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RESIDUAL TRAPPING OF CO2 IN AQUIFERS DURING COUNTER-CURRENT FLOW by Dalad Nattwongasem A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PETROLEUM ENGINEERING) August 2011 Copyright 2011 Dalad Nattwongasem
Object Description
|Residual trapping of CO₂ in aquifers during counter-current flow
|Nattwongasem, Dalad
|Author email
|Doctor of Philosophy
|Document type
|Degree program
|Petroleum Engineering
|Viterbi School of Engineering
|Date defended/completed
|Date submitted
|Date approved
|Restricted until
|Date published
|Advisor (committee chair)
|Jessen, Kristian
|Advisor (committee member)
Ershaghi, Iraj
Safonov, Michael G.
|Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the earth's atmosphere has initiated a wide range of efforts to mitigate emissions and to capture and sequester CO₂. Carbon sequestration in deep saline aquifers provides a potential site for long-term storing large amount of CO₂ without significant leakage back to surface. However, the time-scales that characterize the immobilization of CO₂ in an aquifer, by mechanisms such as capillary trapping, dissolution and chemical reaction, are not yet fully understood. The key contributions and findings from this research effort are: • A new dimensionless time-scale is proposed to describe residual entrapment of the non-wetting phase during counter-current flow. The new time-scale is demonstrated to outperform existing time-scales for a full range of relevant aquifer settings. • By combining experimental observations with numerical calculations, we demonstrate that the use of co-current relative permeability functions is insufficient to capture the migration dynamics of a non-wetting phase plume in counter-current flow settings. ❧ In this research project, we focus on the time-scale that describes the rate of entrapment of a well-defined CO₂ plume during counter-current flow. We use numerical calculations to study the interplay between capillary and gravity forces on migration dynamics. Based on numerical calculations, we propose a scaling analysis that allows us to estimate the rate and amount of entrapment over a range of relevant aquifer settings. ❧ In addition, current simulations models are commonly based on sequential displacements experiments (co-current flow) whereas any CO₂ that is injected into an aquifer will migrate upwards due to buoyancy in a counter-current flow setting. We test the use of the co-current saturation functions to predict the migration of CO₂ plume in an aquifer in the context of the counter-current flow settings. To test the accuracy of numerical calculations, a series of dynamic segregation experiments is performed with an analog brine/isooctane fluid system in a well-defined porous media to observe the changes in non-wetting phase saturation as a function of time. A comparison of the experimental observations with numerical calculations demonstrates that co-current relative permeability is inadequate to represent the migration dynamics and that counter-current relative permeability must be integrated in the simulation of aquifer storage processes.
|carbon sequestration; residual trapping; resistivity measurements; segregation experiment; time scale
|Part of collection
|University of Southern California dissertations and theses
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|University of Southern California
|Place of publication (of the original version)
|Los Angeles, California
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|University of Southern California. Libraries
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|University of Southern California
|Nattwongasem, Dalad
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|The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.
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|USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA
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|RESIDUAL TRAPPING OF CO2 IN AQUIFERS DURING COUNTER-CURRENT FLOW by Dalad Nattwongasem A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PETROLEUM ENGINEERING) August 2011 Copyright 2011 Dalad Nattwongasem


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So you're saying he's a NWO officer?
Liberals block parliamentary inquiry into Mark Norman case, reject invitation to have him testifyBRIAN PLATT MAY 16, 2019OTTAWA — Liberal MPs have blocked an attempt by the opposition parties to hold a parliamentary inquiry into whether there was political interference in the Vice-Admiral Mark Norman criminal case.The Liberals also voted against inviting Norman to testify at the House of Commons national defence committee and tell his side of the story.The Conservatives and NDP had brought a motion to the defence committee to launch a study of the Norman case, but the Liberals used their majority on the committee to vote it down on Thursday afternoon."This is very disappointing, to know that Vice-Admiral Norman has put in over 30 years in service to his country in uniform, and the Liberals won't even give him three minutes," said Conservative MP James Bezan after the meeting ended.Liberal MPs argued the committee wouldn't be the right forum for Norman to speak in, describing the atmosphere as "hyper-partisan.""Vice-Admiral Norman is one of our highest-ranking military officers, it's a question about political interference, optically we should not insert him into a politically-charged forum to make the case that he needs to make," said Liberal MP Sven Spengemann.The Liberals suggested the media might be a better place to tell his story, but the Conservatives argued he should have the protection of parliamentary privilege, which shields him from liability over what he says.But Conservative MP Erin O'Toole — a former air force officer — said he doesn't think active members of the military should be seeking to testify, and that it would have been more appropriate for the committee to invite Norman."Rather than the Liberals turning themselves into pretzels to try to find ways not to do this…if the majority is going to be used to crush it, just come out and say that," O'Toole said. A few minutes later, the Liberals voted against the invitation to Norman.Norman was charged in March 2018 with a single count of breach of trust over an allegation he systematically leaked confidential info about a $700-million navy supply ship project. The case collapsed last week after prosecutors acknowledged they had no reasonable prospect of conviction.The original motion put forward by the opposition would have seen many witnesses called to testify, including Norman, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, and various other senior government figures. It would have also invited Liberal MP Andrew Leslie (who offered testify on Norman's behalf) and former CBC reporter James Cudmore (who received some of the alleged leaks, and is now a Liberal staffer).It was NDP MP Randy Garrison who tried to find a compromise by amending the motion to only call on Norman as a witness."I remain concerned that he says he has more to say, and that he be given a forum to do that where he can be protected from prosecution," Garrison said.Speaking after the meeting, Garrison said he had no confidence the Liberals were serious when they said maybe Norman could testify if he requested to.Other Liberal MPs on the committee said they don't see any evidence of political interference in the case. Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen called such allegations "hearsay," and said the Conservatives were pushing that narrative to avoid talking about the country's economy."I too believe that this is a bit of a fabricated, partisan exercise," said Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz. She said it's a distraction from the "key issues of the day," and said her Toronto constituents are more concerned about climate change, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and the success of the arts community.
"Tanning Stations on the flight deck"
Liberals block parliamentary inquiry into Mark Norman case, reject invitation to have him testifyBRIAN PLATT MAY 16, 2019[Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz] said it's a distraction from the "key issues of the day," and said her Toronto constituents are more concerned about climate change, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and the success of the arts community.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-norman-not-the-only-victim-of-trudeaus-vindictive-streak#commentsLILLEY: Norman not the only victim of Trudeau's vindictive streakBrian LilleyPublished: May 15, 2019As the Conservatives hammered the Liberals in the House of Commons for the second night in a row, a woman at the centre of the drama surrounding Vice-Admiral Mark Norman was hammering the actions of the Trudeau government.Kelly Gabie was the lead federal representative in the negotiations to award a supply ship retrofit contract to the Davie shipyard in Quebec.<snip>In a letter to Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, Gabie thanks the MP for her support of Norman but says he hasn't been the only one hurt."The Liberal government has not just hurt (Vice-Admiral) Norman; there has been so much collateral damage affecting every member of the integrated team that worked on that file, either DMs retired out early, ADMs promoted quietly out of Ottawa," Gabie writes.<snip>
Wow, that's a bit of a leap. Had the misfortune of working on the NSS file for a while, and a lot of these people were just empire building on the back of a project, and would constantly delay progress to push some BS agenda. Hated that posting, and had me actively applying to civvie jobs. Not going to get into the details, but she was part of the problem, so while I wish her the best in recovery, wasn't sad to see a number of people transferred out.The worst part of working there was having people who had never stepped worked in a shipyard explaining to me that they somehow understood ship repair and shipbuilding better than anything myself or the various shipbuilding experts we had on call did. I think my final straw was putting together a report from a group with over a century of work in shipbuilding, and having it ignored completely in the decision process. The big giant heads love them some third party expert reports, right up until it doesn't support their uninformed preconceived opinions.
1. Reinstated as Vice CDS or appointed CDS. 2.Shuffled into some benign military post. 3. Give a senior civil servant spot. 4. Golden handshake.Thoughts?
GOFOs essentially serve at the pleasure of the CDS, who serves at the pleasure of the PM...
A source said Gen. Vance made the decision to bring Vice-Adm. Norman back on his own...
VAdm Norman is on the guest list for next week's RCN Change of Command parade.
Incoming Kraken?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
VCs Throw Foursquare a Hail Mary Pass
Apr 13, 2013 5:00 AM PT
Foursquare, the poster child for check-in tech when the trend was hot, announced this week that it has raised US$41 million in a new financing round.
The funding was provided by private-equity firm Silver Lake and existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Spark Capital, and Union Square Ventures.
What is striking about this transaction is that the funding was debt -- specifically convertible debt -- rather than equity.
That is startling for a company of Foursquare's name recognition and still-emerging status in the startup cycle.
Entrepreneurs Don't Like Debt
"Typically, entrepreneurs are averse to debt," explained Rohit Arora, CEO of Biz2Credit.com. "They always want equity," he told E-Commerce Times. "If they are viewed favorably by the market, they usually get it."
When growth has slowed -- either for the company specifically, or perhaps the particular tech niche -- the market usually turns to offering debt, he explained.
That said, debt financing is hardly the end of the world. While it may not be as commonplace as equity, convertible debt notes are not unusual in start-up financing, Andreas Scherer, managing partner with Salto Partners, told the E-Commerce Times.
"This instrument has a number of advantages for investors as well as for the issuing company. One important advantage is that with a convertible bond, dilution of the voting rights of existing shareholders only occurs at the actual conversion of the bond as it reaches maturity."
More Breathing Room
Translation in Foursquare's case: It gives the company and its executives more breathing room.
"Foursquare has a ton of work left to do to build an indexing and filtering engine that can handle 3.5 billion check-ins in real time to provide its user base useful recommendations on businesses close to their current location," Scherer said. "At the same time, Foursquare needs to build a monetization engine that gets the company to meaningful revenue levels."
The financing it just secured buys the company time to do all that, he continued.
"Foursquare avoids dilution since the investors are not receiving equity right away. If the company is able to get significant traction, it will be able to raise money at higher valuations down the road and replace this debt note."
In essence, Scherer concluded, Foursquare doubled down on itself.
A Business No One Wants
That is the glass-half-full view, at least. There is no escaping the perception that debt financing is a stigma for a company of Foursquare's stature. It also highlights a fact that Foursquare would no doubt like to avoid: The company has not generated blockbuster sums of revenue by any means.
For 2012, Foursquare generated $2 million in revenue, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
There is the perception that check-ins are more a novelty than a longstanding trend -- and a novelty that is fading fast. That may be why Foursquare recently shifted its focus to mobile search.
The signs point to a dismal reality for Foursquare in the eyes of Eric Steiman, a Covestor Investment Model Manager.
"Foursquare is basically a business that no one wants," he said.
"At this point in the company's life, it only has users -- no revenues," Steiman told the E-Commerce Times. "Besides users, they don't have any differentiating product. They use maps and local spots like everyone else. Everyone in this market is trying to grow their own user base. They are taking on Google, Yahoo and Facebook, all of which have billions in capital."
At the end of the day, Steiman said, "Foursquare is stuck in a box."


