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Preliminary stages of dementia reduce human face memorization ability
A Japanese research group has revealed that elderly people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have a particularly weakened ability to memorize human faces in the short term when compared to healthy elderly people. MCI patients also had a different gaze behavior when trying to memorize a face. This research may lead to the early detection of dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is considered to be the most common type of dementia, and early detection of preliminary stages is important to halt its progression into a more serious form of the disease. MCI, which is thought to be a preliminary stage of Alzheimer’s, is a state in which cognitive functions, such as memory or thinking ability, decrease at a level that do not affect daily life.
Brain imaging studies show that areas of the brain for memory and visually processing human faces in people with MCI are structurally and functionally transformed. To investigate these specific and yet unstudied areas, a research group from Kumamoto University in Japan conducted comparative experiments with normal elderly subjects and MCI patients (18 each) using a delayed-matching task with face and house stimuli in independent blocks. In each block, they asked subjects to remember a single image and then, after a short delay, select a memorized image from a set new of images. The researchers also recorded subject gaze trends during the image memorization process.
Their experiments revealed that the memorization performance of MCI patients was lower for facial images than for house images, but found no performance difference in normal subjects. The research also showed that, during the memorization process, MCI patient gaze concentration on the eyes of an image decreased but the time spent looking at the mouth increased in comparison to normal subjects. In essence, MCI patients had reduced short-term memorization ability and a different gaze pattern for faces when compared to normal people.
"Looking at the eyes is important for remembering the entirety of the face," said Emeritus Professor Kaoru Sekiyama. "MCI patients probably have an abnormality in the cognitive processing of faces due to the deterioration of brain function. It is possible that the distributed gaze pattern is compensation for this decreased function. We hope to shed some light on this possibility in future work."
This research result was posted online in the journal "Scientific Reports" on 30 October 2017.
[Fund]
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI)
[Grant Numbers]
JP14J11049, JP25245068, JP16H06325
[Image1: Facial memorization differences between patients with and without mild cognitive impairment]
[Caption]
[LEFT] Patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have a significantly reduced ability to memorize faces in comparison to healthy controls (HCs). [RIGHT] The gaze pattern of MCI patients (yellow) is focused over a greater area of the face, possibly as compensation for cognitive degradation, compared to the gaze pattern of HCs, which is more focused on the eyes.
[CREDIT: Toshikazu Kawagoe]
USAGE RESTRICTIONS: This image may only be used in conjunction with the accompanying release, or stories written about the work described in the release with reference to the original work. | {
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Monday, July 12, 2010
The latest Congressional Budget Office projection of the federal debt suggests doubt among budget analysts that lawmakers will enforce some attempts to curb health spending under health reform.
The CBO again this year made two projections for the U.S.' long-term debt. The first is derived from current laws that govern spending. The second “alternative” scenario adjusts projections for likely ways that tax and spending policies will stray from those laws.
The latter, the CBO notes, is considered a “more realistic picture of the nation's underlying fiscal policy.” It is also far grimmer.
Even the rosier projection is sobering. If the nation sticks to current laws, the federal debt will grow to account for more than three-quarters (79%) of the economy in the next 25 years.
But CBO analysts contend that lawmakers may continue to tax and spend as before, regardless of laws that dictate otherwise. Under this alternative scenario, lawmakers would adopt changes that scale back tax revenue and increase healthcare spending, driving the debt to dwarf the economy at a projected 185% of gross domestic product by 2035.
Under the alternative scenario, doctors would not see Medicare payments cut by roughly-one fifth, as scheduled by law, but would instead see gains in coming years. Indeed, in late June, President Barack Obama signed into law a six-month delay to the 21.1% cut. The CBO also estimates that by 2020, Congress will scrap some provisions to curb Medicare spending and reject planned reductions to insurance subsidies for those with low incomes.
If lawmakers jettison some health reform Medicare provisions—the physician pay cut and some spending restrains after 2020, such as those set by the new Independent Payment Advisory Board—Medicare spending in 2035 would be 17% greater than it might have been, the CBO said.
Budget analysts also calculated the cost should lawmakers undo a scheduled reduction to insurance subsidies for low-income people in 2018. Combined, these changes would increase federal health spending for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and insurance subsidies to 11% of the GDP by 2035, compared with 10% under the reform laws enacted in March.
Under health reform, Medicare spending is projected to slow to 2% per year from 4%, but the CBO cautions the more sluggish pace may not be sustainable or could compromise access to care and quality. The agency also warns that its long-term projections get shakier the further out they go. | {
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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition, text revision [American Psychiatric Association. DSM-IV-TR, Washington, 2000] - or the DSM-IV-TR for short - describes Axis II personality disorders as "deeply ingrained, maladaptive, lifelong behavior patterns". But the classificatory model the DSM has been using since 1952 is harshly criticized as woefully inadequate by many scholars and practitioners.
The DSM is categorical. It states that personality disorders are "qualitatively distinct clinical syndromes" (p. 689). But this is by no means widely accepted. As we saw in my previous article and blog entry, the professionals cannot even agree on what constitutes "normal" and how to distinguish it from the "disordered" and the "abnormal". The DSM does not provide a clear "threshold" or "critical mass" beyond which the subject should be considered mentally ill.
Moreover, the DSM's diagnostic criteria are ploythetic. In other words, suffice it to satisfy only a subset of the criteria to diagnose a personality disorder. Thus, people diagnosed with the same personality disorder may share only one criterion or none. This diagnostic heterogeneity (great variance) is unacceptable and non-scientific.
In another article we deal with the five diagnostic axes employed by the DSM to capture the way clinical syndromes (such as anxiety, mood, and eating disorders), general medical conditions, psychosocial and environmental problems, chronic childhood and developmental problems, and functional issues interact with personality disorders.
Yet, the DSM's "laundry lists" obscure rather than clarify the interactions between the various axes. As a result, the differential diagnoses that are supposed to help us distinguish one personality disorder from all others, are vague. In psych-parlance: the personality disorders are insufficiently demarcated. This unfortunate state of affairs leads to excessive co-morbidity: multiple personality disorders diagnosed in the same subject. Thus, psychopaths (Antisocial Personality Disorder) are often also diagnosed as narcissists (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) or borderlines (Borderline Personality Disorder).
The DSM also fails to distinguish between personality, personality traits, character, temperament, personality styles (Theodore Millon's contribution) and full-fledged personality disorders. It does not accommodate personality disorders induced by circumstances (reactive personality disorders, such as Milman's proposed "Acquired Situational Narcissism"). Nor does it efficaciously cope with personality disorders that are the result of medical conditions (such as brain injuries, metabolic conditions, or protracted poisoning). The DSM had to resort to classifying some personality disorders as NOS "not otherwise specified", a catchall, meaningless, unhelpful, and dangerously vague diagnostic "category".
One of the reasons for this dismal taxonomy is the dearth of research and rigorously documented clinical experience regarding both the disorders and various treatment modalities. Read this week's article to learn about the DSM's other great failing: many of the personality disorders are "culture-bound". They reflect social and contemporary biases, values, and prejudices rather than authentic and invariable psychological constructs and entities.
The DSM-IV-TR distances itself from the categorical model and hints at the emergence of an alternative: the dimensional approach:
"An alternative to the categorical approach is the dimensional perspective that Personality Disorders represent maladaptive variants of personality traits that merge imperceptibly into normality and into one another" (p.689)
According to the deliberations of the DSM V Committee, the next edition of this work of reference (due to be published in 2010) will tackle these long neglected issues:
The longitudinal course of the disorder(s) and their temporal stability from early childhood onwards;
The genetic and biological underpinnings of personality disorder(s);
The development of personality psychopathology during childhood and its emergence in adolescence;
The interactions between physical health and disease and personality disorders;
The effectiveness of various treatments - talk therapies as well as psychopharmacology. | {
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“Our brothers and sisters of the Philippines are asking the world for assistance,” Hans said. “Regardless of where disasters happen, I think the medical community needs to support people on the front lines.”
Upstate’s Center For Civic Engagement has collected more than $600 from medical students who responded to Hans’ request. The center, on the lower level of Weiskotten Hall in room 0217, is still accepting donations from anyone who wishes to contribute.
In addition, the Upstate community can contribute online through the internal iPage portal. Look for the American Red Cross typhoon relief banner scrolling across the top of the page.
The typhoon, which struck the Philippines Nov. 8, killed thousands, left hundreds of thousands homeless and limited the ability of hospitals to function at capacity.
“Rest assured that the need is still great,” said graduate student Cherry Mae Ignacio, a native of the Philippines who worked with the President’s office to establish the internal donation portal.
“I have personally served in medical missions to remote areas of the Philippines,” Cherry said. “I know that in times of calm, many remote areas have little or no access to medical care, so I was not surprised when on Sunday the New York Times pointed out that there are still many small, remote villages that still have not received aid.”
Cherry Mae said a hospital ship is en route to the Philippines, and other aid is falling into place. “Good things are happening, but there’s a lot of work to be done,” she said. | {
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Rules for Two-Handed Euchre (Euchre for Two Players)
I couldn’t find any rules for the variation of Euchre for two players anywhere on the web, so here are the rules I learned. If you’ve never played this card game before, you can read up on normal, four-handed Euchre in many places online — here are three:
The Cards
All the cards are the same as in normal Euchre: 9, 10, J, Q, K, A of each suit.
The Deal
Deal 4 face-down, 4 face-up on top of the face-down cards, and 4 in the hand to each person. The resulting table looks like this:
The Play
Euchre is a trick-taking game. The non-dealer has the opportunity to call trump or pass. If they pass, the dealer is forced to choose (like in “screw the dealer” in normal Euchre).
Once trump is chosen, the non-dealer leads normal play. To reiterate, it doesn't matter who chose trump — the non-dealer always leads. Each player must follow suit, playing from the face-up cards in front of them on the table or in their hand. When a card on the table is played, the card below it (if there is one) is turned over once the trick is complete.
There are twelve tricks to be played. To win the hand, you must take 7 of the 12 tricks. Each player gets one point for each trick they took. If the trump-caller fails to take 7 tricks, they have been “Euchred”, and the other person gets all 12 points.
The game is over when one player reaches 31 points.
Notes
Reneging. If you, or your opponent, realizes that one of you has played out of turn, played a card that they shouldn’t have, or made some other similar error, it is called reneging (it’s pronounced like renegging, with a short e or short i sound). When that happens, the player who made the mistake loses the hand immediately, and the opposing player gets 12 points. In other words, it’s the same as getting Euchred. Don’t do it!
Remember that you have cards in your hand that the other player can’t see. That sometimes will determine who wins.
Variations
Readers have informed me of many variations on the deal. Any of these will work nicely:
Play works the same as outlined above, except each player has five sets of two cards on the table, with two in the hand.
Get rid of the 9s, then deal three set of two in front of each player, and three for each player's hand. Two cards will be left over. The dealer turns over the top card, representing trump. The other player can accept it or pass; if either player accepts the trump, the dealer has the opportunity to exchange one of his face-up or in-hand cards for the turned-up trump card. If neither player accepts the turned-over card, it is turned over, and they choose one of the remaining three suits for trump, as normal.
Same as above, only keep the 9s, and each player has three groups of two cards on the table, with five cards in the hand.
Deal each player three sets of two cards on the table, five in each hand, leaving two. Turn over the top of these two leftovers, which is your trump to bid on. If neither player takes it, the card is turned over, and non-dealer can choose from the remaining three suits as usual.
There's also a variation on scoring that's more like regular Euchre (where you use 2 five cards). Instead of 31 points, you play to 10 with the following point assignments: take 7 tricks, get 1 point; 8 tricks, 2 points; 9 tricks, 3 points; 10 or more; 4 points. The person who calls trump is the only one who can earn points unless he is Euchred. If that happens, the other player wins two points for that round. This scoring method doesn't require paper, which is nice, although it does require remembering something slightly more complicated than 1 trick equals 1 point.
Gratitude
This page has gotten a fair amount of attention from people who can't always scare up enough others to play four-handed Euchre, and while I'm glad to offer it, I've had some help.
Thanks to Steve from Ottawa, IL for originally teaching us this variation on Euchre. | {
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Chandigarh ignored in funds' allocation-Pawan Bansal
BY VISHAL GULATI /Kaumimarg.com | May 15, 2019 07:27 PM
Kaumi Marg Bureau
Chandigarh, Chandigarh has been deliberately ignored in allocation of funds and one of the country's oldest varsities, the Panjab University, was also starved of funds, Congress nominee and former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said.
Besides bringing in funds for Chandigarh from the Centre, restoring the glory and prestige of the city known for its tree cover, lush green parks and gardens are his other top priorities.
"I will bring requisite funds from the Centre for health, education and all-round development of the city," Bansal told IANS in an interview here on Tuesday.
"My agenda includes need for immediate beautification of the city with zero tolerance to garbage in public places," the four-time lawmaker said.
He blamed the Centre for ignoring Chandigarh in giving it its due in terms of funds, connectivity and upgradation in the health and education sectors.
The 137-year-old Panjab University's bare survival is at stake due to the shortage of funds, he added.
Starting the metro as a mode of mass rapid transport, allowing need-based changes in Chandigarh Housing Board flats, curbing crime, regularisation of all employees and a transparent transfer policy, ease of doing business, opening of an Indian Institute of Technology, rollback of penalty notices to commercial establishments and industry and reservation for local youth in government jobs are also his other areas of focus.
The Union Territory of Chandigarh is all set for a triangular contest on May 19. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has retained its outgoing MP Kirron Kher, who is banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has fielded former Aviation Minister Harmohan Dhawan, a rebel BJP MP who had supported Kher in the previous Lok Sabha election.
"I do not know of any Modi factor in India. In Chandigarh, people have felt they were let down during the last five years," he said.
Residents of Chandigarh need someone who connects with the city and shares the joy and pain of the people; they need a "man next-door", he said.
"If there was any Modi factor in the last Lok Sabha elections, there is none now because people know that despite having an MP of the ruling party with Modi as Prime Minister, Chandigarh has been badly neglected and her performance was dismal."
Blaming Kher, who defeated her nearest rival Bansal by nearly 70,000 votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he said she has not been able to develop a rapport with the city residents or even with BJP workers.
Perhaps, her celebrity status came in her way all through, Bansal said.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached Rs 89.68 lakh cash in a money laundering case involving Bansal's nephew, just days before elections to the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat.
On this, he said that the "timing says it all".
"I am a prosecution witness in the case. Dragging me mischievously in a case of which I am a prosecution witness proves that the BJP has already smelled defeat in Chandigarh. Hence, Kirron Kher and her party are now trying all desperate means to defame me," he said.
"I have repeatedly sought an open debate with Kirron on probity in public life and personal life and also development but she has declined to join. In one case, after having agreed to a debate, she backed out just before the television programme was to begin."
Commenting on the performance of his rival candidates, he replied: "Kirron Kher has no ground to stand on in Chandigarh and Dhawan has earned the sobriquet of master party-hopper."
Nearly 6.2 lakh voters, including 40,000 new voters, will choose their next MP from Chandigarh on May 19, the seventh and last phase of the Lok Sabha elections. | {
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Frequently Asked Questions
These letters stand for the School Nutrition Association of Arizona, an alliance of over 1000 Arizona school food service employees and supporters. We are a state affiliate to the School Nutrition Association (SNA), which represents over 53,000 individuals who have made a commitment to child nutrition. Through this national association, we are able to:
Promote the highest standards for child nutrition programs,
Provide leadership training and other professional development opportunities to our members, and
Yes. Membership in SNA gives you exclusive resources and tools that can benefit your career and your school nutrition program. Once you are a member, your online account gives you up-to-date access to your membership and certificate records. You can also download a copy of your membership card and view your current CEUs obtained through SNA.
CEUs are Continuing Education Units. The purpose of CEUs is to provide job-related professional development and growth experiences. Annual training (earning CEUs) is a requirement for both USDA Professional Standards and maintaining your Certificate in School Nutrition or SNS Credential. | {
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Critical reflection
Critical reflection is a fundamental part of education for practice. For those interested in understanding more about students' experience of critical reflection as a tool for learning and practice, Critical reflection: generating theory from practice may be of interest. Written by final-year social work students, the papers demonstrate the application of a critical framework to incidents selected from their field education placements. Find out more about the book. | {
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It can be hard to tell at times when the videos you are watching on YouTube are legitimate content created because someone likes what they are showing off or when they are paid to produce the content. That line between paid content and normal content is a bit murkier on YouTube thanks to a marketing campaign that has surfaced from Microsoft. The campaign paid YouTube video partners to produce video content mentioning the Xbox One.
The photo you see above promoting the advertising campaign for Machinima video partners on YouTube surfaced recently. Microsoft is paying these video partners on YouTube to make and post videos that mention the new Microsoft game console, the Xbox One.
Microsoft is paying $3 per CPM for the videos. That means Microsoft will pay the video partner an extra $3 for each 1000 views the video gets. Considering some popular videos can generate tens of thousands of views, this program could pay out significant money to the video partners. The program limits payouts to the first 1.25 million views meaning that the video maker could earn a max of $3750 for the video.
The advertising campaign required the video partners to include at least 30 seconds of Xbox One game footage and mention the console by name. The video also had to have the tag “XB1M13” listed. The legal terms behind the campaign also leaked and clearly state that to get the money the video producers can’t say anything negative about the Xbox One or any of its games in the video and have to keep the terms of the advertising campaign confidential. | {
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Too Close To Call: 10 Ways District 9 Is An Alien Nation Knockoff
I feel like I should apologize for everything I’m about to write here in advance. The thing is I saw District 9 last week and I liked it, I really did. It’s a solid science fiction movie with sharp special effects and a brain rattling around somewhere in its CGI noggin. When you see it, you’ll go nuts for it. It’s likely to engender the kind of broad-based adoration not seen since Star Trek appeared earlier this summer, warped across all walks of life, and became one of those rare movies that everyone agreed was, wow, pretty good. And District 9 is indeed pretty good. In fact District 9 is a lot of things, most of them very positive. One thing it isn’t, though, is original.
Yet if you read some of the early reviews posted for the film, that’s the praise you’ll hear most frequently launched in its direction. The words “fresh”, “original”, “unique”, and “groundbreaking” have been used liberally in describing it and in particular its story. So I guess I’m the only one who’s seen Alien Nation?
The year is 1988 and in theaters is a movie about a near future where alien refugees have landed and humanity is forced to deal with the consequences of their presence. Sound familiar? Hey, that’s the plot of District 9! It’s also the plot of the movie Alien Nation, starring James Caan and Mandy Patinkin, and the acclaimed television series it went on to spawn a year later in 1989. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. District 9 is a great movie. Make sure you’re there, ticket in hand, to see it opening weekend. It’s a fantastic experience and writer/director Neill Blomkamp deserves praise for what he’s accomplished. But it’s not fresh. It’s not original. In fact, whether intentional or by accident, it’s kind of an Alien Nation knockoff.
Want proof? Here it is. Below I break down the similarities but be warned, in doing so I’ll be forced to hack through heavy District 9 spoiler foliage. If you want to see D9 unspoiled then read no further, unless of course you’ve seen Alien Nation, in which case you’re spoiled already.
Saucer Separation
In Alien Nation: When the movie begins Alien Nation’s aliens, called Newcomers, have been on the ground for many years. We never actually see their landing, except in brief flashbacks and stories told by present day characters who were there. Through those flashbacks and stories we learn that the Newcomers descended out of nowhere, with no communication, to hover above the ground near Los Angles, California in a single, massive, saucer-shaped spaceship.
In District 9: When the movie begins District 9‘s aliens, called Prawns, have been on the ground for many years. We never actually see their landing, except in brief flashbacks and stories told by present day characters who were there. Through those flashbacks and stories we learn that the Prawns descended out of nowhere, with no communication, to hover above the ground near Johannesburg, South Africa in a single, massive, saucer-shaped spaceship.
Slave Labor
In District 9: Prawns were bred as workers meant to carry out manual labor. When discovered aboard their ship they appear to be of limited intelligence, almost unable to take care of themselves, though they’re very good at taking orders. Once taken off the ship and brought to Earth things begin to change and there are hints that not only are they intelligent, they may be far smarter than us.
In Alien Nation: Newcomers were bred as workers and slaves meant to carry out manual labor. When discovered aboard their ship they’d been drugged to dull their intelligence and make them obedient, almost to the point that they’re unable to take care of themselves. Once taken off the ship and brought to Earth things begin to change and there are hints that not only are they intelligent, they may be far smarter than us.
Missing Overlords
In Alien Nation: Since Newcomers are basically obedient workers being shuttled around on a transport ship, no one is entirely sure how they got to Earth in the first place. Investigators never discover a ship’s pilot or crew, nor does there seem to be anyone giving orders… at first. Eventually the Newcomers in charge are revealed as a subplot in the film’s subsequent spin-off TV series.
In District 9: Since Prawns are basically obedient workers being shuttled around on a transport ship, no one is entirely sure how they got to Earth in the first place. Investigators never discover a ship’s pilot or crew, nor does there seem to be anyone giving orders… at first. Eventually the Prawns hidden leaders reveal themselves and by the end of the movie we know where the Prawn leader has been hiding.
Name Recognition
In District 9: Prawns are often referred to by a variety of other names, most of which, like Prawn, are really just bigoted slurs. Prawn is not their proper species name. In fact they are and prefer to be called… a complicated name which I’ve forgotten. Hey give me a break. In addition to being given English substitutes for their species name, Prawns are also given human personal names to use in their daily life. For instance, Christopher Johnson is the name of the Prawn lead in District 9.
In Alien Nation: Newcomers are often referred to as Slags, which is regarded as a bigoted slur. Neither Slag nor Newcomer is their proper species name. In fact they are and prefer to be called the Tenctonese. In addition to being given English substitutes for their species name, Newcomers are also given human personal names to use in their daily life. For instance, George Francisco is the name of the Newcomer lead in Alien Nation.
Alien Muscle
In Alien Nation: Aliens look pretty much like bald versions of us, except with spots, but they possess physical strength far beyond that of normal human beings.
In District 9: Aliens look like giant bugs, or prawns as their name suggests, and they possess physical strength far beyond that of normal human beings.
Internment Camps: An Alien Staycation
In District 9: When they first land Prawns are held in internment camps to protect a nervous human population from them.
In Alien Nation: When they first land Newcomers are held for several years in internment camps as they’re processed and certified safe enough to be allowed out in public.
Outer Spacial Descrimination
In District 9: Prawns are used as a stand-in for discriminated against minorities, in particular South Africa’s struggle with Apartheid which was a political and social policy of segregating blacks from whites.
In Alien Nation: Newcomers are used as a stand-in for discriminated against minorities, in particular they symbolize the struggle of black Americans against discrimination during the civil rights movement.
Hater With A Heart Of Gold
In Alien Nation: A bigoted homicide detective is forced to team up with a Newcomer by a government integration program. As they work together to solve crime, the Newcomer begins to win over his human partner who eventually abandons his bigoted views.
In District 9: A bigoted civil servant is forced to team up with a Prawn when circumstances beyond his control force him to take desperate measures. As they work together on a common cause, the bigoted human and wary alien develop a begrudging respect for one another.
Addicted To Gross
In District 9: Prawns are addicted to cat food which affects them like catnip. Though it disgusts humans, they’ll do almost anything to get it.
In Alien Nation: Newcomers are addicted to sour milk which affects them like alcohol. Though it disgusts humans, some aliens will do almost anything to get it.
Something’s Growing On Timmy
In Alien Nation: Two of the major subplots of the spin-off television series and the film involved both a strange substance which has unexpected effects on Newcomers and a dangerous disease which may have been brought to Earth along with the aliens. Newcomers will do anything to hide the truth of both.
In District 9: A strange substance brought to Earth by the Prawns has an unexpected and dangerous affect on humans. Both the Prawns and South Africa’s mega-corporation controlled government will do or say anything to hide the truth of what’s happening.
There you have it. If it were made by Quentin Tarantino District 9 would be an homage. With luck, Blomkamp can get some sort of special QT dispensation.
So maybe it’s not entirely original and maybe it’s not completely unique, at least for anyone born before 1989. That doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. Whether knowingly or by accident, what Blomkamp has done is take an old idea and give it his own twist, his own flavor, and done it up in his own style. In some ways he’s made it even better. So to be fair, as long as we’re picking this thing apart here’s a few examples of District 9 going its own way.
Aliens Are Aliens, Not Fleshy-Headed Humans
In District 9: Prawns are nothing like humans. In fact at times, their motivations are almost incomprehensible. They’re not reasonable creatures who want to fit in and get along, often they’re violent, they’re dangerous, they’re flat out gross and maybe it’s not such a bad idea penning them up like cattle and keeping them away from human populations. They just might want to eat us.
In Alien Nation: Though the movie and the television show spend a lot of time telling us how different humans and Newcomers are, when it comes right down to it the aliens are basically bald humans with spots. Sometimes that works to Alien Nation’s advantage. Sexually promiscuous, ultra-sexy alien females are never a bad thing, but mostly it’s the result of what happens when you don’t have the budget necessary to pull something grander off.
Mockument This Christopher Guest
In District 9: The entire film is shot documentary style and put together with cutting edge special effects. Every frame of it feels like something that could happen at any moment, and most of the movie absolutely lives on the edge. Danger lurks around every corner and the tension is frightening and palpable. District 9 is brutal and unflinching, bringing a high-tech horror movie aesthetic to smart science fiction.
In Alien Nation: Both the movie and the television show are shot and scripted like a generic television drama. It never really takes full advantage of its alien premise, again in large part because of budget constraints, but maybe also because it simply lacks the imagination to go there. Whatever the reason, Alien Nation never feels real. It never feels like something that could be happening just outside of town. It never feels dangerous.
James Caan Can’t Compete With Sharlto Copley
In District 9: Neill Blomkamp goes with a complete unknown for the lead in his film, a long time friend named Sharlto Copley. Write that name down, you’ll be hearing a lot more of it. He’s a character actor and a brilliant one. As Wikus Van De Merwe, a somewhat dim-witted civil servant completely out of his depth and in over his head, he’s utterly real. You’ve known people exactly like Wikus, he’s the idiot boss who smiles while announcing layoffs, or the middle manager sucking up to the boss. He’s all at one loathsome and lovable. It’s one of the best performances of the year.
In Alien Nation: In the movie version the human lead is played by James Caan who, doesn’t really seem to understand the script. Caan’s given great performances in his career, but what he gives in Alien Nation is not one of them. It’s as if he doesn’t believe most of what’s going on around him is real, or for that matter even comprehend the words coming out of his mouth, making it pretty difficult for the rest of us to buy into it if he doesn’t.
Greed Isn’t Good
In District 9: The film is indeed a loose allegory for Apartheid but it’s not content with tackling just one social issue. D9 also takes on rampant corporate corruption and if there’s a villain in the movie it’s not a bigoted, fearful populace as much as it is an out of control, evil corporation which will stop and nothing to screw over the human race in order to make a tidy profit. Racism and capitalist greed get crammed, successfully, all into one movie.
In Alien Nation: The film’s fairly standard storyline is easily bogged down and quickly becomes a fairly standard buddy cop movie, even if one of the buddy cops happens to be an alien. The film and the television show do tackle racial issues through discrimination against the Alien newcomers, but it’s usually straightforward without layers other than “hey remember when this used to happen if you were black?” | {
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Dependable Lawn Renovations in Medicine Hat
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About Us
We are a locally owned and operated company that began exclusively as a lawn service company. Today we are proud to assist the community at large with a full range of services designed to improve the appearance, condition, and value of Medicine Hat properties. We provide everything from stone paver sidewalks and patios to flower beds and irrigation installations. Whether you require a sprinkler blow out at the end of the season, or you could use some help shoveling the snow come November, B & L Lawn & Home Maintenance Ltd. is ready to help.
We Complete Landscaping and Handyman Jobs of All Sizes
Our business has thrived due to repeat customers who rely on us for everything from core aerating to property management. You name what you need and we can do it. We can have your yard looking great with mowing, trimming, fertilizing and underground sprinkler installation. You can count on us for jobs of all sizes for lawn care as well as snow removal.
Promotions and Special Offers
Ask us how to get a discount on our services.
We Handle Commercial Contracts
Ask us how to get a discount on our professional exterior maintenance services. | {
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It is big, intense and intimidating. And it is unfinished. Gaping holes are everywhere. Physically it’s confusing. Politically it’s puzzling. Ideologically it’s complicated.
In the documentary Borderland, Cooper and Canepari follow two men, Dick and Ron, as they patrol the border near San Diego, keeping an eye out for drug smugglers and getting shot at by "coyotes," the name for people who transport illegal immigrants across the U.S. border. | {
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Resources
CALL 09811 29 9811 and 09990840999 for admission.Book your seat. Around 30 students per batch.QUESTIONS IN CAPF -AC INTERVIEW:
These are the questions asked by UPSC board in CPF interview/ personality test exam to the student of Career Quest. Career Quest provides best coaching for all interviews including CPF. Contact numbers are 09811 29 9811 and 09990840999.
1. What is your name, roll number and date of birth.
2. What is the meaning of your name? (Details about the name asked)
3. What is insurgency problem? Where?
4. What is participatory management?
5. How you can use your knowledge of Computer Science in CPF?
6. What is Wi-Fi? How it works?
7. Blood pressure?
8. What is phishing?
9. What is Firewall?
10. Hindi should be made national language. Favour and Against statements.
11. E security
12. You are with group, insurgents comes, what you will do? How you will handle?
13. You are on border. You know about the attack. You know the enemy. How you will handle?
" The way Career Quest conduct the classes for interview is unique. After joining the institute I realised that how our personality can be made suitable to get good marks in interview in just 8 days under the best guide. I scored 72% marks in interview."
Yogendra Kumar, AC, BSF
" I went to many institutes in Dr. Mukherjee Nagar for my CPF interview. I was not satisfied. But when I I reached at Career Quest, I found something different after interaction with the Director. So I joined Career Quest. On very first day I realised that I am at right place and in right hands of sir. I think there is no any other option as good as Career Quest and Kabeer sir. Surely."
Amol Malik, AC, CRPF
" One of the best guide I have ever met is Kabeer sir at Career Quest. Mock interviews taken by sir were unmatched. I think here single member interview is much better than 5 member interview in other coachings. My experience at Career Quest was great. In fact i feel without coaching scoring 60% in interview was not possible for me."
Prashant Singh, AC, CRPF
"
Joining Career Quest for interview preparation for CPF (AC) Exam, was one of the important decisions of my life. I remember my first day at the institute, when I met sir, and during the first meeting I realised that it was a correct decision to reach Career Quest. Sir, made me feel relaxed and confident, during the course of my preparation. The way he moulded my confidence in such a short span of time, was tremendous, and it only showed his delivering skills.
Eventually, sir made me gain enough confidence which prepared me to face an interview at UPSC. The mock interview sessions were also very useful in gaining fluency. While I left the classes after the course was over, I continued with what sir had advised and went for the interview. And when I came out of the UPSC after interview, I then realised the completeness with which sir had guided me and how all that fructified after a good interview. I thank sir once again for all the support and patience which he showed which resulted in my success. T
hank You Sir!
"
CTVK Reddy, AC, CISF
" My rank was 7 in CAPF exam. Firstly I took admission in Career Quest for SSC interview where I got selected for CBI SI with 64 marks in interview out of 100. So I went again to Kabeer sir for CPF interview guidance. I stood 7th in this exam. This institute is devoted for interview so lot of seriousness is there in preparation and strategy. Notes were really good."
Nitesh Tiwari, AC, CISF
" When sir called me to tell that I scored 115 marks in interview out of 150, it was a great joy. My rank is 55. I was not able to see success in SSBs, so when I came to know about Career Quest from internet, I decided to see the institute. After joining I came to know about my biggest mistake which I was making for years without realising it. Then I became confident. I go through the lectures by Sanjeev Kabeer sir. It was outstanding experience. I think everyone should join Career Quest before any govt interview. Worth it."
Laxman Singh, AC, CRPF
" Only after joining Career Quest for interview training, I came to know about my strong and weak points clearly. Also learn about how to work on these areas. It was a total transformation for me in one week period. The group at the institute also helped me a lot. You can trust Career Quest." | {
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Awesome Hi Def Launch Videos from Endeavour
As the shuttle era frenetically draws to a close, the launch views of the thunderous climb to orbit captured by NASA just get ever more stunning and vividly illustrate what it’s like to liftoff to space.
Check out this awesome collection of high definition videos of Endeavour’s final blast off as recorded by cameras mounted on each of the twin solid rocket boosters (SRB’s) from multiple viewpoints.
The STS-134 mission lifted off on May 16 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The cameras show the launch from numerous spectacular angles and vantage points, pointed down to Earth and up to space, from alongside the belly of the orbiter and along the sides of the SRB’s.
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The videos show all the phases of the SRB in flight – including separation, parachute deployment and all the way to the dramatic splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean with rapidly changing backgrounds of the launch pad, Earth and Space.
The STS-134 mission is the 25th and final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, NASA youngest orbiter.
Endeavour’s six man crew is led by Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. She was shot at point blank range and critically wounded during a routine congressional meet and greet with her constituents in January 2011.
Endeavour is set to land back at KSC on June 1 at 2:32 a.m. EDT after a 16 day mission to the International Space Station. The crew carried up the $2 Billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and attached this wor;ld class science instrument to the truss of the ISS. The AMS is a particle physics detector searching for antimatter, dark energy and dark matter. The goal is to elucidate the birth and evolution of the Universe.
Side view of shuttle Endeavour stack and access walkways.
NASA released stunning launch videos taken from cameras mounted on multiple spots around the twin Solid Rocket boosters shown here, including dramatic views with the orbiter belly rocketing to space. Credit: Ken Kremer
10 Replies to “Awesome Hi Def Launch Videos from Endeavour”
Not to be a nay-saying-Ned… and I KNOW that MANY people find this fascinating (I myself am a huge space enthusiast, don’t get me wrong), and I agree that the end of this era is a bitter-sweet milestone in human space exploration… but I’m beginning to get “Royal Wedding Sickness” from all these news items placing various and sundry bits of space shuttle minutia on the public radar. I can ‘grok’ the coolness of this video, but for me, this is about as deep as I’d like to delve into the whole matter. I mean at this rate, we’re going to be seeing hours long videos of astronauts sleeping and “Bolt-cam” footage from all over the inside and outside of the ship on the next/last go-round later this year… lol! But with that said… “Farewell, Space Shuttle Fleet! May you long live in our collective space exploration dreams!”
Question: Right before splashdown (at 6:48 & 26:21) there’s an explosion and scattering of debris coming from the base of the SRBs, and +-7 seconds later (6:55 and 36:39) something splashes into the water before each of the SRBs. | {
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Kaleb Kuebler, 16, had been scheduled for a change-of-plea hearing at 11 a.m. MT Thursday after agreeing Wednesday to plead guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent. He faced up to 60 years in prison with 30 years suspended.
Katie Kenneway was sitting on a bench next to the rotunda as Cascade County deputies escorted Kuebler in leg shackles and handcuffs to the third-floor courtroom.
She said he started struggling to get away and then jumped. One deputy caught Kuebler's leg shackle but before another officer could get there to help, Kuebler's shackle slipped through the deputy's fingers. Kuebler landed 13.5 feet below on the second floor; the top of the railing is 19 feet from the floor.
"It was like out of a movie. It was the craziest scene I ever saw in my life," Kenneway said. "When he fell over, the first instinct is to look. I thought he was dead. It was horrible."
Kuebler was hospitalized in critical condition late Thursday with head injuries. The sound of the fall led several people to believe that a gun had been fired inside the courthouse.
Kuebler is accused of approaching an 11-year-old girl who was walking home from elementary school in October. She told police that he stole her hat, causing her to chase him into an alley where he reportedly assaulted and raped her.
In a Wednesday pretrial hearing, Kuebler was going to enter an Alford plea, meaning the defendant does not admit guilt but admits that sufficient evidence exists that the prosecution likely could persuade a judge or jury to convict him of the charge.
Judge Greg Pinski of Cascade County District Court denied the Alford plea, saying he wanted Kuebler to be held accountable for his crime.
"For the benefit of the victim, he should admit guilt," Pinski said.
When Kuebler agreed to plead guilty to sexual intercourse without consent, felony charges of aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, aggravated kidnapping and tampering with a witness would to be dismissed, according to court documents. Kuebler was initially charged in juvenile court, but prosecutors transferred the case to District Court to charge Kuebler as an adult.
Former Cascade County Sheriff Glenn Osborne said he is not surprised that an inmate would try to jump, but it's unusual for them to succeed.
"It is shocking. It happens other places where people will jump out of a third floor and land in the parking lot, but it doesn't happen here," Osborne said. Police continue to investigate the incident. | {
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Justin Bieber Walks Off Stage At Norway ‘Fiasco’ Concert
Norwegian media on Friday blasted a Justin Bieber concert in Oslo as a “fiasco” after the Canadian pop star walked off the stage after just one song, leaving his teenage fans stunned and in tears.
The 21-year-old put an abrupt end to his concert on Thursday evening after performing his hit song “Boyfriend”, fed up with fans throwing water on the stage.
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Footage shot by fans’ smartphones shows Bieber mopping the stage with a shirt and trying to reason with the young fans in the front row throwing the water.
“Never mind. I’m done. I’m not doing the show,” he said before stomping off the stage, removing his sweatshirt and throwing it on the ground.
Norwegian media gave the story wide play on Friday, replaying the video clips of the incident over and over again and interviewing crying girls who had attended the show for about 1,000 people.
Channel TV2, which organised the concert, termed it a “scandal” and a “fiasco”, while newspaper Adresseavisen called it a “tearful drama”.
Canadian popstar Justin Bieber poses on the red carpet of the 2015 MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA) at Mediolanum Forum in Milan, Italy on October 25, 2015
Bieber later apologised on Instagram.
“Sadly it’s been a rough week for me, long days no sleep,” he wrote.
“In no way did I mean to come across mean… I don’t always handle things the right way but I’m human and I’m working on getting better,” he added.
“Unfortunately people were affected by this as am I. For the people in the back I am so sorry and for anyone I may have disappointed I’m sorry.”
Bieber once enjoyed a squeaky clean image but has more recently had run-ins with the law, including the alleged assault in 2013 of a limousine driver, who announced earlier this year that he is suing the singer.
Bieber has twice been ordered to take anger management classes — once after admitting to taking part in an illegal drag race on a Miami street, and once for throwing eggs at the home of a neighbour, for which he was handed two years’ probation. | {
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There are concerns the mangled transcripts could lead to overturned criminal convictions, and 10 of Kochanski’s cases are reportedly being appealed, including one of a man convicted of hiring a hit man to murder a witness against him.
Kochanski’s alleged actions are reminiscent of the scene in Stanley Kubrick’s horror film The Shining where Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) repeatedly types: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” | {
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Hortica Dedicates Garden for SAF
Source:
Hortica
Hortica Insurance & Employee Benefits recently created a Society of American Florists (SAF) Garden on their grounds in recognition of SAF’s 125th anniversary and the longstanding relationship between Hortica and SAF.
On April 27, Hortica played host to SAF Executive Vice President and CEO Peter Moran at their annual employee appreciation company breakfast for dedication of the garden. The “SAF Garden” will showcase new annual varieties each spring to educate visitors and present the latest products developed through research. Anchoring the garden is a 'Prairiefire' crabapple tree.
The Society of American Florists was formed in 1884 in Chicago as a national trade association by 21 members of the American Association of Nurserymen, Florist and Seedsmen. Within the first year, SAF had grown to 400 members. Hail insurance was a hot topic during this time; in 1887 Florists’ Hail Association was formed by a committee of SAF in order to protect greenhouse owners against hail damage. For the last 125 years the relationship between SAF and Florists’ Mutual – later renamed Hortica – has remained constant.
“The garden serves as a reminder of SAF’s remarkable contribution to the industry and the ties which forever unite SAF and Hortica," said Mona Haberer, Hortica's president and CEO. | {
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Fishermen to boycott fishing demanding release of colleagues
Fishermen in Rameswaram have decided to boycott fishing indefinitely from Friday demanding release of 53 of their colleagues, arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy during the last two days for allegedly entering its waters illegally.
A meeting of the Mechanised Boat Fishermen's Association also decided to picket central government offices if the fishermen were not released by next Thursday.
Tamil Nadu Mechanised Fishermen's Association president NJ Bose said the meeting urged the central and state governments to take immediate steps for the release of the fishermen.
