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Each $9 donation earns an $18 raffle ticket for a chance to win FOUR tickets to Israel and support Israeli children with disabilities through Aleh Foundation
- Support Israeli children with disabilities!
- Each $9 donation earns an $18 entry to win 4 roundtrip tickets to Israel!
When's the last time you floated in the Dead Sea, davened at the kotel or visited a kibbutz? If it's been a while, you need to buy this Buy Israel Week deal. For only $9, you get an $18 raffle ticket for a trip for four to Israel. You'll also be helping children with disabilities at the same time. This way, you can support Israel in person!
Finances are always stretched when there's a disabled child in the family. The Aleh Foundation helps ease the financial burdens these families face. Dormitory facilities, therapeutic programs, medical and supportive care and leisure activities can be subsidized with your donation. You can fund overnights, family retreats and beach outings that will help families and their physically and mentally challenged children have fun in a "normal" setting that they don't usually find themselves in.
The decision of whether or not you should purchase this jdeal is an easy one--the answer is yes. The only question is how many you should spring for. This jdeal makes it easy with a simple way to donate, and a great reward for you, even if you don't win the big prize of a trip to Israel for four!
Winners of 2 round trip tickets at drawing on February 8, 2012, Rabbi Abraham & Rosalyn Cooper of LA California
September winners of tickets to Israel, John and Roya Bani
This year's dinner info:
The live drawing will be held at the Aleh Foundation Annual Awards Dinner to be held on May 8, 2013 in the Museum of Jewish Heritage. For more information about the dinner, visit Aleh Foundation's dinner webpage.
Fine Print
- Purchase as many vouchers as you want.
- Raffle is for four Economy Class tickets equivalent to 1400 El Al Matmid points.
- Taxes and fuel surcharges not included.
- The Aleh Foundation takes no responsibility for incorrect selections when tickets are chosen/booked.
- Drawing will be held on May 8, 2013. Winner will be notified via email and need not be present when raffle is drawn.
- Must be 18 years or older. Other terms and conditions may also apply.
- Please see terms and conditions for information related to raffles involving non-profit entities.
LOCATION Aleh Foundation
Redemption Instructions
No need to do anything; raffle ticket(s) will automatically be entered for the drawing on your behalf.


text:
Google Finance brings more exchanges into the fold
Get out your wallet and prepare your foreign investment portfolio because, just as Jimmy Buffet tells us it is always five o'clock somewhere, the market is also always open somewhere. Google Finance today grows a bit fatter, adding even more of those exchanges to its reporting.
Greg Pennington, Product Manager for Google Finance announces "we want you to have the world's financial data at your fingertips. We've launched five new exchanges on Google Finance".
New markets included in this latest update are:
- BM&F Bovespa (Brazil): AmBev, Petrobas, Índice Bovespa
- Borsa Istanbul (Turkey): Turkcell, İş Bankası
- The Stock Exchange of Thailand: PTT, Siam Bank
- SIX Swiss Exchange: Nestlé, Novartis, Swiss Market Index
- Wiener Borse (Austria): OMV, Voestalpine
Google Finance now contains a large list of exchanges, mutual funds, indexes and even currencies. How your money gets invested, and if it gains or loses, will be all on you and Google.
Image Credit: sergign / Shutterstock

subset: commoncrawl


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Total Drama Action - Alien Resur-eggtion
Total Drama Action, Episode 02 - Alien Resur-eggtion
Series Synopsis
After having spent the last few weeks stranded on an island in Northern Ontario, the 22 animated reality TV show contestants (of the ever popular TOTAL DRAMA ISLAND) have been whittled down to fourteen for round two.
Episode Synopsis
Episode 02 - Alien Resur-eggtion
Fourteen cast mates embark on an epic search for alien eggs in our alien movie-themed challenge, while Chef, a.k.a. Mama Alien, tracks their every move.
Previous Episode Synopsis
Episode 14 - One Million Bucks B.C.
A fur-bikini-clad Courtney delivers the crippling blow that sends Duncan into a tar pit, winning the Grips the day's big reward - a mammoth-sized prehistoric barbecue.
Future Episodes
- 7:00am Wednesday, October 10 (R)
- 1:30pm Wednesday, October 10 (R)
- 7:25pm Wednesday, October 10 (R)
- 7:00am Thursday, October 11 (R)
- 1:30pm Thursday, October 11 (R)
- 7:25pm Thursday, October 11 (R)
- 7:00am Friday, October 12 (R)
- 1:30pm Friday, October 12 (R)


text:
|Episode 2379
|Production code
|ITV transmission date
|18th January 1984 (Wednesday)
|Stories by
| Tom Elliott
Peter Tonkinson
|Bob Mason
|Eric Deakins
|Eugene Ferguson
|Executive Producer
|Bill Podmore
|Mervyn Watson
|Previous episode
|16th January 1984
|Next episode
|23rd January 1984
Brian can't come to terms with Bert's death. Ivy tries to believe it's God's will but Brian is upset that he never said goodbye to him. Vera comforts Ivy and gives her a shoulder to cry on. Gail tries to keep hold of her grief but breaks down in the Corner Shop. Mike gets Emily to go over the club's books. Ivy admits that the hospital told her months ago that Bert was dying. Brian is annoyed that she didn't tell him. Fred grows desperate to sell raffle tickets as he's only sold five. Don Watkins tells Mike he paid DJ Tony Hill £70 after Hill told Mike he was paid £40. Mike tells him they'll do a stocktake. Watkins runs off.
Regular castEdit
- Vera Duckworth - Elizabeth Dawn
- Jack Duckworth - William Tarmey
- Mike Baldwin - Johnny Briggs
- Ivy Tilsley - Lynne Perrie
- Ida Clough - Helene Palmer
- Shirley Armitage - Lisa Lewis
- Emily Bishop - Eileen Derbyshire
- Fred Gee - Fred Feast
- Deirdre Barlow - Anne Kirkbride
- Gail Tilsley - Helen Worth
- Betty Turpin - Betty Driver
- Brian Tilsley - Christopher Quinten
- Bet Lynch - Julie Goodyear
- Alf Roberts - Bryan Mosley
- Nicky Tilsley - Warren Jackson
- Hilda Ogden - Jean Alexander
Guest castEdit
- Rovers Return Inn - Public
- 5 Coronation Street - Downstairs rooms
- Corner Shop
- Baldwin's Casuals - Sewing room and office
- Graffiti Club
- This episode marks the 1,000th appearance of Betty Driver in the role of Betty Williams.
- TV Times synopsis: Mike Baldwin's suspicions that Don Watkins is fiddling Graffiti Club money are confirmed. Fred Gee is baffled as to why the raffle tickets for his Rover aren't selling.
- Viewing Figures: First UK broadcast - 17,815,000 viewers (1st place).
|January 1984 episodes
|Mon 2nd • Wed 4th • Mon 9th • Wed 11th • Mon 16th • Wed 18th • Mon 23rd • Wed 25th • Mon 30th


text:
Hippie Digest: Why We War – Bonnaroo 2013 Lineup – Political Pop Culture
I Know Why We War
We watched a story play out
in silence
I asked him to describe what he saw
between the two
He painted a tale of jealousy and despise
told from the view of a mad brothers eyes.
I should have known then he was poison.
I spun my own story
of love and support
I do not revel in the intrigue
time to rise up young brother
see something more
we will escape together.
You are more than the toxic youth
that you were taught to be.
Bonnaroo 2013 Lineup: Paul McCartney, Mumford & Sons, Tom Petty Headlining
Bjork, Wu-Tang Clan, Wilco, Pretty Lights also on tap for the massive Tennessee festival.
Paul McCartney will take center stage at this year's Bonnaroo festival, which will invade Manchester, Tenn. from June 13-16. Macca, Mumford & Sons and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers lead this year's lineup, announced on Tuesday (Feb. 19).
The annual four-day music festival will be home to a rare U.S. festival appearance for McCartney, who headlined Coachella in 2009. Last year, the 70-year-old released a collection of standards, "Kisses on the Bottom," and performed with the remaining members of Nirvana at 12-12-12: The Concert For Sandy Relief as well as on "Saturday Night Live." More…
Why Liberals Make Better Political Pop Culture than Conservatives
Heaven help me, I'm praising Jonah Goldberg.
In my ongoing quest to reach across the aisle and foster bipartisanship, I come to praise Jonah Golderb—yes, that Jonah Goldberg, the author of Liberal Fascism and innumerable appalling columns, for what he writes in the Los Angeles Times, in which he recoils at the suggestion by some of his brethren that they need to buy a movie studio and start churning out conservative films:
There's a difference between art and propaganda. Outside the art house crowd, liberal agitprop doesn't sell. Art must work with the expectations and beliefs of the audience. Even though pregnancies are commonplace on TV, you'll probably never see a hilarious episode of a sitcom in which a character has an abortion — because abortion isn't funny.
The conservative desire to create a right-wing movie industry is an attempt to mimic a caricature of Hollywood. Any such effort would be a waste of money that would make the Romney campaign seem like a great investment.
There's something Goldberg doesn't mention, which is that when they've tried this kind of thing in the past, conservatives have failed miserably. The problem isn't that pop culture isn't a good way to influence people's political beliefs, it's that when conservatives have tried to use pop culture for those ends, the results have been almost uniformly awful. What was supposed to be funny wasn't funny, what was supposed to be thrilling was boring, and what was supposed to get your toes tapping and your head nodding produced nothing but derisive laughter.More…


text:
One last post on Bristol Palin and the rape charge. Whatever our confusion about what was being implied, Levi Johnston is pretty clear and unhappy:
Bristol Palin is not telling the truth when she claims in a new book that her virginity was "stolen'' by boyfriend Levi Johnston, Johnston's attorney said Thursday.In the just released book, "Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far,'' Palin -- the daughter of former Gov. Sarah Palin -- claims she drank so many wine coolers on the night in question that she has no recollection of events, and that she woke the next morning with "something obviously askew'' only to be told by a girlfriend that "you definitely had sex with Levi."Johnston attorney Rex Butler disagreed with the part of the story that has Bristol so drunk she didn't know what was happening. "That's obviously not true,'' he said...Butler, one of Alaska's better known criminal attorneys, admitted that if true the story sounds a lot like rape, but he said the story isn't true. And he seemed a little perplexed that Bristol, who had a child with Johnston, would be telling it.
"Suddenly, I wondered why it was called 'losing your virginity,'" Bristol writes. "Because it felt more like it had been stolen."


