legislation" of 1964, Smith said, was "only the beginning stages of things that would have to be further developed."
David Roach is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's news service. BP reports on missions, ministry and witness advanced through the Cooperative Program and on news related to Southern Baptists' concerns nationally and globally. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).
Copyright (c) 2014 Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press www.BPNews.net


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This week the 7 ages of rock not only managed to make more of a pigs ear than that of the punk program, it also managed to get facts wrong, actually incorrect. I'm fucking livid…
Whilst Black Sabbath did invent heavy metal we didn't need to know the rest of Ozzy's career as it's not pertinent to the genre. To even discuss Motley Crue is an insult, especially when 'glam' was invented by the Finnish ban Hanoi Rocks in the early 80's, despite being told by Julian Rhind-Tutt (what sort of a fucking name is that) the Crue influenced Hanoi! Fucking unbelievable! I'll tell you this, a little bit of info they didn't mention, Vince Neil, the fat Crue frontman, killed Hanoi's drummer Razzle in a drink driving incident… That's the only way Crue influenced anyone.
The Judas Priest stuff was barely relevant outside of the duel lead guitar stuff and maybe the idiocies that surrounded the prosecution for subliminal lyrics that resulted in the death of what Bill Hicks called the last garage attendants in the world. Metallica were featured but they didn't kick the genre off by any means, Venom, even Motorhead, were way before Metallica ever got a record deal. To not mention at least one is ignorant, to not mention fucking either has prompted me to write a letter to the BBC.
I'm not going to write a list of who should've been mentioned but it's worth noting that no attention was paid at all to nu-metal. Kick started when rap and thrash collided it prompted a seismic shift in how 'metal' was perceived and encouraged an entirely fresh fan base. Nor did it mention any of the crucial sub-genres, death metal, grindcore, battlemetal… the programme was a fucking disgrace, an insult to fan and musician alike.
The Moto GP yesterday was the reverse, some of the best racing I've ever, ever seen. You didn't see it, you missed out. Stunning.
The weekend was very busy, a few beers with a mate form work in a walled beer garden in Tooting on Friday followed by a few cans and food in front of the box, namely Big Brother, a review in Watch With Mothers (link right of the page awaits you). Saturday I food shopped and started playing Tomb Raider in the afternoon, and here marks the beginning of the end of my summer. It's fantastic, addictive and will serve me well this week when I have an alcohol free. I decided to spend Saturday in with Lara, made a pile of food, spoke to Myfwt, smoked skunk, more beer cans (I'm still saying off the wine and generally drinking less) and watched a ridiculous film, The Butterfly Effect, which I enjoyed way more than I should.
Yesterday morning I got up, burped the worm, ate a kipper before getting into my van to drive in to Soho. It was a blisteringly hot day, humid to boot and the last place I wanted to be was in the cabin of a vehicle stick firstly in Tooting, then Vauxhall, then the West End prior to getting fucking pissed about by roadwork's and one-way street signs as I attempted to crack Greek Street. I was driving around, or rather, being sucked through London in a giant grid-lock, every option in my repertoire of navigation was halted by circumstance until I took the decision to illegally drive up Oxford Street and dive down Dean to finally meet my brother. I'd been screaming at him down the phone as I'd become increasingly incensed by having to spend my Sunday driving around tiny streets in a fucking van (I wanted to be on Box Hill with my black bitch) nonetheless he was pleased I'd finally arrived.
Me, him and his missus loaded a bunch of furniture into the guts of my van and I drove them back to Clapham, we unloaded the bloody van and I fucked off to my folks. The MOT on the white sod is due Friday, my dad is going to sort it for me which is fucking ace of him. It'd better pass; I need the bloody thing for Glastonbury in 10 days.
I took the train and bus back to Clapham where I finally met my bro in our usual Sunday boozer. He was a little flat initially but perked up eventually, we had 3 pints and a chaser and went our merry way. It was a glorious evening, the proper summer stuff and I was feeling quite pissed. The cutting back on drinking is making getting pissed more overt. This can only be a good thing?


