I love its change of seasons and the energy that the younger generation of emerging designers bring to the table. Also, when purchasing piece after piece of boutiquery, the texture and colour of fabric is what informs me and gets me charged. Retail should, for the most part, be enjoyable, regardless of whether you're buying a lipstick or a car; and more than anything else, that is what I want for every person that walks through our doors. Life is kind of tough for everyone right now; everyone's a bit hard-pressed, so when you have that opportunity or that moment to have that interaction, they should be made to feel good; to be left with a great impression.
I must say, through this business I've met some great individuals. I aspire to turn my customers into friends. It's nice to be able to say to them "How are your kids?", "How's your family?" or "What happened last weekend?" Boutiques are able to connect to customers in a way big department stores or shopping online can't, so it's important to me to be afforded the privilege to cultivate those relationships.
I don't like to dress up, I've left that behind me, now. I really only dress up when I have to; whatever function requires me to and, thankfully, I don't go to a lot of those. I love a casual look that I can start out in the morning and can take me right into the evening, because when life takes over, I seem to always be going by the 'seat of my pants'. The concept of going home to change rarely happens for me very well and fortunately, I'm good with that. I like to have pieces in my wardrobe that meet the requirement of a full day: work, lunch, dinner, if I have to meet up with friends for a night out. Jamaica's relaxed lifestyle and the fact that I don't work corporate allow me to fully exercise my casual tastes.
As you mature, I think one tends to learn more about oneself and what we naturally prefer and so, with that said, I like to be comfortable; that's my thing. I don't want to have to be constantly readjusting my outfit once I'm out the door, I want to be left to concentrate on the other things in my life that need to get done. I don't have a lot of clothes nor a huge wardrobe, but I like timeless pieces that I can keep and wear over and real time Location system. I know many people don't like to wear the same thing twice, but I definitely play favourites. Whenever a much-loved piece 'dies', I'm really saddened and find myself organising the hunt for its swift replacement.
They're not playing slots or video poker. No, they're trying their hand at upcoming games such as "Titanfall" and "Ryse."
This is the GameStop Expo. The world's largest video game retailer first organized the gathering of its most passionate customers last year during its annual meeting of store managers. While the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles is no longer open to the public, the GameStop Expo offers everyday gamers a chance to preview upcoming titles and hardware.
The expo's more than 5,000 attendees waited in snaking lines inside a cavernous Sands Expo hall early Wednesday to test-drive Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4, the next-generation systems due out this November. "Call of Duty: Ghosts," "Titanfall," "Ryse: Son of Rome" and "Battlefield 4" were among the most popular games on display.
"I'm here to see and play all the next-gen consoles and games for myself," Shawn Smoak, a 22-year-old self-professed "Sony fanboy," said while waiting to try out "Titanfall." "You can read everything you possibly can about them online, but until you actually get your hands on the controller, you don't really know anything. That's what this is all about."
Beyond the expo hall in meeting rooms at the Venetian casino and Sands convention center, more than 5,000 managers from company's nearly 4,500 stores in the U.S. spent three days learning all about how to sell new games and hardware to customers like those at its expo. The retailer currently boasts about 25 million members in its PowerUp Rewards program.
GameStop launched the gamer gathering last year after the Grapevine, Texas-based company's international divisions successfully hosted their own events. (Last year's EB Games Expo in Australia welcomed more than 30,000 attendees.) Admission for Wednesday's event ranged from $20 for student tickets to $100 for VIP access that included early entry.
"We didn't want to be in the live events business," said GameStop CEO Paul Raines. "This was something that was pulled out of us. The customers wanted it. The PowerUp Rewards community was asking for us to give them an opportunity to see new products and games. People love it because this is the only place where they can play `Titanfall' right now."
Frazier, a black sociologist at Howard University and the first black president of the American Sociological Society published the first edition of his book in France in 1957 and it was later translated into English and a second edition was published in 1962. Much of the book is dated as the size and importance of the black middle-class has dramatically increased over the past 50 years. Blacks have become an integral part of all areas of American life up to and including the presidency of the United States. Yet the perception of exclusion remains. Forty years after the publication of "Black Bourgeoisie," Ellis Cose published "The Rage of a Privileged Class" that was a look at the black middle-class. In it he details the frustrations of black professionals who in spite of their greatly improved status in American society still felt marginalized.
In spite of the passage of the civil rights laws of the 1960's and progress made by blacks over the last 50 years, events such as the Zimmerman trial reveal to what extent we are still two separate societies. The explanation that would be given by most black commentators is the persistence of racism. The basis of disparate impact law is the notion that if imbalances exist in the numbers of minorities in an occupation, the starting assumption is that the reason is racial prejudice. By analogy, if a white Hispanic shoots an unarmed black teenager, the reason is racial animus and the burden of proof is on the white to prove otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.
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Showing posts with label response whenever possible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label response whenever possible. Show all posts
Monday, September 2, 2013
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Babysitter sexually abused young boys
Thomas Curley, 73, of Cedar Road, Ribbleton pleaded guilty at Preston Crown Court to 14 counts of historic abuse dating back to the early nineties. Two of the charges were attempted rape, the other 12 were indecent assault.The frail pensioner, who appeared in the dock on crutches, escaped a life term because his offences over a 12-year period - which also involved a third, unconnected, boy - were committed before sentencing rules were tightened up.
Two of the victims, now adults, were in court as Judge Pamela Badley told Curley: “The family trusted you and the way you repaid that trust was to perform acts that these days would be called rape.“You don’t see yourself as a child sex offender. You don’t see yourself as presenting a potential risk to children. But your pattern of behaviour is such that young people have been at risk from you and will be in the future.”
Curley befriended the family and then set about abusing the eldest of the two boys on an almost daily basis when he was just six.Most of the offences, said prosecuting barrister Jeremy Grout-Smith, happened when he was babysitting, or when he called to take the children to school. He also assaulted the boy on a fishing trip and when he accompanied him on his paper round.
When the victim reached 16 and threatened to kill Curley with a knife, he turned his attention to the boy’s younger brother, abusing him several times a week for between 18 months and two years.“He was a trusted, close family friend,” said Mr Grout-Smith. “He won the family’s trust and gained free access to their home.”
The court heard Curley became more physical and aggressive and at times grabbed the eldest boy by the throat or tied his hands before abusing him.The impact on the family, said Mr Grout-Smith, had been ?“devastating.” The abuse had a “catastrophic” effect on the eldest brother in particular. He felt Curley owned him and made him feel worthless and full of self-loathing. He turned to drink and drugs to cope with the abuse and Indoor Positioning System.
The youngest brother felt he was “a piece of meat,” was stripped of his confidence and was disgusted with himself. He too turned to cannabis.“The whole family has been tortured by Curley’s evil conduct towards the boys,” added Mr Grout-Smith. Defending Curley, who had previous child sex convictions dating back to 1955, Jane Dagnall told the court her client had himself been a victim of abuse as a child. “He is at risk of self-harm and has made suicide attempts in the past,” she said.
Judge Badley told him he was guilty of “depraved and disgusting behaviour towards children.”The older brother, she said, “was only six when he had the misfortune to be put in close proximity to you. His family have gone through agonies of regret over this.“I have considered whether a life sentence is available, but there are no complete rape offences here so I must move on from that.
“Despite you advanced age I am of the opinion that there is a significant risk to the public. This is a lengthy sentence and it is certainly one where your victims will be counting the days.”
The last time Dan Braniff fomented a seniors’ revolution, he was a sprightly 74. This time he’s a less nimble 82, but the issue compels him to sound the bugle again.
His first crusade ended in victory, although it took a change of government to get it. In 2005, Braniff and a few friends — “five old geezers” as he put it — launched a campaign to persuade former prime minister Paul Martin to allow married seniors to split their retirement income equally, reducing their tax bill. They managed to enlist 2.5 million people.
Braniff expects this battle to be bigger. Pensioners across Canada will be sideswiped if Ottawa gives American telecommunications giant Verizon privileged access to the Canadian telecommunications market. Many have a large portion of their savings invested in Bell, Rogers and Telus.
As a former executive of Bell Canada, Braniff is more exposed than most. But he is by no means alone. Robert Farmer, president of the Canadian Federation of Pensioners, which represents a quarter of a million retirees, fired off a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, warning that the failure of any of the big three Canadian telecommunications companies would bring “irreparable harm to all pensioners.”
Bernard Dussault, former chief actuary of the Canada Pension Plan, issued an analysis calling seniors the forgotten victims of the government’s scheme to intervene in the telecommunications market. “The three wireless incumbents represent a core investment for most Canadian pensions, savings plans, RRSPs, RRIFs and numerous nest eggs,” he wrote, pointing out their market value had dropped by about $15 billion since Aug. 9.
No one is accusing the government of deliberately putting the incomes of pensioners at risk. But federal officials would be trading seniors’ security for the possibility of lower cellphones rates under the rules the Tories have set for next year’s wireless spectrum auction.
Industry Canada has stipulated that Bell, Rogers and Telus would each be restricted to bidding on 25 per cent of the 700-megahertz band (which provides the highest-speed service). New entrants, such as Verizon, would be allowed to bid for 50 per cent of the new frequency.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
Two of the victims, now adults, were in court as Judge Pamela Badley told Curley: “The family trusted you and the way you repaid that trust was to perform acts that these days would be called rape.“You don’t see yourself as a child sex offender. You don’t see yourself as presenting a potential risk to children. But your pattern of behaviour is such that young people have been at risk from you and will be in the future.”
Curley befriended the family and then set about abusing the eldest of the two boys on an almost daily basis when he was just six.Most of the offences, said prosecuting barrister Jeremy Grout-Smith, happened when he was babysitting, or when he called to take the children to school. He also assaulted the boy on a fishing trip and when he accompanied him on his paper round.
When the victim reached 16 and threatened to kill Curley with a knife, he turned his attention to the boy’s younger brother, abusing him several times a week for between 18 months and two years.“He was a trusted, close family friend,” said Mr Grout-Smith. “He won the family’s trust and gained free access to their home.”
The court heard Curley became more physical and aggressive and at times grabbed the eldest boy by the throat or tied his hands before abusing him.The impact on the family, said Mr Grout-Smith, had been ?“devastating.” The abuse had a “catastrophic” effect on the eldest brother in particular. He felt Curley owned him and made him feel worthless and full of self-loathing. He turned to drink and drugs to cope with the abuse and Indoor Positioning System.
The youngest brother felt he was “a piece of meat,” was stripped of his confidence and was disgusted with himself. He too turned to cannabis.“The whole family has been tortured by Curley’s evil conduct towards the boys,” added Mr Grout-Smith. Defending Curley, who had previous child sex convictions dating back to 1955, Jane Dagnall told the court her client had himself been a victim of abuse as a child. “He is at risk of self-harm and has made suicide attempts in the past,” she said.
Judge Badley told him he was guilty of “depraved and disgusting behaviour towards children.”The older brother, she said, “was only six when he had the misfortune to be put in close proximity to you. His family have gone through agonies of regret over this.“I have considered whether a life sentence is available, but there are no complete rape offences here so I must move on from that.
“Despite you advanced age I am of the opinion that there is a significant risk to the public. This is a lengthy sentence and it is certainly one where your victims will be counting the days.”
The last time Dan Braniff fomented a seniors’ revolution, he was a sprightly 74. This time he’s a less nimble 82, but the issue compels him to sound the bugle again.
His first crusade ended in victory, although it took a change of government to get it. In 2005, Braniff and a few friends — “five old geezers” as he put it — launched a campaign to persuade former prime minister Paul Martin to allow married seniors to split their retirement income equally, reducing their tax bill. They managed to enlist 2.5 million people.
Braniff expects this battle to be bigger. Pensioners across Canada will be sideswiped if Ottawa gives American telecommunications giant Verizon privileged access to the Canadian telecommunications market. Many have a large portion of their savings invested in Bell, Rogers and Telus.
As a former executive of Bell Canada, Braniff is more exposed than most. But he is by no means alone. Robert Farmer, president of the Canadian Federation of Pensioners, which represents a quarter of a million retirees, fired off a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, warning that the failure of any of the big three Canadian telecommunications companies would bring “irreparable harm to all pensioners.”
Bernard Dussault, former chief actuary of the Canada Pension Plan, issued an analysis calling seniors the forgotten victims of the government’s scheme to intervene in the telecommunications market. “The three wireless incumbents represent a core investment for most Canadian pensions, savings plans, RRSPs, RRIFs and numerous nest eggs,” he wrote, pointing out their market value had dropped by about $15 billion since Aug. 9.
No one is accusing the government of deliberately putting the incomes of pensioners at risk. But federal officials would be trading seniors’ security for the possibility of lower cellphones rates under the rules the Tories have set for next year’s wireless spectrum auction.
Industry Canada has stipulated that Bell, Rogers and Telus would each be restricted to bidding on 25 per cent of the 700-megahertz band (which provides the highest-speed service). New entrants, such as Verizon, would be allowed to bid for 50 per cent of the new frequency.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
Monday, August 19, 2013
Latest traveling exhibit to open at ECHO
Change the twist of a tornado, swirl water into amazing patterns, spin the colors of a rainbow and more at “Cool Moves! Artistry of Motion”, ECHO’s newest traveling exhibit, opening to the public on Saturday, September 14.
COOL MOVES! features fun, interactive exhibits that allow visitors to discover the beauty of motion that takes place around us every day. Through hands-on experimentation, each interactive exhibit explores how motion in a variety of things can be characterized by simple types: translation vs. rotation, continuous vs. vibrating, and predictable vs. unpredictable.
At the “Dancing Wall” exhibit, motion detectors are triggered by visitors’ dancing movements and these movements create a unique light and sound show! “Animals in Motion” specialized computer video kiosk allows guests to manipulate the speed of movement of various animals, such as frogs, owls, otters, cheetahs, kangaroos, hummingbirds, rtls, and dolphins. By slowing down and then speeding up the motion, guests can see the amazing micro movements of these animals in the wild. Guests can zoom a strange car down a track, see a miniature tornado, or use the wind to swirl shimmering water into swirling patterns. The giant pendulum feature allows visitors to move magnets into different patterns and watch how the pendulum swings to investigate the unpredictability of chaotic motion.
Digital Rapids announced today that the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is using Digital Rapids' StreamZHD encoding system to educate students and deliver online streams of its live productions from its state-of-the-art mobile audio and HD video recording and production facility.
The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is a non-profit organization that has traveled across the U.S. and Canada for the past 16 years serving as a living legacy to John Lennon by providing young people with free access to hands-on music and video creation. Students and emerging artists alike are afforded the opportunity to create original content alongside today's most recognized musicians and the team of experienced engineers on board.
Through studio tours and workshops — which include celebrity appearances, live performances and live multi-camera video productions streamed online in real time — young musicians can learn how to write, perform, record and produce original songs and music videos. The StreamZHD system encodes HD source signals into multiple concurrent live-output streams ranging from mobile to HD resolutions.
Digital Rapids' StreamZHD ingest, encoding and archive systems deliver high-quality, multi-format video capture, encoding, transcoding and streaming in versatile configurations that integrate easily into any professional environment. Offering one of the industry's deepest feature sets, they provide flexibility, format support and efficient automation for transforming media for applications from post production and archive to live and on-demand multi-screen distribution.
It is the first sign that Barnes & Noble's Nook arm is groping to finds its way after announcing it would jettison its business making tablets like its Nook HD and Nook HD+, followed shortly thereafter by the news that CEO William Lynch would resign. That marked the departure of a tech-focused executive who rose to the company's helm from its online business, and put more authority in the hands of Leonard Riggio, Barnes & Noble's chairman and biggest shareholder.
At the time, Barnes & Noble said it wasn't searching for a CEO successor, and would instead it review its strategy and "update when appropriate." Since then, the only peeps out of Barnes & Noble about the division have been more discounts to devices such as Sunday's $20 price cut to the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, the second reduction since September.
Discounts on the Nook were the main culprit behind Barnes & Noble's last quarterly report plagued by losses. The company is supposed to report its performance in the most recent quarter Tuesday.
The new video apps make Barnes & Noble's Nook store more applicable for more devices, after the company had made its own device more applicable to other companies' shops. In May, it added the Google Play store to meet market and customer demand for access to the full breadth of Indoor Positioning System, but it also gave customers the opportunity to buy e-books and other content from Google just a few swipes away from the Nook store.
In the Nook Store, movies and TV shows are available to purchase or rental, and now can be streamed or downloaded on Nooks or on other devices through the video apps. Customers can also shift their viewing across devices, starting a movie on one and then picking up on another.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
COOL MOVES! features fun, interactive exhibits that allow visitors to discover the beauty of motion that takes place around us every day. Through hands-on experimentation, each interactive exhibit explores how motion in a variety of things can be characterized by simple types: translation vs. rotation, continuous vs. vibrating, and predictable vs. unpredictable.
At the “Dancing Wall” exhibit, motion detectors are triggered by visitors’ dancing movements and these movements create a unique light and sound show! “Animals in Motion” specialized computer video kiosk allows guests to manipulate the speed of movement of various animals, such as frogs, owls, otters, cheetahs, kangaroos, hummingbirds, rtls, and dolphins. By slowing down and then speeding up the motion, guests can see the amazing micro movements of these animals in the wild. Guests can zoom a strange car down a track, see a miniature tornado, or use the wind to swirl shimmering water into swirling patterns. The giant pendulum feature allows visitors to move magnets into different patterns and watch how the pendulum swings to investigate the unpredictability of chaotic motion.
