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ANALYSIS-Rethinking the lithium-ion battery revolution over cost, safety
April 10, 2013|Reuters
By Deepa Seetharaman
TROY, Michigan, April 10 (Reuters) - For nearly two years, a
team of former Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Prius engineers has
Their aim is to build a battery strong enough to power a
wider range of vehicles, something they think the current
cutting-edge technology - lithium ion - can't do cheaply,
particularly given recent safety scares.
The focus of Energy Power Systems on a technology older than
the automobile itself illustrates the difficulty with
lithium-ion batteries. While widely used in everything from
laptops to electric cars and satellites, a number of
high-profile incidents involving smoke and fire have been a
reminder of the risks and given them an image problem.
The overheating of the batteries on two of Boeing Co's
high-tech 787 Dreamliners, which prompted regulators to
ground the aircraft, served to underline the concerns and forced
the plane maker to redesign the battery system.
On Thursday, battery experts will gather in Washington,
National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the
investigation of one of the 787 incidents.
Experts are certain to point out red flags. Indeed, a
growing number of engineers now say the lithium-ion battery
revolution has stalled, undercut by high costs, technical
complexity and safety concerns.
"Smart people have been working on this for 10 years already
Schlachter, a lithium-ion battery expert and retired physicist
from the U.S.-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Many experts now believe it will take at least another
decade for lithium-ion technology to be ready for widespread
adoption in transportation. Others, including Toyota Motor Corp
, believe the solution lies beyond lithium-ion.
Interviews with two dozen battery executives, experts and
researchers, including the founder of Securaplane, which made
Boeing's battery charger, reveal an industry in which some are
having second thoughts about using lithium-ion, and are instead
looking to enhance previous technologies or to leap ahead.
These people say expectations were set too high, too fast.
People projected that "clean technology" batteries would shrink
in size and weight at the speed of the microchip revolution.
That hasn't happened, and Schlachter says it won't any time
we're very lucky, for decades."
Just as recent developments in technology have allowed cars
to improve their mileage using traditional engines, the
lead-acid battery research is aiming for improved power in a
smaller package.
Lithium-ion supporters, including Boeing, Tesla Motors Co
and General Motors Co, maker of the Volt, say
they can make the batteries safe, and problems with new
technologies are to be expected.
GM overcame an early problem when a Volt caught fire during
tests run by the U.S. National Highway Transportation Safety
Administration, for instance, and after all, car and plane
engineers successfully tamed gasoline and jet fuel.
"GM is committed to lithium-ion technology for our vehicle
electrification solutions," the largest U.S. automaker said in a
statement, adding that it has been seeing "improved economies"
on the technology.
Boeing said it has years of experience with the technology
and is confident in its safety and reliability. "Nothing that
we've learned as a result of the ongoing investigations has
said the company in a statement.
Tom Gage, a battery expert whose company EV Grid works on
"It's just a technological challenge," he said.
But other companies are looking beyond the technology.
explore a range of alternatives to lithium-ion.
us get to a point where we can dramatically increase volume and
really call it a mass market," Toyota spokesman John Hanson
said. "We're going to have a more significant breakthrough and
probably go into some other area of battery chemistry."
Subhash Dhar, who founded Energy Power Systems, the advanced
lead-acid battery company, said promised improvements with
lithium ion were never met.
Dhar, who helped develop the nickel-metal hydride battery
for the Toyota Prius, described his own "disenchantment" with
lithium-ion's complexity and cost.
"Before the technology was fully optimized and before the
sitting idle right now."
|
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
I'm going to use the GAME plan process to integrate technology within every lesson I create. Weather is educational networking or presenting projects to the class. Technology is a part of everyone's life.
Creating a wiki could be kind of difficult in my district due to FERRPA laws, however there are some web2.0 sites like that protect the privacy of the classroom.
While students are engage I can illustrate how to determine if a site is creditable for academic research. This will make the student aware that there are biases within the realm of the internet and every source must be verifiable.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
1 comment:
1. Personally, as I mentioned on my own blog, I do not plan to have my students create a GAME plan themselves. I want to have a GAME plan myself to use technology in different ways in my classroom. Then when I teach each topic I can integrate technology into the lessons I am doing which will naturally create a situation where my students are reaching different NETS-S goals.
|
Doing Business in Cyprus
EENI- School of International Business
Subject (Course) - Foreign Trade and Business in Cyprus. Nicosia
1. Introduction to the Republic of Cyprus (the European Union)
2. The economy of Cyprus: the world's fourth largest ocean fleet
3. Doing Business in Nicosia
4. The Cypriot Foreign Trade
5. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Cyprus
6. Access to the Cypriot Market
7. Business Plan for Cyprus
Objectives of the subject “Doing Business in Cyprus”:
1. To analyse the Cypriot Economy and Foreign Trade
2. To evaluate business opportunities in the Cypriot Market
3. To analyse the trade relations of Cyprus with the student's country
4. To know the free trade agreements of Cyprus as a member of the European Union (EU)
5. To develop a business plan for the Cypriot Market
Subject “Foreign Trade and Business in Cyprus” is studied...
1. Doctorate: Europe
2. Professional Master's Programs (e-learning): European Union, International Business
Recommendations for Cypriot Students
Course learning materials in English + Spanish Chipre French Chypre Portuguese EU.
1. Credits of the subject “Doing Business in Cyprus”: 1 ECTS
2. Duration: one week
Subject Description: Doing Business in Cyprus
The Republic of Cyprus (Europe)
1. Capital: Nicosia
2. Official Languages: Turkish and Greek
3. Area: 9,251 square kilometres
4. Population: 1.14 millions of people
5. Type of Government: Presidential Republic
6. Nearest countries (by sea): Turkey, Syria and Greece
7. Religion in Cyprus: Orthodoxy (Christianity)
8. Cyprus belongs to the Orthodox Civilisation (European Economic Area)
9. Independence: 1960 (the United Kingdom)
10. Northern Cyprus was occupied by Turkey (1974) creating the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (only recognised by Turkey).
Economy of Cyprus.
1. The services sector is one of the pillars of the economy of the Republic of Cyprus
2. Cypriot Industrial sector employs 25% of the population
3. GDP (nominal): 22,446 millions of dollars
1. Agriculture: 2%
2. Industry: 19%
3. Services 79%
4. GDP per capita: 29,830 dollars
5. Currency: Euro (2008)
6. Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004
7. 2012: rescue of the European Union (17,500 millions of euros)
8. In 2013 a “corralito” was imposed in Cyprus
9. The fleet of vessels registered in Cyprus represents the fourth largest in the world
Cypriot Foreign Trade.
1. Main Cypriot Exports: citrus, cement, potatoes, medicines, dresses
2. Top Trading Partners of Cyprus: Greece, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy
3. As a member of the European Union, Cyprus is the beneficiary of the Free trade agreements of the EU
International economic relations of Cyprus
1. International Chamber of Commerce
2. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
3. European Union
4. Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
5. World Trade Organisation
6. World Bank
7. European Investment Bank (EIB)
8. United Nations
9. Group of States of the Council of Europe Convention against Corruption (GRECO)
10. International Monetary Fund (IMF)
11. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
12. Asia-Europe Economic Meeting (ASEM)
13. Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
Examples of the subject - Foreign Trade and Business in Cyprus:
European Union-Egypt Association Agreement
European Union-Chile Free Trade Agreement
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
U-EENI University
|
Drexel dragonThe Math ForumDonate to the Math Forum
Ask Dr. Math - Questions and Answers from our Archives
Mean and Variance of the T & F Distributions
Date: 02/16/2007 at 01:30:33
From: Bobby
Subject: Mean and Variance of the T and F distributions
In my statistics class we identified the mean of the t-distribution
(with degree of freedom v) as 0 and its variance as v/(v-2). We also
have that the mean of the f-distribution (with degree of freedom v &
w) is w/(w-2) and its variance is (2w^2(v+w-2))/(v(w-2)^2(w-4)).
I've tried to prove these results, but have been unable to find a way
to arrive at them. Since both the t and f distributions are
combinations of independent random distributions, I tried using both
transformations and looking for E(Y) and V(Y) directly.
Date: 02/16/2007 at 06:11:53
From: Doctor George
Subject: Re: Mean and Variance of the T and F distributions
Hi Bobby,
Thanks for writing to Doctor Math.
This is not a simple problem, and the complete details are hard to
follow in a text format. I'll outline the method for you.
Your textbook may explain the calculation of the mean and variance
for the Gamma distribution. The technique is similar for the T and F
distributions, so that is a good place for you to start. If you
understand it that will help you with the other distributions.
The T distribution is a little easier than the F distribution since it
has just one parameter for degrees of freedom, but it is common to
derive the F distribution first because of how the two are related.
You may want to work on the T distribution first.
F distribution
First, the mean is the integral of x*f(x) over the entire domain of
the density function. The variance is Var(X) = E[(X-mu)^2]. It can
be shown that
This is generally a more useful expression than the definition. The
term E(X^2) is the integral of (x^2)*f(x) over the entire domain.
The trick to finding the mean of F(p,q) is to define values p' and q',
and rearrange the terms of the integrand so that
x * f(x|p,q) = C * f(x|p',q')
where C is a constant. Since f(x|p',q') is itself a density function,
its integral over the entire domain is 1, so the mean of F(p,q) is just C.
Finding E(X^2) to get Var(X) requires another application of the
same trick, but it gets even messier.
T distribution
Rather than work with the definition of the student T distribution it
would be better to work with its density function.
E(T) = 0 by symmetry.
Now we need to compute E(T^2) to find the variance. This is easy if
you already know the mean of the F distribution because T^2 has an F
Without making use of the F distribution we need to compute the
integral for E(T^2) to find the variance. There are two steps.
1. Apply the integration by parts technique using u = t and dv = the
remaining terms. The u*v part of the result will be zero by symmetry.
The Integral(v*du) part will look much like the density function.
2. Carefully select a value n' as an offset from n in order to
transform the Integral(v*du) into the density function times a
constant factor. The new integral now equals one, and the factor
becomes E(T^2).
- Doctor George, The Math Forum
Associated Topics:
College Statistics
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Thursday, March 17, 2011
Brian Boru, High King of Ireland
Brian Boru was born circa 927 at Kincora, Killaloe, Ireland. He
married Mor. He married Eachraidh Ui Aeda Odba.
He He became king of Munster after the death of his brother Mathgamain in
976. He Having established unchallenged rule over his home Province of
Munster, Brian turned to extending his authority over the neighboring
he came into conflict with High King Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill whose
naval forces, which included contingents supplied by the Hiberno-Norse
planned to strike with his army. Direct support involved naval forces
following year. By recognising Brian's authority over Leth Moga, that is,
the Southern Half, which included the Provinces of Munster and Leinster
accepting the reality that confronted him and retained control over Leth
Cuinn, that is, the Northern Half, which consisted of the Provinces of
Meath, Connacht, and Ulster.
Precisely because he had submitted to Brian's authority, the King of
not surprising that he launched an open rebellion against Brian's
Silkbeard. Together Máel Morda and Sigtrygg determined to meet Brian's army
particularly fierce and bloody engagement, although claims that it lasted
Sulcoit thirty-two years before, by capturing and sacking the enemy's city.
mother and Máel Morda's sister Gormflaith, the former wife of Máel
Sechnaill. She was known as Gormflaith MacFinn. He became High King
of Ireland in 1002. He Máel Mórda mac Murchada of Leinster had only
accepted Brian's authority grudgingly and in 1012 rose in rebellion. The
Cogadh Gaedhil re Gallaibh relates a story in which one of Brian's sons
insults Máel Morda, which leads him to declare his independence from
He married Dub Choblaig.
obtain troops from rulers outside of Ireland. He instructed his subordinate
Cogadh Gaedhil re Gallaibh, this was not an attempt by the Vikings to
and Cork as well), but, according to some sources, a rival gang of Norse
mercenaries from the Isle of Man.
Essentially this could be characterised as an Irish civil war in which
foreigners participated as minor players.
southern Leinster, presumably hoping to force Máel Morda to release his
contingents from there to return to defend their homes. Unfortunately for
disagreement with the King of Meath resulted in Máel Sechnaill withdrawing
and Brodir of the Isle of Man, arrived on Palm Sunday, 18 April, 1014. The battle
would occur five days later, on Good Friday.
a long, drawn-out fight.
Brodir while praying in his tent at Clontarf[citation needed]. He is said
He is our ancestor thru two of his sons, Donnchad and Tadhg. Truthfully, this is more for fun as it's hard to prove ancestry this far back.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Sir John Hawkwood and the White Company
He was born circa 1335. Hawkwood's youth is shrouded in tales and legends
and it is unclear how he exactly became a soldier. According to the most
accepted tales, he was a second son of a tanner in Sible Hedingham in Essex
and was apprenticed in London. Other tales also claim that he was a tailor before he became a
soldier. He began military service Hawkwood served in the English army in
France in the first stages of the Hundred Years' War under Edward III.
According to different traditions Hawkwood fought in the battles of Crécy
and/or Poitiers but there is no direct evidence of either. Different
traditions maintain that the King or Edward, the Black Prince knighted him.
It has also been speculated that he assumed the title with the support of
his soldiers. His service ended after the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360. He
Hawkwood moved to Burgundy and joined the small mercenary companies that
fought for money in France. Later he was part of the self-named Great
Company that fought against Papal troops near Avignon.
In the beginning of the 1360s Hawkwood had risen to be commander of the
White Company. In 1363 Hawkwood's men were part of the companies that the
marquis of Montferrat hired and led over the Alps to fight first against
the Green Count at Lanzo Torinese and then against Milan in the areas of
Alessandria, Tortona and Novara. Forced to leave Piedmont by the Visconti’s
condottiere Luchino dal Verme, Hawkwood and his troops nevertheless
remained in Italy in 1363. Under Hawkwood's command, the company gained
a good reputation and he became a popular mercenary commander. His success
was varied, but he exploited the shifting allegiances and power politics of
Italian factions for his own benefit.
Italian cities concentrated on trade and hired mercenaries instead of
forming standing armies. Hawkwood often played his employers and their
enemies against each other. He might get a contract to fight on one side
and then demand a payment from the other in order not to attack them. He
also could just change sides, keeping his original payment. Sometimes one
party hired him so that he would not work for their enemies.
If not paid, mercenaries like Hawkwood, could threaten their employers with
desertion or pillage. However part of the White Company's reputation was
built upon the fact that Sir John's men were far less likely to desert
dangerous situations than other mercenaries and Hawkwood soon grew much
richer than many other condottiere. He bought estates in the Romagna and in
Tuscany, a castle at Montecchio Vesponi. Despite all this, it is claimed
that he was illiterate. His education was rudimentary at best,
contemporaries specifically remarked at his lack of oratory skills, and
much of his business and correspondence was done by proxy and later his
wife. He He attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante,
daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan. Also in attendance were the
literary stars of the era Chaucer, Jean Froissart and Petrarch in 1368.
When Hawkwood's company was fighting
for the Pope against Florence in the War of the Eight Saints, Florence made
an agreement with him and paid him not to attack for three months in 1375.
He married Donnina Visconti, daughter of Bernabo Visconti,
circa 1377. Hawkwood led the destruction of Cesena by mercenary armies,
acting in the name of Pope Gregory XI. One tale claims that he had promised
the people that they would be spared, but cardinal Robert of Geneva ordered
them all killed. Shortly after, he switched allegiance to the anti-papal
league and married Donnina Visconti, the illegitimate daughter of Bernabò
Visconti, the Duke of Milan. A quarrel with Bernardo soon ended the
alliance, and Hawkwood instead signed an agreement with Florence in 1377.
He Richard II of England appointed him as ambassador to the Roman Court in
1381. Hawkwood, fighting for Padova, fought Giovanni Ordelaffi from
Forlì, fighting for Verona in the Battle of Castagnaro, and won in 1387.
In the 1390s Hawkwood became a commander-in-chief of the army of
Florence in the war against the expansion of Gian Galeazzo Visconti of
Milan. Hawkwood's army invaded Lombardy and was within ten miles of Milan
before he had to retreat over Adige river. Later in the year, forces under
his command defended Florence and later defeated the Milanese force of
Jacopo dal Verme. Eventually Visconti sued for peace. Contemporary opinion
in Florence regards Hawkwood as a savior of Florence's independence against
Milanese expansion.
At that stage Florence had given him citizenship and a pension. He spent
his latter years in a villa in the vicinity of Florence in 1390. He died
between 16 Mar 1394 and 17 Mar 1394 at Florence, Italy.
He was buried with state honors in the Duomo.
Shortly afterwards, Richard II asked for his body to be returned to his native England.
He is the ancestor of my husband's father, thru his daughter, Antiocha, who married
Sir William de Coggeshall.
Friday, March 11, 2011
William de Peverel of Haddon Hall
William de Peverel was probably the illegitimate son of William the Conqueror and Maud Ingelrica
who later married Ranulph de Peverel. William was greatly honoured after the Norman
Conquest, receiving over a hundred holdings in central England from the
king, William the Conqueror. He was born illegitimate circa 1040. He
began military service in 1066 where he is shown in 'The Battle Abbey Roll' to
have fought at the Battle of Hastings. He married Adeline.
In 1086, the Domesday Book records William as holding substantial land
(162 lordships), collectively called the Honour of Peverel, in
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, including Nottingham Castle.He also
built Peveril Castle, Castleton, Derbyshire. Peverel is one of people
explicitly recorded in the Domesday Book as having built castles in 1086.
He died circa 1115. He is the ancestor of Kenneth Earl Williams thru his daughter, Adelise, who
married Richard de Rieviers. He is also the ancestor of Eleanor Fairchild Williams thru his son,
William who married Avicia de Lancaster.
Haddon Hall has been used as the set for many movies, including the newest version of Jane Eyre and the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice.
|
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Internal Beauty of Sanskrit (Part II)
"Abhi-nrutya of Sound and Sense"
Narayan R. Joshi Ph.D.
(All rights reserved by the author)
Also see:
There are three puzzles in the ancient history of India. The first is the Indus script and seals. The second is the time of Mahaabhaarata war. The third is the origin of Sanskrit language. There are many theories about the origin of human languages. This is also true in case of Sanskrit. Many theories are proposed about the origin of Sanskrit by eastern and western scholars. One finds interesting information about early development of Sanskrit from Vedas, Braahmanas, Nirukta and from other ancient literature. Western linguists in the past two hundred years discovered the language families among languages of the world. The discovery of Indo-European language family generated new interest in Sanskrit, the important member of the family. The discovery destroyed the myth of Tower of Babel and threw the western world to revise their linguistic theories dominated by Bible for almost two thousand years. The discovery posed many challenges to the traditional beliefs of Hindus such as divinity of Sanskrit and Vedas.
Changes in Sanskrit
Language is not static. It is dynamic. It keeps changing. There are many reasons for linguistic changes. One obvious reason is the Principle of Least Efforts. People are lazy to pronounce words as they are. They change sounds in words to make it easy to say. The most common example from the north Indian dialect is changing Indra into Indar and Chandra into Chandar. Such changes (Apabhramsha) might have occurred in Sanskrit words although great efforts were made in ancient India to preserve all features of Sanskrit intact as much as possible. Sanskrit produced many Apabhramsha languages. At the same time Sanskrit maintained her integrity due to her prescriptive grammar of Paanini. Did Sanskrit undergo changes from 3000 BC to 500 BC before she reached hands of Paanini? Taking into consideration dynamic nature of languages, it would be very difficult to deny changes. Epic Mahaabhaarata tells us that languages other than Sanskrit were in vogue during its era. The discussion stresses the point that languages are prone to systematic changes. I have no knowledge of changes that occurred in Sanskrit from 3000 BC to 500 BC. It is certain that during the period 500 BC to 1AD there was much activity in Sanskrit linguistics in India. Scholars were complaining that certain expressions from Vedas make no sense to them. It is said that there is 5 percent difference between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit.
Saadhu and Asaadhu Words
According to Meemaamsaa and Vaishes’ika schools Sanskrit language is the only standard (Saadhu) language and its use alone can engender merit. They also say that meaningfulness is coextensive with saadhutva. The words in Vedas have no beginning, yet they are meaningful. Other words used in folk languages have a beginning of meaning by way of convention (Sanketa), and thus their meaning is not eternal. Hence they (Asaadhu) cannot be the sources of our duty. All words, to whatever language they belong, are meaningful. But all of them are not saadhu, i.e. they cannot give merit to the user. Meaningfulness cannot be confused with saadhutva. A word may be asaadhu yet meaningful. Paanini was concerned more with the form of language of his time rather than with its meaning. Grammarian Patanjali in unambiguous terms says that the purpose of writing grammar (Shabdaanushaasana) is to give a standard language (saadhu shabda) the use of which facilitates communication and assures merit to the speaker hereafter. Different languages may have their own grammars. So it was added that a particular use of language confers merit. In this way dialogue revolves around special status of Sanskrit and Sanskrit words although grammar presents a more logical and liberal view than that proposed by Meemaamsaa school.
Meaning of Saadhu and Asaadhu words
Meanings associated with asaadhu words rise out of human convention. Language using asaadhu words is thus a conventional language. Ancient Indians were debating about the special status of Sanskrit. Is it a conventional language like any other language or is it a special one because it was the language of Vaidika revelation? Let us assume that it is the special language with stock of saadhu words. In ancient India the debate did not end here. There were various opinions about meanings of saadhu words of Sanskrit. As regards the meaning of a word, all schools of Indian philosophy have their own views revolving around Sphotavaada and Varnavaada.
Dhvani and Sphota Aspects of Words
In a room father, mother and a younger child are reading the same story book loudly turn by turn. The older brother is studying in the neighboring room. When he listens to voices in his room coming from the adjacent room, he recognizes the voice of father, mother and his younger brother. Variations in voice tambre of father, mother and the child produce three different dhvanis. In short in pronunciation of the same word by three different people, Dhvani was different but Sphota was the same. The problem of meaning of Sanskrit words is very much discussed by different Indian schools of linguistic philosophy.
One Word and One Meaning
When we subtract voice variations from the uttered word we get Sphota. When we eliminate poetic shades of a word, we then concentrate on denotative meaning (Abhidhaa) of the word. In this way Abhidhaa meaning of the word and Sphota of the pronounced word become subject of further discussion. Now the discussion revolves around the origin of Abhidhaa meaning of a Sanskrit word. According to one school of Jainas, one word expresses one meaning only. A word which appears to convey more meanings than one is to be treated, not as one word, but as many words as the number of meanings it appears to convey. In the discussion of the relation between word and meaning, Jain linguistic philosophy favors the view that every distinctive meaning needs a distinctive word. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what we do when we write glossary at the end of the scientific manual. We create Paribhaas’aa (technical terminology) in order to reduce ambiguity from the meaning of technical words used to describe the technical subject. This discussion leads us to the new concept, viz., could all words in Sanskrit be treated as words of Paribhaas’aa? We are choosing Sanskrit here because debate was revolving around Sanskrit semantics in ancient India in which all schools Vaidika, Jain and Bauddha participated with enthusiasm. They produced wealth of linguistic philosophy.
Philosophy becomes a linguistic problem
Generally speaking recent Indian philosophical discussions revolve around either Vedaanta or Upanisads. The wealth of information from Jain and Bauddha sources is rarely acknowledged. In some cases philosophical discussions show shades of sectarian biases. Even within the domain of Sanskrit linguistics, hardly any attention is given to the technical Sanskrit words used in the ancient treatises on Astronomy, Metallurgy, Mathematics and Physical sciences. Nobody discusses sources of the ancient Sanskrit terminology in the light of discussions on Sanskrit semantics continued through the long chain of ancient scholars to the modern day scholars. Religious verses are repeatedly used by people centuries after centuries. Hence they are prone to changes in pronunciation, changes due to development of new dialects and translations. Different sects interpret religious words with different meanings. That makes philosophy a linguistic problem. Ancient Sanskrit technical manuals were used by a small number of scholars interested in the subject. Any scientist playing with ancient technical terminology and changing it purposefully is of very remote possibility. So the stock of ancient Sanskrit technical words is the treasure that needs to be explored for validity of Varnavaada proposed by a certain group of scholars from ancient India.
What is Varnavaada?
Right from the time of Patanjali to this day, discussions on Sanskrit semantics are revolving around the origin of Vedic Sanskrit, the language of the most ancient scriptures, Vedas of India. Is the meaning of a Sanskrit word decided by Loka Sanketa (convention of the community) or is it decided by God or is it decided by the nature (Svabhaava)? If it is decided by Loka Sanketa, then Sanskrit is like any other conventional language and no further elaboration is needed. One can say that saving Vedas sound by sound was simply the act of religious faith. If Vedic Sanskrit is inspired by God in revelations to ancient sages, then new questions arise. Did Vedic sages know Sanskrit before revelations? However the possibility of meaning of Sanskrit words connected to the peculiar nature of Sanskrit opens new chapter of investigation. Sanskrit is highly inflected language. The letters of alphabet of Sanskrit are arranged scientifically according to their origin in human vocal tract. The table of alphabet contains 36 consonants and 16 vowels. According to Varnavaada, each letter (phoneme or Varna) of Sanskrit alphabet carries fixed basic semantic unit. The Abhidhaa meaning of the Sphota of Sanskrit word arises by adding elemental meanings of phonemes making that word. This kind of arrangement is called Phonemic Symbolism. The phonemic symbolism is denied by modern linguists for conventional languages like English, Arabic etc. Although the ancient Indian books talk about Phonemic Symbolism (Varnvaada), they do not offer consistent presentation of semantic units of Sanskrit phonemes. The author of the present paper took different approach. His attention was drawn to the physical properties of sounds of phonemes. His hypothesis was that if the wide scale phonemic symbolism existed in Sanskrit, then it cannot be a random arrangement. It has to rest on some intrinsic scheme and the scheme has to be tied with physical properties of phonemic sounds. He made efforts in that direction and it worked. In short Sanskrit words tell their own stories. This scheme leads to fixed meanings of Sanskrit prefix which could help in coining new consistent technical terminology. Let us see some examples of phonemic symbolism discovered by the present author.
Fixed meaning for the prefix “Abhi”
The dictionary meanings of the prefix ‘Abhi’ are many. They are as follow: towards, for, against, over, above, upon, across, etc. However, according to the phonemic symbolism proposed in this paper, the prefix Abhi means the ‘process of making a replica’ of something like a rubber stamp. Now the replica is a copy of the original or it is like the original or as if it is original. The fixed meaning of the prefix ‘Abhi’ is therefore taken as ‘as if’ in this work. Let us see examples. Examples are taken from the dictionary of V.S. Apte.
(1) Abhi-naya: Acting, any theatrical act.
The root in the parent word, -naya is ‘Nee‘. Its meaning is to carry, to lead, to guide, to direct. Now in the act of ‘Acting in a drama’, the actor is not carrying anything or anybody physically but he carries with him or directs emotions of audience. This is equivalent to saying, ’as if he is carrying or guiding or leading’. Here one act is replaced by the other similar act.
(2) Abhi-roopa: Corresponding with, conformable or suitable to.
The parent word is ‘roopa’. Its meaning is form, figure, and appearance. When school children mimic the court of law on the stage of their school, (as in a mock trial), it is called Abhiroopa Nyaayaalaya (the mock court). It is not a real court but it looks like a court, or ‘as if it is a court’. It is like a copy of the real court.
(3) Abhi-ruci: Desire, taste, liking, relish, delight, pleasure.
The meaning of the parent word ‘ruci’ is taste. It is the physical act of tasting something, say, a candy bar. But the word Abhiruci means liking. When one likes good literature, one is said to have uccha (high) Abhiruci or high level taste. Here again the prefix has the same meaning ‘as if he is tasting’!
(4) Abhi-jaata: Original
The parent word ‘jaata’ means born. It indicates physical birth. Original poetry or literature is also born but it is not a physical birth from the womb of a mother but from the brain of a poet. However it is like a birth or ‘as if born’. It is therefore called Abhijaata Saahitya (Original literature).
(5) Abhidhaa: The literal sense of a word, denotation.
The parent word ‘dhaa’ means to hold, to set, to contain. The word Abhidhaa means the denotative meaning of a word. It is the meaning held to the word even in circumstances where the word may suggest different meaning. This holding is not physical but it is ‘as if holding’. The Abhidhaa meaning of Sanskrit words is the topic of discussion in this research work.
(6) Abhi-jnyaana: Recognition, Remembrance.
The parent word ‘jnyaana’ means cognition. The name of one of the dramas of the celebrated Indian poet Kalidasa is Abhijnyaana Shaakuntalam. The king Dushyanta forgot his bride Shakuntalaa because she lost the wedding ring given by him to her. The fisherman, who found the ring, recognized the royal insignia on the ring and took it back to the king. At that moment the king remembered giving the ring to Shakuntalaa. The recognition came back to the king because of the copy of the cognition stored in his brain. For this reason Kavi Kaalidaasa chose the appropriate name to the drama. It is said that when GOD realization comes to a devotee, he recognizes ‘abhijaanaati’ GOD. This is so because he knew GOD originally. He forgot GOD due to delusion. When the curtain of the delusion (or illusion) is lifted, he recognizes GOD which process is called Abhijnyaanam, the replica of the original ‘jnyaanam’.
(7) Abhi-udaya: Prosperity
The parent word ‘udaya’ means physical rise like the Sunrise. However, the word Abhi-udaya or the sandhi word Abhyudaya does not mean a physical rise but ‘as if rise’. This is advancement in life or prosperity.
(8) Abhi-nava: painted, refurbished, polished, recast.
The parent word ‘nava’ means new but Abhinava means ‘as if it were new’. This could be because of polishing the item or painting it or redoing it or reworking it makes it like new.
(9) Abhi-sarana: Circulation
This word was used in connection with the circulation of blood. The parent word ‘sarana’ means to move. The blood in a body moves but it does not go away. It returns or circulates. It appears ‘as if it is moving away’ which is ‘Abhisarana’.
(10) Abhi-yukta: Engaged, or occupied or absorbed in.
The parent word ‘yukta’ means joined, united, fastened, yoked. When one is absorbed in say in his study, he is not physically attached to the study. So he is ‘as if yukta’ or Abhi-yukta. Now if somebody engaged in the criminal act. Then also he is Abhi-yukta.
These ten examples illustrate that the prefix ‘Abhi’ has the fixed meaning ‘as if’ consistent with its new single meaning discovered first time in this work.
Fixed meaning of the consonant ‘/gh/’
This sound is voiced and aspirated. This velar (guttural) sound is loaded with features more than those of the earlier three velar sounds of /k/, /kh/ and /g/. Here, the meaning of /k/ is ‘to resolve’. The meaning of /kh/ is ‘increased resolution’. The meaning of /g/ is ‘greater resolution leaning to almost independence’. After /g/ change takes place in the meaning of ‘gh’. The semantic category chosen for /gh/ is of ‘decreased resolution leaning to trapping’. Let us see examples.
(1) Ghars’ana
It means friction. In friction between two surfaces, the microscopic hills and valleys get locked into each other resisting the relative motion. Thus in friction there is slight trapping and then release.
(2) Gharma-bindu
It means sweat, perspiration drop oozing out of the skin pore. It does not flow because of partial trapping.
(3) Ghos’a
The word Ghos’a means noise, tumult, cry or noise. It also refers to thundering of clouds. Noise in voice or sound is due to fricatives and hence the word has the sound of /gh/ in it.
(4) Ghatikaa Paatra
The Ghatika Patra is the copper pot with hole at the bottom used to trap water in the ancient Indian water clock.
(5) Ghoorna Vaayu
It means whirl wind where wind is partially trapped and also free to turn around.
Let us see examples where the phoneme /gh/ occupies the position other than the first in a word.
(6) Megha
It means a cloud. It is trapped water vapor.
(7) Deergha
It means long in time or space. It is said Deerghasootri Vinashyati. It means procrastination spoils the job due to complications or trapping.
These examples are enough to prove the point that the chosen fixed meaning for the phoneme /gh/ makes sense.
It is not possible to offer fixed semantic categories discovered for all Varnas of Sanskrit. They show that there is internal mechanism in Sanskrit to preserve meanings of her shabdas. This is internal beauty of Sanskrit where sound and sense go hand in hand.(Editor's comment: It is indeed the abhi-nrutya of sound and sense.)
N. R. Joshi.
(Editor's Note: is extremely privileged to have an opportunity to publish this unique discovery by Dr. N. R. Joshi. His book on this
topic will be published soon giving elaborate details which will make it possible to
coin new words in Sanskrit that have defined connotations and meanings that would be easy to decipher even for those with preliminary knowledge of this system who are reading or hearing the word for the first time. Editor has illustrated this by coining a word "abhi-nrutya" of sound and sense.)
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Amartya Sen’s Failed Attempt
23/04/2011 12:07:24
Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
(Courtesy: Haindava Keralam)
After winning the Nobel Prize for Economics (1998) Amartya Sen took a fateful turn at freelance writing about Indian history, politics, religion, culture and what not. In 2005 he produced a book ‘The Argumentative Indian’ which sought to contain Hindu India by a well known technique, that of appropriating the merits of Hindu civilisation and adopting them as part of his new effort at a renaissance , while at the same time rejecting the ongoing strengths of that civilization which has provided the foundations for his contemporary project. His dual method seeks to appropriate the open ended vision and enquiry that has been characteristic of Hindu civilization since its earliest beginnings, while rejecting Hindu Dharma, which is the source of that very open endedness.