text:
Okla., Colo. geologists criticize USGS report as hasty
The top geologists in Oklahoma and Colorado say scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey were too quick to conclude that disposal of oil and gas waste is linked to a rise in the number of earthquakes in the middle of the country.
"It's unfortunate that they've jumped to this conclusion," said Colorado state geologist Vince Matthews. "There really needs to be a good scientific understanding."
Colorado and Oklahoma both had significant earthquakes last year. They also figure prominently in the findings of Bill Ellsworth and fellow USGS scientists that a rash of midcontinent earthquakes in the past 11 years or so is man-made and that the earthquakes appear to be linked to such oil and gas activity.
In interviews, Matthews and Oklahoma state geologist G. Randy Keller stressed that injection of industrial waste can cause earthquakes. That proved notoriously true in Colorado at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.
And they say the science may yet show underground injection of oil and gas wastewater may have unleashed earthquakes, but the data are not yet there to prove it.
But Keller said his office got so many inquiries after the USGS study hit the news last month that he put out a "position statement" on man-made earthquakes.
"It is unlikely that all of the earthquakes can be attributed to human activities," the position statement says. "We consider a rush to judgment about earthquakes being triggered to be harmful to state, public and industry interests."
Keller also noted that activists who oppose drilling and hydraulic fracturing had seized on such findings.
"There's not a lot of calm reflection," Keller said.
But Ellsworth is standing by the conclusions of his research and says that some of the state geologists' positions stem from a misperception "that needs to be corrected."
The two state geologists are not the only ones sent scrambling by the USGS study, which is to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America in San Diego.
David Hayes, the Obama administration official who is No. 2 at the Interior Department, posted an article on the department website last week seeking to "clarify a few points" about the USGS investigation of man-made earthquakes (EnergyWire, April 12). USGS is part of the Interior Department.
"While it appears likely that the observed seismicity rate changes in the middle part of the United States in recent years are manmade, it remains to be determined if they are related to either changes in production methodologies or to the rate of oil and gas production," he wrote.
But in the days between Hayes' article and Ellsworth's research becoming news, a higher-ranking USGS official drew a stronger link than Hayes between drilling injection and quakes.
"There's a large number of those so-called excess earthquakes occurring in southern Colorado and they're associated with production of coalbed methane," Bill Leith, associate coordinator of the USGS Hazards Program, said in an April 4 presentation at the U.S. Geological Survey National Center in Reston, Va. In Oklahoma, he said, an increase in earthquakes has been "spatially associated" with drilling injection.
"It's a very significant phenomenon in seismicity of the United States," Leith said, "although it's localized and the earthquakes have not been all that large."
Seismic surge corresponds to shale boom
Ellsworth and his team concluded that a "remarkable" increase in the number of earthquakes in the middle of the country since 2001 is "almost certainly manmade." And all of the potential causes they explore in the published abstract relate to drilling, or more specifically, deep underground injection of drilling waste (EnergyWire, March 29).
The USGS abstract says nothing about hydraulic fracturing, a process essential for production of oil and gas from shale. Many people, particularly critics of drilling, use the term "fracking" to mean all aspects of drilling. But hydraulic fracturing is a process done at a specific time in the production of oil and gas.
In fracturing, sand and chemical-laced water are injected underground at high pressure to crack open shale formations and release oil and gas. Much of the water comes back up as a briny, toxic soup and must be disposed of. Generally, the brine is permanently injected into deep disposal wells that are known, in rare circumstances, to lubricate faults and unleash earthquakes.
The scientists found the frequency of earthquakes started rising in 2001 across a broad swath of the country between Alabama and Montana. There were 50 earthquakes greater than magnitude 3.0 in 2009, the abstract states, then 87 quakes in 2010. The 134 earthquakes in the zone last year represented a sixfold increase over 20th-century levels.
The rise in seismic activity corresponds to a nationwide surge in shale drilling. According to the federal Energy Information Administration, shale gas production grew, on average, nearly 50 percent a year from 2006 to 2010.
The USGS findings were quickly cited by critics of the drilling industry. The Environmental Working Group called it "another piece of evidence that shows we have to proceed carefully."
There are 181 injection wells in the Oklahoma county where the magnitude-5.7 quake occurred in November. But Keller and Matthews said injection well operators in Oklahoma and Colorado do not have to use pressure to keep wastewater down, as was the case with wells blamed for earthquakes last year in Arkansas and Ohio.
"It just flows under the force of gravity," Keller said.
Matthews said another important difference is that the 2001 earthquakes in southern Colorado stopped, even though the injection did not. In Arkansas, earthquake activity has fallen sharply since state officials banned injection in the region where a "swarm" of quakes had taken place.
In an email exchange with EnergyWire, Ellsworth said Keller and Matthews are incorrectly putting too much emphasis on whether wastewater is injected under pressure or whether the earthquakes stop after the injections stop.
"The implication is that injection under pressure is a necessary condition for inducing earthquakes. This is not true. This perception is widely held and needs to be corrected," Ellsworth said.
He noted that some of the injections at Rocky Mountain Arsenal were not under pressure, and the quakes continued for a year after injection stopped.
Keller will also be at the earthquake meeting in San Diego, though he will not be talking about man-made earthquakes.
But his colleague at the Oklahoma Geological Survey, Austin Holland, is scheduled to discuss his findings that hydraulic fracturing itself might be linked to much smaller earthquakes in southern Oklahoma.
The quakes, which struck on Jan. 18 in a rural area near Elmore City, peaked at magnitude 2.8 and caused no deaths or property damage (E&E PM, Nov. 2, 2011).
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text:
Hungry for God
- Margaret Feinberg Author
- 2011 15 Jun
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from Hungry for God by Margaret Feinberg (Zondervan).
An Unforgettable Invitation
As a child I climbed out of bed early each morning, walked into the living room in footie pajamas, and encountered a familiar scene: my mom sitting on the couch reading her Bible. The image is one of my fondest childhood memories. Though my parents taught me countless lessons about God while I was growing up, the sight of my mom perched on the sofa searching the Scriptures was the most powerful. Each morning as she studied and prayed, she gave me a portrait of what it looks like to forage for the divine.
Both of my parents taught me what it means to turn life's routines into adventures and how to keep one's ears attuned to God along the way. Free spirits who embarked on new undertakings every few years, my parents went from manufacturing surfboards in Florida to building their own end-of-the-world home in North Carolina to living as ski bums for a winter in Colorado — never shying away from new exploits. Because they weren't attached to a particular denomination, we attended a different type of church wherever we lived. At each new place of worship, I always liked asking the people we met a question: How do you hear from God?
The answers were as diverse as the people I asked, and most answers left me more confused. Some didn't seem to worry all that much about hearing from God. One pastor told me, "You just know deep down inside."
"But how do you know?" I'd protest.
Others relied on spiritual language. One bubbly churchgoing woman described having something she called a "check in her spirit." Still others claimed to hear from God all day every day, as if they had a Commissioner Gordon – style red phone at home with a direct connection to God's heavenly secretary. These people scared me.
When I asked my mom about hearing from God, she used much of the same language as everyone else. I knew her words were genuine; but still what she said didn't compute.
None of it was getting through my overly inquisitive tenyear- old skull, and Mom could tell. That's when she decided to try something different. We prayed together, asking God to speak and reveal himself to me.
I had no idea such a simple prayer could be so powerful.
God Sings
One Sunday, the children's lesson was on how the name of Jesus has power and authority. That night I dreamt I was cornered on the edge of a steep, rugged cliff by a pack of wolves. The ravenous animals snarled; their sharp ivory teeth snapped. If I didn't do something, I would be torn apart. I remembered the words of my Sunday school teacher and cried out, "In the name of Jesus, go away."1 Like a hand, an invisible sweeping motion shoved the wolves over the side of the cliff. Then I woke up.
God turned a simple dream into a concert hall where he could sing about the power of his Son's name. The experience taught me that God was real, active, and engaged in my life, and I didn't need to ascend a magical mountaintop to meet with him. The dream stirred my hunger to know God more and illustrated just how personal God is when it comes to speaking to us. Not only am I a visual learner, but I'm also a visual communicator. God knew this, and in his love used the images of dreams to make himself real to me.
As I grew older, God continued to answer my mother's prayer by expanding my understanding of the ways in which he speaks. God would make a Scripture come alive in my heart and imagination — causing a story or passage to grab my attention like a colorful billboard on a desolate highway. God used everything from interactions with nature to experiences in everyday life to speak to me. Sometimes conversations with a friend rang in my spirit, or
I'd hear a sermon with an unforgettable refrain.
As a teenager, I often struggled with the awkwardness that accompanies adolescence both in my personal life and in my relationship with God. My first semester at college, I attended too many parties, kissed too many boys, and drank too much cheap beer. Everyone kept telling me that these were supposed to be the best years of my life, so I wondered why I felt so empty and my relationships so hollow. My best party friends on Friday night didn't remember my name on sober Monday. Something needed to change.
My first summer of college, I attended a Christian conference in Colorado. As I listened to the speakers, I felt the hunger stirring in my heart. I was away from God and miserable. I laid my face in my Bible and cried out, asking God to become the center and focus of my life again. Calm enveloped me. In the stillness of my being, the following words ran through my mind: You are my child, and I love you. You are mine; you are not your own. Come back to me.
God grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. As God's child, wholly loved, I found myself running back to Jesus again. Like a kitten flopping as its mother carries it to a safe place, I let myself dangle in God's gentle grip — and experienced new depths of peace. The faith my parents had exposed me to growing up became my own. God was still answering my mother's prayer.
I returned to college with the same haircut and student ID number, but everything else changed. The hunger for God returned to my life. Reading the Bible became such a delight that I became a religion major, focusing on New Testament studies. I also made a sincere effort to attend the campusbased ministries. Looking back, I realize that many of the students who attended these events were still wrestling to make the faith they had grown up with their own. While they engaged in all-night discussions on predestination versus free will, I found myself wondering about all of the young women in my sorority who didn't know Jesus yet. Recognizing that I was one of the few followers of Jesus among this group of women, I decided we needed more believers. I prayed that during the upcoming rush, a two-week period in which we accepted new members, forty would be followers of Jesus. Since we were taking only sixty total, my friends thought I was crazy. They could understand falling to their knees before God during climactic situations, like a depressing diagnosis or gamechanging job offer; but asking God to engage in a silly sorority didn't strike them as a good use of God's time. One well-meaning Christian friend challenged me, "Aren't you being selfish? If you ask for forty Christians, then none of the other sororities will get any."
I didn't care. I prayed anyway. And when rush concluded, forty of the new members were followers of Jesus. The experience taught me the power and potential of prayer and gave me the courage to make seemingly outlandish requests of God. I had begun listening and looking for God, and he continued to sing over me.
Though my faith was coming alive, I made countless mistakes during those years. Sometimes I tried too hard to convince someone of their need for God, and pushed them farther away. Other times I was afraid to speak up. My theology wobbly, my heart filled with pride, my hypocrisy often undermined anything I tried to communicate.
Yet I was growing in my faith, recognizing the importance of reading the Bible, and finding God's voice in my life — if I was willing to listen.
One issue God seemed to be silent on was what I should do after college graduation. I struggled with why God didn't seem to be providing any guidance or direction — worrying that maybe he did, and I missed it. Without an inkling, I filled out applications and collected rejection slips. From the few positive responses, I accepted an internship at a magazine I'd never heard of before in Lake Mary, Florida. I spent the summer learning about publishing and stumbled into a career of writing and communicating, a career which, looking back, God had designed me for.
You are mine; you are not your own still resonates in my being years after that Christian conference I attended in college. The words were a turning point in my life. One of the mysteries and marvels of life is that we never know when God will speak or how the words will transform our lives forever.
Hearing from God is foundational to a vibrant spiritual relationship with him. We're created with the capacity to know what brings God delight and to recognize his involvement in our lives. We're meant to discover God's passions, pleasures, and pains, designed to recognize his voice and its inflections. I don't know if my mom had these things in mind when she prayed for me years ago, but I still feel the ripples of her divine request.
God Beckons
God's voice always contains an invitation to know him more, and the process of listening for God beckons us to grow in our knowledge of both the temporal and the transcendent.
Such is the lesson in 1 Kings 18 – 19 when Elijah answers the invitation to follow and know God with abandon. Given a "mission: impossible" by God, Elijah is instructed to speak out against the false prophets and wicked leaders ruling over the land. His decision to obey leads to a fiery showdown on top of Mount Carmel in which the false prophets are defeated and Elijah becomes the target of the wicked leaders' scorn. He escapes with his life, but falls into deep depression. He begs God to let him die. God refuses. Though Elijah doesn't feel particularly hungry for God, his body cries out for food. Twice God sends an angel to feed Elijah, and, strengthened by the meal, Elijah travels to Mount Horeb.
Horeb — a name used by some biblical writers to refer to the Sinai region — is, in the Hebrew Scriptures, one of God's favorite places to offer invitations. Here God calls Moses2 and invites the Israelites into a divine covenant.3 At Horeb the Israelites accept God's invitation to travel to Canaan and Kadesh-Barnea.4 It's no surprise, then, that God meets Elijah in this special place to invite the prophet into a deeper relationship.
Elijah is just coming off the crowning achievement of his career: God was faithful to honor his every request as he defeated the false prophets at Carmel. But Queen Jezebel decides to rain on his party. She places a price on his head and promises to have him killed.
"How could this be, God?" Elijah must have wondered.
"Did you give me victory only to allow defeat?"
Emotionally drained, the depressed prophet shuffles into a cave on the side of the mountain. He's physically spent. In the midst of the wilderness of silence, God calls Elijah by name, asking, "What are you doing here?"
The prophet rips into God, alleging that his fervent dedication and willingness to risk everything has been in vain. The Israelites have rejected God, destroyed the holy places, and killed the true prophets anyway. With a bounty on his head, Elijah has nowhere to go.
God doesn't address a single one of Elijah's allegations; but he does respond. He instructs Elijah to stand on the side of the mountain and wait for his passing.
Elijah obeys.
The prophet feels a breeze. A gust of wind lifts his hair in all directions. He brushes a handful out of his eyes before scrambling inside the mouth of the cave. A thunderous wind shatters the mountainside, scattering rocks in all directions. Despite its power and ferocity, God is not in that wind.
Hesitant to step outside the cave, Elijah feels the ground vibrate beneath him. He loses his footing and falls to the ground as the earth convulses. Still regaining his composure, he squints when a shaft of fire descends from the sky and a wave of heat blasts across his face. Smoke fills his nostrils. Elijah wonders what's next. A lightning bolt? A volcanic eruption? A flood?
He waits. Finally he hears a thin silence like a gentle whisper. Elijah knows the presence and recognizes the voice. He stands up, dusts himself off, and pulls his coat over his face.
Approaching the opening of the cave, God calls Elijah by name and asks the prophet a second time, "What are you doing here?" Elijah offers God the exact same answer as before, as if God hadn't heard him the first time. Only now does God answer Elijah's concerns with specific directives reminding him that he is not the last prophet — seven thousand others refuse to bow their knees to Baal.
As with Job, God doesn't give Elijah a full explanation and grant him understanding. Instead God offers and reveals himself. As Elijah is sitting in a musty cave in the midst of a Middle Eastern mountain range, God makes contact with the prophet. Rather than manifest himself in all his brilliant glory and splendid power, God chooses to whisper.
The image of a whisper speaks to the posture of our relationship with God. Whispering is ineffective if the person we're trying to communicate with is on the other side of the room. God doesn't desire a long-distance relationship, but an intimate one. Though the clamor of the wind, earthquake, and fire garner Elijah's attention, the stillness of the whisper grabs his heart and brings him to a place where he is able to receive God's answer. Elijah's story demonstrates God's ability to speak into any situation. No matter the darkness I might be in, God has a way of bringing me to a place where I can encounter him. Like Elijah's, my pilgrimage is often difficult, riddled with silence and self-doubt. Like Elijah, I don't always get the answer that I want, but the one I need.
I've wrestled with God over the issue of my health. I've experienced days when I've wanted to call it quits. Over the last five years I've visited countless doctors to try to find a diagnosis and remedy for a stomach illness, which often leaves me fatigued, writhing in pain, and unable to keep food down. Even after eliminating wheat and full-fat dairy from my diet, and adding a regimen of drugs and vitamins, all too often I still find myself in bed with nausea and stomach cramps. Looking at my travel bag of prescription medicine, I feel like a walking pharmacy. I joke that my medicine cabinet could become our retirement plan.
Just this morning, I became ill after eating an apple. My body rejected the food. I feel the raw sting in the back of my throat. On this day, as on hundreds of others, I've asked God for healing and restoration. I've also wrestled God through questions like, Why? Why do you allow this? Why don't you heal? I know nothing is impossible for God. The Gospels are littered with stories of healing, and I'm begging for the scraps. Despite thousands of prayers, I squat in the silence longing for a healing that I have not yet laid hold of.
I often think of Paul, who pleads for God to remove the thorn in his side.5 Some scholars believe the thorn is a metaphor for a physical malady. Whatever form the thorn took, God refuses to remove it, reminding Paul that divine grace is sufficient. The experience must have challenged Paul's relationship with God. The malady kept him pleading, and yet the experience also taught him to trust God in his own discomfort.
My experiences with illness challenge me in my relationship with God. The illness makes me feel what it's like to hunger and ache and not be able to find relief in anything but God. Will I still wait on God? Will I trust God in the discomfort?
As I listen for God in the midst of silence and hardship, I must decide whether I'm willing to give up listening for what I want to hear and begin listening to what God is actually saying. This decision applies not only to healing, but to all of the issues I lay before God. As with Elijah on the mountainside, God doesn't answer my concerns directly but reveals something else. I've sought God on issues of dealing with a difficult person, only to find my own sour attitude spotlighted. I've asked for clarity on the future, only to discover God's in the process of strengthening my faith.
I've begged for an escape from a heated situation, only to discover that God planted me in a greenhouse of growth.
Asking God to speak means we must come to him on his terms, not our own. Too often we look for God in the earthquakes and windstorms when God has been whispering into our lives all along. We'd do well to quit waiting for lightning to strike and instead start looking for God now. When we start recognizing and feasting on God's words in the everyday, life will become grander.
As we set out on this journey together, I pray for you what my mother prayed for me as child:
I ask that you would experience the voice and presence of God. I ask that God give you eyes to see the ways in which he is moving in your life, ears to hear his voice, and a heart that beats passionately after the Divine. I pray you will answer the invitation to know God, recognize his voice, and become an example of what it looks like to live with reckless abandon for Christ.
Hungry for God
Copyright © 2011 by Margaret Feinberg
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A truly great idea, or a truly dangerous one? Perfect for oenophiles, or perfect for winos? This bottle by designer Viktor Pucsek lands smack in the middle of all those questions: it's a wine bottle with built-in "glasses." The idea of Vinho Verde is that you pop-off the portable paper cups, which also double as labels, for when you want a sip or two. It's just a concept, and I kinda hope it stays like that: I like my Portuguese green wine too much to sully it by drinking from a paper glass. [Yanko designs]
More from Gizmodo
What? People don't drink straight off the bottle anymore?