Digital Rapids announced today that the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is using Digital Rapids' StreamZHD encoding system to educate students and deliver online streams of its live productions from its state-of-the-art mobile audio and HD video recording and production facility.
The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is a non-profit organization that has traveled across the U.S. and Canada for the past 16 years serving as a living legacy to John Lennon by providing young people with free access to hands-on music and video creation. Students and emerging artists alike are afforded the opportunity to create original content alongside today's most recognized musicians and the team of experienced engineers on board.
Through studio tours and workshops — which include celebrity appearances, live performances and live multi-camera video productions streamed online in real time — young musicians can learn how to write, perform, record and produce original songs and music videos. The StreamZHD system encodes HD source signals into multiple concurrent live-output streams ranging from mobile to HD resolutions.
Digital Rapids' StreamZHD ingest, encoding and archive systems deliver high-quality, multi-format video capture, encoding, transcoding and streaming in versatile configurations that integrate easily into any professional environment. Offering one of the industry's deepest feature sets, they provide flexibility, format support and efficient automation for transforming media for applications from post production and archive to live and on-demand multi-screen distribution.
It is the first sign that Barnes & Noble's Nook arm is groping to finds its way after announcing it would jettison its business making tablets like its Nook HD and Nook HD+, followed shortly thereafter by the news that CEO William Lynch would resign. That marked the departure of a tech-focused executive who rose to the company's helm from its online business, and put more authority in the hands of Leonard Riggio, Barnes & Noble's chairman and biggest shareholder.
At the time, Barnes & Noble said it wasn't searching for a CEO successor, and would instead it review its strategy and "update when appropriate." Since then, the only peeps out of Barnes & Noble about the division have been more discounts to devices such as Sunday's $20 price cut to the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, the second reduction since September.
Discounts on the Nook were the main culprit behind Barnes & Noble's last quarterly report plagued by losses. The company is supposed to report its performance in the most recent quarter Tuesday.
The new video apps make Barnes & Noble's Nook store more applicable for more devices, after the company had made its own device more applicable to other companies' shops. In May, it added the Google Play store to meet market and customer demand for access to the full breadth of Indoor Positioning System, but it also gave customers the opportunity to buy e-books and other content from Google just a few swipes away from the Nook store.
In the Nook Store, movies and TV shows are available to purchase or rental, and now can be streamed or downloaded on Nooks or on other devices through the video apps. Customers can also shift their viewing across devices, starting a movie on one and then picking up on another.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Police storm camps supporting ousted president
Riot police backed by armored vehicles, bulldozers and helicopters Wednesday swept away two encampments of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, setting off running street battles in Cairo and other Egyptian cities. At least 278 people were killed nationwide, many of them in the crackdown on the protest sites.
Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-reform leader in the interim government, resigned in protest over the assaults as the military-backed leadership imposed a monthlong state of emergency and nighttime curfew.
Clashes broke out elsewhere in the capital and other provinces as Islamist anger spread over the dispersal of the 6-week-old sit-ins by Morsi’s Islamist supporters that Indoor Positioning System.It was the highest single day death toll since the 18-day uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The Health Ministry said 235 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 injured, while Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said 43 policemen died in the assault. He said Morsi supporters attacked 21 police stations and seven Coptic Christian churches across the nation, and assaulted the Finance Ministry in Cairo, occupying its ground floor.
The violence drew condemnation from other predominantly Muslim countries, but also from the West, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying it had dealt a “serious blow” to Egypt’s political reconciliation efforts.
The assault to take control of the two sit-in sites came after days of warnings by the interim administration that replaced Morsi after he was ousted in a July 3 coup. The camps on opposite sides of the capital began in late June to show support for Morsi. Protesters _ many from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood _ have demanded his reinstatement.
The smaller camp was cleared relatively quickly, but it took hours for police to take control of the main sit-in site, which is near the Rabbah al-Adawiya Mosque that has served as the epicenter of the pro-Morsi campaign.
Several senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood who were wanted by police were detained after police stormed the camp near the mosque, according to security officials and state television. Among those seized were Brotherhood leaders Mohammed el-Beltagy and Essam el-Erian, and hard-line cleric Safwat Hegazy _ all wanted by prosecutors to answer allegations of inciting violence and conspiring to kill anti-Morsi protesters.
Police dismantled the main stage near the mosque in the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City, the official MENA news agency said. An AP reporter saw hundreds of protesters leaving the sit-in site carrying their personal belongings.
Smoke clogged the sky above Cairo and fires smoldered on the streets, which were lined with charred poles and tarps after several tents were burned.In imposing the state of emergency, the government ordered the armed forces to support the police in restoring law and order and protect state facilities. The nighttime curfew affects Cairo and 10 provinces.
The Egyptian Central Bank instructed commercial banks to close branches in areas affected by the chaos. The landmark Giza Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum also were closed to visitors for the day as a precaution, according to the Ministry of Antiquities.
The turmoil was the latest chapter in a bitter standoff between Morsi’s supporters and the interim leadership that took over the Arab world’s most populous country. The military ousted Morsi after millions of Egyptians massed in the streets at the end of June to call for him to step down, accusing him of giving the Brotherhood undue influence and failing to implement vital reforms or bolster the ailing economy.
The coup provoked similar protests by Morsi’s backers after he and other Brotherhood leaders were detained as divisions have deepened, dealing a major blow to hopes of an end to the turmoil that followed the 2011 revolution against Mubarak.
Morsi has been held at an undisclosed location. Other Brotherhood leaders have been charged with inciting violence or conspiring in the killing of protesters.
“The world cannot sit back and watch while innocent men, women and children are being indiscriminately slaughtered. The world must stand up to the military junta’s crime before it is too late,” said a statement by the Brotherhood’s media office in London emailed to The Associated Press.
ElBaradei, a former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, was named only last month as interim President Adly Mansour’s deputy for foreign relations.
In his resignation letter, he wrote that he is not prepared to be held responsible for a “single drop of indoor Tracking,” and that only more violence will result, according to a copy that was emailed to The Associated Press. He said Egypt is more polarized than when he took office.
The smaller of the two protest camps was cleared of protesters by late morning, with most of them taking refuge in the nearby Orman botanical gardens on the campus of Cairo University and the zoo.
An AP reporter at the scene said security forces chased protesters in the zoo. At one point, a dozen protesters, mostly men with beards and wearing traditional Islamist garb, were handcuffed on a sidewalk under guard outside the university campus. The private ONTV network showed firearms and ammunition allegedly seized from protestersSecurity forces later stormed the larger camp near the mosque in the Cairo district of Nasr City. The mosque has served as the epicenter of pro-Morsi campaign, with several Brotherhood leaders wanted by police believed to be hiding inside.
The pro-Morsi Anti-Coup alliance claimed security forces used live ammunition, but the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police, said its forces only used tear gas and that they came under fire from the camp.
The Interior Ministry statement also warned that forces would deal firmly with protesters who were acting “irresponsibly,” suggesting that it would respond in kind if its men are fired upon. It said it would guarantee safe passage to all who want to leave the Nasr City site but would arrest those wanted for questioning by prosecutors.
Army troops did not take part in the two operations, but provided security at the locations. Police and army helicopters hovered over both sites hours after the police launched the simultaneous actions shortly after 7 a.m. (0500 GMT).The Health Ministry said 149 people were killed and 1,403 injured across Egypt, but it did not immediately provide a breakdown.
An alliance of pro-Morsi groups said Asmaa Mohammed el-Batagy, the 17-year-old daughter of the senior Brotherhood figure who was detained by police, was shot and killed. Her brother, Ammar, confirmed her death on his Twitter account.
Two journalists were among the dead _ Mick Deane, 61, a cameraman for British broadcaster Sky News, and Habiba Ahmed Abd Elaziz, 26, a reporter for the Gulf News, a state-backed newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, the news organizations reported. Both had been reported to be shot.
A security official said 200 protesters were arrested at both sites. Several men could be seen walking with their hands up as they were led away by black-clad police.The Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm claimed that more than 500 protesters were killed and some 9,000 wounded in the two camps, but those figures could not be confirmed and nothing in the video from AP or local TV networks suggested such a high death toll.
Before he was detained, Mohammed el-Beltagy put the death toll at more than 300, urged police and army troops to mutiny, and said Egyptians should take to the streets to show their disapproval of the crackdown.“Oh, Egyptian people, your brothers are in the square. ... Are you going to remain silent until the genocide is completed?” said el-Beltagy, who is wanted by authorities to answer allegations of inciting violence.
Police fired tear gas elsewhere in Cairo to disperse Morsi supporters who wanted to join the Nasr City camp after it came under attack. State TV also reported that a police captain had been abducted by Morsi supporters in the area, but there was no official statement about that.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-reform leader in the interim government, resigned in protest over the assaults as the military-backed leadership imposed a monthlong state of emergency and nighttime curfew.
Clashes broke out elsewhere in the capital and other provinces as Islamist anger spread over the dispersal of the 6-week-old sit-ins by Morsi’s Islamist supporters that Indoor Positioning System.It was the highest single day death toll since the 18-day uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The Health Ministry said 235 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 injured, while Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said 43 policemen died in the assault. He said Morsi supporters attacked 21 police stations and seven Coptic Christian churches across the nation, and assaulted the Finance Ministry in Cairo, occupying its ground floor.
The violence drew condemnation from other predominantly Muslim countries, but also from the West, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying it had dealt a “serious blow” to Egypt’s political reconciliation efforts.
The assault to take control of the two sit-in sites came after days of warnings by the interim administration that replaced Morsi after he was ousted in a July 3 coup. The camps on opposite sides of the capital began in late June to show support for Morsi. Protesters _ many from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood _ have demanded his reinstatement.
The smaller camp was cleared relatively quickly, but it took hours for police to take control of the main sit-in site, which is near the Rabbah al-Adawiya Mosque that has served as the epicenter of the pro-Morsi campaign.
Several senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood who were wanted by police were detained after police stormed the camp near the mosque, according to security officials and state television. Among those seized were Brotherhood leaders Mohammed el-Beltagy and Essam el-Erian, and hard-line cleric Safwat Hegazy _ all wanted by prosecutors to answer allegations of inciting violence and conspiring to kill anti-Morsi protesters.
Police dismantled the main stage near the mosque in the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City, the official MENA news agency said. An AP reporter saw hundreds of protesters leaving the sit-in site carrying their personal belongings.
Smoke clogged the sky above Cairo and fires smoldered on the streets, which were lined with charred poles and tarps after several tents were burned.In imposing the state of emergency, the government ordered the armed forces to support the police in restoring law and order and protect state facilities. The nighttime curfew affects Cairo and 10 provinces.
The Egyptian Central Bank instructed commercial banks to close branches in areas affected by the chaos. The landmark Giza Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum also were closed to visitors for the day as a precaution, according to the Ministry of Antiquities.
The turmoil was the latest chapter in a bitter standoff between Morsi’s supporters and the interim leadership that took over the Arab world’s most populous country. The military ousted Morsi after millions of Egyptians massed in the streets at the end of June to call for him to step down, accusing him of giving the Brotherhood undue influence and failing to implement vital reforms or bolster the ailing economy.
The coup provoked similar protests by Morsi’s backers after he and other Brotherhood leaders were detained as divisions have deepened, dealing a major blow to hopes of an end to the turmoil that followed the 2011 revolution against Mubarak.
Morsi has been held at an undisclosed location. Other Brotherhood leaders have been charged with inciting violence or conspiring in the killing of protesters.
“The world cannot sit back and watch while innocent men, women and children are being indiscriminately slaughtered. The world must stand up to the military junta’s crime before it is too late,” said a statement by the Brotherhood’s media office in London emailed to The Associated Press.
ElBaradei, a former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, was named only last month as interim President Adly Mansour’s deputy for foreign relations.
In his resignation letter, he wrote that he is not prepared to be held responsible for a “single drop of indoor Tracking,” and that only more violence will result, according to a copy that was emailed to The Associated Press. He said Egypt is more polarized than when he took office.
The smaller of the two protest camps was cleared of protesters by late morning, with most of them taking refuge in the nearby Orman botanical gardens on the campus of Cairo University and the zoo.
An AP reporter at the scene said security forces chased protesters in the zoo. At one point, a dozen protesters, mostly men with beards and wearing traditional Islamist garb, were handcuffed on a sidewalk under guard outside the university campus. The private ONTV network showed firearms and ammunition allegedly seized from protestersSecurity forces later stormed the larger camp near the mosque in the Cairo district of Nasr City. The mosque has served as the epicenter of pro-Morsi campaign, with several Brotherhood leaders wanted by police believed to be hiding inside.
The pro-Morsi Anti-Coup alliance claimed security forces used live ammunition, but the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police, said its forces only used tear gas and that they came under fire from the camp.
The Interior Ministry statement also warned that forces would deal firmly with protesters who were acting “irresponsibly,” suggesting that it would respond in kind if its men are fired upon. It said it would guarantee safe passage to all who want to leave the Nasr City site but would arrest those wanted for questioning by prosecutors.
Army troops did not take part in the two operations, but provided security at the locations. Police and army helicopters hovered over both sites hours after the police launched the simultaneous actions shortly after 7 a.m. (0500 GMT).The Health Ministry said 149 people were killed and 1,403 injured across Egypt, but it did not immediately provide a breakdown.
An alliance of pro-Morsi groups said Asmaa Mohammed el-Batagy, the 17-year-old daughter of the senior Brotherhood figure who was detained by police, was shot and killed. Her brother, Ammar, confirmed her death on his Twitter account.
Two journalists were among the dead _ Mick Deane, 61, a cameraman for British broadcaster Sky News, and Habiba Ahmed Abd Elaziz, 26, a reporter for the Gulf News, a state-backed newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, the news organizations reported. Both had been reported to be shot.
A security official said 200 protesters were arrested at both sites. Several men could be seen walking with their hands up as they were led away by black-clad police.The Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm claimed that more than 500 protesters were killed and some 9,000 wounded in the two camps, but those figures could not be confirmed and nothing in the video from AP or local TV networks suggested such a high death toll.
Before he was detained, Mohammed el-Beltagy put the death toll at more than 300, urged police and army troops to mutiny, and said Egyptians should take to the streets to show their disapproval of the crackdown.“Oh, Egyptian people, your brothers are in the square. ... Are you going to remain silent until the genocide is completed?” said el-Beltagy, who is wanted by authorities to answer allegations of inciting violence.
Police fired tear gas elsewhere in Cairo to disperse Morsi supporters who wanted to join the Nasr City camp after it came under attack. State TV also reported that a police captain had been abducted by Morsi supporters in the area, but there was no official statement about that.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Monday, August 12, 2013
With a Little Bashing
I’m not a sedentary person. In my 30s and 40s, I was a runner, and for decades, I played singles tennis three or more times a week. After a back injury in my late 30s, I took up swimming and cycling.
Now, in my 70s and with artificial knees, I walk or cycle and swim laps daily, all of which has kept me aerobically fit, free of pain, reasonably trim and energetic. So in combing recently through the professional literature on exercise and bone health, I was quite disappointed to learn that neither swimming nor cycling is especially good for my bones — at least, not the ones most susceptible to fracture. Swimming, in fact, might compromise the strength of those bones because it lacks the tug of Hands free access.
That’s what researchers have found when they measured bone mineral density in young athletes who swim or cycle, and even in some who run. There are two reasons for this. One is the continuous nature of these activities. Bones, it seems, don’t like constant pressure. They respond better to exercise that involves forceful muscle contractions, occurring in starts and stops and with some variety — as happens, for example, when playing tennis or training with weights.
To maintain strength, bones also need the stress of gravity, which is lacking in cycling and swimming and not as powerful when walking as it is when running. Being suspended in water is like floating in space for a short time: once they leave Earth, astronauts lose bone.
But before I was too discouraged (and before you abandon exercises like mine and retreat to your recliner), I did some more research. Regular walks can indeed offer some protection against hip fractures among women (and presumably, men) of a certain age, I found. In the famous Nurses’ Health Study, which has followed tens of thousands of postmenopausal women for decades, those who walked for at least four hours a week were 40 percent less likely to suffer hip fractures than those who walked less.
Those who walked for at least eight hours a week (or did the equivalent amount of another activity) were as unlikely to suffer hip fractures as women on hormone replacement therapy, long known to protect bones. As a bonus, walking briskly for exercise also lowered the women’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and stroke.
Activities like walking may not be perfect bone-builders, but they are far better than doing nothing. “As a bone doctor, I’ll take anything,” said Dr. Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon at the Center for Sports Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Her studies of 3,000 athletic seniors, whom she described as “normal people,” have shown that even in their 70s and 80s, they are able to maintain bone densities higher than the general population’s.
Still, she emphasized the need to “bash our bones” to make and keep them strong. This can be done, she said, through “dynamic impact” — by hopping or jumping rope 100 times a day, for example — or through “positive stress” by walking rapidly uphill or upstairs, or even standing on the pedals while cycling uphill. Although many bone experts recommend weight-training on resistance machines like those found in gyms, Dr. Wright realizes that most older adults won’t or can’t join a gym. Or, like me, they simply don’t like machines and won’t use them regularly.
Rather, she recommends home-based exercises that more closely mimic how the body functions in the real time Location system. “The house or office can be as effective as a gym,” Dr. Wright said.