The Sri Lankan had arrested 34 Tamil fishermen on Thursday for allegedly entering its waters illegally. They had on Wednesday captured 19 fishermen on charges of "trespassing and poaching in Sri Lankan waters". | {
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i don't , agree with this kind of system .. it's great, having ur RATIIN stable .. but, this is an international chess site.. so it should have, the international chess rulezit's only fair in my opinion..
Besides, it can only harm , players, psychic than do good, as they will have, mis conception .
1.I tried to simulate formula for curiosity purpose.Let say I have 2172ratio, and my opponent have 2013 - I win and should have 2179, but in excel i can't get it right:=2172+24*(1-(1/(1+(10*((2013-2172)/400)))))Can you help me find where is my mistake?
2. Can you tell me (for curiosity purpose again) what is average user ratio last year, and this year? And what is average user ratio (for user that played more than 1k games) last year and this year?
3. About Rating floor - i Don't understand it - Let say again that my ratio is 2172 -if I understand correctly my floor is 1972/2372 ?I played game and win my ratio is 2179 - did my floor automatically changed to 1979/2379 - what's the point in floor then? Or there is some other condition that i don't understand?
j00j4nt200 wrote:3.About Rating floor - i Don't understand it - Let say again that my ratio is 2172 -if I understand correctly my floor is 1972/2372 ?I played game and win my ratio is 2179 - did my floor automatically changed to 1979/2379 - what's the point in floor then? Or there is some other condition that i don't understand?
Your floor rating as it has been said would be your max rating -200 if your max rating is 2179 your floor rating is 1900. Once you reach 2200 your floor rating will change to 2000 and it goes like that until 2400 where the minimun floor rating is 2200, this means that if you get to 2800 your floor rating is still 2200.
j00j4nt200 wrote:1.I tried to simulate formula for curiosity purpose.Let say I have 2172ratio, and my opponent have 2013 - I win and should have 2179, but in excel i can't get it right:=2172+24*(1-(1/(1+(10*((2013-2172)/400)))))Can you help me find where is my mistake?
First it is not like that, let's do this, with your rating, New rating as X ->
New rating (x) = 2172 + 6,8621063379515939325284772070996 = 2178,8621063379515939325284772071 since there is no coma, your new rating is 2178+1 = 2179. This means:
New rating (X) = 2179 !!
I hope that helps a bit.
j00j4nt200 wrote:2.Can you tell me (for curiosity purpose again) what is average user ratio last year, and this year?And what is average user ratio (for user that played more than 1k games) last year and this year?
I have no idea what the average rating is, but it used to be around 1635 or so when I joined chesscube some 1 year and a half ago. I suppose it is much alike now. maybe a bit higher up to 1800 although I am not too sure.
If you win opponent with exact same ratio you will get +12 and for loosing -12Maximum win or lose ratio per game is 24.
If you play with someone who have much stronger ratio than you, for example for you are 2000 and opponent is 2600, for winning you will get +24, and for loosing you will lose 0.Average player only need to keep winning over 2600 ratio players to gain ratio
Does a time affect,to divide when the opponent loses, example: If I play with 2 opponents , with same points player 1 (1940 rate ) player 2 (1940 rate too ), not at the same time, but with the same points,one of them lost in time during playing the game, while the other has check mat, very quickly not to much then to 6 or 8 moves. or it depends also different way of playing.
Couple of hours ago I had a game in which my opponent won 32 points and I lose 16. And the opposite too, while I was winning xpoints my opponent was losing 2xpoints. Where is the logic? I can't figure this out.
therunaway wrote:Couple of hours ago I had a game in which my opponent won 32 points and I lose 16. And the opposite too, while I was winning xpoints my opponent was losing 2xpoints. Where is the logic? I can't figure this out.
Hi,
Could you tell us who your opponent was? Most likely your opponent was provisionally rated. | {
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Competitions
Roar go down in Elimination Final
Brisbane Roar have fallen to Melbourne City in tonight's Hyundai A-League Elimination Final at AAMI Park.
Two second-half goals for the hosts proved to be the difference as City progress to the second week of finals while the Roar can begin preparations for season 2018/19.
While the season ends in disappointing fashion, Head Coach John Aloisi says his side will be back bigger, better and stronger next campaign.
"We didn't perform like we wanted to tonight. We started to play the football we wanted to when they went ahead," Aloisi said.
"We don't make any excuses. We didn't give up at any time, we kept going, and to be here from where we've come from is a huge credit to the group.
"We now build for next season and we will be better."
City limited the Roar's opportunities in attack during the opening 45 minutes but tight defensive work at the back ensured City's forays forward were restricted as well as both sides headed into the break locked at 0-0.
The deadlock was eventually broken by the hosts 14 minutes into the second-half as Stefan Mauk finished from close range.
The Roar pushed hard for an equaliser with Frenchman Eric Bautheac looking a constant threat down the right wing in his first Hyundai A-League final.
As full-time neared, City netted a crucial second goal on the counter as Nick Fitzgerald doubled their lead from close range in second-half stoppage time.
Captain Matt McKay praised his side for qualifying for an eighth consecutive Finals Series, but says it just wasn't the Roar's night.
"We just weren't courageous tonight which was disappointing," McKay said.
"I'm really proud of the boys that we dug in and made the top six, but it wasn't our best performance tonight. We needed that little bit of luck."
STORY OF THE GAME
Both sides struggled to create clear-cut chances in the first half with the respective keepers rarely called into action.
The hosts started the second half strongly and opened the lead through Stefan Mauk in the 59th minute.
Brisbane pushed hard for an equalising goal, finishing the better of the two sides before the hosts doubled the lead on the counter.
Although on the wrong side of the scoreboard, attacker Fahid Ben Khalfallah (below) celebrated his 100th Hyundai A-League appearance at AAMI Park on Friday night.
GOALS
Melbourne City - Mauk 59' - 1-0
A ball is fired in from the left wing and is met by Stefan Mauk who converts with a first-time shot.
Melbourne City - Fitzgerald 90+1' - 2-0
Fitzgerald latches on to a ball from the left and thunders a header into the back of the net. | {
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FAQ
When did you decide to take a trip around the world?
It’s hard to say exactly when the idea took root, but we have already traveled fairly extensively with one another—especially if you include the year we spent in Hartlepool, England, doing youth work together from 2005 to 2006. For those who have traveled, you know traveling is addictive. The moment you return from one trip you begin dreaming about the next. David remembers dreaming about a year of travel as early as his teens, but we both committed to doing this in fall 2010.
So many people heard us talk about the dream and encouraged us to take the trip the first chance we got—“Don’t look back and regret not doing it,” they said. So we’re heeding their advice and putting a check mark next to so many items on our bucket lists.
Is this a mission trip?
No, Global Encounter is not a mission trip. However, Global Encounter is not without a sense of mission. Through volunteering and interacting with all kinds of peoples and cultures, we’re hoping to impact and influence people in positive and potentially life-changing ways. The beauty of traveling for a year is that we won’t be too busy to help out where help is needed. We fully intend to help spontaneously and intentionally—from conversations with others to random acts of kindness to spending weeks with an orphanage. We believe we can live out who we are and foster goodwill among the people and places we visit.
How are you paying for this and how much does it cost?
The short answer is savings—we’ve each saved diligently and methodically for a long time. People have differing opinions on how much to budget for a year around the world, and there are lots of travel resources out there to help you plan. On the extremely frugal end of the spectrum, they say it can be done for $10,000. On the other end of the spectrum, of course, the sky is the limit. We’re planning to camp or stay with friends wherever possible, and when it’s not possible, we’ll stay in the safest, most inexpensive places we can find. All told, we’re hoping to keep this one-year excursion to less than $20,000 per person.
How did you decide where all you wanted to go?
The beauty of traveling with only one other is person is that you only have to convince one person. That said, we sat down in the fall 2010 and each made two separate lists of places we’d like to visit with our negotiables and non-negotiables. The truth is, there was a lot of overlap between our two lists, and our initial plan was to visit 43 countries in 50 weeks. If you’ve ever even tried to visit five countries in one trip, you’ve got an inkling of just how overly ambitious we were, and it didn’t take us long to see it.
After a brutal session of striking lots of the negotiables (and even a couple of the non-negotiables), we narrowed it down to just under 25, which you can see here.
Are you really leaving your jobs? Why?
Yes, we really are. Achieving a dream usually involves risk, and this jaunt around the world is no exception.
What all are you taking with you?
Bear in mind that anything we pack, we have to carry on our backs! So, just the essentials: warm/cold weather clothes, boots/shoes, tent, cookware, some technology, and a lot of creativity to make up for the things we forgot or couldn’t fit.
What can I expect from Global Encounter?
Our goal is to keep fun, interesting, and engaging content coming your way as often as possible. Of course, when you’re living on the road, you don’t get to pick when and where your next access to WiFi will be. But as a standard, we’ll be posting a new video every two weeks.
What makes Global Encounter different is that we want you to be involved in this incredible trip around the world. While you only hear from us every so often, we truly hope to hear from you all the time. We want to hear your questions, your comments, your suggestions, and advice because we believe it will make our journey better. | {
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It is a fact that one of the best ways to grow your business is by building the relationship that you have with your current customers. Most small businesses overlook this fact and concentrate on new customers and new business, but don’t neglect your existing customers because they can really help you grow your business.
In this blog post, I will cover 7 surprising ways you can get repeat and referral business from your current customers:
Send your customers a birthday card. Yes, I am talking the old fashioned in the snail mail birthday card. Now a days, so few people take the time to send family, friends and customers physical cards that it would be a welcome surprise for your customer to receive a card from you. Depending on the size of your customer database, this could be an expensive undertaking, so I suggest if you cannot send a birthday card to every customer, make sure that you send one to your most loyal and repeat customers. It’s a great way to show that you care about your customers, and it’s a great opportunity to add a special offer for additional products or services. I get a birthday card and a $10 off gift card from a popular women’s apparel store every year, and most of the time I go in the store to use my gift card. I am pretty sure this strategy is working for this retail store because I continue to get a card every year.
Send your customers an anniversary card. You should have the date that your client started using your services on file, so wouldn’t it be great if you sent an anniversary card close to the anniversary date? It is a great way to stay top of mind, and to stand out in your client’s mind. An auto dealership used this strategy and sent out anniversary cards to all customers who had purchased a vehicle from the dealership each month. The card included a discount to use their auto parts & service department. It was a great way to strengthen the relationship with the customer and get them to come in for additional services.
Send your customer a “Thank You for Your Business” card. Whenever you close a deal or get a new account, it is the start of a new business relationship. Why not show your customers how much you appreciate this new relationship and send a thank you for your business card. You will be surprised how this can make you stand out as a business and strengthen the new business relationship. Paying attention to the little details also makes customers more encouraged to send referral business to you because they know you will treat the person who they refer with as much care as you have treated them.
Send your potential customer a “Thank You for Your Time” card. Sometimes you may not get the business on the first appointment. That’s why it is important to follow-up with the prospect with a card thanking her for her time. This will allow you to stand out and when the customer is ready to make a purchase because you took this additional step, your chances of being the one to get the business is much higher.
Send your customers holiday cards. Whether it is one of the popular holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, Independence Day, or one of those less popular holidays like President’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, etc. take the time to send your customers a holiday card for the holidays that you feel would be appropriate. I know I have said this before, but people just don’t get a lot of cards anymore, so receiving a card from your company on a special holiday can really make your company shine!
Send a customer a life milestone card. Sometimes you may know of a special event that occurred in your customer’s life, like the birth of a grandchild, or the graduation of a child, or an engagement or marriage. Whatever the special occasion may be, sending a nice card to your customer to recognize the milestone is great way to build the business relationship and for you to stand out as someone who cares about your customers.
Send your customers a special invitation to an upcoming promotional event. Having consistent events to promote your business is always a smart thing to do, but making sure you send a special invitation to your VIPs, loyal, or repeat customers is sometimes overlooked. Receiving an email about an event can sometimes get lost in the shuffle, so sending an invitation via the mail can help your event to stand out and will keep your company and the event top of mind for your customers.
You will notice that the common element for each one of these tips is to send a card! A great system to use to automate the sending of cards and gifts for your clients is SendOutCards. SendOutCards is an online system that allows you to select a card, customize the card, add the contact information for the recipient or upload a list of contacts, and hit send. The card will then be printed, stuffed, and mailed to the recipient(s) all by the click of your mouse. In addition, you’re able to keep track of all the cards and gifts that you send because the system keeps a record of everything for you.
For more information go to www.SendOutCards.comIf you decide that you want to use the system to send your cards and gifts, you can use id#155454 to join. | {
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Friday, March 13, 2009
I know it seems like a strange app to create with grails, especially when there a several other capable opensource ESBs available (mule, servicemix, openesb), but instead of asking yourself why, ask yourself why not. While it may not offer all the same features (BPEL) it's certainly a possibility for certain circumstances. This possibility was spawned together with co-worker Kit Plummer when discussing different options for an upcoming story that required email integration. At first it seemed kind of ridiculous, especially since we were already using openesb in jboss, but it started to make some sense the more we thought about it.
So how could a MVC web framework possibly replace a feature complete ESB? Well, first let me explain my background. I don't consider myself an ESB expert, but I do have some experience with ServiceMix and OpenESB (see openesb topics). In fact, my former company, let our team develop and open source 4 JBI Binding Components for RSS, SIP, UDDI, and XMPP.
Here was a short list of complaints I had with running OpenESB v2 in jboss:
At first it was pretty simple to setup, install, and run for a single developer, but trying to duplicate that across a large distributed team and things get more complicated. This included the difficulty of setting it up in all of our CI and beta environments. It's not as easy as just running Glassfish which includes OpenESB.
OpenESB v2 basically required Netbeans, which again isn't too hard for one developer. But asking your team to run a second unfamiliar IDE is no easy task. The OSGi based OpenESB v3 does not require Netbeans, but it does make it easier.
Composite Applications are less than easy to create, test, maintain, version, deploy in CI, etc. At least not compared to a Grails WAR anyways. Being able to consistently do those 5 things over 12-24 months is really bigger than you think.
Security. It's more difficult to lock it down compared to a WAR running in jboss fronted by apache.
Grails is plugin based and has a growing number of good plugins. One of the main benefits of an ESB is leveraging all the other work so you don't have to write anything. Things like HTTP, JMS, SMTP, JDBC, RSS, XMPP, FTP, BPEL, XSLT, and FILE just to name a few. Granted many Grails plugins are web focused, but there are several similar capabilities such as HTTP, JMS, JDBC, SMTP, RSS, and Workflow. Beyond that writing your own Grails plugin is easy compared to writing your own ESB component. See the Mail plugin as an example of how easy it is to send an email in Grails.
Doesn't require Netbeans. Developers can continue using their favorite IDE.
Despite all of that, I do think the case can be made better for OpenESB if your team is already using Glassfish+OpenESB (or GlassfishESB) and Netbeans. But it does make it much more difficult if your not. And I know that ServiceMix v3 was deployable as a WAR, but that was not it's default behavior. Not sure about the OSGi based v4, but I can't imagine they stopped supporting WAR deployment. Of the two I think ServiceMix reminds me more of a Grails app as far as simplicity is concerned.
There is one big disadvantage to using Grails like an ESB: fewer incoming protocols. I could be wrong on this one but with grails your probably limited HTTP and maybe JMS (outside of setting up quartz jobs and polling). But with an ESB its really unlimited (HTTP, JMS, JDBC, SMTP, SIP, XMPP).
I am sure I am missing several other key pieces, so interested in hearing from others. The nice thing is our implementation is hidden behind a REST API that could easily be supported by a bloated ESB. | {
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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384329692727378622.post2336556652102996925..comments2018-02-21T22:50:53.165-05:00Comments on On Second Scoop: Ice Cream Reviews: Dubba's Graham Central StationDubba [email protected]:blogger.com,1999:blog-384329692727378622.post-26572135170476261692010-01-25T18:36:14.720-05:002010-01-25T18:36:14.720-05:00I just want too take time too thank the posters fo...I just want too take time too thank the posters for doing what you do and make this community great im a long time reader and first time poster so i just wanted to say [email protected] | {
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INDIANAPOLIS — Danny Granger‘s season is ending the same way it began in Indiana — with a sore left knee that will require more medical treatment.
The team announced Thursday that Granger will miss the rest of the season. He will have surgery on the bothersome knee that has slowed him since last year’s playoffs.
“He’s at peace with it,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said in Dallas before a game against the Mavericks. “He’s disappointed, but you have to make the best decision.”
The move comes just two days after Vogel told reporters he expected Granger to return during the current four-game road trip.
“These games will be sort of his rehab assignments, and we’re going to manage it the way we did before, with 15 or 20 minutes per game,” Vogel told reporters after Tuesday’s practice.
But instead of getting Granger back, the former All-Star consulted with the team’s medical staff and Dr. James Andrews, the noted sports physician. Together they decided that after spending most of the season treating the injury conservatively, surgery was now the best remaining option.
Granger sat out the entire first half of the season with patellar tendinosis after undergoing a second injection to treat the injury in October. He returned for five games in February, coming off the bench each time and averaging 5.4 points, before the knee flared up again. He hasn’t played since, and Vogel knew time was running short for Granger to make a significant contribution in the playoffs.
“We know we can win without Danny in the lineup,” Indiana forward Paul George said. “As much as we do want Danny back, our mindset is still to prepare to win in the playoffs.”
The Pacers say Granger should be healthy for the start of training camp. | {
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0 Question from the Community
Kohler
The Bold Look of Kohler is more than a slogan, it is a testament to the sight and focus of the Kohler company since the late 1800's. Kohler designs its plumbing fixtures and accessories for longevity and with a focus on pleasing your senses. Kohler’s attributes make its plumbing and accessories a clear choice of quality for generations to come.
Kohler Vintage Collection
The nostalgic look of the Kohler Vintage collection brings your bathroom back to a time of romantic flair and sensuous curves. Combine the Kohler vintage collection the faucets from the Kohler Antique, IV Georges Brass, or the Finial collection for a design that will stand the test of time. | {
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Astound US Inc is a new kind of Artist Representation business based in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, and now with offices in London.
We aim high - to Astound - by being the Agency with the best in contemporary children's book illustration, and both licensing and commercial art from around the world.
We back that up with excellence in every aspect: from the first presentation, to how we project manage, and all the way through to how we invoice.
We Astound by being good at what we do with a snappy, can-do, enthusiastic, talented and creative attitude. And yes, we're not expensive.
All those things that make for an 'astounding' outcome.
Our promise to artists: career advancement with the right clients, regular creative guidance, strong administrative support and on time payment
Drawn to better.
Be drawn to better.
No matter where you are in the world or at whichever stage of your freelance artist career you may be, we're passionate about helping your career be more successful and rewarding by creating the art you love most! We are on your side: we'll give you insider's tips and client feedback for your folio development, and also introduce you directly to leading children's publishing houses, greeting card companies, jigsaw puzzle and game manufacturers, poster and decorative product suppliers (tableware, stationery)… the list goes on!
We're here to discuss the artistic direction you'd like to pursue and make that a reality with you.
Our positive relationships with our artists have made us the most rapidly growing Artist Agency in New York, possibly the USA. Here in the center of the publishing world, we are just a few subway stops away from the biggest brands worldwide, but we don't stay local - our agents travel everywhere to showcase your portfolio (and custom-made promotional materials!), from coast to coast in the USA, to major fairs in Europe: Frankfurt, Bologna, London and beyond.
We spread the word about your talent through personalized mail-outs, regular correspondence with close contacts in the industry, and online campaigns in addition to our state of the art site - all free to you!
Our partnership with Collaborate Agency's highly experienced team of editors and designers means that we can also support you in developing original children's book ideas into full-fledged storybooks and presentations, which we bring to the biggest children's book fairs of the year.
Best of all, we make sure you're paid right on time.
Astound us! If you'd like to learn more and be represented by Astound US, please email [email protected] with a sampling of your favorite pieces (8-10 .jpgs under 2MB each).
Inside the Artist’s Studio with Thais Damiao December 11 2019
Inside the Artist’s Studio with Thais Damiao
What is your favorite or signature medium to work in? I work digitally for the most part, but I love to study traditional drawing and oil painting, which help me a lot in my work.
Describe your studio in one word. Clean.
When you are in your favorite spot in your studio, what is on your right?A book for reference.
When is your favorite time of day to work on illustrations? Night.
Do you listen to music? Music totally inspires my work. I love to listen to Brazilian music or instrumentals.
Do you have a favorite character that you have created?Alana, a character I created at school.
If you could add anything to your studio, what would it be? A Cintiq Pro.
Close your eyes and grab the first thing in reach in the studio.What is it?My pencil!
What is your favorite thing in your studio? My own drawings on the wall.
Astound US is a new kind of artist representation business based in Downtown Manhattan. We aim high – to Astound – by being the agency with the best contemporary children’s book illustrators and commercial artists from around the world. As an international illustration agency we represent over 130 astounding freelance illustrators, offering the perfect style for whatever your next project may be. Astound – Drawn to better. | {
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Worms is a given. To be honest, I'm surprised at our collective resolve - I thought we'd have broken down and started playing it again months ago. Not long to wait now, though!
As for the Christmas selection, it would be rude not to play Quake, especially as the suggestion received such a rapturous reception at the #mokee reunion! Well, Murray said he'd play at least. I need to give TF2 a go too...
I wasn't going to bother with UT3 - looks like more of the same to me, and not that many of us ever got into UT2004. The original UT with Monster Hunt might have to suffice!
Yeah, I have to admit that the UT3 demo entirely unenthused me. It just seemed to lack much soul, and is literally more of the same with better graphics; I can't see it being any less or more fun than UT if you're with people you know.
If you're by yourself it's cack and you just get wankered by these guys who've spent years perfecting their mastery of the UT craft. I do like to get good at games and the process of becoming better is something I normally enjoy, but this is so fast you literally can't keep up and it's just no fun at all when you get completely battered every time you encounter someone.
I have much more fun with something like TF2, but Worms remains my most anticipated. ;
Just had a go at TF2. I definitely approve - it'll make a good placeholder until the Worms embargo is lifted!!!
Looking through a few threads on these forums - a faintly sad journey through our annual Quake matches and not much else in between, by the way! - I was reminded of another classic. And yes, I'm glad to report that iSketch still exists. Brilliant news, I'm sure you'll agree.
Whether it's still frequented by dodgy people constantly trying to chat you up remains to be seen. Wish me luck!
Yeah, I have to admit that the UT3 demo entirely unenthused me. It just seemed to lack much soul, and is literally more of the same with better graphics; I can't see it being any less or more fun than UT if you're with people you know.
Halo 3 anyone?
Why is everyone talking about worms... worms armageddon cam out in 1999.. what am I missing? | {
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How can the developing world escape poverty without climate change calamity?
This article is the result of some very interesting discussions below a recent TEC article on the potential of coal, nuclear and wind/solar to supply the rapidly growing energy needs of the developing world. In that article, I estimated that nuclear is roughly an order of magnitude less scalable than coal, but more than double as scalable as wind/solar. These estimations were challenged by both nuclear and wind advocates and, as such critical discussions often do, have prompted much closer investigations into this issue. In particular, data pertaining to the near-term prospects of nuclear energy in China, the nation accounting for fully 43% of nuclear plants currently under construction, has been analysed in more detail. — SCHALK CLOETE
Schalk Cloete’s superpower is the ability to execute and explain exactly the analysis required to penetrate a difficult, controversial topic. And there are a few others – you know who you are.
Schalk’s recent article Can Nuclear Make a Substantial Near-Term Contribution? supports answers to my “most important questions”: How can we help the large fast-growers to make the transition from fossil to clean energy? For discussion, let’s focus on three key nations:
China
India
Africa
The reason I posed this in terms of three different developing countries is because the support & partnership that the rich countries can offer is different in each case.
China is already putting more resource than any other nation into building up their nuclear deployment capability. Even so, China can benefit hugely from without-limit contributions of capital, science, and engineering know how. I left regulatory know how off that list, though there may be possible contributions there. As it stands today the US NRC is probably mostly a hinderance to the deployment of advanced nuclear – not because of the NRC staff, but because of the budgetary straight-jacket imposed by the US Congress (make the ‘customers’ pay for everything up front).
India is improving their nuclear deployment capability at a slow, deliberate pace. But India too could benefit from external technology contributions. Remember that India was cut off for decades from western nuclear tech as punishment for their indigenous nuclear weapons development.
Africa needs affordable energy-machines that are suitable to their infrastructure and operational capabilities. If Africa does not have access to affordable and suitable nuclear they will have no real choice but to build more and more coal and gas.
Our affordability challenge is that we need to offer clean, reliable electricity at the best price per ton CO2 avoided. So what can compete economically with coal and natural gas? If you study Schalk’s chart for a few minutes I think you will conclude, as I have, that we need to pull out all the stops to accelerate deployment of mass-manufactured “nuclear batteries”. By “batteries” I mean simply that no-maintenance energy-machines that can be rapidly installed by underground burial, connected to the grid, then left alone for up to four decades until the maintenance crew arrives to replace the “battery”, trundling the original off to the factory for refueling.
China is training-up to build and staff Western-style plants like the AP1000 – which China will be building internally on Chinese-owned IP. That is not going to happen very soon and at scale in Africa. While my guess is that India will need some time to develop their skill-base and supply chain. Sadly, Greenpeace has succeeded in preventing availability of the simple plants that Africa wants to purchase. Given the reality of the nuclear supply chain, it will be close to two decades before vendors are manufacturing and installing plants suitable for most low-tech nations.
Africa isn’t waiting for someone to make a clean generation option available to energize their growth. Currently seven of the ten fastest growing economies are in Africa. Sadly the massive scale of African urbanization and growth is going to be enabled the same way it happened in Europe, N and S America – building relatively cheap coal and gas plants as fast as they can be built. That trajectory will end very badly unless we get serious about what happens next. We can create a happy ending if, inside the next two decades, we achieve the capability to produce affordable nuclear plants that can be installed and operated without losing two additional decades developing a deeply-trained nuclear workforce and local supply chain. By 2015 Africa’s urban population is expected to triple [UN World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision].
It’s obvious that these SMR designs must be substitutable for the fossil thermal machines that got built in the first phase of dirty industrialization. It will be a lot easier and cheaper if the first-stage dirty plants are designed for such an evolution: rip the dirty heat out, stick the clean heat in.
There’s heaps more to be learned by studying Schalk’s essay, so get on over there. If you find any flaws in his work, please contribute to the dialogue there on TEC (I am subscribed to those comments).
[1] It should also be mentioned that the Chinese tariff system favors wind over nuclear by paying a fixed feed-in tariff of $83–100/MWh to wind and $70/MWh to nuclear. Another important factor to consider is the reduced value of wind relative to nuclear due to the variability of wind power (see my previous articles on this subject here and here). Wind power also requires expensive high voltage transmission networks to transport power from good wind locations to population centres, something which is creating substantial challenges. Thus, if the playing field were to be leveled, the difference between nuclear and wind scaling rates should increase substantially.
One thought on “How can the developing world escape poverty without climate change calamity?”
A comment thread on this post started on Twitter, where it is difficult to follow a thread, especially if not in real time. Following is the thread up to this time stamp. If it continues I’ll append to this comment. | {
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Title:
The permanent campaign in the White House: evidence from the Clinton administration
Author(s):
Stephen K. Medvic and
David A. Dulio
.
Source:
White House Studies.
Document Type:
Article
Article Preview :
ABSTRACT The confluence over the past 30 years of a number of developments in American politics has created a mode of governing that is increasingly difficult to separate from campaign behavior. This phenomenon, known as the 'permanent campaign,' reveals much about current changes in elite behavior as well as shifting institutional incentives and trends in political communication in the United States. The normative questions raised by the permanent campaign focus on fundamental issues of representative democracy, the most obvious of which is the responsiveness of elected officials. The state of executive-legislative relations and nature of political party activity are also among the topics for which the study of the permanent campaign is relevant. As a result, the phenomenon deserves serious examination by scholars. INTRODUCTION "Each day is election day in modern America." --Dick Morris, The New Prince (1) The permanent campaign was first described in the early 1980s by then-journalist Sidney Blumenthal (2) but has only recently begun to garner academic attention. (3) The increase in scholarly interest in the topic coincides with the end of the Clinton presidency, a period of time in which many believe the permanent campaign reached its apogee. This article examines the concept of the permanent campaign in the White House with specific attention paid to the Clinton administration. We seek to understand the nature and extent of this phenomenon through interviews with presidential advisers--both from the Clinton White House and earlier administrations--whose first-hand experiences can provide a reliable source of information on the strategies and tactics of day-to-day governing in the contemporary presidency. WHAT IS THE 'PERMANENT CAMPAIGN' The term 'permanent campaign' has a seemingly self-evident meaning. Given that campaigns are efforts to win elections, being constantly in campaign mode must mean that one is always doing what is necessary to win reelection. (4) Further, since many elected officials in the United States have become 'career politicians,' at least at the national level, it is reasonable to assume that reelection is the primary goal of politicians. As David Mayhew pointed out, even if an elected official has other objectives (e.g., enacting policy initiatives), reelection "has to be the proximate goal of everyone, the goal that must be achieved over and over if other ends are to be entertained." (5) Of course, if reelection is so important to elected officials, it would be no surprise to learn that they spend a great deal of time campaigning during an election season. Traditionally, campaigns began on Labor Day of an election year. Today, candidates routinely begin airing campaign commercials in the summer, or even late spring. Even this extension of the campaign, however, leaves plenty of time between elections for tending to the people's business. Yet, increasingly, elected officials are devoting a significant amount of time and energy to their reelection efforts outside the election cycle. Anthony King has referred to this as the "never-ending election campaign." (6) Elected officials, according to King, are not only "extraordinarily sensitive to the opinions and demands of the men and... | {
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Shit article about nothing
That’s what this is. The guy somehow finds a way to complain about a feature that’s been implemented to the very extent it can be. 3DS and DS have different screen sizes, and different resolutions. The 3DS is not a DS. SO therefore, DS games can be played on 3DS either -STRETCHED- to fill the screen, or in their original resolution with some empty screen space. Nintendo GAVE US BOTH OPTIONS. There is nothing more they could do other than to physically shrink the screens through vudu magic whenever we press a button. Not only this, but 3DS lets you,
1) Use the new analog nub on original DS games
2) Tracks DS game playtime through the Activity Log
If anything, it’s a BETTER way to play DS games. Yet, this article complains and spins it into a bad thing, by IGNORING the positives, and posting something that isn’t even a negative, without explaining why it’s a negative. | {
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Baked Flaked Chicken
I’ve been doing a large number of cooking classes for Operation Frontline this summer. I’m a volunteer chef educator and I teach people how to cooking healthy family meals on a limited budget, but the food is anything but “cheap” tasting. We made this chicken in class this week and it was so good I had to make it again at home! You can use either bone in or boneless chicken. Bone in will take longer to cook, but you’ll actually have a moister and more flavorful piece of chicken when it’s cooked. To keep it healthy, remove the skin regardless of which type you are using – and trust me, the crunchy crust is so good you won’t even miss the crispy skin!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil then spray with cooking spray. Remove tenderloin piece from each breast and then cut breasts into two pieces each. Combine flour and spices in a shallow bowl and mix well. Beat eggs and milk together in a second shallow bowl. Place corn flakes in a third shallow bowl. Coat chicken pieces in seasoned flour, shaking off any excess, then dip into egg mixture, then into corn flakes, pressing corn flakes into chicken. Place chicken on foil lined baking sheet, spray lightly with cooking spray, and bake until cooked through, about 20-30 minutes. | {
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Changes in VA Urban Deer Season
As opening day for Deer Season in VA, there is an important to note is that during the early urban antlerless season which opens Saturday September 7, firearms will be allowed.
Based on the regulations on blaze orange, since firearms will be used during the early season, all hunters, including archery hunters, are required to wear blaze orange during the early urban season and again when regular firearms season opens through the end of the late antlerless season in March.
The only exception is in Fairfax County where blaze orange is not required.
Another important change is the modification of the earn a buck regulations. Now you are required to harvest 2 does prior to harvesting your second buck as well as a third doe prior to harvesting your third buck.
Please be sure to familiarize yourself with the game regulations and recent changes so you remain in compliance with them at all times!
Should you have questions about the regulations or changes, call the regional headquarters of VDGIF in Fredericksburg or review their website http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/hunting/.
A summary of this year’s seasons and blaze orange requirements is shown below:
Archives
Blogroll
Hunting
The new MyFWP portal contains enhanced security measures to ensure user information is better protected. Additionally, the new portal has increased functionality to make it more of a destination for … [Read More...]
Hunting Public Land in the West to Private Property in the East
I have read a lot of articles surrounding the preparation, tricks and work needed to be performed to hunt public land in the western … [Read More...]
Starting with the 2016 hunting season, hunters will be able to check game three different ways! Hunters can call the telephone checking system (1-866-GOT-GAME or 1-866-468-4263), go online to … [Read More...]
Bozeman, MT – MYSTERY RANCH, an industry-leading backpack company, devoted to making mission-specific products introduced the Selway to their Hunting Line of backpacks early in 2018. This light … [Read More...] | {
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Tag Archives: slavery
I meet young men and women who are prostituted – some of whom are paying off debt, some are paying for school, some are drowning in self-worthlessness and living a lie that they’ve been told their entire lives. As I encounter them offering health, it’s also an opportunity for freedom.
It is well known that some who have been rescued, run away back to their abuser, their pimp, their trafficker. Why do some who have tasted freedom return to bondage?
The Israelites, an entire nation of people, after having been rescued from slavery, wanted to go back to Egypt!
It’s as if some people don’t even realize they are in bondage.
Well, what about you? To what things or ideas are you in bondage and don’t even realize it?
Mark Buchanan in his book The Rest of God discusses the guy who has been sitting by the pool of Bethesda (John 5) for 38 years if he wants to get well? I’ve always thought that was a strange question to ask a guy like that. But I understand it better now after walking with people (including myself) that clearly sometimes do not want to be well.
Do you want to be well? Do you want to be made whole?
I do, but then sometimes I don’t. Haven’t you ever wondered sometimes if your life would actually be easier if you weren’t trying to follow Jesus? I have! I mean, c’mon! I should have taken the RED pill! It’s hard! God never lets up! Of course life with Jesus does have its sweet parts, but then it’s still a lot of work, and I’m good at giving myself guilt-trips, which just sink me deeper.
Buchanan writes, “Setting free isn’t work.” We all know that Jesus wasn’t really breaking the Sabbath when he healed people on the holy day. “But being set free can be.”
It’s a vicious cycle, even hard-wired to some extent as an addiction, as Gerald May in his book Addiction and Grace would say. It is confounding, that some people would not want to be well and whole, but I have to look no further than myself. I have an addiction to feed – an addiction to work. I’ve got do it, make it, know it, write it… It’s up to me. I don’t know another way… rather, I don’t trust another way. I don’t trust another. I don’t trust God. I lean too much on my own understanding and what is known to me seems to be safer, even if it really is not. I play with the dark side. I’m enslaved in my own mind, in my heart. Damn Pride!
Breaking free of slavery, whether it is physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual is a long process. You’ve experienced it. You’ve walked people through it. We may not be caught up in debt bondage or pimped out by my trafficker or trapped in a foreign country as a domestic service worker, but I’m still prone to enslavement.
Please, PLEASE do not take this as a belittlement of people’s absolutely unimaginable horrific situations. I’m not comparing situations here. However, as I meet people who do seem to have some sort of choice to make steps towards freedom and wholeness, yet still turn away, I’m confronted by these questions of human nature. I want to continue to break down the barriers between US and THEM. We are all broken images of our creator – it is not a matter of grading of circumstance.
There is much much more to discuss regarding Sabbath rest, addiction, grace, and slavery. Books and books, in fact. Here, I just want to present some questions and ideas to you and I hope you find them as challenging has I have.
I’m not yet finished with Buchanan’s book but I highly recommend it! Although I’ve practiced taking a weekly Sabbath for at least 15 years, I’m discovering more about the attitude of Sabbath rest is something that I’ve not fully understood. Perhaps more about Sabbath in another post… | {
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Who decides in a society who “we” is, and who “they” are? How are we “us” and those folks “them”? What makes the one human race so divisive we feel we must devolve into different groups, competing for everything, instead of sharing it?
These are the thoughts that have run through my head recently as I have pondered my stance on the subject of illegal immigration in the U.S. I thought my opinions clear and logically held. “They” (meaning the undocumented immigrants) are not here legally, which was wrong. “They” take jobs from Americans. “They” take entitlements to which they are not rightfully entitled as non-citizens. “They” . . . I could go on, but you get the picture.
I’ve had my paradigms on the subject radically shifted lately. Two events have caused me to reconsider everything I believed about this politically and socially charged topic.
The first was the TEAMLIFE Fall Leadership Conference I attended in October. At this conference, a couple was recognized for achieving the ranks of leadership in the company held by only 11 other couples. As part of their recognition, they told the riveting story of how they earned this achievement and their success.
Thelmar and Sandra were born in Guatemala. Both of them came to the U.S. as illegal immigrants, and Sandra was deported the first time she tried to come. Thelmar had been a Communist revolutionary in Guatemala, but left when he realized his life was in danger there. He came here to work against the system in the U.S., and by working within it, learned to love it. Thelmar and Sandra earned their places in the U.S., and their eventual citizenship, by hard work, dedication and a commitment to give back to the country that had taken them in when they had nowhere else to go.
Hearing their moving story, I felt like my whole accepted point of view was turned upside down and shaken. On a break later, I told my mentor I was going to have to do some serious rethinking of my views on illegal immigration, given what we’d heard.
The second event came from FaceBook. I saw a link to a video by a group called UpWorthy. It was about a high school student, a political refugee from Albania, who was planning to go to college to be a doctor. Ala’s immigration status was tangled in a paperwork mix-up that was no fault of hers, and the government threatened to deport her.
Ala’s story is part of a larger documentary, “The Dream is Now,” a film by Davis Guggenheim (Academy Award-winning director of “An Inconvenient Truth”). I will be honest. I was prepared to dislike Mr. Guggenheim’s film, simply due to his earlier work, since I disagree with his subject of the other film. But the short clip about Ala softened me enough to watch the 35 minute documentary, and I was glad I did. (Here’s the link if you want to see it: “The Dream Is Now.”)
The documentary is a series of portraits of young people, denied access to employment, education and military service because of their “illegal” immigration status. These young people have done everything we tell our children about getting good grades and working hard, but success is denied them because of their “illegal” presence in the U.S.
Thelmar and Sandra’s story, and the stories of the young people as told by Mr. Guggenheim, have upended my paradigms on “illegal” immigration. I am now wondering many of the thoughts with which I opened this post. I am questioning why we deny access to our citizenship to those who have proven they are willing to become productive assets to our society.
I used to argue illegal immigrants take jobs away from deserving citizens. Most, in fact, work undocumented jobs that most citizens don’t want. And if someone who came here illegally was able to prove themselves better equipped and able to do any other kind of job, they have earned the right to work at it by their skills and willingness. Isn’t that what we tell those born here “legally”?
I used to argue illegal immigrants took entitlements. I now understand if they are allowed to work and pursue careers like those of us born in the U.S., they wouldn’t need to seek entitlements to which their country of origin does not entitle them.
I used to argue illegal immigrants were here illegally, so that made it wrong. But then I remembered something: Who was in charge of immigration when the Mayflower showed up? Who controlled it while the U.S. was a struggling bunch of disjointed colonies? Why did we suddenly start shutting our doors and denying the truths of the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty?
Let’s look a little deeper into that poem I just mentioned. If you’ve studied poetry or history at all, you know a line or two of it. But do you know it all, or what it’s even called? It’s significant in this discussion, so here it is:
The last few lines of the poem are without question the most famous. But I want to call your attention to something about them. There is no reference to the legality of how people come. There is no commentary on where they come from, their skin color, religion or culture.There is only an open hand, and behind it an open heart, of welcome for those who would come and seek it.
If someone has come here “illegally,” and that person wants to better themselves and then work to better this society to which they have come, I now say,“Let them come! Let’s accept them, give those who want to contribute a viable path to honest citizenship and deport those whose behavior suggests they are here to break laws or cause trouble. And of those who are already here, let them stay.”
How can we as a society end the “we” and “they” mentality that is so poisonously pervasive? What will change the paradigms of a whole nation, as mine were so radically altered? How can we get back to the feelings which prompted the words Emma Lazarus so eloquently penned?