His attempt has failed because it is not an authentic one. Why he embarked on this project is a question mark. His future career may provide some answers.
Meanwhile, it is important for Hindus to recognize the aims of this project and its modus operandi. Unlike Arundhati Roy’s vindictive comments about her mythical evil Brahmanic Hindu state, Amartya Sen moves carefully and cautiously to build his case against Hindu India. The style is chatty and leisurely. Hindu civilization Sen intones has a long standing tradition of argument and debate, ever since the time of the open ended Vedas. It should be revived. It should not be abandoned in the face of Hindu nationalism which he alleges has rejected this open ended tradition and has “incarcerated Hinduism.”
The question ,ofcourse, is who is doing the incarceration, and indeed who is trying to deal a death blow to Hinduism ?
Sen cannot sound , does not sound, like Arundhati Roy. He cannot make blanket generalizations against Hinduism ( as she does) since that would take the bottom out of his project which stakes its claims of authenticity on an open ended Hinduism which he feels must be revived. Gradually, after the first salvo against the Hindu nationalists it becomes clear that he has an agenda. In a charming biographical essay in the book he speaks about his early atheism and materialism. Presumably, that still obtains.
What are the characteristics of his method in this book ?
1.Omissions : while speaking about the Ramayana he does not mention that Valmiki saw Lord Rama as a divine figure. Needless to say he does not even mention the other famous Ramayanas, Tulasidas’s Ramacharitamanas, the Kamban Ramayana and Ezuthatchan’s Ramayana.,all of which extol Rama as a divine figure. The songs and music , both of the north and the south view Rama as a divine figure. The Rama temples house a deity. Hanuman the quintessential devotee worships him as divine. Festivals, dance dramas, the classical music of India all focus on Rama as a divine figure.
Why does Sen omit all this ? He has to maintain the secular character of the Rama
figure because he needs to eliminate the central role of Rama bhakti in contemporary Hindu life and thought, especially among the masses. It is, therefore, a combination of lack of knowledge of the topic, snobbery (the aam admi’s religious sensibilities do not count in HIS view of a secular India) and a deliberate omission with an agenda in mind.
The second striking omission is the absence of the word Dharma in his rather superficial account of the dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna. He will repeat this argument in his later work The Idea of Justice (2009). Arjuna questions the wisdom of the war where there will be a great deal of bloodshed and devastation. Krishna advises him that since he is a warrior his DUTY is to defend his people against the wicked.
Sen uses the word ‘duty’ but not Dharma, which has huge moral and ethical implications in Hinduism and goes beyond the word ‘duty.’ He strenuously avoids that central word of Hinduism.
2.The inaacurate rendering of Indian history. Buddhism, according to him, dominated India for a thousand years. This is not quite accurate. Some three hundred years after the Buddha’s death Buddhism migrated to other countries such Tibet , China, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Sri Lanka and the far East. Its influence waned as early as the first years of the first millennium (CE )and lingered on till the rise of Sankara and his Vedanta in the 8tt to 9th century of the Christian era.
3.And certainly while Ashoka (3rd century B.C.) and Akbar (16th century of the Christian era) were great kings there were many other great kings in Hindu India.
It is embarrassing to have to repeat the long line of great Hindu kings that he has ignored, both in the north and in the south. With regard to the south the silence is deafening. Nothing about the great kings of Vijayanagar (Hindu kings) ,nothing about the Cholas, the Cheras and the Pandyas etc.
Indeed, anything south of the Vindhyas is omitted in his accounts. There are some brief references to Ujjain, to Kalidasa and so on with regard to the north. It soon becomes clear that Dr. Sen is not in his element.
4.The frequent references to the ‘greatness’ of the selective figures of his choice. For instance while talking about devotional Hinduism in the middles ages, he omits Tulsidas and hails Kabir as the greatest poet of the times ! No doubt Kabir was a great figure, but the greatest !
Medieval India was bustling with great poets, savants and sages.
The present writer is of the opinion that Dr. Sen is ill prepared to write about Hindu culture, philosophy and literature. He would be more credible if he stayed with economic issues, with development, with the issues of poverty and class injustices etc. This indeed is where he could make a difference.
By his own reasoning, the ‘argumentative Indian’, the one who is open and tolerant of diverse traditions, has been the Hindu norm. Amartya Sen’s advocacy of it is neither here nor there. It is nothing new. What is new about his project is his attempt to separate out this ethos from Hindu India and present it as something brand new under his aegis and his sponsorship of it. In other words, by his rather exaggerated notion of his own project if Amartya Sen had not appeared on the Indian scene this ‘argumentative ‘ tradition is alas bound to disappear !
As matters stand, his individual agenda is misplaced . Hindu India carries on. People still go to their temples, throng at festivals, pray at Kumbh Melas, watch in awe at the celebration of ancient rituals and celebrate Hindu festivals. Hindu syncretism is alive and well. The life affirmation vision of the Vedas, the worship of the terrestrial, the atmospheric, and celestial forces continues. The Devas and Devis continue to inhabit the land as they did since time immemorial. Hindus worship their gods and goddesses.
And Hindu Dharma is the order of the day.
(The writer taught Political Philosophy at a Canadian university . Her academic training is in Philosophy, Political Science, Political Economy and History ).
Monday, April 11, 2011
Anna Hazare’s Campaign - truly Gandhian, truly evil - I
The End Result
Radha Rajan
The truth is simple and direct. Anna Hazare has replaced Baba Ramdev as the central figure in the nation’s war against corruption in exactly the same way that Gandhi replaced Tilak and Aurobindo within the Indian National Congress; and for the exact same reasons: no people’s movement in Hindu bhumi will be allowed to be led by a conscious Hindu, no campaign in this country will be allowed to wear a Hindu face; the critical difference being as events proved, Ramdev is no Aurobindo.
Aurobindo, having studied and judged Gandhi for what he was, was not impressed by Gandhi’s premature, motivated and imposed mahatma-hood, was not intimidated by his undeserved stature and refused to meet Gandhi anytime in both their lifetimes. Not so Baba Ramdev and as we read from newspaper reports, not the RSS either. Living up to the writer’s firm and disheartening belief that Hindu organizations and Hindu religious and political leaders doing politics, armed with nothing more than their colossal egos
1.have no political sense;
2.can be intimidated into compliance
3.can be coerced into proving their imposed inclusive credentials by being seen in the company of non-Hindus and anti-Hindus in their work,
4.can be pressured into sailing with the wind even if the wind is leading them astray
Baba Ramdev belittled his saffron robes and the RSS demonstrated appalling poor judgment by visiting the hero of the Cheltenham tragedy at Jantar Mantar to extend their support - support which he did not need, did not acknowledge or respect.
Baba Ramdev and the RSS, who stood in Hazare’s shadow and sang the chorus to his NGO-authored song, urgently need lessons in political history - the Hindu view of the freedom struggle and its end result to be exact.
Sonia Gandhi and her minions in English television news channels were taken aback when Baba Ramdev galvanized the nation against endemic corruption afflicting every arm of the state and every aspect of public life. Reeling under the still unfolding saga of meta-corruption, the Congress party denounced Baba Ramdev’s foray into politics and advised him to confine himself to giving tummy-tucking lessons in Yoga.
Baba Ramdev’s campaign against corruption, which was seen as attacking the Congress and its imported President, had an explosive beginning on February 27 at Ramlila grounds in Delhi with a blood-curdling mammoth gathering of around two lakh people; but all major English newspapers and English TV news channels, in stark contrast to their contrived hysteria over Anna Hazare’s campaign, either blacked out entirely or made only passing reference to the start of what would soon become Baba Ramdev’s cataclysmic campaign against corruption in public life.
Baba Ramdev followed Delhi with Goa, Chennai and Bangalore and at every stop the movement against corruption gathered unstoppable momentum. Sonia Gandhi and her handlers in the Generic Church had to move fast to stop the Ramdev juggernaut and contain the damage.
The writer had observed on an earlier occasion that the Church has the unmatched capacity to turn all events, including adversities, adroitly in its favour. In less than two months the Church changed the face of the people’s movement against corruption. The saffron-clad Hindu religious face of the movement was replaced by the Gandhi cap; and Baba Ramdev’s movement which was aimed directly at Sonia Gandhi was now turned into a movement directed by Sonia’s minions in the NGO industry.
The Church and the world feel safe again as idiot Hindus - film stars, students, upwardly mobile professionals, lawyers, judges and politicians - indulged their craving for catharsis to cleanse their corrupt, guilt-ridden souls and gathered penitently around Anna Hazare’s toothless belligerence under the Gandhi cap.
Breaking his thunderous ‘fast-unto-death’ in just 97 hours, the first thing that Anna Hazare said was, "The most significant thing about this movement was that it had no religion". What Sonia Gandhi and her NGO industry speaking through Hazare actually meant was Baba Ramdev and by extension all Hindus had been effectively de-fanged and marginalized. This was now Sonia’s show all the way.
In light of this wholly Freudian slip Baba Ramdev and the RSS must ask themselves and tell us why they extended support to this man. It would be well for Baba Ramdev to observe silence for a fortnight and introspect upon why the campaign he had launched with such fanfare and success came to such an ignominious end; as for the RSS it has proved yet again that it lacks the drive and the will to equip itself with the intelligence and skill to do even simple politics and succumbing yet again to the pressure to sail with the wind, the RSS placed itself with eyes wide open on the wrong side of an important issue.
The RSS is still laboring without direction stuck with antediluvian ideas and methods because it has not summoned the courage to discard powerbrokers doubling as in-house intellectuals.
The fatal weakness of sailing with the wind afflicts not just the RSS; it afflicts all Hindus without exception. The Hindu competition to Reliance-funded think-tank, the Observer Research Foundation, called Vivekananda International Forum (tired old faces manning a new desk) conducted a two-day seminar in Delhi last week and invited Arvind Kejriwal as one of the speakers.
Yet another RSS affiliate, India Policy Foundation, not to be left behind the mainstream which was sailing furiously with the wind, also invited Kejriwal to speak about corruption. Vivekananda International Forum and India Policy Foundation invited Kejriwal because Baba Ramdev showed off the Magsaysay awardee as a prize catch in his movement; and these are Hindu think-tanks. Talk about oxymoron.
The writer has come to the conclusion that Hindus doing politics do not think, do not read and do not listen. The Vigil book on NGOs detailing the lives and deeds of NGOs and a certain species of social activists, published in 2006, had entire sections and even chapters dedicated to Arvind Kejriwal, Harsh Mander, Sandeep Pandey and others of their ilk; and yet even Baba Ramdev relied on these very personages to adorn his movement - Kiran Bedi, Swami Agnivesh, Arvind Kejriwal and Mallika Sarabhai, to name just four.
It has to be repeated and repeated yet again, that when the RSS sent its letter of support to Anna Hazare it chose to ignore the explosive material contained in the Vigil book on NGOs and despite knowing the unhealthy company which surrounded and powered Anna Hazare’s hunger strike, the RSS went ahead and announced their support to the man.
The writer will bet her last pair of dog-eared shoes that the RSS had not read the fine print of the papers that Hazare’s NGO friends were shoving in the face of the nation and its in-house intellectuals in the Vivekananda International Forum and India Policy Foundation had not read it either or if they had, did not understand the import of what they were reading.
Headlines Today, CNN IBN and my favorite-for-all times Times Now in the last three days competed fiercely to project three-year and nine-year olds with balloons and ice-cream in hand and earnest-looking bespectacled management graduates from Pune and Penzance as the face of mass frenzy to tell us why we must all march to Jantar Mantar or at least allow our soul to take wing and fly there, or at the very least, like the RSS, send letters of support because, and smile when you say it, ‘Anna is doing it for me and you’.
Remember Jesus died for your sins and mine and those of our great grand fathers and mothers and great grand sons and daughters, be they Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Parsi or Jew? Just as bizarre is the generic Church’s propaganda that Anna Hazare is doing Gandhi-like fast-unto-Jesus-like death for me and my great grand sons and daughters.
Anna Hazare’s actions will therefore be judged by -
•The end result
•His inspiration/role model and
•The company he keeps
While the entire episode beginning with Hazare’s threat to fast-unto-death and the course the melodrama traversed until the moment Hazare broke his fast will come in for ruthless analysis, the end result of the Cheltenham melodrama-turned-farce merits immediate attention. The end result is that the Government of India for the second time in 12 years succumbed to blackmail which was instigated, goaded, aided and abetted yet again by English TV news channels. The UPA government, like the NDA government in 1999, capitulated to a bunch of anti-national blackmailers.
It is hard not to question the timing of it all. Just as Baba Ramdev’s anti-corruption juggernaut seemed like gathering greater momentum with every passing day, Anna Hazare, out of the blue, one fine day, announced that he was going on a fast-unto-death until the Lokpal Bill was passed or whichever happened first.
Surrounded by familiar, notorious and discredited NGOs, social activists, one disgruntled lady police officer and one activist danseuse, Hazare put on his Gandhi cap, climbed up the well-arranged and well-equipped dais and sat himself down on a hunger strike. To retain the focus on the end result of the media-driven blackmail, we will telescope the events between Anna Hazare sitting down on day one with microphone in hand to day four when microphone in hand Hazare announced he would end his hunger strike because the government spine had finally been broken.
The writer is convinced that Anna Hazare was the single stone useful instrument with a colossal ego, chosen for his Gandhi cap, to bring down two mangoes - one, push the Prime Minister into a corner and send him the unmistakable signal not to think or act independently of the imported Congress President; two, resurrect the defunct NAC by pushing some member NGOs and activists to center-stage by staging this dangerous blackmail melodrama. Needless to say, both mangoes were intended for Sonia Gandhi’s consumption.
By handing over the letter of support to Anna Hazare through their ubiquitous spokesperson, the RSS has only strengthened Sonia Gandhi vis a vis the Prime Minister and the Indian parliament. Anna Hazare and the bunch of NGOs and activists blackmailing the government from behind Hazare in the Gandhi cap, have demanded that the government should pass the Lokpal Bill with draconian provisions which will give them the right to usurp the powers of parliament, judiciary and the police and make them a three-in-one monster body with vast scope for misuse and abuse of power.
There are two drafts of the Lokpal Bill - one that has been drafted by successive governments, a version that is available with the incumbent government in some form and the second which has been drafted by Hazare’s foreign-funded NGO camp. Just so did the same group of NGOs and foreign-funded activists act through the Lawyers Collective to get the Domestic Violence Bill amended and passed in 2005 by the UPA government as the Domestic Violence Act.
When Baba Ramdev and the RSS went to Jantar Mantar to express their solidarity with Hazare and these NGOs and when they extended their support, what exactly were they supporting?
The draft Lokpal Bill, as crafted by Kejriwal, Agnivesh, Kiran Bedi, in collusion with Prashant Bhushan an activist lawyer, demands that members of Lokpal be conferred with judicial and police powers. These appointed members will form their own investigating team, will summon persons to depose before them, will initiate action, will order prosecution and will also mete punishment. Sonia’s NGOs and foreign-funded social activists with the full support of all English Television news channels were all pushing Hazare to fast-unto-death to impose an oligarchy under Sonia Gandhi’s leadership to rule the country, by-passing every and all national democratic institutions! This is what Baba Ramdev and the RSS supported -
Section 12 of Hazare’s draft Bill states -
Lokpal to be deemed police officer
•For the purposes of section 36 of Criminal Procedure Code, the Chairperson, members of Lokpal and the officers in investigation wing of Lokpal shall be deemed to be police officers.
•While investigating any offence under Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, they shall be competent to investigate any offence under any other law in the same case.
Section 10.2 of their draft Bill says -
We are also deemed judiciary
(2) For the purpose of any such investigation (including the preliminary inquiry) the Lokpal shall have all the powers of a civil court while trying a suit under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, in respect of the following matters, namely:-
a.Summoning and enforcing the attendance of any person and examining him on oath;
b.Requiring the discovery and production of any document;
c.Receiving evidence on affidavits;
(3) Any proceeding before the Lokpal shall be deemed to be a judicial proceeding within the meaning of section 193 of the Indian Penal Code
Lokpal, after getting such enquiries and investigations done as it deems fit, may take one or more of the following actions:
a.Close the case if prima facie, the complaint is not made out or
b.Initiate prosecution against public servants as well as those private entities which are party to the act
c.Order imposition of appropriate penalties under CCS Conduct Rules Provided that if an officer is finally convicted under Prevention of Corruption Act, major penalty of dismissal shall be imposed on such government servant.
d.Order cancellation or modification of a license or lease or permission or contract or agreement, which was the subject matter of investigation.
e.Blacklist the concerned firm or company or contractor or any other entity involved in that act of corruption.
Baba Ramdev and the RSS have supported Anna Hazare’s fast-unto-death whose end objective is to force the government to accept this blackmailing group’s version of the Lokpal Bill arrogating to themselves unbridled powers of parliament, police, CBI, CAG, judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one as shown above. Sonia Gandhi’s NGOs have forced Manmohan Singh’s government to accept all their demands which essentially renders the Indian Parliament, the highest democratic institution of the country with powers to impeach judges and even the President of India, totally redundant.
The generic Church is selling gullible idiots in the nation the lemon that what the nation’s investigating agencies, police, parliament and judiciary have failed to do, Lokpal can and will do - impeach judges and Presidents for dessert even as they punish politicians and bureaucrats for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Such was the media-instigated hysteria over the fasting Gandhi cap that the nation collectively put its brain to sleep. Subjecting the components that will go to make the Lokpal to intense scrutiny is in order. The three core components of the Lokpal are -
•Who are the people constituting Anna Hazare’s drafting committee which will draft the Lokpal Bill
•The law itself (assuming the Bill is passed by a frightened and cowering parliament) and its provisions
•Members of Lokpal who will enforce and implement the law
•The selection panel which will appoint the all-important members of the Lokpal
The melodrama has already turned to farce with Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and co. bickering fiercely over who should form part of the drafting committee and who should become members of the supra-god selection panel which will select members who will constitute the Lokpal. Greed and overarching ambition lie at the root of all corruption and these have already given the country a preview of what lies in store for the nation if this group is allowed to become the ruling oligarchy under Sonia Gandhi. The fight to squat on the floor in the corner in the same room as Sonia Gandhi can only get bloodier and noisier.
We have already seen the relevant sections of Hazare’s draft Bill which confers upon our foreign-funded activists who aspire to become Lokpal Members, the high status of deemed police and deemed judiciary. Now the norms for constituting the selection panel which will appoint the members is even more of a give-away of what really is the real intention behind this melodrama to pass the Lokpal Bill. Hazare, Kejrival, Agnivesh and co. have listed -
•The Chairpersons of both Houses of Parliament
•Two senior most judges of Supreme Court
•Two senior most Chief Justices of High Courts.
•All Nobel Laureates of Indian Origin
•Chairperson of National Human Rights Commission
•Last two Magsaysay Award winners of Indian origin
•Comptroller and Auditor General of India
•Chief Election Commissioner
•Bharat Ratna Award winners
Baba Ramdev and the RSS Sarsanghachalak really should tell us if they saw this before offering their support to Hazare. Did Shri Mohan Bhagwat know that Hazare came with a huge baggage which also included this draft Bill and Hazare’s views on who should be made members of the Selection Panel? Let us cast our eyes back to 2004 when Sonia Gandhi rode piggyback on the Congress and its shameless Hindus to rule the country as de facto Prime Minister. There is no UPA, no INC, no Cabinet and no Government of India. There is only Sonia Gandhi.
Sonia Gandhi made the choice of who will sit in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The distasteful controversy surrounding Sonia Gandhi’s choice is of her making
Sonia Gandhi appointed the CEC
Sonia Gandhi appointed the CAG
Sonia Gandhi appointed the CJI
Sonia Gandhi appointed the Director of the CBI
Sonia Gandhi appointed the CVC
Every constitutional office, every high institution has been defiled and diminished because of the choices that Sonia Gandhi made. The NAC is also a creature of Sonia Gandhi’s making. Members of the NAC are the personages around Anna Hazare on the issue of the Lokpal Bill. While most categories for consideration to choose members of the Selection Panel have a direct or indirect Sonia Gandhi connection, the Magsaysay Awardee and Nobel Laureate suggestion is downright Machiavellian. There is a Rothschild and Rockefeller connection in these categories
Considering the sweeping powers that Hazare, Agnivesh, Kejriwal and idiot Hindus want for the Lokpal, considering that the Lokpal wants to be judge, jury, police and parliament in their dealings with politicians, bureaucrats and judges, to insist on foreign entities having a say in constituting the Selection Panel must cause grave disquiet in every thinking nationalist mind. Amartya Sen is married to Emma Rothschild who is a member of the Jewish Rothschild banking family in England while the Magsaysay Award has a direct Rockefeller connection.
The Magsaysay award may sound Asian because it is named after the late Ramon Magsaysay of the Philippines but the award is all American and the money component of the award is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The Vigil book on NGOs exposed the intent behind the selection of persons for the Magsaysay award. Like the Nobel peace Prize, the Magsaysay too, no matter for what reason and in which category it is awarded, is political in its ultimate intent. To have a Rothschild and Rockefeller connection to the Lokpal no matter how distant and how remote is still nothing to laugh about.
There is no doubt in the writer’s mind whatever that forces outside the country instigated these NGOs and social activists, Sonia loyalists all and the English print and electronic media to select a Gandhi cap to stage a drama whose purpose is ostensibly to pass the Lokpal Bill. If the ruse succeeds in parliament, and it will not succeed, not in its current form, then the Lokpal is the least of our worries. Like the arrest of the Kanchi acharyas, this melodrama, in the view of the writer, was a test case. This experiment was conducted to test -
If Hindu can be replaced by Gandhi in 2011 as was done in 1909
How Hindu organizations react in times of mass hysteria
The power of the media in setting in motion a course of events to move in a specific direction
The capacity of the Indian government to withstand pressure - pressure from blackmail and pressure of public opinion even when the opinion is manufactured by the media
Anna Hazare was foisted on the nation by unseen forces; these forces used NGOs loyal to Sonia Gandhi to conduct this experiment and the writer’s worst nightmare turned real. Hindus and Hindu organizations failed and failed roundly to read the situation correctly from start to finish. Hindus proved yet again that they will readily pant behind every red-herring shown to them as long as it wears the Gandhi cap; the RSS and Hindu religious leaders being no exception. It is left for India’s parliament to defeat this diabolic plot by not allowing the Lokpal Bill to be tabled by these forces. By all means let us have a Lokpal Act but it has to be national and nationalist.
The writer is left with a question that will not go away. Did Baba Ramdev’s overseas constituency goad him to choose corruption over cow slaughter, over the alarming imbalance in religious demography and over the state of Hindu temples? It would seem so. The last three could not have been hijacked by Sonia Gandhi and her minions to her benefit. Corruption, as was proved, was a different matter. (To be concluded)
Radha Rajan
11th April, 2011.
Emancipating the Left and Feminists
Dr. Gautam Sen
Published with the kind permission of the author.
A quiet revolution has been sweeping the Western world. It is the
integration into mainstream society of the two radical movements that
emerged during the political upheaval of the 1960s. Many Leftist radicals
who once protested the Vietnam War and argued in favour of the dispossessed
have now lined up behind President George Bush Jr., cheering on the utter
destruction of Iraq. The women’s movement in the West has also come full
circle and re-discovered their real enemy of long-established colonial
folklore, non-white men. Their own are doing some sporadic labour in front
of the kitchen sink and occasionally delivering the children to school and
are now comrades-in-arms. They stand shoulder to shoulder together to
confront a much greater threat out there against Western civilisation
The former Leftist radicals of that era, nowadays anxiously thronging the
gates of the sedate British Academy and entering it too, turn out to have
never been what they sought to project. Much of the anti-Soviet Trotskyite
Left was a creature of Western intelligence services. The latter was not
worried about radical student protest as such, reasoning intelligently that
it was all part of teenage angst and growing up pains. But they were very
concerned about a whole swathe of highly educated middle class students,
with pro-Soviet sympathies, potentially ending up occupying sensitive
positions within the establishment at some later date. Quite understandably,
they feared that once compromised early in life through contact with Soviet
agencies they might become life-long Soviet moles, doing untold damage to
Western interests.
The response of the intelligence services was to promote Trotskyism. The
implied premise was that advanced Western democracies were better suited
to the Marxist musings of the cosmopolitan sophisticate Leon Trotsky and the
inferior Asiatic, Stalinist variety should be denounced and resisted.
Trotskyism was already a bitter enemy of Soviet communism and unlikely to
assist it against the Western democracies. The intelligence services also
quietly set about infiltrating the Leftist radical movement, dominated by
the Trotskyite Left, and recruited some of its key leaders. They also funded
it in various ways by, for example, buying bulk institutional subscriptions
to their publications, including some of the hallowed radical journals that
emerged in the period. Quite clearly, some of the leaders had become paid MI5
agents as well, the sophisticated counter-intelligence organisation of
Britain. Any local damage radical students did on the street level by
putting up posters in upmarket commercial areas, urinating against lampposts
and hurling the occasional missile against the police was considered
entirely tolerable.
The antecedents of some members of the current British Cabinet vindicate the
astuteness of the judgement of the intelligence community that the young
radicals would eventually tire of it all and rejoin the political
mainstream. Indeed some the young radicals had come from wealthy, upper
class backgrounds and were probably easy to corrupt because personal
contacts could be exploited. The activities of these erstwhile radicals
today confirm their murky origins because they have become public supporters
of on-going Anglo-American imperialist wars against third world societies.
Thy include some of the most famous radical names of the period from France,
Germany and Britain, including the most renowned radical Marxist
theoretician in the latter. He and a leading German philosopher now
apparently support carpet bombing Iraq, and Kosovo as well in the latter
case, to advance the class struggle no doubt!
A similar phenomenon has overtaken their US counterparts too, raising
intriguing questions about the nature of their original involvement in
student and 1960s radicalism. European Left radicals have also sought
legitimacy for contemporary imperialist wars by ensuring the co-operation of
their Leftist third world co-conspirators, often occupying positions of
influence within their own societies. This execrable group has always sought
intellectual and emotional sustenance from the Western Left and their
livelihoods depend on various forms of intelligence-derived sponsorships,
i.e. the funding of local NGOs and lucrative foreign assignments. A small
fragment of these third world Leftists has been accommodated within Western
academia, mostly conniving as fraudulent human rights activists.
The women’s movement, primarily an educated middle class affair, though it
did have wider socio-economic repercussions for women as a whole has also
made progress by leaps and bounds. The door to well-paid, high status
professional jobs has largely opened to them though a glass ceiling to the
very top for significant numbers remains somewhat unbroken. Nevertheless,
changes in the past forty years have transformed opportunities for this
dominant white feminist cohort. Well-paid jobs galore in the public,
quasi-public and private sectors have altered their matrix of choices. Once
combined with the incomes of their partners, life is unusually comfortable
for this new aristocracy, the beautiful people, apt to quote Proust in
English and Yeats in French. A whirl of parties, good food, excellent wine
and genteel discourses on third world poverty and the awfulness of
patriarchy in such societies preoccupy them. And all under a gratifying
public gaze.
The one final frontier, concerning how to get domestic chores done, has been
overcome by employing hourly-paid third world women, barely human enough to
be noticeable through crystal wine glasses in manicured hands. It wouldn’t
really do to irritate the well-paid liberated partner who loves to
demonstrate his political consciousness by changing the occasional nappy. He
himself is also eager for his partner’s success in her high income career
that allows a lifestyle that most, the world over, will not enjoy in several
centuries to come, if ever. And Rosie from Manila or Ruth from Accra do need
the money to send back home to feed their children.
One final piece of the jigsaw completes the wondrous world of self-seeking
deceit. A small, but influential group of non-white feminists in Europe and
the America have joined in with hysterical denunciation of their own ethnic
and religious progenitors. The paradox of their situation, like that of the
entire comprador intelligentsia abroad, irrespective of gender, is that they
are only paid to interpret their societies of origin. And their unspoken
brief is to demonise them and legitimate their subjugation and destruction
by Western imperialism.
Their own personal assimilation, indeed escape from the terrifying abyss of
their origins, occurs through relationships with white partners. It is
strikingly noticeable that Asian women in the Western media, academia and
the professions rarely have partners from within their own community. Access
to this privileged white world and their sense of personal self-worth are
anchored to this inter-racial imperative. Despite complex subterfuges and
deceptions about opposition to Western imperialism their emphatic hostility
to third world self-assertion, even when subliminal, legitimates deadly
assaults against it.
(Dr. Gautam Sen formerly taught political economy at the London School
of Economics).
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Amartya Sen: The Dangerous Delusion
4/06/2011 23:15:59
Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
Courtesy: Haindavakerala
Nobel Prize winner (Economics, 1998) Amartya Sen’s new book, "The Idea of Justice" (2009), is an interesting work, written in a chatty latter day Wittgensteinian style. It seeks to deal with the age old controversy in Western thought between Contract Theorists (in the Lockean tradition) and the situational ethics of thinkers such as Adam Smith, Condorcet, Karl Marx et al. In the former camp is the late John Rawls whose major work,"The Theory of Justice" (1971), became important not only for its continuation of classical liberal theory but its advocacy of distributive justice.
Dr. Sen argues on the side of the second group. He takes issue with Rawls but also agrees with him in important ways. The book is impressive for its acknowledgements, an 8 page list (pps.21-28) of who’s who in Western academia. But as a philosophical work it is not rigorously argued (perhaps that was not the author’s intention !).
Whatever the niceties of Sen’s position the present writer will speak about those issues in some other venue. Here, we will concern ourselves with the important question for India, the dangerous delusion that Sen engages in while theorizing about the importance of reasonable accomodation in human conduct and political affairs, depending on any given situation. In essence he is advocating an abstract rationality in politics (unintentionally!) and he does this in an interesting but somewhat distorted way by engaging with the dilemma that Arjuna faced in the battle of Kurukshetra. This part of his book is only a few pages long, but is internally connected with the arguments of the entire book.
Arjuna, as Sen sees it, stands for "nyaya," while Krishna stands for "niti." Nyaya is easily understood as justice and niti can be understood as custom or tradition . Sen does not use the word Dharma which is the best word to use in the context of the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. Dharma is not only custom and tradition but encompasses a whole set of ethical and moral values that are not simply considered by Sen. He dismisses them as coming under the rubric of ‘religion.’
Arjuna, as is well known, is in a dilemma before the battle with the Kauravas who are cousins and who had banished Arjuna (and the Pandavas) to the forest in order to seize their kingdom. This was an unjust act and on their return after the period of banishment the Pandavas go to battle with the Kauravas. Arjuna’s dilemma is that he is not only engaged in the act of killing his kith and kin but also engaging in a general carnage of blood letting. In his anguish he turns to his mentor and advisor Krishna, who advises him to realize his Dharma and go to battle.
Hence, according to Sen, Arjuna’s dilemma is threefold:
1.Social Relevance : the significance of human lives. Hundreds of human beings will be killed in this war.
2.Personal Responsibility: he, Arjuna, is personally responsible for the act of destruction.
3.Positioned situation: he is killing those near and dear to him. Ethically speaking one has to be specially concerned with those nearest to us, such as one’s own family, children etc. (Of course, here he is not killing children or one’s immediate family, but kith and kin and those, moreover, who have been hostile to him and his own near and dear ones).
Dr. Sen calls all these three dilemmas a part of Nyaya or a broad based view of justice in human relations. Krishna, on the other hand, invokes a narrow Niti. Arjuna is a warrior and his duty is to defend Dharma (Sen oddly does not use this word, but that is the meaning). The Kauravas are engaged in adharmic conduct and should be defeated.
Can reasoning with the enemy help, even though one would not like that outcome?
Instead he goes into a bizarre comparison of Robert Oppenheimer(who did his duty as a physicist and helped to develop the atom bomb to help his country) with Arjuna’s dilemma. Japan had surrendered and there was no need to have dropped the bomb, which was directly made possible by Oppenheimer’s actions. (Editor's note: "Although it was Truman's decision")
The more relevant comparison would have been the second world war, where many Arjunas, both inside Germany and outside would have anguished at the thought of war.
Arun Shourie put it well when he said : We did not ask for it, but it has been imposed on us.
Vande Mataram !
Monday, April 4, 2011
Tales in Indian Secularism
N.S. Rajaram -
(Picture of Mahatma Gandhi -not copied)
Gandhi often aligned himself with rank communal leaders like Maulvis and Maulanas
Going back to Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian politicians and intellectuals have never stopped proclaiming that India is a secular country. A secular country, or more properly a secular state is one in which religion plays no part. The first modern states to constitutionally mandate secularism were the United States (through the First Amendment) and the Republic of France following the French Revolution. The Indian Constitution as originally adopted (in 1950) makes no mention of secularism. It was introduced into the Constitution by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency.
The need for secularism in Europe arose because of the stranglehold which the Church had on all areas of life including the government and education. Popes, bishops and other church officials insisted that the government was only the ‘secular arm’ of the Church, and kings existed only to implement the wishes of the Church. The history of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century) to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and even beyond was dominated by religious wars. Gradually, over the centuries, the rulers and the people of Europe freed themselves from the clutches of the Church. Deeply influenced by this history, the Founding Fathers of the American Republic never allowed religion any place in the state.
Islam has no place for secularism. It recognizes only religious law or the Shariat. The Quran is not only the prayer book it is also the law book. It is different in the Hindu tradition. The priest could never be the ruler even though his advice was sought. Vishwamitra, who used to be a king, had to give up his kingdom and engage in austerities before he was recognized as a seer. When King Bharata adopted a son of sage Bharadwaja as his heir because his sons were unfit to rule, he could no longer be a rishi. The most famous instance is of Prince Siddhartha Gautama leaving his kingdom to become Sage Buddha.