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Incidental findings in genomic testing for diabetes
The benefit of using next generation sequencing (NGS) to provide a single test for all known genetic subtypes for patients with genetically heterogeneous conditions such as MODY is obvious – a faster genetic diagnosis leading to a beneficial change of treatment. But does a "targeted" NGS test have the potential to uncover genetic information that may not be so welcome? The answer is that potentially, yes it does. Genetic analysis of a gene that is known to cause a disease other than the one for which the patient is being tested could reveal additional unexpected information unrelated to the initial clinical question that was being addressed, and is popularly referred to as an 'incidental finding'.
Most of the genes included in the targeted NGS MODY test have only been linked to diabetes-causing mutations. But there are exceptions. For example the gene panel includes LMNA, a gene in which mutations cause insulin-resistant diabetes due to partial lipodystrophy, but also a range of other phenotypes including Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2B, limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 1b, Hutchinson-Gifford Progeria syndrome and dilated cardiomyopathy. What is the likelihood of finding a mutation that predicts risk of one of these phenotypes? Our historical data includes more than 200 patients with partial lipodystrophy in whom the LMNA gene had been analysed by Sanger sequencing and no mutations causing other phenotypes had been identified. This suggests that the likelihood of finding a mutation that predisposes to, for example, dilated cardiomyopathy is low.
Similarly, the targeted NGS MODY test also screens the ABCC8 and KCNJ11 genes, which sometimes contain activating mutations that cause sulphonylurea responsive diabetes. However, this test is equally capable of detecting recessive inactivating ABCC8 and KCNJ11 mutations, unexpectedly revealing the patient's carrier status for the autosomal recessive condition, congenital hyperinsulinism. The laboratory policy is not to report an incidental finding of carrier status, but to focus solely on the clinical reason for referral.
The very nature of testing the whole exome or genome provides ample opportunity for detecting incidental findings. Indeed, if all 20,000 genes are intentionally analysed then these findings are no longer incidental, but might be better described as "additional" to the primary reason for testing. The risk of incidental or additional findings can be reduced by using testing strategies such as trio sequencing for de novo mutations or looking for mutations in shared genes in a cohort approach (as described earlier this week). When developing a new diagnostic test using next generation sequencing or planning a research strategy to find new genetic aetiologies by exome or genome sequencing it is essential to consider the likelihood of revealing incidental findings and to formulate a policy for reporting. If the plan is to feedback incidental or additional findings then this should be discussed with patients (or their parents) during the consent process.
Whilst there is growing evidence that many patients are keen to receive information about additional, clinically actionable findings, the results of studies such as the 100,000 Genomes Project are eagerly awaited in order to aid the understanding of the overall risks and benefits of receiving such information.
© University of Exeter


