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Newly-elected Mayor Steven Fulop hadn't even been sworn into office when, in June, he directed the city business administrator to immediately suspend the property revaluation that had been initiated by his predecessor, Jerramiah T. Healy.
The move was immediately cheered by property owners, particularly residents who own older houses. They feared the assessed value of their homes would be significantly increased as a result of the reval, leading to an increase in their municipal property tax bill.
But the reval was barely in the city's rearview mirror when Hudson County officials essentially said, "Not so fast." They declared that a mayor cannot unilaterally suspend a revaluation that is already underway.
The decision whether or not to terminate the revaluation could ultimately rest with the New Jersey Division of Taxation, so anxious residents who thought they were free of the reval may have celebrated prematurely.
A page on the Realty Appraisal Co. website that had been used to update the status of the Jersey City reval now reads, 'The mayor has instructed our firm to halt the revaluation.'
Equalizing the tax burden
The property revaluation that Fulop suspended began in 2011 and was the first to take place in Jersey City since 1988.
In a "reval," a city reassesses all of its taxable properties so that owners pay taxes on the current market value of their property. Because older properties pay taxes based on an assessment that is more than 20 years old, they contribute a smaller share of the overall tax burden. Newer properties with a more recent assessment (which would have been done when they were built) are likely paying more.
Contrary to what some people believe, a reval does not increase the amount of money a municipality receives from property owners, even though some owners will pay higher taxes as a result. A reval equalizes the tax burden by assessing every property at its current value. The tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value will be adjusted, but local government will collect the same amount of tax revenue.
Once a reval has been completed, taxes on some properties will rise, while others will fall, and taxes on still other properties will remain relatively unchanged.
Because most homeowners and owners of commercial properties can't be certain how a reval might affect them, many fear the process, believing their taxes will be among those that get raised.
"I think it's very difficult for a homeowner who is not familiar with the process to do the math to figure out that their taxes may actually go down," said Wolfe. "They see their assessment go up dramatically. If you see an assessment go from $200,000 to $611,000, the homeowner is going to panic. They have no concept of what the new tax rate will be. All they see is that their assessment tripled. And that leads to a general panic without understanding what the [overall] impact is going to be on taxes."
Understandably, he adds, property revals then become very unpopular and politically contentious during election years.
Fulop: 'Flawed from the beginning'
In 2011, the City Council majority, which was at the time allied with Healy, approved a $3.2 million contract to West New York-based firm Realty Appraisal Co. to conduct the reval. Originally the revaluation was supposed to conclude sometime in late 2012, just months before the May 2013 municipal election.
But Healy later sought permission from Hudson County and the state to delay the reval, saying that certain parts of the city had inaccurate tax maps that needed to be updated before property assessments could be completed.
Fulop, however, countered that Healy delayed the reval so that it wouldn't conclude – and possibly anger voters – until after the election. Under the extended timeline, the reval would not conclude until May 2014.
As a city councilman, Fulop long opposed the reval and likely didn't want to be encumbered with its impact during his first term. Thus, one of his first priorities as mayor was to suspend the citywide property reassessment indefinitely.
In a letter to Business Administrator Jack Kelly on June 25, Fulop wrote: "I request that you immediately direct that Realty Appraisal suspend all work under this contract until such time that you and my administration can conduct a thorough review of the contract procurement process, Realty Appraisal's performance, and the efficacy of pursuing a revaluation of the city in the current economic environment."
Fulop requested that Kelly immediately stop payment on the contract. A page on the Realty Appraisal Co. website that had been used to update the status of the Jersey City reval now reads, "The mayor has instructed our firm to halt the revaluation."
In a press release that accompanied the June 25 letter to Kelly, Fulop said, "This reval was flawed from the beginning, because it will result in a tax hike for tens of thousands of homeowners who cannot afford it. I will not allow this back-door tax hike planned by the Healy administration to take place."
Will Trenton be the final arbiter?
Suspending municipal payments to Realty Appraisal effectively halted the reval and the company's assessors have stopped visiting properties in Jersey City.
But according to Hudson County Tax Director Donald Kenny, the only official way a municipality can suspend an ongoing reval is to petition the county and request a formal decision from the New Jersey Division of Taxation.
Kenny recently gave a presentation to the Hudson County Freeholders in which he offered the county tax board's position on Jersey City's reval.
"The county's position, and our understanding of the law, is that any mayor of a municipality has the right to petition to suspend the revaluation," said Hudson County spokesman Jim Kennelly. "They would need to petition the Hudson County Board of Taxation and they would explain in their petition the reasons they believe it should be suspended."
If the tax board agrees, the freeholders can submit a resolution of support to the New Jersey Division of Taxation. The division director would then make a final decision to either halt the reval or let it continue, Kennelly said.
"It is our understanding that this is how Mayor Fulop would officially suspend the revaluation begun under the Healy administration," Kennelly added. "That's the procedure we understand municipalities have to follow to get a suspension from the state for a reval [that is] underway."
When asked whether the city planned to file a formal petition with the county to suspend the reval, Fulop said, "Yes, we will file the paperwork as needed as we explore all our legal options."
Wolfe, however, noted that it is possible the county or state may disagree with the municipality and may not vote in favor of suspension.
"Again, this is a very unique situation, one you don't see very often," said Wolfe. "There is no way to predict how this may play out. But it is not over, most likely, and there is a time sensitive element to all of this. The results of the reval were supposed to be entered onto the tax books next year so people have time to appeal their assessments. The longer this drags on, the harder it will be to meet those deadlines."
Realty Appraisal principals Neil Rubenstein and Steven Rubenstein did not return phone calls and e-mails seeking comment on Fulop's decision to suspend the reval.
E-mail E. Assata Wright at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Show All Answers
These are Temporary Food Establishment (TFE's) permits.
North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services ----http://www.ncagr.gov/
There are specific requirements for food service equipment and storage of supplies, along with an approved water source and sewage disposal. A separate commercially rated kitchen would be required.
For information about getting started, call the Division at 919-733-7366.