But people calling themselves ‘secularists’ in India have turned this history and tradition on its head by attacking Hinduism as ‘communal’ while tolerating and even justifying theocratic institutions and movements. Nehru of course is well-known as a leading advocate of this so-called secularism. Some secularist intellectuals attack Hindu (and other) groups that advocate a uniform law – that is, a legal code which is the same for all religions. They justify it by invoking Gandhi’s name as the last word. But Gandhi often aligned himself with rank communal leaders like Maulvis and Maulanas as we shall soon see.
In a famous (or infamous) episode known as the Shah Bano case Rajiv Gandhi caved in to Muslim pressure and had a law passed denying support to divorced Muslim women
This is conveniently ignored or even falsified by secularists. Economist Amartya Sen, who like Arundhati Roy seems to think that his celebrity as an economist gives him the freedom to say anything he wants recently wrote: “Mahatma Gandhi was staunchly secularist in politics and insisted on effective separation of the state and the religions.” This is patently false. Here is the true story.
When Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1914, circumstances allowed him to rapidly gain control of the Congress party. Gandhi used his position to launch the Nonviolent Non-Cooperation Movement to gain Swaraj (self-rule). Muslim leaders like the Ali brothers (Mohammed Ali and Shaukat Ali) did not share his vision but simply found him useful to push their own communal agenda. Their main interest was not freedom for India but the restoration of the Sultan of Turkey following Ottoman Turkey’s defeat and dismemberment in the First World War. This was known as the Khilafat movement which finds little mention in Indian history books. They saw India as an Islamic country that had been taken over by the British.
It is important to recognize Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement was launched not to free India but to restore the Sultanate of Turkey. He promised support for the Ali brothers’ Khilafat in exchange for their support and the support of Muslims of India for his Non-Cooperation Movement. In fact, he went so far as to support their theocratic goal by defining Swaraj as Khilafat! In Gandhi’s words: “To the Musalmans Swaraj means, as it must, India’s ability to deal effectively with the Khilafat question. … It is impossible not to sympathize with this attitude. … I would gladly ask for the postponement of the Swaraj activity if we could advance the interest of the Khilafat.”
So Swaraj according to the ‘secular’ Gandhi meant freedom to bring back Islamic rule! Indian history books carefully leave out the Khilafat fiasco, which Gandhi equated with Swaraj and for which he launched the Non-Cooperation Movement. If they mention it all, they present it as a unifier of Hindus and Muslims. The reality is quite different. It resulted in a massacre of thousands of innocent Hindus all over India. It was particularly virulent in Kerala where a Jihad (Holy War against infidels) called the Mopla Rebellion erupted which took the British several months to put down. It began as a Jihad against the British to restore Islamic rule. When it failed to drive out the British (as Gandhi had promised), it was turned against Hindus (and Christians) who were totally unprepared. After all Gandhi had promised them it would be nonviolent.
What was the Mopla Rebellion like to make secularist historians shy away from it? Sankaran Nair an eyewitness to its horrors had this to say: “For sheer brutality on women, I do not remember anything in history to match the Malabar [Mopla] rebellion. … The atrocities committed more particularly on women are so horrible and unmentionable that I do not propose to refer to them in this book. …literally hundreds might be selected from the English and vernacular papers…[of the period].” (Gandhi and Anarchy by Sir C. Sankaran Nair.)
What was Gandhi’s reaction to the Mopla outrages? At first he denied that the atrocities took place at all. But he could not keep it up for long in the face of overwhelming evidence including reports from his Muslim friends. He then rationalized it as part of their religion. He called the Moplas “God fearing” and said they “are fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner they consider as religious.” This from the Apostle of Nonviolence! It applied to the victims, but the perpetrators were excused as ‘God fearing’ because they were acting according to their religion which sanctioned violence against unbelievers.
This was too much for Annie Beasant. That spirited Englishwoman wrote: “It would be well if Mr. Gandhi could be taken into Malabar to see with his own eyes the ghastly horrors which have been created by the preaching of himself and his “loved brothers”, Mohammed and Shaukat Ali. … The Moplahs murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatise. Somewhere about a lakh of people were driven from their homes with nothing but their clothes they had on, stripped of everything…Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India.”
So Gandhi, far from being secular, began his political career in India by supporting a strictly theocratic movement to establish an Islamic state (Khilafat Raj) as an adjunct to the restored Caliphate headed by the Sultan of Turkey! The final irony is that the Turks themselves had no use for their Sultan or the Caliphate. They kicked out the Sultan-Caliph (actually pseudo-Caliph). Their leader Kemal Ataturk also abolished Islam as state religion calling it an Arab superstition. Turkey became a secular state while Gandhi campaigned for Khilafat Raj in India!
This is the man about whom Amartya Sen unabashedly wrote: “Mahatma Gandhi was staunchly secularist in politics and insisted on effective separation of the state and the religions.” This is not the only instance of Sen engaging in blatant falsehood. In a different context, Sen tried to whitewash the persecution of non-Muslims in Medieval Spain with the words: “…when the Jewish philosopher Maimonides was forced to emigrate from an intolerant Europe in the 12th century, he found a tolerant refuge in the Arab (Muslim) world.”
This was too much for the Arab scholar Foujad Ajami who denounced Sen’s whitewashing by pointing out: “This won’t do as history.” The truth is that the ‘intolerant’ Europe Maimonides had to flee happened to be Spain then under Berber Muslim rule, which Ajami pointed out “made the life of Spanish Jews… utter hell.” But a lie can become the truth if propagated in the name of secularism, especially by an eminent (or pseudo-eminent) figure; at least according to Amartya Sen, Arundhati Roy and their ilk. Its oracle was Jawaharlal Nehru.
As India was about become free, Gandhi suppressed the strong nationalist leader Sardar Patel and anointed his favorite Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister. Gandhi had previously eliminated Netaji Subhas Bose as potential rival by forcing him into exile. Nehru was less a nationalist than a product of Western colonial attitudes. His first act as prime minister of independent India was to ask the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten to continue as Governor General. He then took the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations on Mountbatten’s (and his wife’s) recommendation, against the advice of Sardar Patel and the Indian Army. (Nehru detested the military.)
It is not widely known that Nehru wanted to take the Hyderabad dispute with the Nizam also to the UN, but Sardar Patel put his foot down. By then Mountbatten was gone and C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) was governor General; and Rajaji supported Patel. Had Nehru and Mountbatten had their way, India might have been saddled with a ‘Hyderabad Problem’ in the heart of the country to go with its Kashmir Problem.
(Picture of Annie Besant - not copied)
Annie Besant was truly a secularist in the righteous way
Nehru also continued the colonial British policy of supporting divisive forces while suppressing nationalist aspirations in the name of secularism. To begin with, on the advice of the unscrupulous English missionary Verrier Elwin, he allowed missionaries in the northeast leading to the alienation of what are now Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. While forcing changes in the Hindu legal code, he allowed Muslim and Christian leaders to retain legal authority. Even today, it is possible in Kerala for church leaders to deprive women of inheritance by invoking a medieval Christian code. Most extraordinarily Nehru also introduced the Haj Bill to provide government subsidy for pilgrims going on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. This act of Nehruvian secularism is still with us.
Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi was not anti-nationalist like her father, but was entirely unscrupulous in the use of power. She introduced the word ‘secular’ in the Indian Constitution during the Emergency. But she was a woman of courage. That however was not true of her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi. In a famous (or infamous) episode known as the Shah Bano case Rajiv Gandhi caved in to Muslim pressure and had a law passed denying support to divorced Muslim women.
(Picture of Shah Bano- not copied)
Shah Bano, a 62 year old Muslim woman and mother of was divorced by her husband in 1978
Shah Bano, a 62 year old Muslim woman and mother of was divorced by her husband in 1978. The Muslim family law (marriage, gifts, inheritance, adoption and a few other civil laws are under the purview of personal laws in India – they are different for Christians, Muslims and Hindus) allows the husband to do this and also the wife: the husband just needs to say the word Talaq (meaning divorce) three times before two witnesses for a valid divorce. (This unequal treatment is thanks to Nehruvian secularism.)
Shah Bano, because she had no means to support herself and her children, approached the courts for securing maintenance from her husband. When the case reached the Supreme Court of India, seven years had elapsed. The Supreme Court ruled that Shah Bano be given maintenance money, similar to alimony. There was a huge outcry by Muslim leaders like Syed Shahabuddin who threatened to take their case to the streets. Rajiv Gandhi bowed to their demands and passed law in the Parliament that invalidated the court decision and upheld Islamic court ruling. He justified this blatantly communal act as an example of secularism in action.
After Rajiv’s death, the sordid saga of cowardice and disregard for women’s rights was followed by his widow and successor Sonia Gandhi. This came to the fore in a notorious human rights case that has drawn international attention. When Imrana, a young Muslim woman was raped by her father-in-law, a self-appointed Muslim body calling itself the All India Muslim Personal Law Board issued a fatwa (ruling based on Sharia or Islamic law) that the rape had made the victim Imrana ‘impure’ (haram) and as a result her marriage to her husband stood annulled. Adding insult to injury, it directed Imrana to leave her husband and live with her rapist father-in-law as one of his wives! It may be noted that in ‘secular’ India, polygamy is legal for Muslims but a punishable crime if practiced by non-Muslims. (So a Muslim judge with several wives can sentence a non-Muslim for polygamy.)
There were protests all over India and the whole world reacted with shock. Salman Rushdie, himself a victim of religious persecution, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times denouncing Sharia (Islamic law) and religious bodies like the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. In the midst of this storm, Mrs. Gandhi refused to come to the aid of the victim, or even condemn the atrocity. Instead, she directed the government’s law minister and her closest aide H.R. Bharadwaj to issue a statement exonerating the Muslim Personal Law Board— on the ground that the government cannot “interfere” in a matter touching on religion!
Conventional political wisdom holds that such cowardly acts by Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi were motivated by vote bank politics, that is, to gain Muslim votes. There could be another stronger motive—fear of street violence directed possibly against them. Wikileaks has revealed that the former president Dr Abdul Kalam wanted Afzal Guru, who had been convicted for the terrorist attack on the Parliament to be hanged. But Sonia Gandhi opposed it and opposed also a second term for Dr Kalam.
To be enlightened, secularism must be combined with humanism. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were secular figures, but they were also among the worst mass murderers in history. Unfortunately, the Indian Nehruvian brand of secular is not truly secular but also anti-humanist.
In summary, what Nehru and his successors have created is not a secular state but a multi-headed theocratic jumble in which the law of the land is different for persons of different faith. India will become secular only when the law of the land is the same for everyone and there is total separation of the state from religion. Half measures and sophistry will not do.
Dr. NS Rajaram is a distinguished historian with several laudable works on history to his credit. He is also an Adjunt Professor with University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Enemy Within
28/03/2011 23:18:40
Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
In a remarkable event at the India Today Conclave Dr. Subramania Swamy spoke honestly and forthrightly on the question of how there cannot be social harmony in the Indian subcontinent until the two proselytizing religions Christianity and Islam accept that India is a Hindu majority country with a long history of religious tolerance that was shattered with the coming of the Islamic and Christian (British) regimes. It ended with the Partition of Akhanda Bharat and the successive ethnic cleansing of Hindus from Bangladesh, Pakistan and within Indian itself, in the state of Kashmir.Nearly 500,000 Kashmiri Hindus were driven out of Kashmir merely because they were Hindus. The Hindu population of Bangladhesh which had been 35% is now
<7%. Likewise in Pakistan.
As Shri R.Venkatanarayanan, former Secretary to the Government of India, later former National Secretary of the HDAS (Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha) and currently Advisor to Swami Dayananda Sarasvati, put it :
“As far as I can recall, this is the first time in India that an eminent person has spoken so openly from a non-religious platform that social harmony in India, a religiously pluralistic society, is dependent on how Christianity and Islam conduct themselves in regard to Hinduism. Unless what Sri Swamy has brought out is assiduously buried deep by vested interests (the media will do its best to do so) the consequence in civil debate in India is likely to benefit social harmony. Hindus are the best neighbours in the world, provided their toes are not trampled upon."
(in an e-mail to
(Readers may watch Dr.Swamy’s speech at the India Today Conclave at
Dr. Swamy might have added that there is an enemy within, the deracinated Hindus of
India who have inherited the Macaulayian mantle and who now will be subjected to
the ongoing brainwashing by the left/liberal shenanigans of the University of Chicago project in New Delhi. This pertains to the establishment of an adjunct university to be set up at the University of Delhi, to be headed by no less a personage than the noted anti-Hindu academic Martha Nussbaum (Nussbaum is her married name, and she is divorced from that gentleman; she herself was born into a Christian family in the U.S.).
As Rajiv Malhotra (author of the book Breaking India 2010) pointed out: “What Macaulay failed to do will be accomplished by Martha Nussbaum” (in his comments to the Breakingindia. group). However, here too Shri Malhotra has temporarily forgotten the real damage that Macaulay’s educational system inflicted on the Indian subcontinent(and which is mentioned in the book Breaking India) along with the ongoing colonial Occupation of India. This was long before Nussbaum. She merely inherited Macaulay’s children, as they are called.
The destruction of the highly effective and organized Hindu educational system that existed prior to the advent of both the Occupations (the Islamic and the British) was one key and the other was the military domination and the economic exploitation by the colonial power. Hinduism as a religion could not be exterminated, this both the Islamic and the British rulers saw quite early on. Nor could the majority of the population be changed in its socio religious practices.
But a creamy layer could be created which would not only be enticed by the advantages of money and power but also by what Belgian scholar Dr.Koenrad Elst has called the colonizing of the Hindu mind. To continue that train of thought, the present writer would like to add the word ‘amnesia.’ Everything related to Hindu history had to be obliterated from the Hindu mind.
At this stage the revision of Hindu history by the Western revisionists, aided by their Indian counterparts, had begun. The post independence era saw a continuation of this process with very slight modifications only. Romila Thapar is a classic example of an Indian historian following the Western paradigm of writing Indian history.As a result, decolonizing the Hindu mind (to use Koenraad Elst’s phrase) has to begin with the opposite of amnesia, namely anamnesis, a remembering.
This is made easier for the educated elite by the staunch persistence of Hindu belief and Hindu worship by the majority of the people. The ‘aam admi’ (common man) is not only the producer of the wealth of the country by which the parasitical class lives, he/she is the staunch upholder of Hindu tradition, upholder and practitioner of the Hindu way of life.
Endless attempts by the ruling elite to describe and dismiss and eliminate Hinduism as Brahmanism have ended in failure. Attempts by avante garde writers such as the redoubtable Arundhati Roy to revile and anathematize the ‘Brahmanic Hindu state’ have ended in failure. This is simply because the construct of ‘Brahmanism’ is a straw man. Since the time of the Vedas, there has been an unbroken tradition of a way of life, of worship, of texts and rituals, which gathered momentum and enrichment with each century, an ongoing process which has defied the machinations and maneouverings of the Asuric forces (phrase coined by a Hindu in the diaspora).
And a new Hindu renaissance such as occurred in the 19th century amongst the educated elite seems to be in the offing, despite the thralldom of material and economic success.
Hindu India is fighting back, and hopefully it will not be only the aam admi that will carry the burden. And it will not only be the Sangh Parivar organizations that will carry the banner aloft.
Indian intellectuals have started a critical remembering. An outstanding example is Dr.Shrinivas Tilak’s book Reawakening to a Secular Hindu Nation (2008). Written by a scholar familiar with both Western and Hindu thought, this book is sure to provide a great impetus to that parallel line of enquiry that the present writer has talked about elsewhere, in conjunction with the polemical and pathbreaking historical perspectives of the book Breaking India (2010).
Breaking India provides a new interpretation of what passed as scholarship in the West concerning India. The book also gives a detailed analysis of the Dravidian-Christian nexus that seeks to balkanize India so that the Christian evangelical project may succeed.
Reawakening to a secular Hindu Nation shows how a secular Hindu polity is in keeping with the profound spiritual philosophy of Madhav Rao Golwalkar (Guru Golwalkar). The present writer has traced briefly the outlines of the book in a book review which the reader may usefully consult before proceeding to the complexities of the book, which also has a sensitively written Foreword by Dr. Shreekumar Vinekar. The book review may be consulted in the book review section of Haindava Keralam .
( )
The aim of the author is to demonstrate that since the ancient past the state in India has always been secular, functioning within the parameters of a Hindu nation (Hindu Rashtra). Indians have inherited a civilization with common life-ideals and a life-philosophy based on values that today can be described as inclusive and pluralistic.
The Hindu Nation thus has been a continuously unifying idea and practice (pragatan) in the life of the peoples of the subcontinent. This process got submerged, though not destroyed, during the various conquests, invasions and occupations (vighatan). The way out is reawakening to this idea (sanghatan).
In his Foreword Dr. Vinekar observes:
“Very few scholars of India that is Bharat, reborn after the horrendous vivisection of Bharat that was India bothered to ask . . . What then is this Indian, this “new secular person” being re-moulded in the crucible of ‘secularism’ described as being independent of Dharma . . . since 1947?” Dr. Tilak following Madhav Rao Golwalkar asks this question and attempts to provide some answers.
Anamnesis or remembering, then, is a two pronged effort: that of counteracting the
false consciousness engendered by the asuric forces (*Editor's Note: This can be termed, "Cultural Miseducation") and the remembering and recovering of Hindu Dharma.
The process has begun in earnest in the last three decades or so with the
rejection by Indic scholars of the Aryan Invasion theory. This was followed up
by work on the discovery of the ancient river Sarasvati mentioned in the Rig
Veda. Dr. S. Kalyanraman, Director of the Sarasvati Research Centre, has
sponsored conferences on the topic.
He has also authored a book on the Sarasvati Sindhu civilisation script titled
Indus Cipher (2010).
Currently, there are two important works "Breaking India" by RM & AN (2010) and
Dr. Shrinivas Tilak's "Reawakening to a Secular Hindu Nation" (2008).
*Editor's Note: See "Cultural Miseducation: Historian's Pitfall" on this blog.
Tamil Nadu Politcs: Cancerous Church Eats into Dravidian Parties
Radha Rajan (RR)
Dear all: HAF should perhaps read this to see who sold them the lemon.
If only Hindus connect the dots and see the frightening picture that emerges. Read together with Shri Rajiv Malhotra's post about Dravidian Christianity on Huffington Post. Hindus must read, listen and disseminate more and more so that the Aryan-Dravidian fable and the Christian machination is thoroughly exposed. RR
Church Agenda as Dravidian Ideology
Twice in the last two years the Church[i] pushed the DMK government into a corner making it look helpless, ineffective and worse, supposedly drifting away from its ideological moorings. The DMK was accused by Tamil chauvinist splinter parties for not leveraging its status as partner in the UPA government to stop Mahinda Rajapakse from decimating the LTTE to its last man. The Church won its first major political victory in Tamil Nadu politics when the LTTE was presented not merely as the face and voice of the Tamil-speaking people of Sri Lanka, but was made congruent with the idea of Tamil People.
Note: From when it first invented itself two thousand years ago, in the kind of politics that the Church has perfected in every continent that it invaded and conquered, Tamil People is not the same as Tamil-speaking people.
The idea of Tamil People/Tamil Nation was a natural progression from the seed of anti-Brahminism and it was the DMK which propagated it in the ‘60s decade as a political idea and it was the DMK which had consistently and aggressively voiced Tamil Nadu’s concerns about the political inequities suffered by Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking minorities; and yet, by operating through its adherents and Tamil chauvinists from within the smaller fast-mushrooming Dravidian splinter parties like the MDMK, the PMK and the Viduthalai Chiruthai (VC) the Church put the DMK on the back-foot and on the defensive. The beginning of the transformation of the DMK from a sovereign Dravidian party into a Church-reactive, defensive party had begun; only the DMK was in denial about the role of the Church in the unfolding events.
On the second occasion, the DMK because it was the ruling party in the state, had to perforce stand by the Tamil Nadu police in the police-lawyer stand-off in 2009; the government had to stand by its police officers because Justice Ibrahim Khalifullah in the Madras High Court and the former CJI KG Balakrishnan in the Supreme Court adopted unconscionable partisan positions on the issue; and while letting off the striking, lawless lawyers with a mild rebuke, the courts humiliated the police by holding them guilty of contempt of court.
The Tamil Nadu Bar especially the Madras High Court is unabashedly political; lawyers of Tamil Nadu’s courts reflecting TN’s polity, are vertically split broadly into the DMK and AIADMK factions while an emerging section can be engaged as rent-a-crowd by any party which wants violence to be let loose in court campuses. A significantly large section of TN’s lawyers had been on strike from 2008 boycotting the courts ostensibly on the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils, but actually in support of the LTTE.
A violent confrontation between striking lawyers and the police compelled the state government to make a choice between the state’s law-enforcing forces and the lawyers who constituted a sizeable Dravidian electoral constituency. Had the state government not done so, the result would have been a demoralized police force which would have refused to act, leading eventually to spiraling violence and total anarchy in the courts and on the streets. The kind of lawyer rowdy-ism bordering on terrorism that the country witnessed in TN was also linked to the idea of Tamil People.
Both cases had imprints of the Church’s grubby hands all over them.
The taming of Jayalalithaa into a submissive Church agent was completed in record time. The Church’s calibrated measures to lead the Brahmin-led AIADMK back to non-Brahmin Dravidian political objectives began when Jayalalithaa arrested the mathathipathis of the Kanchi matham in November 2004. The Church’s measured steps gathered momentum when Jayalalithaa –
Admitted Vai.Gopalaswamy ‘Vaiko’, the Christian head of the MDMK, whom she had incarcerated previously under NSA for his pro LTTE and seditious speeches, into the AIADMK orbit Invited five Christian priests, including a Bishop to her Poe’s Garden residence on Christmas day in 2008 for solemn Christian prayers. He made promises galore to TN Christians in her election manifesto for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
In a complete turnaround from the earlier stated position of her party, declared on the campaign trail in 2009 that she now believed that the secessionist state of Tamil Eelam was the only solution to the civil war in Sri Lanka
Promised the Christian community during her recent visit to Kanyakumari that when with the blessings of Jesus Christ and the good wishes of Christians she would win the Assembly Elections in April 2011, she would use state treasury funds to send Christians to Jerusalem on pilgrimage; that she thought no one could deny Christians their right to build churches anywhere they wished; she had already committed her party in 2009 to creating the Christian state of Tamil Eelam.
The lateral expansion of Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian politics today in terms of tenets and scope as break-away heresies from the parent Justice Party bears a startling resemblance to the lateral expansion of Islam and Christianity as break-away heresies from their parent Judaism. Like the Abrahamic break-away heresies, TN’s Dravidian parties too were nothing more than organized bodies of extremist/maximalist cult worshippers; and the hate-filled political rant of the central cult figures like EV Ramaswamy Naicker, CN Annadurai, Mu. Karunanidhi and now Thol.Tirumavalavan is passed off as Dravidian ideology.
World history proves that when new religions and ideologies were invented by individuals who offered themselves for cult worship within the Abrahamic families, these cults and cult figures never desired to be a part of the continuum but set themselves up as independent entities around a new power center which chose one aspect, one principle or one tenet from the parent ideology/religion as the principal idea around which to strengthen the heretic group. If we must understand the dynamics of anti-Brahmin/anti-Hindu Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu, we must understand the common features of all break away Abrahamic heresies:
All of them retain the basic genes from the parent; in this case, conquering the world for their jealous god who will not co-exist with other gods
One principle or idea, usually an idea born of hate or confrontation is developed to give them an independent identity.
All of them denounce the parent as an imperfect being and offer themselves unabashedly as improved versions of the parent, their predecessor or both
All of them, without exception seek power - social, political and money power
All of them want territory with their respective central cult figures as new gods
Because they all retain the basic genes from the parent and because moving away from one heresy into another poses no ideological/existential dilemma to the new convert, such movement across the Abrahamic spectrum is discouraged with great violence – Catholic to Protestant to Anglican to Orthodox to Pentecostal and other new missions or from Judaism to Christianity, Islam to Christianity or vice versa.
Because all Abrahamic ideologies, parent and heretic offspring alike, are about political power and control of territory, Abrahamic ideologies are always about numbers.
In the absence of numbers in the early stages of existence, violence and terror are the usual methods for getting the converts and for terrorizing and subjugating the target people and nation.
The Periarite groups and parties, the DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, PMK and the Viduthalai Chiruthai all retain anti-Brahmin as their core ideology; this has expanded to include anti-Hindu, anti-Hindu temples, anti-Sanskrit, anti-North India, anti-Hindi and anti-anything as opportunism demands; all of them have demonstrated at one time or the other their ever-preparedness for violence.
The anti-Hindu Dravidian politics which developed around the hate-filled cult of ‘Periyar’ EV Ramaswami Naicker’s Self Respect Movement in the erstwhile Madras Presidency is therefore only an Abrahamic heretic clone.
Taking their cue from the creation of the Muslim League in 1906, the Justice Party also known as South Indian Liberal Federation was created in 1916 by powerful non-Brahmin zamindars and non-Brahmin forward castes as a political instrument with a limited objective - to demand more non-Brahmin representation in colonial government and administration. Even though the Justice party was formed to serve non-Brahmin political interests, the founders and early members of the party TM Nair, Sir P Thegaraya Chetty, the Rajas of Bobbili, Ramnad and Panagal were practicing Hindus and did not subscribe to Tamil secessionist theology associated with later Dravidian political cults.
While the Justice Party rejected extremist formulations which would destabilize society in a manner hoped for by the Church, its creation was nevertheless a step in the intended direction. It was the beginning of caste-identity politics which successfully fragmented not only Hindu consciousness but Hindu society too by pitting jaati against jaati besides accepting without question the Church’s missionary propaganda of ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ castes, ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ castes.
The political marginalization of the Brahmins had begun and the Church had every reason to be pleased; the Brahmins were the weakest link in the Hindu chain and pressure had been successfully exerted on the weakest link. The long-term grand plan was to make Hinduism congruent with Brahmins, dis-empower the Brahmins and hopefully this would weaken Hinduism, and eventually dis-empower Hindus politically by de-Hinduising the polity. The Church hoped that the fall of South India to Church machinations would knock down the Hindus like skittles in the rest of India, segment by segment, from the political arena and from all seats of power.
This may still happen if India’s polity, especially Hindus like Lalu and Mulayam, notional Hindus like Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar and deracinated Hindus in the INC and BJP do not see even now the ultimate purpose of religious conversion and the real purpose behind the thousands of crores of foreign money that is pumped every year into the country by western governments and foreign churches.
The Christian state of Tamil Eelam was critical to Christianizing South Asia and must be seen together with the Church orchestrated upheaval in Nepal and the on-going mischief in Myanmar.
Having created and then deepened previously unknown fault-lines in Hindu society, the Church now simply had to wait for natural dynamics to take their course from the point of origin called the Justice Party. It did not have long to wait and three centuries of missionary propaganda about the inherent evil and inequities of varna and jaati vyavastha together with the cancerous spread of the Church in South India yielded bountiful results in the form of EV Ramaswami Naicker.
Naicker joined the Indian National Congress in 1919 but quit the Congress in 1925 to form the Self Respect Movement. Periyar’s Self Respect Movement was everything that the Church had hoped for. It positioned itself against the Brahmins – the one community the Church feared the most, retained the non-Brahmin identity of the parent but went much beyond it in scope.
The Self Respect Movement was not merely non-Brahmin in its identity but also virulently anti-Brahmin and anti-Hindu. If the Justice Party was a political vehicle like the Muslim League, then the Self Respect Movement was like the Khilafat Committee and had well-defined socio-religious objectives; more to the point, like the Khilafat Committee it was not constrained by compulsions of electoral politics to observe social and political niceties.
Periyar’s violent anti-Brahmin and anti-Hindu campaign which entailed defiling and destroying Hindu temples and murtis and abusing Brahmins and Hindu gods in offensive language in public speeches sent shock-waves across the Justice Party besides causing intense revulsion among a section of its leaders. To cut a long story short, in less than a decade, the fortunes of the Justice Party and Self Respect Movement became a zero sum game.
When the Justice Party lost the Provincial elections in 1937, several of its leaders abandoned the party and joined the Self Respect Movement. In 1938 Periyar merged his Self Respect Movement with the Justice Party (just as Jinnah persuaded the Khilafat Committee to merge with the Muslim League around the same time), took control of Justice Party and renamed it Dravidar Kazhagam in 1944.
By 1944 there was little doubt that Periyar EV Ramaswami Naicker was the inevitable manifestation of the cancerous Church in TN politics.
The Justice Party was a creature of European Christian missionary intent which fanned the flames of anti-Brahminism as a political ideology in the Madras Presidency in the late 19th and early 20th century. The anti-Brahmin political ideology was a natural consequence of the insidious anti-Brahmin and anti-jaati anti-varna campaigns carried out by European Christian missionaries for three centuries in South India; the bizarre Aryan Invasion Theory was a natural progression of the core idea. The Church’s long-term intent was to sow seeds of discord among the different jaatis, break the jaati and varna vyavastha to cut the socio-cultural and religious roots of Hindus, and then step into the void.
Anti-Brahmin political ideology, as it was conceived and executed, became anti-Hindu because of the cancerous idea underlying the Aryan Invasion Theory with ‘Periyar’ EV Ramaswamy Naicker’s Dravidar Kazhagam as the most vocal and powerful proponent of the theory. The resulting anti-Hindu trend in TN polity was fertile soil for Politics of Abrahamic Minority-ism which in turn was exactly the direction in which the Church intended for Dravidian politics to travel. The Church did not have to be seen to be planting the tree; it simply had to sow the seed of poison weed and wait for the weed to sprout.
It is doubtful if it ever occurred to Naicker, or if his acolytes even today see him that way, but Periyar EV Ramaswami Naicker and all Dravidian parties which followed the Dravidar Kazhagam with anti-Brahminism as the only driving force were creatures of the Church. The resulting anti-Hinduism, Tamil Nation for Tamil People all derived only from this point of origin.
What Dravidian Tamil chauvinist parties from 1916 until 2011 claim to be Dravidian ideology rooted in Self Respect is nothing more than Christian missionary agenda for Tamil Nadu.
‘Periyar’ traveled extensively abroad for two years between 1929-1931 through countries as diverse as Russia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, England, France and Germany. Had Naicker been a man of acute political sense or at least an honest man, such extensive travel ought to have shown him the genocidal path that Islam and the Church were traveling even then to expand across continents and he should have judged his own society and the religious-civilisational roots of his culture by American and European Abrahamic standards.
Instead Naicker chose to retain the Church’s fabrication of the Aryan-Dravidian race theory as the core of his Self-respect Movement and later his Dravidar Kazhagam in what may only be termed swallow-and-vomit intellectualism.
Goa, Kerala and TN were the favorite breeding grounds for European missionaries and facing the kind of challenge they did in India which they had not faced when they exterminated entire cultures, religions and peoples first in Europe and then in North and South America followed by Africa, the missionaries set about the task of understanding societal dynamics in Hindu India.
It did not take them long to understand that it was the organic jaati and varna vyavastha and the formidable moral authority wielded by Sanyasis and Brahmins which did not allow Christian missionaries to penetrate Hindu societies. Moral authority vested in Brahmins and Sanyasis should not be confused with temporal power which was vested in different collectives with different responsibilities.
When Brahmins, both the marginally few who were affluent and the vast majority of whom were economically backward, took to English-education, pursued government employment and became doctors, engineers and judges, their hold over their villages and local communities slackened in two generations resulting in irreversible consequences not only for their community but also for the villages and temples they left behind. Effectively they left the field open for Christian missionaries and anti-Hindu Dravidian ideology to take root.
Brahmana and Sanyasa dharma embodied exemplary values – austerity, self-denial, ahimsa, Learning and imparting Learning; the accruing moral authority maintained inter-jaati equilibrium and stability in society. Women and elders in every jaati and varna, Brahmins and Sanyasis were acknowledged as know-ers of dharma. The Portuguese, having understood the critical and central role of the Brahmins, simply picked up the Sword of Christ and decimated the Brahmins of Goa to the last man, woman and child. Only one choice was given to the Brahmins – convert or die.
Without going into excruciating details about the diabolic tactics which Constanzo Beschi, GU Pope, Di Nobili and other charlatans of their ilk adopted in South India with the sole objective of usurping the moral authority vested in Brahmins and Sanyasis, suffice it to say that while some learnt Sanskrit and Tamil, others pretended to be Brahmins and Sanyasis by sporting the tuft, sacred thread, saffron robes and living a life of bogus austerity.
Realizing that Inquisitions of the Portuguese variety in Goa would almost certainly inflame the non-Brahmin Hindu martial castes against them, Italian and British Christian missionaries knew that they could penetrate Hindu society only by becoming a cancerous cell that lodges itself quietly and unnoticed within the bloodstream of the body it intends to kill.
This cancerous missionary cell, which was manufactured in the sixteenth century in TN, when it pretended to be Brahmins and Sanyasis and when it adopted local customs and language, was dignified by the Second Vatican Council with the nomenclature ‘enculturation’.
Enculturation is a cancerous cell and is a political weapon in Christian hands in the war to conquer territory.