“We never prescribe machines anymore,” she said. “Pushing leg presses is so unnatural. It’s not how the body uses squats. We train the body functionally, using the body’s own weight and free weights for resistance instead of machines.”
Without any equipment, you can strengthen your body’s core and multiple muscle groups by doing what trainers call a prisoner squat. Stand straight with feet shoulder-width apart, knees and toes pointed forward, hands behind your head and elbows pointed outward. Sink down, keeping your weight on your heels as if you were about to sit in a chair. Rise up with your back straight and repeat, working up to two sets of about 10 squats each. For a slightly greater challenge, the same exercise can be done against a wall using an exercise ball between you and the wall. You can use hand weights, or even hold cans of food, to strengthen the upper body at the same time.
Dr. Wright also encourages people to use the stairs at home and at work. Walking up and down 100 steps five times at a fast pace provides both an aerobic workout and one that strengthens bones. Walking rapidly uphill is another option. If jumping rope has some appeal, Dr. Wright suggested using a cordless digital jump rope to reduce the risk of tripping. It also records the number of jumps with each turn of the wrists.
If you have access to chest-high water in a pool, lake or seaside, you can build muscle mass and strengthen bones by walking forward and backward and side-to-side in the water, she said. This can strengthen the quads, buttocks and core, providing bone stimulation for the spine and hips and shock absorption for the knees.
And don’t forget dancing. “The waltz or swing dance is one of the most popular things I prescribe,” Dr. Wright said.
Of course, if your back can handle it, there are many ordinary tasks that can strengthen bones, among them carrying heavy items or small children for short distances. In the warmer months, I do a lot of outdoor tasks — pushing a lawn mower, raking, sawing, digging and the like — that involve intermittent bone-building stress.
Bone density exams typically involve only the spine, hips and forearms, the areas most susceptible to compression or fragility fractures. But other bones, like those in the thigh, upper arm and shoulder, can also break under minimal stress if they are weak, so activities that strengthen them — like walking, cycling and swimming — can indeed be helpful. While some doctors think measures of the internal structure of bones may more accurately indicate strength than traditional bone density tests, several experts told me that there is as yet no standard by which to judge bone health based on structure.
Now, in my 70s and with artificial knees, I walk or cycle and swim laps daily, all of which has kept me aerobically fit, free of pain, reasonably trim and energetic. So in combing recently through the professional literature on exercise and bone health, I was quite disappointed to learn that neither swimming nor cycling is especially good for my bones — at least, not the ones most susceptible to fracture. Swimming, in fact, might compromise the strength of those bones because it lacks the tug of Hands free access.
That’s what researchers have found when they measured bone mineral density in young athletes who swim or cycle, and even in some who run. There are two reasons for this. One is the continuous nature of these activities. Bones, it seems, don’t like constant pressure. They respond better to exercise that involves forceful muscle contractions, occurring in starts and stops and with some variety — as happens, for example, when playing tennis or training with weights.
To maintain strength, bones also need the stress of gravity, which is lacking in cycling and swimming and not as powerful when walking as it is when running. Being suspended in water is like floating in space for a short time: once they leave Earth, astronauts lose bone.
But before I was too discouraged (and before you abandon exercises like mine and retreat to your recliner), I did some more research. Regular walks can indeed offer some protection against hip fractures among women (and presumably, men) of a certain age, I found. In the famous Nurses’ Health Study, which has followed tens of thousands of postmenopausal women for decades, those who walked for at least four hours a week were 40 percent less likely to suffer hip fractures than those who walked less.
Those who walked for at least eight hours a week (or did the equivalent amount of another activity) were as unlikely to suffer hip fractures as women on hormone replacement therapy, long known to protect bones. As a bonus, walking briskly for exercise also lowered the women’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and stroke.
Activities like walking may not be perfect bone-builders, but they are far better than doing nothing. “As a bone doctor, I’ll take anything,” said Dr. Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon at the Center for Sports Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Her studies of 3,000 athletic seniors, whom she described as “normal people,” have shown that even in their 70s and 80s, they are able to maintain bone densities higher than the general population’s.
Still, she emphasized the need to “bash our bones” to make and keep them strong. This can be done, she said, through “dynamic impact” — by hopping or jumping rope 100 times a day, for example — or through “positive stress” by walking rapidly uphill or upstairs, or even standing on the pedals while cycling uphill. Although many bone experts recommend weight-training on resistance machines like those found in gyms, Dr. Wright realizes that most older adults won’t or can’t join a gym. Or, like me, they simply don’t like machines and won’t use them regularly.
Rather, she recommends home-based exercises that more closely mimic how the body functions in the real time Location system. “The house or office can be as effective as a gym,” Dr. Wright said.
“We never prescribe machines anymore,” she said. “Pushing leg presses is so unnatural. It’s not how the body uses squats. We train the body functionally, using the body’s own weight and free weights for resistance instead of machines.”
Without any equipment, you can strengthen your body’s core and multiple muscle groups by doing what trainers call a prisoner squat. Stand straight with feet shoulder-width apart, knees and toes pointed forward, hands behind your head and elbows pointed outward. Sink down, keeping your weight on your heels as if you were about to sit in a chair. Rise up with your back straight and repeat, working up to two sets of about 10 squats each. For a slightly greater challenge, the same exercise can be done against a wall using an exercise ball between you and the wall. You can use hand weights, or even hold cans of food, to strengthen the upper body at the same time.
Dr. Wright also encourages people to use the stairs at home and at work. Walking up and down 100 steps five times at a fast pace provides both an aerobic workout and one that strengthens bones. Walking rapidly uphill is another option. If jumping rope has some appeal, Dr. Wright suggested using a cordless digital jump rope to reduce the risk of tripping. It also records the number of jumps with each turn of the wrists.
If you have access to chest-high water in a pool, lake or seaside, you can build muscle mass and strengthen bones by walking forward and backward and side-to-side in the water, she said. This can strengthen the quads, buttocks and core, providing bone stimulation for the spine and hips and shock absorption for the knees.
And don’t forget dancing. “The waltz or swing dance is one of the most popular things I prescribe,” Dr. Wright said.
Of course, if your back can handle it, there are many ordinary tasks that can strengthen bones, among them carrying heavy items or small children for short distances. In the warmer months, I do a lot of outdoor tasks — pushing a lawn mower, raking, sawing, digging and the like — that involve intermittent bone-building stress.
Bone density exams typically involve only the spine, hips and forearms, the areas most susceptible to compression or fragility fractures. But other bones, like those in the thigh, upper arm and shoulder, can also break under minimal stress if they are weak, so activities that strengthen them — like walking, cycling and swimming — can indeed be helpful. While some doctors think measures of the internal structure of bones may more accurately indicate strength than traditional bone density tests, several experts told me that there is as yet no standard by which to judge bone health based on structure.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Okanagan College Esthetics program scores
A global leader in professional skin care has partnered with Okanagan College to offer students in the new and enhanced Esthetics and Nail Technology program a range of innovative training and professional development opportunities starting this September.
The Okanagan College Spa Training Centre is now officially designated as a Dermalogica Partnership School. This prestigious association connects students with the professional Dermalogica skin-health product line developed by the International Dermal Institute.
Dermalogica is renowned in the esthetics industry for the high quality of its products and its emphasis on providing excellence in education through training and awards initiatives. Students at Dermalogica Partnership Schools around the world benefit by gaining business knowledge and advanced skin-care skills from one of the most respected names in the professional skin consultation and treatment field.
Learning initiatives for students in the Esthetics and Nail Technology program now include introductions to products and therapies unique to Dermalogica, as well as business-focused learning that indoor Tracking, event planning, and advanced retailing. After graduation, the connection with Dermalogica continues as students have access to further post-graduate professional development opportunities.
This fall, students in Okanagan College’s Esthetics and Nail Technology program can enjoy a new and enhanced curriculum that gives them the full range of skills needed for careers in the growing field of esthetics. Students are trained in a wide variety of spa treatments, ranging from manicures and pedicures to facials, make-up application, and relaxation massage.
The College blends theory and practical application, using field trips, guest speakers, practicum, and a visit to a spa tradeshow where students can learn and make career connections.
Esthetics and Nail Technology graduates have an extremely high job placement rate within a month of graduation, with students easily finding rewarding work in many different settings such as day spas, destination spas, cruise ships and in their own entrepreneurial ventures.
I reflected a little on my response to his pain and realized that "tough love" grandparenting doesn't always work and leaves you feeling lousy. Very similar to a work-related performance evaluation, I realized I required more training in this field.
I decided to contact a couple of experts on how to be more supportive to sensitive kids. Although some of this is "Love 101" common-sense stuff, it's a good review for grandparents — for me, in particular. These experts gave me some insight in supporting kids who have some self-esteem issues as well.
Heck, when I was 10, I didn't know what self-esteem was. Are kids today oversensitive and do they have more issues to deal with? I don't know, but I suspect they might.I feel kids today lose out on that experience of life that most of us baby boomers had. Going outside and Indoor Positioning System. Riding our bikes, figuring things out on our own, making mistakes, doing things with our hands. Many of today's kids can't venture outside unsupervised like we did — it's a different world than the one we grew up in.
We could be happy, innocent kids unaware of many of the bad things going on in the world, but I don't know if that is the case for children today. They get to witness replays of disasters time after time, and for my grandchildren our country has been at war their entire lives. There is so much of a "dark side" world they see daily.
The first expert I reached out to was Dr. Steve Bingner, a licensed psychologist with the Center for Effective Living, here in Rochester. Dr. Bingner indicated that we need to be very good listeners to our grandkids. We should try to determine how they are feeling, to see where they are at and not to just try to quickly fix everything for them.Bingner said we need to empathize with our grandchildren and validate their emotions. I should have said, "I have been stung before and it hurts a great deal. Let's see if I can put something on it to make it feel better."
We should consider that any concern or emotion is an opportunity for intimacy and to teach. Dr. Bingner said that maybe a mood or outburst might be a specific problem that is an obstacle to them. Heck, maybe they are just having trouble with their math homework.
My opinion is that involving kids in real jobs and activities that offer a little bit of a challenge is a good thing. This is something I try to do by getting the grandkids to help water our flowers, wash vehicles, sweep the garage and even do some painting. If they can help you with something, it gives you the opportunity to tell them how valuable they have been.
Dr. Else also mentioned that kids need to feel part of something. They need to know they are an important part of the family. If we can also connect them in positive ways to different pieces of society, such as school, activities, church, they will feel they belong.
We all see the things that make us feel bad. We've witnessed grandparents or parents screaming at their kids in sporting events. Ridiculing their performance. Maybe they are 10 and maybe they are 17, it still hurts them a great deal. I witnessed this on many occasions as a high school basketball official.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
The Okanagan College Spa Training Centre is now officially designated as a Dermalogica Partnership School. This prestigious association connects students with the professional Dermalogica skin-health product line developed by the International Dermal Institute.
Dermalogica is renowned in the esthetics industry for the high quality of its products and its emphasis on providing excellence in education through training and awards initiatives. Students at Dermalogica Partnership Schools around the world benefit by gaining business knowledge and advanced skin-care skills from one of the most respected names in the professional skin consultation and treatment field.
Learning initiatives for students in the Esthetics and Nail Technology program now include introductions to products and therapies unique to Dermalogica, as well as business-focused learning that indoor Tracking, event planning, and advanced retailing. After graduation, the connection with Dermalogica continues as students have access to further post-graduate professional development opportunities.
This fall, students in Okanagan College’s Esthetics and Nail Technology program can enjoy a new and enhanced curriculum that gives them the full range of skills needed for careers in the growing field of esthetics. Students are trained in a wide variety of spa treatments, ranging from manicures and pedicures to facials, make-up application, and relaxation massage.
The College blends theory and practical application, using field trips, guest speakers, practicum, and a visit to a spa tradeshow where students can learn and make career connections.
Esthetics and Nail Technology graduates have an extremely high job placement rate within a month of graduation, with students easily finding rewarding work in many different settings such as day spas, destination spas, cruise ships and in their own entrepreneurial ventures.
I reflected a little on my response to his pain and realized that "tough love" grandparenting doesn't always work and leaves you feeling lousy. Very similar to a work-related performance evaluation, I realized I required more training in this field.
I decided to contact a couple of experts on how to be more supportive to sensitive kids. Although some of this is "Love 101" common-sense stuff, it's a good review for grandparents — for me, in particular. These experts gave me some insight in supporting kids who have some self-esteem issues as well.
Heck, when I was 10, I didn't know what self-esteem was. Are kids today oversensitive and do they have more issues to deal with? I don't know, but I suspect they might.I feel kids today lose out on that experience of life that most of us baby boomers had. Going outside and Indoor Positioning System. Riding our bikes, figuring things out on our own, making mistakes, doing things with our hands. Many of today's kids can't venture outside unsupervised like we did — it's a different world than the one we grew up in.
We could be happy, innocent kids unaware of many of the bad things going on in the world, but I don't know if that is the case for children today. They get to witness replays of disasters time after time, and for my grandchildren our country has been at war their entire lives. There is so much of a "dark side" world they see daily.
The first expert I reached out to was Dr. Steve Bingner, a licensed psychologist with the Center for Effective Living, here in Rochester. Dr. Bingner indicated that we need to be very good listeners to our grandkids. We should try to determine how they are feeling, to see where they are at and not to just try to quickly fix everything for them.Bingner said we need to empathize with our grandchildren and validate their emotions. I should have said, "I have been stung before and it hurts a great deal. Let's see if I can put something on it to make it feel better."
We should consider that any concern or emotion is an opportunity for intimacy and to teach. Dr. Bingner said that maybe a mood or outburst might be a specific problem that is an obstacle to them. Heck, maybe they are just having trouble with their math homework.
My opinion is that involving kids in real jobs and activities that offer a little bit of a challenge is a good thing. This is something I try to do by getting the grandkids to help water our flowers, wash vehicles, sweep the garage and even do some painting. If they can help you with something, it gives you the opportunity to tell them how valuable they have been.
Dr. Else also mentioned that kids need to feel part of something. They need to know they are an important part of the family. If we can also connect them in positive ways to different pieces of society, such as school, activities, church, they will feel they belong.
We all see the things that make us feel bad. We've witnessed grandparents or parents screaming at their kids in sporting events. Ridiculing their performance. Maybe they are 10 and maybe they are 17, it still hurts them a great deal. I witnessed this on many occasions as a high school basketball official.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
2013 Ford Escape
“There isn’t much this doesn’t have to offer,” joked Lee Ward, a sales rep at Friendly Ford in Geneva, referencing the five-passenger SUV.From an EcoBoost engine with turbochargers and direct-injection to a hands-free lift gate with video-game-inspired motion-sensing technology, the Escape allows users to connect, move and venture without a worry.
A best-in-class, fuel-nursing 33 mpg on the highway serves as a strong selling point for the 1.6L EcoBoost engine, which features a turbocharger on the inline four-cylinder setup. The engine features variable camshaft timing to improve the economy, boasting 178 hp while allowing plenty of low-end torque for passing.
A second engine option is the 2.0L EcoBoost, featuring 30 mpg highway and 240 hp. The engine combination allows 3,500 pounds of towing capacity. The third engine, coming standard, is the Duratec inline four-cylinder with 168 hp. Each comes mated to the six-speed SelectShift Automatic, allowing the driver to select a gear like a manual, or run with the ease of an automatic.
“I’m pretty impressed with the Hands free access,” Ward said. “This can do more than you might expect it to.”The ease of access is a major selling point of the vehicle. A simple toe-wave has the rear hatch springing open. A class exclusive, a gentle kicking motion under the bumper with the Intelligent Access key fob in a pocket or purse combine to trigger the lift gate to open; replicating the action will make it close.
The height can be reprogrammed to fit inside tighter garages, so the lift gate doesn’t swing to its full height and avoids contact with roofs and rafters.The lift gate exposes a 67.8-cubic-foot storage area; the seats split in 60/40 fashion and form a flat path all the way to the backs of the front seats with the adjustable cargo load floor in place.
“You can have a flat shot all the way to the front and maximize your length or drop the floor to a lower spot,” Ward said.The tech-savvy aren’t left wanting, either. Ford SYNC can pair with a cell phone, transferring all contacts to support voice-activated calling. The technology can also play MP3s, USBs or iPods. Anything with Bluetooth can stream to the system, including popular audio sources such as Pandora, iHeartRadio.
The controls are mounted on the steering wheel, and can be activated by simply pressing a button and asking Ford SYNC to do what you wish: “Call Mom” or “Play playlist: Road Trip.”Additional activated services include turn-by-turn navigation.
“Just say the word, SYNC will get it done,” Ward said. “SYNC can also read incoming text messages to you.”The huge MyFord Touch LCD display makes controlling the devices easy and also places an LCD screen in the gauge cluster. The five-way controls on the steering wheel mirror the display panel and allow access to the media hub and dual USB ports. Voice commands also bring up weather reports and can find destinations or points of interest without a physical address. Looking into blind spots is a snap with the in-dash display, with a meter to help judge rear-backing maneuvers.
The Escape can even parallel park itself; a press of a button engages active park assist, which alerts the driver when an appropriate opening is found. Then, the driver removes his or her hands from the wheel, and the vehicle will park itself, giving commands to the driver to shift gears and apply the brake and accelerator.