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To look around the scene, click and hold the mouse button on the view and drag in the direction you want to look. Use the plus and minus buttons at the bottom of the view to zoom in and out.
As you look around the scene there are hotspots which you can click to take you to other scenes. The available scenes are shown on the map as red balls and your current scene is indicated by a bouncing red ball.
There are features within the scenes which when clicked reveal futher information. These features are shown on the map as green pyramids. If you click the question mark button at the bottom of the view it will reveal what areas within the scene are active. Click the button again to turn the hotspots off.
The bouncing red ball indicates your current position and the green pyramids show features that can be seen from this position. The other red balls mark other scenes within the virtual tour. Use the scrollbar at the bottom of the map to move it left and right.
To view the tour you will need Apple QuickTime™ software, version 5.0 or later which is available free for Windows and Macintosh computers. QuickTime is usually pre-installed on Macintosh computers and can be downloaded for Windows computers.
This tour has been funded entirely by generous support from The Ernest Cook Trust. The Dean and Chapter thank the Trustees for enabling us to reach out in this innovative and exciting way.
Karl Griffiths Fulton
School Visits Team, Coventry Cathedral
School Visits Team, Coventry Cathedral
Michael Mogan


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Alumni Spotlights
Jaclyn Rossi, '08, M.S.Ed.'10: A New Role at NU
July 10, 2013
Jaclyn Rossi, '08, M.S.Ed.'10, started her career as assistant director of alumni relations at Niagara, and has now returned to her alma mater to oversee leadership giving for the Office of Alumni Engagement. Learn how her career path took her from Monteagle Ridge and back again.