“They” are not our enemy. In this issue, a strong case can be made “we,” with our hatred and fear, are our own worst enemies. To paraphrase from the immortal Pogo, we have met the enemy, and we are us.
They didn’t decide law enforcement could take DNA from people charged or convicted of committing serious criminal acts. It’s only on the suspicion of them. So if the police suspect me of having done something criminal, even if it’s a case of mistaken identity, they have the right to take my DNA, and I have NO right to protest it being taken! They then have the right to enter my DNA into their database, where it will stay FOREVER, even when I prove my innocence.
To make matters worse, this story was broken, not by American press, but by British journalists from The Guardian newspaper. The records have been, and continue to be, seized under a top-secret subpoena that was issued by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This subpoena is valid from April 25 to July 19, and directs Verizon to give the government all its records on an “ongoing, daily basis” for ALL calls made in the US and between the US and other countries.
So, that call I made this morning, to discuss some information I learned about one of our cars with my husband, who is travelling, is in today’s list. So is the one I made this morning to my best friend and her husband, to wish them a Happy Anniversary. The call I made to our son, to let him know I was on my way home for dinner last night was on yesterday’s. So is the one I received yesterday from our mentor, answering a business question. IT’S ALL ON THE LIST.
There are also reports the US government is trying to gain access to our FaceBook accounts, private emails and all our other online records. So this post, and any likes or comments you as my dear readers make on it, would go into a database of my activity, to be held against me, should our government become, in some formerly unimaginable future, a police state along the lines of Russia or China or North Korea under the Communist Party rule.
If you’re busy thinking, “Oh, good, I’m not a Verizon customer,” or “Oh, good, I don’t have a cell phone or do much online” or something else like a misinformed person told me a bit ago, I have a reality check I’d like to cash for you: It’s not just Verizon. It’s not just cell phones or FaceBook. They just found out about Verizon this time. We already know about the internet and email plans. I’m no conspiracy theorist, believe me! I am, however, a pragmatic realist.
With our freedoms under such severe attack, what can we do about it? One idea is to bury your head in the metaphoric sand, ignore it and do nothing, hoping it will go away. Sad to say, a lot of people doing a lot of nothing has gotten us in the mess we’re in. I also want to tell folks in this group, it isn’t going away.
Another idea is to fuss and wring metaphoric hands and make noise. This is only slightly more effective than ignoring it. However, if all you do is rant, all you’ve made is sound, and have accomplished nothing productive. We’ve had far too much of this in the past year or two on social media.
The next level of thought suggests political activism. This is fine, in its place. But as I told someone the other day, corruption is rampant on both sides of the aisle on local, state and national levels. Something more is needed.
Oliver DeMille
Into this void, Oliver DeMille and Orrin Woodward have boldly gone with the ground-breaking book LeaderShift. It is the needed something more. In it, they tell in the form of a parable of the 5 Laws of Decline, how they have affected American society and government, and what we as ordinary citizens can do to fix it.
Orrin Woodward
Yes, I did say we as ordinary citizens can fix this, just as the Founders were ordinary citizens. They fixed the mess in front of them in uniting 13 unhappy colonies into a more or less cohesive unit that worked together to win their collective freedom. Then, when the original government, a Confederation, wasn’t working, these ordinary men worked together again, and crafted the document that has been the beacon of freedom for people around the world ever since.
LeaderShift
We can do something similar. It’s not going to be easy. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. But we have resources in social media, in information and in ease of communications that would cause the Founders’ collective heads to spin. The battle will be hard. The road will be long. But we can do it. We should do it. For the sake of the freedoms of our children and grandchildren and those generations yet unborn, we must do it. And we must do it NOW . . .
Update: According to the latest news reports, ALL cell phone carriers and ALL internet service providers are impacted with the government tracking of US records as broken with the Verizon news today.
Friday Update: Here’s the latest information. It’s everything digital or electronic. Yes, I did say everything. It’s emails, it’s blog posts, it’s FaceBook, it’s Google, it’s Amazon, it’s your land line and cell phone, your internet service provider and everything else. It’s your home, your work and your school. It’s your life. The once unimaginable life George Orwell described in 1984 has come true, 20 years after his predicted time schedule.
The Patriot Act and its extensions did it. Some of it they can do without a warrant. Some they cannot. It all depends on what they want, and from whom. And the companies didn’t tell us because the Patriot Act and its extensions have provisions that would have jailed them for treason, if they did. Here’s the details: http://www.capitalisminstitute.org/obama-steals-internet/
It doesn’t matter what the position is; while the wording may change, the intent remains. There is an open position for which qualified people may apply.
Life has open positions, too. Only life doesn’t advertise its positions. It simply has them open for anyone with the eyes to see and courage to accept what life has to offer. The position life most often offers, the one that most often goes wanting to be filled, is that of leader.
What is leadership? Entire libraries of books have been written on the topic!
In Launching A Leadership Revolution, a leader is characterized by being hungry, hone-able or teachable and honorable. The leader seeks mastery in their craft through the Trilateral Leadership Ledger of Character, Tasks and Relationships. In LeaderShift, a leader is further characterized by having a vision. The leader applies the vision to the Trilateral Leadership Ledger for the desired results. According to both Launching A Leadership Revolution and LeaderShift, a leader sees not just the problem at hand, but the root causes and the steps required for solving it. In LeaderShift, these root causes are reflected in the 5 Laws of Decline.
We live in a world of terrorist bombings, attempted poisonings of our public officials
Oliver DeMille
through the mail, assassination attempts, slander, politics from both sides of the spectrum being malicious and dirty, free-falling economics, wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters, eroding relationships, emotional distancing, societal decay and family disintegration. We are attacked from without, and attack one another from within. Our world as we know it is in chaos.
It is into this chaos void leaders walk. Leaders bring solutions, not more problems.Often, the solutions may look like more problems, but they aren’t. These are challenges needed to solve the underlying difficulties causing the problems in the first place. These challenges are also hard because most people find change of any kind hard, and leaders are catalysts for change.
Launching A Leadership Revolution
Leaders polarize people into groups for and against their leadership vision. That’s because as Orrin Woodward recently said on Twitter, “In leadership, the cause always comes before the applause.” Also on Twitter, Chris Brady said, quoting Mark Driscoll, “The more people you influence, the more people who hate you.” It is the actions and expected behaviors of leaders that polarize. As Orrin Woodward recently said on Twitter, “Some people say they have to see it to believe it, but leaders have to believe it to see it.” It is this belief in the vision which polarizes others.
I believe in the vision Orrin Woodward and Oliver DeMille set forth in LeaderShift. I am striving to be one of the leaders, one of the 10% who will step forward and change the world around me for the better. It’s a call open to anyone who will hear it and respond. Because if people don’t respond, things will get worse.The 5 Laws of Decline, as described in LeaderShift, clearly point that
I am often asked, “Is Orrin Woodward REALLY all he’s cracked up to be??”
Orrin and Laurie Woodward
Please allow me answer that, once and for all, with the following (true) story, names unchanged to protect neither the guilty, nor the innocent.
I will start by saying I got an iPhone late last summer. I read the manual and became rapidly proficient in its use. Or at least, I thought I was.
Recently, a group of ladies had the privilege to attend a retirement dinner to honor Pat Tefel, the delightful and grace-filled lady leader of our TEAMLIFE business team. It was a wonderful evening, highlighted by the presence of leader, blogger, home schooling mom and all-around lovely woman,
Terri’s husband Chris recently had a birthday, so when I briefly spoke to her at the start of the evening, she suggested I go on FaceBook and give greetings to his partner Orrin Woodward, since it was his birthday that day. After getting a photo with Terri and my husband, I went to my table and linked into the wifi where the event was being held. I found Orrin’s page on FaceBook, and thought I left him a message on his wall.
The next morning, on my break at work, I went on FaceBook to check up on things, and see if anyone had posted photos of the party. The first thing I found was a private message from Orrin Woodward!! I had posted my birthday wishes to him privately!!! Oh, my goodness!!!
Orrin’s was the message of a gracious gentleman, honorable and kind in all his dealings, as he said,
To understand the importance of this exchange, think about having the CEO of a multi-national corporation, who has thousands of people who look to him for leadership, combined with the public acclaim of a best-selling author like Steven King, all rolled into one incredible package, on yourFaceBook friend list. You are a tiny, insignificant speck in his radar, and are pleased just being acknowledged as his friend, and with a blanket group thanks to everyone who wished him birthday greetings on his wall. Thatis how big a deal it is to me!
When I realized the size of my blunder, and the graciousness of Orrin’s response, I posted the following, being very careful to do it to his wall:
Thank you so much for your gracious and lovely response to my accidental private message birthday greetings last night! I meant to post that on your wall!! Clearly I have more to learn about FaceBook for iPhone . . . (Color me red-faced.)
That evening at the party, I had told Terri I was a high-end tech user, and promptly proved it. I even had the boldness to call myself “the app queen!” Horrors!! In my bragging, I totally forgot Proverbs 16:18, which says
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
I fell, alright! The Law of Unintended Consequences (and Murphy’s Law) were very busy with me that night. It is only the kindness, graciousness, humility, character and gentle spirit of Orrin Woodward that saved me from total embarrassment and utter shame.
I am telling you this (and making public my foolishness) for one reason: We all look for leaders to follow, to emulate, to seek to become what they represent. Leaders who show such humility and character as Orrin Woodward did with me are worth following anywhere, and for any reason.
We’re in Ohio as I write this. Since Friday, we have attended the TEAMLIFE Fall Leadership Convention at the Jerome Schottenstein Arena of Ohio State University.
The trip out was great. We left with our friends in their van early Thursday morning (3:00 am) and drove almost straight through, except for rest stops. There was some rain and damp when we left our upstate New York home, but by the time we hit the Ohio/Pennsylvania border, the temperature had risen almost 40 degrees and we had a gorgeous sunny day.
The Convention was amazing. It would take me days to tell you about everything we heard, learned and experienced, so I won’t even bother to try. I will just tell you it is something you need to experience for yourself.
So, you’re asking, why the title, “When Bad Things Happen . . .”?? It’s because of this morning. We came out of our hotel to load our friends’ (and roommates) van to go to the Arena for the church service and closing session of the Convention, only to find the hotel’s manager and 2 cars full of the local police agency’s finest waiting to talk to our friends about their van. (!!!)
Last night, sometime after we returned to the hotel in the small hours of the morning from the Convention (about 2:00 am), a group of people broke into several cars at the far end of the hotel’s lot. They smashed windows and took whatever valuables they could. Our friends’ brand new GPS device was taken, glass was everywhere inside and outside the van and the people responsible had made a mess of it. The only reason they hadn’t gotten to more cars and stolen more is because someone came out of the hotel when they were still here, hit the panic button on their car and alerted the thieves to the presence of a possible witness. Taking what they’d already gotten, the thieves took off.
Our friends’ husband dealt with the manager. As the driver, his wife dealt with the police. My husband and I dropped what we were carrying. He started taking photos of the damage for our friends’ insurance company. I started a quick text chat with our TEAMLIFE leaders and let them know what happened, and asked them to pray for us. Their response was immediate, telling me of course they would pray! Once my husband was done, we started collecting the items the thieves had thrown around in the van and on the ground. His wife and I dealt with the hotel and making sense of the mess brought in to us in our room. The men stayed outside and dealt with the mess outside, and covering the window so we could eventually leave for the church service and Convention.
I continued my text conversation with our TEAMLIFE leaders until we finally got to the Arena. And yes, we did arrive just in time for church! Our leaders offered money, a GPS to borrow to get us home, love and support. When we arrived and let them know where we are sitting, they came with the offered GPS and hugs. They surrounded our friends, and us by our presence with them, with love, compassion and practical help and support.
Through all of it, our friends have been calm, relaxed and dealing with issues as they came up without hysteria or denial of the facts in front of them. Several times they said, “God gave us this van. It’s His gift, His provision for us. He will supply what we need for it.” They could have been upset. They could have gotten depressed or angry. They could have cried. They could have let it ruin their day. They didn’t, and their example helped us to be supportive and positive, too.
And tomorrow we’ll drive home, after the window has been replaced, in the teeth of Hurricane Sandy. The storm is between where we are and where we need to be tomorrow night, and we have to get through. Our friends’ wife is the driver (no one else is allowed to drive her new specialty conversion van), and has decided we’re going, storm or not.
When bad things happen, we have choices. We have choices in our attitudes. We have choices in our responses. We have choices in whether we will praise God or curse Him. We have choices in whether we will allow stress to overcome us, or whether we will overcome it.
We all have examples around us of people who respond negatively when bad things happen. Sadly, it is often rare when we get a good example of a positive response. That’s why I wrote this. I wanted to give you this example, so when bad things happen to you, as they do to all of us in one way or another, you will have this. And know there is a better way to survive it.
What happens when an average person attains sudden wealth, success or fame? Are they able to handle it as they are, or will they need to change to keep it?
* * * * * * * * * * *
A long time ago, in a country far away, there lived a king and queen. They ruled wisely and well, and were happy in every`way but one — they had no child. In the course of time, the queen finally had a child. When he was still a small baby, an evil witch stole him. She wanted only to bring unhappiness to the kingdom, so she gave him to peasants to rear, who did not know who he was. As the boy was raised, he learned what the other children around him learned, which was a tiny fraction of what he would have learned as a prince.
The king and queen had regularly sent out searchers to look for their child, but none met with success. Over the years, the stress and grief aged the king and queen far beyond their years. No one found hm, until the day one happened on a secluded valley. By this time, the prince was a young man, an apprentice. The searcher recognized his father in him, and brought the young man back to the palace.
There was great rejoicing, but in the midst of everyone’s joy, tragedy struck yet again. The years of grief caught up with the king and queen.. They grew suddenly ill and quickly died.
The young man was immediately crowned the new king, and the people were happy.
The new king was not so happy. Oh, he liked his new home in the palace well enough, when he wasn’t getting lost in it. He liked having servants at his beck and call, yet chafed at the loss of his privacy and freedom. Most importantly, he knew he was not properly educated or equipped for his new role. He began to make mistakes in policy and diplomacy, and soon the kingdom was again not a happy place.
Finally, he called together the council of his father’s advisers, and told the how he felt. These men were relieved, because they’d been thinking the same things about him. Finally, a wise old man spoke up and said his father had previously arranged for the council to rule, until a new king could be found. The young king proposed the council do that, keeping him advised on what was going on, while he learned what he needed to know from tutors, and from their mentor ship.
It took some time, perhaps a few years, but eventually the young king began to understand what he needed to know, and began to gradually take back the rule of his kingdom. He continued on his path of education all his life, and encouraged his whole kingdom to do the same. He always said if it could raise him from peasant to king, it could do the same for anyone.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
You and I, dear reader, are that young man. Born and bred to a life of success and happiness, the world takes us away and we do not learn what we need to know. Just like that young man, we also can learn, we can grow up into who we were truly born to be. The products of LIFE can be our tutors. The leaders of TEAM can be our mentors. Come and join the journey to the royal life you were born to live!
Franklin could afford his early retirement because he had conceived of an ingenious plan to aid journeyman printers, helping them to own their own businesses. In a true spirit of win-win, the 26 year old Franklin, in 1731, was offered the position of South Carolina’s official printer for its public records, an opportunity that he declined because he didn’t wish to leave Philadelphia. But, instead of rejecting the offer outright, Franklin suggested an alternative plan, proposing to the Charleston officials that they hire one of his journeyman, Thomas Whitmarsh. Franklin would sponsor the project, helping the journeyman with the press equipment, fonts, funds, not to mention mentorship, while Whitmarsh would run the day to day operations in Charleston. All parties profited by this unique arrangement. South Carolina received a top notch journeyman, trained under the tutelage of Franklin; Whitmarsh received capital and mentorship, both factors in short supply in the colonies, allowing him the opportunity to own a business; lastly, Franklin, received one third of the profits for six years, after which, Whitmarsh could either buy out Franklin’s ownership interest or continue with his current financial arrangement. Since Franklin had capital, but little time, while the journeymen had time, but little capital, this arrangement benefitted both sides of the partnership, providing to each other, what each on their own lacked, a true example of a win-win trade. Franklin’s
franchise marketing program expanded across the colonial cities, he looked for hungry, sober, hard working journeyman to be his long distant proxies, helping to build many sister newspapers, that dotted the colonial landscape, following the leadership of his Pennsylvania Gazette masthead. Over time, Franklin’s expansive printing empire reached all the way from Hartford in the north, and as far south as Antigua, with Lancaster, New York, and New Haven, too mention just a few, in between the two poles of influence, an impressive accomplishment in this largely agrarian society. In fact, by 1755, eight of the fifteen newspapers printed in colonial America were part of Franklin’s powerful conglomerate. Although not all his partnerships made money, most of them prospered under his leadership.
Franklin forged partnerships for over fifty years, creating a residual income stream that left him free to pursue his purpose, no longer enslaved to monetary want.
An entrepreneur himself, Benjamin Franklin partnered with other aspiring entrepreneurs in relationships that benefited all concerned, for the most part. His positive and profitable partnerships gave him the passive income stream to allow him to retire at a young age, to pursue the life of a scholar, inventor, diplomat and eventually statesman. Benjamin Franklin’s example is a model that would be wise for any aspiring person to follow.
Why do we do what we do? How often do we look at our motivations for doing things?
I was asked by someone today what I did in 2011 to make the world a better place to live in. This blog, and what I post in it, was part of my answer.
I write here to inform, educate, challenge presuppositions and entertain. I look at things through the perspective of my worldview, and try to give you a small view of what I see and feel. Sometimes, I put a microscope on a subject and look closely. Other times, I work for a telescopic, big picture view. And I will admit there are occasional times when my view feels to me more like the confusion of a kaleidoscope!
I write because for me, words are my passion, my reason for living. They are, as some would say, my thing. It wasn’t until this year that I finally realized what I wanted to be when I grew up — I wanted to be a writer. To me, that is the coolest and most awesome job on the planet!
This discovery did not come to someone in their early adulthood years. If you have read any number of my posts, you know I am a mother of 2 adult kids, and a grandmother of 2 1/3 young children. (Yes, that was an announcement. Our daughter told us at Christmas she is again pregnant, due in June.) As someone well past my younger years, you would expect I would have had a clue sooner. But life has a funny way of happening to people, and my early paths were not always smooth ones.
Chris Brady
I was urged write, to blog, this year by people who supported my efforts and encouraged me to do it. I owe mentor Tony Tefel and fellow blogger, leadership guru and TEAMLIFE co-founder Chris Brady a debt I cannot hope to ever repay.
I had one other answer to that question posed to me today about how I made the world a better place in 2011. I made the world a better place by making me better. Through what I learn from the books, CD’s and training events of TEAMLIFE, I become better. I do it because of a quote that has become my favorite.
When I was young and free my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it, too, seemed immovable. As I grew in my twilight years, in one desperate last attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it. And now as I lay on my deathbed, I suddenly realized: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed the world.~~ Found on the tomb of an 11th
Westminster Abbey
century Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abbey
I invite you to join me in the journey of changing the world by changing ourselves.
You can search our industrial complexes,
viewing his old portraits in the aisles.
*
You can search our sports arenas,
reading banners going out of style.
*
Everyone seems to know this person,
but most refuse his name.
*
I ceased my fruitless search,
hanging my head in shame.
*
In desperation, I searched within,
realizing his presence all along.
*
Since no one else will be him, I can and will, to become strong.
*
I am now called responsible,
I am the man with the uncommon name.
*
My friend, you too have this choice, for you can be called the same.
*
The search has ended.
The journey is done.
*
Who is responsible? I am; You are; Everybody and everyone.
We all have the choice to be leaders in our own lives. No matter what our various roles are, whether we be spouses, parents, employees or whatever, we all have a choice to lead. We lead by what we choose to say, and when we make a choice to keep silent. We lead by our actions and the times when we chose inaction. We lead by the strength of our character and convictions, or sadly, by their lack.
Our culture teaches us leaders are people who take charge, who are out in front, bossing everyone else around. Our culture teaches us leadership is for the chosen few. But as Orrin points out, anyone can lead. It is not an issue of personality or style. It is an issue of the heart. Let’s all work to grow leader’s hearts.
guru Orrin Woodward talks about the reformation of a young George Washington into the man who would be capable of leading the American Revolutionary Army and later becoming the First President of the United States.
By nature, young Washington had a fiery temper, but he developed an iron-willed discipline in order to check its excesses. Richard Norton Smith, in his book, Patriarch, said, “The adolescent Washington examined Seneca’s dialogues and laboriously copied from a London magazine one hundred and ten ‘rules of civility’ intended to buff a rude country boy into at least the first draft of a gentleman”. The French Jesuits had originally developed the 110 Rules as principles to live by, and
Washington’s methodical writing process helped him to adopt many of these maxims as his personal resolutions for life. As Richard Brookhiser, author of Founding Father, wrote, “His manner and his morals kept his temperament under control. His commitment to ideas gave him guidance. Washington’s relation to ideas has been underestimated by almost everyone who wrote of him or knew him, and modern education has encouraged this neglect. . . His attention to courtesy and correct behavior
anticipated his political philosophy. He was influenced by Roman notions of nobility, but he was even more deeply influenced by a list of table manners and rules for conversation by Jesuits.” Character and self-mastery were his goals through living his guiding ideals of fortitude, justice, moderation, and the dignity of every human being.
It was through the things young Washington chose to learn he acquired the necessary character and commitment to duty that would serve him so well leading the Revolutionary forces to victory. In Valley Forge, his commitment to what he had learned and put
into practice kept Washington in the painful field with his men, instead of accepting offers of comfort and safety. Valley Forge, and what they all went through together,
forged the American forces into an army, with their beloved Washington at its head. Prior to that winter, they followed him because of his title. After, it was because they knew he was someone worth following.
True leaders are people of character who get into the trenches with their followers. People just won’t willingly follow someone who hasn’t shown he or she has “been there and done that,” too. As Orrin points out, George Washington showed us with his courage, convictions and commitment to duty how to be that kind of leader ourselves. May all who seek to lead do as well. | {
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Khloe Kardashian continued to struggle with husband Lamar Odom while brother Rob wrestled with depression and body issues on the season finale of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” Things kicked off with Kourtney and boyfriend Scott Disick discussing Lamar’s flakiness of late, and getting pissed off when plans with the couple seemed in doubt again.
“I feel like a connection with him because he’s married to my sister, but I don’t know what goes on in that house,” admitted Kourtney, saying the pair “live in their own world” with “weird stuff going on.” Kourtney got a better idea of the issues Khloe was dealing with when Lamar’s agent called looking for him. “As many times as I have protected Lamar or dodged a bullet for him, lately everything is getting more than what I can protect or control,” she told the camera, adding, “I’m getting bombarded with questions, and I don’t know what to say.”
Rob was forced to face his own personal issues during a hike with stepbrother Brody Jenner, where the former “Hills” star expressed some concerns. “I’m starting to get worried, because Rob is kind of pushing us away a bit… I think he’s depressed,” Brody told the camera. He went on to tell Rob that people are urging him to get back into shape because it’s “affecting [his] personality.” “I just don’t want to be places,” confessed Rob, going on to tell the camera, “I’ve been holding inside a lot of issues, not just with Lamar and Khloe, but with myself, and it’s just not healthy for me.”
He continued, “It’s hard when you have everyone looking in and assuming they know what’s going on, and they don’t know half the story.” Rob and Khloe later had a serious talk about their respective problems as Lamar continued to spiral out of control. “You’ve tried so many times,” Rob said, trying to comfort his sister, but she pointed out that no one else knows that.
Khloe explained to the camera, “A lot had been going on the past couple of years, just with me and Lamar, and I made that choice myself to just keep that within my marriage, but lately it’s getting bigger than me.” “What am I supposed to do?” she asked Rob. “I’ve done everything.” Rob went on to tell Khloe he’s now “100 percent committed” to moving out, saying it’s “necessary” because he’s “in desperate need of fixing” himself and getting away from “bad energy.” “I hate to see my sister hurt,” Rob told the camera, going on to call Lamar his “best friend and brother” and “part of our family,” but stressing how much he’s “been holding in.”
He suggested to Khloe that “maybe it’s time for a change for everybody,” and she acknowledged to the camera that she understands why he wants to move and that their home “is not the best environment to be in.” “I’m at war with myself. I want to help [Lamar], but then maybe the best help is maybe stepping away,” Khloe told the camera. “And I just feel like I might need some more help, so I kind of have to tell my family.”
The finale wasn’t all a total downer, though — Kylie Jenner had a massive Sweet 16 where Drake and Big Sean performed. The planning didn’t exactly get off on the right start, however, when Kylie rejected all of her mom Kris Jenner‘s ideas for the bash. “I really want this to be my organic thoughts, and all me,” said Kylie. Problems further arose when Kris took it upon herself to reorganize the teen’s room, leading to an argument about personal space and growing up. Through tears, Kylie cried that she wanted to move out, but later decided to “be annoying” and get revenge by packing up her mom’s belongings just like Kris did to her. The stunt did not go over well, and Kylie vowed to plan her birthday party by herself.
She later gave her mom a personal invitation to the bash, and admitted to now realizing how much work is involved in planning the family’s infamously extravagant celebrations. The “Alice in Wonderland”-themed party went off without a hitch, with Kris giving Kylie credit for pulling it off and acknowledging she’s growing up. The only hiccup: Kourtney became upset at how much Scott was drinking at the shindig, and after he later disappeared for a time, she called him “disgusting” and stormed off. With help from Khloe and pals, Kourtney realized she was just being too “sensitive” and needed “to loosen up.”
And Kylie drama aside, Kris also had her hands full with… a pig! Kendall agreed to watch a pal’s pet, but left the little piglet in her mom’s care for part of the time. Cut to a lot of squealing when it found its way into the pool. “I know, I’m the worst babysitter in the world,” Kris said as she tried to dry and comfort the pig. The matriarch soon got into being a pig caregiver, buying accessories and grooming the oinker’s little hairs, leading Kendall to contemplate getting her mom a pet pig of her own. Kris even brought her new pal to Kylie’s bash, where Kendall secretly gave it back to its actual owner. It all ended well for some of the Kardashian clan… but far from well for others. Stay tuned for season 9!
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Featured
Following the lead of tech innovators in the taxi industry, South Africa’s road freight sector is set for a similar shake-up. According the latest Logistics Barometer (published by Stellenbosch University), transport remains the most significant portion of logistics costs (57% of the total in 2014)* — an opportunity that is being seized upon by Cape Town-based start-up Linebooker. A spinoff from the innovation arm of CCS Logistics (part of the Oceana Group), the company has launched an online-bidding platform that connects bulk business transport customers and trucking companies to offer transparent pricing, as well as end-to-end delivery facilitation services.
“It’s time for South Africa’s road freight industry to join the 21st century,” says Naudé Rademan, MD of CCS Logistics and Linebooker. “Technology exposes the imbalanced relation between buyers and sellers, and with our online tools and a single point of service, customers can enjoy more control and insights over the transport of various goods and products.”
Operating nationally, Linebooker is challenging an industry plagued by opaque pricing and antiquated systems. With its online bidding platform, transport customers can quickly submit load requests online to alert multiple transporters that are given a two-hour window in which to provide the best bid, often competing up to the last second.
For transport customers, the offering features:
A single creditor (a set fee is charged per transaction based on the value of a load)
Vetted transporters and truck availability; and
Facilitation of the entire delivery process.
Average savings: 13% per load
Naude Rademan, a respected professional in South Africa’s logistics and road transport industry, is MD of CCS Logistics, which owns and operates some of the most advanced and largest cold storage facilities in southern Africa. With a handful of colleagues — possessing almost 50 years of experience in the sector between them — they developed Linebooker in mid-2016. Since then, the company has facilitated the delivery of more than 1 000 loads, saving customers an average of 13% per load. Linebooker currently has more than 60 transporters with over 1 300 trucks on its system — an amount increasing weekly — and serves some of the country’s most respected brands, including Lucky Star, Shoprite and Heinz.
Reformed transport brokers
Composed of several former transport brokers, the company emphasises that it is not — nor does it want to be — a transport brokerage. And while it does not own any transport trucks, Linebooker uses its technology, combined with the team’s knowledge of the industry (including some time as brokers), to ensure that trust and fairness are part of every transaction.
“Today, each transport request made online is like a mini RFP,” concludes Nick Hoffman, Linebooker Manager. “With our system we are improving the efficiency of the industry, connecting customers with more transporters (and vice versa), and ensuring transparent pricing. In some cases, customers are saving up to 18% per load.”
Levelling the playing field for transporters
For transporters — challenged with cash flow issues due to payment terms averaging 40 days in the industry — Linebooker offers: | {
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Categories
Sometimes a message, campaign, or product takes on a life of its own and becomes a legitimate movement. It seems like magic, but what really happened? Listen as Jay Baer explains what fueled the crazy success of his NYT-bestselling book "Youtility" and Sangram Vajre, CMO and co-founder of Terminus, shares how his "Flip My Funnel" concept grew a community of worldwide B2B followers. You'll hear the behind-the-scenes story that's rarely told of how these movements grew — as well as Jay and Sangram's cautionary advice about what doesn't really constitute a movement.
Tweet @youngheike with your thoughts on this episode or ideas for a future topic. | {
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Researchers divide enzyme to conquer genetic puzzle
Rice University researchers have found a way to divide and modify enzymes to create what amounts to a genetic logic gate.
Biochemist Matthew Bennett and graduate student David Shis created a library of AND gates by mutating a protein from a bacterial virus. The well-understood protein known as T7 RNA polymerase (RNAP) is a strong driver of transcription in cells.
Their discovery should help overcome a bottleneck in the development of synthetic gene networks that mimic digital circuitry. These networks could become diagnostic systems that look for signs of disease and, perhaps, gene therapies to find and treat disease in one step.
The research appeared online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“AND logic gates are normally found in electronics: You have a circuit with two inputs and one output,” says Bennett, an assistant professor of biochemistry and cell biology. “In an AND gate, if the two wires leading to the gate are both on, then the output is also on. If either one or both are off, then the output is turned off.”
Few options have been available to researchers seeking reliable and flexible components for their synthetic circuits. The library of AND gates created at Rice should add significantly to the toolbox available to build larger and more complex gene circuits, Bennett says.
In its native, full-length state, T7 RNAP turns on genes that have a specific “promoter,” or target DNA sequence. The Rice researchers found they could program DNA to express the RNAP in two pieces, which could be manipulated via point mutations to target different promoters in a host cell. “The two pieces of the RNAP might even be made in different parts of the cell and they’ll still find each other,” Bennett says. “They have an affinity for each other, and once they combine, they’ll work together as if they hadn’t been split.”
The enzyme carried out its function only when both halves of the split RNAP were present. Bennett and Shis modified the bacterium E. coli to produce the RNAP segments in response to specific sugar molecules found in the environment. One half of the RNAP is produced only in the presence of arabinose and the other in the presence of lactose. When both sugars were found, their proof-of-concept polymerase would turn on a target gene, in this case a reporter gene that encodes a green fluorescent protein.
Better yet, the RNAP was orthogonal; that is, it didn’t fraternize with the E. coli’s native protein pathways. “This special T7 RNAP will not turn on any other gene but its specific target,” Bennett says. “In that way, it’s transparent to the host. This gives us an easy way to determine whether or not it’s working.”
The researchers found that while split T7 RNAP was not as active in expressing protein products as the full-length polymerase, the pieces were more stable and less prone to mutations that could affect a gene circuit’s function.
Bennett says the next step would be to test the split RNAP in hosts other than E. coli. “We want to port this into more complicated organisms: eukaryotes like yeast or zebrafish or mammalian cells. It will take a little bit of engineering to get them to work in more complicated organisms.”
He sees advanced diagnostics as a reasonable goal for gene circuits using AND gates. “The two inputs can be programmed to respond to separate conditions, whether they’re environment factors outside the organism or tissue-specific markers within a multicellular organism,” Bennett says.
“For instance, your inputs could be cancer markers that would trigger a fluorescent reporter gene for diagnosis or tumor suppressors for treatment,” he says. In addition, multiple gates from the library could be combined and layered to create more complicated circuits that simultaneously monitor many variables. “This means you could build circuits that turn on only in very specific conditions, which is important if you want to kill tumor cells without harming healthy tissue.” | {
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Open Source Accessibility for the Web
IBM is involved in the following Web–based projects.
Dojo Toolkit
The Dojo Web site states, "Dojo is an open source JavaScript toolkit that makes professional Web development better, easier, and faster." It is open source software that is distributed by The Dojo Foundation, a non-profit foundation.
Dojo aims to solve some long-standing historical problems with DHTML, which mixes familiar HTML controls with JavaScript. The "pieces" formed are called widgets. For example, a calendar or date picker widget in Dojo is one structure which contains some graphics, links, JavaScript to figure out which days go where, and combo boxes to select a month. Dijit is a widget system built using the Dojo libraries.
To make Dojo widgets accessible, IBM developers use ARIA techniques, which allow these sophisticated UI components created using JavaScript, to be identified to assistive technology. In the future, user agents can also make use of this information to provide additional visual clues about widgets. For example, client-side validation of a text entry widget that was marked using the ARIA invalid attribute could be visually identified by the browser rather than requiring the developer to provide a specific style or text identification on the widget.
ARIA information is added into the base Dojo widgets to ensure that the ARIA information is updated whenever behavior changes are made to the widget. Methods have been added to Dojo to enable setting the ARIA information. The roles and states for a widget can be set using the widget template or within the widget scripting code. In addition to providing the roles and states for each component, there are some architectural considerations as well. For components that represent a hierarchy, such as a tree or menu, it is important to identify parent and child relationships. For items where position or count are important it may be necessary to hierarchically group elements or identify a set of related elements as a group.
The IBM Software Group Emerging Internet Technology team is leading the development of Dojo widgets as well as making those widgets accessible.
The Open Ajax alliance (OAA) Accessibility Tools Task Force objectives are to develop a standard set of accessibility validation rules, geared toward meeting compliance to WCAG 2.0 using WAI-ARIA and WAI-ARIA Best Practices and the rules must be consumable by major accessibility test tools. They are also working to develop best practices for reporting accessibility compliance by accessibility test tools and IDE best practices to assist developers in producing Accessible Rich Internet Applications.
Access Mozilla Project and Firefox
The mission of the overall Mozilla project is to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet. In addition, the goal of Access Mozilla is to provide accessibility solutions for the Internet. IBM is a leader in the Mozilla open source community of developers and testers, focusing on the Firefox browser in the areas of XForms, SVG, XUL, Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and accessibility in these areas on all platforms, especially Windows, Linux/UNIX, and the Mac. To implement accessibility APIs and techniques in Firefox, IBM works closely with Sun Microsystems, standards groups such as the W3C WAI and the Linux Foundation, assistive technology vendors, and also with individuals, not-for-profit organizations, and universities funded with grants from the Mozilla Foundation.
Firefox 1.5, released in November 2005, was the first major open-source application to make a splash with accessibility for users. The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) wrote in its periodical Voice of the Nation's Blind, "Users finally have an option." The NFB has continued to support the work by posting an interview and an overview of Mozilla's CSUN conference activities.
Firefox was also the first Web browser to have a solution for making dynamic Web content accessible. When IBM started working on Firefox, DHTML or JavaScript Web applications were popular and important. They provided the opportunity to circumvent the limitations of HTML, allowing Web developers to create more exciting Web applications with simulated desktop widgets like mouse-over menus, calendars, and expandable outline views. These simulated widgets were not accessible. By contributing code to Mozilla, working with screen reader vendors, and working with the W3C, IBM was able to develop methods that enabled accessibility for those widgets.
In addition, the Firefox 3 accessibility team, led by IBM and in collaboration with the Mozilla Foundation, Sun Microsystems, and others, has reworked the Mozilla accessibility infrastructure and enhanced it to take full advantage of accessibility APIs on both Windows (MSAA plus IAccessible2) and the Linux GNOME desktop. By implementing the accessibility APIs to expose all document objects, hierarchy, structure, events, and relationships, this team has made it possible and easier for both Windows and Linux screen readers to provide accessible and usable document navigation without heuristics and off-screen models, equivalent to or better than document navigation provided by current Windows screen readers.
The roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA Roadmap) addresses the accessibility of dynamic Web content for people with disabilities. The roadmap outlines the technologies to map controls, AJAX live regions, and events to accessibility APIs, including custom controls used for Rich Internet Applications. The roadmap also outlines new navigation techniques to mark common Web structures such as menus, primary content, secondary content, banner information and other types of Web structures.
Firefox's implementation of ARIA supports desktop-style widgets, such as tree views, menu bars and spreadsheets, that are accessible both with the keyboard and assistive technologies such as screen readers, screen magnifiers and alternative input devices. Dojo is one of the ARIA widget sets supported by Firefox. It also helps provide accessibility solutions for AJAX-style live updates to regions on a page.
IBM has targeted the Firefox open source browser to demonstrate DHTML accessibility techniques and to support the W3C WAI ARIA standards effort. To do this IBM needed to establish Firefox as an accessible alternative to IE and use it as a vehicle to implement DHTML accessibility standards. Through the Mozilla Foundation grants program, IBM is securing contributions to the Mozilla and other open source communities for XForms, MacIntosh, and Linux accessibility support for Firefox.
Eclipse ACTF Web Validation Componentry (Webelo)
ACTF Webelo is a collection of Eclipse plug-ins that allows Web content authors and Web application developers to perform accessibility compliance validations. Webelo leverages both the new SWT Mozilla browser widget and the Java Reflection API to perform dynamic, non-invasive, and fully configurable validations of Web content or applications. Webelo is unique in that it performs validations against the runtime structures in the Document Object Model (DOM) rendered by the browser rather than on the markup from which that DOM was parsed. The componentry comes packaged with a validation document for assessing accessibility compliance against the IBM Web Accessibility Checklist, v3.5.
Eclipse ACTF Accessibility Probe (AccProbe)
The AccProbe is a standalone, Eclipse Rich-Client Product (RCP) application that provides a view of:
The properties of the accessible objects of that application or document.
AccProbe can also serve as an event monitor for tracking the events fired by these accessible objects. It is meant to combine the functionality of tools like Microsoft's Inspect32, AccExplore, and AccEvent into one easy-to-use application for accessibility testing and debugging.
Last updated, June 1, 2011
Dojo Resources
Updated information about the core Dojo Widgets is available in the Dojo Book: | {
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even better to include the gender for the nouns....these have to be memorised there is no rule deciding whether a noun is masculine or feminine...
flower ...la flor (f)
And...link each word to the following two....so | {
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Shauna W
Shauna has been writing and editing things for cash and prizes for well over a decade, and while her first love is pop culture and celebrity dish, she's also done work for Fortune 500 companies and even written a book. Feel free to contact her at goldengateblond at the gmail -- but keep in mind she really hates people who refer to themselves in the third person, so never ever do that with her. Seriously. (Man, does she hate that.)
As the buzz builds for the final Christopher Nolan-directed Batman flick 'The Dark Knight Rises,' the superhero's iconic mode of transportation -- the Batmobile -- is finally getting a little love with a new documentary that's being previewed at San Diego's Comic-Con 2012 fe…
If you thought Britney Spears would be the sweet and cuddly Paula Abdul of the revamped 'X Factor' panel, you might wanna think again. A new promo released by Fox shows that while Spears may have been initially nervous about being a judge on the show, she's clearly found her footing a…
Triple-threat actress Kristin Chenoweth got a whole new threat of the most unwelcome kind on Wednesday when she was hit by a falling piece of equipment on the Brooklyn set of CBS' 'The Good Wife' and rushed to the hospital.
This year's fall TV season hasn't even started yet, but CBS is already getting a head start on next year's line-up. The network just ordered its first pilot for the 2013-14 season, a single-camera sitcom called 'Ex-Men' from 'How I Met Your Mother' producer Rob Gre…
A little over a week ago, Ann Curry bid a tearful farewell to her co-hosting gig on the 'Today' show. And while her replacement, Savannah Guthrie, has been filling in ever since, she didn't officially step into the job until Monday.
Netflix has certainly had its share of PR blunders recently, but things seem to be back on track. On Tuesday, CEO Reed Hastings posted on Facebook that Netflix streamed out a billion hours of video content in June -- setting a new monthly record for the company.