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Did you know?
Many expensive air conditioning repairs could have been prevented with a maintenance check-up. Just like your automobile, your cooling system requires regular maintenance for reliable, energy-efficient operation. The manufacturer of your equipment as well as your utility company highly recommend maintenance be performed on your AC system at least once a year.
In the Plano, TX area, summer weather can be unpredictable, and your air conditioner may break down when you need it the most. Besides causing costly repairs—and even needing an AC replacement—neglecting to schedule maintenance checks will also void your warranty. Worst of all, neglected maintenance may put your family's safety at risk. If you don't currently have a maintenance plan for your AC unit, you should contact Total Air & Heat to get one set up immediately.
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Your HVAC system is like a car. Air conditioning repairs are much less expensive if a technician spots the problem before it gets out of control. Regular service visits allow Total Air & Heat's trained personnel to spot trouble in your AC unit before it becomes a bigger problem that would cost you more money to fix.
Knowing that trouble is stopped before it starts, and that your family can always depend on your air conditioning system to keep out the Texas summer heat, will give you peace of mind. You'll sleep well knowing your family is safe, cool, and comfortable in your home.
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Contact us for complete details and to get your own exclusive maintenance plan in Plano!


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Hey everyone,
If you're planning on running and Black Friday or Cyber Monday savings, please let us know as we're creating a blog post with links to all the deals which we'll be sharing on social media for all potential buyers to grab!
Should you have anything you wish to share, please let me know via Private DM to get added.
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Psychology Course for Postdocs New
Philip Guildford, Director of Research for the Department of Engineering will offer a unique perspective on the life of postdocs during this engaging interactive session.
- All current University of Cambridge Postdoctoral Researchers
- Further details regarding OPdA's eligibility criteria are available
- Personal effectiveness
This session aims to take a good-humoured look at the behaviours that people have in coping with changes in encounter in Cambridge, so that they are better placed to make conscious decisions about how they want to be
For more information about the event, please visit www.opda.cam.ac.uk/postdocacademy/2015events
For more information about the speaker, please click here.
- Wine and nibbles to follow
One session two hours
Events available


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People travel thousands of miles to sit on a secluded beach. Bask in the Sun. Enjoy the beauty of Hawai'i. Restore their spirit, their 'uhane, with the omnipresent powerful Aloha Spirit. I welcome them with open arms and open heart as my kupuna have taught me. But when the development they utilize destroys all that is precious to me. The last remnants of my culture and identity. The legacy of love for my children and grandchildren and the future. I still welcome them with open arms and open heart as my kupuna have taught me. But boy does it hurt sometimes...
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Posted by Ka`iana at 9:37 PM
3 comments:
- DeniseinVA said...
Your words are true and even though your gracious spirit welcomes us, we do tend to forget what our arrival means. I have visited Hawaii before and each time I feel like I am coming home. I am not sure what this means as I have traveled elsewhere, but Hawaii is the only place I have ever felt this way. I will always go back from whence I came, as I am just a visitor and love your beautiful Islands, your culture and your people so much that I will never stay, but will always treat with great respect. Long may the Hawaiian people keep their ways true to their ancestors, for the love and respect for those who have gone before is everything.
- July 14, 2008 at 3:28 PM
- Ka`iana said...
Mahalo Denise for sharing your Aloha spirit. You feel a connection because there definitely is one. Hawai`i is so beautiful and special that she truly belongs to the World. The diversity of the people who now call Hawai'i home is special. The Hawaiian people are part of her unique and special history. As Kahu, caretakers, of her powerful source of Aloha. It is meant to seed hope and light across the globe and help heal conflict through love, forgiveness and Aloha. You are always welcome here. Even to remain forever...
- July 14, 2008 at 8:30 PM
- DeniseinVA said...
I have no other words to express myself as eloquently as yours, just a very heartfelt thank you.
- July 16, 2008 at 4:07 AM


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What could be a better way to spend a sleepy-eyed Sunday morning than a cosy chitchat about books? So curl up, get comfy, and join in!
We all have a certain writer that we find ourselves inexpricably drawn to - a writer we connect with on an intellectual, emotional, or even spiritual level. Being able to form a truly personal connection with a person we've never met is one of the most beautiful aspects of reading.
We're often worlds apart from the writers we love. We occupy different spaces in terms of gender, race, socio-economic background, or even state of consciousness, with many of our favourite writers having been dead for years!
Yet, the relationship between writer and reader is one of the most intimate there is. The writer pours part of themselves onto the page and the reader brings their words to life, infusing them with their own shades of meaning.
"The act of reading is a partnership. The author builds a house, but the reader makes it a home." Judi Picoult, Between the Lines
But it's not only the words which weave themselves into our consciousness, but the physical memories of where we were when we read them become precious memories too.
I remember thorny branches poking my side as I pored over Harry Potter from the heights of a pink-tinged Magnolia tree. I remember the sting of sharp-edged pages crashing onto the bridge of my nose as the hot sun melted the glue binding my flimsy copy of The Lord of the Rings. And then there was the time I sustained inumerable bruises from crashing into display stands as I shuffled nose-deep in Roald Dahl's Esio Trot during a overly long shopping trip.
Reading always leaves a physical impression on us: a crank in the neck from lying down horizontally, a twinge in the wrist after reading into the early hours, and pins and needles from propping oneself up on spindly elbows.
So why do we put ourselves through the discomfort?
Because the act of reading is never wasted. The times we've spent absorbed in books have been weaving us into the people we are today and their influence, whether discernable or not, continues to shape us long after we've put the book down to rest our aching limbs.