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|Previous Page | Table of Contents | Index | Next Page
Future Developments(p1)
What's New(p1)
You should use this publication only for quick reference. It is not a complete guide to all provisions of every income tax treaty.
Comments and suggestions.(p2)
|Ordering forms and publications.(p2)
|Tax questions.(p2)
|Obtaining copies of treaties.(p2)
You may want to see:
Application of Treaties(p2)
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Andi Gutmans has posted about a new feature that will be included in any new (or upgraded) IBM i system - a full "Zend web stack" of their products and services.
The relationship with the IBM i team started in 2005. I was deeply involved in forming the partnership and at the time did a lot of the research to better understand the opportunity. [...] There were several solutions at the time which enabled IBM i customers to Web-enable their applications. However, PHP was of biggest interest to the community for many reasons.
PHP was a good fit because of the large pool of PHP developers already on hand, its cross-platform nature, low entry (learning) level and that it provides easy access (through frameworks and the like) to more advanced web technologies.
I am very much looking forward to continuing our close collaboration with the team at IBM who had the foresight of really pushing this hard over the past few years and, with that, not only making PHP on the IBM i a reality but a first-class citizen.


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SPRINGFIELD MO -- In winter, Missouri is an excellent state to view bald eagles. During the winter, the state's small resident eagle population is swelled by migrating birds from the north to often increase numbers to more than 2,000 eagles.
People will have an excellent opportunity to learn more about bald eagles at the Missouri Department of Conservation's (MDC) "Eagle Days" event on Jan. 21 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Jan. 22 from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Springfield Conservation Nature Center in Springfield.
Included in the indoors portion of the event is an opportunity to view a live captive bald eagle furnished by Dickerson Park Zoo of Springfield and to see programs conducted by docents from the zoo.
Outside, spotting scopes will be set up at Lake Springfield Boathouse and Marina with the hopes of providing people a view of the eagles that winter there each year.
For more information about Eagle Days, call 417-888-4237.
This is one of several Eagle Days events MDC holds at select locations around the state. Information about these events can be found at www.missouriconservation.org


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Even on crutches, David Beckham draws a crowd.
The LA Galaxy star, recovering from surgery to repair his ruptured Achilles tendon, made an appearance on Good Morning America on Monday morning, and fans lined the sidewalk of Broadway to catch a glimpse of him.
"I was just in town, and they asked me to come over," Beckham told MLSsoccer.com after his GMA spot about his quick media tour. He later stopped in to chat with the ladies on The View.
Beckham, dressed as nattily as ever, used crutches to maneuver around the studio and deal with the crush of autograph seekers and camera-ready fans, but he switched to a cast-like boot once he got back to his dressing room. The injury to his Achilles tendon, suffered while playing for AC Milan in March, still clearly affects him.
"It was like being hit by a hockey puck," he told GMA's Robin Roberts, who received a #23 Galaxy jersey from her guest. "I thought someone was behind me. I looked round, obviously, no one there. And then I saw my foot. It was just hanging. And then I felt down there and there was a hole and I knew straight away what I'd done."
The 34-year-old midfielder began rehab recently, but is going to miss the World Cup. Still, he is looking forward to returning to the field and is thrilled by the start to the season that the Galaxy have enjoyed. The club is 4-0-1 and sits atop the Western Conference, and Beckham sees continuity as a key.
"We've got stability," he told MLSsoccer.com. "It's great to have stability. We've also brought in a few new players. The three Brazilians look impressive. But most important, we have team spirit. That's why we went so far last year. Now we want to improve. We've done well, but we need to continue it."
One of the integral parts of LA's success this season has been the scoring of striker Edson Buddle, who has scored all seven of the Galaxy's goals so far this year. There is a lot of chatter that Buddle should be called into the U.S. national team for the World Cup, and Beckham agrees.
"He deserves it," Beckham said. "If he keeps scoring and impressing people, without a doubt, he'll have a chance. I'm pleased for him. It shows to kids that if you work hard, you get results."
As for his beloved Manchester United, who are embroiled in a down-to-the-wire struggle with Chelsea for the Premier League title, Beckham didn't hold back about where his allegiances lie.
"I hope Man. United win, obviously," he said. "But Chelsea have done well. They have a great manager"—Carlo Ancelotti, Beckham's coach at AC Milan last year—"and they have great players as well. Without a doubt, it's going to be an exciting end to the season."


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The Patravi EvoTec offers the perfect framework for the CFB A1000 Manufacture caliber. The caliber has been fitted with specially developed functional modules, providing the small seconds at 6 o'clock and the impressive big date, the dimensions of which are eye-catching even for this form of date presentation. It is also unusually positioned in the upper left dial quadrant.


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31 July 2013 | News | By BioSpectrum Bureau
Singapore: The Jikei University School of Medicine has become the second Japanese university to find that clinical data had been manipulated for a Novartis Pharma drug that lowers blood pressure.
In a statement distributed at a press conference, Dr Seibu Mochizuki, the Jikei cardiologist who led the study and corresponding author of the paper on the drug that was published in the Lancet medical journal in 2007, wrote "I take full responsibility." He also said that he has requested the paper's retraction.
The development came after the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine announced in mid-July it had found manipulation of clinical research data on Diovan, marketed as valsartan by Novartis.
Novartis Pharma, a Japanese unit of Swiss drug company Novartis AG, claimed that a third-party investigation found no evidence a former employee had manipulated or altered the data. The former employee had participated in a group to analyze blood pressure data in the clinical research.
Also read: Novartis finds no evidence of wrongdoing in clinical trials
However, the Jikei investigating committee found that a substantial amount of blood pressure data used for analysis did not match patient records, indicating deliberate manipulation. The report states that this manipulation was not done by anyone associated with Jikei, but occurred during data analysis. At a news conference, Mr Kazuhiro Hashimoto, chairman of a Jikei investigation committee, indicated that the former employee might have manipulated the data, while noting that this former worker denied such wrongdoing in an interview. An interim report by the committee said a large part of the blood pressure data on which the Mochizuki paper was based differed from data on medical record.
It also said the Mochizuki paper wrongly described the data analysis group as independent from Novartis Pharma even though the former employee took part in the group. The data manipulation and incorrect description indicate that the Mochizuki paper is basically defective and lacks credibility, it said.
Valsartan was originally approved in Japan for the treatment of high blood pressure in 2000. In a postmarketing clinical trial, the Jikei Heart Study followed more than 3000 patients for three years with participants taking valsartan or an alternative hypertension drug. In their Lancet paper, the researchers claimed that patients taking valsartan not only saw improvements in their blood pressure, but also had reduced risk of stroke, heart failure, and other cardiovascular complications.