Watching the bed-hopping antics of the 'Jersey Shore' cast, one would think they have a protective bubble to keep them safe from STDs. They don't, but if they happen to pick up a little transmittable nastiness during the filming of the show, MTV has a clause in their contracts that ke… | {
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February 12-18
This is not meant to be a beating, but rather a tool to give
you some help in reading and understanding God’s word. If you miss a day, and can “catch up: by
doubling up, then sweet. If you can’t
read on certain days, adjust the schedule to fit your life. I think you will find the schedule pretty
easy to maintain if you keep just a bit of discipline.
Summary:February 5: Exodus 32 – 34 Exodus 32 opens with the Israelites sinning against God (already). Having waited for Moses for so long (in their minds) they beseech Aaron to make an idol for them; which he does. Moses intercedes for the people and God averts His wrath. (Note: The blame shifting of the Garden continues as the Aaron plays dumb. God was always going to spare Israel; Moses, as a type of Christ, demonstrates the work of an intercessor for the people and their sin.)Exodus 33 picks up the trip from Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses also gets a glimpse of the Glory of God. (Note: God uses this demonstration as another confirmation of Moses’ leadership. Moses is the exalted deliverer of God; he is a picture of the final exalted Deliverer from God.)Exodus 34 replaces the tablets of the Law that Moses broke upon seeing the peoples sin (Exodus 32) and God restating the covenant with the people. (Note: While the stating and restating of the promises may seem redundant; it is a reminder of the need to remind ourselves and a reminder of the sinful tendency to turn away from God and His promises.)February 6: Exodus 35 – 37 Exodus 35 highlights the importance of the Sabbath and the work and worship at the Tent of Meeting (Note: This tent is a big deal; for the 1st time since the Garden of Eden, God is dwelling directly with people and is doing so in spite of their sin.)Exodus 36 & 37 detail the construction of the Tabernacle.February 7: Exodus 38 – 40 Exodus 38 – 39 outline the construction of the Tabernacle, the vestments (garments) of the priests, and the dedication of the Tabernacle. (Note: All of this is prescribed by God so the people can never forget what is occurring.)Exodus 40 ends with God’s Glory (as a cloud) filling the Tabernacle and the tent of meeting. (Note: The initial work is complete, God now dwells with people again directly. Also pay attention to the detail; not just of the work as described, but of the time. These events occurred at specific times, they are not a part of a mythology or hope; but historically rooted events by God and man.)February 8: Leviticus 1 – 3 Offerings given to God (burnt, grain, and peace) are outlined here. (Note: Every aspect of life and living is covered by the Law of God. This is because this people, now dwelling with God directly, must be holy as God is holy. That means every aspect of their lives must be purified and guarded. Nothing has changed in Christ, but the Holy Spirit is the one who does this work now.)February 9: Leviticus 4 – 6 Sin & guilt offerings, as well as the priestly work, are given and outlined here. (Note: the care and detail of God to provide for the people. These laws are steeped in exceptions and contingency as God notes every possible outcome for the people. His special care and provision can be seen in the thoroughness of the Law.)February 10: Leviticus 7 – 9 Leviticus 7 continues description of the priests work and the offerings of the people.Leviticus 8 sees the consecration of Aaron and his sons as priests and all the pomp and circumstance that entailed. (Note: These are the men who will go before God on behalf of the people; they are important and their work is of the most holy done in Israel. The clothing, manner of sacrifice, and even preparatory anointing are all a part of God’s sanctifying work of these men.)Leviticus 9 continues Aaron’s work as he offers sacrifices to God.February 11: Leviticus 10 – 12 Leviticus 10 continues the sad history of sin and rebellion as two of Aaron’s sons offer sacrifice that has not been commanded by God and are killed by God. (Note: it is not just offering sacrifice, but doing so in the right manner for the right reason. Nadab and Abihu become a lesson moving forward; for God to forgive the perfect sacrifice must be given. This episode harkens back to the rejection of God by Cain and is a shadow of the future work of Jesus.)Leviticus 11 & 12 continue with laws for animals and clean/unclean. | {
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Chakras – seven Hindu energy centers of the body, beginning at the base of the spine to the top of the head,that assist us in our flow thru life. The theory is that “balanced” Chakras lead to a balanced, fully expressed life experience = good health. Expressions such as, “cleansing” or “unblocking” refers to re aligning ourselves with what our bodies are telling us. Interesting.
(There are many online sites that provide ‘how to”s.)
Below are the 7 Chakra points with their energy centers, colors and gemstones:
1- Root: Base of the spine (survival issues)/ Red – Garnet
2- Spleen: Below the navel (emotions) /Orange- Carnelian
3- Solar Plexus: Above the navel (our energy center)/Yellow – Citrine
4- Heart: Chest (Love for others)/ Green – Aventurine
5- Throat: Base of the throat (inner voice) / Blue – Turquoise
6- Brow: Third eye (knowing) / Blue Indigo- Lapis
7- Crown: Top of head (healing energy) / Purple – Amethyst
BTW: While traveling in Egypt, our esteemed guide shared that the 7 Chakras correspond to some of the Sacred Temples along the Nile:
If preparing for the unexpected makes you nervous, just think of the fun you can have. Beginning Saturday, 12/3/16, the Aquarius Moon gives us an opportunity to let go of convention, do some “out of the box” thinking, focus on the welfare of others and be a little rebellious.
Air sign Aquarius has a stubborn streak (it is one of three “Fixed” signs of the Zodiac, along with Taurus and Scorpio) and is ruled by the unpredictable planet Uranus. It’s all about independence, sudden changes of direction, etc. Relax, go with the flow. Give more attention to another Aquarian trait which is contributing to the universe in some way. Groups, other people and their causes are a natural concern. Not a bad way to spend a weekend – be spontaneous, share yourself !
This has been a rocky month so far. We can use a “pick-me-up”. The Sun prances into the adventurous, optimistic Fire sign Sagittarius on Monday November 21, 2016. Ruled by exuberant Jupiter, the king of positive thinking, everything is “huge”- ideas, actions, themes. Remember to pause occasionally and look over the landscape – not only to enjoy the view, but also to realize that some of those “sure things” are not. The “go BIG or go home” routine will not always work to your advantage. Certainly be an “of course” for excellent results, reach for the good things, discover something new, pay attention to your intuition (Sagittarians love a good laugh but they are also deep and love to ponder the universe.) but, just be aware of the edges – over confidence can send you too far. Aim for controlled excess.
Just to make it more interesting, Saturn, planet of discipline and limits, which is quite different to Jupiter‘s goal (expansion on steroids), has been transiting the 9th sign of the Zodiac since last December. Depending on where it appears in your chart, the desire for adventure may be muted, wings may feel clipped, the pace of life seems to slow down. We can still fly, but maybe not so high. Saturn remains in Sagittarius until December 2017.
Looking beautiful, feeling stubborn and being material? It might be the vibrations of the Taurus Full Moon on Monday. This is a fixed, finance focused Earth sign guided by the elegant, luxury loving planet Venus. Whatever vibes are out there can all be put to good use. Indulge the sensual side while monitoring investments. Share chocolate covered strawberries with a significant other while tallying the checkbook at the same time. It’s possible 😎
As always with a “Full” Moon, it’s a good time to finish what you’ve started. With the grounded Taurus influence, it makes sense to complete any financial dealings and/or improvements to surroundings – beauty, comfort and safety. What do you value most? Who do you need to be – to do what you want and have what you desire?
From super sensitive, delicate feelings one day to a “You want a piece a me?” attitude the next, your “mood” may be the Lunar orb’s fault. The Moon affects our subconscious (the Sun = conscious) and as it moves thru the 12 signs of the Zodiac, about 2 ½ days in each sign, our moods and feelings can change according to the characteristics of each sign. It can make us susceptible to the emotions, undercurrents, vibrations that surround us and influence how we act / react during a day. (Whenever I write something like this, I hope no one gets visions of those Full Moon = Werewolf movies)
Not everyone is affected by Moon transits all the time, or in the same way. Sometimes the mood won’t be picked up on. There are always additional planet activity in a chart creating other energy. Often, there is so much going on in a life, time isn’t taken to notice that because the Moon is in Gemini people get way too chatty, or if the Moon is in Capricorn, too many want to take charge of a work project and boss everyone around. If you don’t “feel” the difference, don’t worry about it – your subconscious is still doing something 🙂
The Moon in Zodiac Signs:
Aries: Volatile, can be quick to confront, high energy
Taurus: Solid, sensual, stubborn, money focus
Gemini: Master of multi-task, communication, clever
Cancer: Nurturer, emotional, family concerns (ruled by the Moon)
Leo: Fun with melodrama, creative, generous
Virgo: Health, work, details, responsible
Libra: Social, good time to re decorate (home or self), relationships rule
Just about everyone knows their Astrology Sun Sign based upon their date of birth. But there are also certain gemstones and colors that express each sign. (The gems listed next to the Sun Signs below may differ from the traditional “Birth Month” stone that you’re used to.)
Yes, this can all just be a great excuse to buy a lovely rock for the jewelry collection and add some colorful finery to your wardrobe – but, it can also be used as a way to have fun while fully expressing your power. Let yourself glow!
On Saturday, October 22, 2016, the Scorpio Sun will want to infuse us with passion and focus to get projects accomplished, snare that love interest and drill down thru any mysteries that need to be solved. (Think “determination”) Due to the characteristic sensitivity and emotionality of this Water sign, Scorpio’s power will not be served distant and cold – there will be drama, there will be depth, the time is ripe for revelation. Stubborn, secretive, serious, sensual, sizzling – these adjectives all fit Scorpio to a T (or in this case, to an “S”).
Where does intense Scorpio, its traditional planet ruler Mars (energy and aggression) and its modern ruler Pluto (power and transformation), appear in your chart – Sun sign, Ascendant, Moon? Regardless of the House placement, the 8th sign of the Zodiac can uncover deeper feelings for us all. Superficial skimming the surface, in conversation or action, just won’t do. When confronted with an issue, there will only be an apparent yes or a no response – compromise is out of the question. Unlike under a Libra Sun, where decision making can be tortuous, it is black or white with Scorpio, no shades of grey. “Maybe” is not acceptable.
Mercury, the Communication planet, will be transiting Scorpio from 10/24 – 11/13/16. Interactions can be easily heated and more demanding than usual. Be focused and as clear as possible regardless of how deep the vat of emotion. Paint inside the lines to avoid unnecessary confusion and / or hurt feelings. You may get all wrapped up in reacting or acting out and then discover that the “overwhelm” does not quite match the situation. Pausing doesn’t lessen importance, but it can be used as a time out to bring things into perspective and to lighten the atmosphere.
October 15th and 16th (West / East) delivers a brilliant, Full Moon in Aries, the 1st sign of the Zodiac. Ruled by “Warrior” planet Mars, combustible, aggressive, spark plug Aries’ usual “in your face” posture may be influenced by transiting Uranus, the unpredictable planet of change and revolution. (It remains until May 2018.) Remember, you can be radical, honest and direct, rather than just loud and angry.
Do the suggested Full Moon things – finish up old projects, clarify any fuzzy ideas that are hanging around. Use the extra Aries energy to get things done. By clearing out useless stuff, you create space for the new. However, this forceful Fire sign can be a little over the top sometimes. Don’t torch everything while trying to weed out the old, think things through before the ashes start to pile too high.
We are NOT one dimensional – we have Astrological layers! There are 12 signs of the Zodiac. In addition to the characteristics that are assigned to a Sun sign, each will also have traits of one of 4 Elements – Air, Fire, Water, Earth and exhibit the behaviors of one of 3 personality types (modes) – Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable.
The attributes that are associated with these Elements and Modes add depth to the personality of our Sun sign.
Our Zodiac Sun Signs have their colors, their birth stones and their personality traits. According to traditional Astrology, they also have jurisdiction over particular parts of our anatomy:
Aries: Head / Face (“Head strong”)
Taurus: Neck (A sore throat can really be a problem for a truth talking Bull)
Gemini: Hands, arms (“Twins” people talk with their hands a lot)
Cancer: Breasts (Of course the nurturer)
Leo: Heart (…of a lion!)
Virgo: Bowels (Cleansing the system for good health)
Libra: Kidneys (Balancing the body fluids)
Scorpio: Reproductive system (No more needs to be said)
Sagittarius: Hips, liver (Sag’s symbol is always a centaur with a wine pouch?)
Capricorn: Skeletal structure (bones, bones, bones…)
Aquarius: Legs (Support for all those spontaneous moves)
Pisces: Feet (Pedicures are a good thing)
The ancients thought that those parts of the body ruled by your Sun Sign were particularly sensitive and vulnerable. Perhaps. But I do think we need to take care of them regardless and listen when they speak and tell us something is out of whack. | {
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Senate Investigates Missing $27 Million Nigerian Embassy Funds
The Senate on Thursday began investigating the alleged disappearance of $27 million from the sale of Nigerian property in New York, according to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.
A former permanent representative to the United Nations, former ambassador to the United States and the incumbent have appeared before the Senate committee on foreign affairs in Abuja.
They are George Obiozor, ambassador to the U.S. (2004 to 2006); Joy Ogwu, permanent representative to the UN (2006 to 2007), and the incumbent ambassador, Ade Adefuye, who assumed duty in March 2010.
The probe followed a petition by Transform Nigeria Citizen Initiative, a non-governmental organisation, over alleged misappropriation of funds by the officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Washington D.C. The petition was signed by one Daniel Elombah.
Elombah had urged the Senate to investigate why the proceeds from the sale of some Nigerian government property in the U.S. between 2004 and 2007 were not accounted for.
“Available records showed that between 2004 and 2007, the Embassy of Nigeria sold four prime properties of the Nigerian Government located in Washington D.C and Maryland,” he said.
“It also commenced sale of a fifth property located in San Francisco, California.
“For the sale of those properties, the government of Nigeria retained the services of ECULAW Law Firm. Out of those sales, Nigeria realised the sum of 27 million dollars.
“All funds realised from these sales, except those set aside as fees, were remitted to the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington D.C,” the petitioner alleged.
He alleged that all the funds and transactions were duly confirmed in June 2007 by ECULAW Law firm when it met with embassy officials at the embassy premises in Washington D.C.
He alleged that instead of remitting the proceeds to Nigeria, the funds were lodged in M&T Bank Washington which he said the embassy used for other transactions and with which it had about three different.
“It was confirmed in clear terms that their bank was holding huge deposits comprising the proceeds of the sales of these properties”Elombah stated, adding that “this remained the position after Dr George Obiozor had returned to Nigeria upon completing his service in Washington.”
The petitioner alleged that the money was not repatriated home but left in the bank “partly because it yielded substantial monthly interests, which the embassy officials would never have to account for.”
Surprisingly, he said, the money disappeared without trace in March 2012.
“This became clear when the M&T Bank was forced to close the accounts of Nigerian Embassy and to terminate all banking relations with the embassy at the beginning of 2012,” he said.
According to him, since March 2012, no explanation had been given as to the whereabouts of funds which were in the bank accounts when the incumbent assumed office. | {
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One day after Aaron Hernandez was questioned by police in connection with an apparent murder, a Massachusetts news station reports that the New England Patriots star has not been ruled out as a suspect in the killing.
A law enforcement source reportedly told CBS Boston reporter Karen Anderson that Hernandez had not yet been ruled out as a suspect in the murder of Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old man in North Attleboro, Mass. Peter Wilson, CBS Boston’s managing editor, added that Hernandez was “not cooperating” with the investigation.
The investigation into the murder began on Monday, when Lloyd’s body was found in the North Attleboro Industrial Park, about a mile from Hernandez’s home, NESN reports. Hernandez was connected to the crime when police found a black Chevrolet Suburban rental car, which had been registered under his name, near the body’s resting place. Authorities also conducted a search of the car, ABC News reports.
Lloyd’s body was reportedly found by a jogger. The man declined to be identified by name, but described his grisly discovery in an interview with CBS Boston.
“I saw an African-American male, probably 25-35 years old, decently dressed,” the man said of the homicide victim. “He was stiff, motionless, one of the police officers came back later and said it looked the guy had been shot somewhere else and dumped here.”
Police first questioned Hernandez on Tuesday night before conducting a search of his North Attleboro home, NESN reports. Authorities were seen leaving the 23-year-old Patriots star’s home with a box in their possession. Still, initial reports suggested that, while police had questioned Hernandez, they did not believe that he was involved in actually committing the murder.
State Police detectives returned to the Hernandez residence on Wednesday morning, but their knocks at the front door went unanswered, CBS Boston reports. The authorities declined to speak with reporters at the scene. Earlier that same morning, Hernandez and an unidentified woman were seen leaving the home in a white Audi SUV, but similarly declined to comment on the homicide investigation.
Lloyd, identified as an “associate” of Hernandez, was a semi-pro linebacker with the Boston Bandits, CBS Boston reports. He last practiced with the team on Saturday. | {
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Proponents Press Senate on Stem Cell Research Measure
A full year after the House passed legislation that would loosen President Bush's restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research, the Senate is coming under intense pressure to tackle the controversial bill -- in the awkward new context of an election year.
The legislation, which Bush has repeatedly threatened to veto, would allow the National Institutes of Health to fund research on human embryos slated for destruction at fertility clinics. It is backed by science and patient-advocacy groups, and was endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) last summer, when momentum behind the research was at a peak.
But the political calculus around stem cells has changed in unexpected ways since then, raising questions about how Frist can fulfill his promises to bring the bill to a vote without weakening his appeal to conservatives as he considers a 2008 presidential run.
Opponents of the research note that its most promising advances, reported last year from South Korea, were recently found to have been faked -- a revelation that has stoked critics' claims that the medical potential of embryonic cells has long been hyped.
Also unexpected a year ago was the recent blossoming of independently funded embryonic stem cell research programs at universities.
"We're seeing private funding come up, and, of course, states have stepped up in various ways," said David Prentice, a senior fellow with the conservative Family Research Council, which opposes the House bill. "I don't know that there is a big need for a huge infusion of NIH money."
But proponents -- including several congressional leaders and ailing patients who plan a news event this morning to mark the first anniversary of the House bill's passage -- are expressing impatience with Frist's repeated delays.
They point to new polling data indicating that a greater majority of Americans than ever, 72 percent, support the research -- a finding that candidates, they say, cannot afford to ignore.
They contend that without the full support of the federal research enterprise, the field of regenerative medicine in the United States will remain stunted and other countries will pull ahead.
And they say that as long as the research is relegated to the private sector, it will remain free of federal oversight and ethics rules.
"The South Korean debacle has underscored the need for national, even global, ethical standards, but there is a terrible leadership vacuum with regard to stem cell science in the United States," said Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Institute of Regeneration Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.
Embryonic stem cells, derived from days-old human embryos, can turn into virtually any kind of cell and show promise as a way to replace damaged tissues or organs. | {
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news
MLB News
After review, Waino loses glove, Yo gets base
De Aza later hits 3-run homer in 5th as Mets win rubber game
By
Nick KruegerMLB.com
ST. LOUIS -- With one out in the fifth inning on Thursday night, Mets first baseman James Loney popped a ball into short left field that landed just out of the reach of Greg Garcia. The ensuing play at third led to a replay review that opened the floodgates to a four-run inning that propelled the Mets to a 10-6 win over the Cardinals in the rubber game.
Yoenis Cespedes, on first base, saw the ball drop and headed to third while Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright ran over to cover the base, which was vacated by Jhonny Peralta as he also tried to make the catch.
ST. LOUIS -- With one out in the fifth inning on Thursday night, Mets first baseman James Loney popped a ball into short left field that landed just out of the reach of Greg Garcia. The ensuing play at third led to a replay review that opened the floodgates to a four-run inning that propelled the Mets to a 10-6 win over the Cardinals in the rubber game.
Yoenis Cespedes, on first base, saw the ball drop and headed to third while Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright ran over to cover the base, which was vacated by Jhonny Peralta as he also tried to make the catch.
Cespedes' foot slid onto Wainwright's glove as Wainwright fielded a throw from left fielder Brandon Moss, and Wainwright's hand came out of the glove as Cespedes stepped on it. Home-plate umpire Marty Foster ruled Cespedes safe.
Cardinals manager Mike Matheny left the dugout to discuss the play with the umpires and decided to challenge the call. After a review of one minute and 44 seconds, the call was confirmed.
"We let them discuss it as a group, let them talk to New York, and it went as they thought it would," Matheny said. "You have to have control of the ball. It looked better on slow motion, obviously, but if Adam doesn't lose his balance right there, he probably keeps hold of the glove and [Cespedes is] called out."
Wainwright added that he tried to pull the glove out from under Cespedes' foot because he was concerned Loney might try to advance to second base. It was explained to Wainwright by the umpires that when he pulled his hand out of the glove, it was the equivalent of losing the ball.
"I've never seen that before, never heard of it," Wainwright said. "Really, it's the way it's been going."
Curtis Granderson then struck out for what would have been the final out of the inning had Cespedes been ruled out. Instead, Alejandro De Aza hit a three-run home run to expand the Mets' lead to 7-0 two batters later.
"Never seen that ever," Moss said of the reviewed play. "That's a tough call, too, because obviously if he's stepping on his glove, he's not going to be able to take the glove away. ... That can go a lot of ways, but the call was that he was safe and they stuck with the call. They did a good job of getting the runs in." | {
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I know what is good.
Cookie Heaven
Not to give away any secrets, but when recently asked in an interview if I prefered cake, pie, or cookies, I chose cookies. That was a hard question, and one I struggled with for longer than I should have. And I was only able to provide a qualified answer.
We’ll save those details for later.
This past weekend I ended up at the mall. Oddly, it was Young Master Fussy that suggested the trip. After a filling lunch at Hong Kong Bakery & Bistro, we agreed to walk it off indoors and maybe grab a little dessert. He also wanted to check out a few things at the Apple Store.
Dessert for the boy took the form of a Cinnabon minibon, which is really all the Cinnabon anyone ever needs. It’s unconscionable that the chain sells a full size bun that’s at least three times the size for only a dollar more. But that’s beside the point. Because at the mall, there were Girl Scouts selling boxes and boxes and boxes of cookies.
Yes, it’s Girl Scout Cookie season. And drafting off of this annual rite, the Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York are hosting a fundraiser on Tuesday for adults where chefs and bartenders from around the Capital Region will present some incredible dishes and drinks built around these classic cookies.
What does that even mean? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Let’s first make sure everyone is on board with the basics. I’m not even going to tell you about Thin Mints and Samoas. If you don’t know these two cookies, you’re beyond my reach. I’d suggest just closing this window now and coming back tomorrow.
But even those who enjoy the occasional Girl Scout Cookie might need a little refresher on some of the other cookie names and flavors.
Did I mention I’m going to be judging these on Tuesday as well? Well, it’s true. Generally judging responsibilities come with a rubric already in place. And the judge’s role is to respect those criteria and deliver a verdict accordingly. I can’t wait to see how these drinks will turn out in practice.
But I am even more eager to try the savory foods that use cookies as an ingredient. This isn’t a complete list of what will be served at Tuesday’s fundraiser, and there will be desserts made with cookies too, but it does paint a picture of how chefs have conceived of the challenge. It’s interesting to see a few themes among these dishes.
Brown’s Brewing Company is presenting two savory dishes. A Moroccan Do-si-dos potato latke with apricot relish, in addition to a Trefoil tempura chicken with soy ginger sauce.
Druthers’s has a similar idea with its Samoa curried sweet potato latke, topped with a yogurt, goat-cheese Raita, Samoa & Thin Mint crumbles, and micro mint/lavender.
And then, we have the good folks at Burger21 who are putting up a classic milkshake and french fries. There’s something to be said for keeping it simple, because this sounds remarkably good. Specifically, they will make a Do-si-do milkshake and pair it alongside sweet potato fries with Nutty Buddy dipping sauce.
Will this be the hardest thing I’ve had to judge? It’s unlikely. However, it will definitely be the sweetest. This is why we diet. Not like the diet is going all that well, but that’s a different story.
One reason I’m sharing this with you today, is that for some of you, this will sound like cookie heaven. And I know if you cookie lovers find out about this after the fact, I’ll get notes wishing I had told you earlier.
It would be great to see you there and have some more friendly faces around to make sure I don’t go into sugar shock. There will be a few of my favorite Yelp Elites in attendance, a few of whom won tickets from Yelp, since Yelp is one of the event sponsors.
Which isn’t to say anyone asked me to post this, or that this is sponsored content. I saw the dishes, and I thought they were too interesting not to share. Later this week, I’ll give you some insight into the judging process, and let you know who won.
And tomorrow I’ll share the corned beef thing I was supposed to share today. | {
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Egypt’s Court of Cassation annuls death sentence against former president Mohamed Morsi
Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, wearing a red jumpsuit that designates he has been sentenced to death, raises his hands inside a defendants cage in a makeshift courtroom in an eastern suburb of Cairo, June 18, 2016.
Egypt’s Court of Cassation has overturned a death sentence issued against ousted President Mohamed Morsi and ordered a retrial, judicial officials say.
Egypt’s first democratically-elected president was sentenced to death in June 2015 on charges of participating in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 uprising which toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak.
In its Tuesday ruling, the Court of Cassation also quashed the death sentences of five other leaders of Morsi’s now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group, including its leader Mohamed Badie, in the same case.
The court further struck down life sentences passed in the same case against 21 Muslim Brotherhood members.
While the new ruling spares him from the threat of execution, Morsi is serving three lengthy jail sentences totaling 60 years in addition to a life sentence.
In December 2012, Morsi was sentenced to 20 years in prison without parole on charges related to the killing of protesters. He was further sentenced to 40 years on charges of spying for Qatarand handed a life sentence on charge of spying for Hamas.
Morsi was immediately arrested after being overthrown in mid-2013 by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who was the head of Egypt’s armed forces at the time.
In June 2014, Sisi won the subsequent presidential election and began a campaign to crush the Muslim Brotherhood. The group was later blacklisted as a terrorist organization in a bid to prevent its affiliates from running in elections.
Since Morsi’s ouster, thousands of protesters have been sentenced to jail by civilian and military courts. According to human rights bodies, the clampdown has led to the deaths of more than 1,400 people and arrests of 22,000 others, hundreds of whom have been sentenced to death in mass trials.
Human rights groups, meanwhile, have slammed the regime under Sisi for what they see as aggressive policing and the reversal of fragile gains since the country’s 2011 uprising.
According to New-York based Human Rights Watch, Sisi has presided over a “state of impunity that has allowed security forces to get away with mass killings while imprisoning hundreds of peaceful protesters.”
US-based non-governmental organization Freedom House has described Egypt’s courts a “tool of repression rather than a pillar of justice.” | {
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AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Principal Hartley Gibbons walked into the meeting to a round of applause and he with only kind words for his staff and students, telling News 12 he's happy with his decision and he packed his own bags.
“Thank you Richmond County, and I bid you farewell,” Gibbons said as he left the school.
The end of an era for Terrace Manor Elementary as Principal Gibbons announced his retirement
“Thank you for everything, and I retire with a smile on my face knowing that the citizens of Augusta have spoken, and with their voices, things will change,” Gibbons said as he got into his car and drove away.
For four years, the parking spot marked for the principal has been filled by the same person. It’s where Principal Gibbons would pull into school each morning, but on Friday, it will be filled by someone new when Interim Principal Hal Thomason steps in.
“It was very, very friendly. He called this morning and said, ‘Dr. Roberson, I want to come in and talk with you,’ and I said, 'Certainly.' I didn't have any idea it was going to be the announcement to retire," said Superintendent Dr. Frank Roberson.
Gibbons' impromptu announcement comes on the heels of a health controversy at the school, and now that he's out, Thomason has some big shoes to fill.
But with those shoes, he also steps into the mold controversy.
“I’m going to make an informed decision about what I feel about the building,” Thomason said. “I talk to parents. I believe in an open door policy. I'm a parent myself. So anybody that wants to come in, open door. I'll be glad to talk to any of them.”
For those who know Gibbons, they are sad to see him go.
“My children really think a lot of him and all of the children here do. I feel like when he went down to the board he was being the voice for them,” parent Danielle Peterson said.
“A good man is what we're losing in his retirement. He has established so many wonderful relationships with students and faculty and those things you can't replace,” Roberson said.
Dr. Roberson says they are already looking for a permanent replacement.
As for the mold, we're working to get a copy of those recent results. Of course, we'll pass them along when we do.
Online Public Information File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or [email protected].
Christie’s passion for broadcast journalism sparked in fifth grade when she helped produce her elementary school’s student-led announcement show. Ever since then, she has wanted nothing more than to be immersed in the carefully designed chaos of a newsroom every day. | {
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Nam to raise N$19bln on international market
Tue, 23 December 2014 16:02
by online WriterNews Flash
NAMIBIA will start tapping markets and investors to finance a five-year, 23-billion-Namibian-dollar ($19bn) development plan as early as next year as the country seeks to become a regional transport hub.
The southwest African nation’s government has said it will finance 73-billion Namibian dollars of the budget and use a variety of methods to raise the rest of the money for ports, railways, roads and airport upgrades.
"The best way to address these funding needs is to pursue various alternatives including public-private partnerships and listed infrastructure funds, among others," Emma Haiyambo, a spokeswoman for the Bank of Namibia in Windhoek, the capital, said in e-mailed responses to questions on December 16.
Namibia intends to position itself as a channel for trade by landlocked neighbours including Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi. Namibia is expanding capacity and building bulk cargo handling capabilities at its deep water port at Walvis Bay and upgrading the harbour at Luderitz. It will also target customers from southern Angola.
The state-owned Namibia Ports Authority plans to build a harbour to be known as the SADC Gateway Port, about 5km north of the existing Walvis Bay port. The project will have a dry bulk terminal and a five-berth coal facility, primarily to cater for 65-million metric tons of projected shipments from Botswana’s Mmamabula coalfields to Asian markets.
Growing economy
The government will come up with a way to "encourage the participation of private financiers and investors, both locally and internationally," to participate in the development fund raising, Ms Haiyambo said.
"Our expectation is that there will be appetite from domestic investors to invest," she said. "Local and international investors have confidence in the Namibian economy, its regulatory landscape and the general macroeconomic outlook."
Namibia’s economy will grow by 5.6% in 2015, up from 5.3% this year, buoyed by construction, retail trade, diamond mining and manufacturing, the central bank said on December 12. The country is the world’s fifth largest producer of uranium and the biggest source of offshore diamonds, most of which are mined by Namdeb Diamond Corp, a joint venture between the government and Anglo American Plc’s De Beers unit.
Namibia has started a 45-billion-Namibian-dollar mass housing programme to provide homes to low-income earners and increase energy generation. Work on some of the transport projects is expected to start next year, Ms Haiyambo said.
The government is working "to establish a policy framework that will encourage and enable the private sector to participate in funding Namibia’s infrastructure gap," she said. "With sound policies, extensive consultation and innovation, we are confident that the private sector can participate in funding the infrastructure needs." | {
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How Manchester United Will STOP David De Gea From Leaving
De Gea and United are back in action on Saturday afternoon when the Red Devils host Liverpool in the Premier League's early kick-off.
The 27-year-old still has 18 months remaining on his current contract and while that still remains the case, Real will continue to test the water to see if they can convince the 27-year-old to return to Madrid.
United are keen to hand the Spaniard a new deal, with a salary matching his status as the best goalkeeper in the world.
The Spanish keeper has been United's standout performer this season and is regarded as one of the best in the business.
De Gea has been a target for Madrid for a number of seasons now. His influence can be quite characterised by his incredible save that he pulled against Crystal Palace on Monday - an nearly inevitable goal, which was one of the main reasons United won the game 3-2.
The Portuguese boss was adamant that the club will not sell De Gea, though, amid Real interest reports.
Real Madrid's defence has been woeful this season and Keylor Navas has been found out largely because of his inability to pull off consistently good performances.
Sport, De Gea and his representatives are looking for the club to match the talk from Jose Mourinho over his fine form.
Athletic Bilbao's Kepa Arrizabalaga, 23, has been touted as a potential replacement, but he signed a new agreement at the San Memes, while Thibaut Courtois' situation at Chelsea has also been monitored. | {
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Colorado cantaloupe farmers plead guilty on listeria outbreak
October 22, 2013|Robert Boczkiewicz | Reuters
(Joe Raedle/Getty Photo)
DENVER (Reuters) - Two Colorado farmers whose listeria-contaminated cantaloupes killed 33 people pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal criminal charges stemming from one of the deadliest outbreaks of food-borne illness in the United States.
U.S. prosecutors last month charged brothers Eric and Ryan Jensen, former owners of Colorado-based Jensen Farms, with six counts each of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce tied to shipping tainted melons to markets in 2011.
In May 2011, the Jensens began washing the farm's cantaloupes with devices used to clean potatoes and failed to use a chlorine spray feature that kills deadly bacteria, prosecutors said.
Both men pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Denver to six counts of adulteration of a food and aiding and abetting. Each faces not more than one year in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 per count.
The brothers initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, but later agreed to change their plea in a deal with prosecutors.
"The defendants have now admitted that they failed to protect the public from deadly bacteria on their cantaloupe, in violation of the law and critical FDA requirements," U.S. Attorney John Walsh said in a statement.
"Their actions resulted in tragedy nationwide, and profound economic consequences for an entire industry, and has exposed them to these serious criminal consequences."
Forrest Lewis, attorney for Eric Jensen, said the brothers thought the cleaning operation they used "was safe and inspected and adequate."
In addition to the deaths, the listeria outbreak linked to the farm in the southeastern corner of Colorado led 147 people across 28 states to be hospitalized, authorities said. One woman suffered a miscarriage.
The Jensens filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and suspended farming operations amid a raft of lawsuits by people who were sickened or whose family members died from listeria infections connected to the tainted cantaloupes.
The elderly, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems are at highest risk for listeria, whose symptoms include fever and gastrointestinal distress and which is the third leading cause of death in food-borne illnesses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a lawsuit filed last week, the Jensens blamed a California-based food safety audit firm, Primus Group Inc, that approved the cleaning operation. The Jensens, who have said they were saddened by the outbreak, said they will donate to the victims any money they recover from the lawsuit. The brothers are due to be sentenced in January. | {
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Job Scams: Learn How to Spot Them From a Mile Away
Work from home job scams don’t always jump out at you. Sometimes the signs are subtle, but they are there if you pay attention and know what to look for. Here are some of the most common red flags to help you identify scams.
Job Scams: How To Spot Them
Questionable or No Contact Information
Most legitimate companies provide a full physical address and telephone number. Though this is not always an indicator of legitimacy, if there is absolutely no contact information for a company that is supposedly offering jobs, be wary.
If a physical address is provided, still pay attention. I received an email offering the position of “email advertiser” with this interesting street address in New York – 4331 My Drive. Sometimes you just have to laugh! Though this address is obviously fake, when you are researching companies it’s a great idea to look up physical addresses if provided.
Even if you look up the address and all seems well, sometimes it’s best to dig a little deeper into your findings to be absolutely sure. I talk more about that here.
Lack of Job Details
There should be no misunderstanding about what you will be doing. If the job description is vague, it could be a scam.
Double the scam factor if the job description tells you how much money you’ll make for just a little time, but it omits the actual job responsibilities.
What Do They Do?
Job postings are sometimes very descriptive about the organization, what their function is, and the services they offer, but this won’t always be the case. A very small amount of research should tell you what any organization’s primary purpose is.
If it’s not clear what the company does, be concerned.
Multiple Postings
Companies do not advertise the same job posting daily. In most cases there is simply no need. There are more than enough qualified applicants that will find that posting and apply.
Most employers have more resume submissions than they could ever hope to review. A recruiter once told me that if she posts a job at 5pm, she’ll have resumes from over 500 applicants sitting in her inbox by 8am the next morning!
That’s activity for just ONE job, and in less than 24 hours! Imagine the type of volume recruiters see for several open positions.
If a company is advertising for the same job every other day, you have to wonder what the real purpose is.
Application Process
Job scams are easy to spot If you are offered a job after a quick interview with no application or resume.
Legitimate companies are looking for a skilled workforce, and they want to know what you can offer to their organization. They will not waste time interviewing candidates without screening first.
Any company that interviews you without knowing your qualifications up front is usually only looking to fill seats and make money from unsuspecting applicants.
The exception to this is jobs in the extra cash category. Typically, you’ll be able to land those positions without much of a screening process from the company, and without much effort on your part.
High Pressure Tactics
Work from home job scams are notorious for putting pressure on you to make a decision. If you see “call now positions are filling fast” or “only a few spots left”, be suspicious.
Legitimate companies offering real jobs have nothing to gain by rushing you to act.
You Didn’t Apply
Receiving unsolicited job offers is a very scammy sign. If you did not apply to a position, but you are told that you passed the initial screening or you are offered a job based on a resume review only, it’s likely a scam, especially if it meets other criteria on this list.
Though you may have your resume posted to popular job boards for recruiters to review, be very careful about what you respond to.
It Doesn’t Make Sense
Job scams just don’t make sense most of the time.
Companies do not need to hire workfromhomers to be “envelope stuffers” – there are machines that do that. Legitimate organizations ship their own packages, so they will not hire you to be a “shipping manager” to re-ship their packages from your home.
Before you apply to any position, consider if it makes sense to hire home-based workers to do the job.
Lack of Professionalism
Remember those late night infomercials with the guys standing in front of their exotic cars, luxurious boats, and stately mansions screaming at you about their money-making system? Do you get the same vibe from your potential employer?
Websites with neon colors, obvious and numerous typos, flashing lights, and pages that won’t let you leave are likely the signs of job scams.
Also pay attention to your contact with company representatives. If their communication is unprofessional in any way, if they don’t honor scheduled appointments, or if they are hesitant about answering your questions, you may have a scam on your hands.
If anything causes you to question a company’s legitimacy, then…
Trust Your Gut
Your first impression is important so don’t dismiss it.
If you are really interested in a position, but you think the company might not be legitimate, do your due diligence to find information to either support or refute your initial feeling. Set out to prove yourself right or prove yourself wrong.
Scams take time, energy, and money so it’s understandable that some people are very concerned about them, and why some never try working from home again after being taken in by job scams.
But I do have to stress that you don’t fall into the trap of thinking everything is a scam. Caution is good, but combine caution with research. Don’t let it stop you from taking action.
When you do encounter them you can report scams and help other workfromhomers.
How do you identify job scams? Were you already using some of the red flags on this list?
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blog
Girl, clean your makeup brushes
How often do you clean your makeup brushes? I used to do this religiously then along came Sumner and well I honestly don’t remember when I last cleaned mine.
The good news is you don’t need a fancy cleanser to clean your brushes! Simply use a gentle baby wash, for the last ten years I’ve used Johnson & Johnson baby wash to clean my makeup brushes. This was a tip given to me by a consultant at Ulta and it’s saved me tons of money. I’ve never bought a true brush cleaner marketed by the beauty industry. A few of my favorite brushes are 10 years old and still like new.
To get started fill a clean sink half full of lukewarm water, as the water fills add baby wash into the basin, about a tablespoon. Do NOT put soap directly on your brushes.
Gently swirl your brushes around to saturate them then rub them against your palm to agitate and remove built up makeup. Rinse with clean water.
I like brush them out on a clean hand towel to remove excess water so the brushes dry faster. Let your brushes sit overnight and they will feel like new in the morning! Note: It usually takes 12 hours or so for brushes to fully dry. | {
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April 29: Healthcare update with Monning, Conner
State Sen. Bill Monning (D-17) will be joined by Leslie Conner, executive director of Santa Cruz Community Health Centers, to discuss California’s response to the effort to change in the Affordable Care Act. House Speaker Paul Ryan says Obamacare is now the “law of the land” after Republicans in Congress failed to replace the landmark legislation. But what’s next? | {
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Syed Ali
Politics is not my life. I have a career in radio and another while I am on stage. So I am being myself and try to keep everyone around me with a huge smile on their faces. I believe art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate, so any artist can be inspirational. Love being on mic no matter where I am. Doing that since good few years now and loving every moment of what I do.