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The Swamp Fun Park is a facility established to service the paintball and Airsoft community in the southeastern region of VA. We are dedicated to the recreational player and we welcome new players with open arms. We presently have 40+ acres of playing fields that include woods ball fields, a concept/scenario field and a tournament grade air ball field. Our highly trained staff takes great pride in providing the highest degree of customer service. Their mission is to ensure that our customers have a fun, positive, enjoyable and SAFE experience. Prepare to have a blast!! Bring the whole family, friends, or co-workers for a day everyone will remember and experience they will never forget! Paintball is one of the fastest growing recreational activities in the WORLD.
If you're a seasoned veteran or just a beginner, we have you covered. Our experienced referees and staff are here to oversee the games and answer any questions to make your paintball experience a positive one.
Paintball is a character-building sport enjoyed by people of all ages, lifestyles and professions. Men , women and children over the age of 8 can compete equally. Cleverness and determination, not merely strength, speed or agility, are essential to success in the sport. Like a game of chess, being able to think quickly and decisively is what makes you a superstar in paintball. Come experience the thrill of the game and the ultimate adrenaline rush!
You can bring your own gear if you have it. But if you need rentals, we rent Tippmann paintball markers. All of our equipment is thoroughly maintained, ensuring each player a worry free day of play.
There is always ample and secure parking. Our indoor pro-shop has everything you need including snacks, beverages, and clean restrooms.
We play rain or shine so dress accordingly.
Also, be sure to sign up for our email newsletter so you can read all the future events and deals that we run!


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I'm back (not that yall missed me or anything...he he)
Cannonade ~ can·non·ade
v. can·non·ad·ed, can·non·ad·ing, can·non·ades
v. tr.
To assault with heavy artillery fire.
v. intr.
To deliver heavy artillery fire.
An extended, usually heavy discharge of artillery.
A harsh verbal or physical attack.
[From French canonade, discharge of artillery, from Italian cannonata, from cannone, cannon, from Old Italian. See cannon.]


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Remote control candles might sound a little strange to you but I think these are brilliant! They look surprisingly realistic and unless you are looking right down on them you wouldn't know there was no real flame. You can switch them on and off at the base but need to use the remote for the various settings. There are a few different settings to make them brighter or more flickery but to be honest I don't actually use the remote control all that often. If you think you might forget to switch the candles off you can set a timer so that they switch off automatically which is good as you don't end up draining your batteries. The one thing I'm not too sure about is how long the batteries are going to last – hopefully they don't drain too quickly as you need two batteries per candle and I don't know about you but I never have any batteries in the house!
The best thing about these candles is that there is no way you could accidentally start a fire if you fall asleep or forget to blow out the candles! You can buy a pack of three candles here from Paramount Zone for just £12.99. I didn't want to mention Christmas this early but Paramount Zone also have some great gifts…..


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From Ubuntu Terminal screen (Applications > Accessories > Terminal), type:
taufanlubis@toshiba:~$ sudo apt-get install stax
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
libmyth-0.20 libsvga1 quake2-data
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 566kB of archives.
After unpacking 811kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe stax 1.0-13ubuntu3 [566kB]
Fetched 557kB in 21s (25.9kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package stax.
(Reading database … 130649 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking stax (from …/stax_1.0-13ubuntu3_i386.deb) …
Setting up stax (1.0-13ubuntu3) …
How to play?
From Ubuntu Terminal screen (Applications > Accessories > Terminal), type: stax.
It's a game like Tetris.
The different is you have to take the ball up with UParrow.
Move the U-magnet left&right using Left and Right arrow button.
Drop down the ball using DownButton.