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Amazing deals you got on both, wouldn't mind that 42!
Amazing deals you got on both, wouldn't mind that 42!
Technics 1210 MK2 x 2 / A&H Xone:22 / Shure M35S / Urbanears Zinken / Mukatsuku Record Weights x 2 / Vinyl
iMac / Ableton Live 8 / Reason / Akai EIE Pro / Adam A5x / Boss BX 800 / Soundcraft EPM6 / MFB 522 / Korg Monotribe / Maschine Mikro MK1 / NI Kontrol X1 MK1 / Akai APC 20 / Novation Remote 25sl Compact
Going to kijiji right now
Podcasting 101: How to get into iTunes (the Q&A thread)on DJTT Antifmradio.com
Awesome! I wish I get some of your luck... I'm in the middle of a "3 way deal" on Kijiji and craigslist, but I'm not getting any respones! I get nervous when emails aren't replied within a couple of hours, especially when they ask me if it's still for sale and I reply yes and they don't write back!
sweet. i snagged a xone 62 for $400 a few months ago off kijiji... the guy even held it for me for 2 weeks until i got paid haha
Soundcloud | Website | Beatport | Elements | Elektric Cafe
Cool setup you got there. And some great deals!
Kontrol X1MK2 <3
So the Canadian Stereotype is true !the guy even held it for me for 2 weeks until i got paid haha


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text: Alesso 'I Wanna Know' - Los Santos Pride Posted by Universal Music Publishing on 03 december 2016 This summer we helped Stockholm Pride with their amazing project Los Santos Pride – a free downloadable Pride Parade for Grand Theft Auto 5 players across the world. The trailer featured Alesso's smash hit 'I Wanna Know' (Alesso & Deniz Koyu Remix) and an introduction by Pete Tong. The project has just been honored at Eurobest, Europe's biggest creativity festival. We're happy and proud to be a part of this, and the power music can bring! Watch the video below. Listen to 'I Wanna Know' Watch Video Alesso 'I Wanna Know' - Los Santos Pride


text:
BT Sport users reach two million but profits down
BT has said that more than two million customers are now signed up to its BT Sport TV service, which it launched in August this year to compete with Sky and boost BT revenues.
BT reported six-month pre-tax profits of £948m on Thursday, a fall of 13% from the same period in 2012.
New chief executive Gavin Patterson said that the sport offering had made a "confident start".
BT has a £738m three-year deal to show 38 Premier League matches a season.
However, initial viewer figures for some programmes were low. Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Mr Patterson said that viewer figures were improving.
"Some shows are still building audiences," he said. "The audiences we are getting for rugby were higher than Sky in the past season."
'Calm and steady'
When asked if the BT Sport investment was about defending its market share in broadband, Mr Patterson said: "We need to increase the revenues of the business and this is one of the ways of doing it."
Claire Enders, chief executive of telecoms and media research firm Enders Analysis, said that it was a "calm and steady" set of results.
"What this company wanted to achieve was a positive performance and it did that. The UK is a huge market for content and connectivity. It is the biggest in Europe," she said, adding that it was a "very positive start for the new boss".
The firm previously announced it had signed up more than 500,000 subscribers - but many were existing BT broadband customers who receive the channels free after renewing their contracts.
Older consumer
BT said profits slipped because of the sports investment. However, the company added 156,000 new broadband users in the single quarter to the end of September. That is up from 81,000 for the same period in 2012.
Ms Enders said that this was due in part to a high demand for technological products from the older consumer. "The primary growth is from older demographics. The over-50s are driving up BT's broadband numbers."
BT now has about seven million broadband users.