About my show: For me a good friend is everything and you can almost find every relation in a good friend. My session called YAARIYAN is based on that statement, which goes live every Saturday Night from 8 Onwards. You can expect anything from social topics to good chill out times, from Romantic tracks that blends good with the Shayari , from Rock to Techno. | {
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Entertainment News From My Mouth To Your Eyes
Exclusive: Why Kim Kardshian Had every right to go Off on Paparazzi
I wanted one on these haters but maybe she is doing the right thing by not even responding to them.. I sat and wondered just the other night how does Kim Kardashian and Kanye West (more so Kim) feel? they sit down to watch some TV or go on the internet and all they see as they approach what should be one of the most beautiful and special times in both of their lives are people criticizing,insulting,disrespecting their relationship their families their lives and them as individuals. Look I know when you are a world known celebrity there are certain things you sign up for, I also realize that when you Are Kim Kardashian and your entire life for the past 6 years have been lived on a reality show that you pretty much invited this I GET IT! However no one deserves to be threatened, no one deserves to be stalked, no one deserves to be living and moving in fear ESPECIALLY when they are about to bring a baby into the world.. I have met Kim on several occasions she was always gracious, she was always considerate never blocked photos. One time covering her in Miami for the Super Bowl her publicist and managers were saying ” No interviews” but Kim let us film and interview her, so Kim is always gracious, But when woman is pregnant you have to respect her mood swings, her insecurities and her wishes for privacy and not wanting to be photographed and Money and fame have nothing to do with that. Today Kim went on a twitter rant slamming Paparazzi for making threats and stalking her and people all over the internet world are asking Does she have a right to ask for privacy just because she doesn’t want to be photographed? MY answer is yes she does. Are you allowed to go around and threaten anyone else? Isn’t this what Killed Princess Diana? Don’t we see them doing this to Justin Bieber and Chris Brown? Kim Kardashian and Kanye West get slammed everyday on social media with outlandish rumors like :Kanye dumps kim while pregnant” and Kanye is gay and sleeping with his designer and Kim wants to sell her child’s pictures against Kanye’s will I get tired of it so I know they do. I think Kim had every right to go off I’m surprised it took this long. Good for You Kimmy. Your almost there I wish you a healthy and happy baby
Let Kim enjoy the last month of her pregnancy and those Paparazzi should be brought up on charges for stalking nd making threats on Kim’s life
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Robin Thicke looks like he’s in great spirits after welcoming his daughter Mia to the world with girlfriend April Love Geary a few weeks ago! The 41-year-old crooner was spotted doing some afternoon grocery shopping on Sunday (March 18) in Malibu, Calif. PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Robin Thicke Robin was seen making [...]
Kate Mara is feeling the St. Patrick’s Day spirit with sporting some green in her ensemble! The 35-year-old House of Cards actress was seen enjoying a day out in Soho running errands on Saturday (March 17) in New York City. PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Kate kept warm in a green knit hat [...]
Lady Gaga and Christian Carino are certainly enjoying their time together! The 31-year-old “Bad Romance” pop superstar and the 48-year-old talent agent were spotted out grocery shopping together on Sunday (March 18) in Malibu, Calif. PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Lady Gaga Gaga and Christian were seen holding hands as they walked into [...]
Selena Gomez is headed down under – and she’s bringing an instrument along with her! The 25-year-old “Hands To Myself” pop princess was spotted arriving at Sydney Airport on Monday (March 19) in Sydney, Australia. PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Selena Gomez Selena was all smiles, toting a ukulele as she headed out [...]
Iggy Azalea is opening up about her relationship with some of her superstar friends and fellow artists! The 27-year-old “Savior” superstar made an appearance on Watch What Happens Live on Sunday night (March 18). PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Iggy Azalea During her appearance, Iggy opened up about whether she’d collaborate with Cardi [...]
Meghan Markle is at the center of a sensational leaked sex pictures and video scandal – after a sleazy website that claims it is linked to ISIS uploaded a video showing the future princess naked. As RadarOnline.com previously reported, the site has published an 11-second clip that shows former Suits actress Meghan showing off her Read More
Katy Perry is having to buckle down and tow the line now that she’s signed up for a $45 million American Idol pay check – and bosses are laying down the law in no uncertain terms! Insiders reveal to RadarOnline.com exclusively: “Everyone knows that Katy is being paid an extortionate amount for this role, but Read More
Marry me now! Kylie Jenner is desperate to start from scratch with baby daddy Travis Scott – and she wants them to elope without further ado, RadarOnline.com can reveal exclusively! “She’s changed a lot since the baby’s been born and really softened her stance since Travis stepped up to the plate with baby duties,” spilled Read More
Radar Staff
This is the Rawest No holds Barred Blog on the Net
Those who get offended easily might as well click the x now | {
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What it's all about...
We want to deliver you the news you want to see - Just tabletop, nothing else.
Special focus on Sci-Fi & Fantasy and 28mm, but expect the unexpected.
We are unofficial, independent and non-commercial, meaning that we are not associated to any kind of business and that we are not pursuing any kind of material gain with this blog. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
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A Visit from the Goon Squad is sweeping several fiction categories. After making several best-of year end lists, it also won the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction. Maybe its time to move it up on my to-read list! | {
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Caption: Marc Abrahams, Ig Nobel founder, on stage at the Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, USA. He is wearing the top hat he wears here when master of ceremonies as he presents the Ig Nobel Prizes. Abrahams is the editor-in-chief and founder of the humorous scientific journal 'Annals of Improbable Research' (founded 1995). In 1991, Abrahams founded the satirical Ig Nobel prize, awarded annually at Harvard. The Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded to those whose discoveries may appear odd, funny or absurd. Photographed in 2012. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
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Total Commander Ultima Prime
Total Commander Ultima Prime is a collection of programs and customized settings for enhancing the features of Total Commander (file manager). Present version comes with HWiNFO application, a hardware analysis, monitoring, and reporting software for Windows.
More about Total Commander Ultima Prime
Get the data about this program v7.6.2019.3, its overall size is 305.58 MB; by the way, users can download this program under the names TC UP and Total Commander Ultima. TC UP Team distributes the software 100% for free. This tool belongs to File Managers in the System Utilities category and supports .7z, .iso, .rar, .zip, .arj formats. Versions 7.6 and 7.5 are still the most popular ones and can be run on Windows 7/10. It should be noted that the setup files TC UP.exe and un_TC UP.exe are the most downloadable among users. The antivirus analysis of the direct download link proved it to be safe. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
The View from the Boardwalk
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Category Archives: Dialogue/ Reflection
“Grampy, are we alone?” The question caught the young boy’s grand-father off guard since they were the only ones on the trail this early in the morning.
“I don’t see anyone else around, Harrison? Why do you ask?”
“No, Grampy. I mean in the universe. Are we alone?” the boy asked hurriedly, as if the question had been on his mind for a long time.
“That’s a big question for a six-year-old. I’m not sure anyone can answer it. But what made you ask, and why does it matter to you?” The grand-father brushed away the choke berry bush that otherwise would have captured his attention.
“Is it a big question for a six-year-old, Grampy, or for anyone?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ace. For anyone. Not just boys who are soon to become men,” the grand-father laughed.
“Well, last night I tried to imagine our earth floating in a universe of other planets and stars, and I kept backing away in my mind until I thought I’d come to an end, but I couldn’t see the earth anymore.” The boy began to take deep breaths. “And then I thought eventually I should come to a wall and that behind that wall there might be someone or something. But I couldn’t come to an end.”
“And then what happened, Harrison? What did you see?” A single Cooper’s hawk circled several hundred feet above them.
“I didn’t see anything. Just darkness. I looked in the direction of earth, where I knew there was at least one boy standing with his head up to the sky, but I couldn’t see him. And I thought if there were anyone else out there, he or she couldn’t see me. He wouldn’t know I was looking. And that’s when I started to wonder whether we’re alone.”
Suddenly the grand-father understood that this was not an idle question. In the background the wood ducks’ morning banter reached a crescendo. “Maybe you have to have faith, Harrison. Faith that another little boy is out there wondering the same thing.”
“Faith, Grampy? What is that?”
“It’s a kind of trust or belief. Deep down inside you know something is true even though you have no proof,” the grand-father answered, knowing that words wouldn’t do.
“I think I understand that, Grampy. It’s like knowing that the flowers and the birds will return in the spring… or that mommy and daddy will always love me… or that I’m going to make a difference in the world when really the world is very big and I’m only little.”
“Yes, you are only little,” the grand-father smiled. “But already you’ve made a big difference in my world, and your grand-mother’s and your parents’ and your sister’s and your friends’; I guarantee it.”
“That’s why I wonder, Grampy. If we are alone, I wonder whether anything we do makes a difference.”
Such big questions from so small a boy, the grand-father thought. “I don’t understand, Harrison.”
“Well, if there’s no one else in the universe, then what does it matter what happens here on Earth. No one else is affected. It only matters to us.”
“That might be enough, Harrison. That might be enough,” the sun’s warmth now revealing itself in water vapor steaming off the under-brush and rocky path.
“Still I’d like to know, Grampy. I’d like to have proof.”
“But how would it change anything, Harrison?”
“I guess it would make me feel as though I was part of something very big and special.” How could this boy be only six, his grand-father thought. “Like on a huge stage, with all my classmates, singing in a holiday concert for our parents. Not standing all alone, the lights dimmed, with no one clapping…”
“I don’t know, Harrison. Do you really need an audience and a big stage for something to be special? Isn’t it possible that what really matters is all around you?”
“Oh, I know that, Grampy, but just think. If there were someone else in the universe, they might be so different from us. They’d speak in a whole new language. There’d be so much to talk about, so much to learn. Enough for a lifetime! It would be a miracle if that could happen.” A yellow leaf floated down slowly from the single maple on their right side.
“I think we have enough for a lifetime here, Harrison. We are the miracle. That we exist at all, that anything exists. Look at the trace of last night’s moon floating in the morning sky! Could anything be more miraculous or beautiful!” The grand-father did all he could to restrain his joy at what was taking place between them.
“What do you mean, Grampy?”
“I guess, Harrison, I mean that life is something that either has always been, or somehow appeared out of nothing. In either case, it’s incomprehensible. Even if there were some divine power, the same would be true for him. Or her – I know you’ll correct me, Harrison. Either he’s always been, or somehow appeared out of nothing. Either way, it is beyond explanation and amazing that we are witness to it.”
“No human sense, Grampy. Maybe if there were others for us to talk to, we’d see that it makes perfect sense for something to appear out of nothing. Like a hunch or a new idea or a star. Or an imaginary friend!”
“Have you been talking to Cecilia, Harrison?” A weight began to lift from the conversation.
“You know about her imaginary friend, Grampy?”
“Oh, yes. Cecilia is a lot like her mother.”
“In what way, Grampy? Tell me.”
“We’ll talk about that another time, Harrison. You’ve left me exhausted. I think if there are other creatures in the universe, they better be ready for you!”
“No, it’s not, Grampy. It looks clean and its fur feels soft. Look, you can hold it by its tail! It must be sleeping.”
“Sterling, it’s not sleeping. It’s dead. Put it down before Grammy sees you and has a fit. I want you to go inside the Nature Center and wash your hands. Right now.”
Sterling was surprised by his grandfather’s quick words, even as a dragonfly distracted him momentarily. “What if it isn’t dead, though, Grampy? I could take it to school or keep it in a box as a pet.”
“Sterling, when animals die, they get stiff like that. It’s called rigor mortis. We have to bury him.”
“Rigor mortis? Grampy. What is that? I’ve never heard those words.” Sterling laughed at the silly sound the words made.
“It means ‘stiffness of death,’ I think,” his grandfather replied. “It’s Latin. When someone dies, medical examiners try to determine when rigor mortis sets in so that they know approximately when the person died.”
“People get stiff, too, Grampy? Not just animals? Why would we have to know the time? Isn’t it enough to know that someone died?” Suddenly there were so many questions.
“People are animals, too, Sterling,” his grandfather said simply, wending his way through a flock of geese.
“Gross, Grampy! We can’t be. We don’t live outside and eat berries and worms. We have houses with beds and tvs and microwaves and showers.” The birds chattered noisily now, the summer sun now peeking through the trees.
“Well, animals have houses, too, Sterling, and they may not have the same conveniences as we do, but they bathe and sleep and eat pretty much like people.”
“Grampy, if animals are like people, why don’t they talk like us?”
“I think they do talk to us, Sterling, but their language is different and we don’t always know what they’re saying. Sometimes I think they just talk among themselves. Birds are like that. And chipmunks and squirrels. They almost seem to be laughing at us.”
“Why, Grampy? What’s so funny about us?”
“I’m not saying they really are laughing, Sterling, but if they were it might be because we don’t have our priorities straight, at least in their minds.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Grampy. What are ‘priorities’?” His grandfather used such big words.
“The things we care about the most, Sterling. Animals must think all we care about is running off to work or school, driving to malls and supermarkets, talking into funny looking cell phones or plugging strange boxes into our eyes and ears. They must wonder at the endless line of people who stop off at our homes to cut our lawns or fix our pools or install appliances or even cook for us. They might wonder whose home it is!”
“Well, I think animals are the ones who are silly, Grampy. They don’t do anything but eat or sing or jump from tree to tree. All they seem to do is play.”
“I think that’s why they laugh at us, Sterling. We don’t play, at least enough. We work, just like they do, to eat or to find shelter, but for them it’s play. For us, it’s a job. We complain about having to do it.”
“Do you think animals don’t complain, Grampy?”
“I don’t know, Sterling, but it looks as though they don’t. They seem to have a gift for enjoying the present moment. It’s the one thing that most people seek, but can’t seem to find in their lives.”
Sterling thought about that for a moment and then said, “Do you think I work too much, Grampy. Mommy tells me I have to stop playing sometimes and to come in to do my work. Can I tell her you said I don’t have to?”
“No, Sterling, sometimes you do have to come in to do your work, but what the animals seem to know is that there’s really no difference. Both are required to live. Both bring us joy and satisfaction. That’s their secret. That’s what they sing to themselves each day.”
“But I complain sometimes, Grampy. I don’t always want to go to school or help with the chores or clean my room.”
“Especially clean your room, from what I can see, Sterling!” His grandfather laughed.
“Does that mean I don’t have the gift of the moment, Grampy? I love presents.”
“I know you do. No, you have the gift. You’re curious. You ask questions. You’ll talk to anyone who wants to listen. You’re never bored. You’ll call me at night to go outside to see the moon. I think the animals could take a lesson from you!” His grandfather’s eyes glistened slightly now. The ducks frolicked wildly, perhaps in response to their early morning spectators.
“I wish I could teach this squirrel how to come back to life, Grampy. His stiffness scares me. It makes me think there’s never enough time for play, or the work we have to do.”
“You haven’t put that animal down yet? Sterling, we need to get a shovel. There should be a proper burial. I think your squirrel friend has taught you an important lesson today. We ought to be thankful for that.”
Grampy, did you ever have an imaginary friend?” The geese honked loudly as if laughing at the little girl’s question.
“No, Cecilia, I didn’t. But Grammy’s mother did. She called her Lime Creche.”
“That’s a silly name. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
Nor have I, Cecilia. I don’t know where she came up with it. But it was her childhood friend who used to play with her and follow her to school.”
“Sterling says that there’s no such thing as imaginary friends, Grampy, but aren’t there some things that are real that not everyone can see?”
Her grandfather stopped short of the spillway, surprised by the truth of what his grand-daughter was saying. “Well, yes, I think so, Cecilia. People say they see ghosts and spirits and the like.”
“The like, Grampy? It tickles me when you talk like that. You sound so serious!”
“You’ve got me there, Cecilia. I can’t help it. But I want to give you the best answers I can… Ideas are real, too, but we can’t see them. We can only see their results. And gases are real, but we can’t see them. Then there are atoms, protons and neutrons and subatomic particles… And other solar systems… And stars! Some even that we see but which don’t exist anymore! Now you’ve got me started, Cecilia. I’m sorry. That’s probably more than you wanted to know.”
“No, Grampy, I want to know everything. Even if I don’t understand you, I like it when you get so excited. It makes me feel the same.” Two mallards skirted the shore, pushing aside the budding water lilies exploding now into yellow and white.
“Now that I think about it, Cecilia, there are lots of things that are real but which we can’t see. There are even colors that we can’t see but that scientists can with special filters. Or animals with their different eyes.”
“Animals don’t see what we do, Grampy?!”
“No, Cecilia, they don’t hear what we hear either. The more I think about it the more I realize that there are as many worlds as there are ways to look at them.”
“Then Sterling is wrong, Grampy! There are such things as imaginary friends! I told him so!”
“Not ‘wrong,’ Cecilia. Maybe just not as wise as you yet… Do you have an imaginary friend, Cecilia?”
“That’s what she told me her name was, Grampy. I don’t think she thinks it’s a funny name at all.”
“No, I suppose not. But tell me about her. When do you see her? What’s she like?”
“She doesn’t come to school with me, Grampy, but she is always here when I come home. She likes to play school and go outdoors. She sends me postcards from places she visits. And she loves birthday parties with cake and candles to blow out!”
“She sounds a lot like you, Cecilia. Full of life!”
“I guess we’re a lot alike, but you can’t hold her like me. And you can’t see her. And she never seems to get mad at me.”
“Why would anyone get mad at you, Cecilia?” her grandfather wondered, overcome by the innocence of her belief.
“Oh, they do, Grampy. Mommy and daddy… and even Sterling. They weren’t happy with me when I dropped my gum and Nugget licked it, then I put it back in my mouth! And they screamed when I picked up a dead bird!”
“Cecilia, they’re not mad at you. They just don’t want you to get sick.”
“Sometimes I say a word wrong or make a mistake when I’m adding my numbers, and mommy loses patience with me. I can’t get sick from that, Grampy.”
“No, Cecilia, you can’t.”
“Well, Buddah tickles me when I make a mistake, and we both laugh. She wonders what’s behind every door and doesn’t hear when she’s told something can’t be done. That’s why I like her.”
“You know what, Cecilia, I like her, too. Maybe Buddah has an invisible friend for me.”
“Yes, I do have Grammy, and I’m lucky at that. But maybe adults should be able to have invisible friends, too. I think sometimes adults accept the world as given and forget that we can change it. An invisible friend would remind us of that.”
“Buddah doesn’t want to change the world, Grampy. She just likes to laugh or smile at it.”
Her grandfather smiled and stopped short of the second spillway, swollen now with spring rains. “That’s just it, Cecilia. Adults forget how to laugh. Especially when people die or get hurt.”
“There’s nothing funny about people getting hurt, Grampy.”
“I know, Cecilia, but does Buddah Baby stop smiling? Does she ever not want to play?”
“No, she doesn’t. You’re right.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know, Grampy. It’s almost like the pain isn’t real to her. Like she sees the next step… or that everything changes…”
“Or that what we think is real is not?” Her grandfather took a deep breath.
“Isn’t that where we started, Grampy? You did that on purpose!”
“Maybe so, Cecilia. Or maybe I have an invisible friend, too, and didn’t know it.”
“Mackenzie, why are you lying on your back with your head up against that tree?” her grandfather wondered, surprised to find his little girl alone just off the trail in the back of the Nature Center.
“I don’t know, Grampy. I sat down, then fell back, and when I opened my eyes and looked up, I couldn’t stop. It’s too beautiful. I feel dizzy, as if I am spinning upward and out of control.”
“Let me see. I’ll lie down beside you and we can both look up!”
“Do you feel the sky pulling you, Grampy? Do you wish you were that tree?”
Her grandfather smiled, warmed by her active imagination and capacity for love. “I think I know what you mean, Kenzie. Down here I can feel the tree soaring, defying gravity. If I were younger, I’d want to climb up its branches and see how high I could go, how long they’d support me.”
“Don’t talk, Grampy. Just listen. We can climb later.”
“Do you love me, Grampy?” his granddaughter suddenly asked, the morning’s stillness broken only by the steady hum of the insects coming to life in the spring.
“Oh, Kenzie, of course I do! Why would you ask?”
“Well, Mommy and Daddy say they love me. And Grammy of course. And I always say I love them back, but it’s hard to know what we mean when we say we love someone.”
The berries along the garden fence suddenly looked a deeper red. “I think we mean that we care deeply about that person,” her grandfather answered. “It’s a way of saying that we want to be with that person, that he or she makes us feel happy or more alive.”
“But, Grampy, how can we be more alive than we are?” Mackenzie wondered. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Her grandfather laughed, realizing how inadequate words can be to explain what really matters. “Well, there’s a difference between being able to walk and talk and eat, and being able to transform someone or something.”
“Transform”? Mackenzie asked, puzzled by a word so unfamiliar to her.
“Change them. Make them better. Help them to feel inspired, able to do anything. It’s how you feel when you look up from the bottom of that tree,” her grandfather replied.
“I like that feeling, Grampy, but I’m not sure I love the tree.”
“In a way, I think you do, Kenzie. I think you are a loving person, which means you give something of yourself to the people, and even things, around you. You give some of your light or energy or trust.” Her grandfather stepped away from the tree, as if to give himself more space.
“That’s a big part of love, Kenzie. You give, but feel as though you get more in return.”
“What about when you’re bad, Grampy? Sometimes I get really mad at Mommy. Once I even bit her I was so angry. And Mommy sent me to my room when I spit at her one time. Did she stop loving me then?”
“No, Kenzie, believe it or not she didn’t. She may have been hurt or disappointed or angry, but in some ways her love actually grew stronger.”
“Stronger? How can that be?”
“Because the anger isn’t important. It fades away. What stays is the exchange of feeling, the communication, the realization that nothing can break the connection that exists between you.”
“Is it always that way, Grampy? My friend Abby said that her daddy was leaving her mommy and wouldn’t be living with them. Abby didn’t know whether she had been bad and her daddy didn’t love her anymore.”
“Oh, that’s so sad, Mackenzie. I’m sure Abby’s dad still loves her, but sometimes love becomes complicated between adults. Sometimes people change, and the trust is broken. Love can be very painful.”
“Will that ever happen to Daddy and Mommy, Grampy? I don’t ever want to lose them.”
“No, Kenzie, I think they are like me and Grammy. We disagree, and sometimes fight to the point where we won’t talk, but you know the feeling of being pulled up that tree and into the sky? You know the excitement you feel when you look up? That’s what we always come back to. That love doesn’t end.”
“But, Grampy, is all love the same? You’re married and love Grammy. Do you feel the same about her as you do about me? I’m just a little girl. Who will ever want to marry me?”
“It’s different, Kenzie, but equally wonderful. As for who will want to marry you, I think they’ll be lined up for miles!”
“I don’t even like boys, Grampy. They’re dirty and they fight all the time and throw acorns at me.”
“More proof that they like you already! Boys have a funny way of expressing themselves.”
“Grampy, boys are gross! I don’t care how they express themselves; there’s no way I will ever love any of them. I think you should marry me, and we can have our own family. And Grammy can live with us, too!”
“I’m flattered that you would ask me, Kenzie, but wait until you’re a little older and see if you change your mind. I think you may see those boys differently. Love sometimes grows in mysterious places.”
“Grampy, I like mysterious places, but for now I think I want to climb this tree. Will you lift me up?” | {
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Faculty/Staff Edition
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Today's Bulletins
From: Student Affairs | Student Involvement
The results of the SGA 2013 Run-off election for President and Vice President are in. Congratulations to the newly elected SGA Executive team which will begin their term on April...
From: Academic Affairs | Office of Academic Affairs Graduate Studies
Attention Graduate students!!! Do you have questions on developing group work projects? Do you need help with creating a Rubrics? This Gradschool Workshop will provide a template of how to develop group...
From: Business Affairs | Community Engagement
“What You Need to Know About the Affordable Care Act”Students and business owners who require further information on the new federal healthcare law should attend a FREE conference on
From: Academic Affairs | Office of Academic Affairs Graduate Studies
Attention Graduate Students!!! Learn how to make use of Library Resources. This Gradschool Workshop will be a hands on and intensive to get you acquainted or refresh your skills about database navigation. ...
UTPA Today
The Valley Symphony Orchestra (VSO) will perform at 7 p.m. Monday, April 22, in the Edinburg City Auditorium to support The University of Texas-Pan American’s forthcoming Academic and Performing Arts...
“Bitter Sorrow,” a dance choreographed by Min Kim, assistant professor of dance at The University of Texas-Pan American, was selected for the gala performance of the American College Dance Festival,...
12:00 PM - 01:00 PM In her writing classes, poet M. Miriam Herrera encourages students to develop a flourishing writing process unique to each writer, to tap into their obsessions and write from the deepest...
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM Students in the Medical Spanish for Heritage Learners program through testimonies will describe their experiences when in the absence of a professional interpreter had to take the role of the...
05:30 PM - 08:30 PM Bronc Alumni Party
When the workday is over, it's time to unwind.
Join fellow alumni and friends for good conversation,
food, drinks, music, and door prizes
at the
Aloe King Farm
1947 Mile...
06:00 PM - 08:00 PM Join us for a celebration of FESTIBA 2013 authors, presenters, and participants, including a showcase of UT Pan American faculty authors signing their new books. Faculty with recent book publications... | {
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IT shops running Windows Server 2012’s RemoteFX feature on AMD-based servers have a new update to download and apply.
Users running RemoteFX — the protocol used in Remote Desktop instances — in Hyper-V on a Windows Server 2012 machine might have encountered poor graphics performance when enabling the RemoteFX feature. Microsoft said the cause of the issue had to do with Hyper-V incorrectly configuring the Page Address Table (PAT) cache type on AMD machines.
Admins can download the hotfix if they are affected by the issue by visiting Microsoft’s website.
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About This Blog
The Windows Server Notebook features news and commentary on a variety of Windows technologies. Here’s your chance to learn about and weigh in on the latest Microsoft releases and strategies. | {
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Friday, September 30, 2011
Now, when you read that title up there, you have to do it in your best Al Pacino as Scarface voice.
Granted my "li'l friend" isn't as deadly as a machine gun, but it's going to be my weapon of choice in the attack against my kitchen chairs.
With all the turns and grooves in these chairs brushing would have been a nightmare. Surely I would have used at least four cans of spray paint per chair ~ and there's six of them.
My dear, sweet Hubby bought this spray gun that can be used with our air compressor a few weeks ago upon my request . . . okay pleading.
But the darn weather here, for what seems like almost two weeks, has been so lousy. Not good painting weather at all. It's been damp and rainy. And when it's not been raining, the humidity's been like 300%.
Finally a break! Today is clear, and not near as humid. This weekend, and into next week, are supposed to be much better than it's been. So now I have no excuse. I'll be spending some time this weekend deep cleaning the dirt and grime off these chairs, lightly sanding and priming in prep for the paint. | {
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Fred wrote:I have no idea if Garrison is a good pick up or not ? time will tell. Remember a defenseman we got from Tallon before, the maidens pray answered....Ballard. Gillis I like but I'm thinking Tallon is better
You'd have to be a moron not to realize that it would not be peachy environment if Lou was still in the picture come next season, not when you peel away all that thin layer of professionalism and phoney talk with the media. Lou wants out people, wants to move on, a fresh start, a new beginning. He will put on that prototypical brave face and small talk but beneath all that, his heart left this city when he was benched for Ginger in the L.A. playoff series. Do you want that negativeness in the room? How happy will he be, donning a jersey he knows that eventually he won't be wearing anymore while that lame ass Gillis is working the phones trying to trade him. I will commend that brave face that Lou will put on if he is still around cause ya know he will for he is a class act, but beneath all that, he won't be happy.
Haha, looks like you thought I was calling you out, Big Fella, but I thought it was obvious that I was talking about a certain leather-pants wearing radio hack that has an annoying fucking tendency to TALK IN ALL CAPS when he posts here. We'll get back to Mr. Bikelane Crisis in a second.
As for the title, thanks, but you're way off base. If you were familiar with my posting history - both here and the now non-existant ones at Central - you'd find that I certainly tend to give Gillis the benefit of the doubt, but I'm hardly "Gillis Apologost no. 1".
The guy has made some mistakes - all GM's do - but two President's Trophies in a row and an SCF game 7 loss does indicate to me that the guy is somewhere above the level of "hack" or "lame ass", which is certainly where you seem to categorize him.
As for Luongo, clearly Gillis - along with all the rest of us - would prefer to have him start the year on another team. That's very obviously preference number one.
But when you have a guy like Luongo on the trading block, well, a guy like that doesn't come around too often. It's like selling a $30M penthouse - it's a select market, so you have to patient in finding a proper fit in the buyer.
This is a game of chicken, and so far Gillis is playing it just fine. He's waiting for the right offer on the penthouse. So far, he's getting lowball offers. Because the prospective buyers aren't wanting to pay the proper price...yet.
But GMMG can wait. We have the cap space, and we have a great bunch with really great chemistry. Luongo partly lost his job here because he's got female troubles and he needs to get closer to home - that's not a factor that the Canucks control.
So long as he and Gillis are on the same page of scratching each other's backs - ie. Luo giving more than one destination and MG making an honest effort to move the guy - I couldn't disagree more with your drama queen shit above and I'll say it's not going to be a problem...internally at least.
The press in this town, however, already have their clubs picked out with which they will beat the living fuck out of this horse. They will kill it and then continue to beat it like Michael fucking Jackson.
THAT WAS MY ORIGINAL POINT.
They will pound this day and night. And you know that eventually, it WILL become a problem. That's why it's likely that the grace period will run out by around Xmas time.
Assuming, of course, that that's after 3 months of actual hockey. Keep in mind that w the expiring CBA, we may not even see a puck drop before New Year's regardless, so all of this hand-wringing may be for naught anyway. Gillis may actually have untill March or something.
You'd have to be a moron not to realize that it would not be peachy environment if Lou was still in the picture come next season, not when you peel away all that thin layer of professionalism and phoney talk with the media. Lou wants out people, wants to move on, a fresh start, a new beginning. He will put on that prototypical brave face and small talk but beneath all that, his heart left this city when he was benched for Ginger in the L.A. playoff series. Do you want that negativeness in the room? How happy will he be, donning a jersey he knows that eventually he won't be wearing anymore while that lame ass Gillis is working the phones trying to trade him. I will commend that brave face that Lou will put on if he is still around cause ya know he will for he is a class act, but beneath all that, he won't be happy.
Haha, looks like you thought I was calling you out, Big Fella, but I thought it was obvious that I was talking about a certain leather-pants wearing radio hack that has an annoying fucking tendency to TALK IN ALL CAPS when he posts here. We'll get back to Mr. Bikelane Crisis in a second.
As for the title, thanks, but you're way off base. If you were familiar with my posting history - both here and the now non-existant ones at Central - you'd find that I certainly tend to give Gillis the benefit of the doubt, but I'm hardly "Gillis Apologost no. 1".
The guy has made some mistakes - all GM's do - but two President's Trophies in a row and an SCF game 7 loss does indicate to me that the guy is somewhere above the level of "hack" or "lame ass", which is certainly where you seem to categorize him.
As for Luongo, clearly Gillis - along with all the rest of us - would prefer to have him start the year on another team. That's very obviously preference number one.
But when you have a guy like Luongo on the trading block, well, a guy like that doesn't come around too often. It's like selling a $30M penthouse - it's a select market, so you have to patient in finding a proper fit in the buyer.
This is a game of chicken, and so far Gillis is playing it just fine. He's waiting for the right offer on the penthouse. So far, he's getting lowball offers. Because the prospective buyers aren't wanting to pay the proper price...yet.
But GMMG can wait. We have the cap space, and we have a great bunch with really great chemistry. Luongo partly lost his job here because he's got female troubles and he needs to get closer to home - that's not a factor that the Canucks control.
So long as he and Gillis are on the same page of scratching each other's backs - ie. Luo giving more than one destination and MG making an honest effort to move the guy - I couldn't disagree more with your drama queen shit above and I'll say it's not going to be a problem...internally at least.
The press in this town, however, already have their clubs picked out with which they will beat the living fuck out of this horse. They will kill it and then continue to beat it like Michael fucking Jackson.
THAT WAS MY ORIGINAL POINT.
They will pound this day and night. And you know that eventually, it WILL become a problem. That's why it's likely that the grace period will run out by around Xmas time.
Assuming, of course, that that's after 3 months of actual hockey. Keep in mind that w the expiring CBA, we may not even see a puck drop before New Year's regardless, so all of this hand-wringing may be for naught anyway. Gillis may actually have untill March or something.
.By Ryan Lambert .PostsWebsiteEmailRSS .By Ryan Lambert | Puck Daddy – Mon, Aug 6, 2012 10:13 AM EDT....Email.....Getty ImagesHello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.
There is little doubt that Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillis would very much prefer to move Roberto Luongo for obvious reasons.
Luongo simply cannot any longer be seen as a viable option after he was repeatedly sat in favor of Cory Schneider in the playoffs last season, and has been routinely disquieted by trade rumors. He's expensive. He's signed long-term. He might not be as good as the Schneider. Everyone on earth expects that he will be traded before the season starts.
But the longer this summer rolls on, the stranger the scenario seems to be. Back in June, there were several teams mentioned in connection with Luongo's services, but that number has slowly been whittled away to just one: Florida. And yet there seems to be less movement now than there was even into July. We're now past 100 days of this saga.
Earlier in the week, we were told that Gillis has a very specific directive for Florida: Give us Nick Bjugstad. Florida has repeatedly denied that request, and so we wait.
The interesting thing is that Gillis has repeatedly said he was more than willing to enter next season with both Luongo and Schneider remaining as his goaltending tandem. The idea was probably first bandied about on the Canucks' getaway day, and earned a few guffaws from those who couldn't possibly imagine such a scenario because, y'know, come on. They had to trade him because… well, they just had to do it, right?
But now it's early August, and it's getting harder and harder to disbelieve him. Uncomfortable for pretty much everyone involved? Sure. But he's not in the position that Scott Howson was with Rick Nash.
"We're listening," Gillis told NHL.com. "We have been listening to teams that are interested in acquiring him. If we get what we think the value is there we'll trade him. I don't have a timetable. In fact, in hockey things can change in five minutes with one phone call. It's unrealistic to put a timetable on it."
Gillis can sit back and wait for the Panthers to come to him on this. With or without Luongo, his team can still end the regular season No. 1 in the Western Conference as they have the last two seasons. His team isn't the one with the need, but is Florida ready to enter another season with Jose Theodore and Scott Clemmensen between the pipes, especially given how teams in their division have improved in this offseason? Can they count on another freakishly bad Washington team scraping along all year?
Dale Tallon may love what Bjugstad brings to his organization, but does he love it more than a significantly improved chance to make the playoffs for the second consecutive season? That's what Gillis is counting on, and he's no dummy. This is the guy who artificially drove up Cody Hodgson's trade value with favorable zone starts for weeks in an effort to work a more advantageous deal for himself.
Everyone is aware that the Canucks don't especially want Luongo on the roster, and if a team really does, then they're going to have to come to heel and acquiesce to Gillis' demands. As with most Canucks trades, he's running this beautifully. It's likely that no one involved would actually be happy to have Luongo back at Canucks training camp next month, but at the same time, it also wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for that team either.
I have to agree with this guy. I believe that Gillis holds all of the cards.
Fred wrote: One thing for sure MG will be for ever judged by this trade
I will forever put Gillis in the Jack Gordon category of the worse GM's this team has ever seen. His trade record is fucking awful, and I am pretty much resided with the fact that the Luongo trade will be along the same lines of terribleness for this organization. For Gillis to get back in my good books he will have to rid this team of David Booth, Keith Ballard and Manny Malhotra.
"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate
We've seen what a GM has to do to get in your good books (fail to land a player via offer sheet, sign the best player at his position in UFA to a contract that looks awful already after a year, deal away the two missing pieces for a Stanley cup winner).. It doesn't really seem to have any connection to being a successful GM.
dbr wrote:We've seen what a GM has to do to get in your good books (fail to land a player via offer sheet, sign the best player at his position in UFA to a contract that looks awful already after a year, deal away the two missing pieces for a Stanley cup winner).. It doesn't really seem to have any connection to being a successful GM.
What's your point danbobrob?
"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate
But there is nothing he could have done about Malhotra's injury. He was ripping it up (by defensive forward standards) before he got hurt.
I'll agree that players making 4+ million formerly out of Florida have failed to produce. I'll also agree that Kassian has so far been useless. Booth and Ballard are particularly atrocious additions.
But the time to assess Gillis' performance is not now. Unless of course you go off of the fact that his teams have been BAR NONE the most successful Canucks teams in the 40 year history.
Sure he didn't acquire Sedins, Burrows, Luongo, Kesler, Schneider...but he also didn't trade any of them. And he resigned some of them. Credit has to be given maintaining, cultivating and developing a team. Before Gillis, they were soft pansies who hadn't made it out of the second round in 13 seasons. He's been above average that's for sure.
dbr wrote:We've seen what a GM has to do to get in your good books (fail to land a player via offer sheet, sign the best player at his position in UFA to a contract that looks awful already after a year, deal away the two missing pieces for a Stanley cup winner).. It doesn't really seem to have any connection to being a successful GM.
What's your point danbobrob?
Well, beyond the point that being in your good books means sweet fuck all...
I was not saying that the tradeing of Luongo will be the only measure of his success as a GM but he will be remembered by it. If he fails to get a meaningful piece back or fails to move him ( and lets not pretend MG is happy to go along with Luo + Schneider ) then it will be a black mark in his ledger
While I agree and I'm guessing that everyone from Aquaman to the stickboy agree, we've been one of the top teams for a few years. I'm still amazed how everyone is griping about Gillis. He's held this team together, created the first 'culture of winning' in this team's history, won 2 President's Cups and seen his team lose the eventual Cup winners for the past 3 seasons.
We all know that winning the Cup is a huge achievement (toughest trophy in all of sports, etc), but apparently getting damned close counts for nothing around here. I'm happy with Gillis, and although I don't agree with all of his moves, he has helped to establish this team as a true contender for a number of years. As a fan, I'm much happier with that than the previous years of worrying if we'll even make the playoffs.
I'm guessing that when we do win a Cup, some people will bitch that it wasn't a sweep. | {
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Netflix May Be A More Popular Network Than FX
While Netflix didn't have the greatest year in 2011, they're still a major force to be reckoned with in the entertainment world. They're still the name probably most associated with both "DVDs by mail" and with online streaming of movies and TV content. They're producing original content with gusto, with their first show set to premiere this February. So just how big is Netflix these days? The rental service says (via Deadline) that its 20 million streaming subscribers "in 45 countries watched more than 2 billion hours of movies and TV shows in [the] last three months of 2011." If those numbers are accurate, that makes Netflix the 15th most popular TV network in the U.S., beating out both FX and the History Channel.
BTIG research analyst Rich Greenfield said that, "Netflix streaming usage is exploding and is far, far bigger than traditional media executives give it credit for.” That's not surprising, since the last two decades have been an ongoing exercise in traditional media underestimating the impact of the internet. Greenfield's claim is supported by data from the consulting firm Deloitte, who released an annual study listing several statistics that will likely make many cable and network execs break out in a cold sweat. Forty-two percent of surveyed consumers had streamed a movie over the internet in the preceding six months, versus 32% in 2010. Twenty-two percent watched a TV show via a free online service in the past year (it's unclear if Netflix, which charges a monthly subscription for its streaming service, would be included as "free"). And nine percent said they had canceled their cable or satellite service because of the ease of watching most programs online.
Whatever else you have to say about Netflix's business decisions, they've clearly still got a much bigger slice of the pie than many thought. Those numbers will be crucial as they roll out more original programming, such as House of Cards, Eli Roth's Hemlock Grove, and even the new episodes of Arrested Development. This is unexplored territory, but if they can translate a significant portion of their audience into fans of those shows, if the shows are good, and if Netflix provides its creative partners with as much or more freedom as the cable networks, Netflix will be even more of a threat to traditional networks. And I say, bring it on. | {
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WE'VE MOVED!
As part of our big, new redesign of the Alliance for Justice website, theJustice Watchblog has moved. To be sure you're getting all the latest news about the fight for a fairer America, visit us atwww.afj.org/blog
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The House Judiciary Committee just wrapped up its two and a half year investigation into the improper firings of nine United States Attorneys. Recently released documents and an article in today’s Washington Post detail the 2006 firing of David C. Iglesias, U.S. Attorney of New Mexico. Emails and transcripts of closed-door testimony by former Bush counsel — and former Supreme Court nominee — Harriet Meirs, and political rainmaker Karl Rove detail a calculated effort to get rid of career attorneys who failed to tow the party line.
Iglesias was ousted after state GOP and Republican members of the Congressional delegation were angered when Iglesias failed to pursue cases against Democrats before the 2006 elections. E-mails detail lengthy communications between lawyers and aides within the White House over Iglesias' failure to initiate public corruption suits. Meirs told Committee investigators that she was contacted by an "agitated" Rove in September of 2006 about Iglesias' slow pace. Rove described him as a "serious problem" and said he wanted "something done" about it. GOP figures in New Mexico thought that an investigation could help then-Republican Representative Heather Wilson win re-election. Rove and Meirs deny any wrongdoing. Ultimately, Alberto Gonzales and his deputy Kyle Sampson resigned—due in part to the public uproar over the politicized firings at the Department of Justice.