The Escape also features intelligent four-wheel drive, available to determine road conditions and adapt 20-times faster than the blink of an eye. Ford advertises the on-demand system as its most advanced intelligent four-wheel drive system ever.“If you can’t find something you like about Escape, take it out and look a second time. There’s so much more to go over. I’m still learning everything about rtls. Ford did a really good job getting it together on this one,” Ward said, listing off additional available items such as Curve Control, Roll-Stability Control, and the ability to cue the MyKey functionality to block calls and texts while driving.
The dozens of innovations make the Escape a multi-segment offering with multi-level appeal. The body even features 10 pounds of recycled clothing in the sound-dampening system, and the post-consumer and post-industrial polyester fabric carpeting includes 25 recycled 20-ounce plastic bottles per vehicle. More than 85 percent of the vehicle is recyclable after it’s retired from service.
Some herald it as a debt-free degree, but that largely depends on how you define “debt.” Students won't have a fixed sum hanging over their head, gathering interest that’s being skimmed off by a for-profit lender or big bank—but they will be making regular payments of a (small) chunk of their income for a (rather long) time. Though the final details will be hammered out in the pilot program, the bill suggests that graduates of four-year programs pay 3 percent of their income—and grads of two-year schools pay 1.5 percent—for 24 years. The goals are to eliminate the upfront cost of college and to allow students to take jobs that pay less but have more social benefit without worrying about making monthly debt payments. Students who make a lot of money will pay a larger amount into the fund, and each generation will fund schools for the generation after them—hence the name, Pay It Forward.
It's noteworthy that the proposal came from students themselves. In the fall of 2012, Barbara Dudley, the founder of the Oregon Working Families Party, taught a capstone class at Portland State University on student debt with professor Mary King. The Pay It Forward plan had been considered elsewhere—most recently in Washington state—and the students considered it as along with other proposals for state and national action to solve the student debt crisis. “We fell in love with it,” says Kevin Rackham, who was a junior at Portland State when he took Dudley and King's course.
The students were deeply involved in every step of shaping the bill, says Sami Alloy, a WFP campaign manager. “They decided that they thought this was a just way to create a shared responsibility model that would remove that initial financial and psychological barrier.”
The students presented their proposal (the full text of which is available on the Oregon WFP's website) to a panel of legislators and secured a champion in Portland Democrat Rep. Michael Dembrow, chair of the Oregon House higher education committee, who introduced the bill. The Working Families Party made the bill a legislative priority, and the students worked with Alloy and Dudley to lobby for the bill. They were backed by a coalition that included the Oregon Student Association, Portland State University Association of University Professors, Jubilee USA, the United Food and Commercial Workers union and Teamsters Local 206.
“With the hard work of the students and the political power we've built as the WFP, we were able to build consensus in the legislature, but I don't think that anybody expected it to move this fast or to be so unanimous,” Alloy says. “The reason this has struck such a chord is that people are hungry for a solution to the student debt crisis.”
A best-in-class, fuel-nursing 33 mpg on the highway serves as a strong selling point for the 1.6L EcoBoost engine, which features a turbocharger on the inline four-cylinder setup. The engine features variable camshaft timing to improve the economy, boasting 178 hp while allowing plenty of low-end torque for passing.
A second engine option is the 2.0L EcoBoost, featuring 30 mpg highway and 240 hp. The engine combination allows 3,500 pounds of towing capacity. The third engine, coming standard, is the Duratec inline four-cylinder with 168 hp. Each comes mated to the six-speed SelectShift Automatic, allowing the driver to select a gear like a manual, or run with the ease of an automatic.
“I’m pretty impressed with the Hands free access,” Ward said. “This can do more than you might expect it to.”The ease of access is a major selling point of the vehicle. A simple toe-wave has the rear hatch springing open. A class exclusive, a gentle kicking motion under the bumper with the Intelligent Access key fob in a pocket or purse combine to trigger the lift gate to open; replicating the action will make it close.
The height can be reprogrammed to fit inside tighter garages, so the lift gate doesn’t swing to its full height and avoids contact with roofs and rafters.The lift gate exposes a 67.8-cubic-foot storage area; the seats split in 60/40 fashion and form a flat path all the way to the backs of the front seats with the adjustable cargo load floor in place.
“You can have a flat shot all the way to the front and maximize your length or drop the floor to a lower spot,” Ward said.The tech-savvy aren’t left wanting, either. Ford SYNC can pair with a cell phone, transferring all contacts to support voice-activated calling. The technology can also play MP3s, USBs or iPods. Anything with Bluetooth can stream to the system, including popular audio sources such as Pandora, iHeartRadio.
The controls are mounted on the steering wheel, and can be activated by simply pressing a button and asking Ford SYNC to do what you wish: “Call Mom” or “Play playlist: Road Trip.”Additional activated services include turn-by-turn navigation.
“Just say the word, SYNC will get it done,” Ward said. “SYNC can also read incoming text messages to you.”The huge MyFord Touch LCD display makes controlling the devices easy and also places an LCD screen in the gauge cluster. The five-way controls on the steering wheel mirror the display panel and allow access to the media hub and dual USB ports. Voice commands also bring up weather reports and can find destinations or points of interest without a physical address. Looking into blind spots is a snap with the in-dash display, with a meter to help judge rear-backing maneuvers.
The Escape can even parallel park itself; a press of a button engages active park assist, which alerts the driver when an appropriate opening is found. Then, the driver removes his or her hands from the wheel, and the vehicle will park itself, giving commands to the driver to shift gears and apply the brake and accelerator.
The Escape also features intelligent four-wheel drive, available to determine road conditions and adapt 20-times faster than the blink of an eye. Ford advertises the on-demand system as its most advanced intelligent four-wheel drive system ever.“If you can’t find something you like about Escape, take it out and look a second time. There’s so much more to go over. I’m still learning everything about rtls. Ford did a really good job getting it together on this one,” Ward said, listing off additional available items such as Curve Control, Roll-Stability Control, and the ability to cue the MyKey functionality to block calls and texts while driving.
The dozens of innovations make the Escape a multi-segment offering with multi-level appeal. The body even features 10 pounds of recycled clothing in the sound-dampening system, and the post-consumer and post-industrial polyester fabric carpeting includes 25 recycled 20-ounce plastic bottles per vehicle. More than 85 percent of the vehicle is recyclable after it’s retired from service.
Some herald it as a debt-free degree, but that largely depends on how you define “debt.” Students won't have a fixed sum hanging over their head, gathering interest that’s being skimmed off by a for-profit lender or big bank—but they will be making regular payments of a (small) chunk of their income for a (rather long) time. Though the final details will be hammered out in the pilot program, the bill suggests that graduates of four-year programs pay 3 percent of their income—and grads of two-year schools pay 1.5 percent—for 24 years. The goals are to eliminate the upfront cost of college and to allow students to take jobs that pay less but have more social benefit without worrying about making monthly debt payments. Students who make a lot of money will pay a larger amount into the fund, and each generation will fund schools for the generation after them—hence the name, Pay It Forward.
It's noteworthy that the proposal came from students themselves. In the fall of 2012, Barbara Dudley, the founder of the Oregon Working Families Party, taught a capstone class at Portland State University on student debt with professor Mary King. The Pay It Forward plan had been considered elsewhere—most recently in Washington state—and the students considered it as along with other proposals for state and national action to solve the student debt crisis. “We fell in love with it,” says Kevin Rackham, who was a junior at Portland State when he took Dudley and King's course.
The students were deeply involved in every step of shaping the bill, says Sami Alloy, a WFP campaign manager. “They decided that they thought this was a just way to create a shared responsibility model that would remove that initial financial and psychological barrier.”
The students presented their proposal (the full text of which is available on the Oregon WFP's website) to a panel of legislators and secured a champion in Portland Democrat Rep. Michael Dembrow, chair of the Oregon House higher education committee, who introduced the bill. The Working Families Party made the bill a legislative priority, and the students worked with Alloy and Dudley to lobby for the bill. They were backed by a coalition that included the Oregon Student Association, Portland State University Association of University Professors, Jubilee USA, the United Food and Commercial Workers union and Teamsters Local 206.
“With the hard work of the students and the political power we've built as the WFP, we were able to build consensus in the legislature, but I don't think that anybody expected it to move this fast or to be so unanimous,” Alloy says. “The reason this has struck such a chord is that people are hungry for a solution to the student debt crisis.”
Monday, August 5, 2013
Tictail’s trick for easy e-commerce
As I cosily swap mobile numbers with 27-year-old Swede Carl Waldekranz, founder of Tictail, the new e-commerce tool for shops that is sweeping European high streets, I have a strong sense that I am sitting with the next Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak or Mark Zuckerberg, all internet entrepreneurs who started young and took the world by storm. In two or three years’ time, the boyish Waldekranz could join their ranks as another global icon – and one who will no longer be taking my calls. He certainly seems to be on the brink of something big.
Tictail launched only a year ago – although after long gestation around Waldekranz’s kitchen table in Stockholm – but already it has attracted headlines, backing from noted venture capitalists, and even investment from key personnel at Skype and Spotify. These two major-league web operators see big potential in Tictail’s offer of an internet platform for shopkeepers who want to create an online store to complement their Indoor Positioning System.
“While I was working in an advertising agency in Sweden,” the engaging Waldekranz explains, “I was very drawn to e-commerce. It is the most exciting area, where the message we create and the buying done by consumers converge. Elsewhere, people see the advertising and then, later, go into the shop. In e-commerce it is all one.”
So far, so good, but then he spotted one big obstacle. “Many retailers, particularly smaller ones with indie brands and boutiques, who could benefit from e-commerce, can only do it by spending a lot of money that they can’t afford on constant technical support or having their own IT section.”
Which is where no-cost, no-frills Tictail steps in. “Back in January,” Waldekranz recalls, “we received an email from a guitar shop in Dublin. It had been in the hands of the same family for 150 years but e-commerce was driving it out of business. They told us, 'We thought that this Christmas would be our last, and that going online was beyond our means and expertise, but within weeks of using Tictail to sell online we are doing so well that we are going to be here for another 150 years.’”
It sounds like a line from a television advertisement – especially to this default technophobe. Doesn’t Tictail require some aptitude for computers, or at the very least access to a willing teenage helper? Waldekranz laughs. “You sound like my mother. She is a brilliant artist but not great with technology and so she hasn’t been able to sell the ceramics she makes online. I told her that is absurd.” And he immediately opens up on his ever-present laptop the “By Mutti” website to display ceramicist Eva Gernandt’s distinctive porcelain designs, plus those handy boxes where you can click to buy one.
“It became our benchmark when we were planning Tictail,” Waldekranz says with one of those toothy smiles that stretches across his face. “If my mother couldn’t set it up and operate it on her own, then we hadn’t got it right.”
And since she clearly can and is profiting by it, this must count as a case of mission accomplished. Which brings us neatly to Tictail’s mission statement. It wants not only to be the world’s most used e-commerce platform, but also its most loved. E-commerce and the Hands free access of shops can suddenly be friends, not foes, and Britain’s stand-alone high-street retailers can more easily get a share of the UK’s ￡78 billion online sales market.
So if Waldekranz’s mother was instinctively hostile to using the internet to promote her business, I can’t help wondering, where does her son get his can-do attitude from? “Oh, my dad. He was always buying the latest bit of technology, even though he couldn’t work them.” And, he adds, then there was also what sounds like a very different approach to technology in the classrooms of Sweden.
“I’m not a digital native,” says Waldekranz, “like children in Swedish schools today. I only got my first computer when I was 11. But there is also a spirit in Sweden that we know we are a small country of nine million people, and that anything we develop can never be sustained if the only market we envisage is Sweden. We have to think global from day one. That mindset is part of our culture.” As evidenced by the success of Skype and Spotify, both now worldwide brands with their roots in Sweden.
Waldekranz is the public face of Tictail but is always careful to stress he is one of four founders, anxious perhaps to avoid future disputes such as those that engulfed Zuckerberg and his early Facebook collaborators. “In Sweden,” he says, “we prefer flat hierarchies.”
So I can see how Tictail could benefit smaller, independent high-street retailers and sole traders in all sorts of other fields – like Waldekranz’s mother – but since this is a business not a charity, how does he make any money?
“Well, businesses getting started on Tictail is good,” he says, “but it is not enough if they are going to succeed. The important question then is what happens next? How do you get traffic to your website? How do you handle your first sales? How often do you keep refreshing your site? How do you use social media to encourage people to take a look at what you are offering? How do you seek feedback? And that is where we offer Tictail feeds. These applications help you tackle all these issues.” And for these there is a charge.
The “feed” is essentially a stream of messages that acts as an automated adviser, prompting and occasionally cajoling shop owners not to rest on their laurels. The idea is both to offer as good a service online as off, and to build loyalty and repeat custom, using social media features such as newsletters and alerts about new products. New plans include allowing users to add extensions, such as the ability to hand out discount codes to their store.
So Tictail is definitely a business, with a bottom line, but what gives Waldekranz that added edge of persuasion is his vocal attachment not just to being profitable but also to the democratic ideals of the world wide web. So he compares the rise of Tictail in relation to the major retailers as akin to that of the blog in recent years. “It wasn’t that long ago that the big media outlets controlled most of the written content on the web, but now that has changed. Anyone can write a blog and go mainstream. It can be the same with e-commerce. Right now the big giants are controlling it, but my belief is that we can now offer a way for small, independent retailers on the high street to take them on. It is a major shift.”
Tictail launched only a year ago – although after long gestation around Waldekranz’s kitchen table in Stockholm – but already it has attracted headlines, backing from noted venture capitalists, and even investment from key personnel at Skype and Spotify. These two major-league web operators see big potential in Tictail’s offer of an internet platform for shopkeepers who want to create an online store to complement their Indoor Positioning System.
“While I was working in an advertising agency in Sweden,” the engaging Waldekranz explains, “I was very drawn to e-commerce. It is the most exciting area, where the message we create and the buying done by consumers converge. Elsewhere, people see the advertising and then, later, go into the shop. In e-commerce it is all one.”
So far, so good, but then he spotted one big obstacle. “Many retailers, particularly smaller ones with indie brands and boutiques, who could benefit from e-commerce, can only do it by spending a lot of money that they can’t afford on constant technical support or having their own IT section.”
Which is where no-cost, no-frills Tictail steps in. “Back in January,” Waldekranz recalls, “we received an email from a guitar shop in Dublin. It had been in the hands of the same family for 150 years but e-commerce was driving it out of business. They told us, 'We thought that this Christmas would be our last, and that going online was beyond our means and expertise, but within weeks of using Tictail to sell online we are doing so well that we are going to be here for another 150 years.’”
It sounds like a line from a television advertisement – especially to this default technophobe. Doesn’t Tictail require some aptitude for computers, or at the very least access to a willing teenage helper? Waldekranz laughs. “You sound like my mother. She is a brilliant artist but not great with technology and so she hasn’t been able to sell the ceramics she makes online. I told her that is absurd.” And he immediately opens up on his ever-present laptop the “By Mutti” website to display ceramicist Eva Gernandt’s distinctive porcelain designs, plus those handy boxes where you can click to buy one.
“It became our benchmark when we were planning Tictail,” Waldekranz says with one of those toothy smiles that stretches across his face. “If my mother couldn’t set it up and operate it on her own, then we hadn’t got it right.”
And since she clearly can and is profiting by it, this must count as a case of mission accomplished. Which brings us neatly to Tictail’s mission statement. It wants not only to be the world’s most used e-commerce platform, but also its most loved. E-commerce and the Hands free access of shops can suddenly be friends, not foes, and Britain’s stand-alone high-street retailers can more easily get a share of the UK’s ￡78 billion online sales market.
So if Waldekranz’s mother was instinctively hostile to using the internet to promote her business, I can’t help wondering, where does her son get his can-do attitude from? “Oh, my dad. He was always buying the latest bit of technology, even though he couldn’t work them.” And, he adds, then there was also what sounds like a very different approach to technology in the classrooms of Sweden.
“I’m not a digital native,” says Waldekranz, “like children in Swedish schools today. I only got my first computer when I was 11. But there is also a spirit in Sweden that we know we are a small country of nine million people, and that anything we develop can never be sustained if the only market we envisage is Sweden. We have to think global from day one. That mindset is part of our culture.” As evidenced by the success of Skype and Spotify, both now worldwide brands with their roots in Sweden.
Waldekranz is the public face of Tictail but is always careful to stress he is one of four founders, anxious perhaps to avoid future disputes such as those that engulfed Zuckerberg and his early Facebook collaborators. “In Sweden,” he says, “we prefer flat hierarchies.”
So I can see how Tictail could benefit smaller, independent high-street retailers and sole traders in all sorts of other fields – like Waldekranz’s mother – but since this is a business not a charity, how does he make any money?
“Well, businesses getting started on Tictail is good,” he says, “but it is not enough if they are going to succeed. The important question then is what happens next? How do you get traffic to your website? How do you handle your first sales? How often do you keep refreshing your site? How do you use social media to encourage people to take a look at what you are offering? How do you seek feedback? And that is where we offer Tictail feeds. These applications help you tackle all these issues.” And for these there is a charge.
The “feed” is essentially a stream of messages that acts as an automated adviser, prompting and occasionally cajoling shop owners not to rest on their laurels. The idea is both to offer as good a service online as off, and to build loyalty and repeat custom, using social media features such as newsletters and alerts about new products. New plans include allowing users to add extensions, such as the ability to hand out discount codes to their store.