text:
It was an exquisitely uncomfortable moment, and one that would mark a turning point.
Dr. Ted Cooper, a Denver obstetrician, was preparing to be installed that day as chief of the medical staff at Denver's Rose Medical Center. Cooper, who had practiced at Rose nearly twenty years, was well-liked and respected by his colleagues. In many ways, his new position was the culmination of this soft-spoken doctor's long, highly successful medical career.
Then came the phone call from Dr. Jeff Mishell, another longtime physician at Rose and the former vice president of medical affairs at the hospital. Mishell was excited; the news he conveyed dropped like a bombshell. "Ted," he said, in a gravelly voice, "we're going to buy a hospital."
So began one of the stranger chapters in the convoluted history of health-care competition in Denver--and it's not over yet. The action revolves around a group of a hundred doctors, Precedent Health Partners, most of whom, like Mishell and Cooper, had been affiliated with Rose Medical Center for years. Since that moment over a year ago when they decided to buy a hospital, the Precedent doctors have been rattling the local medical scene.
As the doctors' deal has progressed from concept to completion, Rose has been badly shaken. The hospital's once tightly knit medical staff of about 400 active physicians has been split by controversy; professional relationships developed over decades have been seriously strained. Passionate feelings of loyalty and betrayal among doctors, nurses and other Rose staffers have surfaced and collided. Rose's future has even been called into question.
In many ways, Precedent's story is about how physicians are responding to dramatic changes in health care. This is a time of great turbulence and anxiety for doctors; enormous and important shifts are taking place in how physicians are organized, how they are paid for their services and the business relationships in which they participate.
But the significance of Precedent's story doesn't stop there. It also highlights what can happen to a hospital when it changes ownership, as Rose Medical Center did in 1995. It focuses attention on how Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, the giant for-profit hospital chain that bought Rose, has done business in Denver, one of its most important markets in the U.S. And how a group of doctors has told Columbia that it's not the boss and they're not going to take it anymore.
The symbol of the doctors' defiance is Denver's newest hospital, Precedent Health Center, a sixty-bed facility that opened last week at 1650 Fillmore Street.
Although it's small by hospital standards, Precedent is a dramatic challenge to Columbia/HCA's prominence in central Denver. To the east, less than two miles away, sits Columbia's Rose Medical Center, the hospital where most of the Precedent physicians have practiced--until now. To the west, less than a mile away, looms Columbia's Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, the crown jewel of the for-profit hospital company's local holdings.
When the Precedent doctors first got together in 1996, starting a hospital wasn't part of the plan. Their goal was to gain more clout in the health-care market by combining into a larger organization, as many doctors in California have done. With strength in numbers, the doctors believed they would have more say in negotiations with insurance companies and more control over their medical destinies.
"We felt if we were going to maintain our independence as practitioners, we were going to need to come up with a different way of practicing," says Cooper, now chief of the medical staff at Precedent. "I don't think any of us envisioned from day one owning a hospital."
That changed when a former health-care executive turned real estate agent offered to sell a former Catholic hospital in central Denver to the Precedent doctors--on the cheap. Rick Abrams, now chairman of Precedent's board, remembers going over to the old Mercy Medical Center with Jeff Mishell on a cold, wintry evening in early 1997 to take a look around. The two doctors "sneaked through a side entrance," Abrams says, and were discovered by a security guard who ended up walking them through the dark, dusty, silent rooms. Their first reaction was to dismiss the place as too big and too much of a mess. Then, characteristically, the entrepreneurial Mishell said, "Wait, let's think about this," Abrams recalls.
The more the doctors thought about it, the more opportunities they began to see before them. All along they'd wanted to add extra, lucrative services such as laboratory and radiology to their group venture--to help cushion potential financial losses from managed care and to provide extra income. Under federal laws, individual doctors can't refer patients to such ventures if they have an interest in them, but groups of doctors can. The old Mercy campus would allow the Precedent doctors to centralize a host of extra services in a one-stop-shopping setting, close to many of their existing practices, the doctors realized. And from there, it was only another short step to realizing that Precedent could use the hospital setup for day surgery and short-stay patients as well, giving the doctors still more control.
The doctors wouldn't have considered opening a new hospital if they'd been happy with what was going on at Rose under Columbia/HCA's stewardship, Cooper admits. But because they weren't, they were willing to take the chance.
Now that they're in the hospital business, the Precedent doctors are convinced that they can make significant improvements to the status quo. They claim their hospital will be a new kind of medical institution, more convenient and service-oriented and committed to putting patients' needs first. That's appealing at a time when trust between patients and doctors is seriously strained.
"Unfortunately, we've seen a shift of the emphasis on health care to many places other than the patient," says Abrams. "Concerns about the profitability of hospitals. Concerns about insurance companies and managed care. Concerns about doctors' income. Almost everything but the patient has been discussed and emphasized over the past several years. We at Precedent felt that this was wrong, that we needed to shift the emphasis of health care back to patients. We're going to do things differently."
The central mission of Precedent's medical center--taking care of patients who need to stay in the hospital three days or less--is decidedly different. Most local hospitals, created in an earlier era, don't do a particularly good job of caring for these short-stay patients, who tend to have less complicated illnesses. If the Precedent center can improve service, streamline operations and cut costs, as its leaders promise, it will be introducing a welcome innovation to medical care in Denver.
Still, there are enormous challenges ahead for Precedent--both the medical group and the hospital. By all accounts, existing Denver hospitals already have plenty of room to take on patients needing day surgery or short hospital stays. Beds are sitting empty all over town; all the major medical institutions have invested in outpatient facilities. Precedent may have new ideas and a fresh approach, but the capacity to serve these patients is already there; even without Precedent, there's too much of it.
Meanwhile, the competition makes no bones about its opposition to the new hospital. Columbia/HCA, the most controversial for-profit health-care company in America right now, runs Denver's largest hospital system, five hospitals with a whopping $1.6 billion in revenue last year. If the Precedent hospital succeeds, Columbia/ HCA stands to lose face--as well as a substantial chunk of business. So Columbia/HCA has been trumpeting its objections about Precedent to anyone who will listen.
Even as workmen were putting the finishing touches on Precedent's hospital, accusations were flying thick and fast from both sides. Precedent's detractors argue that even if the doctors' intentions are noble--and they debate even that--the renegade physicians will be forced to give high priority to their very expensive business interests. To meet their financial burdens, these critics claim, the Precedent physicians will have to milk the system for everything it's worth--limiting time spent with patients, for instance, and maximizing income from profitable services such as laboratory workups and diagnostic imaging. They'll grab the most lucrative hospital services and leave losers like intensive care and trauma care to other facilities, critics charge.
Precedent's hundred doctor-shareholders have an enormous amount on the line: They've invested all their professional assets in the group and are the first recourse for lenders in the event the hospital defaults on its $38 million in debt. But they deny that they'll cut services to meet the bottom line.
"Our commitment is to figure out the best way to take care of patients, even if it isn't financially expedient," says Susan Pharo, a pediatrician and Precedent boardmember. "The people in this organization are do-gooders, honorable people. They will do the right thing."
If profit were its primary motive, says board chairman Abrams, the Precedent group wouldn't have donated an entire floor of the hospital rent-free to Hospice of Metro Denver. It wouldn't have given a large amount of space to its airy first-floor child-care center or hired the center's top-notch staff. Precedent wouldn't have invested in state-of-the-art nurse-call and computer information systems, and there wouldn't be extra nurses on the hospital's floors.
But Precedent's leaders don't hesitate to fling accusations of their own. Columbia/HCA, they say, is playing hardball with their group and trying to do everything possible to undermine the new hospital. "They have declared war on us," says Mishell, the group's chief executive. "But we're willing to take the risk, even against a $20 billion health-care giant, that we are doing the right thing and that the public will support us."
Jeff Dorsey, the former Rose chief executive who now heads Columbia/HCA's operations in Colorado, freely admits Columbia/HCA has taken its concerns regarding Precedent to the state's key health insurers as well as to business groups such as the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce. Precedent is an unnecessary hospital in a city that has far too many empty hospital beds, he argues. "We find it very troubling that at the same time we as a community are trying to take costs out of our health-care system, that others would be adding costs by building excess capacity," Dorsey says.
Dorsey has good reason to be troubled. Precedent's hospital venture is one of the boldest challenges Columbia/HCA has encountered in any of its markets. While doctors in Chicago and Louisiana are trying to buy back hospitals from Columbia/HCA, only in Denver have doctors established a new hospital that will go head-to-head with the corporate giant.
As a result, the eyes of the health-care industry are trained on Precedent, watching to see what happens in Denver. "If we can do it here, doctors can do it anywhere," says Mishell, with barely concealed aggression.
Ralph Pollock, a well-regarded Denver health-care consultant, agrees. "This could be the business model of the future for doctors if it works," he says. "And I would never underestimate the ability of these Precedent doctors to stand together."
The origins of the Precedent doctors' group actually date back to well before Columbia/HCA came to town, to the early 1990s, when managed-care plans such as HMOs were making huge inroads in the Denver market. Up until then, doctors had pretty much called the shots in medicine. That was a golden age for the profession, a period of extraordinary professional autonomy and personal wealth for physicians.
Yet some farsighted doctors were keenly aware that medicine was changing dramatically as businesses across the country began to call for lower health-care costs. The rise of HMOs was a direct outgrowth of these efforts at economizing. In their search for savings, these health plans had two main targets--hospitals and physicians--and they put the squeeze on both.
For doctors who saw the handwriting on the wall--among them, Rose's Abrams and Mishell--the HMOs' growing power was a call to action. As long as doctors remained unorganized, these physicians reasoned, they would be at the mercy of the HMOs. Only by joining together could doctors retain significant control over their futures--and the practice of medicine.
"The idea behind Precedent was a group of physicians from various disciplines coming together in a single organization to manage care and work together more effectively," Abrams says. It's not really a new concept, he notes; the renowned Mayo and Cleveland clinics, among others, have done the same thing for years.
"Physicians feel they have been disenfranchised from the health-care system," Mishell explains. "And they want to feel they have ownership of the system, rather than just being somebody's employee or the tool of an HMO. Not just for financial reasons--but because they see the erosion of their ability to take care of patients in a safe and economic way."
In Denver, the threat was very real. Local HMOs such as FHP (now PacifiCare of Colorado) could--and did--drop doctors from their networks at their discretion, with no explanation given. When this happened, physicians could lose large numbers of patients. Furthermore, HMOs imposed all kinds of annoying requirements on physicians--everything from mandating that only certain drugs be used to setting ground rules for referring patients to medical specialists. Even though doctors controlled about 80 percent of what was spent on health care through their ability to recommend medical services, drugs and technologies, more and more physicians were finding themselves frustrated and overwhelmed by paperwork.
Still, local attempts to organize physicians met with considerable resistance. Getting doctors to agree on anything--much less something as murky as the future direction of the health-care system--is notoriously difficult. On top of this, Denver's medical culture had long reflected the independent spirit of the West; doctors here practiced alone or in small groups, and they didn't much like the thought of giving up their independence.
So it wasn't really surprising when an early attempt to organize doctors at Rose into a group known as Premier drew little support and eventually foundered.
But then Columbia/HCA muscled its way into Denver by purchasing Rose, and everything changed.
Rose Medical Center, named after General Maurice Rose, was founded shortly after World World War II as a place for Jewish doctors to practice on the east side of town. Built and supported with generous donations from wealthy Jewish donors, the hospital attracted top-flight physicians and did well financially. It became known as one of Denver's premier hospitals, distinguished by a collegial culture. Cultivating physicians' loyalty was a top priority.
In practice, that meant that Rose officials were extremely generous. If a doctor really wanted something, he or she usually got it, several physicians and former administrators remember. Need help recruiting a doctor to your practice? Rose was there to help. Want a break on the rent for your office space? Rose was willing to extend it. Want the latest $1 million piece of medical equipment at the hospital? Rose would write the check.
In this, Rose was no different from other hospitals in Denver, and the practice continued through much of the 1980s. That was how business was done in order to keep doctors happy and interested in bringing patients to an institution. Today, however, many of these perks are being questioned by federal officials probing potentially illegal inducements made by hospitals to physicians in exchange for referring patients to their institutions.
At Rose in the early Nineties, though, no one dreamed that one day federal fraud-busters would be poring over hospital records across the country. Pride was the order of the day. Rose doctors considered themselves part of Denver's medical elite and referred to each other with confidence. An affiliation with the nearby University of Colorado Health Sciences Center brought added status.
Alongside a commitment to top-quality care, a spirit of medical entrepreneurialism flourished at Rose. One example was a state-of-the-art computer system designed by Rose doctors that won national acclaim. Seeing that system shelved and replaced by an inferior system was one of the most painful changes Rose doctors faced after Columbia/HCA bought the hospital.
The circumstances of Rose's 1995 sale to Columbia/HCA were problematic from the start. At the time, all the talk was of how Denver's fragmented hospital industry would need to consolidate to cut costs and become more efficient. In that spirit, Rose had been engaged in lengthy discussions with several local hospitals--Lutheran General, St. Joseph, Porter Memorial--about a potential collaboration.
But without warning, Rose pulled out of those discussions in December 1994. A short time later, Rose announced that it had signed a letter of intent to be acquired by Columbia/HCA for more than $150 million. Many physicians wondered how Rose had changed direction so quickly--and critically.
At the time, Rose officials said it didn't appear the hospital had other viable choices. Jeff Dorsey, then Rose's chief executive, warned that independent institutions such as Rose would soon become a thing of the past. Boardmembers agreed that Rose was too vulnerable to survive on its own. Managed care would only intensify, Dorsey and the board argued; it made sense to find a wealthy partner that could protect Rose and ensure its future. That partner, the board decided, was Columbia/HCA.
(Interestingly, the HCA part of the Nashville, Tennessee-based company--standing for Hospital Corporation of America--had been involved with Rose several years before through an agreement that called for it to provide management services to the hospital. And Dorsey was an old HCA hand who kept in touch with his former bosses, including Dr. Thomas Frist Jr., who now runs Columbia/HCA.)
Rose's origins had forged close ties between the institution and Jewish physicians, who supported the hospital for religious as well as professional reasons. For many, Rose was vibrant testament to Denver's Jewish community, a place that inspired deep feelings of loyalty. To placate that community, Dorsey and the board now held out an extremely seductive prospect: The proceeds of the Rose sale would go into a foundation that would help support Jewish causes. The Jewish community would gain, not lose, in the deal, the board said. And many of Rose's Jewish doctors agreed.
Reports of possible conflicts of interest involving current and past Rose boardmembers didn't block the deal. Stung by public criticism, the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Strickland, which had close ties to the Rose board, resigned as Columbia/HCA's local counsel. But once the questions over the law firm's role--was it an advocate for Columbia/HCA or Rose?--passed, Brownstein Hyatt quietly resumed its work for Columbia/HCA.
Rose board chairman Stephen Kurtz was deeply embarrassed when it was revealed that he had formed an investment-banking operation and was claiming credit for the Rose deal. Still, Kurtz was able to see the sale to completion, and Rose boardmembers stood by him. They were a tight group, and not about to break ranks publicly over the incident.
What a difference from the way Rose's leadership had conducted itself only five years before, when a different for-profit hospital company, Kentucky's Humana Incorporated, had made a serious run at the hospital.
Back then, Dorsey, with the support of Joel Edelman, the former head of the Rose health system, had argued vigorously that Rose could improve its financial performance. "He was adamant in his belief--and very convincing, by the way--that Rose should be preserved and not sold," says a former Rose executive, referring to Dorsey.
Dorsey's "Go Forward Plan" was a five-year blueprint for how Rose would strengthen its profitability, ensuring its ability to fund its capital needs for equipment and improvements to the hospital's campus. The plan was hugely successful, the former executive reports, making Dorsey something of a local hero and raising Rose's cash flow from just over $7 million in 1990 to almost $25 million in 1995.
It's no wonder that Columbia/HCA was interested in Rose, which would prove a valuable entry point into Denver's booming hospital market. But many Precedent doctors still wonder why Rose was so eager to join forces with Columbia/HCA.
Nothing would change, the board and Columbia/HCA promised Rose's physicians as the sale was consummated. But it didn't take long for doctors to learn how flimsy those assurances were.
Pediatrician Susan Pharo has the no-nonsense air of someone used to dealing with crabby children. Now a member of Precedent, she was on the Rose board of directors at the time of the sale. "Within two board of directors' meetings after Columbia/HCA took over, I resigned," she says. "The input we used to have in how things ran was non-existent. It was obvious we were there to rubber-stamp whatever Columbia/HCA decided. This was a business venture, plain and simple. Somehow we were naive enough not to understand that at the start."
Cooper, now chief of Precedent's medical staff, was also on the Rose board at the time. "Doctors at Rose had always felt the board was very responsive to our input," he says, then sighs. "That changed when Columbia/HCA came in. They were very slow to respond to our growing perception that quality was deteriorating. There were large cutbacks in staff; morale plummeted. There were issues with supplies, with the facilities. But Columbia/HCA spent far more time thinking about who it was going to acquire next than worrying about the problems that were developing at Rose. I know. I was at those meetings."
Jeff Mishell was vice president of medical affairs at Rose at the time, the top administrative position held by a physician. "Under Columbia/ HCA, everything became focused on the bottom line," he says. "Staffing ratios were cut. Nurses did not have enough time to properly care for their patients. There were fewer nurses on the floor. Response time to patient calls increased dramatically. The chief executive at the time was not given the opportunity to plan adequately. The orders were: cut first, re-engineer later."
At the time, Rick Abrams had one of the busiest internal-medicine practices at Rose, based in the old medical office building next door to the hospital. Today Abrams is chairman of Precedent's board, but the disappointment still rings in his voice as he talks about Rose's change in ownership. "Our patients perceived a change in the hospital," he says. "It was as if, in the months and year following the acquisition of the hospital, a floodgate of complaints was opened. For the first time in my twenty years of practice, patients complained bitterly about the care they received at Rose. This was very painful for those of us who had a long history at the hospital and were committed to caring for patients there."