Sonia Gandhi is far and away the best example of ‘enculturation’ of the Constanzo Beschi and Di Nobili kind. When she ‘encultered’ her Christian, Roman Catholic Italian identity in the sari, when she sported the bindi and waved her hand in conscious imitation of her mother-in-law, and when she was planted inside the family and home of India’s Prime Minister, it had already been decided that she would be the cancerous cell within the Indian National Congress and by extension, in the body politic of the Hindu nation. ‘Indian National’ Congress lost its meaning once again as did the INC-led freedom movement supposedly to free the nation from White Christian colonial rule.
Once penetration into society was achieved, the cancer called the local resident missionary began to spread the disease in the body. It has always been the way of the Church to defame and defile the highest institutions in target communities, create a vacuum, and then step into the resulting unrest and instability to offer its Jesus-cult religion as solution. Taking note of the moral authority wielded by Brahmins in society, the Church trained its guns on Brahmins and Hindu scriptural texts. It crafted the diabolic Aryan Invasion theory which said –
Brahmins were an alien race called Aryans who invaded the country, defeated the native populace or Dravidians and drove them away from North-India to the South
The Vedas are the roots of Hinduism and the Vedas are composed in Sanskrit
Brahmins spoke Sanskrit while the defeated Dravidian race spoke Tamil (Kannada and Telugu, languages in the Dravidasthan as conceived of by the Church and Naicker have been placed on the back burner for the present in favour of Tamil. Tamil holds preeminence now in Church calculations because Dravidian ‘Tamil’ can be expanded into Tamil People and Tamil Nation)
Persons of the eminence of Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan, not immune to pecuniary and other benefits accruing from Dravidian state patronage have now begun to mouth the preposterous theory that the language of the Saraswati-Indus script is Dravidian.
This poisonous Aryan-Dravidian propaganda inter alia also meant –
Hinduism is only Brahminism (the Romilla Thapar brand of history writing uses this language). Because the Vedas are the roots of Hinduism and the Vedas are composed in Sanskrit and it is the religion of the alien race which invaded and occupied this land, Tamil-speaking Dravidians are not Hindus.
Dravidians are not Tamil-speaking Hindus in South India but are Tamil People (Tamil Inam) with a culture that has nothing to do with Hinduism.
Saivism, the religion of the Tamil People of Dravidasthan, is Tamil Saivism and therefore is not Hinduism.
The cancerous objective was to eat away the umbilical cord binding Tamil Hindus to Hindus in the rest of India and replace it with a sense of anti-Hindu Dravidian Tamil and anti-Hindu, non-Hindu Church ‘Tamil’ ness.
This was the lemon sold to Kashmiri Hindus too in the name of Kashmiriyat. The Kashmiriyat lemon was sold to Kashmiri Hindus by Kashmiri Muslims (almost certainly this fiction was fabricated in the colonial Christian mind and its potential allowed to sprout in the Kashmiri Muslim mind) which said, we Kashmiris are unique and so Kashmiri Hindus have more in common with Kashmiri Muslims than with the Hindus in the rest of India.
This is vintage Christian war strategy - de-link the target community from its parent, give it a sense of separateness resulting in alienation, render it defenseless, alone and vulnerable and then step in for the kill. The political propaganda that Sikhism is not Hinduism, Jainism is not Hinduism is a piece of the same diabolic Church fabric. Sikhs and Jains who mouth this Church fiction must look at the tragic fate of Kashmiri Hindus which does not warrant repetition here.
While the political trajectory of Dravidian anti-Hindu politics is now better understood, what has so far escaped the notice of political observers and commentators is the picture that emerges when we connect the dots. First, the growing numbers of break-away heresies within the Dravidian fold –
Justice Party 1916 (non-Brahmin zamindars and forward castes) – Self Respect Movement 1925 – Dravidar Kazhagam 1944 (EV Ramaswami Naicker) – Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam 1949 (CN Annadurai, Karunanidhi) – All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam 1972 (MG Ramachandran, Jayalalithaa). For the moment, all latter-day heresies which followed the AIADMK in quick succession, including Tamil Muslim and Tamil Christian heresies are left out of the reckoning.
The new heresy around the cult of MG Ramachandran dealt a near-mortal blow to the hitherto unchallenged heresy, the DMK. From 1972 when the AIADMK (ADMK as it was then called) was formed until today, the DMK and AIADMK have successfully played the Bad cop/Good cop routine with the Hindus of TN. The rise of the DMK was marked by physical abuse of Brahmins in public spaces –
Cutting off their sacred thread
Dragging Brahmin men by their tufts and in several instances even cutting off their tuft (apocryphal stories about Chanakya and the evil Dhananand tell us how King Dhananand gave Chanakya the choice between death and cutting off his Brahminic tuft)
Obscene and vulgar depiction of Brahmin men and even women, their customs, traditions and their way of life in Tamil films.
Public calls to make Brahmin women the common property of non-Brahmin men
Increasing shrill calls for seceding from the Indian Union and the beginning of usage of political phrases Tamil People and Tamil Nation which found prompt echo and support in American/Western think tanks and their foreign policy jargon.
MGR’s AIADMK departed marginally from what was widely recognized as Dravidian politics in that MGR did not encourage public humiliation and physical abuse of Brahmins; but significantly he did not depart even minimally from the anti-Brahmin and anti-Hindu Dravidian tenets and policies. Nevertheless, the good cop role assumed by MGR triggered a frenzy of covert political activity by the Church in neighboring Sri Lanka.
Neither the LTTE, nor demands by other splinter Tamil separatist groups for the secessionist Christian state of Tamil Eelam were accidents of history.
The Church, notwithstanding its much splintered body, is one as regards the ultimate political objective; and the Church Hierarchy comprising its Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Pastors, monks, nuns and Christian laity constitute the army of Christ; each segment of the army working within different sections of the target society and nation without losing sight of the goal – Church-control of communities leading to Church-control of the polity followed by Church-control of the state, as in government.
Conquest of nations by the sword or by the cancer called religious conversion ever remains the sole objective of the Church. When the Church’s dream of Dravidasthan comprising the whole of South India fragmented into Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the Church changed tracks and began to work on the notion of Tamil Nation comprising the whole of Tamil Nadu in India and the North and East of Sri Lanka.
The notion of Tamil People had already been sowed by the Church both in India and in Sri Lanka and had taken root. The Church’s most promising offspring, the violence-prone DMK had been well groomed as the vehicle for Tamil People/Tamil Nation in India; it was time to deliver a similar creature in Sri Lanka and the emergence of MG Ramachandran in Tamil Nadu provided the perfect backdrop to unveil the Sri Lankan chapter of the Tamil Nation.
Born in a small town near Kandy in Sri Lanka to immigrant parents from Kerala, MGR’s Sri Lanka connection gave the Tamil Nation idea a personal, emotional edge which ultimately and totally unexpectedly, destroyed the movement, its terrorist vehicle and its sponsors in India; the idea of Tamil Nation itself suffered a serious setback.
At the time of independence in 1948 a peculiar situation prevailed in Sri Lanka where the politically assertive section both among the Sinhala and Tamil people were Christians, a situation which continues till the present day. This was the result of the almost total control of education and state patronage extended to Christian missionary schools and colleges by all colonial powers – Portuguese, Dutch and then the British.
Church-run schools, which received colonial state patronage and government funds, provided education in English as compared to the education in the vernacular languages in Sinhala and Tamil provided by temples and Buddhist monasteries. English education was mandatory for admission to institutions of higher learning which in turn led to employment in government institutions.
The Church in Sri Lanka, in an extension of its rice-bowl conversion in Africa, made admission to their schools and colleges conditional upon religious conversion to Christianity in what may be termed blackboard conversion. The Church in South India targeted the Tamil Nadar community similarly; thus within the same family those who opted to send their children to missionary schools converted to Christianity and were given alien foreign sounding Christian names.
Not surprisingly, in the early years of the twentieth century only those Sri Lankans - Sinhala and Tamil who were English-educated were employed by the British administration in government jobs and the same section emerged as frontrunners in the country’s polity too. Bandaranaike, Jayawardene, Lakshman Kadirgamar, Chelvanayakam and even Ranasinghe Premadasa, son of Richard Ranasinghe were all Christians. The Church had never had it so good; except that the notion of Tamil People which the Church had sown in society rebounded on the Church in an unexpected turn of events.
While the Church fabricated the Tamil People/Tamil Nation fiction in India vis a vis the Brahmins, its work to plant the cancerous cell in Sri Lanka was made easier because the Tamil language and its culture/people had to be presented as being separate only vis a vis the Sinhala language and its culture/people. The fact that both the Sinhala speaking people and the Tamil speaking people were civilisationally, culturally and religiously bound to Hinduism and bound by the umbilical cord to the Hindu bhumi in equal measure was pushed to the margins of their collective consciousness; and identity of language was privileged over civilisational identity.
The Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka, like the non-Brahmins of Tamil Nadu, was a willing customer for Church peddled separatism.
The Church’s invidious propaganda about the separateness of Tamil People from the nationhood of Sri Lanka and about Tamil People being a distinct nationality with a right to their own territory not only worked like cancer in the Tamil psyche but also reactively in the Sinhala psyche. A brief look at Sri Lanka’s demography is in order to understand how and why the Church’s invidious propaganda succeeded in that country.
Sri Lanka’s demography as per language –
Sinhala – 74%
Tamil - 12.6%
Tamil of Indian origin – 5.19%[ii]
Religious demography –
Buddhism - 70%
Hinduism - 15%
Islam - 7.5%
Christianity - 7.5%
Sinhala speaking people are both Buddhists and Christians; Tamil speaking people are Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Except for a negligible percentage of Moors who are Muslims, the majority of Sri Lanka’s Muslims are Tamil-speaking just as all Sri Lanka’s Buddhists are Sinhala-speaking.
After independence in 1948, in a move to assert the Sinhala identity of the nation and to stem the trend of what the Buddhist clergy thought was disproportionate numbers of Tamil-speaking people (mostly Tamil Christians and negligible numbers of forward caste Tamil Hindus who did not need the Church’s missionary charity for higher education) in government employment, administration and high-end professions including politics, which the Buddhist clergy correctly attributed to Church-run English medium schools and colleges, the Buddhist clergy prevailed upon the Sri Lankan government to nationalize all educational institutions, impart education in the vernacular languages, and accord primacy once again to Pirivenas or educational institutions run by Buddhist monasteries.
Although the move to nationalize Sri Lanka’s education was formalized only in 1961, the trend towards non-missionary Sinhala and Tamil vernacular schools had already begun in the 1930s; but the government move to nationalize education in 1961 dealt a near-mortal blow to Christian evangelization and religious conversion when the most potent instrument for religious conversion, Church-funded and administered missionary schools and colleges were de-fanged, and unseated from their positions of preeminence. The front-end of the assembly line which was delivering Sinhala and Tamil Christian political leaders at the other end had been permanently disabled dealing a terrible blow to the Church agenda to control the government.
The Church’s Tamil People/Tamil Nation boomerang turned around and began to fly back at the Church. The Church trained its guns on the Buddhist clergy again, this time by sharpening the division between the Sinhala majority and Tamil minority by taking recourse to extremism in the form of the LTTE. Needless to say, the top leadership of the LTTE was Christian with notional Hindus in the LTTE cadre playing useful idiots to fulfill the Church agenda.
The time had come to give shape to the Sri Lankan vehicle for Tamil separatism to match the rise and growth of the DMK in Tamil Nadu. The measures that the Church took to realize the Christian state of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka and in Tamil Nadu were always well calibrated and in tune with events in both countries. The LTTE burst upon the political scene in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu in 1975; it follows that preparation for the launch must have started at least a few years earlier.
The success of the Church propaganda that the Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu were a separate nationality can be gauged from the fact that while the Buddhist clergy, reacting strongly to Tamil separatism which had reared its head even before independence in 1948, wanted to push the Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka to the margins of national life, it remained sanguine to the fact that every President that the country elected was Christian; Sinhala Christian. The Buddhist clergy was prepared to accommodate an Abrahamic religion into its conception of Sinhala nationalism while refusing to reach out to the civilisationally related Tamil Hindus who constituted 15% of the population.
Pitting brother against brother is classic Abrahamic/Christian war tactics going back to the Old Testament.
Christians who constitute 7.5% of the population were tactically distributed among the 74% Sinhala, 12.6 % Tamil and 5.19% Indian Tamil populace thus giving the Church a powerful leverage among all sections of the language divide.
The Sinhala-Buddhist Tamil-Hindu animosity had very little to do with religion while it had everything to do with language. The Sinhala-Buddhists and Tamil-Hindus alike failed to see the cancerous cell called the Sinhala Christian and Tamil Christian quietly embedded in their respective blood streams and who were the sole beneficiary from the internecine war between the Sinhala and Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka.
The rise of MGR and the formation of the AIADMK coincided not only with the rise and emergence of the LTTE in Sri Lanka but also with the rise and emergence of the Sri Lankan communist party, the Janatha Vimukthi Perumuna or the JVP. Considering the role of the Church behind the Maoists of Orissa and Nepal it is tempting to wonder if the Church may not have had a hand in the creation of this new front with cadres drawn equally from among the economically backward Tamil and Sinhala speaking people in its early years. What cannot also be denied is that the Church has always adroitly turned every event, every phenomenon to its advantage.
The emergence of MGR, the return of Indira Gandhi in 1980 as Prime Minister, the rise of the LTTE and the rise of the JVP, proved to be a direct and four-pronged attack against the Sri Lankan government and an indirect attack against the primacy and power of the island’s Buddhist clergy. The Church was the only beneficiary of the three decades long civil war which tore Sri Lanka apart and which was ended with the determined extermination of the LTTE in 2010. Not only is the Church continuing to harvest Tamil souls in Sri Lanka but is also harvesting souls in Tamil Nadu’s refugee camps. The protracted civil war in Sri Lanka provided the Church with a bountiful harvest.
Indians outside Tamil Nadu remember the dismissal of the DMK government by Prime Minister Chandrashekhar in 1991. What is almost totally unknown is that the reviled LTTE was armed and trained by the Tamil Nadu and Indian governments in camps set up in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka where India’s armed forces gave the LTTE full military training including in guerilla warfare.
The well-armed and trained LTTE cadre was then sent into Sri Lanka as deadly terrorists in a move which many foreign affairs experts believe was intended by Indira Gandhi and MGR acting in tandem to force the Sri Lankan government to the negotiating table and draft an equitable national constitution which would protect and guarantee equal rights for the Tamil speaking minority community.
While MGR who became Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 1977 was playing competing Dravidian politics with the defeated DMK around the core issue of Tamil People/Tamil Nation, for Indira Gandhi, who felt the urgent need to assert her strong-man image which suffered a setback in the electoral defeat in 1977, it was more a move to re-assert her one-woman regional super power status which the creation of Bangladesh had given her in 1971.
Indira Gandhi and MG Ramachandran may have acted for two entirely different reasons when they set up camps in Tamil Nadu and other parts of India to train, arm and finance the LTTE but they created a Bhasmaasura who turned upon the very people who made the LTTE invincible against the Sri Lankan government in the first place. Indira Gandhi was playing with secessionist fire at home and abroad – she created Bhindranwale and the problem of Khalistan and she created the problem of the LTTE and Tamil Eelam – fires which would soon engulf India, herself and her family.
It was not in the capacity of any state government in TN to militarily arm and train the LTTE without the tacit support and active involvement of the central government. Whoever was advising Indira Gandhi on foreign affairs did not have the nation’s interests in mind, that much is obvious when one retrospectively analyses the events of the critical 1970 and 1980s decade. It is not clear why Indira Gandhi and MGR privileged the LTTE over other Tamil political groups, parties and formations but it was this privileging and the money, arms and training provided to the LTTE which gave the LTTE the brute power and the motive to decimate the leadership and cadre of all other Tamil groups so that it could emerge as the sole representative of the Tamil-speaking people of Sri Lanka.
While the frightening growth of the LTTE gave the Tamil secessionist movement in Sri Lanka a phenomenal impetus, it also caused an equally strong reaction from India and the Sri Lankan government. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi brought to an immediate and full stop all help rendered so far to the LTTE; it also pushed the Sri Lankan government to equip its own army to deal with the LTTE.
Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the subsequent weakening of the Congress party ushered in the era of coalition politics and the huge returns accruing from participation in government in Delhi and the compulsions of coalition politics not only tamed the two major Dravidian parties into a semblance of nationalism but effectively turned Tamil Nadu away not only from the path of secessionism it had been treading for long under the Dravidian parties but also turned it away from the LTTE.
The Church had to regroup and formulate a new war strategy.
The rise of Brahmin Jayalalithaa within the ranks of the AIADMK and her eventual coronation as Gen. Secretary which shook the very foundations of Dravidian politics, the rise of the BJP in national politics, the fading lure of the idea of secessionist Tamil Eelam and weakening prospects of realizing it even within Tamil Nadu, and the new trend in Indian politics which catapulted both the DMK and the AIADMK to Delhi imposing upon them the primacy of national interests over interests of regional political parties forced the Church to forge new strategies and lay a new road towards its objective of carving the Christian state of Tamil Eelam.
The following trends emerged in Tamil Nadu more or less simultaneously from around the mid 1990s decade and continues till the present –
The Church began to invest in television news channels, schools of journalism and mass communication; the Church also pushed for creating the department of human rights in Tamil Nadu colleges and universities.
Foreign governments, notably the UK and US through DFID and USAID began to fund NGOs in India, primarily Christian NGOs.
Foreign Christian funding agencies like World Vision, Action Aid and agencies from Germany, France and the Netherlands began to fund churches and Christian NGOs
Tamil Nadu is the largest recipient of foreign funds.
The Church began to fund television soap operas and also financed Tamil films
Christians are entering the Tamil Nadu film industry and the small screen in almost every area – as directors, producers, actors and music directors
Tamil films and television Tamil serials routinely make reference to Tamil People and Tamil Nation.
The Church is buying hundreds of acres of land across Tamil Nadu; this is visible even in overcrowded Chennai. Christians are cornering a major chunk of the reservation quota in admission to institutions of higher learning and also in government jobs; there are growing numbers of Christian students in engineering, medical and law colleges and universities.
Churches and prayer houses are being built in almost every street in Chennai and close to every Hindu temple, big and small Churches are coming up even in the holiest of holy Hindu temple towns and they are being allowed by Dravidian parties to come up close to temples.
Foreign Christian missionaries from America, Malaysia and South Korea have a free run of the streets in Chennai.
Instigating fisher-folk communities is the Church’s latest ploy[iii]
Every penny and paisa that the Church spends, it spends as investment towards realizing its core objective – control of communities leading to control of polity leading ultimately to control of government culminating in bloody or bloodless conquest of territory. The path to this objective is religious conversion; what was achieved solely through enculturation in the 16th and 17th centuries, through the Church’s missionary educational and medical institutions in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is now being achieved through NGOs, through an aggressive political discourse in religious freedom and human rights which always work only to the Church’s advantage to facilitate penetration, conversion and conquest.
Investing in political parties is the Church’s latest venture in Tamil Nadu. The Church’s investment, besides the time-tested and highly successful strategy of planting Christians in important ruling families through the love angle or as close confidants to politicians, is three-pronged -
Donate liberally and in proportion to expected returns to the two largest Dravidian parties. Besides the generous donations also get Christians to become members of every big and small political party – DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, PMK, DMDK so that these parties, with an eye on the Christian vote bank are compelled to nominate Christians as office bearers at state and district levels.
Start new Tamil extremist parties and create more and more Tamil chauvinist outfits to make shrill noises for Tamil People/Tamil Nation, for the LTTE, against the Sri Lankan government, against the central government, even against judges of the High Court and Supreme Court, for human rights, against law-enforcing agencies like police and army; in effect create enough noise and generate enough heat to provoke uncooperative and weak governments to either use force or hopefully to surrender to extremist demands.
The ploy has succeeded just as every Church ploy has succeeded because the Church always preys upon vulnerability, ambition, hubris and greed. The state government-central government partnership had yielded phenomenal results for the Christian state of Tamil Eelam but that had ended with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Temptations of sharing power in New Delhi had weakened even the verbal call and support for Eelam. The Church’s next move was to weaken the two largest Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu by making them dependant upon smaller parties for survival.
The Church was the only force which saw the advantages of weakening national, nationalist and large regional parties. Tamil Nadu politics had been centered around only two poles for close to half a century. A strong DMK and AIADMK were assets to both the Congress and the BJP not only in state elections but also in national elections. The Church saw how regional parties with no support outside of their states could still influence national policies and it applied the rule with great foresight in Tamil Nadu.
As government support for the LTTE ended and the vehicle was destroyed in Sri Lanka, the Church had to keep the idea of Tamil People/Tamil Nation alive in Tamil Nadu. Even as the Church donated liberally to both the DMK and AIADMK, making them both look like subservient agents of the Church, the Church punished them both by eating into their varied constituencies through the innumerable splinter parties which mushroomed to coincide with waning government support and interest in Tamil Eelam.
The two largest Dravidian parties were themselves made vulnerable to intra-state coalition politics which diminished their value and leverage in New Delhi. Neither the Congress nor the BJP were strong enough to accommodate the baggage which now came along with the DMK and the AIADMK in the form of their state coalition partners.
The Congress and the BJP would now be subject to pressures not only from Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa but also from Vaiko, Thol Thirumavalavan and Ramdoss; not to speak of the good reverend Father Jegath Gaspar Raj, the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam and the Indian Christian Front. Muslims and Christians not only form political parties which are overtly Christian and Muslim but also spread themselves tactically in all important political parties for leverage.
The DMK and AIADMK must both realize that only when Tamil Nadu’s non-Brahmin communities, when coastal villages and communities remain Hindu, their own electoral constituencies will remain with them. If they allow Christian donation to their parties to pressure their policies, if they allow foreign money to continue to come on the scale it is now coming into Tamil Nadu, inevitably, inexorably, they will be weakened because the first rule in any business is that all investments must yield profit.
The Church is not going to invest money into their parties and the state only to have Karunanidhi and family, Jayalalithaa and baggage to enjoy the fruits of power. The Church wants the whole of Tamil Nadu and a large part of Sri Lanka. If the DMK, AIADMK and the BJP do not see this even now, it may well spell their doom. The Congress in Tamil Nadu is recruiting Christians into the party at all levels – educated, poorly educated, as leaders and as cadre.
If because of the DMK and AIADMK have already been weakened and if because the BJP in Tamil Nadu is still clueless about what is happening in the state, the Congress resurrects itself, it will resurrect as a Christian party whose Christian content will not be immediately seen or felt. It will either wear an encultured face like it wears now in Delhi and wore in Andhtra Pradesh under Y Samuel Rajasekhar Reddy or it may even opt for a temporary idiot Hindu face.
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Hindus can be protected and Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu protected from the predatory Church only if India’s polity, Tamil Nadu’s polity and the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka wake up to the Church’s agenda for India, Sri Lanka and Asia.
Radha Rajan
30th March, 2011.
[i] The writer has used the word Church generically to mean not only churches of all denominations, including Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Lutheran, Adventist, Pentecostal and New Life, New Mission but also Christian NGOs, Christian funding agencies, White Christian governments and countries which legitimize and use evangelization and militant Christian missionary objectives as instruments of foreign policy in countries of Asia, especially India, China, Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia; the generic Church also includes the United Nations with a charter that enforces Christian ‘liberal’ political principles as the universal socio-political ideal which will be enforced coercively by any one of the arms of the generic Church, including military intervention.
[ii] Indian Tamil people are indentured labour from the erstwhile Madras presidency forcibly transported to Sri Lanka to work in British owned tea-estates.
[iii] South of Cuddalore every fishing hamlet along Tamil Nadu’s vast coastline is almost 100% Christian. The Church wants fisher-folk to be given the status of Scheduled Tribes where even Christian converts are eligible for reservation quota; and that is why the Church is not asking for Scheduled Caste status. The Church is playing a covert role in getting Tamil Nadu’s fishermen to regularly intrude into Sri Lankan waters, not only to pressure the state government and New Delhi to confront the Sri Lankan government, but also to provoke the Sri Lankan government into using force to deal with trespassing fishermen. The idea is to vitiate Tamil Nadu/India-Sri Lanka relations.
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Journey back to the Civil War
“A major breakthrough in Civil War history.”
— Edwin C. Bearss, military historian and Civil War scholar
Have you ever wondered about what your ancestors did and why? If so, you will find inspiration in the story of D. Reid Ross and his journey into the past. He didn’t set out to write a book, but what he discovered compelled him to do so. Since childhood, he had heard about his grandfather fighting in the Civil War, being captured and imprisoned in Andersonville. He wanted to know much more.
He discovered that Veteran Volunteers, including his grandfather and two of his brothers, reenlisted, rather than going home, so they could continue to fight. Because of their experience and combat skills, they were exposed to the greatest dangers in battle after battle, and their regiments suffered the highest casualty rates of the entire Union army. Ross was amazed that despite all that had been written about the Civil War, the story of Lincoln’s bravest and most dedicated soldiers has been ignored.
Why did they reenlist, and continue to risk their lives?
Ross read hundreds of soldiers’ letters, diaries, memoirs and government records in search of the answer. The quest took him thirty years, and led him to the common threads among Veteran Volunteers, particularly their anti-slavery convictions and their loyalty to Lincoln. From the beginning when they first enlisted, they fought for the twin goals of saving the Union and ending slavery. Those discoveries left him no option but to tell their story in Lincoln’s Veteran Volunteers Win the War: The Hudson Valley’s Ross Brothers and the Union’s Fight for Emancipation.
The book explores the religious ideals and family traditions, allegiance to Abraham Lincoln, and moral imperative that left Veteran Volunteers no choice but to continue fighting until they won the war. It reveals, too, their profound sacrifices for their beliefs: injuries, debilitating disease, near starvation, imprisonment, even death. In the Ross family alone, one brother was killed, another blinded, another deafened, and the fourth held captive in five Confederate prisons. Their parents were crippled with rheumatism, and without their sons’ help during the war, they lost the family farm to foreclosure. Yet none of them wavered in their commitment to fighting for emancipation and preservation of the Union.
This story is an inspiration to all who believe in the principles on which the United States was founded and a timely reminder that our nation’s ability to overcome profound challenges depends on the dedication and sacrifices of its people.
Ross earned his undergraduate degree from Washington University. After serving as a gunnery officer in the Pacific during World War II, he earned a master’s degree in urban planning at the University of Chicago and did post-graduate work in England. He worked in urban planning in Chicago, Milwaukee; Providence, Rhode Island; Cincinnati; St. Louis; and Madison, Wisconsin. He also taught graduate courses part-time at three universities. After retiring, he earned a master’s degree in American History at the University of Wisconsin and has published numerous articles about the Civil War and his ancestors.
He and his wife, Sari, live in Durango, Colorado.
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History Of Nowy Dwor
Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki
A town in Warszawa Province, Central Poland.
The Jewish settlement appears to have been founded at ther close of the 17th century. From the beginning of the 18th century there was an organized Jewish community owning a synagogue and a cemetery (wish until 1780 was also used by the Jews of Praga, a suburb of Warsaw.) In 1768-1769, a number of Jews fleeing from the Haidamack massacres in Podolia found refuge in Nowy Dwor, bringing the Chasidic teaching with them. During that periond the Jews earned their livelihood primarily from innkeeping and by trading in wood. A woolen cloth factory established in the 1780’s by the Poniatowski family (owners of the town) was to a considerable extent dependent on Jewish merchants for its financing, for supplying its raw materials, and for taking on the bulk of its orders. Jewish craftsmen and merchants earned their livelihood from tailoring, shoemaking, carpentry, construction, innkeeping, and the supply of building materials and food to the military units stationed in the district. In 1808, 183 Jews formed 25% of the town’s population; in 1827 there were 334 Jews (28% of the town’s population), increasing to 1,305 (49%) in 1857. A German editor, J. A. Krieger, had taken over a Hebrew printing privilege from the Warsaw printer and bookseller Du Four, so that between 1781 and 1816 Nowy Dwor had one of the most active Hebrew presses in Eastern Europe, issuing well over 100 works. The driving powers behind the business were Eliezer B. Isaac of Krotoszyn and his son-in-law, Jonathan B. Moses Jacob of Wielowicz, who had also acted as proofreader and later as manager of Krieger’s bookshop in Warsaw. An ambitious project of a Talmud edition did not proceed beyond the publication of the first two volumes in 1784, and subsequently the Napoleonic wars put an end to Krieger’s Enterprise.
During the middle of the 19th century Jews of Lithuanian origin, who were principally employed as purveyors to the Russian authorities, settled in the town. As a result of their powerful economic status they rapidly gained control of most of the community’s institutions. During the last third of the 19th century the rabbinical office was held by Jacob Moses Teomim and until 1904 by R. Menahem Mendel Chayyim Landau, a leader of Agudat Israel, later a Rabbi in Detroit, U.S.A. Landau was succeeded by Moses Aaron Taub, and between the two world wars Judah Reuben Neufeld served as the last Rabbi of the town.
Industrialization, the departure of Jews from regions suffering pogroms, and the expulsion of Jews from Moscow, caused a rapid increase in the Jewish population of Nowy Dwor. In 1897 there were 4,735 Jews (65%) in the town. In 1905-1906 Jewish trade unions gained in strength under the influence of the Bund and the Po’alei Zion. In addition to retail trade, the Jews of Nowy Dwor engaged in shoemaking, millinery, carpentry, locksmithing, tailoring, and portage; about 300 Jewish women were employed in embroidery workshops. A general conflagration in 1907, in which more than half the town’s houses were destroyed, led many Jews to move to Warsaw or to emigrate to the United States. In 1920, during the war in Soviet Russia, the Polish army expelled hundreds of Jews from the town and desecrated its synagogue. In 1921 there were 3,916 Jews (50% of the population) in NOwy Dwor and 3,961 (42%) in 1931. In the municipal elections of 1927, four Jewish delegates won seats in the town’s administration and the delegate of the Bund was appointed vice-mayor. For a number of years the CYSHO (Central Yiddish School Organization) and Tarbut schools as well as the Shalom Aleichem library were subsidized by municipal funds. In the early 1930’s Jewish haulage workers organized a self-defense movement against anti-semitic rioters. At the outbreak of World War II there were about 4,000 Jews in Nowy Dwor.
The Holocaust Period
The German army entered the town on September 20, 1939. A ghetto was established at the beginning of 1941. In May 1941, 3,250 Jews were deported to Pomiechowek camp where most of them perished. In November 1942 two deportations to Auschwitz took place. The ghetto was liquidated on December 12, 1942, when 2,000 Jews from Nowy Dwor and nearby Czerwinsk were sent to Auschwitz. After the war the Jewish community of Nowy Dwor was not reconstituted.
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Sunday, September 27, 2015
How a 1965 immigration reform created illegal immigration, The Washington Post by Douglas S. Massey (2015) he proclaims how there was an intent on allowing visa's to countries; that in actuality it ended with illegal immigration. Since the term of "illegal immigration" came about people moved to the United States to work, but many had to bring their families causing them all to be known as a type of delinquents. The reason why borders are created is to separate the "others" from the citizens. There are risks when people migrate to the United States illegally because there are dangers of drugs and diseases to worry about. Today, there are over 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States that live all runs the nation.
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Prepare Trees for Winter with the Fall Four
In this Angie's List article, Todd Armstrong, district manager of Davey's North Baltimore office, tells homeowners what steps they can take to help their trees stand tall and strong through the upcoming winter months.
Posted: Oct. 17, 2016
Autumn leaves are perfectly colored in red, orange, gold and purple. While they’re pleasing to the eye during fall, they need some help to survive the cold. Winter’s harsh snow falls, ice storms and strong winds can be damaging. They can bring down tree branches and limbs onto roads, cars, structures and power lines. Play it safe and follow these four steps to keep your neighborhood and home secure this winter.
1. Mulching trees
Trees benefit from a blanket of mulch. It acts as a moisture barrier and helps to maintain consistent soil temperature. Keep mulch 2 to 3 inches from the trunk of the tree and don’t mound like a volcano, as it can trap moisture, causing splits and cankers.
To read the rest of the steps, click here
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Functions of skin, Biology
Skin performs various diverse functions, that is why it is called "jack of all trades".
1. Protection - The skin protects the internal soft organs from mechanical injuries.
2. Prevention of water loss - The skin prevents loss of water (dehydration) from internal organs.
3. Maintenance of body form - The skin helps in maintenance of the body shape.
4. Barrier to germs and poisons- The skin prevents the entry of micro-organisms and absorption of poisonous materials.
5. Safety against sunburn - Melanin of the epidermal cells protects against the invisible ultra violet rays of the sun.
6. Chemical defence - The sweat oil and wax 'of cutaneous glands contain lactic acid and fatty acids which make the pH acidic enough to kill or slow down growth of many bacteria and fungi.
7. Thermoregulation (Regulation of body temperature) - The normal body temperature of man is 98.4°F (=37°C).
It is maintained in both summer and winter seasons. In summer the cutaneous blood vessels dilate which causes loss of heat. The sweat is vaporised from the surface of the skin which decreases its temperature. In winter the cutaneous blood vessels constrict and thereby less heat is lost from the body. The subcutaneous fat conserves body heat.
8. Excretion and Homeostasis - Sweat secreted by sweat glands is excretory product (metabolic wastes). During ecdysis (removal of epidermal cells from stratum corneum), keratin (formed from waste proteins) is removed which is also an excretory product. Removal of metabolic wastes helps in keeping the internal environment of the body constant (homeostasis).