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"Through photographs, the world becomes a series of unrelated, free-standing particles; and history, past and present, a set of anecdotes and faits divers," Susan Sontag wrote in 1977. "The camera makes reality atomic, manageable, and opaque. It is a view of the world which denies interconnectedness, continuity, but which confers on each moment the character of a mystery."
Sontag's response to photography almost forty years ago was similar to my own response to this year's serenely ambiguous World Press Photo winner—except here the photograph is, in effect, apparently about a desire by a cluster of silhouetted men under a moonlit sky to connect: "African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at night, raising their phones in an attempt to capture an inexpensive signal from neighboring Somalia -- a tenuous link to relatives abroad."
In an increasingly fragmented world where the photojournalistic enterprise has lost much of its communal character—professional photographers have fewer venues which will support them to do this kind of work, readers are refusing to pay to see their imagery (if they can even find the work among the billions of photographs so rapidly posting online), and advertisers are refusing to support the publications that might have funded their work—the single photograph chosen to represent 2013, an extraordinarily turbulent and painful year, is a quiet, abstracted, ceremonial and quasi-religious image that references the difficulties of communication, difficulties shared by today's photojournalistic community.
Rather than single out a photograph that might have had an impact on public opinion, on governments, on the course of events last year—the often lonely and dangerous task of the photojournalist as social conscience—a symbolic image was chosen representing the problems and necessity of communication over a long distance. And the medium represented in this prize-winning photograph—the cellphone—is not incidentally the primary tool of user-generated social media (for text, video and photography) that bypass traditional media outlets. In the photograph's depiction of the raising of four illuminated screens to the night sky one can sense not only the ascendance of the cellphone and all that it represents in society, but also the distress of the more traditional press unsure of its own future.
John Stanmeyer, the photographer who authored the prize-winning image (previously published by National Geographic), recently also undertook another project documenting the deteriorating health conditions among refugees in South Sudan. Stanmeyer first distributed his work on social media, via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, reaching several hundred thousand viewers without needing to wait for a traditional publication to present the photographs (although he did piggyback on several networks, including National Geographic's Instagram feed). This is good news for readers who want to have a more timely, intimate and direct sense of what is going on elsewhere, including situations in which people are in urgent distress.
View this post on Instagram
Too exhausted to stand after walking with his mother to the MSF clinic, Yasin, 7, weighs only 13.6 kg (30 lbs) yet should weigh 18.5kg (41 lbs) for his height. Acute malnutrition — and with the start of the rainy season, malaria — is running rapid among thousands of Sudanese children at the Yida refugee camp in South Sudan, creating the worlds worst health crisis.
John Stanmeyer's work out of South Sudan
The underlying message of this year's World Press Photo selection can be seen then as a nod to the increasingly pivotal role of social media, while evoking the situation of many millions of others who, although not African migrants, live much of their days in search of a signal and the connectedness it promises—media migrants who have strayed far from the more proximate physical universe they once inhabited. But with its themes of disconnection and the redemptiveness of connection, the photograph is also nostalgic, a grieving not only for community but also for the part that press photographs played as part of the social glue. The jury's selection, while not revelatory about the specific plight of African migrants in Djibouti, does point to a larger anxiety about connectedness and the fragile situations not only of millions of dislocated individuals far from home, but also the dislocation of the contemporary photojournalist.
Fred Ritchin is a professor at NYU and co-director of the Photography & Human Rights program at the Tisch School of the Arts. His newest book, Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen, was published by Aperture in 2013


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Ameriprise Financial (AMP) beat earnings estimates and reported first-quarter net income of $401 million, or $2.01 per share, up 19% from $336 million, or $1.58, a year ago.
Operating net revenues increased 8% year over year to $2.8 billion, "driven by strong fee-based business growth from client net inflows and increased client activity, as well as market appreciation, which more than offset pressure from continued low interest rates," according to the company.
"Our advisory and asset management businesses continue to drive our growth," said Chairman and CEO Jim Cracchiolo, in a press release. "Clients committed record flows to fee-based wrap programs, and we're steadily driving improvement in advisor productivity."
The number of advisors in the group totals 9,704 — down 12 from the prior quarter and 73 from a year ago: 2,155 reps are employee advisors, while the remaining 7,549 are independent.
Strong Wealth Results
Pretax operating earnings from the Advice & Wealth Management and Asset Management units grew 36% to $364 million. Wealth management results expanded 39% to $181 million on sales of $1.15 billion, up 13% from a year ago.
Average annualized fees and commissions per advisor stood at $454,000, a jump of 15% from last year's $395,000. Mutual fund wrap flows for the wealth group were $4.2 billion vs. $4.1 billion a year ago.
The unit's pretax margin rose to 15.8% from 12.8% in the first quarter of 2013.
Asset-based activity jumped 18%, and transactional-based activity ticked up 6% in the period, CFO Walter Berman said on a call with equity analysts on Tuesday.
"Importantly our advisor force remains strong and retention and satisfaction rates remain high," Berman said. "We continue to recruit, good productivity people and brought in another 76 experienced advisors in the first quarter.
The Asset Management group's net outflows totaled $3.9 billion in Q1'14, down from outflows of $5.7 billion last year.
In the quarter, the company returned $457 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends.


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The Fear Is Back on Wall Street
Fear has returned to the market and investors are on edge. With Iraq teetering, concern about oil production is back on investors minds. The Fed meets Wednesday and a new round of tapering is likely. Photo: Getty
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... been been been been been been been been ... hello welcome to MoneyBeat I'm Geoff Rogow sitting in for Paul vignette ... was take a quick peek at the markets the Dow was up slightly with the Nasdaq in Essen P five hundred also ... at the same time ... oil prices are gaining once again ... as the Middle East on Ras freezes supply concerns ... this one of several areas ... of uncertainty that has investors on edge ... joining us to dive into this further as Wall Street or Porter can strum ... did you wrote today's ... front page story on ... the ... other end of of the com so to speak we have ... the situation in Iraq ... read the Fed meeting this week I'll what does all this mean in play to the market we finally have some stuff to worry about ... right so at as he said ... the events in Iraq ... along with students and we have coming up this week have given investors a I've couple things to worry about again ... oppressed Iraqis is the most obvious and perhaps the most prominent along these issues ... I've ... that the chief concern there's all this fighting which is really taken a lot of people by surprise ... on ... what to what extent does the jeopardize Iraqi oil production and to what extent is that ... the higher oil prices ... which in turn ... has all kinds of implications for withdrawal it starts with zero in that region yet the weaker lot about how much direct action reduces how much this could impact oil prices you talk a little bit about this story ... so ... what is the impact because this is the lack of movement really dance what could be for first place well so far are actually the impact hasn't really been equity arm ... and Bank of America ... actually prefer a report this morning ... explaining how much of ... Iraq's oil production is peace in the south of the country ... which the pickup in oil production since out ... much of the fighting is in the north so so really that the rise in oil prices that we seen so far ... more than anything reflects a fear of what these could become a ... huge by investors ... market watchers ... are all worried about what investors into ... Libya what if this turns into Syria ... and and this whole this whole regions further serve to deteriorate even further ... which would which which would have a much more meaningful impact on oil production ... angel investor still it is a risk that this could turn into an we've seen ... it expects to pass that ... you can start respond all this in common is the worry about what it could be about what is right and that's the that's exactly right of the most people will say that it's too soon to say whether or not this is going to turn into another Syria ... aam already ... you know are our newspaper has had less talking about possible military ... intervention by the US in this in this region while ... U S government is is talking about conversations with a grant to help to help bring things under control so so that you know it's not a foregone conclusion that this thing is going to turn into another Syria but it's on the back of investors' minds and without really much else to worry about right now ... it's it's it's what's got people talking it's with this with this what brought us a little below what the acting as what is impacting the futures contracts as records exactly I mean that's when that's what a futures contract it's it's a it's a it's a bet on what might happen in particular the right now that the graphic that was in her store looking at futures contract is concealed last couple weeks I've ticking ticking higher with the ... this is interesting read because for so long before the market has been even more stable than stocks me for years we've we've been ... about a hundred dollars ... one hundred dollars a barrel in in in oil which is sort of ... cat people from really thinking about offices for such a long time we had this ... huge surge in domestic oil production ... by domestic demand for oil is is is down it has been down since since the economic downturn ... so what do we balance rather than the back of people's minds prevail for for really long time and is is given something it has given investors another reason for thinking ... let us quickly turned out on top of all this we know that being on Tuesday and Wednesday ... the the lowering ... of the amount of push to make it to the economy could be continued to receive the neocon of quantitative easing continues I would say the Fed the Fed meeting is probably lower on investors' minds most people seem to think that ... if anything the Fed is very sec fours ... and and the blame be laid out that path and there's probably not a lot of reason to think that they're going to for now at the time to ... further further ... take ... another round of tapering is likely in the cards ... are probably no big changes in terms of the Fed's schedule for raising interest rates would like that ... but of course the Fed meeting is always a big source of of of our balls for for for investors everybody's going to be at least in half a dozen or ... so ... that is the fact that that is the Fed is the Fed ... on it's it's the big story right now so personas can have a ... target date take you so much for joining us Jeff and I please make sure