Luana Lamkin, a registered nurse who now oversees Precedent's hospital, was vice president of patient care at Rose when Columbia/HCA arrived; she later became chief operating officer and interim chief executive at Rose. Like others, she describes a period of administrative confusion after the sale, as Rose officials received a stream of management edicts from Columbia/HCA. The company is well-known for micromanaging hospitals and setting demanding financial targets, and the situation was no different at Rose. Officials accustomed to operating independently suddenly found themselves on a very tight leash.
"There was a sense by managers of some impotence," Lamkin says, choosing her words carefully. "A sense that these are the rules, and you don't have any leeway with them." One example: Rose had been told that employee benefits wouldn't change after the sale, but Columbia/HCA reversed its stance. "The 401(k) plan was a mess for a long time," Lamkin remembers. "People wanted to cash out and reinvest their money, and they just couldn't get it out of the plan.
"I had stood up in front of forums of employees and said things wouldn't change," she continues, "and then the next week, I had to change my course. It was embarrassing. It was a mess."
Phil Kalin, the top administrator at Rose, left the hospital within a year of Columbia/HCA taking over, reportedly upset by the changes at Rose. It was just the first in a series of revolving-door management changes.
There were other changes, too. Columbia/ HCA was proud of the large national contracts it had negotiated with suppliers, which yielded significant discounts and helped keep costs low. When Rose came under Columbia/HCA's control, it switched suppliers, changing about "800 products in the course of three months," Lamkin says. While most of the products ordered by Columbia/HCA were acceptable, some generated significant complaints from doctors, several sources say. "It took us a while to figure out we could say, 'No, this is not acceptable,'" Lamkin says, with a touch of regret.
According to Columbia/HCA's calculations, Rose also had too many employees per occupied bed--staffing was 25 percent above company standards. It didn't matter that this staffing level had helped created Rose's hands-on reputation. Hospitals across the country, both those within the Columbia/HCA empire and those outside of it, were cutting staff, and Rose would, too, company managers ordered. In that first year alone, Rose had two rounds of layoffs, cutting 75 jobs and eliminating many more employees through attrition.
"It was to the benefit of the hospital that we learned how to manage it so closely," Lamkin says, giving Columbia/HCA credit for introducing more fiscal discipline than had been common at Rose. "But I think we cut too far."
It was a case of a top-notch hospital coming under the control of a hospital company that ran things by middle-of-the-road standards, Mishell argues. For the smaller, often financially challenged hospitals that Columbia/HCA had bought in its early years, the company's business approach was a distinct improvement. But for Rose, Mishell says, Columbia/HCA's practices were a disappointment. They were also an incentive for Precedent to get off the ground.
No one disputes that the early days of the Columbia/HCA tenure at Rose were hard. But many staffers and physicians have remained loyal to Rose, and they say it's time for critics to stop spilling sour grapes and move on.
Jeff Levy, head of radiology at Rose and chief of the medical staff, feels passionately about this, as do many others. While the Precedent doctors' criticisms of Rose sting, he says, many of their complaints are dated and no longer true.
"Right now things at Rose are excellent," Levy says. "This place is feeling much more positive than it has for the past two years. The administration is really dedicated and in tune with what the important issues are for the medical staff. The door is always open. Our traditions have continued. Quality has continued. Fundamentally, things haven't changed."
Levy acknowledges that it took some time for doctors and administrators at Rose to speak up to Columbia/HCA. "We didn't know what we could do," he says. "We didn't know when we could say, 'That's not acceptable.' We had a lot of learning to do. But we're through that now."
Levy has several examples that illustrate his point. When Columbia/HCA wanted to change the mammography films at Rose, radiologists tried the new products but didn't like them. "We told them we wanted to keep what we were using," he says. "We got exactly what we wanted."
When Columbia/HCA brought in new naso-gastro tubes, the same thing happened. "The tubes should have a marker on them so they show up during X-rays," Levy explains. "Their tubes didn't, so we let them know and got rid of them."
Today Levy is working on a significant reorganization of Rose's medical staff that will make it "more effective and more of a leader," he says, adding that the hospital's administration has been "very emphatic that they need and want guidance from physicians at all levels." Under the new regime at Columbia/HCA that came in last summer, he notes, there's far more local control at Rose.
That regime was brought in as part of a national housecleaning. Last year Columbia/HCA chief executive Rick Scott was ousted in the midst of an escalating federal fraud investigation launched by the Department of Justice, the FBI, the agency that runs Medicare and others. The investigation spans many states, including Colorado, and centers on alleged billing irregularities by Columbia/HCA and questions about financial arrangements with physicians as well as member home-health agencies.
Since then, the company has been run by Thomas Frist Jr., formerly chief of Hospital Corporation of America, who has vowed to change Columbia/HCA's controversial, combative style of doing business. (The fraud investigation, however, is continuing.)
Jeff Dorsey was caught up in the changes. He left the Colorado system for a brief time last year but was recruited back after Columbia/ HCA's upper management changed. A charismatic executive and hard-nosed businessman who inspires confidence but also a certain degree of wariness in associates, Dorsey has provided important continuity during the company's changeover.
Rose was where Dorsey got his start in Denver's hospital market, and it remains an important priority, he says in an interview. A communications executive is sitting nearby taking notes; outside the entrance to the Columbia/ HCA headquarters, the company's logo has been taken off the wall and lies on its side by the door. "The dissatisfaction that some of the physicians have voiced I have taken seriously and still do," Dorsey says, speaking emphatically. "And wherever we have found that we are not performing up to expectations, which at Rose are very high, we seek to correct that."
Columbia is recruiting more than thirty new physicians to join the hospital, he notes, and plans to invest nearly $10 million in capital improvements in Rose this year. "Business is better than ever," he says. "We're delivering more babies than ever. I don't believe personally, nor do I believe the community does, that Rose Medical Center has deteriorated."
Dorsey draws a distinction between Precedent the medical group and Precedent the hospital. "I always believed, and I still do, that the group is an interesting concept," he says. "We were totally supportive of it; we believed it would be a strong ally [for Rose]. But as far as I'm concerned, Precedent the hospital is nothing more than a desire to create a revenue stream for the medical group, to bring in more money.
"Sadly, I think it has fractured the [Rose] medical staff horribly," Dorsey continues. "It is viewed by physicians at Rose as a serious threat, not just to the hospital but to them. It's a fifty-year-old hospital with great history and long-term relationships, and those are being broken apart."
Reassuring Rose's doctors and staff that all is well is a crucial part of Columbia/HCA's current strategy. Last week the hospital giant engaged in some brilliant public relations by announcing it would give Rose to its Columbia HealthOne joint venture in Denver. Rose is the only Colorado hospital wholly owned by Columbia/HCA; the other four hospitals in the Columbia HealthOne venture are owned fifty-fifty by Columbia/HCA and the nonprofit HealthOne Foundation. With the change, the nonprofit HealthOne organization will now technically own half of Rose.
Although in practice little will change--Rose has been managed by the Columbia HealthOne venture since it was formed--local health-care experts agree that for Rose doctors and others worried about Columbia/HCA's commitment to the hospital, the shift in ownership status is an important symbolic gesture. That's because it gives the nonprofit foundation a formal vote in any decisions regarding Rose's future, conveying the impression that Rose is returning, at least in part, to its community roots. (In reality, the joint venture always had a vote in any decision that would change Rose's status, a lawyer close to Columbia/HCA reports, so the change is more cosmetic than anything else.)
Although their feelings about Rose are complicated, even deeply conflicted, most of the Precedent doctors are still on the medical staff at Rose, have their offices there and care for patients there. Many still want to treat hospital patients at Rose when it's not appropriate to treat them at the Precedent hospital.
"We still love being at Rose, and it would be my preference to use it as my primary hospital," says Pharo, noting that Precedent's medical center will not take care of complicated pediatrics cases.
She and other Precedent doctors say that it's not at all uncommon for physicians to serve on many different medical staffs, including those of competing hospitals. Traditionally, that hasn't gotten in the way of maintaining collegial professional relationships. Precedent's hospital and Rose can co-exist, they argue, as competitors with a different style of care and a different focus, and with doctors practicing at both institutions.
Still, many Rose physicians remain bitter about their once and future colleagues. Some, like Alan Schreiber, an internist who's been at Rose for eighteen years and who rejected an offer to join the Precedent group, feel the Precedent doctors are being disloyal to an institution that supported them for years.
"I don't have any reason to leave Rose," Schreiber says, with emotion. "I came here from New York City in 1980 and knew nobody. The people here were extremely nice to me, very helpful, and I have a tremendous sense of loyalty to the hospital. I think some of the physicians in Precedent have forgotten where their roots are."
Just as distressing, Schreiber says, is the change in patient referrals that has taken place since Precedent was formed in late 1996. Traditionally, doctors at Rose referred patients freely to each other, without many constraints. But Precedent doctors now have a financial incentive to refer to each other, and not to doctors outside the group, Schreiber and others charge. That's because the Precedent doctors' financial interests are pooled, a common structure for such large medical groups.
As a result, doctors like Schreiber have seen patient referrals from Precedent doctors dry up. "Colleagues who have been referring to me for fifteen years just stopped," Schreiber says. "I mean, that is very painful. When business conflicts get in the way, when people who I have been loyal to and who have been loyal to me turn away, the passions run really high. Although we have no trouble eating lunch with each other and being friendly in the halls, deep down there's a competition" that didn't exist previously.
Danny Eicher, part of a large and very successful obstetrics and gynecology group that didn't join Precedent, sounds exasperated, in a good-natured way, as he makes a similar point. "When doctors that used to refer to me because I'm a good doctor stop, that is hard," he says. "I haven't changed except that I'm fatter, older and balder. If the referrals change, it's not because of me--it's for a financial reason. Is that really in the interest of the patient? I wonder."
But like Schreiber, Eicher is no fan of Columbia/HCA, either. "Columbia/HCA buying Rose hurt me more than what the Precedent doctors are doing," he says. "I hated the hospital going from not-for-profit to for-profit. Patients shouldn't be a commodity. Clearly, that was the impetus for Precedent to split away. But all that being said, I don't think the quality of care here has deteriorated. Ten years ago there were extras, things that made this the place to be, like a rose on your tray. Today they're gone. But the nursing staff is still outstanding, the care is excellent. I wouldn't be bringing patients here if I felt any differently."
As executive vice president and chief operating officer of PacifiCare of Colorado, Colorado's No. 2 health insurer, part of Val Dean's job is monitoring the quality of care at hospitals with which the plan does business. PacifiCare has watched Rose Medical Center closely since it was purchased by Columbia/HCA, Dean says, and it has noted no sign of deterioration in quality at the hospital. Rose has participated in PacifiCare's hospital network for many years, and the HMO has no plans to change the arrangement, he adds.
But there's a rub, Dean explains in early April, in a lengthy interview that gives a rare glimpse into the HMO's decision-making processes: Many of the Rose physicians who have worked with PacifiCare over the years have joined Precedent and are planning to see large numbers of their patients at Precedent's new medical center.
That puts PacifiCare, as well as other health plans in Colorado, in a bind. Does the HMO sign up with the new Precedent hospital, when it already has all the hospitals it needs in central Denver? If so, what are the implications for health-care costs in this area? If not, what are the implications for patients and their well-established relationships with Precedent physicians?
"Where do hospitals make most of their profits today? Mostly on their outpatient services--not on inpatient care," Dean notes, answering his own question. "If Precedent comes in and takes away a big piece of that outpatient business, will it eat into revenues of the existing hospitals, force them to raise prices and increase costs for everybody? Or will the new competition lower prices for outpatient care, making that segment of the market more efficient? The jury is still out."
Columbia/HCA officials have made their feelings known to PacifiCare, as well as to other health plans: They don't want the insurers to sign on with Precedent's center. "They've made the effort to talk to us and express their concerns and desires," Dean admits. "And their desire is clearly that we don't contract with Precedent."
As presented to Dean, here's Columbia/HCA's argument: If plans such as PacifiCare encourage the proliferation of new facilities such as Precedent, health-care costs will go up. Traditionally, that's the way things have gone in health care: The more hospitals and other health centers there are, the more expensive technology they buy and services they add, the more costs rise for businesses and consumers who pay health-care bills.
But does it have to work that way? Or can new competition actually bring down health-care costs? For Dean, the question is absolutely critical. PacifiCare will not sign contracts that will inflate prices for hospital services in Denver, he says. The HMO's duty is to be a responsible steward of its business clients' resources, Dean says with determination, and that means not spending more when it's possible to spend less without compromising care.
Yet a few minutes later, a slight frown comes over his face. What about the patients? PacifiCare has no desire to force its members to see other physicians, Dean insists. Yet if the HMO doesn't include Precedent in its network, its members may have to see other doctors. And the Precedent doctors do have a lot of patients.
The week before the Precedent hospital opened, PacifiCare made its decision. The HMO decided not to sign a hospital contract with Precedent; it will, however, maintain contracts with Precedent doctors. Eric Sipf, PacifiCare's chief executive, says the HMO was concerned that Precedent's center had not yet received accreditation from Medicare or the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and it was not entirely comfortable with the arrangements Precedent was making to transfer more seriously ill patients to other acute-care facilities. All such transfers involve risks, he notes, and it's easier to deal with hospitals that have a full range of intensive-care services on site.
Just as important, Sipf adds, was PacifiCare's conclusion that it has no need for additional hospital beds in central Denver, however comfortable and well-situated they may be. "I'm not sure how a new hospital can open and not increase health-care costs for everyone, employers and consumers alike," Sipf explains. "We just don't see a compelling reason to expand our hospital network."
Like the medical community, insurers are split over Precedent. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Colorado says it's willing to contract with the new medical center; Cigna HealthCare of Colorado, which is closely aligned with the Columbia/HCA Denver hospital network, has decided against signing up with Precedent. And that could hurt the fledgling hospital.
Whatever doctors and hospitals feel about what's going on in health care today, the insurers still call the shots in Denver. That's because they have the contracts with employers and consumers and the power to decide which institutions they will pay for seeing patients. Unless patients with certain HMOs revolt and demand to use Precedent's new hospital, that's the way it's going to be.
This business about insurance contracts and Columbia/HCA's vocal opposition to Precedent infuriates Mishell. Precedent's chief executive claims Columbia/HCA's pressuring of insurance plans not to contract with Precedent's hospital is anti-competitive. "What they're doing is very unethical and borders on illegality," Mishell says.
Other Denver health-care experts say that bare-knuckled competition such as the kind that reigns in Denver means hospital systems will do whatever they can to secure contracts and lock out their competitors. It's all part of doing business, and it's all perfectly legal.
Mishell and Dorsey once were friends and close associates; now their animosity is the stuff of legend. According to several knowledgeable sources, a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by Mishell against Dorsey and Rose helped destroy their relationship; the suit was settled quietly, and details were never reported. "I can't comment," Mishell says when asked about it.
For his part, Dorsey gets hot under the collar when accused of undermining Precedent. Mishell worked on forming the doctors' group while he was still at Rose, with Dorsey's full knowledge and approval, Dorsey says. And for a while, Mishell was paid by Columbia/HCA to do so, Dorsey notes.
If only the Precedent group hadn't gone out and bought its own hospital, everything would be different, Dorsey says. But that step took things too far--after all, Columbia/HCA has two hospitals in central Denver, and it takes competitive threats very seriously, he adds.
Precedent knew there would be trouble when it decided to buy the old Mercy hospital and found a powerful protector. Centura Health, Columbia/HCA's No. 1 competitor in Denver, became a guarantor of Precedent's debt and is also helping out with insurance contracts. For Centura, which operates the former St. Anthony hospital system in Denver as well as the former Advocate hospital system, teaming up with Precedent was a way to stick it to Columbia/HCA while securing a position in central Denver.
Centura used to run the old Mercy hospital that now houses Precedent's medical center, but the company shut it down three years ago because business was weak and doctors were referring patients elsewhere. Now, however, Centura is clearly hoping that Precedent will succeed in drawing those patients back again--from Columbia/HCA's nearby hospitals--and send them to Centura facilities when they need more advanced care.
"We're working with health plans to help Precedent be included in our system-wide contracts," says Terry White, Centura's executive vice president in charge of Denver operations. "We have some financial risk with Precedent, and we are in a business relationship with them. We have an interest in seeing that they are successful."
That interest could translate into a new phase in the ongoing fight for the Denver health-care market between Columbia/HCA and Centura, with Precedent right in the middle. As the battle shakes out and both hospital systems try to secure a major presence in all the key parts of the metro area, even more new health-care facilities probably will be built in Denver. That way, if insurers start negotiating exclusive contracts with one system or another, both Columbia/ HCA and Centura will have their bases covered.
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Patients could come out the winners in this high-stakes game. "If the competition revolves around price--and it may very well--businesses and consumers could get very nice discounts from all this," says Tom Rockers, a former Denver hospital executive and now head of The Alliance, an outfit providing insurance products to employers. "And it could be good for the community in the long run."
And the Precedent doctors will have proved an important point along the way. "Columbia/HCA may have bought the bricks and mortar that were Rose," says Abrams. "But they didn't buy the doctors that were there. We have our own ideas about what's right for patients and what's right for medicine. And we'll do it our way."
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State budget cuts are making it difficult for community colleges to meet the educational needs of thousands of veterans and active-duty service members as class schedules are trimmed, college leaders said this week.
Officials for local community colleges held a news conference Tuesday on the flight deck of the USS Midway Museum to draw attention to the issue and rally support for Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown's tax measure on the November ballot.
The proposition would temporarily increase the sales tax and raise income taxes on the wealthy, with much of the resulting revenue intended for education spending.
Education leaders said local community colleges would face midyear budget cuts of more than $30 million if the ballot measure fails. "Obviously, what happens this November is of great importance to community colleges," Melinda Nish, superintendent/president of Southwestern College, said in a statement.
More than 20,000 veterans, active-duty service members and their dependents attend the nine community colleges in San Diego and Imperial counties.
Service members receive priority registration, but community college officials said they still have been affected by the deep downsizing of course schedules after four straight years of state budget cuts. Community colleges have been forced to turn away hundreds of thousands of students across California.
"If Proposition 30 fails, it will mean the most catastrophic cut yet and so we are hopeful that the state will restore our classes and enrollments and its commitment to the people, especially our veterans," Constance Carroll, chancellor of the San Diego Community College District, said in a statement. "We are at a crossroads where the general public will have to make a difficult decision, and we hope it will make it on the right side."