For a website to get general information, go to http://www.ncagr.gov/fooddrug/food/homebiz.htm
What is a food-borne illness? Food-borne illnesses are those acquired by consumption of contaminated food or drink, and include those caused by chemical contaminants such as heavy metals and organic compounds. These illnesses are frequently and inaccurately referred to as food poisoning. To meet the definition of a food-borne illness, two or more persons must have consumed the same food and have similar symptoms of illness or one person must be physician/laboratory diagnosed with a specific illness. The Iredell County Public Health Department will take information regarding food-borne complaints, but these may not be investigated to the extent of a true food-borne illness. The most frequent causes of food-borne illnesses are: 1) bacterial toxins grown in the food prior to consumption such as Clostridium botulinum, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, and scombroid fish poisoning associated with elevated histamine levels; 2) bacterial, viral, or parasitic infections such as brucellosis, Campylobacter enteritis, diarrhea caused by Escherichia coli, hepatitis A, listeriosis, salmonellosis, shigellosis, toxoplasmosis, viral gastroenteritis, taeniasis, trichinosis, and vibrios; and 3) toxins produced by harmful algal species (cigautera fish poisoning, paralytic shellfish poisoning) or present in specific fish species (puffer fish poisoning). What are the symptoms of a foodborne illness? Symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping, diarrhea, fever, headache, jaundice, tingling or numbness, muscle aches and pains, and many others. Not all food-borne illnesses have the same symptoms and the severity of symptoms varies from one person to the next. How long does it take for a foodborne illness to occur? Food-borne illness caused by chemical contaminants or that caused by allergic reactions to elevated histamine levels in fish can occur within minutes, while other food-borne diseases may occur anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks after consumption of the contaminated food/drink. Most persons will assume that the last meal eaten is the cause of their illness; this is very often inaccurate. Do I need to see a doctor about my foodborne illness? This is an individual choice based on how the individual is feeling; however, no food-borne illness can be proven unless the causative agent can be isolated from both the person and the food that they consumed. Therefore, it is very important that a doctor is seen so that specimens of blood, vomitus, or stool can be taken and that you contact the Public Health Department as soon as an illness is suspected so that food, drink, or food contact surfaces can be sampled in a timely manner. What information do I need to have when I call the Public Health Department? The first tool that the Public Health Department needs to investigate a complaint of food-borne illness is a thorough case history. You need to be prepared to provide information about your symptoms, the time, date and location of consumption of the suspected meal, when symptoms occurred, as well as a three-day food history of items consumed prior to becoming ill. In cases where a large group of persons consumed the same foods (such as a reunion, party, etc.), food histories must be taken from those persons not showing symptoms as well as from those who are ill. You must leave information about how you can be contacted during the hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. so that additional information may be gathered as necessary. You may report a food-borne illness by calling 704-878-5305 (Statesville) or 704-664-5281 (Mooresville). From the information gathered from these case histories, the Public Health Department will make a statistical analysis about the type of illness and pinpoint the foods most likely to have caused the illness. What do I do with any food I have left of the suspect meal? The Public Health Department can only test foods that are still in the 'chain of custody' of the restaurant or facility where the meal was prepared, so meals taken away from the facility cannot be analyzed at the Public Health Department laboratory. Individuals can take the leftover food to a private lab for analysis if they desire, but the results will not be included in a Public Health Department investigation. Is the information about my illness confidential? Yes. Medical information about the individuals who are ill is confidential and will only be shared with the permission of that person. However, information about the investigation that takes place at the facility where the food was purchased is public information. What happens when you go to the facility to investigate where I purchased the food? A true food-borne illness investigation is treated as a high priority by the Public Health Department. Provided that the information about the illness is available to the department in a timely fashion, a full investigation will take place. An investigation of a food-borne illness will involve the tracking of the suspected food from the supplier through storage, preparation, and service to the consumer. This investigation may include: •Checking invoices of food stock and scrutinizing receiving practices of the facility •Checking food storage and preparation practices •Checking for proper hot and cold food holding/cooking temperatures •Taking samples of suspected food/drink for laboratory analysis •Swabbing food contact surfaces to isolate bacterial contamination •Observing foodservice employee hygienic practices •Interviewing foodservice employees about their health •Checking for proper surface sanitizing

subset: commoncrawl


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Being a blogger, I often find design elements on the web for my posts or my blog in general. It's becoming a very common experience for bloggers to know a thing or two about web design. I'm guessing it is the web that taught us to be quasi-designers by offering us lots of easy-to-use tools that help us create just about everything we need: photo-editing, widgets, logos, buttons, and yes, fonts as well. Fonts are a big focus of the Web2.0 era—they are now bigger, cleaner and smoother, especially when it comes to logos.
Can you imagine Techcrunch's logo looking like this? It's all dependent on font choice. (in case you were wondering BTW, Twitter's font is mostly Pico created by Maniackers Design)
Regardless of the fact that the web makes it easy for everyone to be more creative (i.e., logo above), it becomes a paradise for designers themselves who seek new tools & inspiration. So whether you're a professional graphic designer, or an amateur web publisher this list of font tools might come in handy (eventually).
myFontbook is an online font viewer and manager based on the font available on your computer. It allows you to organize your font collection and gives you all the tools you need to do so. Once you open the demo, myFontbook will render all the fonts in your computer, and display them together in an easy to view mode. While all the files are actually open, it makes it easier to browse through them and see the fonts in several sizes. You can also make lists of fonts, tag & favorite the fonts that you like best. The font viewer renders your entire font library super fast. Just compare the rendering time to other font management tools. And there's nothing to install—it works from your browser. If you want to save all your activities for later use, you'll need to register. But don't worry, it's free.
With BetterFonts, an online font database, you can quickly preview and download thousands of fonts. Navigate the massive collection by alphabetic order or browse the fonts by their categories. You can change the preview text of your desirable font and instantly download it for free. Although the site provides an impressive list of fonts, for the quality ones you'll need to pay. But they have a deal of a 500-font package for $2.77. Please note that there's no preview of the font list in advance—which might be a risky deal if you want something in particular (but then again, it's cheap).
Most of us usually use only one font (probably Arial), 'cause unless you're a designer, you don't give much thought to fonts. But hey, there's a world of fonts out there that is just waiting for exploration, and FFonts is a good site to start with. FFonts has a huge font library and it allows you to navigate easily, and download any font for free. All the fonts on the site are listed on the left side menu for easy access, and clicking on a font gives you information plus a satisfying preview of the font. Overall, the site hosts more than 10,000 fonts!
If you don't find anything you like, and are still looking for that special font to make an appearance, you are more than welcome to create it yourself with FontStruct. Sign into the service and with FontStruct's font-building tool & editor, you'll be able to create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks. Once you're done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.
You can share your creations with the world or save it for yourself, but FontStruct actually encourages you to share your fonts with others, this is why they've created a gallery where people can share and discuss fonts, and download them for free. A quick look at the community taught me there is a lot of going on there—definitely worth the visit if fonts interest to you.