So Tictail is definitely a business, with a bottom line, but what gives Waldekranz that added edge of persuasion is his vocal attachment not just to being profitable but also to the democratic ideals of the world wide web. So he compares the rise of Tictail in relation to the major retailers as akin to that of the blog in recent years. “It wasn’t that long ago that the big media outlets controlled most of the written content on the web, but now that has changed. Anyone can write a blog and go mainstream. It can be the same with e-commerce. Right now the big giants are controlling it, but my belief is that we can now offer a way for small, independent retailers on the high street to take them on. It is a major shift.”
Protect yourself from creep
Last week, I described my debt situation as leaving the casino busted, ready to face the consequences of my gambling. But what if, as you stepped outside, you found a loose scratch ticket on the ground, and it came up a winner?
Two weeks after my months of living largely on credit ended as a result of the banks denying me any more fantasy funds the payoff I had been gambling on finally came through. Amazon offered my comedy group a contract and an order for six sitcom-episode scripts. Not a lot of money, but enough to cover my debt after taxes. I had just pulled off the financial equivalent of jumping a bicycle over the Grand Canyon.
To ground what seems like a dramatic, real time Location system, this Amazon deal was the result of my previous 10 years working in comedy. Each stepping stone can be traced back, eventually to the first time I stepped on stage at the downtown Comedy Works on May 14, 2003. So lest this seem like an improbable rags to, well, less ragged, tale, it's spread over a long timeline.
Was it wise? Not at all. Living on beans and rice and adhering to a strict budget while pursuing one's dreams is wise. Wading blithely into the swamps of credit-card debt is not. When I was approached for this column, I had my reservations about accepting it, mainly because I did not want to address my own stupid behavior.
All told, as the wild roller coaster ride pulls back into the station, I am at least left with some valuable lessons, which I can share with you after my firsthand experience making these mistakes.Don't open a credit card. I have plenty of friends who bemoan the fact that they've never been offered a credit card. Good for them. A credit card is not a status symbol despite the imagery used to sell them to you. A credit card is a big bank's debit card. That's the best way to view them. If you already have a credit card?
Destroy your physical cards. Having a credit card in your wallet just for emergencies, you tell yourself is nothing but bait. You may not normally use it, but if you came across the right item at the right price...Likewise for keeping it in your rtls. If you just don't feel right cutting the card up, put it in a jar of water in the freezer. At least it will take you some time to access it if you feel compelled to use it.
Never use credit cards as an online payment option. If you use a credit card number for online shopping, you just made it that much easier to spend money that isn't yours. Online shopping is the impulse buyer's best friend, so the worst thing you could pair that with is a seemingly bottomless source of funds.
Take the time to do the math. If you're like me and despise math, steel yourself and actually figure out how long it will take you to pay off your debt using only the minimum monthly payment. In your head you may think "forever," but having the actual amount of time is both sobering and inspiring. You can't work toward "forever," but you can work toward reducing a real number. It will also motivate you to pay more than the monthly minimum.
It's never too late to put on the brakes. When you're sinking quickly into debt, it's easy to lose perspective. "Well, I'm already $12,000 in, what's another $1,000?" The answer is, of course, $1,000 plus the accumulated interest by the time you eventually get around to paying it, which could result in a much larger amount. It's a lot easier to extricate yourself when you're ankle-deep in quicksand than neck-deep.
After my free fall of living on credit, it feels good to live on a budget. It feels like I have both hands on the wheel of my life, and the money I spend comes out of my bank account. If I don't have the money in there, there's nothing to spend. And that's the way it should be.
Slocan Valley residents unable to use their water following a fuel spill last month can now visit Winlaw elementary school for access to water, showers, washrooms, and disaster relief personnel.Executive Flight Centre, which owned the tanker that spilled its load of jet fuel into Lemon Creek, has opened what it calls a "community resiliency centre."But a Winlaw man says while it's a nice gesture, it's not really what affected residents need most.
"I don't want to diminish it, but if they wanted to help us, our health should be monitored and finances made available to compensate us, because it was human-caused," Michael Kaye told the Star. "The community wants hands-on help with their yards and animals that are badly affected."
Kaye, who lives around the corner from the school, said he feels "abandoned, stranded, and abused" since the spill. Although he has a deep well and therefore his water was not affected, he says the fumes took a toll on his lungs, leaving him with a sore throat, headaches, and nausea.
Interior Health says in most cases, well water is not affected. However, shallow wells close to the creek or rivers, particularly those in gravel or sandy soils, may be affected. The health authority says residents shouldn't use their well water if there is a fuel smell in the well or at any tap.
Garden vegetables, fruit, eggs, and dairy milk contacted by the fuel vapour are safe to consume as long as they don't smell like fuel or have a fuel sheen, Interior Health said. But they recommend washing fruit and vegetables thoroughly — easier said than done given that many residents aren't able to use their tap water.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Two weeks after my months of living largely on credit ended as a result of the banks denying me any more fantasy funds the payoff I had been gambling on finally came through. Amazon offered my comedy group a contract and an order for six sitcom-episode scripts. Not a lot of money, but enough to cover my debt after taxes. I had just pulled off the financial equivalent of jumping a bicycle over the Grand Canyon.
To ground what seems like a dramatic, real time Location system, this Amazon deal was the result of my previous 10 years working in comedy. Each stepping stone can be traced back, eventually to the first time I stepped on stage at the downtown Comedy Works on May 14, 2003. So lest this seem like an improbable rags to, well, less ragged, tale, it's spread over a long timeline.
Was it wise? Not at all. Living on beans and rice and adhering to a strict budget while pursuing one's dreams is wise. Wading blithely into the swamps of credit-card debt is not. When I was approached for this column, I had my reservations about accepting it, mainly because I did not want to address my own stupid behavior.
All told, as the wild roller coaster ride pulls back into the station, I am at least left with some valuable lessons, which I can share with you after my firsthand experience making these mistakes.Don't open a credit card. I have plenty of friends who bemoan the fact that they've never been offered a credit card. Good for them. A credit card is not a status symbol despite the imagery used to sell them to you. A credit card is a big bank's debit card. That's the best way to view them. If you already have a credit card?
Destroy your physical cards. Having a credit card in your wallet just for emergencies, you tell yourself is nothing but bait. You may not normally use it, but if you came across the right item at the right price...Likewise for keeping it in your rtls. If you just don't feel right cutting the card up, put it in a jar of water in the freezer. At least it will take you some time to access it if you feel compelled to use it.
Never use credit cards as an online payment option. If you use a credit card number for online shopping, you just made it that much easier to spend money that isn't yours. Online shopping is the impulse buyer's best friend, so the worst thing you could pair that with is a seemingly bottomless source of funds.
Take the time to do the math. If you're like me and despise math, steel yourself and actually figure out how long it will take you to pay off your debt using only the minimum monthly payment. In your head you may think "forever," but having the actual amount of time is both sobering and inspiring. You can't work toward "forever," but you can work toward reducing a real number. It will also motivate you to pay more than the monthly minimum.
It's never too late to put on the brakes. When you're sinking quickly into debt, it's easy to lose perspective. "Well, I'm already $12,000 in, what's another $1,000?" The answer is, of course, $1,000 plus the accumulated interest by the time you eventually get around to paying it, which could result in a much larger amount. It's a lot easier to extricate yourself when you're ankle-deep in quicksand than neck-deep.
After my free fall of living on credit, it feels good to live on a budget. It feels like I have both hands on the wheel of my life, and the money I spend comes out of my bank account. If I don't have the money in there, there's nothing to spend. And that's the way it should be.
Slocan Valley residents unable to use their water following a fuel spill last month can now visit Winlaw elementary school for access to water, showers, washrooms, and disaster relief personnel.Executive Flight Centre, which owned the tanker that spilled its load of jet fuel into Lemon Creek, has opened what it calls a "community resiliency centre."But a Winlaw man says while it's a nice gesture, it's not really what affected residents need most.
"I don't want to diminish it, but if they wanted to help us, our health should be monitored and finances made available to compensate us, because it was human-caused," Michael Kaye told the Star. "The community wants hands-on help with their yards and animals that are badly affected."
Kaye, who lives around the corner from the school, said he feels "abandoned, stranded, and abused" since the spill. Although he has a deep well and therefore his water was not affected, he says the fumes took a toll on his lungs, leaving him with a sore throat, headaches, and nausea.
Interior Health says in most cases, well water is not affected. However, shallow wells close to the creek or rivers, particularly those in gravel or sandy soils, may be affected. The health authority says residents shouldn't use their well water if there is a fuel smell in the well or at any tap.
Garden vegetables, fruit, eggs, and dairy milk contacted by the fuel vapour are safe to consume as long as they don't smell like fuel or have a fuel sheen, Interior Health said. But they recommend washing fruit and vegetables thoroughly — easier said than done given that many residents aren't able to use their tap water.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Democratic candidates field queries
The Iranian regime has repeatedly shown its true colors by brutally oppressing its own people, threatening to wipe Israel off the map, denying the Holocaust happened, and funding terrorist groups such as Hizbullah, an organization that is committed to continuing its killing of Americans and to Israel’s extinction. Allowing such a regime to acquire a nuclear weapon is plainly unacceptable. A nuclear-armed Iran represents not only an existential threat to Israel but also a grave threat to the region, the United States, and to global stability. It could well ignite a dangerous regional arms race and heighten the prospects of a bomb falling into the hands of terrorists.
For these reasons, every option — including military action — must be on the table. I will always support ensuring that Israel has the necessary tools to protect itself from the Iranian threat while strengthening U.S. and multilateral sanctions on the indoor Tracking. That said, we must continue to vigorously pursue diplomatic and economic solutions because the cost of military action to substantially disrupt the Iranian nuclear program would be extraordinarily high for the U.S., Israel, and our other allies.
In an increasingly uncertain world, Israel continues to be an advocate for freedom, equality, and democracy in the Middle East. My focused study of Israel, its values, and its unique relationship with the United States began during my time at Oxford, where I was the president of the Chabad House’s L’Chaim Society and at Yale, where I founded the Eliezer Society. Since then, during my trips to the country, I have seen first-hand Israel’s dedication to its values and its friendship with the United States.
The United States must continue to support Israel as a secure homeland for the Jewish people. Where Israel’s security is at stake, America’s security is at stake. American support for Israel has been at the center of our Middle East policy for over six decades and must continue to be a central component of our foreign policy in the region.
Real security for Israel will only come with an enduring peace. Therefore, I strongly support a two-state solution with a Jewish state of Israel existing in peace alongside a sovereign Palestinian state. The United States should continue to facilitate direct negotiations that seek a two-state solution. However, it is the right of the Israeli government to make the tough decisions that are necessary to secure its future. The Palestinian People deserve a state that allows them to prosper and thrive, but that state must not be a vehicle for launching attacks against Israel. During any negotiation, certain things must remain non-negotiable, namely conditions that speak to Israel’s right to exist as a secure Jewish state.
These problems are not just concurrent — they are inextricably linked, and Congress has been responding in precisely the wrong way. A laser focus on immediate and extraordinary deficit reduction to help stabilize the debt at the expense of investing in putting Americans back to work has provided short-term deficit reduction, but has also extended the recession’s tragic impact on unemployment and has hampered our growth.
Our failure to prioritize unemployment reduction and economic growth does more than hurt American families today; it hurts our prospects of growing our way out of our debt challenges.
Make no mistake about it: We must be diligent about our debt, and it is currently too high. The president has already signed into law about $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction between 2013 and 2023. However, we will not be able to cut our way out of our problems, and the sequester remains a blunt instrument cutting in the wrong places. Furthermore, defeat of many aspects of President Obama’s American Jobs Act, on the basis that the country could not afford to invest in critical priorities to alleviate joblessness and strengthen our long-term competitiveness, is emblematic of Congress’s inability to understand the connection between smart spending and investment now and long-term debt reduction.
The U.S. must continue to promote democracy, freedom, and the rule of law in the Middle East. The Arab Spring will require our patience, and our understanding. The transition from oppression for tens of millions presents many opportunities as well as uncertainties for the U.S., Israel, and everyone in the region struggling for democracy. These efforts begin with protecting America’s special alliance with Israel, and include providing significant, targeted aid throughout the region.
The civil war in Syria is an unthinkable atrocity that has resulted in an estimated 100,000 deaths and has forced over 1.6 million Syrians to become refugees. The U.S. should take whatever steps it can to safely support moderate opposition fighters, aid refugees, and prevent the spillover of fighting into neighboring countries. Putting U.S. troops on the ground in Syria is not an option given the complexity of the situation and all we’ve learned from our past 12 years of war. Any military aid or support must be carefully targeted and measured against the risk of arms falling into the hands of extremist, rather than moderate, rebels.
As far as Egypt is concerned, we should continually review the extent and composition of the substantial aid we provide, keeping in mind that this aid is vital to the stability of the region and important to the well-being of the Egyptian people. Despite my deep displeasure with Egypt’s former regime, I have grave concerns about the Egyptian military’s forceful hand in removing a democratically elected government from power and feel that we should be abundantly clear with the Egyptian military that we expect the beginnings of a transition to a democratically elected civilian government immediately. America knows the difficulties of transitioning to democracy. It took us two wars — our revolution and the civil war — before we reached a point where our democratic evolution, which remains in process today, didn’t involve widespread armed conflict. Democracy — self-determination — is a fundamental human right, and we must support it the best we can, wherever we can.
The charitable contribution deduction rewards altruism and plays an important role in promoting philanthropy. Here in Newark, we’ve seen how philanthropy can help transform a city. For example, we have raised over $200 million from innovators to strengthen our schools. This has allowed Newark to create programs such as “My Very Own Library,” which has provided 120,000 books for nearly 12,000 low-income students to help build home libraries. Partnering with private foundations also allowed us to create immediate access to affordable medications for thousands of uninsured Newark residents through the Newark Rx program. Put simply, philanthropy has provided vital support to my community’s collective efforts to transform Newark and solve some of our most difficult problems.
There is plainly a need to clean up the tax code, and close inefficient loopholes that make our code far less progressive and add to our deficits. However, tax reform should not remove incentives to donate to charity. My experience as mayor of Newark will inform how I look at any proposals to change the tax status of charitable contributions, and I will work with members of both parties to ensure that we continue to promote philanthropy.
Medicaid provides millions of low-income and disabled Americans with essential healthcare services and has been one of the most important programs in U.S. history. I strongly oppose turning Medicaid into a block grant program or capping the amount of Medicaid funding provided to states based on a per capita rate. These changes would likely lead millions of Americans to lose access to healthcare insurance and significantly decrease the quality of care provided by Medicaid.
It is also deeply troubling that over a dozen states have rejected the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Elected officials should not deny healthcare to millions of their constituents to advance a political agenda. Rejecting this expansion is the wrong decision from budget, healthcare system quality, and moral perspectives. The states that have turned down expanded coverage will lose $8.4 billion in federal funding and spend $1 billion more on uncompensated healthcare. Here in New Jersey, Medicaid expansion will provide healthcare coverage to more than 100,000 more New Jerseyans and save the state $227 million in one year.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
For these reasons, every option — including military action — must be on the table. I will always support ensuring that Israel has the necessary tools to protect itself from the Iranian threat while strengthening U.S. and multilateral sanctions on the indoor Tracking. That said, we must continue to vigorously pursue diplomatic and economic solutions because the cost of military action to substantially disrupt the Iranian nuclear program would be extraordinarily high for the U.S., Israel, and our other allies.
In an increasingly uncertain world, Israel continues to be an advocate for freedom, equality, and democracy in the Middle East. My focused study of Israel, its values, and its unique relationship with the United States began during my time at Oxford, where I was the president of the Chabad House’s L’Chaim Society and at Yale, where I founded the Eliezer Society. Since then, during my trips to the country, I have seen first-hand Israel’s dedication to its values and its friendship with the United States.
The United States must continue to support Israel as a secure homeland for the Jewish people. Where Israel’s security is at stake, America’s security is at stake. American support for Israel has been at the center of our Middle East policy for over six decades and must continue to be a central component of our foreign policy in the region.
Real security for Israel will only come with an enduring peace. Therefore, I strongly support a two-state solution with a Jewish state of Israel existing in peace alongside a sovereign Palestinian state. The United States should continue to facilitate direct negotiations that seek a two-state solution. However, it is the right of the Israeli government to make the tough decisions that are necessary to secure its future. The Palestinian People deserve a state that allows them to prosper and thrive, but that state must not be a vehicle for launching attacks against Israel. During any negotiation, certain things must remain non-negotiable, namely conditions that speak to Israel’s right to exist as a secure Jewish state.
These problems are not just concurrent — they are inextricably linked, and Congress has been responding in precisely the wrong way. A laser focus on immediate and extraordinary deficit reduction to help stabilize the debt at the expense of investing in putting Americans back to work has provided short-term deficit reduction, but has also extended the recession’s tragic impact on unemployment and has hampered our growth.
Our failure to prioritize unemployment reduction and economic growth does more than hurt American families today; it hurts our prospects of growing our way out of our debt challenges.