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In this context, it may be useful to revisit certain provisions of the Public Procurement Bill, 2012, and the Prevention of Bribery of Foreign Public Officials and Officials of Public International Organisations Bill, 2011, placed before Parliament, as some provisions of the Public Procurement Bill embed criminality to procurement officials even without any criminal intent on their part, while certain provisions of the Foreign Bribery Bill can place Indian industry on a non-level playing field vis-a-vis their foreign counterparts in export markets.
Section 45(f) of the PP Bill, for instance, makes any person (including public officials) liable to imprisonment for a term up to five years for engaging in any form of anti-competitive behaviour in the procurement process. The phrase anti-competitive behaviour itself has not been defined, making it a matter of subjective interpretation by courts or by disgruntled bidders; and this sub-section does not require any evidence of criminal intention to cause undue advantages or wrongful gains to any party to the procurement process. It is, therefore, possible that it could easily be abused by unsuccessful bidders or their proxies for causing undue harassment to contracting officers. While section 50 of the PP Bill disallows a court from taking cognisance of an offence committed by a public servant during the course of his employment, it may be open to interpretation if an omission resulting in anti-competitive behaviour would be protected as an official act during the course of employment. In addition, section 52 of the PP Bill offering a good faith defence to acts of public officials may provide only limited protection in the form of a reactive defence, rather than as a proactive defence if the Bill were to offer a presumption of good faith to routine decision-making.
Similarly, the Foreign Bribery Bill applying to Indian companies in their export operations defines bribery more broadly as compared to similar laws that apply to their foreign competitors. For instance, the USs Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) excludes customary payments (also known as speed payments) to foreign public officials from the definition of punishable bribery. The FCPA also allows an affirmative defence for compulsory payments (which could mask bribes) if made in discharge of a foreign regulation, such as transactions to meet an importing countrys offset requirements. Similarly, while the UKs Anti Bribery Act (ABA) does not, by itself, exempt customary payments, executive guidance issued recently under this Act discourages prosecutors from pursuing foreign bribery charges in respect of customary payments. Given that most foreign contracts or licences are high value where policymakers are also contract/licence-granting authorities, the exception clauses under the FCPA and the ABA, in practice, allow companies to disguise policy-influencing payments (which are prohibited under the FCPA/ABA) as customary or compulsory payments (that are exempt from foreign bribery).
Indias Foreign Bribery Bill, on the other hand, has a more comprehensive definition of bribery and contains no exemptions for customary/compulsory payments, making it a more morally correct formulation. However, it may have adverse practical implications for Indian companies operating in exports markets: customary/compulsory payments by their foreign competitors would be exempt from bribery charges under US/UK domestic laws, while an Indian company would be liable to criminal prosecution for similar payments under Indias own law.
It is interesting to note that Chinas public procurement law contains provisions similar to US/UK laws requiring criminal intent for prosecuting public officials: its public procurement law does not automatically equate procedural or substantive deviations to criminally prosecutable actions.
As discussed above, the current legislative proposals may, therefore, need alignment with the vision outlined by Indias top executive leadership. In their present form, the Bills could result in significantly adverse, albeit unintended, consequences in terms of chilling effects on public officials and on Indian companies in one or more of the following ways. One, the government could end up with more criminal litigation on government contracts, well beyond what it can or should handle in the first place, simply on account of mere actions/omissions being equated to potential criminality. Two, and as a corollary, relatively professional government officers may be discouraged from continuing with procurement-related responsibilities because of added criminality, making streamlined award and administration of government contracts even more difficult than at present. Three, that Indian industry increasingly finding its rightful place in global markets could face an adverse level-playing field vis-a-vis their foreign competitors merely because of stricter definitions under Indias own Bill as compared to laws applicable to their foreign competitors.
Public procurement and integrity reform in India may, therefore, necessarily need to steer clear of excessive criminality being imputed to routine executive decisions. Public officials should have an ab-initio presumption of good faith if standard operating procedures are followed, rather than being left to fend for themselves in the face of ad-hoc, post-facto and subjective determinations; just as the Indian industry could do without legal requirements that place discriminatory obligations on them vis-a-vis their foreign counterparts.
The author specialised in Government Procurement Law from the George Washington University Law School, Washington DC. He is the founder of www.BuyLawsIndia.com. Views are personal