Fawnt is also one of the largest free fonts archives on the web today. With a pleasant design and an easy to use navigator, you are one step away from finding the perfect font. Browse the fonts by category or alphabetically, or use the search function. All the fonts have large and customizable previews, and character maps. Be aware though that while all of the fonts in Fawnt are free, they might have some restrictions. Some may be free for personal use, others for commercial. When you visit a font link make sure to browse the page for any fine print or usage terms.
With 62,000 fonts, Myfonts has the world's largest font database. Not only can you search for fonts, explore everything in their gallery, and download the fonts to your computer, you can also find fonts based on a picture with their service WhatTheFont. Simply upload a file, or specify a URL, and myFonts will find the font used in the picture you uploaded (or at least, give you some close alternatives to this font). If you're a designer, I'm sure you can see how important a service like this can be to the industry.
myFonts recently released a great iPhone app that does the same thing and helps you find a font while on-the-go. You can snap a photo with the app, and save it to your gallery. For iPod users, you are asked to upload a file from your iPhone gallery, then myFonts will process and optimize the photos and provide you with the font's details.
Finally, it allows you to receive or send the results by email. For a free & direct download click here.
Another free iPhone app is FontGenie – The app displays all available fonts on your iPhone and allows you to keep track of ever-changing font families and their font types.
A super cool idea is to actually create a font with your own handwriting, so you'll be able to insert it wherever you need to place your signature on the web. Luckily, Fontcapture took the idea and made it possible, which means you can create your handwriting font right now if you want to, all you need is a printer and a scanner.
How it works: First, you need to download the font template, print it, fill it in with your own handwriting, scan it and upload it to the site. Then you'll be able to preview and download the new font to your font library, located on your computer.
Abstract Fonts is not very different than the other font directories suggested here but it has a very convenient interface. Abstract Fonts lets you type in text to view font examples, opens a unique menu for each font which summarizes the information you need to know about that font, see the character map, and display users' comments. Abstract also gives you the ability to see similar fonts, which I think is an absolutely brilliant addition.
Last but not least, here's something to look for in the future:
Typekit, a new font editor will offer designers more control over fonts on the web.
Today, almost all Web fonts are protected by copyright, and very few of them allow for linking via CSS or redistribution on the web. Typekit has been working with foundries to develop a consistent web-only font linking license.
Typekit will give you access to their protected library of high-quality fonts. You'll just need to add a line of JavaScript to your markup, tell Typekit what fonts you want to use, and then craft your pages the way you always have. Except now, you'll be able to use real fonts.
There's still not enough information about this new service but based on the above, Typekit might definitely change web design. Unfortunately, the site is in closed beta (invitation only) so designers make sure you sign up for an invite. Meanwhile, check out the full list of fonts already available at Typekit. Also, Typekit has some interesting investors: Evan Williams, Ron Conway, Caterina Fake and True Ventures.


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Philosophy |
Philosophers |
Traditions |
Periods |
Literature |
Branches |
Lists |
Philosophy portal |
Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world,[1] although the term is not easily defined.[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:[3]
- What is there?
- What is it like?
A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysicist [4] or a metaphysician.[5] The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects an- d their properties, space and- time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics isontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another central branch of metaphysics is cosmology, the study of the totality of all phenomena within the universe.
Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. Originally, the term "science" (Latin scientia) simply meant "knowledge". The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. By the end of the 18th century, it had begun to be called "science" to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics denoted philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.[6] Some philosophers of science, such as the neo-positivists, say that natural science rejects the study of metaphysics, while other philosophers of science strongly disagree.
The word "metaphysics" derives from the Greek words μετά (metá) ("beyond", "upon" or "after") and φυσικά (physiká) ("physics").[7] I- t was first used as the title for several of Aristotle's works, because they were usually anthologized after the works on physics in complete editions. The prefix meta- ("beyond") indicates that these works come "after" the chapters on physics. However, Aristotle himself did not call the subject of these books "Metaphysics": he referred to it as "first philosophy." The editor of Aristotle's works, Andronicus of Rhodes, is thought to have placed the books on first philosophy right after another work, Physics, and called them τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ βιβλία (ta meta ta physika biblia) or "the books that come after the [books on] physics". This was misread by Latin scholiasts, who thought it meant "the science of what is beyond the physical. However, once the name was given, the commentators sought to find intrinsic reasons for its appropriateness. For instance, it was understood to mean "the science of the world beyond nature (phusis in Greek)," that is, the science of the immaterial. Again, it was understood to refer to the chronological or pedagogical order among our philosophical studies, so that the "metaphysical sciences would mean, those that we study after having mastered the sciences that deal with the physical world" (St. Thomas Aquinas, "In Lib, Boeth. de Trin.", V, 1).
There is a widespread use of the term in current popular literature, which replicates this error, i.e. that metaphysical means spiritual non-physical: thus, "metaphysical healing" means healing by means of remedies that are not physical.[8]
[edit]Origins and nature of metaphysics
Although the word "metaphysics" goes back to Aristotelean philosophy, Aristotle himself credited earlier philosophers with dealing with metaphysical questions. The first known philosopher, according toAristotle, is Thales of Miletus, who taught that all things derive from a single first cause or Arche.
Scientific questions in ancient Greece were addressed to metaphysicians, but by the 18th century, the skeptics' How do you know? led to a new branch of philosophy called epistemology (how we- know) to fill-out the metaphysics (what we know) and this eventually led to science (Latin, knowledge of) and its scientific method. Science, a branch of philosophy based on a standard of comparison, of measurement, leading to a generalized and reasoned conclusion regarding the natural world, with a high rate of reproducibility to support the claim. Skepticism evolved epistemology out of metaphysics. Thereafter, metaphysics denoted philosophical inquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.[6]
Metaphysics as a discipline was a central part of academic inquiry and scholarly education even before the age of Aristotle, who considered it "the Queen of Sciences." Its issues were considered[by whom?] no less important than the other main formal subjects of physical science, medicine, mathemati- cs, poetics and music. Since the beginning of modern philosophy during the seventeenth century, problems that were not originally considered within the bounds of metaphysics have been added to its purview, while other problems considered metaphysical for centuries are now typically subjects of their own separate regions in philosophy, such as philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science.
In some cases, subjects of metaphysical scholarship have been found to be entirely physical and natural, thus making them part of science proper (cf. the theory of Relativity).
[edit]Aristotle's branching
Aristotle's Metaph- ysics was divided into three parts, which are now regarded as the proper branches of traditional Western metaphysics:
- Ontology
- The study of being and existence; includes the definition and classification of entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the nature of change.
- Natural Theology
- The study of a God or Gods; involves many topics, including among others the nature of religion and the world, existence of the divine, questions about Creation, and the numerous religious or spiri- tualissues that concern humankind in general.