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When Michael Flatley and Jean Butler spun each other for the last time and gave us the nod that the first ever Riverdance was over, the crowd paused. And then...
Cue deafening applause and a standing ovation, both of which have never really stopped since that first ever "gap-filling" Eurovision performance. A quick look on Riverdance's Facebook page today hints that the magic has endured:
"Please never stop the show!"
"Was absolutely fantastic tonight!"
"Love, love, love Riverdance."
In Tralee, on Ireland's west coast, far from the Dublin auditorium where Riverdance first made Irish dancing sexy, another audience sits wrapt.
On stage at Siamsa Tire, Ireland's National Folk Theatre, four children dance with their father. Unbeknownst to them, their stepmother slides in and out of trees behind them, dripping with jealousy and hate.
The Children of Lir (Clann Lir) – a traditional Irish fairytale of wicked stepmothers, children turned to swans and bereft fathers – has been re-imagined as dance. Just like Riverdance, it ends with a standing ovation. Unlike Riverdance, though, there are no clicking shoes, designer dresses, epic ringlets or vast chorus lines. This is Irish dancing stripped back.
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"The type of traditional dancing you'll see at Siamsa is a looser, less dramatic, but more intimate style of dance," explains Catríona Hickey of Siamsa Tíre.
"Many of our visitors comment that they feel our performances are more "authentic" than other dance shows they've seen – although obviously both have their place. In this video, John Fitzgerald moves from the less showy Munnix style to the more dramatic contemporary style."
While Flatley and Butler kept their upper bodies rigid, Munnix dance is much more fluid in the body, and the upper body is part of the step. Few understand the history of the style more than Siamsa dancer, Jonathan Kelliher.
When his feet hit the floor, they're guided by a feeling of tradition: "There is a connection to the past as the steps I dance are from a very old 'Munnix style'. This style is unique to north Kerry and, indeed, to Siamsa Tire, so it is always nice to feel you're keeping their tradition and memory alive."
It's not only in Ireland's west where memory is kept alive. Skip north for a taste of the highlands.
Tradition sits thick in the air in Northern Ireland. Thanks to a rich Ulster Scots heritage (large numbers of Scots migrated to Ulster in the 17th century), the spirit of the Scottish highlands is alive all along the north coast. No more so than with the dancing.
The sight of pointed-toe jigs, bagpipes and tartan uniforms atop Derry-Londonderry's city walls is a colorful blast of the old ways. But it's not only on aged battlements you can sample the style. There are enthusiastic highland dancers all over the top end of the island, stretching from Donegal to Belfast, and down to County Down.
According to the Ulster Scots Agency, the tradition of highland dancing requires more than just a little energy and a massive amount of stamina and arm strength.
It's a tradition that's alive and kicking, you might say.
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COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (Saturday, Aug. 4, 2012) – Real Salt Lake (13-8-3, 42 points, West #2) missed an opportunity to vault into first-place in MLS on Saturday, falling 1-0 at the Colorado Rapids (8-14-1, 25 points, West #7) in the 2012 Subaru Rocky Mountain Cup finale. MF Joseph Nane scored for the Rapids, which beat RSL for the first time since May 2009 – a span of eight games.
The Rapids had the better of the early play and nearly took the lead in the 12th minute. MF Joseph Nane collected a loose ball at the top of the box, ripping a first-time shot past RSL GK Nick Rimando and off the crossbar.
Real Salt Lake hit back with a good look of its own in the 15th minute. RSL debutant – and Salt Lake City native – FW Justin Braun ran onto a cross from MF Jonny Steele at the left post, forcing Colorado GK Matt Pickens into a fine save with a strong header. Several RSL players had good looks during the ensuing goalmouth scramble, but none could find the back of the net.
The game settled down after Braun's chance, with both teams battling for midfield control and struggling to create chances.
Things headed up again in the 38th minute, when the Rapids took a 1-0 lead through Nane. DF Drew Moor started the play, crossing to the left post, where MF Jaime Castrillon hit a strong header toward goal. The ball took a hard ricochet off of RSL DF Kwame Watson-Siriboe, bouncing out to Nane who took a touch and buried a 12-yard shot into the roof of the net.
Nane's goal took the teams into halftime, which saw RSL bring on FW Fabian Espíndola for FW Álvaro Saborío. Colorado made a substitution of its own early in the second half, subbing on MF Wells Thompson for injured DF Tyrone Marshall and moving Brian Mullan from midfield into defense.
Colorado had the first chance of the second frame, getting yet another good look in the 54th minute. FW Omar Cummings created the opportunity, combining well with Thompson before playing DF Luis Zapata through in the left side of the box. Zapata couldn't take advantage though, sending a weak 15-yard shot wide of the far post.
Unsatisfied with his team's performance, RSL head coach Jason Kreis used both his second and third subs in the 63rd minute, bringing MF Will Johnson and FW Emiliano Bonfigli on for Steele and Braun, respectively.
But the changes didn't do much for RSL, which continued ceding chances. Castrillon very nearly made it 2-0 in the 68th minute, latching onto a ball at the top left corner of the six-yard-box before toe-poking his shot off of the near post.
The Rapids continued searching for a second goal and nearly found it on two separate occasions in the 75th. The first chance fell to Cummings, who collected a loose cross just inside the penalty spot before firing off of a RSL defender and out for a corner. The second chance fell to Castrillon, whose close-range shot off of MF Jeff Larentowicz's padded header forced Rimando into a solid save.
RSL – which was playing its third game in eight days on Saturday night – couldn't muster any significant chances for the rest of the game. The Claret-and-Cobalt will look to bounce back from Saturday's defeat on Aug. 11, when they'll travel to Vancouver to take on Whitecaps FC.
Click here to access video highlights and the MLSsoccer.com MATCHCENTER for RSL v COL
Real Salt Lake Match Notes – RSL 0-COL 1
- By losing on Saturday night, Real Salt Lake missed an opportunity to move past the idle San Jose Earthquakes and into first-place in both the Western Conference and MLS. RSL would have had a one point lead at the top of the table had they beaten the Rapids on Saturday.
- Saturday's loss broke RSL's eight-game unbeaten run against Colorado – a streak that ran back to May 2009. That streak is RSL's longest ever unbeaten run against any one team.
- Real Salt Lake FW Justin Braun made his RSL debut on Saturday night, starting the match up top and playing 63 minutes before being taken off. The Salt Lake City native was acquired in a trade with Montreal on July 11. He'd made the bench in every match since joining RSL, but hadn't played in a game until Saturday.
- Though the club lost on Saturday, RSL still retains the Subaru Rocky Mountain Cup. The Claret-and-Cobalt clinched the team's sixth-straight Cup on July 21, when they beat the Rapids 2-0 at Rio Tinto Stadium.
- RSL returns to action next Saturday, when they'll take on Vancouver Whitecaps FC at BC Place. Real Salt Lake beat Vancouver 2-1 on July 27 at Rio Tinto Stadium.
- Saturday's result broke Colorado's franchise-record six-game losing streak – a run that dated back to June 30.
Goals by Period 1 2 F
Real Salt Lake 0 0 0
Colorado Rapids 1 0 1
Scoring Summary: COL – Joseph Nane – 38'
Misconduct Summary: No cards given
Real Salt Lake (4-1-2-1-2) – Nick Rimando; Tony Beltran, Kwame Watson-Siriboe, Nat Borchers, Chris Wingert; Kyle Beckerman (C); Ned Grabavoy, Jonny Steele (Will Johnson, 63'); Javier Morales; Justin Braun (Emiliano Bonfigli, 63'), Alvaro Saborio (Fabian Espindola, 46')
Substitutes Not Used: Kyle Reynish (GK), Kenny Mansally, Luis Gil, Yordany Alvarez
Colorado Rapids (4-4-2) – Matt Pickens; Drew Moor (C), Tyrone Marshall (Wells Thompson, 49'), Marvell Wynne, Luis Zapata; Brian Mullan, Jeff Larentowicz, Joseph Nane (Jamie Smith, 72'), Martin Rivero (Kamani Hill, 81'), Jaime Castrillon; Omar Cummings
Substitutes Not Used: Steward Ceus (GK), Tyson Wahl, Tony Cascio, Kamani Hill, Andre Akpan
Referee: Jorge Gonzalez
Referee's Assistants: Bill Dittmar, Matthew Nelson
4th Official: Jorge Luna Hernandez
Attendance: 15,218
Time of Game: 1:50
Weather: Sunny
www.RealSaltLake.com / www.RioTintoStadium.com / www.ESPN700Sports.com