Make no mistake about it: We must be diligent about our debt, and it is currently too high. The president has already signed into law about $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction between 2013 and 2023. However, we will not be able to cut our way out of our problems, and the sequester remains a blunt instrument cutting in the wrong places. Furthermore, defeat of many aspects of President Obama’s American Jobs Act, on the basis that the country could not afford to invest in critical priorities to alleviate joblessness and strengthen our long-term competitiveness, is emblematic of Congress’s inability to understand the connection between smart spending and investment now and long-term debt reduction.
The U.S. must continue to promote democracy, freedom, and the rule of law in the Middle East. The Arab Spring will require our patience, and our understanding. The transition from oppression for tens of millions presents many opportunities as well as uncertainties for the U.S., Israel, and everyone in the region struggling for democracy. These efforts begin with protecting America’s special alliance with Israel, and include providing significant, targeted aid throughout the region.
The civil war in Syria is an unthinkable atrocity that has resulted in an estimated 100,000 deaths and has forced over 1.6 million Syrians to become refugees. The U.S. should take whatever steps it can to safely support moderate opposition fighters, aid refugees, and prevent the spillover of fighting into neighboring countries. Putting U.S. troops on the ground in Syria is not an option given the complexity of the situation and all we’ve learned from our past 12 years of war. Any military aid or support must be carefully targeted and measured against the risk of arms falling into the hands of extremist, rather than moderate, rebels.
As far as Egypt is concerned, we should continually review the extent and composition of the substantial aid we provide, keeping in mind that this aid is vital to the stability of the region and important to the well-being of the Egyptian people. Despite my deep displeasure with Egypt’s former regime, I have grave concerns about the Egyptian military’s forceful hand in removing a democratically elected government from power and feel that we should be abundantly clear with the Egyptian military that we expect the beginnings of a transition to a democratically elected civilian government immediately. America knows the difficulties of transitioning to democracy. It took us two wars — our revolution and the civil war — before we reached a point where our democratic evolution, which remains in process today, didn’t involve widespread armed conflict. Democracy — self-determination — is a fundamental human right, and we must support it the best we can, wherever we can.
The charitable contribution deduction rewards altruism and plays an important role in promoting philanthropy. Here in Newark, we’ve seen how philanthropy can help transform a city. For example, we have raised over $200 million from innovators to strengthen our schools. This has allowed Newark to create programs such as “My Very Own Library,” which has provided 120,000 books for nearly 12,000 low-income students to help build home libraries. Partnering with private foundations also allowed us to create immediate access to affordable medications for thousands of uninsured Newark residents through the Newark Rx program. Put simply, philanthropy has provided vital support to my community’s collective efforts to transform Newark and solve some of our most difficult problems.
There is plainly a need to clean up the tax code, and close inefficient loopholes that make our code far less progressive and add to our deficits. However, tax reform should not remove incentives to donate to charity. My experience as mayor of Newark will inform how I look at any proposals to change the tax status of charitable contributions, and I will work with members of both parties to ensure that we continue to promote philanthropy.
Medicaid provides millions of low-income and disabled Americans with essential healthcare services and has been one of the most important programs in U.S. history. I strongly oppose turning Medicaid into a block grant program or capping the amount of Medicaid funding provided to states based on a per capita rate. These changes would likely lead millions of Americans to lose access to healthcare insurance and significantly decrease the quality of care provided by Medicaid.
It is also deeply troubling that over a dozen states have rejected the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Elected officials should not deny healthcare to millions of their constituents to advance a political agenda. Rejecting this expansion is the wrong decision from budget, healthcare system quality, and moral perspectives. The states that have turned down expanded coverage will lose $8.4 billion in federal funding and spend $1 billion more on uncompensated healthcare. Here in New Jersey, Medicaid expansion will provide healthcare coverage to more than 100,000 more New Jerseyans and save the state $227 million in one year.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Monday, July 29, 2013
The More Regulation, the Better
New survey research sponsored by the Drug Information Association indicates that a country with a strong regulatory commitment for advancing drugs for rare diseases does better in getting orphan drugs to patients than countries with lesser regulatory frameworks.
In his study, ‘The Effect of Market-Based Economic Factors on the Adoption of Orphan Drugs Across Multiple Countries,’ John Matthews, Associate Director of Project Management at Merck examined the relationship between how market-based a country is, and how many patients with rare disease actually receive approved treatments for their disorder. Contrary to the widely held belief that the more free-market a country is, the more likely drugs will be adopted, Matthews found that countries with more regulation actually did a better job of getting orphan drugs into the hands of patients. In other words, in examining data from 13 orphan drugs across US, Germany, UK, Spain, and France, the US was actually the least successful in providing access.
Using the Index of Economic Freedoms and the Economic Freedoms of the World Index, the study used business, labor, and trade restrictions; government spending; prevalence of corruption; taxation rates, and other economic factors to assess how free-market these countries were at the time of study. While Matthews initially hypothesized that ‘Countries with more market-based economies will be associated with a greater adoption of orphan drugs’, with adoption defined as ‘purchase of an orphan drug’, he noted that the exact opposite was true. “Based off of general economics, the literature out there suggests countries with greater economic freedoms are more efficient markets. But perhaps those mechanisms are not at work in the orphan drug market. No one has examined this issue from an orphan drug perspective, real time Location system,” he said.
Matthews looks to study this issue in greater detail, examining reimbursement systems across these different markets and how they affect orphan drug adoption. Additionally, his study points out the fact that there is no central organization that represents the views of patient groups, and thereby there is no hard data on how they affect access. “There are several organizations aspiring to this role, including the Genetic Alliance, and the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), but I don’t think anyone’s assuming a coordination role. There’s a lot of anecdotal information on patient groups’ wielding their clout to increase drug adoption, but no empirical research discussing observable impacts a patient advocacy group can have on adoption,” he explained. The patient movement in the US has been more robust in its influence, with its close connection to the needs and actions of patients, contrasted with the EU’s more paternalistic approach, focused on governments’ invention to sponsor groups to suit patient needs. Clearly, while patients in the US have a particular flair for advocacy, the relationship between this effort and its ability to move the access needle warrants closer examination.
Matthews does not believe a study looking at newer datasets from a broader range of countries and orphan drugs will produce different results. At the end of the day, he explains, “The results of this study basically say that greater government regulations are able to support better delivery of these medicines. Intervention is an option that can work.”
“Our summits have a proven track record of turning handshakes into Montana jobs. The more we get focused on jobs and work together, the closer we can get to the day when no Montanan is forced to leave the state to find a good-paying job,” said Baucus. “The key to success is getting all hands on deck which is why I encourage Montanans to join us in September in Butte.”
The jobs summit will feature all-star keynote speakers including some of the most innovative business leaders of our time along with ambassadors from some of the world’s most dynamic economies. The summit will also feature more than 40 breakout panel sessions tailored to every aspect of business from writing a business plan to getting your business online, learning how to export and the best ways to access capital.
Montana Economic Development Summits have resulted in hundreds of new Montana jobs over the years by bringing new private investment to the state and helping elevate Montana’s top notch goods and services at the global level.
Keynote speakers this year will include Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, former Presidential candidate and international businessman Jon Huntsman, Jr., Alan Mulally of Ford Motor Company, Oracle’s Safra Catz, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney, founder of FedEx Fred Smith, Delta’s Richard Anderson and, Montana’s own, Ryan Lance, CEO of ConocoPhillips.
You also get a richly detailed, high-definition 3D cartoon world, compared to the standard-definition Skylanders: Giants from last year and Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure from the year before. Your characters can also jump. That’s right. Now they can jump around and get themselves out of nasty cul-de-sacs. The Skylanders can also fly, climb, and teleport to special areas in the environment. The level cap is now 20 for each character. That makes the title more difficult to master.
Players will have more than 100 forward-compatible toys available from the three games — including never-before seen non-swappable characters from the upcoming release. For some, that’s bound to get a little confusing. But the new Swap Force characters have symbols on the bases of their toy counterparts that tell you what type of Swap Force power they have. The marks indicate where you can best use those creatures in the Skylands.
As Portal Master, you will embark on a new adventure in the mysterious Cloudbreak Islands in the sky. They are the home to a mystical volcano that erupts every hundred years to replenish the magic in the Skylands. During an epic battle, the volcano’s eruption hit a group of Skylanders, blasting them apart and giving them the ability to swap halves. The evil leader Kaos has come back with a scheme to “evilize” characters using the power of petrified darkness. The Portal Master must buy as many Swap Force creatures as possible (are you listening parents?) and reassemble them into new forms to save the Skylands. Actually, that’s a joke. You can get through the whole experience with the three heroes in the $75 starter pack.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
In his study, ‘The Effect of Market-Based Economic Factors on the Adoption of Orphan Drugs Across Multiple Countries,’ John Matthews, Associate Director of Project Management at Merck examined the relationship between how market-based a country is, and how many patients with rare disease actually receive approved treatments for their disorder. Contrary to the widely held belief that the more free-market a country is, the more likely drugs will be adopted, Matthews found that countries with more regulation actually did a better job of getting orphan drugs into the hands of patients. In other words, in examining data from 13 orphan drugs across US, Germany, UK, Spain, and France, the US was actually the least successful in providing access.
Using the Index of Economic Freedoms and the Economic Freedoms of the World Index, the study used business, labor, and trade restrictions; government spending; prevalence of corruption; taxation rates, and other economic factors to assess how free-market these countries were at the time of study. While Matthews initially hypothesized that ‘Countries with more market-based economies will be associated with a greater adoption of orphan drugs’, with adoption defined as ‘purchase of an orphan drug’, he noted that the exact opposite was true. “Based off of general economics, the literature out there suggests countries with greater economic freedoms are more efficient markets. But perhaps those mechanisms are not at work in the orphan drug market. No one has examined this issue from an orphan drug perspective, real time Location system,” he said.
Matthews looks to study this issue in greater detail, examining reimbursement systems across these different markets and how they affect orphan drug adoption. Additionally, his study points out the fact that there is no central organization that represents the views of patient groups, and thereby there is no hard data on how they affect access. “There are several organizations aspiring to this role, including the Genetic Alliance, and the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), but I don’t think anyone’s assuming a coordination role. There’s a lot of anecdotal information on patient groups’ wielding their clout to increase drug adoption, but no empirical research discussing observable impacts a patient advocacy group can have on adoption,” he explained. The patient movement in the US has been more robust in its influence, with its close connection to the needs and actions of patients, contrasted with the EU’s more paternalistic approach, focused on governments’ invention to sponsor groups to suit patient needs. Clearly, while patients in the US have a particular flair for advocacy, the relationship between this effort and its ability to move the access needle warrants closer examination.
Matthews does not believe a study looking at newer datasets from a broader range of countries and orphan drugs will produce different results. At the end of the day, he explains, “The results of this study basically say that greater government regulations are able to support better delivery of these medicines. Intervention is an option that can work.”
“Our summits have a proven track record of turning handshakes into Montana jobs. The more we get focused on jobs and work together, the closer we can get to the day when no Montanan is forced to leave the state to find a good-paying job,” said Baucus. “The key to success is getting all hands on deck which is why I encourage Montanans to join us in September in Butte.”
The jobs summit will feature all-star keynote speakers including some of the most innovative business leaders of our time along with ambassadors from some of the world’s most dynamic economies. The summit will also feature more than 40 breakout panel sessions tailored to every aspect of business from writing a business plan to getting your business online, learning how to export and the best ways to access capital.
Montana Economic Development Summits have resulted in hundreds of new Montana jobs over the years by bringing new private investment to the state and helping elevate Montana’s top notch goods and services at the global level.
Keynote speakers this year will include Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, former Presidential candidate and international businessman Jon Huntsman, Jr., Alan Mulally of Ford Motor Company, Oracle’s Safra Catz, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney, founder of FedEx Fred Smith, Delta’s Richard Anderson and, Montana’s own, Ryan Lance, CEO of ConocoPhillips.
You also get a richly detailed, high-definition 3D cartoon world, compared to the standard-definition Skylanders: Giants from last year and Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure from the year before. Your characters can also jump. That’s right. Now they can jump around and get themselves out of nasty cul-de-sacs. The Skylanders can also fly, climb, and teleport to special areas in the environment. The level cap is now 20 for each character. That makes the title more difficult to master.
Players will have more than 100 forward-compatible toys available from the three games — including never-before seen non-swappable characters from the upcoming release. For some, that’s bound to get a little confusing. But the new Swap Force characters have symbols on the bases of their toy counterparts that tell you what type of Swap Force power they have. The marks indicate where you can best use those creatures in the Skylands.
As Portal Master, you will embark on a new adventure in the mysterious Cloudbreak Islands in the sky. They are the home to a mystical volcano that erupts every hundred years to replenish the magic in the Skylands. During an epic battle, the volcano’s eruption hit a group of Skylanders, blasting them apart and giving them the ability to swap halves. The evil leader Kaos has come back with a scheme to “evilize” characters using the power of petrified darkness. The Portal Master must buy as many Swap Force creatures as possible (are you listening parents?) and reassemble them into new forms to save the Skylands. Actually, that’s a joke. You can get through the whole experience with the three heroes in the $75 starter pack.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Cambodia Opposition Rejects
Cambodia's main opposition party has rejected the results of a parliamentary election and has called for an investigation into allegations of widespread electoral fraud.Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party [CPP] claimed a narrow victory in Sunday's vote, admitting to its weakest showing since taking a dominant role in Cambodian politics almost three decades ago.Shortly after the polls closed, the CPP said it won 68 seats in the nation's 123-member parliament - a significant decline from the 90-seat majority it previously held. It said the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party [CNRP] took the remaining 55 seats, almost doubling the 29 seats it held in the outgoing parliament.
The CPP appeared to base its claims on partial results released by the National Election Committee, which was not expected to disclose final election figures for several weeks.CNRP leader Sam Rainsy told reporters Monday the CNRP would not accept the results of the ballot because of what he characterized as widespread fraud.
"We ask local and international bodies to send experts now to be part of a joint committee to investigate all the Hands free access, and to assess the implications of those irregularities on the election results," said Rainsy.Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan told VOA the opposition's announcement was typical of its election behavior. "The opposition party uses this game after every election," he said.
"There were serious fraud allegations leading up to the elections," said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch [HRW], who was in Cambodia observing the election campaign. "They included illegal behavior on behalf of government security authorities; things like 'ghost' voters, de-registration of opposition voters, biased behavior by the national election commission, unequal access to national media, the list goes on and on. It is a serious problem and it does deserve an independent investigation."
The non-profit Transparency International Cambodia echoed those concerns. The group, which sent 900 observers to about 400 of the nation's 19,000 polling stations, says it found a litany of breaches.
Chief among those was that in 60 percent of polling stations, some people who had the right identification papers could not find their names on the voting list. It also found that people who lacked the correct identification were allowed to vote in a quarter of the polling stations.
"The opposition does not have access to funds, weapons or patronage. So the financial power will continue to be in the hands of the CPP. Foreign aid will flow to the government, which is controlled by the CPP," he said. "I think politics will become more interesting and vibrant, but I do not think that will involve the transfer of power to any extent."
The CNRP appeared to get a boost in the election from the merger of two of its founding parties, who joined forces last year to challenge the long-ruling CPP. The united opposition party touted a populist platform calling for a sharp rise in civil servants' salaries, monthly payments to those over 65 years old, and an increase in the minimum wage. It also pledged to regulate government prices for agricultural products, lower gas costs and provide free health care for the poor.
Robertson of HRW said the promise of change made many voters more enthusiastic about participating in the election."It really propelled the opposition to make major gains. But, we should not confuse outcomes with processes and procedures," he said. "The processes and procedures of the election were not fair and favored one side. They were designed to deny the civil and political rights of the Cambodian people."
Last week a Kansas healthcare management company, Nueterra, cleared the first hurdle to open a privately-owned, third surgical hospital in Casper. What’s bothersome about the proposal is the possibility the project could jeopardize vital public health services while a few people get rich. But the company and their rumored local doctor investors aren’t talking about it. Period. No discussion. Their response was to file a site plan for the project with the city but without much comment. Apparently their strategy is to ram it down our throats, like it or not.
County government and others have expressed multiple reasons why added hospital capacity would be detrimental to nearly everyone in the county. As reported in the Casper Journal during the past month, at risk are trauma care and indigent care at Wyoming Medical Center. There’s been some talk of a possible new property tax to support the public hospital if necessary.
When the doctor-owned Mountain View Regional Hospital was opened, the reason was clear. A very public falling-out between the medical center and the doctors involved with the new hospital made it easy to understand. There have been ups and downs and good and bad with the competitive hospitals, but the competition has arguably been good in some respects. Both existing hospitals accept Medicare and Medicaid. WMC maintains the only full-service emergency room with trauma care and a cardiac catheterization lab, where doctors can open blocked arteries during a heart attack.
But Nueterra’s newly-proposed Summit Medical Center appears to be different. The public is only hearing from one side: basically the county and the operator of the county-owned hospital’s side. Nueterra and its rumored local doctor investors are mum. Sources have told the Casper Journal the company employs a comprehensive confidentiality agreement. It’s a private business, but its actions will likely impact delivery of other public health services and could cost every citizen in the county more money. No wonder they don’t want to talk!
By their silence, these doctors and their Kansas partner leave us to draw our own conclusions. They apparently aren’t interested in explaining who or how another hospital in Natrona County will benefit anyone. We’re left with the impression this project is just about the money, greed that would dilute the quality of healthcare for the common man to benefit a few.