- Universal science
- The study of first principles, such as the law of noncontradiction, which Aristotle believed were the foundation of all other inquiries.
Universal science or first philosophy treats of "being qua being"—that is, what is basic to all science before one adds the particular details of any one science. Essentially "being qua being" may be translated as "being insofar as being goes" or as "being in terms of being." This includes topics such as causality, substance, species and elements, as well as the notions of relation, interaction, and finitude.
[edit]Central questions
This section needs additional citations for verification. - (February 2011) |
Most positions that can be taken with regards to any of the following questions are endorsed by one or another notable philosopher. It is often difficult to frame the questions in a non-controversial manner.
[edit]Being, existence and reality
The nature of Being is a perennial topic in metaphysics. For instance, Parmenides taught that reality was a single unchanging Being. The 20th century philosopher Heidegger though- t previous philosophers have lost sight of the question of Being (qua Being) in favour of the questions of beings (existing things), so that a return to the Parmenidean approach was needed. An ontological catalogue is an attempt to list the fundamental constituents of reality. The question of whether or not existence is a predicate has been discussed since the Early Modern period, not least in relation to the ontological argument for the existence of God. Existence, that something is, has been contrasted with essence, the question of what something is. Reflections on the nature of the connection and distinction between existence and essence dates back to Aristotle's Metaphysics, and it found one of its later most influential interpretations in the ontology of the eleventh century metaphysician Avicenna (Ibn Sina).[9] Since existence without essence seems blank, it is associated with nothingness by philosophers such as Hegel.
[edit]Empirical and conceptual objects
[edit]Objects and their properties
The world seems to contain many individual things, both physical, like apples, and abstract such as love and the number 3; the former objects are called particulars. Particul- ars are said to have attributes, e.g. size, shape, color, location and two particulars may have some such attributes in common. Such attributes, are also termed Universals or Proper- ties; the nature of these, and whether they have any real existence and if so of what kind, is a long-standing issue, realism and nominali- sm representing opposing views.
Metaphysicians concerned with questions about universals or particulars are interested in the nature of objects and their properties, and the relationship between the two. Some, e.g. Plato, argue that properties are abstract objects, existing outside of space and time, to which particular objects bear special relations. David Armstrong holds that universals exist in time and space but only at their instantiation and their discovery is a function of science. Others maintain that particulars are a bundle or collection of properties (specifically, a bundle of properties they have).
Biological literature contains abundant references to taxa (singular "taxon"), groups like the mammals or the poppies. Some authors claim (or at least presuppose) that taxa are real entities, that to say that an animal is included in Mammalia (the scientific name for the mammal group) is to say that it bears a certain relation to Mammalia, an abstract object.[10] Advocates of phylogenetic nomenclature, a more nominalistic view, oppose this reading; in their opinion, calling an animal a mammal is a shorthand way of saying that it is descended from the last common ancestor of, say, humans and platypuses.[11]
[edit]Cosmology- and cosmogony
Metaphysical Cosmology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the world as the totality of all phenomena in space and- time. Historically, it has had quite a broad scope, and in many cases was founded in religion. The ancient Greeks did not draw a distinction between this use and their model for the cosmos. However, in modern times it addresses questions about the Universe which are beyond the scope of the physical sciences. It is distinguished from religious cosmology in that it approaches these questions using philosophical methods (e.g. dialectics). Cosmogony- deals specifically with the origin of the universe.
Modern metaphysical cosmology and cosmogony try to address questions such as:
- What is the origin of the Universe? What is its first cause? Is its existence necessary? (see monism, pantheism, ema- nationism and creationism)
- Wh- at are the ultimate material components of the Universe? (see mechanism, dynamism, h- ylomorphism, atomism)
- What is the ultimate reason for the existence of the Universe? Does the cosmos have a purpose? (see teleology)
[edit]Determin- ism and free will
Determinism is the philosophical propositio- n that every event, including human cognition, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. It holds that no random,spontaneous, stoch- astic, intrinsically mysterious, or miraculous events occur. The principal consequence of the deterministic claim is that it poses a challenge to the existence of free will.
The problem of free will is the problem of whether rational agents exercise control over their own actions and decisions. Addressing this problem requires understanding the relation between freedom and causation, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic. Some philosophers, known as Incompatibilists, view determinism and free will as mutually exclusive. If they believe in determinism, they will therefore believe free will to be an illusion, a position known as Hard Determinism. Proponents range from Baruch Spinoza to Ted Honderich.
Others, labeled Compatibilists (or "Soft Determinists"), believe that the two ideas can be coherently reconciled. Adherents of this view include Thomas Hobbes and many modern philosophers such as John Martin Fischer.
Incompatibilists who accept free will but reject determinism are called Libertarians, a term not to be confused with the political sense. Robert Kane and Alvin Plantinga are modern defenders of this theory.
[edit]Identity and change
The Greeks took some extreme positions on the nature of change: Parmenides denied that change occurs at all, while Heraclitus thought change was ubiquitous: "[Y]ou cannot step into the same river twice."
Identity, sometimes called Numerical Identity, is the relation that a "thing" bears to itself, and which no "thing" bears to anything other than itself (cf. sameness). According to Leibniz, if some object x is identical to some object y, then any property that x has, y will have as well. However, it seems, too, that objects can change over time. If one were to look at a tree one day, and the tree later lost a leaf, it would seem that one could still be looking at that same tree. Two rival theories to account for the relationship between change and identity are Perdurantism, which treats the tree as a series of tree-stages, and Endurantism, which maintains that the tree—the same tree—is present at every stage in its history.
[edit]Mind and matter
The nature of matter was a problem in its own right in early philosophy. Aristotle himself introduced the idea of matter in general to the Western world, adapting the term hyle, which originally meant "lumber." Early debates centered on identifying a single underlying principle. Water was claimed by Thales, air by Anaximenes, Apeiron (the- Boundless) by Anaximander, fire by Heraclitus. Democritus, in conjunction with his mentor, Leucippus, conceived of an atomic theory many centuries before it was accepted by modern science. It is worth noting, however, that the grounds necessary to ensure validity to the proposed theory's veridical nature were not scientific, but just as philosophical as those traditions espoused by Thales and Anaximander.
The nature of the mind and its relation to the body has been seen as more of a problem as science has progressed in its mechanistic understanding of the brain and body. Proposed solutions often have ramifications about the nature of mind as a whole. René Descartes proposed substance- dualism, a theory in which mind and body are essentially different, with the mind having some of the attributes traditionally assigned to the soul, in the seventeenth century. This creates a conceptual puzzle about how the two interact (which has received some strange answers, such as occasionalism). Evidence of a close relationship between brain and mind, such as the Phineas Gage case, have made this form of dualism increasingly unpopular.