9. Secretion - Human cutaneous glands secrete sebum, sweat, milk, ear wax, etc.
10. Sensation - The skin has abundant receptors for touch, heat, cold, pain, pressure, etc.
11. Synthesis of Vitamin D - The skin is capable of forming vitamin D from a cholesterol derivative in the presence of sunlight.
12. Formation of bones and teeth - Dermis of the skin gives rise to the dermal bones of the skull. Teeth are formed from both the epidermis and the dermis.
13. Aid in physical examination - Yellowish colour of skin indicates jaundice. Certain rashes or lesions show infectious disease like measles, chicken pox, small pox, syphilis, allergy etc. The skin also reveals age of the person.
14. Storage of food - The subdermal portion of the skin stores fat.
15. Absorption - The skin can absorb oil, ointments, etc. through the opening of sweat glands and hair follicles, if applied and rubbed. The skin also absorbs light for the benefit of internal tissues.
16. Colour - Melanin in the epidermal cells give colour to the skin.
17. Healing of Wounds - The epidermis of the skin has a great power of regeneration. It helps in rapid healing of wounds.
Posted Date: 10/1/2012 6:23:32 AM | Location : United States
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Canada considers irradiating ground beef
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada is considering allowing the irradiation of raw ground beef in order to kill E. coli, salmonella and other dangerous bacteria, according to the health ministry.
The proposal will likely be announced in June, or at the latest by year's end, followed by a public consultation, spokesperson Maryse Durette told AFP.
The idea was first hatched in the late 1990s but was roundly rejected by consumers, and the regulatory process was never completed.
Microbiologists renewed their push to expand the technology in 2013 after the largest meat recall in Canadian history, linked to an Alberta meat packaging plant, which made 18 people across the country sick.
Currently, irradiated onions, potatoes, wheat, flour and spices and seasonings are approved for sale in Canada.
Irradiation exposes foods to rays that kill bacteria and other micro-organisms.
Critics say the process produces toxic compounds, such as benzene, and reduces the nutritional value of food, but proponents argue the effects on human health are negligible.
Any irradiated beef sold in Canada would need to be clearly labelled, said Health Canada.
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Children & Longterm Effects of Lack of Hydration
Teenagers and younger children are not drinking enough water and that lack of hydration can have an effect on their physical and mental health. This usually is not from a day of dehydration but an accumulative effect as it happens frequently.
“Even though for most of these kids this is not an immediate, dramatic health threat, this is an issue that could really be reducing quality of life and well-being for many, many children and youth,” said Erica Kenney, (Harvard School of Public Health Postdoctoral Research).
What is Dehydration?
Everyone’s body is made up of approximately two thirds water. If you constantly go below the levels needed for normal body function, when your body loses more water then what your body is taking in this is dehydration.
“Lack of water ingestion is a significant issue for America’s children, with multiple causes,” said Dr. Ron Marino, associate chair of pediatrics at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y.
You do not have to feel thirsty to be dehydrated. When you are feeling thirsty you more than likely are already starting to get dehydrated. You should drink water even if you don’t feel thirsty. Other symptoms include:
• Lightheaded & feeling dizzy
• Mouth is dry
• Dark Urine
• Decreased urine
• Fingertips are tingling
• Muscle cramps
• Fever & chills
• Food cravings, especially for sweets
• Dry skin
• Headaches
• Along with other symptoms
A few serious Physical effects dehydration can have on your body are:
• Increased Demands on your kidney (Kidney Failure)
• Heat Stroke
• Tiredness all the time
The long term effects of water can bring on Mental Disorders such as:
• Anxiety disorders
• Mood disorders
• Eating disorder
• Psychotic disorders
How much water you need depends on your physical weight, your level of physical activity that day and your environmental conditions. Remember, everyone is different so be careful because you can drink too much water. For most people if your urine is slightly yellow or clear you are hydrated. Below we give you a few Websites and Apps that can possibly help you.
CamelBak has a unique calculator to show how much water you should take in if you are going on a hike, running, biking or skiing. It asks what color your urine is along with other details.
Slender Kitchen has it broken down on how to calculate how much water you should drink a day for both health and weight loss benefits.
Waterlogged App for Iphone helps you keep track of how much water you need to take and splits it up and reminds you.
The Water Your Body App does the same thing as waterlogged but for an android based phone.
Remember that the above water charts and app links are for informational purposes and are not meant for you to take as a doctor’s advice. If you have any concerns about dehydration in your child schedule an appointment today to sit down with Dr. Connery.
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Tag Archives: dictionary
The definition of the word Vocabulary, means all the words contained in a language. The word vocabulary comes from the word Vocable, meaning to call. So, if one has words that one knows, he or she can easily call upon those words to express what one has to say. Lacking descriptive words or phrases, leaves one fumbling around to be understood. The person’s perception may be high and beautiful, but lacking words to describe what one sees and wants to share, limits one.
The brown snake looked so pretty when the old skin came off, could be; The spectacular iridescence of the Brazilian Rainbow Boa after it shed, was a delight to behold. Or at least; When the snake shed, the colors of the skin had rainbow colors.
Learn a new word every day. If you find yourself without the word to describe something you want to say, ask someone who is knowledgeable and then look up the word in a dictionary to make sure it is right and use that word in sentences until you have it as your own. It is important to look up the word for yourself so that you don’t begin to operate on a wrong word. Contagion of error is what you want to avoid. Learning new words every day is fun and expands your horizons. The more words you learn, even if difficult in the beginning, increases your knowledge about many things as you progress.
Having more words to call upon to express yourself, frees ones mind to communicate without limitation.
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Fionn the Giant and the Sun
24 Jul
When we went to see the Giant’s Causeway, it was a thing of beauty. Both the landscape, and the myth that goes along with it represent the Irish culture extremely well because it dates back to before the island was split into two nations. The myth is that Fionn mac Cumhaill was challenged by the Scottish giant Benandonner to a fight. Fionn accepted and built the Giant’s Causeway across the North Channel so the two could meet. But after realizing that Benandonner was much bigger than he was Fionn backed out. This resulting in Fionn’s wife Una dressing him up as a baby and putting him in a cradle. When Benandonner saw this “baby” he figure that it was Fion’s son, and that if the baby was this big than his father must be massive. In this Benandonner grew frightened and ran back to Scotland destroying the Causeway so that Fionn could not follow him back to Scotland. This myth came about because the Pagan religion started to disappear. Pagan heroes began to transform into giants as the myths were passed along and this speaks volumes of the culture in Ireland.
Giants Causeway
As Ireland “became more catholic than the pope” the Pagan roots remained. The Celtic cross that is still widely known and used today even has Pagan tradition. The circle that is on the top of the cross is a representation from when the sun was still being worshiped for everything revolves around the sun. In this the Pagans realized that the sun was of upmost importance and worshiped it. So this representation of the sun, once the country switched to Catholicism, was kept alive I’m guessing so that people would identify more with the religion and offer less resistance to the change. Mythology remains a big part of the Irish culture because the settles of the island can be traced back so far.
Giants Causeway
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Tire maintenance
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Tire maintenance for motor vehicles is based on several factors. The chief reason for tire replacement is friction from moving contact with road surfaces, causing the tread on the outer perimeter of tires to eventually wear away. When the tread depth becomes too shallow (less than 0.125in./3.2mm), the tire is worn out and should be replaced. The same wheels can usually be used throughout the lifetime of the car. Other problems encountered in tire maintenance include:
This tire has been punctured by a screw.
Spare tires[edit]
Vehicles typically carry a spare tire, already mounted on a wheel rim, to be used in the event of a flat tire or blowout. Spare tires (sometimes called "doughnuts") for modern cars are smaller than regular tires (to save trunk space, weight and cost) and should not be used to drive very far before replacement with a full-size tire. A few vehicle models use conventional size spare tires. Jacks and wrenches for emergency replacement of a flat tire with a spare are included with a new car. Not included, but available separately, are hand or foot pumps for filling a tire with air by the vehicle owner. Cans of pressurized air can sometimes be bought separately for convenient emergency refill of a tire.
Some cars and trucks are equipped with run flat tires that may be driven with a puncture over a distance of 80 km to 100 km. This eliminates the need for an immediate stop and tire change or calling for roadside assistance.
Racing tires[edit]
Interestingly, tires actually have more traction when they are bald, because there is more surface area making contact with the road. The reason regular tires have treads is to avoid hydroplaning when the surface of the road is wet. Stock cars driven on professionally maintained NASCAR tracks use tires without treads, and with a thicker layer of rubber.
Inflation (adding air)[edit]
There are simple hand-held tire-pressure gauges which can be temporarily attached to the valve stem to check a tire's interior air pressure. This measurement of tire inflation pressure should be made at least once a month. Accurate readings can only be obtained when the tires are 'cold' - that is at least three hours after the vehicle has been driven or driven less than 1/2 mile since cold - tire pressures will not then be higher because of operating heat.[citation needed] The recommended inflation pressure is found in the owner's manual and on the vehicle's tire placard.[1][2] Because of slow air leaks, changes in the weather and ambient temperature or other conditions, tire pressure will occasionally have to be corrected via the valve stem with compressed air which is often available at service stations.
Under-inflation of tires can cause premature and uneven tire wear, excess fuel usage, and carries an increased risk of explosive failure (blowout) especially after prolonged high speed operation at high temperatures. Overall, these factors decrease the life of a tire by up to 20%.[3] Many vehicles have tire pressure monitoring systems; older cars are usually equipped with indirect monitoring systems while later cars are typically equipped with direct tire pressure monitoring systems.
Tire Safety[edit]
It is extremely important for owners to have an understanding of what is safe and what is not when it comes to their tires. The three major areas to keep an eye on is the tread, sidewall, and air pressure of the tire. Having the correct air pressure in your vehicle's tires lets your vehicle perform in the most efficient way possible. When objects such as a screw or nail puncture a tire, it creates a small leak in the tire. This leads to under-inflation of the tire. When a tire is under-inflated, it causes the inside of the tire to heat up. This heat compromises the internal structure of the tire which can lead to a blowout. When a tire is over-inflated, it wears the tread down faster, and becomes more prone to catching nails or screws in the tire. The best way to check tire maintenance is to check the air pressure, because that will lead you to whatever problem your tire might have.
See also[edit]
1. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-07-14. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
2. ^ "Tires Safety Checklist" (PDF). NHTSA. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
3. ^ "Tire Maintenance". holmestire.com. RimsWheelsNTires. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
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Confederate Flag Karen Cooper
Slavery is a ChociceA black woman who proudly waves the Confederate battle flag because it “represents freedom” also believes that “slavery was a choice.”
In an interview for a documentary “Battle Flag,” Virginia resident Karen Cooper described why she joined the Virginia Flaggers, a group that defends the rebel flag against those who “worship ignorance, historical revisionism and political correctness.”
Cooper, who found the flagging group through her activism in the Tea Party, explained the Confederate flag symbolizes a movement away from big government.
“I actually think that it represents freedom,” she said in an interview for “Battle Flag,” a documentary project about the flag. “It represents a people who stood up to tyranny.”
The interview comes amid a national discussion about the flag’s meaning — and vocal calls to remove it from government buildings after a rebel flag-supporter shot and killed nine people in a historical black church.
Cooper, a New York native who later settled in Virginia, brushed off the flag’s history in slavery, explaining that oppression is not exclusive to the Confederate.
“I’m not advocating slavery or think that it was right. It wasn’t and none of my friends think it was. It was just something that happened. It didn’t just happen in the South — it happened worldwide.” Besides, “slavery was a choice,” she added, because slaves had a choice to die.
“And I say that because of what Patrick Henry said: ‘Give me liberty, or give me death.’ If we went back to that kind of slavery — no I couldn’t do it. Give me death,” she explained.
If anything, slavery is still alive today, she claimed.
“I feel I’m a slave now because the federal government does control me. I can’t smoke what I want to smoke. I can’t drink what I want to drink. If I want to put something into my body, it’s my body, not theirs,” she said. “That’s tyranny!”
So Cooper will keep waving the Confederate flag alongside other Virginia Flaggers and will keep preaching the group’s mission to peacefully “protest those who have attacked us, our flags, our ancestors or our heritage.”
“I know what people think about when they see the battle flag: the KKK, racism, bringing slavery back. So I knew it would be something for people to see a black woman with the battle flag,” she said. “How can it be racist if I’m out there with them?” she added.
Proud Black Confederates on the Confederate Flag – “Don’t take Our History Away”
Heritage Not HateIn order to NEVER repeat history, one must understand what really occurred to begin with. One thing that is never mentioned is the amount of Blacks who owned slaves and the largest slave owning plantation even more than the white men did in the south. Slavery is an abomination but as you saw in the last video I uploaded, the slave trade was sparked off by the JESUITS of Rome as slavery was dying a natural death.
History: The Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, was a law mandating religious tolerance for Trinitarian Christians. Passed on April 21, 1649 by the assembly of the Maryland colony, in St. Mary’s City. It was the second law requiring religious tolerance in the British North American colonies and created one of the pioneer statutes passed by the legislative body of an organized colonial government to guarantee any degree of religious liberty. Specifically, the bill, now usually referred to as the Toleration Act, granted freedom of conscience to all Christians.[1] (The colony which became Rhode Island passed a series of laws, the first in 1636, which prohibited religious persecution including against non-Trinitarians; Rhode Island was also the first government to separate church and state.) Historians argue that it helped inspire later legal protections for freedom of religion in the United States. The Calvert family, who founded Maryland partly as a refuge for English Catholics, sought enactment of the law to protect Catholic settlers and those of other religions that did not conform to the dominant Anglicanism of Britain and her colonies.
The Act allowed freedom of worship for all Trinitarian Christians in Maryland, but sentenced to death anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus. It was revoked in 1654 by William Claiborne, a Virginian who had been appointed as a commissioner by Oliver Cromwell and was a staunch advocate for the Anglican Church. When the Calverts regained control of Maryland, the Act was reinstated, before being repealed permanently in 1692 following the events of the Glorious Revolution, and the Protestant Revolution in Maryland. As the first law on religious tolerance in the British North America, it influenced related laws in other colonies and portions of it were echoed in the writing of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which enshrined religious freedom in American law.
Do I agree with all in this video? NO. BOTH THE NORTHERN MAN AS WELL AS THE SOUTHERN MAN SUFFERED FOR BY HE DIABOLICAL TENETS OF THE JESUITS INFILTRATION. In every controlled war, it is always the common man that loses the most and is persecuted. Since this terrible civil war, AmErica has been TRULY enslaved, white black, brown green, whatever color you are, you have become a piece of property for the US government. PLEASE REVIEW THE 16TH AMENDMENT Are we not being led if not forced into the same diabolical scheme for Civil War by the very same ROMAN CATHOLIC OWNED MEDIA NETWORKS using false psyops and controlled opposition to lead us into yet another terrible civil war? If last friday’s “gay marriage” despotic and unconstitutional ruling to force the majority to accept it & TRUMP our 1st amendment right among others, then what is? How long before TRUE PROTESTANT AMERICA says “enough is enough?” I do not look to conflict or war as a means of solving anything, but when tyranny rears it’s ugly head and a government becomes so tyrannical that the rights by which God granted us are being destroyed, then as the founding fathers stated in the Declaration of Independence, we have the right to throw off such a tyrannical government and either change it or institute new government. The line has been drawn in the sand and it is up to each one of us whether we choose to serve God or mammon. For what the government giveth, the government taketh away.
it is time for True America to break the chains of despotism instilled by pagan Rome. God bless all who seek TRUTH as the TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE.
Patriot of the Republic, Mike Fulmer
National Liberty Alliance:
Allegheny County, PA Liberty Alliance:
Allegheny County, PA Liberty Alliance Facebook Profile:
About Patriot of the Republic - Mike Fulmer
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Origins of the English Language
Cheddar Man & His Descendant, Adrian Targett
No one knows the language that the first people who walked across the land bridge from France to England more than 800,000 years ago spoke. The language of Cheddar Man who died in Cheddar Gorge in Sussex England about 9,000 years ago or the residents of Skara Brae, a 5,000-year-old community on the island of Orkney, is also unknown. The theory is that all of the European languages-Germanic, Italic, Celtic and Hellenic- are descended from a branch of the ancient “IndoEuropean” language which was spoken about 6,000 years ago.
Skara Brae
The first identifiable language spoken in Britain was Celtic around 1000 bc. The Celts brought their language, weapons technology, and pottery to Britain. Over the years, the Celtic language evolved into two distinct branches. Goedelic Celtic included Manx, Irish Gaelic, and Scots Gaelic. Brythonic Celtic included Cornish, Breton, and Welsh.
Celtic Warriors
In 49 bc, the Roman general Julius Caesar, invaded southern Britain. The Celtic tribes either surrendered to or were defeated by the Roman legions. The Romans brought with them their culture and technology—and their language—which influenced the English people for the next four centuries.
Anglo-Saxon Helmet
The Romans and Celts brought in Germanic mercenaries to fight the tribes of Scotland who constantly invaded southern Britain. In the 5th century AD the mercenaries—Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, and Danes—liked what they saw so they stayed, forced the Celts to flee to the west and north, and settled their families in the choicest areas. They also brought their Germanic language which became the primary influence on the English language.
King William & His Brothers
In 1066 AD the Norman French invaded England. While the Normans continued to speak French for more than a century, the French language was not spoken by the populace. The French language did make numerous contributions to the English language some of which we’ll see later. Over the centuries the English language evolved into several forms of Modern English—American, Canadian, British, Australian, Indian, Irish, and Scottish.
Tomorrow: Using Prefixes to Maximize Your Vocabulary Rita Bay
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Ketones – Enter the state of ketosis!
The human body will produce ketones only under certain conditions - in starvation or extremely low carb diets (for most people less than 50 grams of carbs a day) as well as alcoholism and uncontrolled type 1 diabetes (not so good).
From an evolutionary perspective our ability to produce ketones and use them for energy (instead of glucose) in times of famine is probably largely responsible for the survival of humans as a species. Think about it, in the absence of Loblaws, McDonalds and Starbucks, our Paleolithic ancestors and likely all others leading up to the Agricultural Age most probably alternated between periods of feast and famine. Given these two extremes, it makes sense that our bodies are programmed to store fat in times of plenty and then burn it for fuel in times of scarcity. Fast forward to today and most peoples’ bodies haven’t seen a ketone since the day they were born (interesting fact is that babies are born in a state of ketosis!) since our constant supply of carbs, protein and even fat ensures that there really is never a need to produce an alternative to glucose. It turns out that this may be a real shame as ongoing research seems to show increasingly that ketones have some real benefits to our bodies.
A short list of what ketones can do for you:
1. Help to reduce inflammation - they seem to inhibit the pathway by which our bodies produce inflammatory cytokines - this is good.
2. Increase blood flow to the brain (so they can be great to have around in instances of brain injury to help with repair, also great to have when you’re trying to get lots of work done)
3. They are signaling molecules and as such seem to help with hormone and neurotransmitter balancing.
4. Ketones help the body produce more antioxidants hence they fight aging and oxidative damage caused by exposure to toxins, stress, excess exercise etcThey are muscle sparing and fat burning so can contribute to improving body composition
5. Most people feel greater mental clarity and focus when in ketosis - why? Increased blood flow and a clean fuel source that can cross the blood brain barrier
6. Ketones help to stabilize blood sugar so many people feel that their cravings seem to diminish or disappear completely when they have ketones in the house.
7. Ketones also have an appetite suppressing effect - one of the most interesting side effects of the ketogenic diet is that you just don’t seem to get hungry as often - and why should you? We have loads of energy stores, once the body figures out how to access them it’s open season - for endurance athletes that means no bonking and no need to fuel in the middle of a long race.
8. Ketones improve recovery from intense workouts
9. The presence of ketones helps the body produce more energy with less oxygen - very useful for athletes, for divers, pilots and hanging out or training at high altitudes.
For many of you reading this - you are CrossFit Athletes, a lot of what you do is anaerobic and explosive - typically not the circumstances best suited to fat adaptation. But wait. What if you could drink your ketones? What if, you could follow a nutrient dense, healthy carb, moderate to high protein diet with adequate amounts of healthy fats (this would not get you into ketosis) and get enough ketones into your body to at least enjoy the benefits above for part of the day? How would you do this without adopting a ketogenic diet? Here are a couple of ideas:
1. MCT Oil - There are several on the market but the best, most effective ones will be predominantly or entirely composed of C8 or Caprylic Acid. Cool fact about MCT’s is that they cannot be stored as fat (!). This medium chain triglyceride is the easiest for your body to convert into ketones - spin into your coffee, drizzle on salads and other foods, use as part of your dressing. My favourite is Bulletproof’s Brain Octane - 100% C8. There are others but all have a combination of C6, C8 and C10 - they aren’t bad, just not as potent and they are more likely to cause GI upset till you build tolerance to the C10. You can now find Bulletproof Brain Octane in health food stores or you can purchase from
2Exogenous ketone products - There are a few on the market but my favourite is a product by the name of Keto O/S - it is the most potent and the formulators are constantly devising new delivery schemes for improved uptake and maximal effect. As of today you can buy Keto O/S in Canada. There are3 different formulas available, MAX, the latest geared to Elite Athletes is the most powerful - the patent pending BHB (betahydroxybutyrate - the actual ketone body) has been shown in clinical studies to be more bioavailable and longer lasting than any other product on the market. It is also approved safe for NCAA and Elite competitors, while also being vegan, dairy free and gluten free.
If you are interested in KETO O/S you can contact me for a 5 day trial pack, for more info or check out: Full disclosure - this is absolutely an affiliate site so yes, I will get commission if you buy.
If you’ve made it this far - give yourself a pat on the back - I know this post was long but I do believe that this renewed interest in ketones is well warranted - I have been using them myself and in my practice for over a year now (either as MCT’s, endogenously or from Keto O/S) and I am continuously amazed at the incredible results that people are obtaining.
Get in touch with Nathalie HERE
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English pronunciation training. Are you using a key word sentence?
English Pronunciation Training- Do You Use A Key Word Sentence?
Using a key word sentence whether you are still working on your English pronunciation training, or whether you are practising a new accent in English, or whether you are about to do an English speaking test for Example like an IELTS test, really helps.
I was listening to an actress talking on the radio the other day. The actress was saying whenever she wanted to put on a certain accent, she had a particular sentence or phrase she would use to cue her into the accent. For example she used the words ‘car park’ to cue herself into a South African accent because it’s a good example of the way certain consonants and vowels are said in that accent, especially the ‘ar’ vowel. You can use this technique of a key word sentence or phrase, to work for you as well.
When we do English pronunciation training, we use all sorts of training material to help us, which is important and necessary. We can also use a ‘key word sentence’ to help us get in to the pronunciation we need quickly, in a real life situation.
English Pronunciation Training- Key Word Sentence. How does it work?
1. Choose a sentence or phrase that you know you can say really well. This means:-
• you say all the vowels in the words correctly
• you are making all the consonants lightly and aspirated enough for English
• you say it with the right stress and rhythm patterns- it flows well
• you use the right vocal tone and intonation ( for example the German vocal tone and pitch is much lower than that habitually used in English; or the intonation/pitch in English doesn’t go as high as that in Hindi when putting stress on a word in a sentence).
• you’re mimicking the accent or speech clarity you want exactly, with all it’s subtle elements. For example are you taking the /r/ sound out of the ‘or’, ‘ar’ and ‘er’ vowels in words for the British and Australian accent? Are you leaving the /r/ sounds in for the American accent? If you are leaving the /r/ in, is it the correct /r/- your new /r/ sound and not your original one?
You may ask ” How do I know I’m saying it exactly as it should be said? I.e., whether you’ve ‘nailed it’?
Record yourself and listen really carefully to all the elements, and also note if it sounds like the accent you want.
2. As you go in to the situation you need it for, say this key word phrase or sentence to yourself aloud a couple of times to cue yourself in to the English pronunciation or accent you need.
Oh, and don’t forget to breath deeply, and then smile to relax yourself (and those you are going to speak to).
This is a great tool so use it. Let me know how it goes in the comments section below.
Best wishes, Esther
Click on a link below now, to learn about our accent reduction courses and start speaking more clearly.
Australian Accent
British Accent
American Accent
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NOTE: Some parts of this article are outdated. They will be updated once full-power tests have been completed. Please follow Samuli's user blog if you're interested in latest develoment in this project.
This reconstruction is based on analysis of the original Cheiroballistra text as well as available English editions of the cheiroballistra (Marsden 1971: 206-233; Wilkins 1995: 10-33). Ideas from a number of earlier scholars, especially Iriarte (2000; 2003), are utilized where they seem to make sense. Additionally I've used the manuscript diagrams available in Schneider's (1906) and Wescher's (1867) editions. Analysis of the archaeological finds is mostly based on the numerous publications of Baatz.
In this article and reconstruction I've made a few underlying assumptions and followed a few key principles:
• Pseudo-Heron's (P.H.) cheiroballistra text is assumed to be more or less complete. No parts are assumed missing, unless it's certain that the reconstruction can't work without them. If a certain component is not described in much detail, it is assumed to have been well-known to the ancient artificer reading the text or so simple, that it required little explanation.
• Archaeological finds are given preference to text in case of ambiguities. They are, however, only used to make design decisions where the text fails. Dimensions from archaeological finds are not used, even if they seem similar to those in the text.
• The goal has been to make the reconstruction fit the text, not vice versa. This principle is followed as far as reasonably possible. For a good example of this principle, see the discussion below about the tenons of the rungs in the little ladder.
• I do not try to hide problems in the source material or in my own theories. Therefore I've tried to make it clear what we really know and what is subjective. My goal is to make (constructive) critique as easy as possible, not to protect myself from critique by not mentioning the issues I've encountered.
The cheiroballistra text is a description of interrelated ballista components. Although the assembly instructions are very incomplete, the fact that parts must fit together helps a lot in making the reconstruction correct. If an incorrect change is made to dimensions of some component, it is likely that problems arise elsewhere. There are two possibilities to coping with this. The first option is what some scholars unfortunately seem to do: hang on to their assumptions and force the sources to fit them. For discussion of this issue see Iriarte's JRMES article (2000: 56-57). The second option is to question one's underlying assumptions and think "outside the box", trying to find the most logical explanation to the problem. I have tried to follow the second option according to my best ability. I've also tried to follow the principle of Occam's razor according to the best of my ability.
One big problem with the work of many previous scholars is that they have ignored the limitations of the metalworking techniques and tools used by the Greeks and the Romans. To arrive at a realistic reconstruction, these need to be taken into account. Again, there's a good example of this in the little ladder section.
The most useful cheiroballistra editions can be summarized as follows:
• Marsden's (1971: 212-217) edition and English translation. Does not contain any manuscript diagrams.
• Wilkins (1995: 5-59) edition and English translation. Contains most of the manuscript diagrams.
• Wescher's (1867: 123-134) edition and Latin translation. Contains many manuscript diagrams.
• Schneider's (1906: 142-168) edition and German translation. Contains photographs of many manuscript diagrams.
• My own English translation. While certainly not the best translation/edition there is, it's the only modern translation that's freely available on the Internet. Moreover, it's released under a Creative Commons License allowing it to be used and improved with very few restrictions. For availability of the other editions take a look at the bibliography page.
In addition, several articles discussing the cheiroballistra have been written. Most noteworthy is the Iriarte's JRMES article (2000: 47-75). His follow-up article published in Gladius (2003: 111-140) also contains useful information regarding inswinging ballistas, including the cheiroballistra. All articles of Baatz are very useful, because they contain descriptions and pictures of archaeological finds belonging to late-Roman cheiroballistra-style ballistas. As these archaeological finds clear up lots of the confusion in the cheiroballistra text, Baatz' contributions have been extremely valuable to the research.
Wilkins' JRMES articles (1995; 2000) and his small book, "Roman Artillery" (2003) require special mention. They should be used with caution for two reasons: Wilkins' decided to reconstruct his cheiroballistra as a winched weapon and as an outswinger. There are very little evidence supporting either of those interpretations, so the authenticity of Wilkins actual reconstruction is questionable. That does not in any way diminish the valuable contribution he made by making another English edition of the cheiroballistra and by interpreting some of the cheiroballistra's components in a way that stands the test of time. Also, Wilkins' versions of the manuscript diagrams are of excellent clarity.
The availability of these sources varies greatly. A few of them can be ordered or bought from the Internet. Some are freely available. Some are nearly impossible to obtain without some creativity and help from fellow enthusiasts or friends in world's most highly rated universities. This is unfortunate, as it greatly limits the people who can - in practice - study this fascinating subject. Take a look at the bibliography page for more information about the availability of the various sources.
Main controversies
Outswinger or inswinger
Archaeological finds strongly suggest that the cheiroballistra was an inswinger so I've reconstructed it as such. This issue has already been discussed in detail here.
Winched or not winched?
The cheiroballistra was almost certainly a personal weapon and as such did not have a winch. The reasons for this are discussed in detail on this page.
All measurements are in Greek dactyls (1,93cm). One Greek foot is 16 dactyls. The way dimensions are marked in the CAD drawings requires explanation:
• Dimensions which are clearly stated in the cheiroballistra text are marked in green. Even these dimensions may be suspect as it is not always clear what P.H. means by width, thickness, length and breadth. That said, the vast majority of these dimensions can't really be questioned.
• Dimensions which roughly know are marked in orange. These are the ones given in the text as "about x dactyls". This applies mostly to the slider width.
• Dimensions which are derivable from other dimensions are marked in magenta. These dimensions are not stated in the text, but can be calculated from dimensions of other parts. This applies especially to thickness of the field frame bars, which are referred to throughout the text.
• Dimensions which are entirely subjective and not given in text are marked in red. These dimensions are the ones which have allowed scholars to reconstruct the cheiroballistra as a winched weapon without amending the text too heavily.
In the few cases where the clearly stated or roughly known dimensions have been amended, the following notation has been used:
• X d (Y d)
• X d (Y d)
Where X is the amended measurement and Y the original measurement stated by P.H.
Overview of the cheiroballistra
The contents of this section have been taken from my article "The cheiroballistra - Producing a viable weapon based on historical manuscripts, archaeological finds and experimentation" (Seppänen 2014). An outline drawing of the weapon is shown below:
320hz ballista overview 3 - small
Main components
The wooden case (1) forms the core of the weapon. The case has a female dovetail matching the male dovetail of the wooden slider (2). The rear-end of the slider has the triggering mechanism composed of several steel parts: the trigger (3), the claw (4), the fork (5), the pitarion (6), the handle (7) and a steel rod (8) The steel field-frames (9) and washers (10) made from bronze or steel house the sinew torsion spring bundles (11), through which the arms composed of wooden cones (12), steel bars (13), soft iron hoops (14) and wrappings (15) are inserted. The little ladder beams (16) are made from steel and held at a proper distance by wooden rungs and crosspieces (17). The little ladder is braced against the wooden projecting block (18) under the case and attached to the case with T-clamps (19) made from steel. The notches in tenons (20) in the little ladder beams are locked into the the field-frame bars inside the lower pi-brackets (21) and tightened using wooden shims and wedges (22). The field-frames are further stabilized by the little arch (23), the ends of which are inserted into the upper pi-brackets (24) and held in place by pairs of pins (25) and wooden wedges (26). The crescent-shaped piece (27) is attached to the end of the slider to serve as a stomach-rest during cocking. The bowstring (28) is inserted into the hooks (29) at the end of the bars.
Preparations for use
Each cord in the torsion spring is stretched using the winch in the stretcher. The power output of the weapon is directly proportional to the amount of pretension applied to the cords during this phase. Once the torsion spring bundles are full of cord, the arms are inserted between the two halves of the springs. The washers at the top and bottom of the field-frames are rotated against the direction of the arm rotation to increase tension further and to ensure that arms are rotated synchronously during pullback. Finally the washers are locked in place using pins (30) going through holes in the washer rim (31) and in the field-frame rings (32).
Using the cheiroballistra
The cheiroballistra is fairly simple weapon to operate. The trigger is first pulled from under the claw. The slider is then pushed forward, the claw locked to the bowstring and trigger pushed under the claw. This way the bowstring is locked to the slider. The slider is then braced against a sufficiently hard surface, and the operator pushes the weapon with his belly while simultaneously pulling the handle with both hands. This rotates the arms in the torsion spring bundles from their forward-pointing position, first towards the case, and then towards the operator, for an arc of 90-120 degrees. Once the slider has been fully drawn back, the handle is pushed through the steel rod attached to the case, so that the slider is locked into place. Finally a bolt is inserted into the groove (33) in the slider and pushed between the fingers of the claw against the bowstring. The cheiroballistra can be aimed accurately by bracing the left elbow against the hip and by placing the crescent-shaped piece behind the neck from the right side. The right hand is thus free to operate the trigger. Using this technique the weight of the weapon is actually an asset in that it stabilizes the weapon a great deal. The point of balance of the cheiroballistra, which is near the projecting block, also helps stabilize the weapon.
Cheiroballistra parts
Content moved to the Cheiroballistra case, slider and crescent-shaped piece article.
Crescent-shaped piece
Little ladder
Contents moved here.
Little arch
Content moved here.
Field frames
Content moved here.
Triggering mechanism
Content moved here.
Content moved here.
Assembling the components
Correctly reconstructing the cheiroballistra involves assembling the components so that they work perfectly together. If some of the individual parts are misinterpreted, problems almost certainly arise when assembling the components. Marsden (1971) and Wilkins (1995) encountered a number of these problems because they had arbitrarily changed various dimensions of the cheiroballistra. I've used the relationship and interaction of the components as a guide: if the components don't seem to fit together, there more likely an issue with the interpretation rather than the sources themself.