A free enterprise argument may apply in some areas of the complicated world of healthcare, but not in emergency room, trauma or indigent care. When your loved one has a stroke or accident, there’s no thoughtful decision where to seek care; you go to the nearest, if not the only, emergency room. And if you need elective surgery, most often your doctor decides where that procedure will be performed. And if the doctor owns an interest in a hospital, where do you think they’ll believe is best for you to have the procedure? This isn’t free enterprise because the customer is most often not making the buying decision.
Dependable emergency care are services private hospitals shun because they are, by their comprehensive nature, expensive and must be supported by the more predictable procedures private hospitals siphon away from publicly-supported medical centers.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
The CPP appeared to base its claims on partial results released by the National Election Committee, which was not expected to disclose final election figures for several weeks.CNRP leader Sam Rainsy told reporters Monday the CNRP would not accept the results of the ballot because of what he characterized as widespread fraud.
"We ask local and international bodies to send experts now to be part of a joint committee to investigate all the Hands free access, and to assess the implications of those irregularities on the election results," said Rainsy.Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan told VOA the opposition's announcement was typical of its election behavior. "The opposition party uses this game after every election," he said.
"There were serious fraud allegations leading up to the elections," said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch [HRW], who was in Cambodia observing the election campaign. "They included illegal behavior on behalf of government security authorities; things like 'ghost' voters, de-registration of opposition voters, biased behavior by the national election commission, unequal access to national media, the list goes on and on. It is a serious problem and it does deserve an independent investigation."
The non-profit Transparency International Cambodia echoed those concerns. The group, which sent 900 observers to about 400 of the nation's 19,000 polling stations, says it found a litany of breaches.
Chief among those was that in 60 percent of polling stations, some people who had the right identification papers could not find their names on the voting list. It also found that people who lacked the correct identification were allowed to vote in a quarter of the polling stations.
"The opposition does not have access to funds, weapons or patronage. So the financial power will continue to be in the hands of the CPP. Foreign aid will flow to the government, which is controlled by the CPP," he said. "I think politics will become more interesting and vibrant, but I do not think that will involve the transfer of power to any extent."
The CNRP appeared to get a boost in the election from the merger of two of its founding parties, who joined forces last year to challenge the long-ruling CPP. The united opposition party touted a populist platform calling for a sharp rise in civil servants' salaries, monthly payments to those over 65 years old, and an increase in the minimum wage. It also pledged to regulate government prices for agricultural products, lower gas costs and provide free health care for the poor.
Robertson of HRW said the promise of change made many voters more enthusiastic about participating in the election."It really propelled the opposition to make major gains. But, we should not confuse outcomes with processes and procedures," he said. "The processes and procedures of the election were not fair and favored one side. They were designed to deny the civil and political rights of the Cambodian people."
Last week a Kansas healthcare management company, Nueterra, cleared the first hurdle to open a privately-owned, third surgical hospital in Casper. What’s bothersome about the proposal is the possibility the project could jeopardize vital public health services while a few people get rich. But the company and their rumored local doctor investors aren’t talking about it. Period. No discussion. Their response was to file a site plan for the project with the city but without much comment. Apparently their strategy is to ram it down our throats, like it or not.
County government and others have expressed multiple reasons why added hospital capacity would be detrimental to nearly everyone in the county. As reported in the Casper Journal during the past month, at risk are trauma care and indigent care at Wyoming Medical Center. There’s been some talk of a possible new property tax to support the public hospital if necessary.
When the doctor-owned Mountain View Regional Hospital was opened, the reason was clear. A very public falling-out between the medical center and the doctors involved with the new hospital made it easy to understand. There have been ups and downs and good and bad with the competitive hospitals, but the competition has arguably been good in some respects. Both existing hospitals accept Medicare and Medicaid. WMC maintains the only full-service emergency room with trauma care and a cardiac catheterization lab, where doctors can open blocked arteries during a heart attack.
But Nueterra’s newly-proposed Summit Medical Center appears to be different. The public is only hearing from one side: basically the county and the operator of the county-owned hospital’s side. Nueterra and its rumored local doctor investors are mum. Sources have told the Casper Journal the company employs a comprehensive confidentiality agreement. It’s a private business, but its actions will likely impact delivery of other public health services and could cost every citizen in the county more money. No wonder they don’t want to talk!
By their silence, these doctors and their Kansas partner leave us to draw our own conclusions. They apparently aren’t interested in explaining who or how another hospital in Natrona County will benefit anyone. We’re left with the impression this project is just about the money, greed that would dilute the quality of healthcare for the common man to benefit a few.
A free enterprise argument may apply in some areas of the complicated world of healthcare, but not in emergency room, trauma or indigent care. When your loved one has a stroke or accident, there’s no thoughtful decision where to seek care; you go to the nearest, if not the only, emergency room. And if you need elective surgery, most often your doctor decides where that procedure will be performed. And if the doctor owns an interest in a hospital, where do you think they’ll believe is best for you to have the procedure? This isn’t free enterprise because the customer is most often not making the buying decision.
Dependable emergency care are services private hospitals shun because they are, by their comprehensive nature, expensive and must be supported by the more predictable procedures private hospitals siphon away from publicly-supported medical centers.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Navy's sex-assault prevention plan
What surprised the development team was that even though the PvP mode was the game's weakest link, it was also one of the most popular elements of the game. There was demand for a rock/paper/scissors-style multiplayer mode where players could jump in and have quick matches against opposing teams. Paradox North looked into what the community wanted, and the result is Magicka: Wizard Wars.
During a hands-on demo of the game, Hargelid explained that the original game's PvP mode was very unbalanced. The game had everyone starting on a level playing field, but it also gave everyone access to all the magicks. The problem with this was anyone could then endlessly spam the most powerful attacks, allowing them to either unfairly win using no skill at all, or causing a stalemate where both sides hide in corners of the map while they shower the game board with meteor strikes.
In Magicka: Wizard Wars, players have to fill a focus meter in order to access the more powerful magicks. One of the lower tiers is the power of haste, which allows a character to move quicker for a short burst of time. As players fill up their focus meter by killing enemies, they unlock the ability to summon Death — a NPC that will fight on the player's side for a short amount of time. The highest tier triggers a meteor shower, which can destroy almost everyone within the vicinity of a selected region, but it requires a full focus meter in order to be activated.
According to Hargelid, the development team has made the game more strategic by introducing capture points that also act as spawn points. In the demo Polygon played, we had to ensure we always held at least one capture point, because if we lost them all to the enemy then our team members would not be able to respawn. This led to an often frantic experience where remaining players would rush to try to capture a spawn point to ensure their survival, while the enemies ganged up on survivors to try to take them out.
"I like the tactical depth of the game — you always have to be on the lookout to understand if you have your spawn points secured or not," Hargelid said. "That means you can turn the tide at any point."During our time with the Hands free access, some matches were an on-going tug-of-war, with one side capturing all the spawn points, only to have the other side make a last-minute comeback. Other matches were over in less than five minutes when a team was wiped out and all its spawn points swiftly captured.
Magicka: Wizard Wars is due to launch this year on Windows PC and tablets. The game will be free-to-play, but the developers have not determined how players will be charged. Hargelid told Polygon that Paradox will talk to its community about what they're willing to pay for, but he assured us that the studio will not be pursuing a pay-to-win strategy.
“This department is committed to using all available resources to prevent this crime, aggressively investigate allegations and prosecute as appropriate,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in a July 18 statement announcing the changes. “We will not hide from this challenge — we will be active, open and transparent.”The effort is the latest drive to show offenders will be punished, which victim advocates and officials believe is central to stemming the tide of sex assaults. But the push must contend with a stark reality: No one was punished in about three of every four Navy cases closed in the latest fiscal year.But some are skeptical that releasing court-martial verdicts will prove a deterrent without disclosing names. Officials say the main point is to have a more transparent naval justice system that sailors can trust to come forward.
“The goal here was to show that the judicial process works, that these cases are going to trial and they are being dealt with,” said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Navy’s chief of information. “We have heard, again anecdotally, that some victims express some concerns about the names being out there because they don’t want the offender to get any more attention.”
Investigations also may need work. Of a random sampling of 195 cases from 2010, NCIS mishandled 26 of them, or 13 percent, making serious mistakes like not completing a crime scene investigation, not collecting key evidence or not interviewing witnesses, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report issued July 15. NCIS reopened 14 of the cases, according to the report.“A lot of this is about education but it’s also about trying to change their personal behavior,” said Rear Adm. Ted Carter, who until recently was head of the 21st Century Sailor office that oversees the latest counter-sex assault initiative.
Carter said the rovers would be there to watch for “anything that would be unusual,” such as drunkenness, a passed-out sailor, or a large gathering. “Just having that security there will help keep everybody in line,” Carter explained in a recent interview.The Navy’s sexual assault experts are unsure exactly why the pilots worked, but they’ve decided the dramatic gains are important enough to try everywhere to stem the mounting toll of sexual assaults that concerns lawmakers and the public. Sailors reported 773 assaults during fiscal year 2012 — a 33 percent jump over the previous year.
Top personnel officials attribute the rise in incidents to sailors reporting assaults from fiscal 2012 and previous years, which they view as evidence that the Navy’s full-court press for prevention training is encouraging victims to come forward. Nonetheless, the brass is concerned.The “overwhelming majority of both victims and offenders are junior sailors, both male and female,” said Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mark Ferguson, in a July 9 message to all admirals and commanding officers. Most of the incidents occurred after the work day and involved alcohol; half take place on base or aboard ship.
“Sexual assault ruins lives, divides teams and erodes trust,” Ferguson said in his “personal for” message. “As leaders, we must provide our sailors a responsible, professional, and safe environment in which to work and live.”Similar to college dorms, barracks will be required to have resident advisers, or RAs, to mentor and keep the peace. RAs must be first classes or above and will be trained in preventing sex assaults.
As part of the San Diego pilot, chiefs and junior officers also patrolled on-base clubs, bowling alleys and theaters that off-duty sailors frequent. There was no mention of these patrols in NAVADMIN 181/13, released July 18, and Carter emphasized that there would be no shore patrol stood up.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
During a hands-on demo of the game, Hargelid explained that the original game's PvP mode was very unbalanced. The game had everyone starting on a level playing field, but it also gave everyone access to all the magicks. The problem with this was anyone could then endlessly spam the most powerful attacks, allowing them to either unfairly win using no skill at all, or causing a stalemate where both sides hide in corners of the map while they shower the game board with meteor strikes.
In Magicka: Wizard Wars, players have to fill a focus meter in order to access the more powerful magicks. One of the lower tiers is the power of haste, which allows a character to move quicker for a short burst of time. As players fill up their focus meter by killing enemies, they unlock the ability to summon Death — a NPC that will fight on the player's side for a short amount of time. The highest tier triggers a meteor shower, which can destroy almost everyone within the vicinity of a selected region, but it requires a full focus meter in order to be activated.
According to Hargelid, the development team has made the game more strategic by introducing capture points that also act as spawn points. In the demo Polygon played, we had to ensure we always held at least one capture point, because if we lost them all to the enemy then our team members would not be able to respawn. This led to an often frantic experience where remaining players would rush to try to capture a spawn point to ensure their survival, while the enemies ganged up on survivors to try to take them out.
"I like the tactical depth of the game — you always have to be on the lookout to understand if you have your spawn points secured or not," Hargelid said. "That means you can turn the tide at any point."During our time with the Hands free access, some matches were an on-going tug-of-war, with one side capturing all the spawn points, only to have the other side make a last-minute comeback. Other matches were over in less than five minutes when a team was wiped out and all its spawn points swiftly captured.
Magicka: Wizard Wars is due to launch this year on Windows PC and tablets. The game will be free-to-play, but the developers have not determined how players will be charged. Hargelid told Polygon that Paradox will talk to its community about what they're willing to pay for, but he assured us that the studio will not be pursuing a pay-to-win strategy.
“This department is committed to using all available resources to prevent this crime, aggressively investigate allegations and prosecute as appropriate,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in a July 18 statement announcing the changes. “We will not hide from this challenge — we will be active, open and transparent.”The effort is the latest drive to show offenders will be punished, which victim advocates and officials believe is central to stemming the tide of sex assaults. But the push must contend with a stark reality: No one was punished in about three of every four Navy cases closed in the latest fiscal year.But some are skeptical that releasing court-martial verdicts will prove a deterrent without disclosing names. Officials say the main point is to have a more transparent naval justice system that sailors can trust to come forward.
“The goal here was to show that the judicial process works, that these cases are going to trial and they are being dealt with,” said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Navy’s chief of information. “We have heard, again anecdotally, that some victims express some concerns about the names being out there because they don’t want the offender to get any more attention.”
Investigations also may need work. Of a random sampling of 195 cases from 2010, NCIS mishandled 26 of them, or 13 percent, making serious mistakes like not completing a crime scene investigation, not collecting key evidence or not interviewing witnesses, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report issued July 15. NCIS reopened 14 of the cases, according to the report.“A lot of this is about education but it’s also about trying to change their personal behavior,” said Rear Adm. Ted Carter, who until recently was head of the 21st Century Sailor office that oversees the latest counter-sex assault initiative.
Carter said the rovers would be there to watch for “anything that would be unusual,” such as drunkenness, a passed-out sailor, or a large gathering. “Just having that security there will help keep everybody in line,” Carter explained in a recent interview.The Navy’s sexual assault experts are unsure exactly why the pilots worked, but they’ve decided the dramatic gains are important enough to try everywhere to stem the mounting toll of sexual assaults that concerns lawmakers and the public. Sailors reported 773 assaults during fiscal year 2012 — a 33 percent jump over the previous year.
Top personnel officials attribute the rise in incidents to sailors reporting assaults from fiscal 2012 and previous years, which they view as evidence that the Navy’s full-court press for prevention training is encouraging victims to come forward. Nonetheless, the brass is concerned.The “overwhelming majority of both victims and offenders are junior sailors, both male and female,” said Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mark Ferguson, in a July 9 message to all admirals and commanding officers. Most of the incidents occurred after the work day and involved alcohol; half take place on base or aboard ship.
“Sexual assault ruins lives, divides teams and erodes trust,” Ferguson said in his “personal for” message. “As leaders, we must provide our sailors a responsible, professional, and safe environment in which to work and live.”Similar to college dorms, barracks will be required to have resident advisers, or RAs, to mentor and keep the peace. RAs must be first classes or above and will be trained in preventing sex assaults.
As part of the San Diego pilot, chiefs and junior officers also patrolled on-base clubs, bowling alleys and theaters that off-duty sailors frequent. There was no mention of these patrols in NAVADMIN 181/13, released July 18, and Carter emphasized that there would be no shore patrol stood up.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Monday, July 22, 2013
What Hindus can & should be proud
A bhadralok friend of mine is of the view that the Government of India should celebrate every December 16 as Vijay Diwas, Victory Day, to mark the surrender in 1971 of the Pakistani forces in Dhaka to the advancing Indian Army. My friend argues that such a celebration would take Indians in general, and Hindus in particular, out of the pacifist, defeatist mindset that he claims has so crippled them. The triumph in Dhaka represents for him the finest moment in a millenia otherwise characterised by Indian (and more specifically Hindu) humiliation at the hands of foreigners.
I was reminded of my friend’s fond fantasy when reading about the posters in Mumbai recently put up by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party. These carry portraits of a prominent BJP leader, with two accompanying slogans: ‘I AM A HINDU NATIONALIST,’ in English, and ‘Garv sé Kaho Ham Hindu Hain’, in Hindi. The latter slogan needs perhaps to be translated for south Indian readers, and set in context for younger ones. ‘Proudly Proclaim Our Hindu-Ness’, would be a faithful rendition. The slogan originates in the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign of the 1980s and 1990s, when it was used by the VHP, RSS, BJP, and Bajrang Dal cadres to mobilise men and materials in the drive to demolish a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya believed by many to be sited on the birthplace of the (mythical) God Ram.
Should Hindus be proud of the Indian Army’s victory in Dhaka in 1971? Perhaps as Indians, but not specifically as Hindus. The war had its basis in the savage repression of Bengalis in East Pakistan by the West Pakistan Army. The refugees who came to India were both Hindus and Muslims. The help rendered to them by the Government of India did not discriminate according to their faith. As for the Indian military campaign, the chief commander in the field was a Jew, his immediate superior a Sikh. A Parsi served as Chief of Army Staff. His own superior, the Prime Minister of India, had notoriously been disallowed from entering the Jagannath temple in Puri because she had not married a Hindu.
To be sure, many soldiers and officers in the Indian Army were of Hindu origin. Yet they never saw themselves in narrowly communal terms. In our armed forces, then and Indoor Positioning System, Hindu and Muslim, Christian and Sikh, Parsi and Jew, lived, laboured and struggled together.
Unlike the military campaign in East Pakistan in 1971, the campaign to build a temple in Ayodha was unquestionably Hindu in intent and content. No Muslims or Sikhs or Parsis or Jews or Christians participated in it. But should Hindus have been proud of it? I rather think not. In a society where so many are without access to adequate education, health care and housing, where malnutrition is rife and where safety and environmental standards are violated every minute, to invest so much political energy and human capital in the demolition of a mosque and its replacement with a brand-new temple seemed wildly foolish, if not downright Machiavellian. As it turned out, the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign led to two decades of strife across northern and western India, with thousands of people losing their lives and hundreds of thousands their homes and livelihoods.