Another proposal discussing the mind-body problem is idealism, in which the material is sweepingly eliminated in favor of the mental. Idealists, such as George Berkeley, claim that material objects do not exist unless perceived and only as perceptions. The "German idealists" such as Fichte, Hegel and Schop- enhauer took Kant as their starting-point, although it is debatable how much of an idealist Kant himself was. Idealism is also a common theme in Eastern philosophy. Related ideas are panpsychism and panexpe- rientialism, which say everything has a mind rather than everything exists in a mind. Alfred North Whitehead was a twentieth-century exponent of this approach.
Idealism is a monistic theory which holds that there is a single universal substance or principle. Neutral monism, associated in different forms with Baruch Spinoza and Bertrand Russell, seeks to be less extreme than idealism, and to avoid the problems of substance dualism. It claims that existence consists of a single substance that in itself is neither mental nor physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects or attributes – thus it implies a dual-aspect theory.
For the last one hundred years, the dominant metaphysics has without a doubt been materialistic monism. Type identity theory, token identity theory, functionalism, reduc- tive physicalism, nonreductive physicalism, eliminative materialism, anomalous monism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism an- d emergence are just some of the candidates for a scientifically informed account of the mind. (It should be noted that while many of these positions are dualisms, none of them are substance dualism.)
Promi- nent recent philosophers of mind include David Armstrong, Ned Block, David Chalmers, Patricia and Paul- Churchland, Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, Fred Dretske, Douglas Hofstadter, Jerry Fodor,David Lewis, Thomas Nagel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, John Smart, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Fred Alan Wolf.
[edit]Necessity and possibility
Metaphysicians investigate questions about the ways the world could have been. David Lewis, in "On the Plurality of Worlds," endorsed a view called Concrete Modal realism, according to which facts about how things could have been are made true by other concrete worlds, just like ours, in which things are different. Other philosophers, such as Gottfried Leibniz, have dealt with the idea of possible worlds as well. The idea of necessity is that any necessary fact is true across all possible worlds. A possible fact is true in some possible world, even if not in the actual world. For example, it is possible that cats could have had two tails, or that any particular apple could have not existed. By contrast, certain propositions seem necessarily true, such as analytic propositions, e.g. "All bachelors are unmarried." The particular example of analytic truth being necessary is not universally held among philosophers. A less controversial view might be that self-identity is necessary, as it seems fundamentally incoherent to claim that for any x, it is not identical to itself; this is known as the law of identity, a putative "first principle". Aristotle describes the principle of non-contradiction, "It is impossible that the same quality should both belong and not belong to the same thing . . . This is the most certain of all principles . . . Wherefore they who demonstrate refer to this as an ultimate opinion. For it is by nature the source of all the other axioms."
[edit]Religion and spirituality
Theology is the study of a god or gods and the nature of the divine. Whether there is a god (monotheism), many gods (polytheism) or no gods (atheism), or whether it is unknown or unknowable whether any gods exist (agnosticism; apophatic theology), and whether the Divine intervenes directly in the world (theism), or its sole function is to be the first cause of the universe (deism); these and whether a God or gods and the World are different (as in panentheism and dualism)- , or are identical (as in pantheism), are some of the primary metaphysical questions concerning philosophy of religion.
Within the standard Western philosophical tradition, theology reached its peak under the medieval school of thought known as scholasticism, which focused primarily on the metaphysical aspects ofChristianity. The work of the scholastics is still an integral part of modern philosophy,[12] with key figures such as Thomas Aquinas still playing an important role in the philosophy of religion.[13]
[edit]Space and time
In Book XI of the Confessions, Saint Augustine of Hippo asked the fundamental question about the nature of time. A traditional realist position- in ontology is that time and space have existence apart from the human mind. Idealists, including Kant, claim that space and time are mental constructs used to organize perceptions, or are otherwise surreal.
Suppose that one is sitting at a table, with an apple in front of him or her; the apple exists in space and in time, but what does this statement indicate? Could it be said, for example, that space is like an invisible three-dimensional grid in which the apple is positioned? Suppose the apple, and all physical objects in the universe, were removed from existence entirely. Would space as an "invisible grid" still exist? René Descartes and Leibniz belie- ved it would not, arguing that without physical objects, "space" would be meaningless because space is the framework upon which we understand how physical objects are related to each other. Newton, on the other hand, argued for an absolute "container" space. The pendulum swung back to relational space with Einstein and Er- nst Mach.
While the absolute/relative debate, and the realism debate are equally applicable to time and space, time presents some special problems of its own. The flow of time has been denied in ancient times byParmenides and more recently by J. M. E. McTaggart in his paper The Unreality of Time.
The direction of time, also known as "time's arrow", is also a puzzle, although physics is now driving the debate rather than philosophy. It appears that fundamental laws are time-reversible and the arrow of time must be an "emergent" phenomenon, perhaps explained by a statistical understanding of thermodynamic entropy.
Common-sense tells us that objects persist across time, that there is some sense in which you are the same person you were yesterday, in which the oak is the same as the acorn, in which you perhaps even can step into the same river twice. Philosophers have developed two rival theories for how this happens, called "endurantism" and "perdurantism". Broadly speaking, endurantists hold that a whole object exists at each moment of its history, and the same object exists at each moment. Perdurantists believe that objects are four-dimensional entities made up of a series of temporal parts like the frames of amovie.
[edit]Styles and methods of metaphysics
- Rational versus e- mpirical. Rationalism is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive" (Bourke 263). Rationalist metaphysicians aim to deduce the nature of reality by armchair, a priori reasoning. Empiricism- holds that the senses are the primary source of knowledge about the world.
- Analytical versus syst- emic. The "system building" style of metaphysics attempts to answer all the important questions in a comprehensive and coherent way, providing a theory of everything or complete picture of the world. The contrasting approach is to deal with problems piecemeal.
- Dogmatic versus cr- itical. Under the scholastic approach of the Middle Ages, a number of themes and ideas were not open to be challenged. Kant and others thought this "dogmatism" should be replaced by a critical approach.
- Individu- al versus collective. Scholasticism and Analytical philosophy are examples of collaborative approaches to philosophy. Many other philosophers expounded individual visions.
- Parsimonious versus - Adequate. Should a metaphysical system posit as little as possible, or as much as needed?