Alignment of the field-frame bars
Content moved to Cheiroballistra field-frames article.
Attaching field-frames to arch and ladder
Attaching the little arch
All archaeological field-frames have four Pi-brackets attached to the field-frame bars. We can say without a doubt that the cheiroballistra was an inswinger. We can also say with reasonable certainty how their field-frame bars were aligned. With some help from archaeological finds - especially the Orsova one - it's relatively easy to see the most obvious way to attach field-frames to the little arch (viewed from the top):
Attaching the little arch - top
The forked ends of the little arch pass through the Pi-brackets attached to the field-frame bars.
Attaching the little ladder tenons to Pi-brackets from outside of the bars
Unfortunately no remains of little ladders remain. In archaeological field-frames the lower pair of Pi-brackets is usually larger. One possible explanation for this is that their little ladders were made of wood. In cheiroballistra, however, the Pi-brackets are all the same size, so the little ladder was almost certainly made from metal similarly to the little arch. If we follow the example of the archaeological finds, the Pi-brackets have to be placed outside the field-frames. This means the tenons of the little ladder have to be spread out like this (top view):
Attaching the little ladder tenons to Pi-brackets outside the bars - top
There's probably no issue with this approach from structural perspective, but it means we have to make changes to the measurements P.H. gave us. This is the best point to discuss the critique Wilkins had against passing the little ladder tenons and the forked ends of the little arch through the Pi-brackets.
Wilkins (1995: 34) is correct in that the field-frame bars can't be made to fit neatly between the little ladder beams or the ends of the little arch. This is because dimensions given by P.H. are somewhat too small (see Marsden 1971: 215; Wilkins 1995: 24, 28). It is also true that both the arch and the ladder could have been simply made wider from the beginning, as Wilkins (1995: 34) says. That said, this problem becomes worse the thicker the field-frame bars are, and Wilkins' (1995: 20) bars were 9mm thick. In my reconstruction which has 4mm bars the gap in the little arch is only 0,34 d too small, which is easy to correct with a small bend. Also, as Iriarte (2000: 62) points out, it was impossible for P.H. to give an exact figure for the distance between forked ends of the arch, as it depended on the thickness of the field-frame bars which was left for the blacksmith (or engineer) to decide. In any case the little ladder is definitely too narrow: it should be 1d wider to fit over even my thin field-frames. However, as Iriarte (2000: 57-58) points out, the exact form of the little ladder beam tenons is unknown: this may be enough to explain the confusing dimensions P.H. gave us.
All this said, we can't ignore the most logical solution to the dimensions P.H. gave us: attaching the little ladder tenons to Pi-brackets inside the bars.
Attaching the little ladder tenons to Pi-brackets inside the bars
If we want to follow P.H.'s description closely, we have to make them slightly differently from the archaeological field-frames. This may be a lot to stomach for most scholars, but we should not forget that none of the existing field-frames belong to P.H.'s cheiroballistra. Therefore we can't take it for granted that it's field-frames were of the same kind. The easiest and most logical solution is to pass the tenons of the little ladder through a pair of Pi-brackets placed inside the field-frames. This option is shown in below diagrams, first from the top:
Attaching the little ladder tenons to Pi-brackets inside the bars - top
The green circle represents the diameter of the cord bundle. The same setup from the front:
Attaching the little ladder tenons to Pi-brackets inside the bars - front
If we place the lower Pi-brackets inside the field-frame all measurements fit perfectly, unless the spring diameter is arbitrarily increased (e.g. Wilkins 1995: 24). In fact, the width of the end of the little ladder beams is given as 1,25 d, and the width of the inside of the Pi-brackets as 2/3 d. This means that if we simply fold the ends of the beams along the long axis, they fit neatly inside the tenons (as shown above).
Even if the Pi-brackets are placed inside the field-frames, there's still a ~3mm gap between the the Pi-brackets and the torsion bundle before the arm is inserted. Experiments will show whether this is enough.
The only evidence against this interpretation comes from the manuscript diagrams, which definitely show both upper and lower Pi-brackets facing the same direction - away from the field-frames (see Schneider 1906: 154-115; Wilkins 1995: 18; Iriarte 2000: 54). The text itself does not state where the Pi-brackets are attached to (***reference***). This means that at this point we are forced to adjust the evidence to meet our expectations.
Whatever the truth is, Wilkins' use of little ladder's width as evidence against using the Pi-brackets for their most intuitive purpose does not sound very convincing (Wilkins 1995: 34).
Use of wedges
Most scholars seem to agree that wedges were used to bind the little arch, the little ladder, pi-brackets and field-frame bars together. Practical tests have shown that a pair of small wooden wedges per pi-bracket is enough to keep the little ladder in place during shooting. When aiming for maximum power levels pin or such may have to be passed through the wedges to prevent them from becoming loose in repeated shooting.
For the little ladder these two wedges are not enough by themselves. The problem is that the forces exerted upon the ladder are much greater than those affecting the little arch. The simplest way to fix this is to cut small notches to the ends of the little ladder tenons:
Little ladder tenon in place
The little ladder beams are bent outward during assembly, so that the notches snap into the field-frame bars tightly. After this a pair of wedges is hammered between the tenon and the pi-bracket to rigidify the construction. A small piece of hardwood could be beaten between the side of the tenon and pi-bracket would make this construction even stronger.
An elaborate wedge system such as that described by Iriarte (2000: 62) does not seem necessary.
Attaching little ladder to the case
The projecting block under the case supports the little ladder, preventing it from moving towards the operator during use. The role of the fairly light T-clamps is simply to keep the little ladder from falling of the case and possibly to keep it aligned sideways. This method of attaching the little ladder is not only very simple and intuitive, but it has also proven itself in practice. This does not mean that differing opinions have not been expressed in the past.
Wilkins (1995: 11) interpreted the block as an attachment point for the base whereas Marsden (1971: plates 7-8) ultimately ignored it. Both placed the little ladder close to the forward end of the case where it was not supported by the projecting block. This meant that the dimensions of the T-clamps had to be increased, because they had to bear the brunt of cocking the weapon. In addition, this soon lead both into issues with draw length: even when the arms were drawn to the maximum, the slider was not entirely pulled back. The only way to fix this issue was to lengthen the arms, which allowed longer draw length (Marsden 1971: 226; Wilkins 1995: 33). As the length of the "cones" or wooden portions was known, only the metal hooks could be lengthened without contradicting the text. However, lengthening the hooks beyond the cones is a bad idea for several reasons.
Below the little ladder, case and T-clamps from the side:
Attaching little ladder to the case - side
And from the front:
Attaching little ladder to the case - front
A few interesting things can be seen from these diagrams:
• There's no reason to change P.H.'s measurements (3d long, 1d wide) like Marsden (1971: 225) and Wilkins (1995: 35) did. Of course, both of these scholars assumed that the cheiroballistra was a winched weapon, for which small T-clamps were not adequate, especially when the T-clamps are not supported by the projecting block.
• The distance between T-clamps is given as 2.5d, probably across the case as Wilkins (1995: 29) assumed. This means that the edges of the T-clamps press against little ladder crosspiece, which thus provides additional support for them.
• If we assume that T-clamps don't project above the case, their width must be 0,5d.
Assembling the triggering mechanism
Content moved here.
Defining the initial arm angle
NOTE: This section is outdated. To see why, look at the Cheiroballistra arms article.
There are several factors that affect the draw length of the cheiroballistra. We know with relative certainty the location of cord bundles (see this and this) and the claw. It is also almost certain that the slider was fully draw back before the shot, and likely that the handle was pushed through a nail(?) in the case to keep it in place. This allow us to check if our assumptions about the cheiroballistra are even remotely possible. For example, if the bowstring can't be draw far enough to catch the claw, we have probably made a mistake somewhere.
The location of the bowstring at full draw depends on a number of factors:
• Arm angle at rest: determines the bowstring length
• Arm angle at full draw: determines when the bowstring movement stops
• Length of the arms: lengthening the arms increases the bowstring movement
Below is a set of diagrams illustrating this issue. First, inwinger with relatively limited arm movement:
Inswinger with small arm arc
Then one with a lot more arm movement:
Inswinger with large arm arc
And finally the maximum amount the cheiroballistra design can hope to achieve:
Inswinger with maximum arm arc
As can be seen, fully drawing back the bowstring is only possible if the arms rotate the absolute maximum amount, roughly 170 degrees. There's only one potential issue with this much rotation: the arm hits the curved field-frame bar at a ~60 degree angle when 90 degree angle would be safest for the bars.
Samuli.seppanen 17:05, June 19, 2011 (UTC)
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High Bill Complaints
Members may have concerns with electric bills especially during periods of extremely hot or cold weather. High bills are a direct result of usage. The primary contributor of power usage during the colder months is heating. Heating alone accounts for over 40% on average of power consumption during colder periods. For typical residential homes the weather and more specifically the temperatures are a key factor for higher bills.
Electric meters are tested and calibrated at the factory before CHEC installs a new meter for a member. It is physically impossible for a meter to turn without an electrical current or energy going through it. Power companies cannot push power through the meter. Power surges that can occur will make virtually no difference in usage. They typically last less than a second. If power is registered on the meter, it is being used somewhere. The process in determining the causes of high bills is to find where the current or energy is going. The energy will serve all electrical appliances in the home, but you must determine which ones are using the most energy. Appliances may perform exactly how they should, but could be running more often than one may think. There could also be problems with electrical appliances in the home that are causing them to use more energy than they should. This is not to say that there is never a time when something is wrong with Cookson Hills Electric’s meter. Electric meters in general are very accurate and reliable. Statistics have estimated that only 0.1% of meters, or 1 out of every 1000, that are tested will have something wrong with them or will be reading inaccurately. Of the 0.1% that are inaccurate, the majority of those will be reading too slowly as opposed to too fast. The contributing factors that cause them to read too slowly are worn gears, corrosion, moisture, and dust, as well as insects that cause friction in the mechanical meters causing them to spin slower than they should. Meters can be damaged, and while it is possible this damage could cause them to spin too fast, it is extremely rare.
Items to check and recommendations to assist members with high electric usage includes:
• Determine how many billing days are on your current bill. Electric bill billing days should be similar from bill to bill but can fluctuate a day or two.
• Look at the low temperature values for the billing period as well as the number of days with very high or low temperatures.
• Lowering your thermostat even a few degrees will impact your electrical usage.
• Heat lamps, space heaters, stock tank heaters, heat tapes, waterbed heaters, heaters for engine blocks for tractors/vehicles can have a substantial impact to electrical usage as well. If possible make sure they do not run continuously.
• Heat pumps:
• While heat pumps can be a very efficient and reliable way to heat and cool your home, they do not work as well during very low temperatures. Heat pumps generally use strip heat as a backup or supplement to the heat pump itself. During very cold times heat pumps will not run as efficiently because of strip heating so the usage will be higher than one might expect. If there is an emergency heat option on your thermostat and it is set to emergency heat, you are using strip heat exclusively and will not get any of the benefit from the heat pump itself. Using strip heat exclusively can cause extremely high electrical usage depending on the temperature settings and how long it runs.
• Check to make sure your heat pump is performing properly. Make sure the unit has proper refrigerant levels, clean coils, and that your filters are clean.
• A programmable thermostat can aid in reducing electrical consumption by adjusting the temperature automatically when you are gone and when you are at home during winter or summer months.
• In some extreme circumstances a heat pump could be wired incorrectly and be cooling when it is supposed to heat. This may cause the strip heat to come on more frequently to heat the home.
• Electric hot water heating can account for up to 20% of your total electricity use. Leaks, bad thermostats as well as heating elements that have failed can increase your electricity use. Lowering the temperature on electric hot water tanks can help lower your electrical usage.
• Turn off the main breaker to your home as well as any other breakers the meter is serving. Check to make sure the meter is not turning. If it is still turning this can indicate a problem with any underground service conductors that are serving the home or other installations (barn, shop, well, etc.)
• Keep in mind that many electronics (computers, TVs, etc.) will still consume power even when they are turned off. They can go into standby mode.
• Lifestyle changes can have a drastic effect on electric bills. Kids returning home, or friends or relatives staying with you can have an effect. Adding or using electrical appliances such as tools, pumps, additional refrigerator or freezer, or anything with an electric motor will affect usage.
• CHEC does offer an Average Monthly Payment Plan to qualified applicants. This payment plan uses an average of your previous 12 month billing. This takes most of the fluctuation out of your electric bill. Your bill will fluctuate but typically by only a few dollars. This can help with budgeting for your electric bill.
• Adding insulation and energy efficient windows will help make your home more energy efficient. Also make sure no duct work has separated in your attic. This can cause your heat pump to run much longer due to much of the hot or cold air blowing directly into the attic. Also, if you live in a mobile home, check the duct work underneath to ensure the duct work is still intact.
• To help determine where most of the electrical power is going, turn off all your breakers in the panel except the main breaker. Turn on each individual breaker one at a time and see if the meter is spinning faster. When you turn on a breaker that makes a substantial change in the speed of the dial, this will signal the circuit that should be checked. You will need to be sure you leave on all the electrical appliances that you normally use. This will help you determine your high usage appliances or circuits.
• CHEC also has a free app called SmartHub. SmartHub will allow you to check your kWh usage yearly, monthly, or daily as well as hourly. It will also overlay temperatures for the time periods that are selected. The hourly report can help determine what times of the day your usage is the greatest. This can help narrow down specific electrical equipment being used during those times, and if possible adjustments can be made.
As always please feel free to call CHEC at 1-800-328-2368 to discuss any concerns you have with your electric bill. We are willing to help and assist in any way possible. If after examining your usage/equipment as well as speaking with CHEC, and you still feel there is something wrong with your meter, you can request to have it sent in for testing. The meter is sent to an independent meter testing facility, and a report is provided. If the meter test is within acceptable industry standards, you will be charged $25 for the test. If the test results indicate the meter was not in compliance, CHEC will pay for the test.
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Overview and SymptomsCauses and RisksNatural RemediesLifestyle RxMessage of Hope
Types of Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or IBS, is a disorder of the digestive system which affects approximately 1 out of every 6 people in the US (and about 1 out of every 2 in Mexico). IBS is not a disease, though its symptoms are similar enough to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis that IBS is sometimes confused with other serious gut problems. Scientists are not entirely sure why IBS occurs. Sometimes it results after an infection. There may be other reasons that IBS develops in people who haven’t recently had an infection, but at this point no one knows what they are. IBS is twice as common in women as in men, and again, no one knows exactly why.
For a condition to be diagnosed as IBS, it must be present for at least three days out of the month for at least three consecutive months. This means that IBS can be a very minor condition. In some patients it doesn’t cause much hassle, while in others it is a daily, chronic, and debilitating condition. There are several different types of IBS.
• IBS-C — This is IBS which is characterized by constipation. There may be other digestive annoyances present, but the majority of the time, constipation will plague patients with this condition, and not diarrhea. That or the constipation will be significantly more severe than the diarrhea.
• IBS-D — This is IBS which is characterized by diarrhea. There may be other digestive problems (including constipation), but on the whole, diarrhea will be present most of the time and not constipation, or it will be noticeably more severe.
• Alternating C/D IBS — This refers to a type of IBS which is characterized by diarrhea and constipation alike, but spread out across longer time periods. For example, you might have constipation issues for several weeks or months, and then switch to diarrhea problems for several weeks or months.
• IBS-M — This refers to “mixed” IBS symptoms. It’s like the alternating C/D type of IBS, only the alternations happen much more quickly. Instead of having constipation or diarrhea for weeks or months before you switch, the switch could occur in a matter of hours or days.
In addition, you could place post-infectious IBS in a separate category as a type of IBS, though it may take any of the forms above (IBS-C, IBS-D, Alternating C/D IBS, or IBS-M). Post-infectious IBS is IBS that shows up only after you’ve had an incidence of food poisoning or a viral infection. You can think of it as a kind of “scar” which you retain after the infection. The initial infection is (usually—it’s important to check and make sure) dead, but some of its effects can linger for months or years. It’s not that your body is still compromised by the virus or bacteria or parasite, but your body still behaves as though it is.
Will My IBS Go Away?
Because IBS is so poorly understood, doctors don’t definitively know how to cure it. Some people have IBS for the rest of their lives, though even in these cases it is usually possible to treat it and reduce the severity of the symptoms. Determining which type of IBS you have can set you on the right track as far as dieting recommendations and natural balancing of the gut are concerned. Many people do make a full recovery from IBS. Finding a diet which is kind to your system, exercising regularly, taking fiber supplements and system/condition supplements specifically targeted at the issue (like Healthy Bowel Support or IBS Support Botanicals) can help. So can de-stressing. Anxiety can feed into IBS, so do your best to be optimistic and relax and carry on. That will make it more likely that with good nutrition you will make a full recovery.
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Study: Bias in science distorts scientific literature, clinical trials and misleads public
The authors of this study shrink from describing bias in science as “willful fraud” — we don’t.
The media release is below.
Bias pervades the scientific reporting of animal studies
Testing a new therapeutic intervention (such as a drug or surgical procedure) on human subjects is expensive, risky and ethically complex, so the vast majority are first tested on animals. Unfortunately, cost and ethical issues constrain the size of animal studies, giving them limited statistical power, and as a result the scientific literature contains many studies that are either uncertain in their outcomes or contradictory. A way around this limitation has been to conduct a “meta-analysis”: scientists collect data from a large number of published studies on the same intervention, combine them using sophisticated statistical methods, and then end up with a much more solid basis on which to decide whether to proceed with human clinical trials.
In the new study, Konstantinos Tsilidis, John Ioannidis and colleagues at Stanford University examined 160 previously published meta-analyses of animal studies looking at potential treatments for a range of serious human neurological disorders (multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and spinal cord injury). These meta-analyses covered 1000 original published animal studies comparing more than 4000 sets of animals. The authors’ “meta-analysis of meta-analyses” used the most precise study in each meta-analysis as an estimate of the true effect size of a particular treatment. It then asked whether the expected number of studies had statistically significant conclusions. Alarmingly, the authors found that more than twice as many studies as expected appeared to reach statistical significance.
The authors suggest that rather than reflecting wilful fraud on the part of the scientists who conduct the original studies, this “excess significance bias” comes from two main sources. One is that scientists conducting an animal study tend to choose the method of data analysis that appears to give them the “better” result. The second arises because scientists usually want to publish in higher profile journals; such journals tend to strongly prefer studies with positive, rather than negative, results. Many studies with negative results are not even submitted for publication or, if submitted, either cannot get published or are published belatedly in low-visibility journals, reducing their chances of inclusion in a meta-analysis.
It is likely that the types of bias reported in the new PLOS Biology paper have been responsible for the inappropriate promotion of treatments from animal studies into human clinical trials. It also seems unlikely that this phenomenon is confined to studies of neurological disorders; rather this is probably a general feature of the reporting of animal studies.
The authors suggest several remedies for the bias that they have observed. First, animal studies should adhere to strict guidelines (such as the ARRIVE guidelines) for study design and analysis. Second, animal studies (like human clinical trials) should be pre-registered so that publication of the outcome, however negative, is ensured. Third, availability of methodological details and raw data would make it easier for other scientists to verify published studies.
One thought on “Study: Bias in science distorts scientific literature, clinical trials and misleads public”
1. This kind of thing is going to continue, UNTIL…..
Science can afford itself using it’s own funding sources. An independent “Congress of Science” (NGO of some kind) should be formed to take up and solve three items in order to save itself for the politicians who are co-opting it, and it’s products, through a system of Grants.
1. Who is a Scientist? (you can’t just let some smoe dawn a smock and call themselves a “Scientist”, i.e. a loaded to term designed to denote authoritative conclusions)
2. A Scientist must be re-certified occasionally so that a Pseudo-Scientist can’t gain the label, then wax political under it’s auspices, and thereby game the public again and again again.
3. Fund yourselves! Politicians are mostly lawyers. Lawyers hire “expert witnesses” to provide testimony at trials in order to convince juries that their client is correct. They don’t BUY expert witnesses that help the adversary’s attorney win, THEY BUY ANSWERS THAT HELP THEMSELVES WIN….!!! Having come to Congress, why would they do anything different?!??!!?? They BUY the Scientist that produces the answer they want to utilize and they do so with Grant money taken from the public under the threat of arrest. The “scientists” that accepts the money, DO NOT WANT TO WORK for Corp, they want to stay at the university where it’s safe and warm, and where they are comfortable with the way things work.
THAT IS NOT SCIENCE….. THAT…. Is Politics…. If the western world is to pull out of this mess, THIS PROBLEM MUST BE SOLVED….
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A Report on the Adverse Effects of Mining to the Environment
by Arvind-8A
Extraction is the removal of minerals from the ground through mining. Mining is generally very destructive to the environment.
In order to mine and extract minerals, the top layer of soil needs to be removed and the trees need to be cleared and burned. This leads to deforestation and soil erosion and a loss of habitat for animals. Some harmful chemicals are used for extraction of minerals like mercury mercaptyane which are
hazardous and dangerous to the environment by polluting the land and nearby water bodies. Some ways of mineral extraction such as hydraulic use great amounts of water resulting in overuse and pollution during the process.
When the extraction process is done, land is left undone (in the case of underground mining and some methods of surface mining) and cannot be used for cultivation neither for any other purpose and therefore, this land becomes a cultivatable wasteland.
During the disposal of minerals, many harmful ingredients are thrown into the land and nearby water bodies in turn polluting them. Disposal of heavy metals such as lead into the atmosphere can cause serious health issues which can go up to mental retardation and other effects.
Sometimes during underground mining, the mine collapses leading to economic loss, loss of people and the environment. Some mining methods can also crack river beds leading to the change in river flow.
Therefore extraction, mining, and disposal of minerals needs to be taken care of and these resources need to be conserved and used judiciously.
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Zigadenus, Zygadenus
North American and African genus of the Liliaceae family. There are many species, some of them toxic some not. The toxins in the plants are steroid alkaloids of the veratrum group. Poisoning is characterized by salivation, vomiting, tachycardia, weakness, prostration and dyspnea. Death may occur within a few hours or not for a number of days. The list of toxic plants includes Z. chlorantus, Z. densus, Z. elegans, Z. fremontii, Z. glaberimus, Z. glaucus, Z. gramineus, Z. leimanthoides, Z. nuttallii, Z. paniculatus, Z. venenosus. Called also death camus.
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Ximenez - what does Ximenez surname mean?
Recorded in several spellings including Gimeno, Jimeno, Jimenez, Gimenez, and Ximenez, the latter being the original form, this is Spanish surname but almost certainly of Romano-Greek and Hebrew origins. Its similarity with the ancient pre-Christian names Siminius and Simos, which combined together to produce the `modern` Simon, is too close for coincidence. In addition for many centuries upto the year 410 a.d. the Spanish peninsula was an occupied area of the Roman Empire, and many Spanish and Portuguese given names and surnames originate from this period. However there is a possibility that the name may derive from a local origin, as is claimed by certain directories. The Hebrew `Shimon` translates as `to harken`, whilst the Greek `Simos` means `the snub nosed one`, and somehow over the centuries the two became combined. Early examples of the recordings taken from authentic church registers of the various periods include Ximenez de Pastrana, at Berbinzana, Navarra, Spain, on March 5th 1576, and Rosa Gabriel Jimenez at Nuestra Senora de la Antigua, Valladolid, on April 5th 1596. Francisca Gimenez married Elicia Garcia de la Pena at Jarandilla, Cerceres, Spain, on November 19th 1621, and on June 24th 1906, Eligia Jimenez married Isabel Tagles at Azusa, Los Angeles, California. The blazon of the coat of arms is a blue field, a single tower on a mount proper, between two gold fleur de lis. In chief a silver cross flory. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Christobal Ramirez Ximenez, which was dated July 1st 1537, born at the city of Seville, Spain, during the reign of King Charles 1st of Spain, Emperor of Mexico, 1516 - 1556. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to `develop` often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.
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Adult Sabbath School Lesson Study Outlines
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Lesson 12: John's Letter to the Chosen Lady *
Introduction: "Truth" is not a valued commodity today - at least in the United States. The media and the educational system confuse tolerance with truth. God teaches us tolerance through His example of allowing sin to run its course. But, God never confuses tolerance with truth. When it comes to salvation, John teaches us that there is one truth, not many different beliefs that are "true" for the individual who holds them. Instead, John has some hard advice on supporting those who teach something other than objective truth. Let's dive in to our study of the Bible and learn more!
1. The Lady and Her Children
1. Read 2 John 1:1-2. John is the "Elder." Do you think he knows the "chosen lady?" (Yes. This would be someone (or some group) who would know that John was the "Elder.")
1. Who is the lady? (John also wrote Revelation in which he refers ( Revelation 12:1)to the true church as a woman. Perhaps this is a church. It could also be a prominent woman. Since this is how the Greeks would translate the name "Martha," this could also refer to a woman named Martha. We just don't know.)
1. Does it matter whether John is writing to a church or to a specific woman? (Since John refers to "her children," we know he intended his words for a group, so I do not think this matters.)
2. Does the letter say how this lady was chosen? (No.)
1. How do you think she was chosen?
2. Does John mean "chosen of God?" (I'm sure she was chosen by God, but I doubt that is what John means. Presumably they were all chosen by God. According to Wuest's Word Studies, this term in Greek is the feminine form of the Greek word meaning "lord, master." So, if John is referring to an individual, this could be a prominent member of society.)
3. John keeps repeating the word "truth." Why would John say he loves her in the "truth?" Are honest people more lovable? Don't we tend to love rogues? (When someone has a world-view like yours, you feel a kinship to them. We feel close to those who share our spiritual views. As we will see later, John values those who know the truth.)
2. Read 2 John 1:3. Would you like "grace, mercy and peace? (Sure.)
1. Who is giving those things? (John tells us that God the Father and Jesus are the source of these blessings on us.)
2. Do they come automatically? Why does John write "will be with us in truth and love?" (God's grace, mercy and peace come to those who stay in the truth. They experience the special love of God. God shows love to everyone, but He has special regard for His faithful followers.)
3. Did Jesus make peace for us with the Father? (Jesus reconciled a Holy God with sinners (like us) when He covered us with His blood. See Colossians 1:19-20.)
2. The Children
1. Read 2 John 1:4. If you have children, are all of them walking in the truth? Does this lady have a familiar situation, not all her children are walking as they should? (Perhaps that is what it means. It could also mean that John has come across some of her children in his work and those he has seen are walking in truth.)
1. How important is it to walk in the truth? Does our salvation by grace mean that we can forget obedience? (John repeats a theme we learned from 1 John. Grace does not eliminate the requirement for obedience. God, John says, "commanded us" to walk in truth.)
2. Does it give you joy when your children walk in God's way?
1. What can you do if they do not?
2. Read 2 John 1:5-6. How long have we been required to walk in the truth? (From the beginning. Obedience is a requirement which has never changed.)
1. What is the connection between obedience and love? What is the connection between walking in the truth and love?(We show love to God and love to others when we follow God's commands.)
1. When your children obey you, does that show that they love you?
1. How about the reverse: if your children love you will they obey you?
2. Is this the answer to what we should do for children who are not walking in God's way - that we should show love to them?
3. Deceivers
1. Read 2 John 1:7. What is the issue on which deception is waiting? (Whether Jesus has come in the flesh.)
1. Why is this part of our belief so important? (This is the incarnation - God took human form and lived with us. Understanding that Jesus was fully God and fully human is essential to a Christian's understanding of salvation. Our Creator lived a perfect life on our behalf. When He died in our place, we symbolically died with Him. When He rose from the grave, then we were given the opportunity for eternal life.)
2. Is this why John kept talking about the "truth" in the beginning of his letter?
2. Read 2 John 1:8. Can we lose our salvation? Or, is it "once saved, always saved?" (We can lose out.)
1. Why does John refer to our salvation as something for which we "worked." Something for which we may "be rewarded fully?" That hardly sounds like grace! (John believes in righteousness by faith. 1 John 2:1-2. It is a free gift from Jesus. But, John also teaches that we must walk in the light. 1 John 1:7. He teaches us that if we truly know God, we will want to obey God's commands. 1 John 3:4-6. It is work to obey. It is a work which we must undertake - and for which we will apparently be rewarded.)
3. Read 2 John 1:9. Notice the phrase "runs ahead." Generally, those at the head of the race win. Why would running ahead be a bad thing? (We see this all the time. The "smart guys" have some new light. They have some "progressive" understanding that we never had before. Beware of this kind of teaching. If it denies the incarnation of Jesus, then it is false teaching.)
4. Read 2 John 1:10-11. Almost all churches have the issue of whether their seminary (and their colleges) have professors which teach doctrines contrary to the teachings of the church. What does John suggest about this? (We should tell them to teach somewhere else. We should not take false teachers "into our house" or "welcome" them. Why? Because then we "share in [their] wicked work.")
1. What about academic freedom?
2. What about the importance of the academy to explore new knowledge and understanding? (I doubt John is against study and learning. He is against aiding false teaching. When this becomes clear, we need to avoid supporting false teaching.)
4. E-Mail
1. Read 2 John 1:12. Would John want to use e-mail instead of paper and ink? Is John "green?"
1. What is John's goal in meeting face-to-face? (It will bring joy. There is something about personal meetings that is much better than writing. Years ago, my wife suggested the household rule that I have her check all of my e-mail to church members before I sent it. Why? I would be joking about something and members would take it seriously and be insulted. When we meet face to face, it helps to avoid misunderstandings.)
2. Read 2 John 1:13. Does this suggest the "chosen lady" and her "chosen sister" are churches? (I tend to think they are churches, perhaps house churches, rather than just a person.)
3. Friend, have you accepted the truth that Jesus came in the flesh, died on your behalf, and rose from the dead so that you might have eternal life? What a wonderful teaching, what a wonderful promise! If you have not accepted it, why not give your heart to Jesus right now?
5. Next week: Power Struggle.
© 2017 Bruce N. Cameron, J.D.
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Clipper Route
There are three main sailing routes to Australia from Britain. For most of the 1800s, gold diggers and migrants to Australia sailed to Australia on a route via the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The ‘clipper route’ ran from west to east through the Southern Ocean and made use of the strong prevailing winds of the Roaring Forties (waters between 40 and 50 degrees south). Sailing ships took up to four months to complete the journey. However, specially designed clippers such as the Cutty Sark could complete the trip in just over ten weeks. The clipper route was very dangerous and ships had to battle storms, fierce winds, huge waves, and icebergs. Conditions on board were appalling, particularly for passengers in steerage on the lower deck where the cargo was stored. As many as one in five children, and one in 60 adults died before reaching Australia.
Suez Canal Route
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 presented an alternative route to Australia. P&O and Orient Line steamers started using the new route to deliver mail to Australia. However, it was a few decades before steam ships were able to make it all the way to Australia under their own steam.
By the time Ten Pound Poms started emigrating to Australia on migrant ships the route via the Suez Canal had become hugely popular. This allowed the Ten Pound Poms to make some exciting and memorable stopovers in Egyptian, Indian and Sri Lankan ports before crossing the equator and setting course for Australia. Initially, it took around five weeks to complete the passage. The length of the journey was shortened as ships became faster and more powerful.
England to Australia via Suez Canal
England to Australia via Suez Canal
The first port of call in Australia was Victoria Quay in Fremantle, Western Australia. Ships then sailed the length of the south coast of Australia through to Adelaide, Station Pier in Melbourne, Circular Quay in Sydney, before heading up the east coast to Brisbane.
Panama Canal Route
An alternative route had to be found when the Suez Canal was closed during the Suez Crisis (1956-1957) and following the Arab-Israeli wars (1967-1975). Ships reverted to using the old clipper route via Lisbon and around the Cape of Good Hope. The other option was to cross the North Atlantic Ocean and go through the Panama Canal in Central America.
England to Australia via Panama Canal
How did you travel to Australia? Tell us about your journey and share your photos in the Ten Pound Pom forum.
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Researchers creating assistant that whispers directions in your ear
Carnegie Mellon scientists working on Gabriel, a cognitive assistant
listen phonograph dog hear
Credit: flickr/Beverly
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are working on artificial intelligence software that could one day act like a personal assistant, whispering directions to get to a restaurant, put together a book shelf or repair a manufacturing machine.
The software is named Gabriel, after the angel that serves as God's messenger, and is designed to be used in a wearable vision system – something similar to Google Glass or another head-mounted system. Tapping into information held in the cloud, the system is set up to feed or "whisper" information to the user as needed.
At this point, the project is focused on the software and is not connected to a particular hardware device.
"Ten years ago, people thought of this as science fiction," said Mahadev Satyanarayanan, professor of computer science and the principal investigator for the Gabriel project, at Carnegie Mellon. "But now it's on the verge of reality."
The project, which has been funded by a $2.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation, has been in the works for the past five years.
"This will enable us to approach, with much higher confidence, tasks, such as putting a kit together," said Satyanarayanan. "For example, assembling a furniture kit from IKEA can be complex and you may make mistakes. Our research makes it possible to create an app that is specific to this task and which guides you step-by-step and detects mistakes immediately."
He called Gabriel a "huge leap in technology" that uses mobile computing, wireless networking, computer vision, human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence.
Satyanarayanan said he and his team are not in talks with device makers about getting the software in use, but he hopes it's just a few years away from commercialization.
"The experience is much like a driver using a GPS navigation system," Satyanarayanan said. "It gives you instructions when you need them, corrects you when you make a mistake and, most of the time, shuts up so it doesn't bug you."