The war of 1971 was not a Hindu war, and the destruction of the Babri Masjid was not something that could fill Hindus with pride. What then, should Hindus be proud of? The answer is that rather than seek for one defining moment, one heroic triumph, Hindus who care for the fate and future of Hinduism should instead valorise the quiet, persistent work of reformers down the centuries to rid an ancient, ossified faith of its divisions, its prejudices, and its closed-mindedness.
The story of Hindu pride that I wish to tell also begins with Bengal, not with the surrender of the Pakistani Army in 1971, but with the work in the early 19th century of Rammohun Roy, who was unarguably the first great Indian modernist. Rammohun campaigned for the abolition of sati, for greater rights for women more generally, for the embrace of modern scientific education and for a liberal spirit of free enquiry and intellectual debate. His example was carried forward by other Bengali reformers, among them Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Swami Vivekananda, who focussed on, among other things, education for women and the abolition of indoor Tracking.
The torch first lit in Bengal was taken over, and made even brighter, in Maharashtra, which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the epicentre of reformist and radical thinking in India. The pernicious practice of ‘untouchability’ was attacked from below by Jotirau Phule and from above by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Maharashtra also gave birth to India’s first home-grown feminists, such as Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai, who wrote searing tracts against patriarchal practices and motivated young girls to emancipate themselves through modern education.
In 1915, Mohandas K. Gandhi came back to India after two decades in the diaspora. Living in South Africa, he had been seized of the need to build harmonious, mutually beneficial, relations between Hindus and Muslims. This commitment to religious pluralism he now renewed and reaffirmed. Meanwhile, he progressively became more critical of caste discrimination. To begin with, he attacked ‘untouchability’ while upholding the ancient ideal of varnashramadharma. Then he began advocating inter-mixing and inter-dining, and eventually, inter-marriage itself.
Gandhi was pushed to take more radical positions by B.R. Ambedkar, the outstanding lawyer-scholar who was of ‘Untouchable’ origins himself. A modernist and rationalist, Dr. Ambedkar believed that for Dalits to escape from oppression, they had to not look for favours from guilt-ridden reformers but themselves ‘educate, agitate and organise’ their way to emancipation. He remains an inspirational figure, whose work and legacy remain relevant for Dalit and Suvarna alike.
When India became independent in 1947, a central question the new nation faced was the relation of faith to state. There was a strong movement to create India as a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, a mirror-image of the Islamic nation that was Pakistan. The person who stood most firmly against this idea was the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In a letter written to Chief Ministers on October 15, 1947, he reminded them that “we have a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want to, go anywhere else. They have got to live in India. This is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilised manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State.”
I was reminded of my friend’s fond fantasy when reading about the posters in Mumbai recently put up by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party. These carry portraits of a prominent BJP leader, with two accompanying slogans: ‘I AM A HINDU NATIONALIST,’ in English, and ‘Garv sé Kaho Ham Hindu Hain’, in Hindi. The latter slogan needs perhaps to be translated for south Indian readers, and set in context for younger ones. ‘Proudly Proclaim Our Hindu-Ness’, would be a faithful rendition. The slogan originates in the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign of the 1980s and 1990s, when it was used by the VHP, RSS, BJP, and Bajrang Dal cadres to mobilise men and materials in the drive to demolish a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya believed by many to be sited on the birthplace of the (mythical) God Ram.
Should Hindus be proud of the Indian Army’s victory in Dhaka in 1971? Perhaps as Indians, but not specifically as Hindus. The war had its basis in the savage repression of Bengalis in East Pakistan by the West Pakistan Army. The refugees who came to India were both Hindus and Muslims. The help rendered to them by the Government of India did not discriminate according to their faith. As for the Indian military campaign, the chief commander in the field was a Jew, his immediate superior a Sikh. A Parsi served as Chief of Army Staff. His own superior, the Prime Minister of India, had notoriously been disallowed from entering the Jagannath temple in Puri because she had not married a Hindu.
To be sure, many soldiers and officers in the Indian Army were of Hindu origin. Yet they never saw themselves in narrowly communal terms. In our armed forces, then and Indoor Positioning System, Hindu and Muslim, Christian and Sikh, Parsi and Jew, lived, laboured and struggled together.
Unlike the military campaign in East Pakistan in 1971, the campaign to build a temple in Ayodha was unquestionably Hindu in intent and content. No Muslims or Sikhs or Parsis or Jews or Christians participated in it. But should Hindus have been proud of it? I rather think not. In a society where so many are without access to adequate education, health care and housing, where malnutrition is rife and where safety and environmental standards are violated every minute, to invest so much political energy and human capital in the demolition of a mosque and its replacement with a brand-new temple seemed wildly foolish, if not downright Machiavellian. As it turned out, the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign led to two decades of strife across northern and western India, with thousands of people losing their lives and hundreds of thousands their homes and livelihoods.
The war of 1971 was not a Hindu war, and the destruction of the Babri Masjid was not something that could fill Hindus with pride. What then, should Hindus be proud of? The answer is that rather than seek for one defining moment, one heroic triumph, Hindus who care for the fate and future of Hinduism should instead valorise the quiet, persistent work of reformers down the centuries to rid an ancient, ossified faith of its divisions, its prejudices, and its closed-mindedness.
The story of Hindu pride that I wish to tell also begins with Bengal, not with the surrender of the Pakistani Army in 1971, but with the work in the early 19th century of Rammohun Roy, who was unarguably the first great Indian modernist. Rammohun campaigned for the abolition of sati, for greater rights for women more generally, for the embrace of modern scientific education and for a liberal spirit of free enquiry and intellectual debate. His example was carried forward by other Bengali reformers, among them Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Swami Vivekananda, who focussed on, among other things, education for women and the abolition of indoor Tracking.
The torch first lit in Bengal was taken over, and made even brighter, in Maharashtra, which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the epicentre of reformist and radical thinking in India. The pernicious practice of ‘untouchability’ was attacked from below by Jotirau Phule and from above by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Maharashtra also gave birth to India’s first home-grown feminists, such as Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai, who wrote searing tracts against patriarchal practices and motivated young girls to emancipate themselves through modern education.
In 1915, Mohandas K. Gandhi came back to India after two decades in the diaspora. Living in South Africa, he had been seized of the need to build harmonious, mutually beneficial, relations between Hindus and Muslims. This commitment to religious pluralism he now renewed and reaffirmed. Meanwhile, he progressively became more critical of caste discrimination. To begin with, he attacked ‘untouchability’ while upholding the ancient ideal of varnashramadharma. Then he began advocating inter-mixing and inter-dining, and eventually, inter-marriage itself.
Gandhi was pushed to take more radical positions by B.R. Ambedkar, the outstanding lawyer-scholar who was of ‘Untouchable’ origins himself. A modernist and rationalist, Dr. Ambedkar believed that for Dalits to escape from oppression, they had to not look for favours from guilt-ridden reformers but themselves ‘educate, agitate and organise’ their way to emancipation. He remains an inspirational figure, whose work and legacy remain relevant for Dalit and Suvarna alike.
When India became independent in 1947, a central question the new nation faced was the relation of faith to state. There was a strong movement to create India as a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, a mirror-image of the Islamic nation that was Pakistan. The person who stood most firmly against this idea was the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In a letter written to Chief Ministers on October 15, 1947, he reminded them that “we have a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want to, go anywhere else. They have got to live in India. This is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilised manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State.”
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Indoor Location Highlighted at Famous
Used to be that changes to equipment in and on cars took decades to enter production — as an example just how long did it take to get head-rests/restraints into most vehicles? Head restraint patents were originally filed in 1921, and people started to get interested in putting them in cars in the 1950s, but they didn’t start to show up in vehicles until the 1960s and weren’t mandated until 1969 in the US. Since then the rate of technology adoption by the auto-makers has accelerated.
Now, it seems that almost every new car has Internet, Bluetooth phone, GPS navigation, rain-sensing wipers, touch screen, automatic foot sensing/hand waving/ touch sensitive lift-gate/door-locks/touch screens and even massaging seats and automatic seat positioning… And safety devices galore — including multiple air-bags and anti-lock braking systems, indoor positioning system, intelligent speed adaptation and now even lane-departure and forward collision mitigation/collision avoidance systems.
Safety has finally become a major selling feature on almost every make and every model, thanks in large part to organizations like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Vehicle Research Center (VRC) near Washington, D.C. The VRC is the principle location for U.S. vehicle crash testing that we see regularly on TV and YouTube videos with crash-test dummies being bashed around in all sorts of simulated vehicle accidents. These tests have lead to significantly enhanced safety features in today’s vehicles.
Automation in vehicles, particularly automation of safety devices, is seen as the next most promising phase of vehicle safety improvement. And as these safety devices become more complex, they need to be verified in realistic conditions. Hence, the VRC is now undertaking a major expansion of its testing capabilities with the addition of a continuous vehicle test track that transverses not only open-air roadway areas, but also includes a 300-foot by 700-foot fully covered testing area.
The $30 million upgrade will include a Locata supplied ‘LocataNet’ which will provide the VRC with high-precision positioning to enable rigorous, consistent and repeatable scientific evaluation of new vehicle crash avoidance systems. Along with the cm level positioning provided by the Locata network, VRC is also working on state-of-the-art robotics to enable the required level of testing precision. The LocataNet will furnish the IIHS with a locally controlled positioning system that is seamless over all the VRC test areas, including extremely accurate and consistent automated positioning of vehicles.
In the covered enclosure VRC intends to set up collision avoidance testing for areas such as parking garages and urban canyons — areas where GPS is either not available, or is degraded to a level where positioning is intermittent or isn’t available. Locata will provide a consistent level of accuracy and reliability that the VRC requires for these GPS-degraded scenarios.
The VRC site currently looks very much like a construction site with the track extensions under way and the under-cover area just starting to be built. The VRC facility will come online in two stages — the outdoor track before the end of the year and the indoor around early Q2 next year. Locata engineers have been working with Perrone Robotics on very early integration testing. Perrone is contracted to deliver a system for testing vehicle safety systems in the test vehicles that IIHS is testing. For the first phase, the system includes a robot target vehicle with the footprint of a car, but only 4 inches high and 1 inch of ground clearance. If the vehicle being tested fails to prevent a collision with the robot target vehicle, the test vehicle runs over the robot target vehicle, dislodging a soft target, but avoiding damage to the test vehicle, robot target vehicle, or soft target.
To ensure that the test vehicle drives repeatedly, the system also includes a drop-in actuator kit that can be installed into any test vehicle in 30 minutes or less. The system is designed to allow a human driver to sit comfortably in the vehicle and drive, but is also capable of controlling the throttle, brake and steering to drive test profiles. Perrone is using Locata as the positioning system. In addition to alleviating concerns about GPS outages or dead/weak signal spots, it also allows the system to be operated on the new covered IIHS test track currently under construction.
Locata’s autonomous positioning technology uses terrestrial networks that function as a “local ground-based replica” of GPS-style positioning. Locata works with GPS, but can also operate independently when GPS is not robust or is completely unavailable. Instead of orbiting satellites, Locata utilizes a network of small, ground-based transmitters that blanket a chosen area with strong radio-positioning signals. Because it is terrestrially based and provides relatively high power signals, Locata works in any internal or external environment.
A fundamental requirement for radio-positioning systems is nano-second level synchronization of all transmitters in the positioning network. In the past multiple atomic clocks were used to achieve this level of synchronization. Instead, Locata’s technology relies on a patented synchronization method called TimeLoc which allows Locata to replicate GPS in a ground network.
Locata’s technology encompasses both transmit and receive sides of the positioning network, allowing the system to be configured to meet specific, localized demand for availability, accuracy, and reliability. This flexibility ensures that signal integrity can be guaranteed in even the most demanding environments — especially indoors, like the covered test track section of the expanded VRC.
Locata has also made significant progress in North America with the recent award of a contract to instrument the White Sands missile range to Locata’s partner TMC Design. The 746th Test Squadron’s new Non-GPS Based Positioning System is expected to be operational by Q3 2013, with a network that covers 2,500 sq miles (6,500 square kilometers). Locata technology will provide the USAF’s “gold standard GPS truth system,” supplying continuous centimeter-level, independent positioning when GPS is completely jammed. This award followed several months of USAF testing and evaluation of an initial LocataNet installation at the White Sands facility.
So following the recent IIHS endorsement of the Locata technology for use at the VRC, Locata appears to be well on the way to acceptance as a reliable truth system for use alongside GPS. Along with other mining related installations elsewhere in the world, it would seem that we are no longer in evaluation mode; rather we should anticipate other future Locata production installations.
Click on their website www.ecived.com/en/.
Now, it seems that almost every new car has Internet, Bluetooth phone, GPS navigation, rain-sensing wipers, touch screen, automatic foot sensing/hand waving/ touch sensitive lift-gate/door-locks/touch screens and even massaging seats and automatic seat positioning… And safety devices galore — including multiple air-bags and anti-lock braking systems, indoor positioning system, intelligent speed adaptation and now even lane-departure and forward collision mitigation/collision avoidance systems.
Safety has finally become a major selling feature on almost every make and every model, thanks in large part to organizations like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Vehicle Research Center (VRC) near Washington, D.C. The VRC is the principle location for U.S. vehicle crash testing that we see regularly on TV and YouTube videos with crash-test dummies being bashed around in all sorts of simulated vehicle accidents. These tests have lead to significantly enhanced safety features in today’s vehicles.
Automation in vehicles, particularly automation of safety devices, is seen as the next most promising phase of vehicle safety improvement. And as these safety devices become more complex, they need to be verified in realistic conditions. Hence, the VRC is now undertaking a major expansion of its testing capabilities with the addition of a continuous vehicle test track that transverses not only open-air roadway areas, but also includes a 300-foot by 700-foot fully covered testing area.
The $30 million upgrade will include a Locata supplied ‘LocataNet’ which will provide the VRC with high-precision positioning to enable rigorous, consistent and repeatable scientific evaluation of new vehicle crash avoidance systems. Along with the cm level positioning provided by the Locata network, VRC is also working on state-of-the-art robotics to enable the required level of testing precision. The LocataNet will furnish the IIHS with a locally controlled positioning system that is seamless over all the VRC test areas, including extremely accurate and consistent automated positioning of vehicles.
In the covered enclosure VRC intends to set up collision avoidance testing for areas such as parking garages and urban canyons — areas where GPS is either not available, or is degraded to a level where positioning is intermittent or isn’t available. Locata will provide a consistent level of accuracy and reliability that the VRC requires for these GPS-degraded scenarios.
The VRC site currently looks very much like a construction site with the track extensions under way and the under-cover area just starting to be built. The VRC facility will come online in two stages — the outdoor track before the end of the year and the indoor around early Q2 next year. Locata engineers have been working with Perrone Robotics on very early integration testing. Perrone is contracted to deliver a system for testing vehicle safety systems in the test vehicles that IIHS is testing. For the first phase, the system includes a robot target vehicle with the footprint of a car, but only 4 inches high and 1 inch of ground clearance. If the vehicle being tested fails to prevent a collision with the robot target vehicle, the test vehicle runs over the robot target vehicle, dislodging a soft target, but avoiding damage to the test vehicle, robot target vehicle, or soft target.
To ensure that the test vehicle drives repeatedly, the system also includes a drop-in actuator kit that can be installed into any test vehicle in 30 minutes or less. The system is designed to allow a human driver to sit comfortably in the vehicle and drive, but is also capable of controlling the throttle, brake and steering to drive test profiles. Perrone is using Locata as the positioning system. In addition to alleviating concerns about GPS outages or dead/weak signal spots, it also allows the system to be operated on the new covered IIHS test track currently under construction.
Locata’s autonomous positioning technology uses terrestrial networks that function as a “local ground-based replica” of GPS-style positioning. Locata works with GPS, but can also operate independently when GPS is not robust or is completely unavailable. Instead of orbiting satellites, Locata utilizes a network of small, ground-based transmitters that blanket a chosen area with strong radio-positioning signals. Because it is terrestrially based and provides relatively high power signals, Locata works in any internal or external environment.
A fundamental requirement for radio-positioning systems is nano-second level synchronization of all transmitters in the positioning network. In the past multiple atomic clocks were used to achieve this level of synchronization. Instead, Locata’s technology relies on a patented synchronization method called TimeLoc which allows Locata to replicate GPS in a ground network.
Locata’s technology encompasses both transmit and receive sides of the positioning network, allowing the system to be configured to meet specific, localized demand for availability, accuracy, and reliability. This flexibility ensures that signal integrity can be guaranteed in even the most demanding environments — especially indoors, like the covered test track section of the expanded VRC.
Locata has also made significant progress in North America with the recent award of a contract to instrument the White Sands missile range to Locata’s partner TMC Design. The 746th Test Squadron’s new Non-GPS Based Positioning System is expected to be operational by Q3 2013, with a network that covers 2,500 sq miles (6,500 square kilometers). Locata technology will provide the USAF’s “gold standard GPS truth system,” supplying continuous centimeter-level, independent positioning when GPS is completely jammed. This award followed several months of USAF testing and evaluation of an initial LocataNet installation at the White Sands facility.
So following the recent IIHS endorsement of the Locata technology for use at the VRC, Locata appears to be well on the way to acceptance as a reliable truth system for use alongside GPS. Along with other mining related installations elsewhere in the world, it would seem that we are no longer in evaluation mode; rather we should anticipate other future Locata production installations.
Click on their website www.ecived.com/en/.
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