What happened to these U.S. Attorneys was wrong. The Bush White House blurred the line between serving justice and playing politics. Decisions were made with an eye towards the next election, and life-long careers were taken down in its pursuit. Thankfully, President Obama has promised to restore justice to the Department of Justice. While Obama cannot undo this past injustice, he can move forward with a renewed effort to flesh out bad acts so that the public can again trust its government.
This is taking place at the same time as the new Attorney General, Eric Holder, is investigating the policy-driven legal conclusions made by lawyers within the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. Many suspect that these lawyers drafted memos authorizing the use of torture well after the Bush White House had already approved its use. As the investigation into the U.S. Attorneys’ firing shows, without an effort to get to the truth, retrenched political interests will evade justice. And, in the case of U.S. approved torture, too much is at stake to not fully investigate the circumstances surrounding what can only amount to a full-scale breakdown of justice. | {
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Al Qaeda suspects held in Spain
Alleged hijack leader Atta is believed to have visited Salou, near the arrest scene
MADRID, Spain (CNN) --Spanish police have arrested two men near Barcelona with suspected links to the al Qaeda terrorist network, a government official told CNN.
The suspects had been sought by a Spanish judge in connection with a terrorist crackdown last November that resulted in the arrests of eight men believed to have direct links to al Qaeda, the network led by suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
A government statement identified the men as Najib Chaib-Mohamed, 35, from Morocco, and Atmane Resali, 31, from Algeria.
The men were arrested shortly after noon in the Barcelona suburb of Hospitalet de Llobregat and charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation.
VIDEO
Two of the men arrested in England are accused of having ties with al Qaeda. CNN's Jim Boulden reports (January 18)
Chaib-Mohamed and Resali shared an apartment in Madrid with one of the leading suspects in the November roundup, according to the Spanish government.
They fled from Madrid after the roundup and headed to Hospitalet de Llobregat to stay with a relative. Police had been staking out the relative's house before making the arrests, the Spanish government said.
Spanish authorities believe Mohammad Atta, the accused ringleader of the September 11 hijackers, visited the beachfront town of Salou, about an hour's drive from where Saturday's arrests occurred. U.S. authorities believe Atta piloted the first jet that crashed into the World Trade Center.
Shortly after the terror attacks in September, Spanish authorities arrested six Algerians on charges related to terrorist activities, but not directly linked to al Qaeda.
Spanish officials are investigating sleeper terrorist cells in Spain believed to be operating on the fringes of larger terrorist networks.
The arrests came as police in the UK were given more time to question nine men arrested in Britain's biggest sweep against suspected terrorists since September 11.
Officers continued to search one property in Leicester, central England, following raids on Thursday that saw eight people arrested under Britain's Terrorism Act.
A ninth man was arrested in London on Friday. All nine are being held in Leicester.
On Friday evening a magistrate issued a warrant allowing police to hold and question the men, aged between 20 and 40, without charge until Monday. Under the Terrorism Act, police can obtain warrants to question suspects for up to seven days without charge.
Leicestershire police told CNN that over two days 17 people had been arrested, nine under the Terrorism Act and another eight -- six men and two women -- under the Immigration Act.
UK police have been out on the streets of Leicester quizzing local residents
The arrests came after specialist teams completed searches at six addresses in Leicester and one in London.
Two Algerian men also remained in custody on Saturday, charged with membership of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network.
They were charged on Thursday, the first time British authorities had charged anyone with membership of the outlawed group blamed for the September 11 suicide attacks since it was put on a list of proscribed groups.
They are being held in custody until their next court appearance on January 24.
The authorities have been aware of possible al Qaeda activity in Leicester, 100 miles (160 kms) north of London.
Djamel Beghal, a 35-year-old French-Algerian held in Paris in connection with a plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy, reportedly told investigators that he had recruited supporters at mosques in Leicester and London.
Police said this week's arrests were part of a European anti-terrorist investigation and were not directly linked to the events of September 11. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
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It isn’t a yes or no answer, it’s about how much
Supporters of the consensus are strangely attached to asking people if they believe in climate change. Ignoring the issue of ‘climate change’ instead of ‘CAGW’, the answer is irrelevant. People think they believe in all sorts of things but what they do is the measure of how much.
To explain, it’s easier to use another issue like poverty.
Do you believe in poverty?
What a stupid question, of course we all believe in poverty.Do you think poverty should be eradicated?
Certainly.Give us a fiver.
What for?To alleviate poverty.
Well ok, so long as you’re a proper charity.Now fill out this direct debit for £5 a month.
Umm, not sure I like that sort of giving.This is for poverty.
So long as you don’t fritter it on directors’ salaries and big offices. It’s not one of those things where the charity doesn’t get a penny until the chugger fee has been paid is it?I’m a professional, you don’t need to worry that I have a financial interest in poverty.
Err? Ok then.Excellent, you’re the first person today who really cares about the poor. Now write a blank cheque.
What? No way.Why not? You said you wanted poverty to go away. Did you think a fiver a month would do it?
Well no, but I assumed you’d be asking lots of people to donate.Oh we will, but firstly we don’t know what the final cost will be and secondly we don’t know how many others will donate. That’s why we need the blank cheque, so we can fill it in at a later date.
But the final sum might be massive and I might be the only one to write a cheque! I’m not giving all my money away. Anyway, who are you? I want to see some ID…So you don’t believe in eradicating poverty?
There’s a lot going on in that scenario. Even though poverty is absolutely genuine and provable, support for reducing it isn’t unconditional. The higher the cost to the individual, the more doubtful the person becomes. If the charity worker had been collecting for Guillain-Barre syndrome or rhinitis or Oompa Lumpa disease, the member of the public might have even balked at the initial £5. They might have questioned what the diseases were, what the money would be for and if they wanted to contribute at all. None of the concerns by the person being asked to donate were unreasonable. That person wasn’t in denial of the reality of poverty. The person might even have said that they didn’t think that charity solves poverty and there would be merit in that viewpoint too.
So asking people if they believe in climate change is the easiest step on a very steep climb. If you’re only asking for a tick in a box or £5, then a lot of people would just err on the side of safety (assuming CAGW is real and that renewables would make a difference). However, CO2 reduction is a lot more than that. It’s an issue that will affect everything. The costs for solving it would be immense in both money and freedom. Why then are consensus supporters so shocked when people start asking questions? The first and most obvious being ‘are you sure?’ and the second ‘how much is this going to cost?’
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118 thoughts on “It isn’t a yes or no answer, it’s about how much”
This is a good point, and a nice way to illustrate it.
If you ask people “are you concerned about climate change” the average person will of course say yes, as it’s the “correct” answer, the answer that the interviewer wants to hear. If you ask people “Are you concerned about the starving children in Bambiniland, yes or no?” or “Do you care about the dwindling population of the lesser Patagonian fruit bat?” you will get the answer you want. Brandon Shollenberger has made this point a few times in relation to climate opinion.
But if you give people a list of priorities and ask them to rank them, climate change usually comes very low. Here is the latest example. Only 6% of Canadians put climate change as the top priority, below 6 other issues starting with jobs and health.
Yes Paul, the clues are all there, I can’t understand why the consensus side don’t see the wider picture. We had the early stages of the climate alarm conversation back in 2005 or beyond. People were alerted to the issue and rightfully became concerned. All the initial suggestions for reducing CO2 seemed reasonable and the cause seemed legit. People wanted to know how worried they needed to be and how much it was going to cost them.
Instead of the evidence getting stronger it has gone very vague and relies heavily on models or digital guessing as I’d call it. The solutions are dire, both expensive and unreliable. All indications are that they’re not going to do more than absorb money. The emphasis has been on business doing most of the work, which is naive in the extreme.
When a survey of people indicates that people believe in climate change, it lulls the consensus supporters into thinking that their tactics are working so they assume that more of the same will bear fruit. Hence the Consensus papers.
I agree, the question is not whether climate change is real or whether humans contribute. Those are no-brainers. The questions are how much? What will the feedbacks be? Are there any explanations for natural causes of the warming we’re seeing? And so on.
I’m guessing none of you have bothered reading the IPCC reports, any of the relevant literature, or spoken with many people who work in climate science. Keep asking those questions though. Maybe one day someone will give you the answer you want to hear.
[Carry on making a fool of yourself with your clueless guesswork Mr “Physics”. I have written loads of articles based on the IPCC reports.]
Re: GP vs ATTP: Yes, I read something relevant pretty much every day. A consensus exists that Earth warmed and might be continuing to warm or will resume warming and might even begin cooling although that’s a bit less likely. That’s the easy part.
During my Navy days the equivalent “litmus test” of whether you are a human being not to be shunned was “do you believe in God?”
It is very easy to say “yes” because until it means something it means nothing. It is equally easy to say “no” because until it means something it means nothing.
It’s always been a question of ‘how much’. The IPCC say ‘this much [extremely likely all of it] since 1950’ based on a very unscientific and non-empirical attribution process. The IPCC say ‘this much’ in the future, based upon model projections which they have so much faith in they won’t even hazard a best estimate for a single value climate sensitivity, preferring instead to say it could be anywhere between ‘nothing much to worry about’ and catastrophic meltdown. Meanwhile, in the real world, real science and real observations bring into question the IPCC attribution statement because of uncertainties about aerosols and the influence of natural variability; real global mean temperatures stubbornly bump along the near the bottom of the graph of projected multi-model temperatures, and empirically derived estimates of climate sensitivity tend to support a non-alarmist position on climate change. All this inconvenient scientific research and data however is bull-dozed away by the 97% consensus pushers in order to try and force international agreement on urgent mitigation measures which may be unnecessary and are certainly economically, socially and environmentally very damaging.
“The first and most obvious being ‘are you sure?’ and the second ‘how much is this going to cost?”
TinyCO2, I believe you hit the nail squarely with the hammer. I was initially attracted to investigate the CAGW movement for 2 reasons: 1) Someone in my pedigree, who is a world class, statistical meteorologist, related to me in the late 1990s how depressing the field of meteorology had become because of the bogus CO2 global-warming- alarmism; i.e., ‘uncertainty’; and 2) Cap and trade, carbon credits, ethanol, auto industry and emission standards, etc., all co-opted by politics, made me realize that ‘Big Money’ was an underlying issue; i.e., ‘my wallet was in play’. And the more I investigated, the more I became a non-believer.
After closely following CAGW for circa 20 years, my conclusions are:
1) Uncertainty – I don’t believe anyone in the Climate World has a clue what the future has in store regarding ‘Climate Change’. The only people who seem to be able to offer reasonable forecasting results in the short term are meteorologists who possess abundant knowledge of weather history. The long term though remains a major unknown.
2) My Wallet – There is no question in my mind that CAGW politics has already cost me many thousands of dollars, and the future is scary if the Democrats remain in power in my country USA). And the ‘Big Money’ scammers (like Al Gore) and scams in CAGW are boundless, such as:http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/sunedison-bankruptcy-exposes-climate-change-corruption/
It’s also discussed in his book The Climate Fix, which I regret I haven’t read. From the comments on the book,“He proposes an “iron law of climate policy” that basically says that no climate policies that cause substantial, immediate economic pain will ever be implemented.”“Pielke discusses the concept of an “iron law of climate policy,” which essentially acknowledges that any policy that might be construed to cause short-term adverse economic impact cannot be implemented.”
Jaime,
So, they have told you how sure they are and how much is anthropogenic, but it’s not good enough. So, the question you are really asking is: “are you sure….are you sure you’re sure….really, are you certain you’re sure…..okay, but how sure are you …. that much, no come on, are you really that sure….no, I don’t believe you!”
So, the question you are really asking is: “are you sure there will be more hurricanes and tornadoes (as numbers continue to FALL)….are you sure you’re sure that the Stratosphere will cool per the theory (as it continues to warm)….really, are you certain you’re sure that the Antarctic is melting down (as even Zwally says it is gaining mass)…..okay, but how sure are you that droughts will get worse (as papers come out saying they will not get worse) …. that much, no come on, are you really that sure that plants will be stressed to death by heat (as papers come out which show they soak up more CO2 in warmer conditions, thereby more efficiently using water, thereby becoming more drought resistant)….no, I don’t believe you! (and I am right to think so!)”
ATTP, I have read AR4 and AR5 WG1 and WG2 cover to cover, and have written extensively about my findings using peer reviewed papers, and other verifiable footnoted information.
The short answers are not nearly as certain as IPCC claimed, the anthropogenic attribution has already observationally failed, and climate models have failed. For an AR4 WG1 example of shoddy, selection biased meta analysis see the water vapor feedback discussion in the climate chapter of The Arts of Truth. For an AR4 WG2 example of deliberate indisputable IPCC misrepresentation compounding a single very bad paper, see essay No Bodies in Blowing Smoke. For an example of faith based science in AR5, see essay Cloudy Clouds. And so on and on and on and on. Both ebooks are available at iBooks or Amazon Kindle stores. Go educate yourself.
It seems my explanation of why we should not blindly place our trust in IPCC ‘scientific’ conclusions was lost on our Ken, who chose to interpret it as little old me just saying ‘I don’t believe what the IPCC says’. So, I’ll quote respected physicist Pierre Darriulat, former Research Director of CERN in that case, who gives a rather more technical and far more qualified insight into the way the IPCC deals with uncertainty:
“It is sensible to ask for a scientific summary of the IPCC work, not addressing policy makers but as objective as possible a summary of the present status of our knowledge and ignorance about climate science. Such a report must refrain from ignoring basic scientific practices, as the SPM authors blatantly do when claiming to be able to quantify with high precision their confidence in the impact of anthropogenic C02 emissions on global warming. Statistical uncertainties, inasmuch as they are normally distributed, can be quantified with precision and it can make sense to distinguish between a 90% and a 95% probability, for example in calculating the probability of getting more than ten aces when throwing a die more than 10 times. In most physical problems, however, and particularly in climate science, statistical uncertainties are largely irrelevant. What matters are systematic uncertainties that result in a large part from our lack of understanding of the mechanisms at play, and also in part from the lack of relevant data.”http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/4360
TinyCO2
You raise some good points – and some I disagree with.
Rather than looking at the problem of alleviating poverty from the perspective of an outsider, try questioning it from the perspective as somebody who wants to get the maximum relief of poverty for the a finite amount of money. After all there are still nearly a billion people globally living in abject poverty, and a few billion more at below the British definition of the poverty line.
Given this you would want to see the most effect solutions sought. You would want to replicate successes and learn from failures. You would properly control of any money raised and make sure it is focused on the most effective solutions, in the areas of greatest need. Where you were funding others, you would want to make sure that was properly controlled. If you wanted to raise the maximum funds, you would register as a charity, and clearly adhere to rigorous audit guidelines.
But even more importantly there would have to be an element of ruthlessness. Projects that fail to deliver positive results would have to be cut, so resources can be redirected elsewhere. And if you have to spend most of the resources of insubstantial image-making and fund-raising then it is time to shut up shop and let others have a go.
To be effective would require proper understanding of the reasons for continued poverty, and the reasons why countries, or groups of people, have climbed out of poverty. Swallowing whole the opinions of others, simply because they claim competency, or because they accord with your own outlook, is a route to failure. For a charity this is to focus on very specific projects where detailed understanding can be obtained.
ATTP,
there is good reason to believe that the IPCC has underestimated both the uncertainties and the natural contribution to recent warming in such statements. For a good summary about uncertainties, see Curry 2011. For reasons to believe a more significant natural contribution to the recent warming, see
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Just,
I’ll just respond to one. Consider Lean et al. (1995). It says maybe half the warming since 1860 could be the Sun, and a third since 1970. However, according to their reconstruction, the change in solar forcing might be as much as 0.5W/m^2. The change in anthropogenic forcing up till that point was maybe 1.5W/m^2, so that the solar influence could be quite large, relative to us, is not a surprise and I don’t think this is being ignored. Also, if you assume that the Sun provided half of the 0.55C warming, that produces a TCR of about 2C, so right in line with expectations. Today, however, the change in solar forcing since 1750 is now much smaller (0.05W/m^2) and yet we continue to warm. So, I don’t think Lean et al. (1995) is somehow at odds with our overall understanding.
Nevertheless the results confirm previous analyses showing that greenhouse gas increases explain most of the global warming observed in the second half of the twentieth century.
It’s quite possible (likely, in fact) that we will modify our understanding. Nobody is claiming that it’s fixed in stone. However, if you spend some more time reading the literature, or talking to experts, you will probably find that there is little evidence to suggest that we are likely to suddenly that solar influences are dominant and that the impact of anthropogenic forcings is somehow much smaller than we currently think.
ATTP, you miss the point, this isn’t about what scientists discuss amongst themselves, this is about the people they want to convince. Do you think the average person has read an IPCC report? Do you think the average politician has read an IPCC report let alone any updates? They get their information second, third, even fourth hand. For many people, climate change started with Al Gore’s movie. It was so clear and alarming. There was no outcry from scientists telling them that the movie was wrong on certain issues or that all of the effects come with a range of possibilities. If the worst case scenario was pushed at them, they expect it to happen. It’s no good saying that reality is covered by the very bottom of the range if they never got told there WAS a range. Telling them that there is a consensus endorses the version they’ve heard about, no matter how extreme.
A lot of people still think we’re on track for the most catastrophic version of AGW. Oxford educated actress EmmaThompson, thinks we’ll be 4ºC up by 2030 and so does BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis and her team because they didn’t question her claim. I know Dr Betts tried to put some sanity into the issue but it was too little, too late. When did the Union of Concerned Scientists ever move against an article or programme that was too extreme?
Scientists have been slow to emphasise the range because they like the pressure the upper end gave the issue. Well if you use it, you’ve bought it and you will be judged on it.
Tiny,
I don’t think I am missing the point, I just don’t think it’s a very good one. Whatever mis-information might be out there, you are responsible for the information you choose to accept, as are politicians, the media, etc. Blaming scientists for not always correcting things that you think should be corrected, is simply shifting the blame away from those who are really responsible for the positions they choose to hold.
The sinplest connection is that money IS freedom. But many of the things we now take for granted are not compatible with low energy and because there is no logical or affordable alternative to fossil fuels. Those things would have to be curtailed until there was. Climate change will be all about what you can and can’t do. Now maybe that’s necessary but to accept it, people have to agree that it is necessary. So far the public have been misled about the costs and the lack of success with existing renewables and policies. Not a good start for a project that requires massive amounts of trust.
ATTP and I think you have a very simplistic view of the world and human beings. People are the biggest part of AGW. You can make all the plans you like, think up all the theories you like but at the end of the day the public can say ‘get lost’. Blaming them for getting the wrong impression of the science is laughable. And pointless because it will still happen.
What is the point of all the science if the community CAN’T convey an accurate picture of itself to the public and politicians?
I think they are. It’s pretty clear that communicating science accurately and carefully does not guarantee acceptance of what is being presented. That the public and politicians do not necessarily accept what is being presented is not necessarily an indication that it is being presented badly. The deficit model has failed, remember.
What’s the point of a consensus vote if nobody knows what it is?
People do know what it is. Basically, it is “humans are causing global warming”.
You say ‘That the public and politicians do not necessarily accept what is being presented’
But this is not necessarily an accurate description of reality. The public and politicians may perfectly accept what is being presented. But it is in their ambit to decide what level, and what nature of response is the best course forward.
And most sceptics would agree with that but that’s not what the consensus is. The consensus is “humans are causing global warming and it’s going to be catastrophic and we must reduce CO2 to 350ppm at the most, by any means, even ones that demonstrably don’t work as a reliable energy source. Cost is no object when the risk is this high.”
There are both scientists and non scientists pushing the second version of the consensus. Other scientists and non scientists would have a problem with some or all of the extra bits. Is it the public’s fault for getting the second message, not the first? Is it their fault when they question the extra bits that they also reject the real consensus?
Climate scientists don’t want the responsibility of telling the public what to do but they reserve the right to tell everyone that they’ve got it wrong. By and large the public are putting climate change last in their list of priorities – that IS a decision. If you want to make them change their mind you have to prove things to their standards, not your own. If you throw your hands up and decide that they’ll never change their mind, then that’s your level of support for the issue. Perhaps if you cared more about climate change, you’d want to try anyhting that might work, rather than keep doing it your way?
“humans are causing global warming and it’s going to be catastrophic and we must reduce CO2 to 350ppm at the most, by any means, even ones that demonstrably don’t work as a reliable energy source. Cost is no object when the risk is this high.”
Perhaps if you cared more about climate change, you’d want to try anyhting that might work, rather than keep doing it your way?
I’m simply a scientist. I don’t claim to know how to get people to accept the science, how to get people to act on climate, or even if that is something that I should really be doing. All I try to do is explain it as clearly as I can. I may not even succeed in doing that. What people choose to do, given that information, is up to them.
It doesn’t matter what the consensus IS, the version I gave is the one one that is used.
When I write about caring, I’m not just talking about you, I’m talking about the consensus side in general. What you’re doing isn’t really working. You may be cheered by Paris or not. If it was me I’d be worried. I’d be worried about the failure of renewables and declining governmental support of them. Governments are playing at CO2 reduction, not taking it seriously. They’re counting on a technological breakthrough. Well if that’s enough, let’s just wait for the breakthrough and stop wittering on about CO2 in the interim. If a bit of effort is enough, then work out how much everyone has to do and tell them. Let them decide how they get there or if they want to get there at all.
Alternatively if you (the consensus side) want more engagement, you have to stop acting like climate science is still in the lab.
I’ll just respond to one. Consider Lean et al. (1995). It says maybe half the warming since 1860 could be the Sun, and a third since 1970. However, according to their reconstruction, the change in solar forcing might be as much as 0.5W/m^2. The change in anthropogenic forcing up till that point was maybe 1.5W/m^2, so that the solar influence could be quite large, relative to us, is not a surprise and I don’t think this is being ignored. Also, if you assume that the Sun provided half of the 0.55C warming, that produces a TCR of about 2C, so right in line with expectations. Today, however, the change in solar forcing since 1750 is now much smaller (0.05W/m^2) and yet we continue to warm. So, I don’t think Lean et al. (1995) is somehow at odds with our overall understanding.
There’s a lot to respond to in there! The reason that the authors think this about the solar contribution, I believe, is that they use the Hoyt and Schatten data set, as well as ACRIM’s, and I believe the IPCC doesn’t. If they did, they would find a different solar contribution, but it’s my understanding that they use something like Wang et al. 2005’s reconstruction, and if that reconstruction is accurate it makes sense that solar activity probably contributed very little to recent climate change. About the TCR, I think it is probably slightly lower than that, perhaps about 1.5 C (in line with some recent studies), and since I have heard this brought up before in regards to solar forcing I shall try to explain it again. I think that the reason the lower TCR is compatible with large solar forcing is that there is just a lot of solar forcing due to a solar amplification mechanism. I think two great papers on this topic demonstrating the large amplification are Shaviv 2008 and
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2/2 Howard et al. 2014. They demonstrate a large climatic response to the 11-year solar cycle (though it isn’t visible in global temperature observations very much, due to lag times and the huge capacity of the oceans to absorb heat). If there are amplification mechanisms in place, even little solar variations like those in Wang et al. 2005 could contribute at least more than they do now to climate change. Now, don’t get me wrong, as Stott et al. 2003 and Solanki et al. 2004 (Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years) say, solar activity probably wasn’t the main contributor to recent (1950s-present) climate change, and I think even Scafetta would acknowledge that. But, as other papers I linked to argued, there may be other natural mechanisms in place that could’ve caused a significant portion of recent warming.
It’s quite possible (likely, in fact) that we will modify our understanding. Nobody is claiming that it’s fixed in stone. However, if you spend some more time reading the literature, or talking to experts, you will probably find that there is little evidence to suggest that we are likely to suddenly that solar influences are dominant and that the impact of anthropogenic forcings is somehow much smaller than we currently think.
I appreciate your willingness to communicate (despite what many would’ve told me), and I think that is a reasonable position to take. However, I think that other natural forcings than solar variability played a somewhat important role in recent climate, in addition to a significant anthropogenic forcing, which includes (but isn’t limited to) greenhouse gases. If you would like me to list some more papers on natural variability other than solar forcing and their influences on recent climate change, I would be happy to. I think that you make a good suggestion though, and though I have read some of the IPCC report (AR5), I think it would do me good to read some more.
manicbeancounter, I don’t disagree with how you view poverty but that’s not how it’s handled by poverty activists. It gets wrapped up in idealism and practical solutions are ruled out. Climate change is not disimilar. It gets mixed up with anti capitalism, socialism, anti western success, old Christian views of right and wrong. No wonder the church has jumped on board. Where are they going to go if real poverty (not having food, water, shelter, etc) is mostly eradicated?
“manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus on climate change is one of the most effective means of reducing acceptance of climate change and support for mitigation policies”
Your quote isn’t a reason why people reject it.
jap,
I think that the reason the lower TCR is compatible with large solar forcing is that there is just a lot of solar forcing due to a solar amplification mechanism.
I’ve read some of Shaviv’s stuff and it appears to mostly be curve fitting and correlations/causation. People promote this idea of there being some kind of special solar amplification mechanism, but apart from suggesting that it might be clouds, or UV, noone seems to have demonstrated that it exists.
If the solar influence (either via energetic particles, or UV, or something else) is considerably stronger than we think and may dominate our observed warming, there are a number things to bear in mind.
1. We have yet to demonstrate that such a special solar amplification mechanism exists.
2. We would also need to show why our sensitivity to other forcings is smaller than we think – to a certain extent it would imply that the feedbacks to anthropogenic warming are zero, or negative, and this is very difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of the physical mechanisms that likely amplify externally-driven warming.
3. Why now? If we are indeed much more sensitive to changes in solar flux/energetic particles, why is it having a big impact now and yet there is little evidence for anything similar in the last few thousand years. I realise that we do have to be careful of correlation/causation issues, but why has the Sun suddenly started causing warming that just happens to coincide with our emitting of GHGs, which we know to have a radiative impact.
Consensus supporters regularly use ‘we must’. Even more popular is ‘they must’, by which they mean businesses.
Another favourite meme is that western countries take the lead on cutting CO2 but when I suggest that consensus supporters take the lead on their own, the enthusiasm fades away. Apparently 50% (or whatever) of the West can’t make a move without the other 50%.
Maybe the consensus side is made up of people who can’t visit a public loo on their own or something.
However, the sort of technique described in the paper is of limited effect. You can fool some of the people…
Mother Nature and climate change sceptics are involved in a cunning conspiracy against the warmists, most likely in a joint effort to derail vital carbon dioxide emissions reductions.
” Why now? If we are indeed much more sensitive to changes in solar flux/energetic particles, why is it having a big impact now and yet there is little evidence for anything similar in the last few thousand years. I realise that we do have to be careful of correlation/causation issues, but why has the Sun suddenly started causing warming that just happens to coincide with our emitting of GHGs, which we know to have a radiative impact.”
Tiny, no need to pretend. France runs on nuclear already. It has good solar resource too. It will need more of both to exit from fossils, but it s doable. More northerly countries like the UK will need much more nuclear.
MiaB, Nevada has problems becuase the incumbent utility is good at politics and protecting is monopoly profits, not because of any technological issue.
I’ve read some of Shaviv’s stuff and it appears to mostly be curve fitting and correlations/causation. People promote this idea of there being some kind of special solar amplification mechanism, but apart from suggesting that it might be clouds, or UV, noone seems to have demonstrated that it exists.
If the solar influence (either via energetic particles, or UV, or something else) is considerably stronger than we think and may dominate our observed warming, there are a number things to bear in mind.
1. We have yet to demonstrate that such a special solar amplification mechanism exists.
ATTP,
if you mean that no one has proved that a solar amplification mechanism exists, then you fall in the same trap as Jaime (on another thread.) But if you mean that there isn’t evidence in favor of it, you are dead wrong. Take these papers: Harrison and Stephenson 2006,
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jap,
If I’d wante to say “proved” I would have said “proved”. I haven’t looked at all your links, but is there any that isn’t simply an analysis that compares observations/measurements of cosmic rays and some kind of climate observation (temperature, for example)? If you really want to demonstrate some kind of special solar amplification mechanism, you do need more than just “we see a relationship between cosmis rays and …..”. You need to actually illustrate how this mechanism operates and that it can indeed do so. My understanding of the latest CERN-related experiments is that cosmic rays are unlikely to nucleate clouds.
2. We would also need to show why our sensitivity to other forcings is smaller than we think – to a certain extent it would imply that the feedbacks to anthropogenic warming are zero, or negative, and this is very difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of the physical mechanisms that likely amplify externally-driven warming.
I think this is definitely a legitimate point, and one that certainly deserves attention. However, I would like to point out the existence of negative feedbacks and problems determining feedbacks.
First of all, I want to talk about the difficulties in determining feedbacks. I would like to point out two papers on this topic:
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jap,
As far as I can tell Spencer and Braswell (2008) doesn’t make any sense. The standard form the 1D climate model is
where the left hand side is the planetary energy imbalance at time , is the forcing time series, and is the feedback response.
Spencer and Brasell (2008) have
where they say is the total TOA flux anomaly and is heating anomalies not related to TOA flux. But that doesn’t really make sense. The equation is meant to describe how the total energy is changing in the system, so you can’t have some internal energy process on the right-hand-side. That would suggest that something unrelated to a TOA flux can change the total energy, which seems to violate energy conservation.
[PM: This is complete rubbish. The equation is not meant to describe the total energy in the system. They say that T is “the temperature” when they introduce the equation, which is a bit vague, but earlier on they say “surface temperature (T)” which is a bit clearer. As usual, you show that you have no idea what you are talking about! ]
Choi et al. 2014. They argue that our current estimations of feedbacks may be significantly biased, and if they are, then that has implications for our understanding of climate change. Secondly, there are significant negative feedbacks to climate change. There’s the “iris hypothsis”, which garnered recent support from Mauritsen and Stevens 2015. There are papers on the eruption of volcanoes, and determining feedbacks from that, like Lindzen and Giannitsis 1998 (On the climatic implications of volcanic cooling), Douglass and Knox 2004 (Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo), and Douglass et al. 2006 (Thermocline flux exchange during the Pinatubo event). There’s mechanisms by which the Arctic becomes cloudier with less ice (Liu et al. 2012, A cloudier Arctic expected with diminishing sea ice) and by which less water vapor can enter the stratosphere in response to warming! (Garfinkel et al. 2013, Temperature trends in the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere: Connections with sea surface temperatures and implications for water vapor and ozone) What I mean is that, negative feedbacks are not inconsistent with what we know (though there are certainly positive feedbacks involved).
3. Why now? If we are indeed much more sensitive to changes in solar flux/energetic particles, why is it having a big impact now and yet there is little evidence for anything similar in the last few thousand years. I realise that we do have to be careful of correlation/causation issues, but why has the Sun suddenly started causing warming that just happens to coincide with our emitting of GHGs, which we know to have a radiative impact.
There are many, trust me, many papers demonstrating solar forcing, even driving of climate, over geological and shorter timescales.
ATTP,
though I don’t have the time right now to work out the more technical aspects of the paper, I can tell you that if it didn’t make any sense, it probably wouldn’t have made it into publication. But I can point you to a paper which suggests that global temperature change can result from something other than radiation balance changes: White et al. 2001.
If I’d wante to say “proved” I would have said “proved”. I haven’t looked at all your links, but is there any that isn’t simply an analysis that compares observations/measurements of cosmic rays and some kind of climate observation (temperature, for example)? If you really want to demonstrate some kind of special solar amplification mechanism, you do need more than just “we see a relationship between cosmis rays and …..”. You need to actually illustrate how this mechanism operates and that it can indeed do so. My understanding of the latest CERN-related experiments is that cosmic rays are unlikely to nucleate clouds.
There is such a paper, which gives a great summary of how the mechanism(s) operate and that they can operate. The paper is Cosmic Rays and Climate, in Surveys in Geophysics, written by Jasper Kirkby. On that note, I will tell you my interpretation of their major results in regards to cosmic rays.
Although we have
not yet duplicated the concentrations or complexities of atmospheric
organic vapours, we find that ion enhancement of nucleation occurs
for all temperatures, humidities and cluster compositions observed so
far. Ion-induced nucleation will manifest itself as a steady production
of new particles that is difficult to isolate in atmospheric observations
because of other sources of variability but is nevertheless taking place
and could be quite large when averaged globally over the troposphere.
The ion-induced contribution to amine ternary nucleation is gen-
erally small, except at low overall formation rates. Ions can enhance
nucleation either by an increased collision rate between a charged
cluster and polar molecules (such as H2SO4
or H2SO4 DMA) or by
an increased cluster binding energy (and hence decreased evaporation
rate). Because neutral clusters of H2SO4
and DMA are highly stable,
charge offers little competitive advantage. Taken together with pre-
vious CLOUD measurements
3, this suggests that ions can be signifi-
cant in atmospheric particle formation provided that the associated
neutral particles have appreciable evaporation and provided that the
overall nucleation rates are low and below the ion-pair production rate.
Recent experimental results and quantum chem-ical calculations have shown that amines andions can also effectively stabilize the sulfuricacid clusters, reducing evaporation rates andenhancing the nucleation rates at low H2SO4 concentrations (24,39,40). Thus, the dominant nucleation pathway may ultimately depend on the local atmospheric concentration of H2SO4, ions, and amines and on the concentration andfunctionalization of BioOxOrg, all of which vary considerably over time and space.
According to the physics section of their website, sulfuric acid is thought to be the main gas responsible for aerosol nucleation, (with contributions from ammonia, amines, and organics as well). According to Kirkby et al. 2011, ions (from cosmic rays) significantly enhance nucleation of both ammonia and sulfuric acid. So, the main gas responsible for aerosol particle formation is significantly influenced by cosmic rays, as well as ammonia. However, amines and biogenic vapors are not affected by cosmic rays very much, only at low formation rates. So, for a good summary, see the above quote from the end of Kirkby et al. 2011. It remains to be seen, of course, (but Svensmark et al. 2013 is about this) if these small, new particles can grow to clouds.
Since it occurs in the absence of extraterrestrial and anthropogenic forcing, global warming on decadal,
interdecadal, and centennial period scales may also occur in association with Earth’s internal modes of
climate variability on those scale
which is clearly true at some level. However, the paper was published in 2001, and we know have pretty good evidence that ocean heat content has been increasing. Therefore, it can’t simply be internally-driven warming or else we’d expect to see some reduction in energy somewhere, and that isn’t evident.
Going back to the Spencer paper, the term
is typically taken to be the planetary energy imbalance, therefore – by definition – it can’t be associated with internally-driven warming. If they want to define it as somehow differently and suggest that it represents a part of the climate system that could be warmed internally, then they really need to explain that and also explain where this energy is coming from.
Going back to cosmic-ray nucleation, I realise that there are papers proposing mechanisms, but my understanding is that these either haven’t been tested, or – if they have – the results are at best inconclusive.
[PM: Again, this is complete nonsense. If you have difficulty understanding what is, consult an undergraduate, who will tell you it’s the rate of change of T, multiplied by a constant! It doesn’t have to be “typically taken” as anything at all, certainly not the “planetary energy imbalance”. Though unfortunately they are a bit vague about exactly what T is. ]
Raff is in dreamland again…well nactually he never seems to leave it. His risible assertion that France will expand its nuclear industry…..ha ha ha. And solar will come to the rescue….that is just a moronic thing to write.
And then again, if he truly believes that saying “MiaB, Nevada has problems becuase the incumbent utility is good at politics and protecting is monopoly profits, not because of any technological issue” demonstrates anything other than that solar power is uneconomic, then he really ought to pull his head out of his backside. The facts and figures are there but those things are difficult to interpret for the hard of understanding
The IPCC had to extend their timeframe to 2100 because up to 2050 global warming is not dangerous, the problem of this extension is that – although it seems dangerous – present day policymakers can’t do anything to stop it without wrecking present day welfare. And present day policymakers care more about present day people than future people.
Like I said, you may be correct, and about OHC I think you are right, but I don’t know a ton about this math, but I can, as before, tell you it probably makes at least some sense, because it was published in a prestigious journal of the AMS.
Going back to cosmic-ray nucleation, I realise that there are papers proposing mechanisms, but my understanding is that these either haven’t been tested, or – if they have – the results are at best inconclusive.
Did you even look at the papers I gave? Kirkby 2007 doesn’t just propose mechanisms, it looks at the link over time, and talks about evidence in favor of Svensmark’s conclusions. Plenty of papers testing such mechanisms have been done-and many have been conclusive. See Svensmark et al. 2007 (above), Enghoff et al. 2008 (Evidence for the Role of Ions in Aerosol Nucleation), Enghoff et al. 2011 (Aerosol nucleation induced by a high energy particle beam), Kirkby et al. 2011 (above), Pedersen et al. 2012 (Aerosol nucleation in an ultra-low ion density environment), and Svensmark et al. 2013 (Response of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (>50 nm) to changes in ion-nucleation). They find conclusive evidence of ion-induced nucleation, and some of them find that it’s a significant effect. And, by the way, it’s not just some fantasy that I believe that ion-induced nucleation has been demonstrated to have an effect, see Tsonis et al. 2015 (Dynamical evidence for causality between galactic
cosmic rays and interannual variation in global temperature):
JaP, we discussed this before, in particular Svensmark 2013 I think. The experiment he did that found growth in larger CCNs was done at above atmospheric pressure and at 296 C (from memory). Yet the theory applies to GCRs hitting the troposphere from above at thousands of meters where these conditions do not exist. It seems unlikely that results from such an experiment are very relevant, a point you didn’t argue with, so it is disappointing to find you using the same research once again as evidence in your argument.
Raff, while I do not know exactly how (and if) pressure and temperature affect ion-induced nucleation, I can tell you that these results are relevant, very relevant. So much so that phys.org reported on them here. I personally think that if their methods didn’t make sense, their paper wouldn’t have made it through peer-review, and someone probably would’ve picked up on it down the pipeline. You could always email Dr. Svensmark at [email protected]. Thanks for pointing that out in the first place; it must’ve gotten lost in all the other stuff I was responding to.
ATTP ” So, the question you are really asking is: “are you sure….are you sure you’re sure….really, are you certain you’re sure…..okay, but how sure are you …. that much, no come on, are you really that sure….no, I don’t believe you!””
No. We’re asking for more tangible evidence (which the scientists haven’t got yet) that they not only understand how the climate works but can accurately predict what the future effects will be. Part of that proof would be the creation of a team charged with the task of pulling the science to bits. A bit like the HSE and a consumer protection department for climate science. You’re right that it’s not the job of scientists to bridge the gap between the science and the public/governments. It’s a vactant position and needs to be filled.
I know because there is no such body. I know because of the state of the science. I know because you wrote ‘who would do this, how would they do it’. It’s not enough to have people doing the job within the existing climate science community. It’s too cosy.
You set up a body (per country) and give them government money to do it. Just in the same way the HSE was set up.
“I propose that five to ten percent of the funds be allocated to a group of well-credentialed scientists to produce an assessment that expresses legitimate, alternative hypotheses that have been (in their view) marginalized, misrepresented or ignored in previous IPCC reports (and thus the EPA Endangerment Finding and National Climate Assessments).”
“Such activities are often called “Red Team” reports and are widely used in government and industry.”
‘Such activities are often called “Red Team” reports and are widely used in government and industry. Decisions regarding funding for “Red Teams” should not be placed in the hands of the current “establishment” but in panels populated by credentialed scientists who have experience in examining these issues. Some efforts along this line have arisen from the private sector (i.e. The Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change at http://nipccreport.org/ and Michaels (2012) ADDENDUM:Global Climate
Change Impacts in the United States). I believe policymakers, with the public’s purse, should actively support the assembling all of the information that is vital to addressing this murky and wicked science, since the public will ultimately pay the cost of any legislation alleged to deal with climate.’
From the Foreword to ‘Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science’:
‘For many years, the Green Team of the IPCC has dominated the global debate over climate change. In 2003, however, at a meeting in Milan, a Red Team started to emerge composed of independent scientists drawn from universities and private institutions around the world. Since 2008 that team, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), has been independently evaluating the impacts of rising CO2 concentrations on Earth’s biosphere and evaluating forecasts of future climate impacts.’