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Green Thumb: Household Plants Clean Your Air
I love gardening, but when it comes to keeping house plants my thumb isn't very green.
After learning that common houseplants can help remove toxins from the air, I am going to try my hand at growing houseplants again. While this might not seem like rocket science, NASA performed some research on plants and their ability to absorb toxins, like formaldehyde, found in pressed wood, and benzene, found in glues, paints, furniture wax, and detergents. You can fight indoor air pollution caused by these volatile organic compounds by keeping air purifying plants around your house. It is recommended that you have one plant for every 100 square feet of your living space.
To see if your favorite plant made the top ten list, just
The top ten air purifying plants are:
- Areca Palm
- Reed Palm
- Dwarf Date Palm
- Boston Fern
- Janet Craig Dracaena
- English Ivy
- Australian Sword Fern
- Peace Lily
- Rubber Plant
- Weeping Fig
I am curious if you have any of these houseplants. Let me know in the comments section below.


text:
A STATUE in honour of the late sporting legend Ken Jones could be erected in his home town Blaenavon by April.
Chairman of the Ken Jones appeal fund, Stuart Evans, revealed the good news at a charity event last Thursday .
The committee is waiting to hear if they have been awarded a National Assembly Heads of the Valley grant to complete the project.
Mr Evans explained that £14,000 had already been collected by the fundraising committee, before adding: "We are optimistic that funding will be available."
There was controversy however as the Ken Jones committee announced it will commission sculptor Laury Dizengremel to carry out the project, at a fraction of the original price, for £28,500.
Her prices are significantly cheaper than the original chosen artist Les Johnson who said a bronze version would cost £95,000, so back tracked on their previous decision to use his design.
Mr Johnson said: "The committee has naively taken on a large project and now finds itself out of its depth. In a desperate bid to procure finance and meet the new deadline, they have cast aside any ethical considerations and treated the sculptors shabbily.
"I would be amazed if any professional sculptor can deliver a bronze statue of Ken Jones in the new timescale and maintain highest quality."
Mr Jones, who died in 2006 at the age of 84, was a rugby great who played on the wing for Newport and Wales and who also won an Olympic silver medal with the Great Britain 4x100m relay team at the 1948 Games in London.
Thursday's event held at Bettws Newydd Village Hall, near Usk, was attended by his widow Irene, and chaired by another rugby legend, 70s star Gerald Davies.
The British and Irish Lions star chaired a panel of three Gwent rugby heroes who answered questions from the audience who paid a £5 donation.
The trio consisted of two other famous Blaenavon sons flanker Terry Cobner, ex-lock John Perkins and Newport and Wales hooker Bryn Meredith.
The event, which was organised by the hall's chairman John Hathaway, raised £600.
Mr Davies said of Mr Jones: "He was a remarkable sportsman who achieved things which could not be achieved nowadays."