One of the key technologies being used with the Gabriel project is called a "cloudlet." Developed by Satyanarayanan, a cloudlet is a cloud-supported data center that serves multiple local mobile users.
Cloudlets can be set up close to users, located, for instance, on a cell tower or in an office building or manufacturing planet. Their close proximity to users makes them just one wireless hop away.
By "bringing the cloud closer," cloudlets reduce the roundtrip time of communications from the 70 milliseconds typical of cloud computing to just a few tens of milliseconds, or less, according to Carnegie Mellon.
Right now, researchers are working to improve the computer vision and location sensing needed for the project.
The first applications are expected to focus on specialized tasks, such as repairing an industrial machine, but ultimately the cognitive assistant should be applied to tasks such as cooking, navigation directions and performing CPR.
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The Effect of Acetylcholine on Muscle
author image Dean A. Haycock, Ph.D.
The Effect of Acetylcholine on Muscle
Close-up man flexing his bicep. Photo Credit XiXinXing/XiXinXing/Getty Images
Acetylcholine is a chemical messenger, a neurotransmitter, released by nerve cells in many parts of the peripheral nervous system. It controls the contraction of all skeletal or voluntary muscles, for instance. It also affects the contraction of smooth and cardiac muscle. Acetylcholine is held in synaptic vesicles in nerve terminals until an electrical signal causes its release onto a specialized portion of a muscle cell membrane equipped with receptors that recognize the neurotransmitter.
Where Nerve and Muscle Meet
Skeletal, or striated, muscle cells contract in response to input from the nervous system. A motor neuron contacts a muscle cell at a structure called a motor end plate. The muscle cell membrane contains nicotinic receptors that are sensitive to acetylcholine. These receptor molecules, made of protein, are concentrated where acetylcholine is released. The nicotinic receptor is a ligand-gated sodium channel. This means that when acetylcholine, the ligand, binds to a receptor, the receptor changes its shape in a way that lets sodium enter the muscle cell.
Acetylcholine’s Effect On The Muscle Membrane
The influx of sodium depolarizes the muscle cell in the vicinity of the motor endplate. Depolarization means the difference in charge between the inside and outside of the muscle is reduced. A different type of sodium channel, which is activated in response to depolarization, lets more sodium in and the wave of excitation spreads throughout the muscle cell. This leads to the release of calcium ions from storage sites inside the muscle cell. The calcium ions initiate a series of biochemical events involving troponin, tropomyosin and myosin that cause the muscle to contract.
Acetylcholine’s Effect On Smooth Muscle
Acetylcholine activates a different type of receptor present in smooth muscle: the muscarinic receptor. When this receptor binds acetylcholine, one result is the release of calcium ions from internal stores. Acetylcholine’s interaction with muscarinic receptors, as with nicotinic receptors, causes channels to open resulting in ion flow that depolarizes the muscle cell. As in skeletal muscle, the depolarization leads to muscle contraction.
Acetylcholine’s Effect On Cardiac Muscle
Like smooth muscle, cardiac muscle has muscarinic receptors. The effect of acetylcholine on cardiac muscle, however, is very different from its effects on skeletal or smooth muscle. In the heart, acetylcholine activation of muscarinic receptors causes channels in the muscle membrane to let potassium pass. This has the effect of slowing contraction of the heart muscle and making it beat with less force.
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Warm up
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Warm Up - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Warm Up. Imagine you woke up today and everyone above the age of 20 had disappeared. Name two things that you think might happen with the young people still remaining. Agenda Make Up Work/Tests Notes/PowerPoint WebQuest/ BookQuest Exit Quiz. Medieval Europe. “The Dark Ages”.
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Warm up
Warm Up
• Agenda
• Make Up Work/Tests
• Notes/PowerPoint
• WebQuest/BookQuest
• Exit Quiz
Medieval europe
Medieval Europe
“The Dark Ages”
Medieval europe1
Medieval Europe
• Dark Ages Intro
• What were some problems Europe faced during the Dark Ages?
• What event brought on the Dark Ages?
• What would eventually lead Europe out of the Dark Ages?
I fall of the roman empire
I. Fall of the Roman Empire
• A. The Byzantine Empire
• 1. The Byzantine Empire is the new name for the Eastern Roman Empire
• 2. The center of the Byzantine Empire is the city Constantinople
• Remember Constantine?
I fall of the roman empire1
I. Fall of the Roman Empire
• B. Justinian - Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) who nearly recaptured much of the land the Roman Empire once controlled
• 1. Created a set of laws which the legal system of Europe was based off of.
• a. Known as the Justinian Code
I fall of the roman empire3
I. Fall of the Roman Empire
• Why did the Roman Empire fall?
• What do you think happened to all of the areas the Roman Empire controlled after its fall?
• C . While the Roman Empire collapsed, the Christian church still remained and played a powerful role in Europe.
I fall of the roman empire4
I. Fall of the Roman Empire
• This is a picture of Charlemagne. Based on the picture, what can you tell me about him?
Charlemagne film
Charlemagne Film
• Charlemagne
• Who asked Charlemagne for help in the beginning?
• What were some of the accomplishments of Charlemagne?
• How did life during the Carolingian Empire differ from life in the Dark Ages (from the first video)
• What do you think happened after Charlemagne died?
Charlemagne film1
Charlemagne Film
• Charlemagne (shorter)
• Who asked Charlemagne for assistance against the Lombards?
• Why was Charlemagne able to defeat the Lombards?
• How do you think the Church might reward Charlemagne for his help?
I fall of the roman empire5
I. Fall of the Roman Empire
• D. Europe was split into many different nation - states which were ruled over by kings
• E. One such king was Charlemagne
• 1. Charlemagne – Brought Roman, German, and Christian ideas together in his large kingdom which ruled over much of Europe
• F. Once Charlemagne died, Europe was attacked by many different groups of people
I fall of the roman empire7
I. Fall of the Roman Empire
• F. One group of attackers were called Vikings
• 1. Vikings conquered lands in Britain and France
• 2. Vikings were made into part of European civilization once local governments helped to convert them to Christianity.
Warm up1
Warm Up
• All people above the age of 20 are gone. There are many gangs who go around robbing and killing people. Since you can’t get any guns yourself, would you be willing to provide a service (job) for a gang that does have guns so they can protect you? Why or why not?
• Agenda
• Notes/PowerPoint
• FinishWebQuest/BookQuest
• Feudalism Activity
• Exit Quiz
Feudalism film honors
Feudalism Film - Honors
• Monty Python Peasant Clip
• Why did the peasant not respect the king?
• What did the king do in response?
• What did the king say legitimized his rule? (In other words, why did the king say he was king?)
• Where are we seeing this kind of friction between ruler and people today?
Ii feudalism
II. Feudalism
• What was the name of one group of people that launched attacks on Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire?
• A. In order to seek protection from these attacks, most of Europe adopted a system called Feudalism
• B. Feudalism: System where those with money offered those with little money protection for their services
Feudalism film
Feudalism Film
• System of Feudalism
• Who was at the top of the Feudal system?
• What did the lords get from the king?
• What did the lords give the knights?
• What did the knights have to do in return for land?
• Who did the knights give land to?
• What did the serfs/peasants have to do in return for the knights?
Ii feudalism2
II. Feudalism
• C. Ranks in Feudalism
• 1. King
• 2. Lord - Ran an estate (piece of land) called a manor (or fief)
• 3. Vassalage– knights swore loyalty to a lord, who in turn took care of their needs (heart of feudalism)
• 4. Knights
• a. Practiced a code of honor, called chivalry
• 5. Peasants/Surfs
• a. These people were legally bound to the manor, which means they were forced to work there
Serf video
Serf Video
• Life of a serf
• What were the serfs responsibilities?
• Why were serfs bound to the land?
• Why do you think serfs were not allowed to be educated?
Warm up2
Warm Up
• The leader of your gang is abusing their power. Since you don’t want to kill them, a large group of you get together and agree to make them sign an agreement. What are two things you think you should include in the agreement?
• Agenda
• Notes/PowerPoint
• Magna Carta Activity
• Exit Quiz
Ii feudalism5
II. Feudalism
• Magna Carta Video
• What are some similarities between Medieval government and our government today?
• What are some differences between Medieval government and our government today?
• Who was the king of England who signed the Magna Carta?
• Why wasn’t he considered a good king?
• Why did he sign the Magna Carta if it limited his power?
• Did the people take a risk in making the king sign the Magna Carta?
Ii feudalism6
II. Feudalism
• D. Magna Carta (1215 AD)
• 1. Many people living under Feudalism began to dislike the fact that the king has so much power
• 2. Some nobles made one king sign a charter (agreement) recognizing the relation between the king and his people.
• 3. This document was one of the first to give people individual rights
• Can you think of another document like it?
Iii growth of european kingdoms
III. Growth of European Kingdoms
• A. Norman Conquest
• 1. William of Normandy – invaded and defeated England and was crowned king at the Battle of Hastings
• 2. The Normans spoke French, but after their culture mixed with the Anglo – Saxons (who spoke their own language), a new language was created, English
• B. Soon after the Magna Cartawas signed, English Parliament was created
• 1. Parliament – group of representatives that created laws and discussed problems with the king
• 1. Finish WebQuest, Feudalism and Map Worksheets
• 2. Grab a Magna Carta worksheet from the cart
• You do not need the book or internet, just your notes and your brain
• 1. Finish WebQuest and Feudalism Worksheet
• 2. Grab a Magna Carta worksheet from the cart
Warm up3
Warm Up
• The world is going through a tough time since all of the adults disappeared. Because of this, many people turn to God to make them feel better. Since you want to gain power, name one way you could take advantage of this situation.
• Agenda
• Notes/PowerPoint
• Worksheets
• Debate
• Exit Quiz
Iv medieval christianity
IV. Medieval Christianity
• A. Papal Monarchy (like a theocracy)
• 1. Some territories in central Italy were under the control of the church and known as papal states.
• 2. Because of this, the pope (the leader of the Catholic church) became a powerful political figure
Pope Benedict XVI
Iv medieval christianity1
IV. Medieval Christianity
• 3. Since the church was gaining power, nobles began to make their vassals high ranking members of the church.
• 4. This practice was known as lay investiture and it angered Pope Gregory VII
Catholic Priest Vest
Iv medieval christianity2
IV. Medieval Christianity
• B. Pope Gregory VII
• 1. Believed he was God’s representative on earth so his rule was higher than even kings.
• C. Henry IV, king of Germany, did not agree with Pope Gregory VII
• 1. Henry IV wanted to keep the practice of lay investiture so that he could keep the power over his lords.
• 2. In return, Pope Gregory VII excommunicates (bans from the church) Henry IV.
Iv medieval christianity3
IV. Medieval Christianity
• 3. In fear for his eternal life, Henry IV walked barefoot in the snow to Pope Gregory VII and pleaded for mercy.
• 4. Pope Gregory VII absolved (forgave) Henry IV and allowed him back into the church
• 5. This struggle was known as the Investiture Controversy
Iv medieval christianity4
IV. Medieval Christianity
• 1075: Pope Gregory Bans Investiture, but Henry IV invests a new bishop anyways
• 1076: Pope Gregory removes Henry IV as king
• 1077: Henry repents and is forgiven by Pope Gregory. Because of this German lords declare Henry IV dethroned and choose a new king (Rudolf). This sparks a civil war
Iv medieval christianity5
IV. Medieval Christianity
• 1080: Pope Gregory does not support Henry IV. So, Henry names a new Pope (Clement III)
• 1081: Henry wins the civil war
• 1084: Henry conquers Rome. Pope Gregory flees the city
• 1105: Henry is forced to give more power to the new pope he named (Clement III), which weakened his power.
Warm up4
Warm Up
• Because there aren’t any doctors, hospitals, etc. a terrible disease spreads through your region. 1 in 3 people die. Name two effects this plague might have on society, culture, politics, and/or economics.
• Agenda
• Notes/PowerPoint
• Worksheet packet
Bubonic plague
Bubonic Plague
• Black Death
• Where did the Bubonic Plague begin?
• What mammal spread the disease?
• How did it do so?
• Why do you think the Bubonic Plague called the “Black Death”?
• What was the percentage of people killed in the city of Florence?
• What (or whom) was believed to have caused the Bubonic Plague?
• Skip to Roman number VI (The Bubonic Plague)
Vi the bubonic plague
VI. The Bubonic Plague
• A. Known as the Black Death
• B. The plague was a very contagious disease spread by rats
• C. About 1 in every 3 people were killed from this plague
Vi the bubonic plague1
VI. The Bubonic Plague
• D. Economic Consequences
• 1. A shortage of workers caused a rise in the price of manufactured (man made) goods
• 2. Since so many people died, less food was needed. This lowered the price for food, which made farmers lose money.
Vi the bubonic plague2
VI. The Bubonic Plague
• 3. Many peasants asked their lords to pay rent instead of owing services. This helped to end feudalism
Bubonic plague1
Bubonic Plague
• Bubonic Plague Song
• How did the Bubonic Plague come to Europe?
• How was the plague spread?
• What were some of the effects of the Plague?
• How did the Church respond to the Plague?
Iv medieval christianity6
IV. Medieval Christianity
• D. The Inquisition
• 1. Church leaders wanted to defend the teachings of the Church from heresy (denial of basic church doctrines (beliefs))
Inquisition video
Inquisition Video
• Inquisition Torture Video
• Why did the Church begin the Inquisition?
• What kinds of people were sought out?
• What kinds of things were done to these people?
• What did the Church hope to gain from the tortures?
Iv medieval christianity7
IV. Medieval Christianity
• 2. The Church created the Inquisition (holy office) to deal with those who spoke out against the church.
• a. Inquisition - Court that developed a regular procedure to find and try heretics
• 3. Heretics were forced to repent (apologize and ask forgiveness) or face torture or death.
• Finish any work from the week (see board)
• Turn in work from yesterday if you haven’t already
• If you are done with EVERYTHING, grab a packet from the cart and complete that
• If you finish early, make sure your notebook is in order as we will be having a notebook check early next week (this is a TEST grade!)
• Illustrated timeline – Use the book or internet (look at my useful links) to find the dates. Make sure you read all of the directions!!
Warm up5
Warm Up
• Since the adults disappeared, your city is dirty, poor, full of crime, and its people are dying from a plague. Tell me:
• Why things are like they are, or
• What can be done to make things better
• Agenda
• Short Notes/PowerPoint
• Vernacular Activity
• Make up work!
Vernacular literature
Vernacular Literature
• Steve Harvey - Ebonics
• Is the way that you talk and the words you use with your friends and at home different than what you see written in books you read at school?
• Do you think this makes it harder to read and understand the textbooks?
• Who do you think should change, and why?
Vernacular film
Vernacular Film
• Vernacular
• The Renaissance was a rebirth of Greek and Roman ideas that eventually pulled Europe out of the Dark Ages
• What reasons did the narrator give for the start of the Renaissance?
• Why do you think these factors helped Europe to escape the Dark Ages?
Iv medieval christianity8
IV. Medieval Christianity
• E. Vernacular Literature
• 1. Most literature during the medieval ages was written in Latin
• 2. Starting in the 1300s, the Bible and other works of literature began to be published in multiple languages such as German, French, and English
• 3. This was called vernacular literature, or the language of every day speech.
• 4. This allowed common people who didn’t speak Latin to start to interpret the Bible and the world for themselves, instead of being told what to believe
Vernacular literature1
Vernacular Literature
• Ebonics and education
• What do you think about this teacher’s message?
• How do you feel when teachers correct your language?
• Do you think people sound less intelligent when using Ebonics?
• What is the difference between people living in the Dark Ages who couldn’t understand Latin and students today trying to get an education?
• 1. Finish your missing work
• 2. Finish Black Death packet (on cart)
• 3. Vernacular Literature assignment:
• Write at least 12 sentences summarizing what we’ve learned about the Medieval Ages so far
• Write (or type) these in your own vernacular, or every day speech
• (Cheesy) example: Alex da Great went hard, and trucked the Persians
• 4. Get your notebook ready for the notebook test next week.
Warm up6
Warm Up
• Your city is poor, full of disease, and led by corrupt leaders. You know of another far away city that is very prosperous. How can you get what they have?
• Agenda
• Notes/PowerPoint
• Classwork
• Exit Quiz
The crusades
The Crusades
• The Crusades
• Why did the Crusades begin?
• What was the goal of the Crusades?
• What was gained from the Crusades?
• How did the Crusades help Europe emerge from the Dark Ages?
Crusades song
Crusades Song
• The Crusades
• What was the goal of the Crusades?
• Where kinds of things happened to the Crusades?
• Did the Christians ever take Jerusalem from the Muslims?
• According to Christian standards of today, did it seem like the Crusaders acted in God’s favor? Why or why not?
• What were some results of the Crusades?
V the crusades
V. The Crusades
• A. Crusades – a war by Christians to regain the Holy Land from Muslims
• B. Christians captured Jerusalem (a holy city to Muslims, Christians, and Jews) in 1099
Crusades map
Crusades Map
• Map of the Crusades
• Which city did most of the Crusades travel to? Why do you think they went there?
• Which area did most of the paths of the Crusades pass through? Do you think that had a negative or positive effect on that area?
V the crusades1
V. The Crusades
• C. Muslims recaptured Jerusalem in 1187 but allowed Christians to peacefully visit the city
• D. The Crusades helped to break down Feudalism. Kings began to gain power as nobles sold their land to join the Crusades.
• E. This led to the start of new nation states such as Portugal, Spain, England and France.
• 1. Finish any work that you still owe
• 2.
Warm up7
Warm Up
• Many different groups from other cities are peacefully passing through yours on their way to and from the rich city. What are some advantages your city might attain (get)?
• Agenda
• Notes/PowerPoint
• Classwork
• Exit Quiz
Renaissance song
Renaissance Song
• Renaissance Man
• What were some of Leonardo da Vinci’s accomplishments?
• What did Dante write about?
• What were some other accomplishments of the Renaissance?
• Why do you think this might have brought Europe out of the Dark Ages
Vii the renaissance
VII. The Renaissance
• Renaissance means “rebirth”
• What was the renaissance a rebirth from?
• A. The Renaissance was a rebirth of Roman and Greek values.
• 1. Secular – “worldly” (not dealing with the church)
• 2. Humanism – the study of classical works of art and literature
Vii the renaissance1
VII. The Renaissance
• What kind of values came from Rome and Greece?
• B. This rebirth of ideas led to advancements in science and technology
Leonardo da vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
• Who is someone that is in inspiration to you (or others)
• Why do you think having people to look up to are important for society?
Vii the renaissance2
VII. The Renaissance
• C. Important figures of the Renaissance
• 1. Leonardo da Vinci – painter, sculptor, architect, inventor and mathematician
• a. Da Vinci showed that a single person could achieve much in their life and was an inspiration to others.
• da Vinci Glider
Leonardo da vinci1
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da vinci2
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo - http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html
Vii the renaissance3
VII. The Renaissance
• Christine de Pizan
• Female author during Renaissance
• Wrote books defending women
• Stated that women could achieve as much as men if given equal education
• What risks did she take by writing these kinds of things?
Vii the renaissance4
VII. The Renaissance
• 2. Niccolo Machiavelli – wrote a book on how to achieve and keep political power called The Prince
• 3. Dante – Wrote the Divine Comedy
• a. The Divine Comedyis about a person’s journey to salvation and includes the sections Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven
The renaissance
The Renaissance
• How did the Renaissance change Europe?
• What are some accomplishments of the Renaissance?
• Name a cultural aspect of the Renaissance
• Name a political aspect of the Renaissance
• Name an economic aspect of the Renaissance
• Name a social aspect of the Renaissance
• Why do you think the Renaissance was a turning point in Europe?
• 1. Finish any unfinished classwork
• Check your unfinished work slip
• Black Death packet and Crusades worksheet from yesterday
• 2.
• 3. Make sure your notebook is perfect for the notebook test next week.
Warm up8
Warm Up
• Tell me any two facts from the Renaissance (look in notes!)
• Agenda
• Finish unfinished classwork
• Medieval Project
Warm up honors
Warm Up - Honors
• Tell me any three facts from the Renaissance (look in notes!)
• Agenda
• Finish unfinished classwork
• Medieval Project
Medieval project
Medieval Project
• Task: You will be preparing a lesson about the Medieval Ages in a group of 2. You can pick from the following topics:
• Feudalism
• Magna Carta
• Byzantine Empire/Justinian
• Investiture Controversy
• William the Conqueror/Normans
• Crusades
• The Hundred Years’ War
• Black Death
• Inquisition
• Serfs/Peasant Life
• Renaissance
• Charlemagne/Frankish Empire
Medieval project1
Medieval Project
• Requirements: Your lesson must include the following (see the Lesson Ideas sheet or come up with your own):
• Introduction
• Do something to grab class’s attention and to introduce the topic. Should make it related to students’ lives.
• Instruction
• This is where you teach the class the objective and vocabulary they need to know. You may use a worksheet, do a class activity, etc (I will provide a list of activities that can be done or you can browse the internet to find your own)
• Assessment
• This is where you find out if the class learned what you were trying to teach. You may create an exit quiz, short answer quiz, or a short essay for assessment
Medieval project2
Medieval Project
• Teamwork Tips:
• One person can be responsible for the introduction and the other for the assessment. Work together on the instruction
• –OR-
• One person can be responsible for both the introduction and assessment, while the other is responsible for the instruction.
Medieval project3
Medieval Project
• Sample Objective:
• Feudalism (308-315, 334-341)
• Objectives:
• Students will be able to describe the ranks and duties of the Feudal System
• Vocabulary:
• chivalry, fief, vassalage, king, nobles, knights, serfs (peasants)
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Why Artist Gerhard Richter Destroys His Own Art
Gerhard Richter, one of the best-known German artists of the post WWII-era, has destroyed more than 60 of his completed works that he deems unworthy.
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
In the long arc of art history, we’ve become reluctantly accustomed to the devastating loss of cultural artifacts due to war and human misdeeds, natural disaster, and just plain unfortunate accidents. But what happens when the destruction is a conscious decision occurring at the hands of the creator himself?
Over the past several decades, Gerhard Richter, one of the most well-known and important German artists in the post WWII-era, has destroyed more than 60 of his completed works.
These were not newly finished pieces that failed to meet his vision or standards; in many cases, they were paintings that had appeared in exhibitions and shows—paintings that Der Spiegel estimates would now be worth around $655 million—before Richter eventually deemed them unworthy.
Richter was born in Dresden seven years before the start of the war. In 1943, a few years after his father was drafted into the army, his mother fled with the family to a smaller town in the countryside.
After Germany’s surrender, Richter struggled to find his place, failing out of school—including earning dismal marks in drawing—and jumping from job to job. While his apprenticeships as a sign and stage painter failed to hold his interest, they did help him to realize that his dream was to become a professional artist.
In 1951, for the first time since the war ended, Richter returned to the city of his birth to attend the Dresden Art Academy. “Everything had been destroyed. There were only piles of rubble to the left and right of what had been streets,” Dietmar Elger quotes Richter as saying in the book Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting.
Out of that rubble was born one of Europe’s greatest postwar artists. In the decades that followed, Richter built a career characterized by experimentation, rigorous practice, and high-minded exploration of the ideas guiding his work and the world around him. His style has ranged from photorealism to abstract and from somber grey pieces to colorful portraits and paintings.
In the early 1960s, after Richter escaped to West Germany ahead of the Berlin Wall’s construction, he began a series of photorealistic paintings in which he painted copies of black and white photographs onto large canvases using only a palette of grey. It was these canvases that took a major hit when he decided to cull his oeuvre in his 30s.
Among the lost was the painting Warship Destroyed by Torpedo, which featured a calm grey sea and sky punctuated by an explosive spray of water in the middle of the long, dark boat in the center of the canvas. The painting was featured in the artist’s first gallery exhibit in 1964.
There was also the 1962 painting of Hitler in grey and black that leans heavily towards the pop art styles Richter had been studying. Not only was it a foundational work in the early development of the artist, but it also was an historically important piece. Following the war, it became a taboo in Germany to address the events of the recent past; by painting Hitler, Richter refused to be silent and insisted on confronting the war and the dark stain that remained on the country.
These were just two of the more than 60 works that the artist condemned, telling Der Spiegel that “cutting up the paintings was always an act of liberation.” But it was also an effort to maintain tight control over the narrative of his career.
Richter’s destructive impulses did have one safety lever, so to speak. Before sending the works under his merciless box-cutter or into the flames, Richter took photos of most of the doomed pieces. These images have remained largely hidden away, unseen in his personal archive.
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While it is clear that the artist’s actions were deliberate, he wasn’t wholly without regret. "Sometimes, when I see one of the photos, I think to myself: That's too bad; you could have let this one or that one survive,” Richter told Der Spiegel.
This wasn’t the first time Richter had waged war on his own work. The artist told The New York Times Magazine that, after arriving in West Germany at the beginning of the 60s and starting a new art school, he furiously created over the next year.
It also wouldn’t be the last time. Richter has continued to make edits to his body of work since his early bouts of extreme self-criticism. A quick search of his official website-cum-catalogue raisonné turns up 89 works listed as “destroyed.” While some are early photorealistic paintings, many of these are the colorful abstract pieces he turned to in the 1970s and has continued to make ever since, toggling between the two styles.
Richter is hardly the first artist who has wiped out pieces of his own canon. He joins a long history of artists who haven’t been afraid to destroy where they saw fit, including Claude Monet, Robert Rauschenberg, John Baldessari, Jasper Johns, and Robert Frank. And, ultimately, that is their right to choose.
“What has been lost to art history through the destruction of [Monet’s] “Water Lilies” and of any number of works by any number of major figures is, of course, incalculable. Still, curators and scholars will be the first defend an artist’s right to self-edit.” Ann Landi wrote in Art News.
But one also can’t help but wonder what has been lost with the deaths of these works.
One of the most famous paintings to memorialize the September 11 terrorist attacks is Richter’s small, abstract canvas titled simply, September. While this canvas is now owned by MoMA and has been reproduced in countless publications and prints, the story has it that this painting was at one point destined for the flames. Either because of the artist’s change of heart or an investment that stayed his hand, September managed to escape.
The loss of the piece would have left a large gap, whether we had known of it or not. As Blake Gopnik points out in a 2011 piece in Newsweek, “When the world’s greatest living painter can’t do justice to his theme, can only render it as blurred and almost unseeable, you get a sense of its enormity. The impossibility of condensing such a subject into art, or into any final summation, is the true, great subject of September.”
If we get so much out of this one, small work, what are we missing in the pieces that weren’t so lucky? What secrets would they whisper about the artist’s work and what insights would they give us about our own lives and world? We will never know.
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Thoughts on the ‘upper brain’ and ‘brain tone’ – the self
I’ve always wondered about ‘neural centers’. This is the idea that certain areas of the brain are ‘centers’ for certain functions. The neurons in this area are geared and designed for a specific function. It seems that there is truth in this for the more basic functioning of the brain. The ‘centers’ seem very prevalent in what I’ll call the ‘lower brain’ – spinal cord up to brain stem.
When you get beyond the brain stem into the limbic system, basal ganglia, cortex, etc. -what I’ll call the ‘upper brain’ – there seems a whole new other process involved that is not seen in the ‘lower brain’. The ‘centers’ seem to disapper and replaced by a more generalized functioning where the brain works more as a unit. This is because the brain is more inteconnected. In fact, it always seemed to me that the ‘upper brain’ is most noted by its interconnections, and not by any ‘centers’. What I mean to say is that the ‘upper brain’ seemed to work more as a unit, a whole mass, not as individual ‘pieces’ with definate ‘centers’ that communicated with one another. The ‘upper brain’ is not like a phone system where point A is calling point B, but seems more like a mesh, an amalgemation of different things working together. In effect, the ‘upper brain’ is more like a homogenous unit and works that way.
This is not to say that the ‘upper brain’ does not have areas where certain functions seem dominant. These areas are there but they are not necessarily a ‘center’ for that function as they seem spread over a large area (that is, they are not as ‘centralized’ as in the ‘lower brain’). Damaging part of this area may not affect that functioning too much as the area around it may compensate for the loss. I call these the areas of ‘predominance’. These seem to be related to specific sensual/motor functioning especially, such as hearing and speech.
When it comes to overall behaviour it seems that the whole brain is used. When this happens I speak of it as ‘interconnected‘. This means that its various functions have to be spread over large amounts of the ‘upper brain’ and overlap and combine with areas around it. Any areas that involve a specific function tend to blend into the areas around it, like a blurring. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this overlapping blurring quality varies from person to person and as a person ages. So, an ability in one person may be predominately in one part of the brain. In another person, it may be on the other side.
Considering this, then, it seems that there are levels within the brain functioning which go something like:
– ‘Centers’
– ‘Predominance’
– ‘Interconnected’
You can see a spectrum going from specific (centers) to generalized (interconnected).
I have always felt that the biggest part of the brain, the ‘upper brain’, is big not because of all the supposed “abilities” its supposed to have but because of the complexity of the interconnection. The ‘interconnected’ aspect is, in some ways, the most powerful aspect of the human brain. Its this ability of being ‘interconnected’ that is the “great ability” of the human brain, in my opinion, not intelligence or social ability.
The ‘interconnected’ phenemena makes the brain very difficult to see how it all works, as its working over a large area and things can’t be pinpointed. Think of it: somewhere in all this white and grey mass of the brain, all our thoughts, emotions, hopes, dreams, fears, etc. lie!
A big aspect of the ‘interconnected’ phenemena is that it must be maintained. That is to say, the brain has to as if keep it running. In other words, the ‘upper brain’ requires a maintenence of ‘brain tone‘ much like muscle tone. Interestingly, this function seems to be centered in the ‘lower brain’ – the brain stem – which shows that it is a controlled function of the brain. In effect, the ‘upper brain’ is kept active (that is, given a ‘brain tone’) by the ‘lower brain’. It does not keep itself going.
This ‘brain tone’ seems to keep the brain open, ready, and willing to react to situations. It seems a continual activity of the neurons (that is, they are continually working). As a result, it keeps the brain aware and awake. This shows that the neurons can continually be firing without any sensation or activity taking place. Normally, we tend to think that if a neuron is ‘firing’ it is going somewhere to cause a reaction of some sort. The ‘brain tone’ shows that this is not the case. It reveals the fact that the neurons cannot be compared to a telephone line going from point A to point B.
This fact has made me speculate that the functioning of the individual neurons are not what’s important, nor where they are going necessarily (depending on where they are going). The ‘upper brain’ works because of all the cells working together in concert energizing this and that area. If this were true then the brain being alive is nothing but a continual awakening state created by ‘brain tone’, of a brain full of neurons continually firing.
This brings up some questions:
– Why would the neurons be continually working? As I said before, it puts the brain in a continual ‘ready’ stance. By keeping the brain ‘ready’, with the continual working of the neurons, it allows the organism to have an increase access to its abilities, knowledge, senses, etc. that is available.
– How can so many neurons be fired with nothing going on? This would suggest that there is a mechanism in the brain that allows reactions to happen. By this, I mean something controls the impulse so it will leave the ‘upper brain’. Otherwise, it would stay in the ‘upper brain’ as part of the continual neural action taking place there (the ‘brain tone’). In other word, there is an ‘inhibitory neural action’, or maybe its a ‘facilitary neural action’ or both, which controls any neural activity that leaves the ‘upper brain’.
This ‘brain tone’, in a way, is the framework for which the whole ‘upper brain’ works. It is the base for which the whole perception and reacting to the world is achieved.
This ‘interconnectedness’ allows the brain to, in a way, have an access to the whole experience of the brain – memory, thought, emotion, movement, etc. – allowing for an ability of great flexibility and versatility. This, in many ways, is one of the greatest strengths of the human brain, as animals brains tend to be more focused for certain behaviors and activity.
I often have this belief that the origins of the self originate with the ‘brain tone’, or the continual working of the neurons, which keep the brain in a constant alertness, wakefullness, and openness. This is because it is the basis for the organism to ‘sense’ that it is continually in the world. With the ‘brain tone’ the organism is aware and watchful. It sees itself in the world and looks about the world. As a result, it creates an image of the world, itself, and how it behaves in the world. This is the beginning of the self and the self in the world. If this were true then it would show that the self is a result of the working of the ‘upper brain’ and its ‘brain tone’ as an overall general process. Once this is developed, other aspects of the self, such as the social tendency (which seems dominant in the frontal lobe) ends up creating a perception of the self in society, expanding the sense of self. As a result, the self develops and grows. As it grows it uses more and more of the ‘upper brain’ which develops it and lets it grow.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A karate student wearing a karategi.
Karate (空手?) is a Japanese martial art.[1] It was developed in the former Ryūkyū Kingdom in what is now Okinawa Prefecture.
Karate uses all parts of the human body as a weapon such as the hand, fist, elbow, leg and knee. Karate training has three main sections:
• kihon (基本, きほん?) is learning the basic techniques or fundamentals;
• kata (形（型）?) is the training of form, the specific order and way of using techniques;
• kumite (組手?) is to learn how to fight using those techniques.
History of Karate[change | change source]
Gichin Funakoshi, a school teacher from the island of Okinawa, introduced Karate to mainland Japan in the early 1900s.[2] Traditional karate is different from boxing, wrestling and kickboxing: in karate, there is just as much importance on the strength of the mind and good manners as there is on strength of the body and self-defence to use when you're in trouble.
After World War II, Karate also became popular in Korea, where a local variation appeared, it is called "tangsudo".