Paul, John, yes, it’s a no brainer to improve the legitimacy of the science but until the other side recognise it, it’s not going to materialise. It’s a travesty that sceptics have to fill a role that should be government funded. To me it demonstrates the lack of seriousness with which climate is taken. It’s the field the Conservatives farmed out to the Lib Dems after all.
How would you select this group of well-credentialed scientists? They’d have to be totally disinterested, not supporting (or coming from) either the IPPC side or the NIPCC side. I mean you can have people who have already made up their minds, which excludes all prominent scientists who disagree with theIPCC.
So how much funding and resources would you give to Doug Cotton and his ilk to research and refute the radiative effects of increased CO2?
There are plenty of experts that don’t work in climate Raff and why would Doug Cotton be a consideration? You could make the same arguments about regulators in any industry – but it’s still possible to get people to act as auditors if you have a budget to find them. But first you have to recognise that the field needs regulation. Regulators have the remit to catch their subjects out, not be their buddies. They have to have the power to demand their subjects co-operate.
Yet aim to release a new headache treatment to the market, TinyC, and behold what checks and hurdles will be presented to you in order to protect society. Oh for a bit of that reviewing and auditing to be done routinely to the IPCC, and sundry government-funded scientists and advisers whose actions, and in some case intentions, seem hell bent on wrecking society in a wholesale fashion. Funny old world.
The thing is you’d have to at least consider Cotton’s ideas and those of all other cranks. Maybe the auditors could just reject those ideas as rubbish, but the skeptic community has failed to reject any ideas no matter how cranky because that is against the spirit of skepticism. So the auditors rejecting them wouldn’t go down well. If you hired a group of unbiased scientists and they immediately junked all the skeptic suggestions, what then?
I guess the auditors could content themselves with a never ending audit – there would obviously good money to be had in that even if they don’t find anything wrong. It might be in their interest never to find anything wrong either, and since it is unlikely that the morals of your auditors would on average be any different from those of climate scientists, you would probably also expect them to be grant-seeking leaches. Just the problem you think you are fixing.
I’m not sure that setting up a Red Team to challenge the Green Team is going to be too effective. The NIPCC have had very limited success so far from what I can see. Consensus climate science needs to be defunded in my opinion. At the moment, it is self-sustaining, feeding off of lavish state funding, attracting not students who are naturally curious about the planet and its complex ocean/atmosphere system and who want to make a genuine contribution to cutting edge research, but those who come with pre-conceived ideas about climate change, encouraged by the numerous research projects which are biased in favour of assuming a significant anthropogenic influence on global climate. This is the real problem. Stem this flow of government money into biased research projects and real science will start to reassert itself.
Raff commented “If you hired a group of unbiased scientists and they immediately junked all the skeptic suggestions, what then?”
Then whatever you want. I’d probably go for an ice cream.
The unbiased scientist — what is that? He’s to the right of the left and to the left of the right. Thousands of years of western civilization and we still have trial-by-combat; the adversarial system. Since you cannot have “unbiased” the best you can do is pit your bias against my bias and let the audience (jury) decide.
The result is not necessarily right or truth; it is merely acceptable to a sampling of society.
I’ve been watching this straining at gnats for years but its a smokescreen for “I live, you die” law of the jungle millions of years in the making.
Did you ever play the strategy game “Risk”? The winner isn’t strongest. The winner plays opponents against each other until they are too weak to resist the most patient and clever player. So who has stayed off the world stage until now? China comes to mind. US/UK? Turn off your industry; your light, your heat, your transportation! Do it in the name of Gaia!
Anyway, I have played Risk only once. It took me 9 hours to lose. It was an all-nighter. Everyone else but one lost before I did.
But the NIPCC has no authority AFAIK. Part of the job of proper audit/inspection teams IS to defund or shut down bad behaviour. A HSE inspector can issue an improvement notice, where an organisation has a timeframe to improve, and if they don’t they are required to stop operation until the problem is rectified. They can also issue a demand for immediate suspension of operation until the problem is rectified. The same idea can be applied to funding.
Part of the way such bodies work is that they check systems and procedures, not necessarily detailed results. The UEA losing the raw station data would be an absolute no, no. Data archiving is important. What is their procedure for it and do they follow it religiously? Are there standard operating procedures for tree ring sampling or model testing? It’s where you go from a bunch of people randomly doing their own thing to recognising there has to be common standards. Peer review would not pass muster as a form of quality control. Inspectors also understand how things should work, so they’d be qualified to check what procedures were being done – eg they’d know that splicing trees to thermometers was wrong. They are able to take tips from the public and investigate potential wrong doing. That doesn’t mean they necessarily find in favour of the public but if the complaint is credible they will act on it.
Raff does anyone take Doug seriously? Isn’t he banned from several sites? Is he in receipt of government funding? Is his work used for public policy? The HSE are unlikely to come and inspect you making cookoo clocks in your garage unless you sell them and people get hurt. So no, Doug would be unlikely to be inspected.
Yes, auditing is never ending. It’s not perfect but it does improve things when people know that they are subject to inspection. The organisations do the bulk of the work, not the inspectors.
As an example of how the HSE works – the place I worked for had a new cooling water chemical treatment system installed to prevent stuff like legionella. Just after that, we had an inspection and while the guy was very impressed with the system and wasn’t worried about public health, he issued an improvement notice because the documentation referred to the old system, not the new one. He gave us two weeks to rectify the problem or he’d shut us down. Two days later he signed off on the two inches of documentation that included diagrams, chemical safety sheets, operating procedures and manuals.
We didn’t just have to get things right (the new system), we had to demonstrate we’d keep things right (the documentation).
If you have difficulty understanding what C \dfrac{d T(t)}{dt} is, consult an undergraduate, who will tell you it’s the rate of change of T, multiplied by a constant! It doesn’t have to be “typically taken” as anything at all, certainly not the “planetary energy imbalance”. Though unfortunately they are a bit vague about exactly what T is.
If you read the next bit of Spencer & Braswell, it says
where Cp is the heat capacity of the system (here assumed to be ocean only), T is the temperature, and t is time.
The term on the LHS of the equation is
So, if I take a heat capacity (which in this case is J/K/m^2, because this is globally averaged) multiply it by a change in temperature and divide by a change in time, I get J/m^2/s, or W/m^2. Admittedly, they assume “the system” is only the ocean, but this pretty much dominates the heat capacity of the system. So that term is the change in energy per square metre per second, which is essentially the system heat uptake rate which is an approximation for the planetary energy imbalance. If Spencer & Braswell have a term on the RHS which represent internal processes, then they would need to explain where this internally generated energy is coming from, since it has to be from outside the system that is being represented by the LHS.
Of course, I may have made some silly mistake above, so you can probably find it, jump up and down and call me an idiot, a liar, and a hypocrite (as appears to be the only manner in which you can respond to anything anyone you disagree with says). Of course, if you are remotely interested in actually thinking about this, you could read some of Isaac Held’s posts, like this one.
[PM: This is a falsehood that you regularly regurgitate. You know it’s not true. I’ve given you examples before and here is another example, which you should be aware of because you commented there too. I reserve terms such as ‘idiot’ and ‘hypocrite’ for idiots and hypocrites. ]
You tell me. He is part of the spectrum of “skepticism” that some people here apparently want 10% of current climate research funding spent on. If you are telling me that he is not included, tell me by what principle and which other skeptics or their ideas are also excluded. Salby, Nova/Evans, Svensmark, Monckton, who? And how do you or whoever judge that? Who gets to say?
Michael2, Risk sounds tedious. You forget that the West has already spent the last 30 years “turning off its industry” in favour of China et. al., in the name of higher corporate profits and fewer environmental controls. Skeptics were probably highly in favour of that, as it has resulted in great reductions in poverty in previously poor countries, something that skeptics claim to care about. I’d imagine you’d probably want that trend to continue, or are you saying you favour returning manufacturing to the West?
Raff writes (in part) “Skeptics were probably highly in favour of that, as it has resulted in great reductions in poverty in previously poor countries, something that skeptics claim to care about. I’d imagine you’d probably want that trend to continue, or are you saying you favour returning manufacturing to the West?”
Skeptics are not a thing that can be meaningfully described except in reference to the thing that is a thing that can be meaningfully described.
Let us say you assert the existence of “TWO”. Along comes a skeptic and doubts there is a “TWO”. What might he believe exists instead of TWO? We have no idea and very likely neither does the skeptic; the word simply expresses a doubt in what YOU believe and makes no assertion about what HE believes.
But after some thought, the skeptic decides “THREE”.
Time passes. You meet another skeptic, and having learned from the first, you say, “I believe in TWO but you believe in THREE. Defend your believe in THREE!” and he says, “Say what? Why do you believe I believe in THREE? I have not told you what I believe; but if I think on it for a while, it is probably closer to FOUR.”
And so on.
I defend no beliefs other than my own.
As to manufacturing: It is part of a complete breakfast. Make stuff, use stuff. Keep it balanced and keep the cycle turning; for in that cycle is life for 7 billion people. Now if all the making is on one side of the planet and most of the consuming is on the other, that’s sort of okay since that is what we have already, but it places a huge burden on transportation — which is okay with the providers thereof — but consumes vast quantities of energy that shall soon enough be in short supply.
Therefore, if you want to make something, do so. If not, then not. But in the USA if you want to make something you will require many permissions and have to make it a certain way and you’ll have to pay your workers what the state tells you and if you cannot afford to make the thing you wish to make because of all that maybe your idea will play better in China.
I was contemplating idiot Democrats and “minimum wage” and Detroit. I sense that there’s a threshold effect; if the regional productivity is such that the actual possible or potential productivity of an employee is below his “load” cost (payroll, benefits, taxes) then the employee cannot be hired.
The farther north you go the more marginal becomes the productivity of the land, generally speaking. By the time you reach Hudson Bay the margin is survival; there is no “wage” possible. Would I hire you for minimum wage when I’m not even making that myself?
Thus at high latitudes you’ll see some entrepreneurs and most will subsist on hunting and fishing, effectively working *below* minimum wage in the only way permitted by government: Working for yourself.
Minimum wage is a bludgeon wiping out friends and enemies alike. I can see somewhat a regionally flexible minimum wage that takes into consideration local economic reality.
This is a falsehood that you regularly regurgitate. You know it’s not true.
Was it too difficult to recognise that as appears to be the only manner in which you can respond to anything anyone you disagree with says was my perception, which is not something that can really be untrue. My perception is indeed that you call people who says things with which you disagree hypocrites, idiots, or liars, so I don’t know it’s not true, because I think it is true. That you seem to be unwilling to recognise this is slightly bizarre. I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone who accuses so many other people of being hypocrites, liars or idiots as you do, and it does indeed appear to be something that you aim at anyone who says anything with which you disagree. A mistake, in your book, is a lie. Someone saying something and not sticking to it as you think they should is a hypocrite (“I want to engage with those who disagree with me” is interpreted by you as “I want to engage with everyone on the whole planet who disagrees with me”). If you don’t like that this is my perception, you could stop doing it. On the other hand, it’s reflects entirely on you, and not on those who you choose to malign, so carry on if you wish. Only you will be responsible for how you’re regarded, and noone else.
Raff, I already explained how you determine who needs to be audited. It relates to what affects the public. So if Doug’s work is used for public policy, then yes, it potentially needs to be audited. Not all of the work needs to be checked, often it’s enough for people and institutions to know they could be checked.
Michael, yes clearly skepticism is not monolithic. But you complain that the West is now “turning off its industry” while we’ve been doing so for decades in the name of higher corporate profits and fewer environmental controls. Was the past “turning-off” good but anything that follows bad, or was it all bad?
As far as minimum wages go, it is obviously true that if the minimum is set at $100 per-hour, it would kill most employment while if set at $1ph it would kill none. There was much debate about it in the UK several years ago before its introduction, but I think it had little measurable effect on employment in the event. A lot of those receiving the MW are shop workers whose jobs are never going to move to China. Many others are agricultural workers – increase their wages and you either get more agri imports or more expensive food or a combination. If the latter you might get more US workers and fewer illegals working on farms, which would be a plus, perhaps.
Also, a carbon tax would equalize the costs somewhat as far as the transportation costs you worry about.
Tiny, the checking you desire comes from other teams researching the same or related areas and publishing their work. If it overturns previous work it is likely to be of wide interest (within the field) and get published, if of high quality. Over time a body of work builds up and scientists assess new work on its merits and relative to older work. Understanding of the subject moves along organically according to what is considered good and bad work. Explicit auditing is not part of the process although I think teams do sometimes try to replicate older work. But I imagine replication is not likely to lead to new publications and hence is likely to have lower appeal than new work.
“But you complain that the West is now turning off its industry while we’ve been doing so for decades in the name of higher corporate profits and fewer environmental controls. Was the past turning-off good but anything that follows bad, or was it all bad?”
It is whatever you wish it to be. Any action (within broad limits) is perceived as good by some, bad by others, and not observed by most. There’s another aspect not here considered so far; in the case of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing; there’s not much mining hence not a lot of manufacturing. The mines are played out. One of them, the Tower Soudan mine, now hosts a neutrino detector and dark matter detectors.
Hardware stores now carry Chinese-made tools of acceptable quality and astonishingly low prices which is good for me. The people in America that used to make tools generally no longer do so, although the very best tools (available in the USA anyway) at least have American names (Snap-On, Craftsman) but I have not checked whether they are still made in the USA.
Now if import tariffs were increased (or established), the price of tools would rise, perhaps dramatically. This would be bad for almost all tradesmen but provide employment for some American workers, but not perhaps as many would be employed as negatively impacted.
An infrequently encountered cost is that of national security. In World War 2 it was impossible to assure that shipments sent overseas, or brought from overseas, would arrive. Everything was domestically produced and that infrastructure survived through the 1960’s but not much longer after that.
“As far as minimum wages go, it is obviously true that if the minimum is set at $100 per-hour, it would kill most employment while if set at $1ph it would kill none.”
It depends on more details than are here presented. The economy would adjust to the $100 per hour or $1 million per hour by simply adjusting all prices. Your actual purchasing power is unlikely to change. What happens with any minimum wage is that it places a floor on cost of goods produced. Should the demand price fall below that floor then the commodity or service cannot be produced; at least not in that location.
“A lot of those receiving the MW are shop workers whose jobs are never going to move to China.”
However, customers of those shops will consume less of those services because of the resulting higher prices. Those jobs won’t go to China; they’ll simply disappear.
“Many others are agricultural workers – increase their wages and you either get more agri imports or more expensive food or a combination.”
That is correct. The ripple effect is that citizens will divert income into food purchasing and away from luxuries. The extreme limit of this is no luxuries at all and the only employable persons will be farmers anyway. Most citizens won’t be able to work at anything. At that point the economy is in a subsistence state and trade of all kinds collapses.
Substitute energy for food and you get basically the same outcome.
“Also, a carbon tax would equalize the costs somewhat as far as the transportation costs you worry about.”
Well, I suppose. The ripple effect would be enormous but I don’t consider it an “equalizer”. Essentially everything would become more expensive, reducing discretionary spending, shrinking the economy as non-energy and non-farming jobs would gradually cease to exist.
As most citizens in western nations are not employed in agriculture the result would be terrible. It would be like Detroit but on a national or even global scale. It would be a recurrence of the Time of Troubles after the French Revolution.
Raff “the checking you desire comes from other teams researching the same or related areas and publishing their work.”
No, it’s a totally different thing. That’s like saying that the banking system doesn’t need auditors because the different institutions will keep an eye on each other. Things go wrong when everyone relaxes and the inspectors get too chummy with those they are inspecting.
“although I think teams do sometimes try to replicate older work. But I imagine replication is not likely to lead to new publications and hence is likely to have lower appeal than new work.”
Peer review is specifically designed to prevent people duplicating the work.
“Understanding of the subject moves along organically according to what is considered good and bad work. ”
Exactly why auditing needs to happen. Critical issues shouldn’t be handled this way. They need to be much more professional, systematic and intensive. If you’re contemplating spending trillions on something you need more than assurances that the science will get there eventually, give or take the scientific fads. Who trains the next generation of scientists on what’s good or bad? The previous one. What rewards are ther for bucking the trend? None. We see what happens to people who say they want to explore a different side – the majority treat them like pariahs. Who’s offering millions to prove CAGW wrong? Worse, those who explore that side are now being threatened with RICO or worse. Organic my arse.
Michael, your story about Risk implied that you think China will benefit from Western countries turning off industry. You seem to enjoy the cheap Chinese tools that have resulted from that process so far and perhaps think the process has been a net benefit. What changes going forward?
There is always a floor on the prices of any goods. MW may raise the floor – or it may not, depending upon the relative power of consumer and retailer and the level of competition (among other things no doubt). We have no way of knowing the effect raising MW will have on balance.
The idea that you might fear a return to subsistence living as a result of a proposed $10-15 MW for farm workers is very funny. And the idea that a carbon tax would have such dire consequences is equally so – the money from a carbon tax doesn’t disappear, it just gets moved to other parts of the economy. And capitalist economies are excellent at dealing with change.
Tiny, there are plenty of rich philanthropists who could fund research if they wanted to. And there is of course the example of BEST which was funded to do exactly what you want. It got the same result as the existing research and has passed from being the bright hope of skeptics, some of whom said they’d accept its results whatever they were (and then didn’t), to part of the conspiracy. That is the future of any auditing that doesn’t overturn existing science – people like you will reject it as having become part of the system and call for auting of the auditors, etc.
Raff, you clearly can’t get to grips with the concept. Auditing isn’t duplicating the science, it’s looking for bad practice (that might include spotting mistakes but isn’t restricted to it).
A rich philanthropist can’t fund the auditors because a) that wouldn’t give them access to the scientists’ work, b) there’s nothing to be gained, for anybody (not even oil companies) to fund parallel science, but a lot of abuse and c) the work wouldn’t have any power to change things, no matter how good it was. It has to be driven by governments.
You comment about auditing the auditors isn’t invalid. Madoff happened because the auditors weren’t doing their job. It’s not perfect but surely a system that is good enough for business, medicine, banking, etc is good enough for climate science? You know, that biggest problem the world faces?
Money buys access, you should know that. There’s no barriers if someone rich enough wants to audit science. Some reasons it doesn’t happen are that a. it would probably yield little, b. if it did yield little the science would have to be accepted (which was doubtless embarassing for BEST’s sponsors and supporters), and c. there are better ways to disrupt progress.
The money has to come from governments in the same way they pay for all the other inspectors, it’s part of what makes the science credible. BEST just set out to duplicate the work of others. Auditors would conclude that no matter how good the scientist, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Raff wrote “Michael, your story about Risk implied that you think China will benefit from Western countries turning off industry.”
I think they think it.
“We have no way of knowing the effect raising MW will have on balance.”
The study of economics suggests knowledge can be approximated or modeled. Your mileage may vary, but not by a lot.
“The idea that you might fear a return to subsistence living as a result of a proposed $10-15 MW for farm workers is very funny.”
I defend my own assertions; not the claims of other skeptics or your own caricature of mine.
“And the idea that a carbon tax would have such dire consequences is equally so – the money from a carbon tax doesn’t disappear, it just gets moved to other parts of the economy.”
Most money does not exist in the first place and thus CAN be made to disappear.
“And capitalist economies are excellent at dealing with change.”
Coincidentally perhaps. “Arbitrage” requires change, capitalism requires production and trade. Change is not a necessary part of capitalism but I will agree that the rapid response of investment and manufacturing to change is superior to centrally managed five-year plans.
BEST was set up because skeptics and their backers wanted to show that climate science was producing temperature indices wrong (deliberately, according to many). BEST found that nothing of the sort and was swiftly disowned by people who still called themselves skeptical. The same would happen with any “audits” of science that showed nothing amiss.
Audits are paid for by the companies being audited. And they don’t aim to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” or even to improve anything. Science has been credible for centuries without government appointed auditors.
Michael, you discuss future collapse from action against AGW but you seem to have little confidence in your own predictions of doom. Or little desire to defend them.
All BEST found was the using the same crap data, you get the same crap result.
“Science has been credible for centuries without government appointed auditors.”
All of it? Gosh you are trusting. I could list countless science cock ups but I’m sure you can think of plenty. Noweadays, very little science that matters is allowed to be released to the public without intermediate testing. Medical science doesn’t do it, pharma scientists don’t do it, product designers don’t do it, chemists don’t do it. And at the end of the day, if they get things wrong they often have to take responsibility for their mistakes. Only bankers and politicians have a more charmed life and even they can end up in prison if they get it seriously wrong.
The only reason not to treat climate science like a significant issue impacting the public, is if it isn’t a significant issue impacting the public. Warmists have to stop seeing climate science like astronomy or dinosaur research. Those things have credibility because they don’t matter a damn. Only when things impact on the public (eg rocket science) does the work get serious testing, at which point the science has to get it right, not just do its best. eg the US, UK teams that worked on the same rocket project, only the Americans worked in miles and the Brits worked in km. Oopse. Or the rocket that went up and then down in a perfect arc because there was an itty bitty minus sign in the wrong place. I’m sure that the excuses of thove people didn’t include ‘science is a process of learning and sometimes you gain as much from when you get it wrong as from when you get it right’.
All BEST found was the using the same crap data, you get the same crap result.
When BEST was announced, peple like Anthony Watts proclaimed that they would accept whatever it found, not that there was no chance of finding anything worthwhile because the data was crap. When it found that temperatures had risen as the other indices said, they threw their toys on the floor. So unless you got your repudiation in early, before the results were available, you are just presenting an excuse to avoid having to accept its results. That would be the outcome for any so-called audit as well. Wherever the science was found to be sound, you and others would find other reasons to reject it and the auditors would become part of the conspiracy.
I don’t need an excuse – I can just say no. Problem for warmists is lots of people say no. They’ve never heard of BEST or Watts. Now you can pretend that the issue just needs more PR or scare stories or you could grow up and use tried and tested methods for improving trust.
“They say no to caring or doing anything about it, which is quite different.”
All I say is that the science isn’t good enough or the hazard isn’t big enough to make people care or do anything about it. Including me. You even agree with me. You can throw your hands up and say that warmists have done everything they can to persuade people, in which case resign yourself to the future.
Raff “Michael, you discuss future collapse from action against AGW but you seem to have little confidence in your own predictions of doom. Or little desire to defend them.”
Yes; you have it correct. Your mileage varies. Evolution requires doom. Mankind exists because of doom. Without doom it is likely dinosaurs would still rule the Earth. What is less clear to me is whether mankind will negligently allow this doom or impose upon itself an immediate doom.
I believe it is more likely that some humans wish other humans to impose upon themselves some sort of doom, so that the former, not dooming themselves, obtain advantage. That some other doom is still in the future for them as well is a different problem for a different day. | {
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To record and get feedback from the world regarding Islay High Schools move down the ICT route
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
InkSeine
I am big fan of MS OneNote. It is the application used most in IHS. It is used to replace Notebooks (known as Jotters in Scotland). I have just come across the the MS Research Roadshow site. This is giving info on lots of things like the worldwidetelescope, and Boku. Another new release from Microsoft Research is InkSeine.
I have been playing developing my skills with InkSeine. This is a research project for tablet PC's and UMPC's.
I have found the page control to be excellent and the search integration brilliant. but I don't think this will replace OneNote, even for quick notes but I think that the next version of OneNote will have lots of these features built into it.
If you want an intro to what OneNote can do then the video below is good.
No comments:
The Islay High School Project
1. Developing the leadership potential and capacity of the whole school, Staff and Pupils
2. Introducing Vocational Courses to the curriculum
3. Removing the age and stage restrictions from the certificated courses.
4. Developing the use of ICT to support the curriculum
I am heavily involved with the ICT strand so that is what I will be talking about mainly. Though, of course, the other strands will be brought in as well.
So what are we planning in the ICT Strand?
Every Teacher has a Tablet PC
A wireless network
Wireless Projectors in every teaching area
A presentation space in the Assembly Hall
A Media Server
A Class Server
Existing courses digitised
S1 'Benchmarked' for IC3 Giving them individual curriculum in S1/2
Once these are in place then give every pupil a UMPC computer
All of these are in Partnership with Microsoft, Dell, Diageo (Large local employer) and Prodigy (Certiport solution provider).
Maybe more partners in the future
We have just started down this route. I am sure we will have lots of challenges ahead. | {
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Blorum.info: A blog+forum for Intermediates and experts. This blog is a discussion, often with myself, about how the digital media industry functions. Since you've wandered in, feel free to share some thoughts as comments on the blog. You might find a few insights. Please share a few too.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
405 Errors -Technical Problems our Members Face
Time4Learning was told my a member last week: "Wow, I pay you $20/month and you spend hours fixing my computer for me, this is the best deal I've ever had."
This both pleases and pains me. Since we might have spent $200 of time helping that one user, it's likely that we've got a really big negative margin on him even if he remains a customer for years. We try to only help our members with problems that are easily fixed and problems that have specifically to do with using our website but it's never clear where/how to draw the line.
We try to avoid entering into discussion as to why they can't get on the web, what sort of security software they have etc etc but we frequently find that we are spending time on problems that really are none of our business. We try to only go deep into technical help if we are trying to learn about a recurring problem but the problem of the staff gets carried away and, given the type of people that we have and the way that I manage them, will never go away.
In any case, a new repeating problem is the 405 error when they try to login.
Background - Members login to Time4Learning where we verify their account and pass their credentials to our educational materials provider, CompassLearning. CompassLearning checks that the session started at Time4Learning.com and then, if the other credentials are correct, allows them to login and start their session.
If Compass can't verify where the session started (because session cookies are turned off on the user's computer), they put up an error message: "You are trying to login from an unknown source, please contact Compass".
Since this message is cryptic and the calls to Compass were often not crisply handled, we created a work-around so that our members avoided this error. As a step in the login process, we have the process check with another site (www.time4learning.org) to see if a third party site can determine the referring site.
In most cases, this works. If we can determine the referring site, we continue to login. If we cannot determine the referring site, we give them an error message which explains the problem and the fix.
A third case has emerged which is when the user get a "405 error message"
Translation:For each particular resource type, HTTP allows for a variety of actions (or “methods”) between a Web server and a browser. These methods include Options, Get, Head, URL, Post, Put, Delete, Trace, Connect, and more (depending on the HTTP version in use). Web servers can be configured to allow or reject any method. For example, your ‘read-only’ Web server may disallow PUT and DELETE methods. When your Web browser tries to use a method for obtaining a Web resource that the server prohibits, an error occurs. Bottom line—you cannot exchange desired data with the Web server.
Solution: You normally don’t see this error unless you’re creating Web pages. In most cases, 405 errors arise when using POST (power on self test) methods—you may be trying to provide input on your Web site (such as a form), but not all ISPs allow POST methods needed to process that form. You can try GET commands in place of POST commands. In short, most 405 errors can be corrected by adjusting the configuration of your Web server (to allow POST methods, for example) ... | {
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April 11 - I’m standing at the base of the tree leaning back on my harness and peering at the platform sixty feet above. Ingmar is encouraging me to get up there. The press conference is supposed to start in forty-five minutes and we need to get into position. Ingmar’s fully informed about my slightly spastic condition and I can tell he’s not sure if I can still do this. I give him a thumbs up and start up the rope.
By the time the camera crews arrive, we’re both up on the platform with our feet dangling down. The cameras focus in as Ingmar rappels down the rope. I stay up in the tree. The CH TV guy comes over with a microphone and battery pack and attaches them to the end of the rope. I haul the rope up and clip the mike to my coat collar. The reporter calls her questions up to me and I shout back down at her, forgetting about the mike.
The reporters and cameras finally leave and I’m alone up in the tree. The platform is a pair of four by eight foot plywood sheets reinforced with two by fours. It looks like a raft on the open ocean. Ropes and rigging are everywhere and the white tarps billow in the wind like sails. The plywood planks are not quite level and they creak and sway as I move around.
It’s a two-room platform: one plank is the bedroom, with a tiny tent nailed to it. The other serves as the living room (a folding chair) and kitchen (a camp stove and a pot). The bathroom is a bucket hanging below the tree-sit. Everything is lashed down or clipped in, but things fall overboard anyway: two pens, my lighter, the lid to my thermos.
I’m tied to the tree on a ten-foot leash tethered to my harness that stays on every moment, even when I’m sleeping. The thing wraps itself around my legs every time I turn around and threatens to knock small untethered objects off the platform.
I’m afraid of falling. Everyone is; people are hardwired that way. Even though I have total confidence in the platform and the safety line, that giddy feeling comes and goes, especially when I’m moving around close to the edge or getting ready to descend down the rope.
There’s a constant wind up here and the roar of traffic is louder. Through the trees to the south I can just make out a bare knoll and the entrance to the Langford Cave, a 40-meter-long karst cavity that draws cavers from all over the region.
The Songhees First Nation named this place Spaet Mountain. The city of Langford calls it Skirt Mountain. The developer has re-named it Bear Mountain to go along with the marketing of their resort and property sales.
A pileated woodpecker flies into the grove of dead snags next to the platform and lands on a trunk at eye level. It hammers away at the wood for a few moments and then swoops over the trail and up a rotten stump. A hummingbird zips by, flashing green. The forest floor is carpeted with trillium and lilies.
As night falls, the traffic dies down and the frogs start up. The tree sways slightly in the wind and the thrushes sing their evening songs. I crawl into the tiny tent and curl up in my sleeping bag, tugging at the tether every time I turn over. Waking up in the middle of the night, I hear an owl hooting.
Thursday morning, the sun is rising through the trees and a winter wren is scolding me nearby. I crawl out of my cocoon, bleary-eyed, and go through the routine of making a pot of tea, taking a shit in the bucket, rolling a cigarette and surveying the forest. I feel wonderful.
People come to visit: local supporters, more journalists, and curious neighbours. Food donations are piling up under a tarp Ingmar tied up for a base camp. The food has to be dealt with because there are raccoons (and possibly bears) in the area, so I haul it up to the platform and make a space in a gear bag for cans of soup, noodles, oatmeal, and cookies.
Cheryl Bryce, the lands manager for the Songhees First Nation, stops by to lend her support and videotape the tree-sit. She’s disturbed that some members of the band council are supporting the development rather than voting to protect the environmental values of their traditional territory. I come down the rope and we chat for a half an hour.
The clouds gather and an icy wind picks up. I go to bed early, snuggled down in the bottom of the sleeping bag with an extra fleece blanket.
Friday dawns with threatening clouds. Then a threatening little man with a mustache: the lands manager for the Provincial Capitol Commission. He’s been sent to determine whether I’m on PCC land, and to grumble at me about the commission’s liability if someone gets hurt and sues them. I promise I won’t hurt anybody and I won’t sue anybody. He suggests if I’m trespassing, he may get the police involved. I invite him to the salmon barbecue scheduled for later tonight. He studies me for a minute without responding and then marches off into the forest with his maps in hand.
I don’t know if he’ll call the police, but even if they show up, they won’t be able to arrest me because I’m sixty feet up in a tree. The RCMP in Vancouver has a special climbing team for these kind of situations, but it takes a few days to assemble. I contemplate the legal implications of criminal trespass charges and court injunctions.
Later: I’m bored, so I use my borrowed cell phone to call the developers’ head office. Bear Mountain Resort and Bear Mountain Properties are the forces behind this project and I figure it’s only polite to introduce myself. But it seems no one is available on this Friday afternoon, not even a receptionist, so I leave a cheery message in the general mailbox describing the wildlife in the area and inviting them all to the salmon barbecue.
The rain holds off, miraculously. At dinnertime, three dozen tree-huggers are gathered around a small campfire devouring barbecued salmon, roasted weiners, mashed potatoes, and bags of fruit and cookies. Mary Vickers, a Nuxalk Nation woman from Bella Bella, provided the salmon, and she gets us all to join hands while she says a prayer to the spirits and the ancestors to bless our work here. Ingmar stands up on a stump and lays out the plan: seven people are needed to take charge of the tree-sit for one day a week. Each person would either sit in the tree for twenty-four hours or find another person to do it. He’ll provide the training.
By Saturday, I’m a little weary of the tiny platform, the harness, and the shit bucket. My legs and arms are shaky from climbing up and down the rope. I’m longing for a hot shower and a soft bed. But still I sit for hours mesmerized, staring out into the forest, listening to the birds, and feeling my senses expand to the limit of hearing and vision.
On Sunday morning, the relief shift arrives. Keith lives nearby and he has no idea how to climb a tree, but he’s willing to learn and Ingmar’s willing to teach him. I rappel down for the last time. My man Dan is there to give me a ride home.
I don’t want folks to get the idea that I’m some kind of action hero. I’m retired from all that now. This was just a one-time special event – more of a vacation than an action; more of a cameo than a comeback. I joked with the folks watching me climb that I’m living proof: almost anyone can do this shit. And it’s true – the biggest obstacle is conquering the fear of falling, the fear of failing, the fear of powerlessness. The campaign is just now beginning, but folks are digging in for the long haul. Cheers to the Spaet Mountain defenders!
12 comments:
You are awesome! It is also a lot harder than it looks to squat over a bucket. A recycled toilet seat modified with "L" brackets to fit the outside lip of the bucket works great. Much love to all forest defenders! Keep up the great work. E-mail anytime if you need help/advice/[email protected]
I arrived on this site via adbusters magazine, and had no idea that there has been a tree sit taking place all year. I'm studying in Vancouver but my parents live in Langford so I still consider it home. I barely recognize the town when I visit. Good old blue collar white trash Langford has long been the butt of every Victoria joke and probably needed some development but I'm appalled by how it is taking place. It's like the developers live in some mythical dimension where global warming doesn't exist and there is no such thing as a problem you can't shop your way out of. They've intentionally created a car dependent community where people live in their generic McMansions and drive their SUV's to a dozen different big box stores. From what I've seen on Bear Mountain it seems like there has been no attempt to work with the ecology and produce sustainable development, just to pave over everything and make sure the sterile, generic houses which I'll never afford are big enough to accomodate expanding waistlines. My old neighborhood is flooded with deer with no place left to go. It's not all bad I guess, there is a free trolley and it's nice to see the new little businesses which seem to be thriving in downtown Langford. And yeah, I know I'm hypocritically not involved in your protest because I'm caught up in my big city life, but I still think that the Bear Mountain development is a repugnant travesty and it breaks my heart.
oh, my spirit is with you--all of you who are participating in this action. do not forget to follow your breathe and remember that it is all a state of mind and a state of being. calm, slow determination is all it ever takes...and a non-attachment to the results. whatever they may be, the important thing is how youŕe doing what youŕe doing.
The whole character of the Langford Bear Mountain disaster is further draining the lifeblood away from Victoria's core itself. The proliferation of big box stores and hotels in Langford is helping to empty out business from Downtown which is now becoming a high crime area. Further, the development is putting a strain on our local services like water and highway systems. Why should the rest of Victoria have to pay just so a group of developers and petty Langford politicans can get their egos stroked? The Langford Mayor and Council is incredibly selfish in that he expects the entire region and city to pay for these egomanic type megaprojects wrecking the wilderness and increasing the strain on CRD services. Langford should be kicked out of the CRD and forced to rely on its own damn water. Once the interchange becomes operational, it will cause even more traffic back-ups on Route 1 and guess what? The taxpayer will end up paying for another interchange or highway widening just for this disaster. The story behind Bear Mountain is based on revenge and betrayal. Len Barrie wrongfully cut down trees on private property that was not his to cut (the Royal Colwood Golf Club) and was as a result kicked out of the Club. Since then, he has been driven by revenge, bitterness and greed to create his new private playground and cut down more trees - which were the property of the people of the province and the local First Nation. It is time this fellow is stopped before he ruins more greenspace and kills more trees. Good luck and please stop Len!
It's great to protest, but when money is involved, protest alone does very little or nothing at all. I suggest a lifestyle change, leave the cities, nurture a piece of land, cultivate it, protect it, that way less energy would be used, less garbage produced and of course no one will ever build a highway on your property. Some may argue that land is expensive but not if you go commune and split with other environmentalists alike yourself, real change has to be revolutional, protest alone is nothing but a mere complaint. We can do better!
I'm a student in the ninth grade at dunsmuir middle school and me and my friend are apaled at wat is happend ing to langford , sure we needed a bit of new housing but isnt BC known for its beautiful land and wildlife. we are trying to get our friends to realize this as well and its working a bit. we are doing a school projecton it and trying to speak out as teens , by the time we have kids there will be no land left for them to enjoy as we did when we were young. my grandmother is in the bulding industry and I'm going against some ppl in my family whne I say STOP THE BUILDING but its the truth !
Public Opinion Report Now Available Online
Click on the image above to download the pdf. Want the printed version? Email [email protected] for a free spiral bound copy
Save the Cave! Cheryl Bryce of the Songhees First Nation inspects the first sacred cave on Spaet Mountain, now destroyed by blasting. Photo: Paul Griffiths
Tripod over the cave
Bear Mountain: Stop the Madness!
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." Mahatma Gandhi
The more we look into the Bear Mountain resort and interchange development near Victoria, BC, the more we see that those pushing the project are determined to bulldoze rare ecosystems, First Nations heritage sites, and people's democratic rights in order to profit from expensive condos and overpriced real estate. But will they get away with it?
Developers and public officials completely failed to protect First Nations heritage sites in the area of Skirt (Spaet) Mountain in Langford. One sacred cave was destroyed by blasting and excavation in 2006, and a second may face the same fate in the coming weeks. City of Langford workers welded a steel grate over the entrance to Langford Lake Cave in February 2008 and then dumped several tons of boulders onto the grate. Dozens of culturally modified trees were cut down around the cave, which a Songhees Nation elder has named as a place of cultural significance. The interchange route will apparently intersect the 80-meter-long cavern, and blasting could begin at any time.
Garry oak ecosystems - the rarest forests in BC - have been mowed down and bulldozed, destroying the oaks, camas flower meadows, and related plant life on the rocky bluffs and plateaus of Skirt Mountain. The City of Langford maintains that protection plans and studies on rare mammals, amphibians, and reptiles in the area are not needed. Ponds and wetlands on and around the mountain are home to pacific tree frogs, red-legged frogs, great horned owls, screech owls, pileated woodpeckers, and dozens of other species that deserve protection.
Meanwhile, Langford city council has maneuvered to shut voters out of the approval process on a $25 million loan to finance the interchange. This comes after the city refused to dialogue or consult with concerned citizens and groups who requested meetings, sent letters, and made submissions to council for over two years. More than two thousand residents signed a petition in January urging council to reconsider the borrowing bylaws, and still the city refuses to acknowledge the issue. The province has likewise turned a deaf ear to voters while kicking in $5 million and leaving taxpayers on the hook for the rest of the bill if the developers default. A persistent aura of corruption and conflict of interest hangs over the project, which is aggressively promoted by Langford councillors.
Those who oppose the development face a level of retaliation rarely seen in North America. A small peace camp set up in the path of the interchange was evicted in February by dozens of heavily armed RCMP officers pointing assault rifles. Over a hundred officers patrolled a kilometer-wide exclusion zone near the Trans-Canada highway for three days while feller-bunchers clearcut the forest. Shortly after, Langford mayor Stewart Young declared he would try to recover the cost of the police operation by suing the campers. On February 29, project manager Les Bjola helped organize a "goon squad" of 200 construction contract-ors that descended on a small rally on the highway, assaulting several people, destroying signs and banners, and threatening those speaking out against the destruction.
The lack of any assessments of the delicate karst (limestone) geology and watercourse hydrology in the area may leave the new interchange subject to collapse, sinkholes, and widespread watershed contamination due to runoff. Sewage, silt, and chemicals from the new development are already filtering into streams that flow down Skirt Mountain into Florence Lake and Langford Lake.
Challenging this aggressive development on Vancouver Island has created a grassroots network that covers half the province, and future developments will never be the same. We are grateful to everyone who's given their energy to this campaign.
Why We're Defending Langford Cave
Indigenous people have used Langford Cave for spiritual practice for generations. We know the cave has a name in the Songhees language. Because this kind of knowledge is closely guarded by the elders, outsiders are not permitted to know the name of the cave. But dozens of people - both native and non-native - camping and visiting the site have been touched by the spirit of the place. The diversity of birds, medicinal plants, mosses and cave-dwelling insects is astonishing. We are determined to protect this unique cave and the ecosystem that surrounds it by all peaceful means.
All about wildlife, sacred caves, & big development (pdf)
Langford Cave Photo Essay, Maps and More
Wildlife, caves and First Nations cultural sites, or greed and unethical development?