- Descriptive versus re- visionary. Peter Strawson makes the distinction between descriptive metaphysics, which sets out to investigate our deepest assumptions, and revisionary metaphysics, which sets out to improve or rectify them.[14]
[edit]History and schools of metaphysics
[edit]Pre-Socratic metaphysics in Greece
The first known philosopher, according to Aristotle, is Thales of Miletus. Rejecting mythological and divine explanations, he sought a single first cause or Arche (origin or beginning) under which all phenomena could be explained, and concluded that this first cause was in fact moisture or water. Thales also taught that the world is harmonious, has a harmonious structure, and thus is intelligible to rational understanding. Other Miletians, such as Anaximander and Anaximen- es, also had a monistic conception of the first cause.
Another school was the Eleatics, Italy. The group was founded in the early fifth century BCE by Parmenides, and included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. Methodologically, the Eleatics were broadly rationalist, and took logical standards of clarity and necessity to be the criteria of truth. Parmenides' chief doctrine was that reality is a single unchanging and universal Being. Zeno used reductio ad absurdum, to demonstrate the illusory nature of change and time in his paradoxes.
Heraclitus of- Ephesus, in contrast, made change central, teaching that "all things flow". His philosophy, expressed in brief aphorisms, is quite cryptic. For instance, he also taught the unity of opposites.
Democritus and his teacher Leucippus, are known for formulating an atomic theory for the cosmos.[15] They are considered forerunners of the scientific method.
[edit]Socrates and Plato
Socrates is known for his dialectic or questioning approach to philosophy rather than a positive metaphysical doctrine. His pupil, Plato is famous for his theory of forms (which he confusingly places in the mouth of Socrates in the dialogues he wrote to expound it). Platonic realism (also considered a form of idealism[16]) is considered to be a solution to the problem of universals; i.e., what particular objects have in common is that they share a specific Form which is universal to all others of their respective kind.
The theory has a number of other aspects:
- Epistemological: knowledge of the Forms is more certain than mere sensory data.
- Ethical: The Form of the Good sets an objective standard for morality.
- Time and Change: The world of the Forms is eternal and unchanging. Time and change belong only to the lower sensory world. "Time is a moving image of Eternity".
- Abstract objects and mathematics: Numbers, geometrical figures, etc., exist mind-independently in the World of Forms.
Platonism developed into Neoplatonism, a philosophy with a monotheistic and mystical flavour that survived well into the early Christian era.
Plato's pupil Aristotle wrote widely on almost every subject, including metaphysics. His solution to the problem of universals contrasts with Plato's. Whereas Platonic Forms exist in a separate realm, and can exist uninstantiated in visible things, Aristotelean essences "indwell" in particulars.
Potentiality and Actuality[17] are principles of a dichotomy which Aristotle- used throughout his philosophical works to analyze motion, causality a- nd other issues.
The Aristotelean theory of change and causality stretches to four causes: the material, formal, efficient and final. The efficient cause corresponds to what is now known as a cause simpliciter. Final causes are explicitly teleological, a concept now regarded as controversial in science. The Matter/Form dichotomy was to become highly influential in later philosophy as the substance/essence distinction.
[edit]Scholasticis- m and the Middle Ages
Between about 1100 and 1500, philosophy as a discipline took place as part of the Catholic church's teaching system, known as scholasticism. Scholastic philosophy took place within an established framework blending Christian theology with Aristotelean teachings. Although fundamental orthodoxies could not be challenged, there were nonetheless deep metaphysical disagreements, particularly over theproblem of universals, which engaged Duns Scotus and Pierre Abelard. William of Ockham is remembered for his principle of ontological parsimony.
[edit]Continental rationalism
In the early modern period (17th and 18th centuries), the system-building scope of philosophy is often linked to the rationalist method of philosophy, that is the technique of deducing the nature of the world by pure reason. The scholastic concepts of substance and accident were employed.
- Leibniz proposed in his Monadology a plurality of non-interacting substances.
- Descartes is famous for his Dualism of material and mental substances.
- Spinoza believed reality was a single substance of God-or-nature.
[edit]British empiricism
British empiricism marked something of a reaction to rationalist and system-building philosophy, or speculative metaphysics as it was pejoratively termed. The sceptic David Hume famously declared that most metaphysics should be consigned to the flames (see below). Hume was notorious among his contemporaries as one of the first philosophers to openly doubt religion, but is better known now for hiscritique of causality. John Stuart Mill, Thomas Reid and John Locke were less sceptical, embracing a more cautious style of metaphysics based on realism, common sense and science. Other philosophers, notably George Berkeley were led from empiricism to idealistic metaphysics.
Immanuel- Kant attempted a grand synthesis and revision of the trends already mentioned: scholastic philosophy, systematic metaphysics, and sceptical empiricism, not to forget the burgeoning science of his day. Like the systems builders, he had an overarching framework in which all questions were to be addressed. Like Hume, who famously woke him from his 'dogmatic slumbers', he was suspicious of metaphysical speculation, and also places much emphasis on the limitations of the human mind.
Kant saw rationalist philosophers as aiming for a kind of metaphysical knowledge he defined as the synthetic apriori — that is knowledge that does not come from the senses (it is a a priori) but is nonetheless about reality (synthetic). Inasmuch as it is about reality, it is unlike abstract mathematical propositions (which he terms analytical apriori), and being apriori it is distinct from empirical, scientific knowledge (which he terms synthetic aposteriori). The only synthetic apriori knowledge we can have is of how our minds organise the data of the senses; that organising framework is space and time, which for Kant have no mind-independent existence, but nonetheless operate uniformly in all humans. Apriori knowledge of space and time is all that remains of metaphysics as traditionally conceived. There is a reality beyond sensory data or phenomena, which he calls the realm of noumena; however, we cannot know it as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us. He allows himself to speculate that the origins of God, morality, and free will might exist in the noumenal realm, but these possibilities have to be set against its basic unknowability for humans. Although he saw himself as having disposed of metaphysics, in a sense, he has generally been regarded in retrospect, as having a metaphysics of his own.
19th Century philosophy was overwhelmingly influenced by Kant and his successors. Schopenhauer, Sc- helling, Fichte and Hegel - all purveyed their own panoramic versions of German Idealism, Kant's own caution about metaphysical speculation, and refutation of idealism, having fallen by the wayside. The idealistic impulse continued into the early 20th century with British idealists such as F. H. Bradley and J. M. E. McTaggart.
Followers of Karl Marx took Hegel's dialectic view of history and re-fashioned it as materialism.
[edit]Early analytical philosophy and positivism
During the period when idealism was dominant in philosophy, science had been making great advances. The arrival of a new generation of scientifically minded philosophers led to a sharp decline in the popularity of idealism during the 1920s.