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"Experimental study of biogas combustion characteristics and emissions in a HCCI engine for power generation." 1.53 (2011) 154-162..
"Experimental evaluation of strategies to increase the operation range of a biogas HCCI engine for power generation." Applied Energy 97 (2011) 618-629..
"Evidence of Progress – Measurement of Impacts of Australia's S&L Program from 1990-2010." 7th International Conference on Energy Efficiency in Domestic Appliances and Lighting. 2013. LBNL-6783e..
Evaluation of metrics and baselines for tracking greenhouse gas emissions trends: Recommendations for the California climate action registry. 2003. LBNL-53027..
Evaluation of Efficiency Activities in the Industrial Sector Undertaken in Response to Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Targets. 2010. LBNL-3551E..
"Evaluating Energy Efficiency Policies with Energy-Economy Models." (2010). LBNL-3862E..
Estudio Preparatorio para la Implementación en Chile de Estándares Mínimos de Eficiencia Energética en Motores Industriales. Berkeley: LBNL, 2015. LBNL-187346..
"Estimation of CO2 Emissions from China's Cement Production: Methodologies and Uncertainties." Energy Policy 57 (2013) 172-181. LBNL-6329E..
Estimating the greenhouse gas benefits of forestry projects: A Costa Rican Case Study. Vol. 8. 2000. LBNL-42289..
Estimating the Cost of Grid-Scale Lithium-Ion Battery Storage in India. 2020. LBNL-2001314..
Estimating Risk to California Energy Infrastructure From Projected Climate Change. 2011. LBNL-4967E..
Estimating energy-augmenting technological change in developing country industries. 2006. LBNL-55305..
Estimating Carbon Emissions Avoided by Electricity Generation and Efficiency Projects: A Standardized Method (MAGPWR). Berkeley, CA: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2000. LBNL-46063..
Estimating carbon dioxide emissions factors for the California electric power sector. Vol. 33. 2002. LBNL-49945..
Estimating Carbon Dioxide Emissions Factors for the California Electric Power Sector. Berkeley: LBNL, 2002. LBNL-49945..
Estimate of Technical Potential for Minimum Efficiency Performance Standards in 13 Major World Economies. 2012..
Estimate of Cost-Effective Potential for Minimum Efficiency Performance Standards in 13 Major World Economies Energy Savings, Environmental and Financial Impacts. 2012..
Establishing a Commercial Buildings Energy Data Framework for India: A Comprehensive Look at Data Collection Approaches, Use Cases and Institutions. 2016. LBNL-1006427..
Energy-efficient Public Procurement Best Practice in Program Delivery SEAD Initiative Procurement Working Group. 2013. LBNL-6398E..
"Energy-efficiency standards for electric motors in Brazilian industry." Energy Policy 35.6 (2007)..
"Energy use of U.S. residential refrigerators and freezers: function derivation based on household and climate characteristics." Energy Efficiency 6.1 (2013) 135-162. LBNL-6026E..
Energy Use in Denmark: An International Perspective. Berkeley, CA, 1992. LBL-32362..


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ISO classifies communities from 1 (the best) to 10 (the worst) based on how well they score on the ISO Fire Suppression Rating Schedule, which grades such features as water distribution, fire department equipment and manpower and fire alarm facilities. ISO field representatives use the schedule when surveying a community's fire protection capability. The score that is determined from applying the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule is translated into a public protection classification. A perfect score in Texas is 106.5. It consists of 50 points for fire department capabilities, 40 points for water supply and distribution, 10 points for receiving and handling fire alarms and 6.5 points for a "Texas Addendum" that grades fire safety education, building code enforcement, fire prevention code enforcement and fire investigation capabilities. The current rating inside the city is a 1. Outside the city, but less than 1000 feet from a fire hydrant and less than 5 driving miles from a fire station is also a 1. Outside the city and more than 1000 ft from a fire hydrant, but less than 5 miles from a fire station is a 9. For more information on ISO rating's from the State Fire Marshal's Office, please visit the State Fire Marshal's Office website at the following link.
Show All Answers
Entry level testing is now administered by the Civil Service Director. Applicants must be at least 18, but not yet 36 years old, in order to take the general knowledge entrance test. Other specific requirements that must be met to be considered eligible for employment include:
Qualifications required to become an EMT are listed here on the Department of State Health Services website.
SB 193 requires drivers nearing stopped emergency vehicles-with lights activated -to either slow down or change lanes.
The law states a driver must. unless otherwise directed by a police officer, either vacate the lane closest to the stopped emergency vehicle if the road has multiple lanes traveling in the same direction or slow down 20 miles per hour below the speed limit. (If the speed limit is below 25 mph the driver must slow down to 5 mph.)
Emergency vehicles include police, emergency medical service and fire vehicles.
A violation is punishable by a maximum fine of $200. If the violation results in property damage, the maximum fine increases to $500. If the violation results in bodily injury, the offense is enhanced to a Class B misdemeanor.
The new law was passed in the last regular session of the Texas Legislature and went into effect Sept. 1, 2003.


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Another entry for LilaLoa's Creative Cookie Competition!
Isn't he cute? Little munchy giraffe looks happy, but maybe a bit lonely... does he need some friends?
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Giraffe Cookie
Another entry for LilaLoa's Creative Cookie Competition!
4 comments:
- Cristin (Pinkie) said...
Oh my gosh your giraffe is so beyond adorable!!!! Fantastic job! I love him!
- April 23, 2012 at 8:57 AM
- Sugary Flower said...
Thank you! My daughter loved EATING him! :o)
- April 23, 2012 at 10:22 AM
- Rachel said...
Oh, he's absolutely adorable! (I wound up here following muffin tin lunches for kids, and am so totally impressed with everything you make!)
- May 30, 2012 at 11:34 PM
- Sugary Flower said...
Thank you Rachel, that's so sweet!
- June 1, 2012 at 8:11 PM
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When the soft, gelatinous central portion of an intervertebral disk is forced through a weakened part of a disk, it is a condition known as a slipped disk. Most herniation takes place in the lumbar area of the spine, and it is one of the most common causes of lower back pain. The mainstay of treatment for herniated disks is an initial period of rest with pain and anti-inflammatory medications followed by physical therapy. If pain and symptoms persist, surgery to remove the herniated portion of the intervertebral disk is recommended.
We are physicians, hospitals and communities working together to help you live better.


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We are a Montreal-based company that designs and manufactures leather bags, accessories, jackets and outerwear. The brand's inherent charm comes from our approach to Design – anchored in a combination of sleek and functional aesthetics, coupled with high-end raw materials sourced around the world. "From the Purity of our Designs emanates simplicity, vitality and contemporary science." Innovation is born from experimentation at m0851. Trial and error are an intrinsic part of life, and new products are more often than not the result of these experiments.
Life is a continual search for equilibrium. Our brand identity has always been rooted in a combination of enthusiasm and know-how, one theory on striking a balance between charm and functionality.
m0851 (formerly known as Rugby North America) has constructed and enriched a matrix of styles, applied to a wide array of rich leathers and fabrics. The result is an authentic range of locally manufactured products that together, contribute to the creation of the m0851 lifestyle, which attracts free spirits, free thinkers - people with a strong personal self-image in search of products that will become an extension of their identity - instead of the other way around.
At m0851, creation happens in an atmosphere permeated with freedom of expression, where the creative spirit transcends traditional boundaries to construct all aspects of our lifestyle brand. Our body of work includes architectural spaces, product design and furniture, and our creativity embraces all the elements of a unique and all-encompassing universe.
The company's humanist philosophy, like its products, shies away from artifice of any kind. It is a product's natural characteristics that, allowed to shine through, make it distinctive. Like good wine, m0851 leathers get better with age, more supple, a real extension of their owner's unique personality. Whether it is lightweight cabin friendly travel gear, discreetly elegant and functional city bags and accessories, understated buttery leather jackets or four-season outerwear, m0851 approaches every product with the same passion and enthusiasm – aiming to provide its fans with products that suit their active, multi-facetted lifestyle.
In addition to product, every aspect of our concept stores is thought out in-house. We produce our own furnishings and lay out every individual space in such a way as to create a complete customer experience and reflect our brand values.
All m0851 products are designed in Montreal, and over 90% of them are entirely conceived and crafted in our Montreal workshops. Since the beginning, we have voluntarily chosen to privilege local production, despite the challenges. As a result of this choice, we make full use of the outstanding talents of our artisans and maintain full control over the quality of our products at every stage of the manufacturing process.
m0851 is constantly sourcing quality raw materials around the world. Whether it's full grain leather, high-tech fabrics, silk, cashmere, wood or metal, our criteria for selecting new raw materials are simple but stringent: innovation, authenticity, superior quality and, of course, charm. We strive to buy our leathers and fabrics from equitable and eco-conscious sources even at a higher cost.
Over its 30 years of existence, m0851 has positioned itself quite naturally as a creative design house of international repute with friends and fans in many places. Today, m0851 caters to a diverse clientele in 16 concept boutiques located around the world in places such as Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Tokyo, Osaka, and Beijing. We also distribute our collections through a select network of retailers in 35 countries.


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