We are taking to the trees to stop a huge development project, including a new highway, that would destroy mature forests, watersheds, rare caves, traditional indigenous sites and wildlife near Victoria, BC. Bear Mountain is the name given to the place by the developers of Bear Mountain Resort and Properties. The city of Langford named it Skirt Mountain, and the Songhees Nation name is Spaet, which means "bear."
Until 2001 much of SPAET Mountain was classified as a "Forest Lands Reserve" (Crown land owned by the public). The behind-the - scenes sale of this land adds up to a form of political corruption. Corporate profit from hastily planned development schemes in this area depend on a new road infrastructure financed by public funds such as the $30 million Bear Mountain Interchange on the Trans Canada Highway (1). To connect to it, two roads are being constructed: the Savory Road Connector and the Bear Mountain Parkway. Both roads bisect forests buffering Goldstream Park, a much loved nature attraction, further diminishing its fragile and already endangered ecology.
The infrastructure for Bear Mountain Resort includes the Malahat Corridor, promoted as an alternative to Malahat Drive. The new highway will carve SPAET Mountain in two and cross over Saanich Inlet, giving city commuters direct access to the new development scheme at Bamberton. BC's gung-ho Ministry of Transportation has partnered with Stantec, the engineering empire that paved over most of Edmonton, Alberta.
SPAET Mountain is being destroyed by a clandestine land grab. In 2001 the BC government transfered 44 hectares of land to Western Forest Products for the giveaway price of $1.05 million. Within six months the land was sold to the Bear Mountain Resort developer for the same price and zoning regulations were altered, courtesy of the local pro-business mayor. The result is the cancer-like urban sprawl of golf courses, residential subdivisions, roads, hotels and strip malls. All this can be easily observed by anyone using Google Earth satellite and mapping technology.
The corruption surrounding the SPAET Mountain land grab involves big business and elected officials eager to make a quick buck. Community and environmental issues such as municipal water supply, pollution from golf courses and sewage, changes to the fragile watershed hydrology, public transport infrastructure, etc. have not been addressed. Bears and other large wild animals have no place to go as their mountainside habitat disappears. Bear Mountain Resort has already killed one resident "problem" bear and there are certainly other unreported instances. | {
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Bleacher Report
She Said, “well, I Will Tell You Why: I Have A Tv And Vcr, And I Have A Collection Of Video Cassettes.
Mar 24, 2018
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You can remove the lock from your door and take it to the locksmith shop in your local area, which is the cheapest way home, a masterkey system can save a lot of hassle and it’s not expensive. One problem with safes though is that they can interested to call upon the locksmith home lockout experts for their emergencies. Another client once told me he wanted his locks changed because someone broke into his apartment and had put one of is crazy, but you also don’t want to take advantage. This is when the Melbourne Locksmith Matching Service can save you hours in time of searching you can expect a locksmith to visit you in just one hour. About the Author Emergency Locksmith in Brooklyn Leads the Way for Safety Features 0 From time to time, residents the services of a professional locksmith to help you out of your predicament. No one wants to lose their keys, however it happens to the best of us so it's a option available in comparison with the so-called costlier professionals. | {
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The 45th LIBER Annual Conference will take place in Helsinki, from Wednesday 29 June to Friday 1 July 2016, with a post-Conference Excursion on Saturday 2 July. We invite you to join us in our beautiful venue, the Helsinki Congress Paasitorni, for a programme full of inspiring insights into current subjects. The social programme will give you the opportunity to relax and network with colleagues. The Conference dinner will take place at Musiikkitalo, the Helsinki Music Centre, and the Conference Reception will be held at the Helsinki University. The timing of LIBER 2016, directly after the Finnish midsummer festivities, will give you the perfect opportunity to catch a glimpse of the famous midnight sun. | {
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Safety pleas issued for operators over Easter
Date: 18.04.2019
Easter acknowledged as period of increased risk on the road
Easter is a busy - and more dangerous - time on Australian roads
Industry bodies, the union and enforcement have issued various safety calls as Easter holidays change the landscape of road use in Australia, with industry informed to exercise caution and anticipate increased compliance and restrictions over the traditional peak period.
RISK HIGHLIGHTED
It may be a time of break for some and increased work for others, with the National Transport Insurance (NTI) shedding light on the risk of road use at this time of year, and issuing its own advice to drivers.
NTI CEO Tony Clark notes "those servicing the wholesale and retail goods industry experience the most misfortune on the roads at this time of year".
He cautions road users to be mindful of the increased demands across over the Easter period.
"Our aim this year is to encourage all road users – heavy and light vehicles to buck the trend by acknowledging we all play a part in increased retail demands and so it really does pay to exercise patience and consideration on the roads over Easter," he says.
"Put simply: no trucks, no food, no shopping over Easter."
The most recent Major Crash Investigation Report suggests many of the incidents occurring at this time of year are avoidable, with one of the most common incidents being hit in rear.
4. Remember to be patient indicate and consider vehicles around you when making sudden movements in traffic
UNION MESSAGE
The Transport Workers Union (TWU) called for driver safety to be prioritised in trucking over the busy Easter period, which already follows 28 fatalities involving truck crashes in March.
"The skewed belief that speedy delivery is more important than road safety is exacerbated at busy periods like the Easter break," TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine says.
"We urge the wealthy companies at the top of supply chains to ease the pressure on truck drivers and ensure there is enough money in the pot for trucks to be properly maintained and goods to be delivered safely."
"The Government must [also] step up and act immediately to stop the slaughter on our roads."
ENFORCEMENT
Enforcement is also ramping up ahead of Easter, with safety operations and double demerit penalties accompanying calls for patience to operators.
Operation Tortoise and Go Slow are NSW’s long-weekend road safety operation, while Victoria police will be out in force for Operation Nexus.
"Fatigue-related crashes are one of the biggest killers on NSW roads and it’s important drivers get a good night’s sleep and plan ahead before they get on the road," NSW Police says.
"We want everyone to make it to their destination safely over the break and help us drive the road toll Toward Zero."
RESTRICTIONS
The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) advises that New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia have travel restrictions in place over the Easter holiday period for agricultural, oversize/overmass and special purpose heavy vehicles. | {
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OUR COMMUNITY
At BBL, we believe it is our corporate and moral responsibility to commit meaningful time and resources to the community that we live, work, and play in. Below are some of the great organizations that we are proud to support: | {
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Nicki Wyllie
Customer Service/Vet Nurse
Nicki qualified as a vet nurse 22 years ago. Her main role is customer service, although she assists in many other aspects of the job. She was born and bred on a sheep and cattle farm, and her travels have seen her working in North Canterbury, Nelson and Melbourne. She enjoys the companion animal focus of this clinic, and has special interests in preventative medicine and nutrition. She is as busy outside work as she is at the clinic, looking after her son, Tom, and rescue cat, Bee. | {
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Globalfastads.com is performance - based marketing solution for advertisers, publishers, agencies and online affiliates. With campaigns catering to primary demographics including US, UK, CA and AU along with a gamete of international campaigns, we work with a vast array of verticals and media channels, within both the web and mobile spaces.
Globalfastads is performance-based marketing solution for advertisers, publishers, agencies and online affiliates. With campaigns catering to primary demographics including the US, UK, CA and AU, along with a selection of international campaigns, we work with a vast array of verticals and media channels, within both the web and mobile spaces.
Boasting one of the most progressive affiliate programs in the industry, Globalfastads provides the highest quality traffic and conversions for advertisers, and competitive payouts for publishers, continually striving to guarantee the greatest return on investment for all of our partners.
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Olivia’s preschool had their first field trip last week, to where else but the pumpkin patch of course! The patch was actually all the way out in Carnation at Camp Korey, which is about 30 minutes east of here. It’s gorgeous out there.
It was such a riot to get a glimpse into these kids days together. They were discussing seeds and their favorite vegetables here, and I actually heard the following answers: “hot dogs” and “potato chips”.
Olivia and this little guy have a strange relationship. As in he pushes her and then will rub her back after she falls. I don’t know if they love each other or actually hate each other.
Please notice how small she is compared to the rest of the kids. One of the boys (the giant one standing to her left) calls her “the tiny one”.
Picking (and eating) chocolate mint leaves.
Cutting her pumpkin of choice. This was a legit pumpkin patch, none of that sissy nicely picked and displayed pumpkin business here!
S’mores!
Her class lineup (there are two classes of eight – hers is the “spotted frogs” and the other is the “green frogs”). Cuties. And, as you can see, in no way did any of them want to take a group photo.
So last weekend, in an effort to be cheap and not pay for a photographer, I dragged the fam out to shoot some pictures in hopes that I would get something decent enough to use on our Christmas card this year. Let’s just say that Doug was less than excited about this prospect and that I had to bribe both him and Olivia to participate.
Because we were literally hitting the timer button and then running to get in front of the camera, these photos turned out, well, less than great. Like this.
And this.
And a lotta this.
We’re a classy bunch.
Out of the hundred I took, this one was, eh, okay. The lighting was pretty dark and my editing skills just aren’t good enough to salvage it enough. I thankfully have one that’s better but I’m saving that for the card so I’m not putting it on here.
I did manage to get some cute shots of Olivia, though!
My loves.
The most entertaining part of the day? We ran into the Wehri’s, who had the same brilliant photo shoot idea as us. And Ali and I were wearing the EXACT same shirt. Dorks. And Maren and Olivia, well as you can see they also coordinated. Apoligies now to anyone who gets Christmas cards from both of us, I swear this was totally unplanned. Classic.
The girls were super excited to be matching, they totally hammed it up for me.
Lessons learned: #1, if you’re not going to pay for a photographer, you better a) get yourself a remote (Santa, do you hear me?) and b) drag someone along who can pull genuine smiles out of your child and let you know if they’re picking their nose/playing with their hair/just generally acting like a 3 year old. And #2, it’s probably worth it to pay someone else if you want more than one somewhat decent family shot.
She’s been looking forward to this for months. She’s been begging to go for a long time, but classes don’t start until age three, and then summer was so busy that I didn’t want to sign up and pay for a bunch of classes we wouldn’t be able to make. But now that we’re settled down for a bit and in the school routine, it was finally her big day. And it did not disappoint.
One of our neighbors who is a couple of years older has been nicely teaching her some moves. She says that this is her “favorite”.
And the two week old glow stick? Apparently a necessary accessory. Can’t argue with three year old logic (and really, it’s just not worth the battle).
Dying of cuteness. seriously. I keep telling her that I want to freeze her so she never grows up.
And here’s a little video of her big debut shot through the window. Mute it, because all you’ll hear is other moms chatting in the background which isn’t very exciting. Just pretend there’s some lovely classical music playing instead.
She emerged from the class with the BIGGEST smile on her face. It was beyond adorable. I’m pretty sure she’s hooked.
Hello blog world! Has it really been a month? Ooops. Blogging is one of those things that once you get behind it just seems like a daunting task to catch up on, so I just keep putting it off…and putting it off some more.
Anyhoo, all is well here in the land of Perry, we’ve just been enjoying the last bits of summer (and soaking up the warm weather and almost record-breaking dry spell of 50 days, which is no joke here in Seattle). Dare I say that I might actually be ready for fall this year? Somebody slap me in two months for saying that. I give you permission.
Let’s rewind to early August. My mom came up for a nice long visit before she headed back to work for the school year. We had a busy, busy trip and packed in a ton of activities – lots of boat time, Bainbridge Island, Fox Hollow, the Chihuly Exhibit, Mariners games, the beach, swimming, and of course lots of shopping. Here’s some highlights of the trip:
The view from the ferry out to Bainbridge. We managed to hit it on a picture-perfect summer day.
Lunch (and a bubble bear) at Bainbridge Bakers.
Yep, it was just a bit windy on the sound.
A visit to Fox Hollow with playgroup buddies.
And, of course, photos with her BFF Maren. These two are seriously so cute together, and it’s been so fun to watch their friendship develop and mature. Whether it’s been 5 minutes or 5 days they’re always so happy to see each other.
Helping me make whipped cream for Grandma Dorothy’s birthday.
And celebrating with the birthday girl.
Gorgeous sunset boat ride.
A visit to the Woodland Park Zoo.
Go Mariners!!!
And to end the trip, and Olivia-free trip to the Chihuly glass garden and exhibit. If you find yourself in Seattle, definitely check this out!
Whew, I think that’s it from my mom’s visit. Sorry for the photo overload, that’s what happens when you’re playing catch-up.
First of all, Happy Mother’s Day to all of you momma’s! And especially to the two most important moms in my life, my mom and mother-in-law. I am so lucky to have you, you have truly taught me how to be a mom.
We kicked off the absolutely gorgeous weekend with popsicles on a Friday afternoon. If this doesn’t make you smile, well I don’t know what would.
I came across some cute ideas for Mother’s Day gifts on Pinterest (of course), and Olivia and I worked on a little craft for Chris. It turned out pretty cute! Here’s Olivia showing off her gift.
Please excuse the super cheesy face, she’s in that phase that when you ask her to smile she looks like a total goofball.
She was very serious about her “interview for grandma”. Her answers cracked me up.
(I printed her answers on cardstock and then framed them with a pre-matted 4×6 frame from Aaron Brothers. The flags are from Paper Source, easier than making them myself!)
This picture of her kills me. When did she get so old? Seriously, stop growing up.
We decided to go out on Saturday night with Doug’s family, and had a great dinner at Chandler’s on Union Bay. Amazing food, amazing views. We scrambled to find a sitter for O so we could make it an adults-only event, but after half a dozen attempts it was clear that it was not meant to be (hence the crayons and such all over the table). The epitome of Mother’s Day, right? . She was SO excited that she got to wear her “party dress” that she begs to wear on a daily basis that she did pretty well at a long meal, all things considered.
Today I was surprised with breakfast in bed and then Doug got my garden ready to go and I planted everything (mmmm…tomatoes…). Then we spent the afternoon lounging in the backyard and topped it off with Doug making my requested dinner – Mexican food, heavy on the guacamole. Simply the best. Mother’s Day 2012 in the books, and it was great.
One big bonus of the playgroup that we’re in is that we discover new places almost every week thanks to other moms in the group. This morning’s adventure was to Farrel-McWhirter Farm Park in Redmond, and it was so darling – a cute little farm area and tons of open space for the kids to run around and enjoy the sun. Thank goodness, because after Olivia’s midnight and 5am wakeup calls (do I have a newborn again?) we really needed to get out of the house and have some distraction and fresh air.
Olivia, Maren, and Finley were the three musketeers all morning. They had an imprompteau dance party in front of the barn, which was pretty darn cute to watch.
So this morning as I was getting ready for the gym, I noticed that Olivia was unusually quiet. Which of course troubled me. I yelled for her a few times to get downstairs, and when she didn’t respond I went looking for her.
As soon as I walked into her room, I was hit with the smell of nail polish. Pretty sure that you can see where this one is going…
Yep, she decided to take it upon herself to go into my bathroom top drawer, take out the darkest red sparkly polish that she could find, take it into her bed, and attempt to give herself a manicure. As you can see, it literally looked liked someone had been bludgeoned to death in her bed.
“I was painting my nails like mommy.”
The carnage? Her (basically brand new) duvet cover, comforter, top sheet, fitted sheet, mattress pad, and pillow cases. Not to mention her pants and top. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scream, cry, or kill her. So I screamed, then cried, then used nail polish remover all over her body as SHE cried, then took her to kids club at the gym and dropped her off so I escape before I went completely insane. I tried rescuing the bedding and whatnot when I got home, but no amount of nail polish remover is going to clear up all of that red – it just runs all over the place when you add remover to it. It’s actually pretty amazing how much polish is in one of those little bottles.
The kicker?
We had to go to Target, because clearly she needs new sheets and I am not buying her any fancy bedding after all of her shenanigans. When we got there she started yelling that she didn’t like her clothes (because I refused to put her in a dress after this morning’s nightmare) and stripped practically naked in the middle of the store. And then screamed that she was naked because she didn’t like her clothes the ENTIRE time I was in the store trying to replace her bedding. I was so that mom. You know, the one we all look at and we’re glad that we’re not in their shoes. Except I was in her shoes and there was nothing that I could do about it because I had to get the darn sheets for her bed.
I’ve decided that potty training is one of my least favorite mom duties. Especially when your child is NOT at all interested in it. And let’s be honest, there are only so many songs I can make up about pee and poop to keep her entertained (and only so long that I can comfortably sit on the bathroom floor. I’m getting old.).
A friend snapped this photo today at Medina Beach, and I love it because it is SO Olivia. The kid has absolutely zero fear of water, and as soon as we get to the lake she can’t wait to plunge in as far as I’ll let her go – she begs to go into the “deep end”. She also usually insists on carrying a heavy bucket filled with rocks, which doesn’t really help when she has poor balance and doesn’t know how to swim. Can’t wait to get her into some lessons! | {
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Fred’s Not Here is not bad but they could improve. First of all, just getting into the restaurant is a little confusing. Their sign is above the wrong restaurant so you must read a little sign pointing you next door to know where it is. Not hard but it doesn’t look professional if you get what I mean.
I just had a starter – the baked lobster and crab soup with a shot of cherry ($9.49). It’s good and hot; they somehow puff the bread up over a soup bowl so once you break it, it deflates and you can scoop out the soup. If you order this, probably order another item as well since as a starter it is not filling enough. This usually wouldn’t be enough for me too but my friend also brought in cake (I ate here for her birthday), so by the time we finished I was actually full.
I noticed some people liked the seafood especially, so maybe that might be worth checking out. I wouldn’t suggest the fries though, I saw them and they seemed like ones you find in a frozen bag. I think it would be wise to ask the servers for recommendations if you really are debating, they probably won’t steer you wrong.
This leads me to the next part of my review, the service. I think service here is actually fast paced. At times I felt rushed to order or finish my meal but since I was with a big group, I kind of understood where they were coming from. Our server was nice but she seemed scattered at the end. When everyone was paying their bills she gave a lot of us the wrong change, so make sure you check your bills when paying cash here.
Overall, good place for lunch and dinner with friends, coworkers or older relatives. Not so much with your boss. They have a lower level bar area but its hardly packed on a weeknight. Dresscode: Casual to Semi-Casual.
I ate here for a past summer-licious event’s with some friends. I had a salad, veal scallopini with butternut squash puree and tartufo ice cream. Everything was okay but it wasn’t really that amazing. I found the salad had too much sauce on it and the butternut squash puree nice but kind of overwhelming the veal. Perhaps it would have been better if it was placed on the side? I can only say I loved the dessert. But since they probably bought that….its not much of a recommendation. I did get to try a friend’s dish, they ordered the acorn squash (vegetarian dish) and it was rather good. As for the other pictures posted of the salmon and pasta, etc. I can’t make a comment except I remember being told it was also a bit too salty.
Service is nice though, one of my friends was 30 mins late and I ordered for her thinking she wouldn’t have to wait when she arrived. However, her order arrived sooner then expected and it got cold while we waited for her. Our server was very polite and was more then willing to re-heat it for us without asking or making it seem like an inconvenience. I didn’t get any attitude, which I much appreciated.
This place is nice for a romantic date and eating with friends. Not really for family with kids though. Dress code: Semi-Casual.
I came here for one of the Winterlicious events last year, my group came right before it got busy so we had the place to ourselves essentially. Service was nice but again, it wasn’t that busy. By the time it got crowded, service was considerably slower. Food was good, I had the AAA tenderloin while another friend had salmon. Both were nice but I would recommend the tenderloin (I am a meat eater, ha ha). Each dish comes with a side of vegetables and mashed potatoes, again, this was good. However, it is VERY small so you may want to order a side dish like calamari or see if you can order more mashed potatoes.
In general, Stonegrill didn’t particularly wow but it’s a nice restaurant with good ambience and friendly enough staff. Good place to bring co-workers or your boss, family (perhaps not children though), friends and dates.
Like this:
Ate here for a birthday party, this restaurant changes into a mini-club after 10:30pm and they have weekly events. I wasn’t sure how good this restaurant would be but was pleasantly surprised by the quality of food.
I had to pick from a pre-set menu due to the large table we had but I did like my main -prime rib roast beef (very tender) and dessert – chocolate brownie cake with vanilla ice cream. I think the price for the pre-set was reasonable since I did get a salad and a coffee/tea bonus with my main and dessert. All for only $27.50.
Also, from their drink menu I recommend a cocktail called “summer passion pear” which was sweet. For non-alcoholic, Virgin Strawberry Daiquiri was good. I would stay away from their Mai Tai cocktail though, I found it very strong.
Like this:
This place totally surprised me! I came in expecting it to be really bad since my mentality is “when has a restaurant attached to a mall ever been good?” So far I had their soup of the day (it was tomato soup), shrimp cocktail, grilled calamari, ahi tuna salad, filet mignon (8 oz.) and new york striploin (14 oz.). Meat dishes come with a salad (house or caesar) and potato (mashed or baked). They all taste good but when ordering their meat dishes, they generally undercook. So I recommend when you order medium, say medium- well. They also ask for you to cut into your steak to see if its cooked to your liking so you can change it if anything.
If you are eating here for the first time, I recommend the shrimp cocktail (delish but you only get 5 jumbo shrimps) for $15 I believe, filet mignon with mashed potatoes and if your starving, add in the ahi tuna salad! This order alone will probably cost you over $60-$70, so its a nice place for special occasions, family dinners, dates and such. For seating, I recommend a booth…its just more comfortable.
Note: I have gone to the Front Street location but I still prefer the one at Eatons.
I tried going here once during winterlicious but despite having reservations, had to wait over an hour for a table. Luckily my friends and I decided to go to another restaurant that was also partaking in the event. Wildfire actually called us when we were about done our meal, saying they were now “available”, so I think we made the right choice.
However, my friends and I decided we should try again another time since we were curious how good it could be to have such a long lineup of people willing to wait. I found it to be a disappointment, not worth the hassle of walking blocks to get there from the subway.
I did find the interior and live jazz band to be kind of nice but the tables felt overcrowded. The service was slow but staff was relatively friendly. Food was a bit mediocre to be honest, I had crab cake as an appetizer and filet mignon as main. Crab cakes were dry and a friend told me they tasted like the ones you buy at the grocery store, frozen and tasteless. Disappointed with filet mignon as well, I asked for medium rare but got rare instead.
I also felt kind of rushed by the servers and since a party next to us was celebrating someone’s birthday, we didn’t get much attention. Overall the restaurant is just too out of the way, so I have no idea why people hype it or would even wait over an hour to patron here. Dress code is business casual to dressy. For dates and dinners with friends. Not sure about business though since it might be too loud.
I had steak and chicken here and it was okay. I think this place is better for grabbing drinks, appetizers and desserts. I do like their crème brûlée and champagne, it was delish! They have wine & champagne by the glass. Its very dark inside so its kind of a more laid back and gives an intimate atmosphere. Quinn’s also has a bar area too so it can be a good place for dinner dates and group lunches/dinners. There is a more mature crowd here.
Like this:
Went here with a friend awhile back for lunch. It is pricey, but was it worth it? YES! We both got the 16 oz. Rib Steak that they are apparently famous for – recommended to me by the waiter. I had mine with mashed potatoes while my friend had onion rings (they are huge).
I thought the service was very good but it might have been because we went so early (there was no one there at the time) but I liked that we had the waiter’s undivided attention and received such fast service. I was actually worried at first since the whole floor was empty but it was all for naught as I enjoyed my perfectly cooked medium-rare steak. Haha
Note: The washrooms are tiny and the restaurant itself is very traditional in design. Great for family dinners, dates and corporate dinners. | {
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What You Can Do To Increase Your Current Chances As
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Fergie: New And Exciting Experience
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is excited by the prospect of facing Roma in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
'We've never played Roma before so it'll be a new and exciting experience,' he told manutd.com. 'That's the great thing about Europe, you play teams you've never played before.
'We respect their last result. They have some great players like De Rossi and Mancini.'
That last result was a pretty surprising one: they beat Lyon 2-0 in France though everyone expected Houllier's side to win after the 0-0 draw in Rome. That just about sums up why we should be extremely cautious.
'Obviously it's pointless looking beyond this game. We must concentrate on this game only. We're really looking forward to it,' added Fergie.
Chief executive David Gill did not hide his delight following the draw because he got his wish: United avoided the other English teams, Chelsea and Liverpool.
'Yes, I'm relieved,' Gill told Sky Sports. 'I think playing in Europe is about playing other European teams. I haven`t discussed it with Alex (Ferguson) but I think that`s right.
'Chelsea and Liverpool could meet in the semi and it could be an all English final. Who knows?
'If we`re honest with ourselves we`ve underachieved in the past few seasons in Europe, so quite rightly, a club of our stature and with what we`ve achieved, should be right in there in the latter stages.
'We`re delighted to be there, Sir Alex, the players and the fans and it should be a great occasion.' | {
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European Parliament votes yes to 2030 renewable energy target
14.03.2013
Today the European Parliament called for the "successful" 2020 renewable energy target to be prolonged to 2030.
"The Parliament has once again recognised what a strong renewables industry, driven by ambitious targets, can do for Europe's economy, jobs, energy security and the climate", commented Stephane Bourgeois, Head of Regulatory Affairs at the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).
"The European Commission must heed the Parliament's support for a target when it publishes its Green Paper on 2030 energy policy in the next few weeks".
The MEPs also condemned the retroactive changes to renewable energy support mechanisms taking place in several EU Member States as detrimental to investor confidence. EWEA has spoken out regularly against such changes, because the resulting political uncertainty needlessly increases the sector's cost of capital.
The MEPs were voting in Plenary on the Tzavela report on the 2050 Energy Roadmap.
EWEA is the voice of the wind industry, actively promoting wind power in Europe and worldwide. It has over 600 members, which are active in over 50 countries, making EWEA the world's largest and most powerful wind energy network. | {
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Too much hydrogen is problem for biogas
Producing biogas can be a chemistry nightmare. NTNU researchers are helping improve the process.
Biogas may sound like an exotic kind of energy alternative to fossil fuels, but the primary mechanism that produces it — bacterial digestion of biological material — is similar to what takes place inside a cow’s gut when it eats grass. The important difference, of course, is that biogas can be made at an industrial scale, using a chamber called a digester.
A biogas digester excludes oxygen, creating an atmosphere that allows a group of different bacteria to consume biological materials and generate biogas. Most commonly, biogas digesters use waste products from agriculture and the aquaculture industry.
However, the chemistry inside the digester has to be monitored very carefully because the different groups of bacteria at work digesting the biological material in the chamber can be quite sensitive to even the smallest of changes. The trick is designing sensors that can detect these small changes quickly enough to do something to keep the bacterial balance in the digester — and thus biogas production — at optimal levels.
Jacob Lamb, a postdoctoral researcher at NTNU’s ENERSENSE strategic research area, is working on developing a hypersensitive optical fiber sensor that can detect one critical substance, hydrogen, in the liquids in a biogas digester.
RELATED ARTICLES
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. In view of inflammatory statements by Donald Trump about the size of his “nuclear button”, an NTNU political expert says the message the Nobel Committee tried to send is more important than ever.
Hydrogen fuel cells can store and supply electricity, but are still developing as a technology. NTNU researchers are helping advance this approach to making the transition to environmentally friendly energy.
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Research news written for the general publicabout technology,energy and environment,science,fishand aquaculture, innovation, health, thesocialsciences and humanities. | {
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Dong Energy, reputedly the world’s largest operator of offshore wind farms, reports a €250 million loss. Analyst Morten Imsgard explains: “It’s literally because it has been less windy. That’s the way it is when you operate wind farms.”
Belgium:
Police shoot dead a machete-wielding attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar”. Two female police were slashed before the attacker was killed by a third female officer. | {
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Sandisk to add SATA 6Gbps interface to SSD line
Sandisk has updated its line of solid state drives (SSDs) for tablet and portable computers with models that feature higher performance.
By
Martyn Williams
| May 31, 2011
| IDG News Service
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Sandisk has updated its line of solid state drives (SSDs) for tablet and portable computers with models that feature higher performance.
The new drives have a SATA III interface and can transfer data to and from the PC at roughly double the speed of the Sandisk P4 drives they are intended to succeed, the company said at the Computex trade fair.
Solid state drives are flash memory-based alternatives for hard disk drives. They are smaller, lighter and use less power than hard disks but byte-for-byte are more expensive than hard disks so are targeted at thin laptops and tablet PCs where their advantages justify their premium price.
The new SanDisk drives are available in two product families.
The U100 SSDs are targeted at ultra-thin laptops and come in capacities from 8GB to 256GB. Data can be read from the U100 at up to 450MB per second and written to the drive at up to 340MB per second. Both speeds are just over double the performance of the P4 drives that SanDisk announced at Computex.
The iSSD drives are targeted at tablet PCs and store between 8GB and 128GB depending on the model. They come in a BGA-type package, which features solder dimples on the underside for direct attachment to the tablet PC's circuit board. Maximum data speeds are up to 450MB per second for reading data and up to 160MB per second for writing data.
With the new drives, SanDisk is hoping to capture a bigger slice of the fast growing tablet PC market. Its P4 drives were used in computers such as Acer's Iconia and the Asus Eee Slate machines. | {
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European Starlings and Climate Change
You may notice a number of new bird nesting boxes springing up across the landscape at the Outdoor Discovery Center! The Museum is participating in a research project that will help determine what mechanisms European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) use to ensure offspring survival in varying environmental conditions. As climates become more erratic, with increasing variability in precipitation and temperature extremes, it is crucial to understand if and how species can adapt. The way in which starling mothers provide advantages to their offspring, in order to overcome environmental constraints, will be explored in this study. In varying environmental conditions, what mechanisms do organisms utilize to ensure offspring fitness and survival?
The project is being conducted by Graduate Student at Columbia University who states, "The goal of this study is to determine the extent that mothers are able to provide an epigenetic adaptive developmental advantage to offspring to overcome the constraints of poor environmental conditions, and to establish the methods by which this strategy is employed."
Project Aims, Hypotheses, and Predictions
In varying environmental conditions, what mechanisms do organisms utilize to ensure offspring fitness and survival? The goal of this study is to determine the extent that mothers are able to provide an epigenetic adaptive developmental advantage to offspring to overcome the constraints of poor environmental conditions, and to establish the methods by which this strategy is employed.
Hypothesis 1: Mothers adaptively program offspring through the direct transfer of maternal epigenetic markers during early life (DNA methylation can be passed from mother to offspring).
Prediction: Maternal body condition, which is positively correlated with pre-breeding rainfall [5], is related to the level of DNA methylation in offspring.
Hypothesis 2: Mothers adaptively program offspring indirectly through the transmission of hormones into the egg contents. | {
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Trying to get a leg up in the world of high fashion knittery? Well, the models in this 1966 Spinnerin "Incredible Fashions" catalog sure are... and in virtually every picture!...
The cover sets the tone. This young lady demonstrates that while her knit dress may be terribly cute, a fashionable lady may need to... um... air out the general thigh-ish, crotch-esque region periodically on a hot day, lest she mildew... And there's no shame in doing that.
No matter where you are, a few lunges will help keep those legs slim, your balance strong, and your butt firm!
Or maybe you're just hanging out with friends... What stylish young lady doesn't feel more comfortable letting it all hang out?It's the perfect way to pick up guys! None of that tiring second-guessing required!
Even Barbra Streisand here knew the power of striking a leaning bowlegged pose...It's what ultimately got her the lead role in "Funny Girl." Yeah, she can sing, but boy does that Barbra know how to display her nether-regions!
And wouldn't Clint Eastwood have wrapped up his "Good, Bad and the Ugly" quicker if the bad and the ugly had only seen him do this little pose?They'd have been so distracted, he would have won the gunfight with ease!
"Wonderfully Uninhibited," this style is called. And yes, yes, you might say it is. Muy crotchtastico!
And our young and versatile friend here demonstrates that she, too, isn't so young she hasn't learned the right moves...You can see, the man in back is admiring how effectively she's learned the Spinnerin Straddle, in spite of her young years.
Well, that about stretches this spread to the limit for today. Join me again Wednesday when the Treasure Box opens on some great goodies.
Hi Jenn! While I just KNEW this was gonna be a good post, I hadn't prepared myself enough cuz when I got to the Clint Eastwood stuff, I blew diet 7UP out my nose! Hilarious critiques as usual!!Take care, Colleen
Colleen- heh, sorry about that! Spraying soda out your nose, however, is one of the side effects of a Spinnerin catalog. :) Tissue?
Cindy- Sometimes they just find me. This was a part of a mass lot of knitting mags I got from the Salvation Army. As soon as I saw there was a Spinnerin catalog or three in the bunch, I knew I had to have it.
Sandy- And YOU'RE brave to not have taken one glimpse of that opening image and run quickly for somewhere less... ponchoish! :)
Good post!! I think this was just a lead in for todays lack of modesty in ALL situations.....Bah-humbug I'm old and I STILL don't appreciate advertising sex!!Thanks for posting, I appreciate you..(and miss you on the Gardenweb "Holiday" forum)
I get the giggles so badly at these that I get the hiccups. I borrowed a great Christmas crafts book from the libary that gave me hysterics the other day. Just me and the dog at home alone, and me laughing my head off. I guess I'm a lunatic. These are priceless! :-D
TSR's Spiffy Followers
About Your Hostess
I've known the power of a good thrift store ever since I was a kid. It's that wonderful feeling of possibility... Of being able to find all the things you ever were looking for-- and a few you never even knew existed... And for not a lot of money. Fans of the thrift-- I'd love to hear from you! | {
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Volkswagen's TAP Takes Driving To a Whole New Level
It's another day of sitting in traffic, eyes half-shut, wishing there was some way to get to work without the extended focus driving requires. It's a thought that has likely crossed the mind of every commuter at some point, and automakers have spent much time brainstorming ways of making the driving experience easier.While many brands are still in the brainstorming stage, Volkswagen is close to making it a reality. Last June, Volkswagen introduced its Temporary Automated Pilot (TAP) system at the Highly Automated Vehicle for Intelligent Transport (HAVEit) event in Boras, Sweden. The introduction of this system signals that taking a snooze in the driver's seat may not be as farfetched, or far into the future, as people might think.Active cruise control, which monitors your distance to the vehicle in front of you, is already commonplace on luxury brands, and gaining popularity in mainstream cars, too. TAP moves this kind of technology even further by taking complete control of the car using all its active safety systems, leaving the driver keep a look out and make sure everything is working properly. The system can drive the car up to 80 mph, automatically keep a safe distance from the car in front, drive at a speed selected by the driver, reduce speed before an upcoming bend, and keep the vehicle centered in the lane. As if this wasn't enough, TAP also obeys listed speed limits and other rules that may be displayed. Those who enjoy driving themselves can override the system at anytime, if they chose to use it in the first place.This is sure to be a convenience to the driver, but Volkswagen says it will also provide increased safety on the road, since people won't be dividing their attention between operating the vehicle and using cell phones or a navigation system."Above all, what we have achieved today is an important milestone on the path towards accident-free car driving," said Dr. Jurgen Leohold, Executive Director of Volkswagen Group Research Professor who presented the TAP system at the HAVEit event.The introduction of this highly technological system isn't the only evidence self-driving vehicles may be closer than we think. The question is: Do people really trust their vehicles enough to let go of the wheel? Sound off in the comments below and tell us what you think.Source: CARSCOOP, inhabitat
New Car Price QuoteFind the best car prices using our free quote tool. | {
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DiscDoctor - Computer Concepts
DiscDoctor is a ROM for the BBC Micro that provides enhanced disc management facilities for BBC Microcomputers equipped with an Intel 8271 floppy disc controller. The manual for DiscDoctor covers every command that the ROM provides and details their use for managing floppy discs. | {
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8 missing species that could be brought back to life
Although the science of cloning is just beginning, many researchers believe it is only a matter of time before we face an extraordinary situation: missing species that could be brought back to life, walking again on Earth.
To successfully clone such missing animals, scientists need to find intact DNA samples.That is why some species will have more chances to resurrect than others.
For example, recently missing animals that have been preserved (in museums), as well as prehistoric animals, preserved in permafrost, are likely to be brought back to life.
In this article, we present you a list of missing species that, due to the evolution of science, could go back to Earth .
1. Missing species that could be brought back to life: Woolly Mammoth
An imaginary landscape of the late Pleistocene, with woolly mammoths, equine, wooly rhinoceros and cave lions
The woolly mammal is one of the most massive animals missing.Researchers at Harvard University say there’s a chance to raise this species by creating a hybrid, wolf-elf Asian elephant embryo.
This creature is sometimes called “mammoth,” The Guardian reports.If cloning were successful, an elephant with mammoth features, such as long fur, small ears and low-temperature blood, would be obtained.
The team of researchers says that in a few years they will be ready to create a “mammoth.”In April 2018, scientists announced that they had isolated and resurrected 44 wool mammalian genes.
They hope the genes can be edited to create hybrid elephants.
“My goal is not to bring back the mammoth, but to bring back the mammoth genes and show that they work,” said Professor George Church of Harvard University.
2. Missing species that could be brought back to life: Tasmanian Tiger
Although it was declared missing in the 20th century, the Tasmanian tiger could still exist in isolated regions of Australia and Tasmania
This is one of the missing species in the 20th century.Tasmanian tiger or “thylacine” was a remarkable animal, originally from Australia, the largest carnivorous marsupiator in modern times.
The animals disappeared in the 1930s, largely due to trophy hunters and low genetic diversity .Because they have disappeared so recently, there are intact specimens stored in museums that may contain DNA traces.
Tasmanian tiger cloning projects are under way, and some of the missing animal genes have been successfully inserted into a mouse genome.
3. Missing species that could be brought back to life: Sword teeth
The sword teeth have appeared during the Pliocene.At the time, it seems, people did not exist yet
They are part of one of the fiercest species missing.Looking at the giant canines of these fearsome feline cats in Pleistocene, you probably wonder if their resurrection would really be a good idea.
But these animals are good candidates.They have disappeared relatively recently (about 11,000 years ago) and fossilized specimens survived to modern times thanks to the cold habitat in which these animals once lived.
Several intact specimens were recovered from prehistoric catran deposits.
4. Missing species – Moa bird
A representation of the Moa bird, missing today
We can relatively easily get DNA samples of this missing species.These giant birds, unable to fly, resembled the emu ostriches and birds but did not have vestigial wings.
Once, Moa were the largest birds on earth.The Moa birds were hunted until extinction only 600 years ago, so their feathers and eggs can still be found relatively intact.
In fact, the Moa bird DNA has been extracted from egg shells and there are already projects that try to resurrect this animal.
5. Missing species that could be brought back to life: The lazy ground
The leeward of the earth was six meters long and weighing up to four tons
When you look at the fossilized remains of this prehistoric creature, you might think they belong to a giant bear!In fact, these missing animals were lazy land, most closely related to the modern lazy three fingers.
These creatures are good candidates for the resurrection, because they have disappeared quite recently.Perhaps these giant lazy men still existed 8,000 years ago when human civilization began to develop.
DNA samples of this missing species have already been extracted from intact hair.The only living relatives of this creature are too small, so a surrogate mother is impossible to find.
And yet, maybe one day the development of a fetus will be possible in an artificial uterus .
6. Missing species that could be brought back to life: Wooly rhinoceros
Here’s another giant on our list of missing species.The woolly mammoth was not the only hairy, massive creature that harvested tundra during the Pleistocene.
Wool Rinocerus lived in the Arctic area only 10,000 years ago and appears frequently in prehistoric art in caves.Wooly rhinoceros is a good choice for cloning, for the same reasons as the wool mammoth.
Arctic permafrost has found well-preserved specimens.
7. Baiji Dolphin
This is one of the most sympathetic animals missing.Declared “Functionally Missing” in 2006, Baiji Dolphin is the first cetacean missing in modern times, primarily because of man.
Due to recent extinction, Baiji’s dolphin DNA can be extracted from existing remains.As with many missing species, the question arises whether Baiji dolphin would have a habitat to return to after cloning.
That’s because the basin of the Yangtze River, where this dolphin lived, is still very polluted.
8. Missing species that could be brought back to life: The man of Neanderthal
Here’s a cousin of the modern man on our list of missing species!The Neanderthal man is perhaps the most controversial species that has disappeared and is eligible for cloning and resurrection, primarily because of logistical means: the surrogate species will be us.
Being the latest missing member of the Homo genre, the Neanderthal man is considered to be a subspecies of modern man.Its cloning is controversial, but it could elucidate many mysteries.
A clone of a Neanderthal man would be a viable option.Scientists have already finished a sketch of the Neanderthal man genome. | {
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