Analytical philosophy was spearheaded by Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore. Russell and William James tried to compromise between idealism and materialism with the theory of neutral monism.
The early to mid 20th century philosophy also saw a trend to reject metaphysical questions as meaningless. The driving force behind this tendency was the philosophy of Logical Positivism as espoused by the Vienna Circle.
At around the same time, the American pragmatists were steering a middle course between materialism and idealism. System-building metaphysics, with a fresh inspiration from science, was revived by A. N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.
[edit]Continental philosophy
The forces that shaped analytical philosophy — the break with idealism, and the influence of science — were much less significant outside the English speaking world, although there was a shared turn toward language. Continental philosophy continued in a trajectory from post Kantianism.
The phenomenology- of Husserl and others was intended as a collaborative project for the investigation of the features and structure of consciousness common to all humans, in line with Kant's basing his synthetic apriori on the uniform operation of consciousness. It was officially neutral with regards to ontology, but was nonetheless to spawn a number of metaphysical systems. Brentano's concept ofintentionality would become widely influential, including on analytical philosophy.
Heidegger, author of Being and Time, saw himself as re-focusing on Being-qua-being, introducing the novel concept of Dasein in the process. Classing himself an existentialist, Sartre w- rote an extensive study of "Being and Nothingness.
The speculative realism movement marks a return to full blooded realism.
[edit]Later analytical philosophy
While early analytic philosophy tended to reject metaphysical theorizing, under the influence of logical positivism, it was revived in the second half of the twentieth century. Philosophers such as David K. Lewisand David Armstrong developed elaborate theories on a range of topics such as universals, causation, possibility and necessity and abstract objects. However, the focus of analytical philosophy is generally away from the construction of all-encompassing systems and towards close analysis of individual ideas.
Among the developments that led to the revival of metaphysical theorizing were Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction, which was generally taken to undermine Carnap's distincti- on between existence questions internal to a framework and those external to it.[18]
The philosophy of fiction, the problem of empty names, and the debate over existence's status as a property have all risen out of relative obscurity to become central concerns, while perennial issues such as free will, possible worlds, and the philosophy of time have had new life breathed into them.[19][20]
[edit]Rejections of metaphysics
A number of individuals have suggested that much of metaphysics should be rejected. In the 18th century, David Hume took an extreme position, arguing that all genuine knowledge involves either mathematics or matters of fact and that metaphysics, which goes beyond these, is worthless. He concludes his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding with the statement:
- If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.[21]
In the 1930s, A. J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap endorsed Hume's position; Carnap quoted the passage above.[22] They argued that metaphysical statements are neither true nor false but meaningless since, according to their verifiability theory of meaning, a statement is meaningful only if there can be empirical evidence for or against it. Thus, while Ayer rejected the monism of Spinoza, noted above, he avoided a commitment to pluralism, the contrary position, by holding both views to be without meaning.[23] Carnap took a similar line with the controversy over the reality of the external world.[24]
33 years after Hume's Enquiry appeared, Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason. Though he followed Hume in rejecting much of previous metaphysics, he argued that there was still room for some synthetic a priori knowledge, concerned with matters of fact yet obtainable independent of experience. These included fundamental structures of space, time, and causality. He also argued for the freedom of the will and the existence of "things in themselves", the ultimate (but unknowable) objects of experience.
[edit]Metaphysics in science
Much recent work has been devoted to analyzing the role of metaphysics in scientific theorizing. Alexandre Koyré led this movement, declaring in his book Metaphysics and Measurement, "It is not by following experiment, but by outstripping experiment, that the scientific mind makes progress."[25] Imre Lakatos maintained that all scientific theories have a metaphysical "hard core" essential for the generation of hypotheses and theoretical assumptions.[26] Thus, according to Lakatos, "scientific changes are connected with vast cataclysmic metaphysical revolutions."[27]
An example from biology of Lakatos' thesis: David Hull has argued that changes in the ontological status of the species concept have been central in the development of biological thought from Aristotlethrough Cuvier- , Lamarck, and Darwin.[28] Darwin's ignorance of metaphysics made it more difficult for him to respond to his critics because he could not readily grasp the ways in which their underlying metaphysical views differed from his own.
In physics, new metaphysical ideas have arisen in connection with quantum mechanics, where subatomic particles arguably do not have the same sort of individuality as the particulars with which philosophy has traditionally been concerned.[29] Also, adherence to a deterministic metaphysics in the face of the challenge posed by the quantum-mechanical uncertaint- y principle led physicists like Albert Einstein to propose alternative theories that retained determinism.[30]
In chemistry, Gilbert Newton Lewis addressed the nature of motion, arguing that an electron should not be said to move when it has none of the properties of motion.[31]
Katherine Hawley notes that the metaphysics even of a widely accepted scientific theory may be challenged if it can be argued that the metaphysical presuppositions of the theory make no contribution to its predictive success.[32]


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For Immediate ReleaseLive stream available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuOFMXm8A1k or https://www.facebook.com/maricopacountyaz/
Presumptive Positive Case of COVID-19 Identified in Pinal CountyThe case may signal community spread in Arizona
FLORENCE, ARIZ. (March 6, 2020) – Pinal County Public Health Department confirmed a presumptive positive case of COVID-19, bringing the total COVID-19 case count in Arizona to three. The case, a healthcare worker in her 40s, lives in Pinal County and is currently in stable condition in a Maricopa County hospital. She is not a known contact of any confirmed COVID-19 cases and has not traveled to any areas where COVID-19 is spreading widely. For this reason, Public Health is treating this case as its first instance of community spread.
"Community spread refers to the spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. Just like during flu season, if you get symptoms, you need to stay home and take care of yourself," said Dr. Shauna McIsaac, director of Pinal County Public Health Department. "Similar to the flu, most people will only have mild symptoms that do not require a visit to a healthcare provider or hospital. Individuals who are older or have underlying health conditions like chronic lung disease are at higher risk of more severe illness. Occasionally, a young, healthy person will have severe disease. Unfortunately, this woman is one of those people," she added.
"We are moving into a public health strategy that is just like seasonal flu. We know that healthcare workers are exposed to people with flu and other infectious diseases all the time and therefore are at higher risk, which is why they wear personal protective equipment," said Dr. Rebecca Sunenshine, medical director for disease control at Maricopa County Department of Public Health. Now that there is community spread of COVID-19, just like during flu season, it is important for everyone, especially healthcare workers, to stay home when they are sick to avoid exposing others. "We are no longer recommending quarantine of exposed healthcare workers who don't show any symptoms because we need our healthcare workforce during this response," Dr. Sunenshine added.