text:
Golden Temple
|The Golden Temple
Harmandir Sahib
Location within Punjab
|Alternative names
|Darbar Sahib
Golden Temple of Amritsar
|General information
|Architectural style
|Golden Temple Rd, Atta Mandi, Katra Ahluwalia, Amritsar, Punjab, India
|Town or city
|31°37′12″N 74°52′37″E / 31.62000°N 74.87694°ECoordinates: 31°37′12″N 74°52′37″E / 31.62000°N 74.87694°E
|Construction started
|December 1585
|August 1604
Sri Harmandir Sahib ("The abode of God"), also known as Sri Darbar Sahib, (Punjabi pronunciation: [dəɾbɑɾ sɑhɪb]),[1] [3] informally referred to as the Golden Temple,[1] is the holiest Gurdwara of Sikhism, located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab, India. Amritsar (literally, the tank of nectar of immortality) was founded in 1577 by the fourth Sikh guru, Guru Ram Das.[4] The fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan, designed Harmandir Sahib to be built in the centre of this holy tank, and upon its construction, installed the Adi Granth, the holy scripture of Sikhism, inside Harmandir Sahib.[1] The Harmandir Sahib complex is also home to the Akal Takht (the throne of the timeless one, constituted by the Sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind). While the Harmandir Sahib is regarded as the abode of God's spiritual attribute, the Akal Takht is the seat of God's temporal authority.[5]
The construction of Harmandir Sahib was intended to build a place of worship for men and women from all walks of life and all religions to worship God equally.[1][6] Accordingly, as a gesture of this non-sectarian universalness of Sikhism, Guru Arjan had specially invited the Muslim Sufi saint, Hazrat Mian Mir to lay the foundation stone of the Harmandir Sahib.[7] The four entrances (representing the four directions) to get into the Harmandir Sahib also symbolise the openness of the Sikhs towards all people and religions,[8] over 100,000 people visit the holy shrine daily for worship, and also partake jointly in the free community kitchen and meal (Langar) regardless of any distinctions, a tradition that is a hallmark of all Sikh Gurdwaras.[9]
The present-day gurdwara was renovated in 1764 by Jassa Singh Ahluwalia with the help of other Sikh Misls; in the early nineteenth century, Maharaja Ranjit Singh secured the Punjab region from outside attack and covered the upper floors of the gurdwara with 750kg of gold, which gives it its distinctive appearance and its English name.[10][11] Large portions of the temple were damaged and destroyed in 1984 as part of Operation Blue Star - an Indian military operation to flush the shrine of Sikh separatists.
The Harmandir Sahib literally means the Temple of God. Guru Amar Das had ordered Guru Ram Das to create a nectarous tank as a place for worship for the Sikh religion. Guru Ram Das instructed all his Sikhs to join in the work, under Bhai Budha's superintendence, and engaged labourers to assist them, he said that the tank of nectar should be God's home, and whoever bathed in it shall obtain all spiritual and temporal advantages. During the progress of the work, the hut in which the Guru first sheltered himself was expanded for his residence; it is now known as the Guru's Mahal, or palace.[12]
In 1578 Guru Ram Das excavated a tank, which subsequently became known as Amritsar (Pool of the Nectar of Immortality),[13] giving its name to the city that grew around it; in due course, the Harmandir Sahib,[14] was built in the middle of this tank and became the supreme centre of Sikhism. Its sanctum came to house the Adi Granth comprising compositions of Sikh Gurus and other saints considered to have Sikh values and philosophies, e.g., Baba Farid, and Kabir. The compilation of the Adi Granth was started by the fifth guru of Sikhism, Guru Arjan.
Guru Arjan conceived the idea of creating a central place of worship for the Sikhs and designed it. Earlier the planning to excavate the holy tank (Amritsar or Amrit Sarovar) was chalked out by Guru Amar Das, the Third Sikh Guru, but it was executed by Guru Ram Das under the supervision of Baba Budha, the land for the site was acquired by the earlier Guru Sahibs on payment or free of cost from the Zamindars (landlords) of native villages. The plan to establish a town settlement was also made and the construction work on the Sarovar (the tank) and the town started simultaneously in 1570, the work on both projects was completed in 1577. In December 1588, Guru Arjan initiated the construction of the gurdwara and the foundation stone was laid by Hazrat Mian Mir on 28 December 1588.[15][16][17][17][18][19]
The gurdwara was completed in 1604. Guru Arjan installed the Guru Granth Sahib in it and appointed Baba Buddha as the first Granthi (reader) of it in August 1604. In the mid-18th century it was attacked by the Afghans, by one of Ahmed Shah Abdali's generals, Jahan Khan, and had to be substantially rebuilt in the 1760s.
Operation Blue Star[edit]
Blue Star was an Indian military operation undertaken between 1 and 8 June 1984 that severely damaged or destroyed large portions of the temple complex. India's Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, ordered the Indian Army to launch the operation, the army, led by General Kuldip Singh Brar, brought infantry, artillery and tanks into the Harmandir Sahib to destroy the Dharam Yudh Morcha led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. During the Dharam Yudh Morcha thousands of Sikhs courted arrest.[citation needed] Fierce fighting ensued between Sikhs and the Indian Army, with heavy casualties on both sides, the Harmandir Sahib complex also suffered much damage during the attack, especially the holy Akal Takht. Within six months, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi's Sikh bodyguards killed her as revenge for the operation.
This attack is regarded by Sikhs, and the international human rights community[citation needed], as a desecration of Sikhism's holiest shrine and discrimination against a minority in India. In 1986, the repairs performed on the Akal Takht Sahib after the attack, which the Rajiv Gandhi government had undertaken without consultation,[20] were removed. A new Akal Takht Sahib was completed in 1999 by Kar Sevaks (volunteers).
Architectural features[edit]
Some of the architectural features of the Harmandir Sahib were intended to be symbolic of the Sikh world view.[21] Instead of the normal custom of building a gurdwara on high land, it was built at a lower level than the surrounding land so that devotees would have to go down steps to enter it;[21] in addition, instead of one entrance, Sri Harmandir Sahib has four entrances.[21]
The gurdwara is surrounded by the Sarovar, a large lake or holy tank, which consists of Amrit ("holy water" or "immortal nectar") and is fed by the Ravi River. There are four entrances to the gurdwara, signifying the importance of acceptance and openness. There are three holy trees (bers), each signifying a historical event or Sikh saint. Inside the gurdwara there are many memorial plaques that commemorate past Sikh historical events, saints and martyrs, including commemorative inscriptions of all the Sikh soldiers who died fighting in World War I and World War II.
Much of the present decorative gilding and marblework dates from the early 19th century. All the gold and exquisite marble work were conducted under the patronage of Hukam Singh Chimni and Emperor Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of the Sikh Empire of the Punjab, the Darshani Deorhi Arch stands at the beginning of the causeway to the Harmandir Sahib; it is 6.2 metres (20.3 ft) high and 6 metres (20 ft) in width. The gold plating on the Harmandir Sahib was begun by Ranjit Singh and was finished in 1830. Maharaja Ranjit Singh was a major donor of wealth and materials for the shrine.
The Harmandir Sahib complex also houses the Akal Takht (the throne of the timeless one), built by the sixth Sikh Guru, Guru Hargobind as an authority for administering justice and consideration of temporal issues. Within the complex, the Akal Takht constitutes a counterpoint with the holy shrine, in that the Harmandir Sahib is the abode of God's spiritual attribute, and the Akal Takht is the seat of God's temporal authority.[5]
World's largest free kitchen (Langar)[edit]
Harmandir Sahib is home to the world's largest free kitchen. According to the Croatian Times, it can serve free food for up to 100,000 - 300,000 people every day,[22] at the Langar (Kitchen), food is served to all visitors regardless of faith, religion, or background. Vegetarian food is served to ensure that all people, even those with dietary restrictions, can eat together as equals, the institution of the Sikh langar, or free kitchen, was started by the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak. It was designed to uphold the principle of equality between all people regardless of religion, caste, colour, creed, age, gender, or social status, a revolutionary concept in the caste-ordered society of 16th century India where Sikhism began; in addition to the ideals of equality, the tradition of langar expresses the ethics of sharing, community, inclusiveness, and oneness of all humankind. Every Sikh Gurdwara (place of worship) has a langar, providing free vegetarian food for all comers.
The kitchen has two dining halls, which have a combined capability of 5000 people. People come up to and sit down to eat on the carpets on the floor, are served food by the volunteers, and are ushered out respectfully to make room for the next round of diners.
Visiting guidelines[edit]
In keeping with the rule observed at all Sikh gurdwaras worldwide, the Harmandir Sahib is open to all persons regardless of their religion, colour, creed, caste or gender, the only restrictions on the Harmandir Sahib's visitors concern their behaviour when entering and while visiting:
- Maintaining the purity of the sacred space and of one's body while in it:
- Upon entering the premises, removing one's shoes (leaving them off for the duration of one's visit) and washing one's feet in the small pool of water provided;
- Not drinking alcohol, eating meat, or smoking cigarettes or other drugs while in the shrine
- Dressing appropriately:
- Full body must be covered, no shorts
- Wearing a head covering (a sign of respect) (the gurdwara provides head scarves for visitors who have not brought a suitable covering);[23]
- Not wearing shoes (see above).
- How to act:
- When listening to Gurbani, one must also sit on the ground while in the Darbar Sahib as a sign of deference to both the Guru Granth Sahib and God.
First-time visitors are advised to begin their visit at the information office and then proceed to the Central Sikh Museum near the main entrance and clock tower.[tone]
The Harimandir Sahib runs one of the largest free kitchens in the world, serving 100,000 people on average daily, the meal consists of flat bread and lentil soup.[24]
One of the most important festivals is Vaisakhi, which is celebrated in the second week of April (usually the 13th). Sikhs celebrate the founding of the Khalsa on this day and it is celebrated with fervour in the Harmandir Sahib. Other important Sikh religious days such as the birth of Guru Ram Das, martyrdom day of Guru Teg Bahadur, the birthday of the Sikh founder Guru Nanak, etc., are also celebrated with religious piety. Similarly Diwali is one of the festivals which sees the Harmandir Sahib beautifully illuminated with Diyas (lamps); lights and fireworks are discharged. Most Sikhs visit Amritsar and the Harmandir Sahib at least once during their lifetime, particularly and mostly during special occasions in their life such as birthdays, marriages, childbirth, etc.
Visitors' attractions[edit]
Central Sikh Museum[edit]
The entrance from the plaza side holds a museum on history of the Sikhs on the first floor just over the entrance.
Visitor centre[edit]
On Dec 22, 2016, a high-tech State of the Art visitors centre was opened for public. Hi-tech story-telling at the basement of the Golden Temple plaza was launched and opened for public amid 5,000 pilgrims on Wednesday. Besides the daily footfall of pilgrims at the shrine, a large number of people had gathered outside the basement for their turn to witness the 3D technology and synchronisation installed in galleries giving a tour of the Sikh history and ethos. [25][26]
See also[edit]
- ^ a b c d e Kerr, Ian J. "Harimandar". Encyclopaedia of Sikhism. Punjabi University Patiala. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
- ^ "Sikhism Religion of the Sikh People". sikhs.org.
- ^ Golden Temple, Punjabi University, Parm Barkshish Singh, Devinder Kumar Verma, ISBN 978-81-7380-569-1
- ^ "History, Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple, Amritsar". Amritsar Portal. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
- ^ a b S. S. Bhatti (2013). Golden Temple: Marvel of Sikh Architecture. Dorrance Publishing. pp. 24–. ISBN 978-1-4349-8964-2.
- ^ "Sikhism Religion of the Sikh People". sikhs.org.
- ^ S. S. Bhatti (2013). Golden Temple: Marvel of Sikh Architecture. Dorrance Publishing. pp. 12–. ISBN 978-1-4349-8964-2.
- ^ Fahlbusch, Erwin; Geoffrey William Bromiley (1999). The encyclopedia of Christianity (Reprint ed.). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-14596-2.
- ^ "Soon, Golden Temple to use phone jammers. Over Two lakh people visit the holy shrine per day for worship; in festivals over six lakh to eight lakh visit the holy shrine.". The Times Of India. 19 July 2012.
- ^ Hew McLeod (1997). Sikhism. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 154–161. ISBN 0-14-025260-6.
- ^ Golden Temple of Amritsar
- ^ Max Arthur Macauliffe. 1909. The Sikh Religion.. Vol. II
- ^ Golden Temple, Punjabi University, Parm Barkshish Singh, Devinder Kumar Verma ISBN 978-81-7380-569-1
- ^ Golden Temple, Punjabi University, Parm Barkshish Singh, Devinder Kumar Verma, ISBN 978-81-7380-569-1.
- ^ Dr. Madanjit Kaur "The Golden Temple: Past and Present" Dept. of Guru Nanak Studies, Guru Nanak Dev University Press, 1983, p. 11
- ^ Kavi Santokh Singh : "Gurprataap Sooraj Granth" Ras 2, Ansu 53: ਇਮਿ ਅਰਦਾਸ ਕਰੀ ਬ੍ਰਿਧ ਜਬੈ। ਸ਼੍ਰੀ ਅਰਜਨ ਕਰ ਪੰਕਜ ਤਬੈ॥੧੩॥ ਗਹੀ ਈਂਟ ਤਹਿਂ ਕਰੀ ਟਿਕਾਵਨ। ਮੰਦਰ ਅਵਿਚਲ ਨੀਵ ਰਖਾਵਨ।, p. 428 in PDF ebook
- ^ a b "Gurdwara Sahib, Tapoban". tapoban.org.
- ^ Teja Singh & Ganda Singh, A Short History of the Sikhs, vol. 1, p. 28.
- ^ Max Arthur Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, vol. 3, p. 10
- ^ Tatla, Darshan Singh (1993). The politics of homeland : a study of the ethnic linkages and political mobilisation amongst Sikhs in Britain and North America (Thesis). University of Warwick. p. 133.
- ^ a b c Singh, Khushwant (1991). A history of the Sikhs: Vol. 1. 1469–1839. Oxford University Press. p. 53. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
- ^ "SCOFF THAT - Free Food Daily For 300,000 at Worlds largest Soup Kitchen". croationtimes.com. 12 April 2013. Retrieved 17 September 2013.
- ^ "Postcards from Amritsar -". elenastravelgram.com.
- ^ Shafi, Showkat (17 November 2013). "Kitchen that feeds 100,000 daily". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 3 January 2014.
- ^ Golden temple's hi-tech basement info center
- ^ Golden temple story comes alive
External links[edit]
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Harmandir Sahib.