COVID-19 is a respiratory infection with symptoms including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. The vast majority of people with the disease have mild symptoms and will not require medical intervention.
COVID-19 is believed to spread mostly through respiratory droplets produced when a sick person coughs or sneezes. Currently, there is no vaccine or treatment, but treatments are being studied and a vaccine is currently under development. Individuals with COVID-19 should be provided with supportive care including fluids or fever-reducing medication.
Since receiving the presumptive positive test result, Pinal County and Maricopa County have been working together to interview close contacts of the case and recommend symptom monitoring.
Overall recommendations to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases spread through respiratory droplets are:
Public health encourages concerned individuals to follow credible sites for information about COVID-19. For up-to-date facts, please visit www.pinal.gov/publichealth and http://www.Maricopa.gov/Coronavirus. For statewide case counts and information about testing at the Arizona State Public Health Lab, please visit www.azhealth.gov/COVID-19.
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AES San Francisco 2010
Master Class M4
Sunday, November 7, 3:30 pm — 4:30 pm (Room 133)
M4 - Hybrid Mixing: A Step by Step Class on Mixing The All-American Rejects Hit Single "Gives You Hell"
Eric Valentine
Eric Valentine will walk through the process of mixing "Gives You Hell." He will discuss all of the techniques, plug-ins, outboard gear, and external summing used in the process. Valentine will start with the unmixed material and go through the process of transforming it into the final mixed version that many folks may be familiar with. The audience will be able to participate by asking questions through out the process and will be invited to improve on the finished version when it is done.


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The German daily FAZ recently ran a positive review of Irish historian Brendan Simms' article Against a ,World of Enemies': The Impact of the First World War on the Development of Hitler's Ideology in the journal International Affairs. The article is said to contain an early summary of Simms' next scholarly book.
According to the review Simms argues that World War I and other experiences caused Hitler to turn hostile to the Anglo-Saxon world first. His hatred of international capitalism and even his antisemitism broke through only at a later time as secondary effects from this primary cause.
Some of the comments on the FAZ site are quite skeptical about this thesis: they e.g. argue that Hitler was initially friendly to Britain and that a large portrait of Henry Ford hung in Hitler's office at party headquarters. The review author, German historian Thomas Weber judges that while the thesis must be further sketched out before publication of the book it is bound to modify the way we think about Hitler in a dramatic and seminal way.
Since the book is not yet out and the reviewed article is behind a paywall I a wondering what else is currently known about this thesis. Is it a new one or is Simms building on other established work? Is there any reason to believe that the particular reviewer could be biased e.g. because of close academic ties?


text: The Town Squire Men's Wear in Cleveland, Tennessee has been in business since 1977. We offer a variety of fine clothing for men in both business and casual attire, from Suits, Sport Coats, Blazers, Dress Shirts, Ties, Socks, Sport Shirts, Slacks, Shoes and even Tuxedos. We also offer a vast range in sizes from regular to big and tall sizes. Whether you are dressing for a night out on the town or dressing for your next business meeting, The Town Squire is the store for you. Our commitment to customer service is what our reputation has been built on since we opened in 1977. The Town Squire is "The Shop That Appreciates the Customer." Come visit us today!


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Train Game (working title) is a game about trains! Woo! You control a train which you drive around a 3D world picking up cargo, trundle it about, and deliver it for PROFIT; whilst avoiding disasters like falling off the rails, hitting other trains, bad weather, or privatisation. Imagine Elite but with trains instead of space craft. Can't believe no one's thought of it before.
It's going to be more of a game than a train simulator, largely because I know very little about train-mechanics. Ho hum. To be honest, I think this will make it rather more fun.
It's very much a work-in-progress, but you can download a demo below which has these features:
- An OpenGL-based 3D render. It will happily render large worlds using quad-trees to split up the terrain. It's not overly optimised, but I get decent frame rate on low-end cards: 30-60 FPS on an Intel GMA 945, 60-120 FPS on an Nvidia G105M – not exactly the most powerful hardware on the market…
- It has a built-in map editor which lets you edit the terrain, paint the track, add stations etc.
- You can drive the train! It accelerates and slows down, moves in reasonably realistic way, and you can control which way it turns on points
- You can try and stop at stations if you like, but there's no reward :-(
Screen shots
All the models are made in Wings3D.
The game is released under the terms of the GPLv3. You can get the source code here:
- TrainGame-0.2.2.tar.gz – Gzip-ed TAR file
It should build fine on Linux – this is where I do most of my development. It has (at least) the following dependencies: OpenGL, GLEW, Boost (>= 1.37), Xerces-C++, CMake, SDL, SDL_image, and FreeType (sorry!).
To build, unzip the source code, and cd into the newly created directory. Now do the following:
$ cmake . $ make
Hopefully all will go well (email me or complain in the comments below if it doesn't!). Now you can play the game by running:
./bin/TrainGame play coal_mine
(You can substitute figure8
or points
for coal_mine
To use the editor, run:
./bin/TrainGame edit <map_name_here>
You can edit existing maps as well as create new ones.
Windows users! You are not forgotten! I have successfully compiled and run the game on Windows using Visual Studio 2008, but that was nearly a year ago so it may take a bit of work to get it running again. You'll still need all the same dependencies as above. Install them and then use the CMake GUI to help it find their library/include directories.
Playing the game is fairly straightforward. Use the mouse to move the camera (it's always directed towards the train). Use the following keys to control it:
- Up and down arrow to speed up and slow down the train.
to toggle the brake on and off.- Left or right arrow keys switch nearby points.
- Tab toggles between different views.
When using the editor, click and drag with the right mouse button to scroll the map. The currently selected tool is shown in the drop-down box in the top right. Click and drag with the left mouse button to apply that tool to an area – e.g. connect the endpoints with track, raise the area, delete everything, …
Feedback appreciated!


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The Teton County Commissioners set the mill levy based on budget requests from various taxing districts such as school districts, counties, water or sewer districts, improvement and service districts, and hospitals. These various tax districts provide services to you and they are listed on your tax notice.
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The market value of a property is multiplied by the assessment percentage (9.5%) resulting in the assessed value. The assessed value is then multiplied by the mill levy to generate property tax dollars.
A mill is a $1 revenue for each $1,000 of assessed valuation.
Market Value times 9.5% (assessment Percentage) equals the Assessed Value multiplied by Mill Levy which equals Tax Dollars
You can only protest your property`s actual value. Objections to the amount of taxes have to be taken to the taxing districts.