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Every year, the city's Chamber of Commerce puts out a list of which supervisors have been naughty and which have been nice. Its yearly "scorecard" tallies who voted for chamber-approved legislation and who voted against it. Except, in chamberspeak, supes siding with them "voted to support jobs and government efficiency" and those who acted contrary to their wishes "voted against jobs and government efficiency."
For anyone having trouble understanding the chamber's point, those "no" votes are graphically illustrated via the word "jobs" with a red line through it. Whatever the chamber's detractors may say about the organization -- and they do have a bit to say -- they'll never be able to accuse it of being insecure. To paraphrase Inspector Javert, the chamber is effectively stating "I am jobs. And jobs are not to be mocked!"
Chamber of Commerce scorecards, for the most part, are about as predictable as the Pepsi Challenge (which Pepsi won, incidentally).
Moderates score at or near 100 percent. And Progressives don't. This
year, Supervisor John Avalos came last, voting with the chamber on only
10 of the 16 issues it chose to spotlight. But he doesn't seem much
concerned. And for the lowest-scoring supe to register a 63 percent
tally is notable; in years past Chris Daly would clock in at as low as
13 percent.
"It's just a fluffy advocacy piece the chamber does," says Avalos. Added David Campos -- who voted with the chamber 69 percent of the time -- "I think if I had come up higher, that would have been a concern for some folks."
It warrants mentioning that the issues the chamber chose to highlight weren't all intuitive. A vote against Ross Mirkarimi's plastic bag ban expansion or the controversial 8 Washington development, or in favor of ranked-choice voting, was deemed "against jobs and government efficiency."
All in all, the board voted the chamber's way 81 percent of the time. The chamber assigned the board a B-minus, which gives the impression that our legislators are barely making the grade. But letter grades don't tell the real story; voting in lockstep with the chamber 81 percent of the time seems plenty high. Of 16 self-designated "important" issues, the board voted with the chamber on 13 of them.
For an organization that's all about jobs, the chamber doesn't do a very good job of explaining its overwhelming success.


text: Charles R Harris wrote: > > > On Jan 4, 2008 11:13 AM, Pearu Peterson <email@example.com > <mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com>> wrote: > > On Fri, January 4, 2008 7:33 pm, Travis E. Oliphant wrote: > > > So, create an empty object array and insert the entries the way > you want > > them: > > > > a = np.empty(1,dtype=object) > > a[0] = A((1,2)) > > Actually this is still an option if to put the above > to a A.as_array method something like > > class A(tuple): > def as_array(self): > import numpy > obj = numpy.empty(1,dtype=object) > obj[0] = self > return obj > > but it would be nice if the __array__ method also worked. > Could this be something that should be put to issues or > would it just get a WontFix flag? > > > IIRC the previous discussions, there simply isn't enough information > in the array interface to decide what needs to be done with regards to > object arrays. I think a general solution would require a specialized > creation function with more arguments, say, a depth argument which > would create objects at a certain depth of nesting. In your case that > would be at level 0(1?). I think that would solve most problems, and I > suppose it could be added to the current array interface with a > default value implying current behavior, i.e., as deep as possible. > I like the depth option, and that could be used with the current interface without too much difficulty, I think. This question does come up quite often and should probably be addressed. -Travis


text:
Science has defined a variety of natural laws that explain the physical world and how it changes. One such law states that for every action there is a reaction, and that for every motion there is corresponding counter-motion. Whether it's visible to the human eye or not, one thing is certain, movement and change will occur as a result. Having studied these principles, author Raymond Holliwell not only understood the universal physical applications, he also understood the spiritual and mental applications as well.
By using this law on a spiritual and mental level, Holliwell found that a specific thought could create a desired reaction in his personal and professional life through continual and dedicated practice. As he came to realize the expanded potential of this powerful law, he eventually recognized the ultimate source of the dramatic results - God.
There are countless laws that impact on our daily lives and actions. But there are other laws just waiting to be discovered and put to work from within laws that anyone can use to live a limitless and prosperous life. After many printings, the lessons in WORKING WITH THE LAW are still being taught in numerous workshops around the country and continue to provide the listener with a new opportunity to take action and re-think their strategy for success by simply working with the law.
©2012 BN Publishing (P)2012 BN Publishing
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The missing secret Joe Vitale
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