There are many schools or styles of karate, including
Karate Clothing[change | change source]
Part of a series of articles on
Summer Sports
Track and field athletics
Football (soccer)
American football
Cycling·Auto racing
Field hockey·Handball
Horseback riding
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Swimming· Diving
Water polo·Sailing
Martial arts
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Tennis· Volleyball
Table tennis· Badminton
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Ice hockey· Skating
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Coloured belts for Karate.
When people practice Karate, they wear special clothes called a karategi. The karategi is made up of a white jacket and white pants. People who practice Karate also wear a colored belt, which tells other people their rank. The belt shows how long you have trained rather than how good you are. Two people wearing different colored belts can be surprisingly similar.
Related pages[change | change source]
References[change | change source]
3. Nussbaum, "karateka" at p. 483.
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How language restricts us
August 31, 2013
Words (Photo credit: Southernpixel – Alby Headrick)
Language restriction – It is quite interesting how language is made in order to facilitate our communication, but instead of facilitating it, it made our communication more difficult. Not only is there the problem of more languages, which make it impossible to understand everyone in the world, but also language in itself creates obstacles when we want to express ourselves, since our culture is different too. Our culture determines our language, that’s a fact. If I grow up in an environment where, for instance, a lot of cities can be found, a lot of my vocabulary will contain words which are related to cities. If I say something, it depends on my needs what I will say, and if I never see a city, there is no reason to use words which are related to cities. In this way, we can see how the words of different languages and countries have words which are related to their own country or culture. A good example is the Greenlandic language, which contains a lot of words related to fish. Now suppose that I will talk with an Inuit, an inhabitant of Greenland. Not only will I need to learn Greenlandic in order to communicate with people in Greenland who can’t speak Danish nor English, I will also have to learn their culture, which I can never completely understand. If I ‘m not brought up in a certain culture, it’s nearly impossible to be able to understand it, because as a child we make a connection with other people from our group and at a later age it get’s quite difficult to understand other people who lived in other ways. When we connect to other people, we always base ourselves on our own experiences, and in our similarities we can find things which we can use for our contact. If people have a certain same interest, they will use it to make a connection with eachother, not only in order to find out more about the subject which they like, but also to get a friend and a person who can help them in difficult times.
Sisimut, Greenland; Parkverbotsschild in Dänis...
Sisimut, Greenland; Sign which says that it’s forbidden to park in both Danish and Kalaallisut (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Asking a question – If I have learned Greenlandic, I ‘m able to communicate, but only the universal communication will be possible in communicating. Every language contains words and phrases which enable us to say things like: ‘How old are you?‘ and ‘What is your name?‘, but they don’t enable us to say: ‘I love you’. When we express ourselves literally, it can enable us to do this, but in that case we forget that our language is always connected to our feelings. Questions like ‘How old are you?‘ aren’t really connected to our feelings, they are pure factual questions which aren’t related to our subjective experience. Concerning our subjective experience, it is quite hard to express it in other languages, it would be better to say: impossible. Our subjective experiences are direct, and our most direct language is our first language. If we stumble and constantly have to hesitate about which words we have to use, it’s not possible to express ourselves, since expression constantly changes. If we feel something strong right now and we want to express it, we need to do that right now, if we hesitate about which words to use, we aren’t only restricted in expressing the feeling, but we are also already experiencing another feeling. Together with this, we could say that our thinking is related to our upbringing and our first language. Our first language is the language in which we think, and because our language contains a lot of words of things which it’s population is related to, our language determines the way how we think. If I grow up with the Greenlandic language, fish will be more important for me than if I grow up with, for instance Spanish. Although there might be countries or places in which Spanish is spoken where fish plays an important part in daily culture, it’s not as important as in a lot of parts of Greenland. That’s also the reason why people who grew up with Germanic languages can more easily learn other Germanic languages than a Slavic language, because the Germanic tribes are in fact all the same kind of people and the languages are quite similar to eachother.
Starting to speak, stopping to understand – Although we started to speak a language in order to understand our group, it stops in other groups. If I try to speak German with some person who lives in India, it’s quite obvious, unless he learnt German, that he won’t understand a lot. Maybe he will understand a word like ‘Vater’ (father), because this word is of Indo-European origin and is also present in some languages in India, but that’s as far as we can get and normal communication won’t be possible. We really have to learn eachothers language or teach ourselves sign language or just, as a last means of communication, try to make things clear with our body language. Even our body language creates problems, in Eastern Europe some gestures have a completely different meaning in comparison with Western Europe.
General understanding however, is a thing which we will always have in learning another language, and we will always make other people happy when we attempt to make something clear in their own language, thus in their own way of thinking. That is also the reason why people like it when another person speaks their language, not only because the person shows that he or she doesn’t restrict him or herself to his or her own language, but he or she also wants to try to think in the same way as the other and try to give some direct communication, which facilitates the communication for the other person. In that way it is always an advantage to learn other languages, although we can’t really express our emotions in the way we want.
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Easy way to understand how classification works without formula! no.1
Hello, I am Toshi. Hope you are doing well. Last week I introduced “classification” to you and explained it can be applied to every industry. Today I would like to explain how it works step by step this week and next week. Do not worry, no complex formula is used today. It is easier than making pancakes with fry pan!
I understand each business manager have different of problems and questions. For example, if you are a sales manager in retail, you would like to know who is likely to buy your products. If you are working in banks, you want to know who will be in default. If you are in the healthcare industries, who is likely to have diseases in future. It is awesome for your business if we can predict what happens with certainty in advance.
These problems look like different from each other. However, they are categorized as same task called “classification” because we need to classify “do” or “do not”. For sales managers, it means that “buy” or “not buy”. For managers in banks, “in default” or “not in default”. In personnel in legal service, “win the case” or “not win the case”. If predictions about “do” or “do not” can be obtained in advance. It can contribute to the performance of your businesses. Let us see how it is possible.
1. “target” is significantly important
We can apply “do” or ” do not” method to all industries. Therefore, you can apply it to your own problems in businesses. I am sure you are already interested in your own “do” or ” do not”. Then let us move on to data analysis. “Do” or “do not” is called “target” and has a value of “1” or “0”. For example, I bought premium products in a retail shop, In such a case, I have “1” as a target. On the other hand, my friend did not buy anything there. So she has “0” as a target. Therefore everyone should have “1” or “0” as a target. It is very important as a starting point. I recommend to consider what is a good “target” in your businesses.
2. What are closely related to “target”?
This is your role because you have expertise in your business. It is assumed that you are sales manager of retail fashion. Let us imagine what are closely related to the customer’s “buy” or “not buy”. One of them may be customers’ age because younger generation may buy more clothes than senior. Secondly, the number of overseas trips a year because the more they travel overseas, the more clothes they buy. Susumu, one of my friends, is 30 years old and travels overseas three times a year. So his data is just like this : Susumu (30, 3). These are called “features”. Yes, everyone has different values of the features. Could you make your own values of features by yourself? Your value of the features must be different from (30,3). Then, with this feature (30, 3), I would like to express “target” next. (NOTE: In general, the number of features is far more than two. I want to make it simple to understand the story with ease.) Here is our customer data.
customer data
3. How “targets” can be expressed with “features”?
Susumu has his value of features (30, 3). Then let us make the sum of 30 and 3. The answer is 33. However, I do not think it works because each feature has same impact to “target”. Some features must have more impact than others. So let us introduce “weight” of each feature. For example (-0.2)*30+0.3 *3+6, the answer is 0.9. “-0.2” and “0.3” are the weight for each feature respectively. “6” is a kind of adjustment. This time it looks better as “age” has a different impact from “the number of travels”against “target”. So “target”, which means in this case Susume will buy or not, is expressed with features, “age” and “the number of travels”. Once it is done, we do not need to calculate by ourselves anymore as computers can do that instead of us. All we have to know is “target” can be expressed with “features”. Maybe I can write this way : “target” ← “features”. That is all!
Even if the number of features is more than 1000, we can do the same thing as above. First, put the weight to each feature, second, sum up all features with each weight. Therefore, you understand how a lot of data can be converted to just “one value”. With one value, we can easily judge whether Susumu is likely to buy or not. The higher value he has, the more likely he will buy clothes. It is very useful because it enables us to intuitively know whether customers will buy or not.
Next week I would like to introduce “Logistic regression model” and explain how it can be classified quantitatively. See you next week!
Is this message spoken by human or machine?!
Firstly, could you watch the video ? Our senior instructor speaks about himself. It sounds natural for me, far better than my poor English. Then the question comes. Who speaks in reality? Human or machine? The answer is IBM Watson, one of the famous artificial intelligence in the world. When I listened to his (or her?) English, I was very surprised as it sounds very natural and fluent. I want to have artificial English speakers for a long time in order to develop self speaking apps. Finally, I found it!
This function is one of the new five services provided in IBM Watson Developer Cloud as beta service. Now it has 13 functions total. Here are new services.
1. Speech to Text : Speech can be converted to text in real-time basis. It looks good when I try to convert news broadcast into text.
2. Text to Speech : This is used to prepare the video message above without native speakers. It sounds natural for both male and female voices. English and Spanish (only male) are currently available. One of them is the American English voice used by Watson in the 2011 Jeopardy match
3. Visual Recognition : When you can input jpg image, Watson can identify what it is with probabilities. I try several images, however it looks less accurate than I expected so far. In my view it needs improvement to be used in applications.
4. Concept Insights : According to explanations in the company blog, the Concept Insights service links documents that you provide with a pre-existing graph of concepts based on Wikipedia. I think it is useful as it works beyond just using keywords in searching information.
5. Tradeoff Analytics : According to explanations in the company blog, it helps people make better choices when faced with conflicting goals and multiple alternatives, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. I think it has optimization algorithms in it. It may be useful to construct investment portfolios.
Watson can listen to speeches, read text and speak it. It also can see the image and understand what is to some extent. Therefore Watson can do the same thing as human do with new added functions. Therefore, in theory, mobile applications can obtain the same functions as people do, such as seeing, reading, listening and speaking.
IBM Watson Developer Cloud has a plan to add new functions as they are ready. Although they are currently beta service, its quality must be improved gradually as machine learning behind services learns a lot in future. It enables us to develop new services with artificial intelligence to be available in a short period. It must be amazing. What kind of services do you want? Maybe it will be available in near future !
Note:IBM, IBM Watson, the IBM logo are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide.
Mobile and Machine learning can be good friends in 2015 !
Number of mobile devices will be increasing drastically in the emerging markets in 2015. One of the biggest reason why it is increasing is that good smart phones are affordable because of competitions among the suppliers such as Google, Samsun and Xiaomi. It is good for people in the emerging countries because a lot of people can have their own personal devices and enjoy the same internet life as people in developed countries do. I hope everyone all over the world will be able to be connected to the internet in near future.
Not only the number of mobile devices but the quality of its services will be changed dramatically in 2015 because machine learning will be available for commercial purpose. Let us consider this change more details. The key idea behind this is “Shift from judgement by ourselves to judgement by machines”.
1. Machine Learning
Machine Learning has a power to change every industry. With machine learning, computers can identify certain objects in images and video, understand conversations with us and read the documents written in natural languages. It means that most of information around us can be interpreted by computers. Not only numerical data but also other kinds of information are understood by computers. This changes landscape of every industry completely. Computers can make business decisions and all we have to do is just to monitor it. It already happened in the field of assessing credit worthiness of the customers in banks many years ago. Same things will happen in all industries near future.
2. Data
In emerging markets, more and more mobile phones will be sold so that every person might own his or her device in near future. It means that people all over the world will be connected through the internet and more information are collected in real-time basis. In addition to that a lot of automobiles, homes and parts are also connected through the internet and send the information in real-time basis, too. Therefore we can realize when and where they are and what condition of each is in real-time basis. So maintenance for parts will be done as soon as it is needed and optimizations of resources used by people can be achieved as we can get such information in real-time basis.
3. Output
Output from computers will be sent to mobile devices of each responsible personnel in real-time basis. So there is no need to stay in office during working-time as we can be notified wherever we are. It raises productivity of our jobs a lot. No need to wait for notifications of outputs from computers in office anymore.
Yes, my company is highly interested in the progress of machine learning for the commercial purpose. I would like to watch it closely. I also would like to develop new services based on machine learning on mobile devices going forward.
What is a utility function in recommender systems?
Let us go back to recommender systems as I did not mention last week. Last month I found that customers’ preference and items features are key to provide recommendations. Then I started developing the model used in recommender systems. Now I think I should explain the initial problem setting in recommender systems. This week I looked at “Mining Massive datasets” in Coursera and I found that problem setting of recommender systems in this course is simple and easy to understand. So I decided to follow this. If you are interested in this more detail, I recommend to look at this course, excellent MOOCs in Coursera.
Let us introduce a utility function, which tells us how customers are satisfied with the items. The term of “utility function ” is coming from micro economics. So some of you may learn it before. I think it is good to use a utility function here because we can use the method of economics when we analyze the impacts of recommender systems to our society going forward. I hope more people, who are not data-scientists, are getting interested in recommender systems.
The utility function is expressed as follows
U:utility of customers, θ:customers’preferences, x:Item features, R:ratings of the items for the customers
This is simple and easy to understand what utility function is. I would like to use this definition going forward. I think ratings may be one, two, three…, or it may be a continuous number according to recommender systems.
When we look at the simple models, such as linear regression model and logistic regression model, Key metrics are explanatory variables or features and its weight or parameters. It is represented as x and θ respectively. And product of θx shows us how much it has an impact on variables, which we want to predict. Therefore I would like to introduce θx as a critical part of my recommender engine. ”θx” means that each x is multiplied to it’s correspondent weight θ and summing up all products .This is critically important for recommender systems. Mathematically θx is calculations of products of vectors/matrices. It is simple but has a strong power to provide recommendations effectively. I would like to develop my recommender engine by using θx next week.
Yes, we should consider what color of shirts maximize our utility functions, for example. In futures, utility functions of every person might be stored in computers and recommendations might be provided automatically in order to maximize our utility functions. So everyone may be satisfied with everyday life. What a wonderful world it is!
How can we predict the price of wine by data analysis ?
1. Gathering data
2. Put data into models
WRAIN 1 Winter (Oct.-March) Rain ML
HRAIN 1 Harvest (August and Sept.) ML
TIME_SV 1 Time since Vintage (Years)
スクリーンショット 2014-09-30 14.05.37
3. Examine the outputs from models
(Intercept) WRAIN DEGREES HRAIN TIME_SV
-12.145007 0.001167 0.616365 -0.003861 0.023850
Credit Risk Management and Machine Learning in future
1. Statistical models
2. Data
3. Product development
Challenge to Machine Learning
Machine Learning is getting famous and attractive to analyze big data. It has a long history to be developed as the algorithm since 1950s. However machine learning gets a spotlight among data scientist recently because a lot of data, computer resources and data storage, which are necessary for machine learning, has been available with reasonable costs. I would like to introduce a basic algorithm of Machine Learning by using R language, which I recommended before.
1. Problem sets
Observed data x= [1,2,3] and y= [5,7,9]. Then I would like to find what are a and b when I assume that it can be expressed y=ax+b. Yes, it is obvious that a=2 and b=3, however, I want this solution by using algorithms to calculate them.
2. Algorithm
This is my program of machine learning to find what a and b are. I would like to focus on Bold part of the program.
First step : update parameters
Second step : calculate the updated value of the cost function by the updated parameters
Third step : compare the updated value with the old value of the cost function and stop calculation if it is considered as convergence
Go back to the first step above.
These three steps above are generally used in machine learning algorithms. So it is useful if you can remember them.
y=matrix(c(5, 7, 9),3,1)
for (i in seq(1,1000)){
if (abs(jnew-j)<=10^(-8)) break
3. The result of calculation
I use le=0.1 as a learning rate. Then I get the result of the calculation below.
[1] 521
[1,] 2.997600
[2,] 2.001056
This means that the value of the cost function is convergent at 521 time calculations. a = 2.001056 and b = 2.997600. They are very close to true values a=2 and b=3. So it is considered that this algorithm can find the solutions.
This algorithm is one of the most simple ones. However, it includes the fundamental structure which can be applied to other complex algorithms. So I recommend you to implement this by yourself and be familiar with this kind of algorithms. In short, 1. Update parameters 2. Calculate the updated value of cost function 3. Make sure updated value is convergent. Yes, it is so simple!
Let us go surfing the sea of big data !
In the morning, I check my smart phone and i pad mini to see what happened during the night. Every time I touch them, data is generated automatically. How many devices such as smart phones and tablets are there in the world? I am sure a lot of data is generated at this moment.
It is also noted that FRB, World Bank, IMF and other public institutions make their data available to public through their web sites. In addition, a lot of public data is getting easier to access thanks to the data gathering services. Data is the first key thing to consider when we start data analytics. Therefore, it is very important to know what kind of data is available at your disposal in analyzing data.
I have been using a data gathering service called “Quandl”. Quandl is a “data platform“, which enable us to collect numerical data published by hundreds of different sources, and host them on a single easy-to-use website. Currently it can be used for free. Once I obtain the data, I visualize it in order to understand what it means and what the mechanism is behind the data. I use ” DataHero” to visualize the data I obtain. It is easy to produce many kinds of charts and graphs. By “DataHero”, I can produce a lot of graphs by following its instructions, then choose the best one to present what I want to say. It can be used for basic functionality without any fee. If you pay fees, you can get more functionality such as a tool to combine multiple datasets.
According to the sun newspaper on May 20 2014, Mr Najib Abdul Razak, prime minister of Malaysia, said that the 6.2% of GDP growth in the first quarter of this year as extremely outstanding. This is the highest among the list he presented in his Facebook site. Let us see what is going on from the past to the present in terms of economic growth of Malaysia. I pick up the data of Real GDP growth rate, Unemployment rate and Consumer price index (CPI) since 1990 in Malaysia by using Quandl and visualize these data by using DataHero. It is very easy and takes less than 5 minutes if you are getting familiar with these systems. Source : Open Data for Africa (IMF)
DataHero Malaysia economic growth
This graph tells us economic growth in Malaysia since 1990. The growth rate is over 5%, except two economic crisis in 1998, 2009 and 2001. The unemployment rate has been around 3%, which is good for the economy. CPI is also around 3% and stable. I can say economic growth without inflation currently is achieved in Malaysia.
I would like to compare it to the situation in Japan since 1980. Let us see the graph below.
DataHero Japan economic growth
GDP growth peaked out in the late of the 1980s, when the bubble economy was peaked. Since 1990, when the bubble burst, Japan has experienced the low economic growth. CPI has been very low and sometimes went to negative as Japan has been in deflation. The unemployment rate has been gradually increasing and peaked over 5%. This period is called “the lost two decades” as Japan has poor economic performances. It is not easy to explain why it happened in Japan. Some economists blamed monetary policy was not so effective enough to recover its economy. Others criticized the fiscal stimulate was too late, too small and too short. I would like to analyze the mechanism of ” lost two decades” going forward in this blog.
Do you want to be “Analytic savvy manager”?
Data is and will be around us and it is increasing at an astonishing rate. In the such business environment, what should business managers do? I do no think every manager should have an analytics skill at the same level as a data scientist because it is almost impossible. However, I do think every manager should communicate with data scientists and make better decisions by using output from their data analysis. Sometimes this kind of manager is called “analytic savvy manager”. Let us consider what “analytic savvy manager”should know.
1. What kind of data is available to us?
Business managers should know what kind of data is available for their business analysis. Some of them are free and others are not. Some of them are in companies or private and others are public. Some of them are structured and others are not. It is noted that data which are available is increasing in terms of volume and variety. Data is a starting point of analysis, however, data scientists may not know specific fields of business in detail. It is business managers that know what data is available to businesses. Recently data gathering services have provided us a lot of data for free. I recommend you to look at “Quandl” to find public data. It is easy to use and provides a lot of public data for free. Strong recommendation!
2. What kind of analysis method can be applied?
Business managers do not need to memorize formulas of each analysis method. I recommend business managers to understand simple linear regression and logistic regression and get the big picture about how the statistical models work. Once you are familiar with two methods, you can understand other complex statistical models with ease because fundamental structures are not so different among methods. Statistical models enable us to understand what big data means without loss of information. In addition to that, I also recommend business managers to keep in touch with the progress of machine learning, especially deep learning. This method has great performances and is expected to be used in a lot of business field such as natural language processing. It may change the landscape of businesses going forward.
3. How can output from analysis be used to make better decisions?
This is critically important to make a better decision. Output of data analysis should be in aligned with business needs to make decisions. Data scientist can guarantee whether numbers of the output are accurate in terms of calculations. However, they can not guarantee whether it is relevant and useful to make better decisions. Therefore business managers should communicate with data scientist during the process of data analysis and make the output of analysis relevant to business decisions. It is the goal of data analysis.
I do not think these points above are difficult to understand for business managers even though they do not have a quantitative analytic background. If you are getting familiar with these points above, it would make you different from others at the age of big data.
Do you want to be “Analytic savvy manager”?
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Friend or Foe – Food in the Classroom
by Megan
“My coffee! My muffin! I spent three dollars on this!” Teachers are hearing the same story every morning this year. With the new school rule at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, there is no consumption of anything in the classroom other than good, old, refreshing water. Most upper-classmen find it hard to adjust to this new rule, and many now question its purpose.
Many rumors are floating about the hallways. Many teachers claim allergies to common classroom snacks. Not only might some allergic students experience symptoms in a classroom full of food, but it is also a major issue with cross-contamination. For example, if a student was finishing his or her banana nut muffin on a desk during 1st period, a student that sits at that same desk during 2nd could still experience symptoms after the muffin is long gone.
Naturally, students are suspicious. “I doubt it would take all these years to realize allergies were an issue. It has been a more current dilemma,” claim upper-classmen.
For reason like this, older students have suggested other reasons for this rule. Most common of the claims, mice! They have allegedly been spotted. Not only is it a sanitation issue; it’s NASTY! Also, it causes many problems to the RFH staff; such as health codes and money for extermination. However, even these reasons aren’t enough for some students.
The simplest solution for this predicament would be to allow food in the classroom as long as it’s maintained at the same time. I think food is a nice advantage; yet not 100% necessary. Pursuing this further, humans have originally evolved to eat throughout the day; not to starve yourself until lunch, then barely make it home at 3 o’clock to pig-out. We were made to eat when we are hungry. That may mean squeezing in an apple during 3rd or 4th period to curve your hunger before 7th period lunch. Also, with every time-consuming task to do in the morning, it is not uncommon for students to skip breakfast. So even if it just involved eating 1st period (until homeroom) everything helps.
Also, even if you do follow the three-meal-per-day plan, both 4th period and 7th are awkward times to eat lunch. So whenever you’re feeling hungry, it would be much easier for both students and teachers to just have a bite to eat during class. However, there have been complaints from the staff on the full-fledged meal being brought to the classroom. Teachers seem not to mind if you are simply drinking tea in the morning or eating an apple in the afternoon, but there would always be that one student who took advantage of this rule and would bring in an entire three-course meal.
Instances like this, weather it be the students or teacher at fault, were just another reason why RFH’s new rule of no eating in the classroom was put in place.
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CNG Services Limited
SGBI opinion article: shale gas
Courtesy of CNG Services Limited
Government perceives electric vehicles to be a panacea that will solve problems surrounding air quality and CO2 emissions simultaneously. The EV has two main selling points: reduced CO2 emissions and high efficiency. However, these are only valid at a superficial level and the argument disintegrates under any level of scrutiny.
In terms of CO2 emissions, EVs replace ‘average’ cars to give a lower CO2 output per km, although the scenario becomes more complex depending on the type of vehicle and fuel used. However, the major drawback of EVs is the initial production of the electricity used to charge the vehicle. In theory, the ‘average’ UK grid electricity used could be generated in a variety of ways, including renewable or alternative methods. However, the minimum electricity demand in summer night-time is approximately 25 GW but nuclear and wind energy will only produce a maximum output of 14 GW at any one time. This means that the electricity used to charge an EV will actually be generated by burning fossil fuels in coal or gas power stations. Therefore, EVs cannot realistically claim to reduce CO2 emissions or improve air quality. Furthermore, the range of an EV is designed and limited to short journeys, making the use of a second vehicle necessary to travel greater distances. In contrast, a low emission diesel or petrol hybrid could be used for all journey types and emits just 100g of CO2 per km.
Concerning efficiency, a gas combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) generates at around 50 per cent, however if 10 per cent grid losses are assumed this gives a 45 per cent efficiency at the charging point. If the electric motor is about 80 per cent efficient, it gives an overall 36 per cent efficiency at converting fossil energy into the movement of a car. For a diesel car, this overall efficiency is around 25 per cent so an EV appears to be much better. However, there are a number of flaws with this argument. Firstly, if the ambient temperature is low, the EV uses a significant proportion of energy to heat the car: a feature that occurs naturally with diesel vehicles. Taking this into account, the efficiency of the EV drops to 32 per cent and the diesel vehicle increases to 28 per cent. A similar effect occurs in warmer temperatures due to air conditioning and the efficiencies of the EV and diesel vehicle become 31 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively. The other issue affecting efficiency is the vehicle weight. The Nissan Leaf is a very heavy car compared, for example, to the larger VW Passat due to the weight of batteries. Taking this into consideration, the efficiency of the EV is approximately the same as a diesel vehicle.
EVs have been around for 100 years and the new cars show potential. However, as yet EVs are not the best option in terms of CO2 emissions in the UK. In time, EVs may become more viable but this is dependent on a large nuclear programme, offshore wind and coal/gas with CCS. The chance of this occurring hinges on an increase in the world carbon price to enable the UK to finance these projects. It also depends on natural gas prices, which are significantly linked to the cost of shale gas production.
Previously shale gas has been considered an uneconomic prospect due to difficult and expensive extraction. However, with the development of more reliable fracking techniques and horizontal drilling equipment the problem is no longer in whether the gas can be recovered, but if it can be done at 40p/therm.
If EVs can be discounted as a credible option and there is potential for a large increase in the availability of gas in the UK, the most logical option is for transportation to shift towards natural gas vehicles.
Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs)
The use of oil in British industry was dramatically reduced in the period of 1970 to 1990 as the UK economy shifted to natural gas from the North Sea reserves. As a result, oil became predominately used for transport fuel.
In the early 1990s, British Gas became world leaders in the development of NGVs. However, the initiative failed due to several reasons. Firstly, the compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations were located on gas-holder sites where the gas was ‘wet’ and corroded engines. In addition, the vehicles were conversions of petrol vehicles so were not reliable, had lower equivalent performance, and the CNG storage tanks occupied significant space and reduced payload.
However, overseas BG Group is making investment in relation to NGVs (Brazil, Argentina, India, and Kazakhstan) as the world sees huge growth in NGVs. When British Gas worked on it in 1992 there were around 10,000 vehicles in the world running on natural gas. By 2002 this had grown towards 1 million and by 2012 there is forecast to be 15 million. In the US, National Grid is also involved in the growing NGV market there. This is partly motivated by the political initiative to reduce reliance on oil but the key driver is the low price of natural gas caused by shale gas production. The German Government fixed CNG fuel duty in 2001 at the CEU minimum level (6 p/kg) for 20 years on the basis that the gas industry would build CNG filling stations and the car industry will develop CNG cars, a strategy that has been proved successful.
The key difference in these examples is that the new cars and vans have been designed from first principles to run on CNG. Therefore, the vehicles have none of the drawbacks experienced by British Gas 20 years ago. For example, the VW Passat Ecofuel has a 1.4 litre engine with twin supercharger and turbocharger. It can go 0 to 60 mph in 9.5 seconds but has CO2/km of less than 120 g/km. It can also run on petrol and has a combined range of around 700 miles.
As of 2002 there were around 20 CNG filling stations operational in the UK but no grid connected public access stations that are capable of ‘fast filling’ a vehicle. There are estimated to be around 50 vehicles running on CNG and 200 running on natural gas stored on board as LNG (liquid natural gas) with fuel mostly provided at a small number of depot-based filling stations. There is no case for large-scale investment to install CNG at filling stations as although CNG emissions are lower than a normal petrol they are comparable to many diesel and hybrids. Furthermore, there are not believed to be any investors looking at the UK car market for natural gas and with the development of electric vehicles this situation is unlikely to change. It is therefore reasonable to assume that CNG will not be made available at petrol stations in the UK.
The sector of interest for natural gas is the commercial vehicle sector. There are around 700,000 vans, rigid trucks and tractors operating in the UK and a large proportion of these operate from depots. As such, they are well suited to running on natural gas as the gas grid is invariably close by. The most significant technological development is in relation to the engine and fuel combination.
If air quality is the driver (nitrous oxides and particulates) then having an engine that runs on 100 per cent natural gas gives exceptional performance. This is why most Los Angeles buses (9,000), and all 670 refuse trucks in Madrid run on CNG. CNG is the fuel of choice where air quality is a major issue but whilst air quality is an issue in the UK, the driver for change is now reduction in CO2.
The development of dual-fuel diesel-natural gas engines in transformational. The vehicle starts on 100 per cent diesel, but after 30 seconds it becomes 80 per cent natural gas, 20 per cent diesel. This gives the advantage of lower CO2 from burning methane instead of the C9 and C12 chain hydrocarbons found in diesel but without reducing vehicle efficiency. Evidence from Volvo and Mercedes-Benz diesel-natural gas trucks suggests the reduction in CO2 is around 20 per cent as opposed to 100 per cent for diesel.
Of the three world leaders of dual fuel truck technology, two are based in the UK in Leyland (Clean Air Power, CAP) and Nottingham (Hardstaff). It is encouraging for the UK manufacturing industry that British companies still hold such gravitas, with CAP providing dual fuel technology to the likes of Volvo and Hardstaff to Mercedes Benz. Hardstaff also hold the patents for a revolutionary new system that allows CNG storage to be on the trailer with an umbilical connection to the tractor unit; a system UK logistics company Tenens Environment are already using.
In terms of fuel, there have been ‘Well to Wheel’ studies that have looked at natural gas they have used data from the 1990’s gas industry. The assumption has been that the gas is taken out of the low pressure grid. Firstly, it requires 30 per cent more electricity to drive a compressor using gas at 0.5 bar than if the gas was at 4 bar. Going forward, CNG should be taken out of the grid at pressures from 4 to 50 bar, giving up to a 75 per cent reduction in electricity consumption. Secondly, a substantial part of the gas pipeline grid was developed in the period 1890 to 1930 when towns’ gas (made from coal) was the fuel. These pipelines were made from cast iron and have leaking joints, around 0.5 per cent of the gas leaks out of the low pressure tiers. Even though around £1 billion a year is invested replacing these pipelines it will take until 2030 until the grid is substantially leakage free. Hence, if gas it taken for CNG at these low pressures, it was assumed that around 0.5 per cent of it would have leaked out. With the global warming effect of methane around 20 times more efficient than CO2, this 0.5 per cent translates to around 10 per cent CO2. By taking gas out of high-pressure grids (4 bar and above) there is negligible leakage and hence there is a further 10 per cent benefit.
There is also a new advantage of CNG that is aligned with wind generation. It makes sense to run compressors at times when renewable electricity is in surplus. In this way, the CNG will further reduce its carbon footprint. There are also positive developments in relation to the energy footprint of bringing natural gas to the UK. At the Isle of Grain, National Grid uses waste heat from an EON CCGT to warm the LNG and make it into natural gas for injection into the gas grid. This is estimated to give around a 5 per cent CO2 benefit, which is also significant.
It is important to note that aside from CNG there is also LNG. The Hardstaff and CAP technology uses gas in gaseous form at low pressure. Whether the gas is stored on the truck in compressed form (CNG) or liquid form (LNG) is not important, however the supply chain advantages differ.
The UK now has major LNG importation facilities at Isle of Grain and Milford Haven. It is low cost and technically straightforward to load 20 tonne road tankers with LNG at these facilities by installing an LNG road tanker loading bay (cost around £3 million). If LNG is made in, for example, Qatar, transported by ship to UK, loaded into an LNG road tanker, transported to a depot LNG storage tank, then decanted into the LNG storage on board a truck, there are very low CO2 emissions in that supply chain. The LNG stored on board uses waste engine heat to become gas again. There would be an estimated 10 per cent saving in CO2 from this. Therefore, LNG in dual fuel trucks may be able to deliver a 30 per cent reduction in CO2, with a similar saving for CNG.
In terms of climate change, the reduction from dual fuel trucks is material within that sector and material overall and is worthy of independent analysis. It would be beneficial if The Committee on Climate Change reviewed the data and gave an opinion.
Separately, the reason British Industry switched from oil to gas was that gas cost around half price in energy terms. It is around half price again today so the logic of switching haulage from diesel to (part) gas is a sound one. It is estimated that UK balance of payments would take a hit of around £40 billion a year compared to 2010 as a result of importing oil. If the UK reduces oil imports by 15 per cent as a result of dual fuel then it could save up to £6 billion of oil at a cost of £3 billion gas.
For a 44 tonne truck to run on electricity, it has been estimated that around 50 tonnes of batteries would be required. So there is clearly not going to be a material electricity option for trucks. Additionally, if the shale gas reserves are as extensive as the promoters say, and if they can be developed economically, then the logical response for the UK is to switch haulage to natural gas-diesel dual fuel.
If the manufacturers, vehicles and fuel are in place, the only question that remains is what the Government can do. Government could ask the Technology Strategy Board to support Hardstaff and CAP in developing their dual-fuel diesel-natural gas technologies. The Government can also support cities like Sheffield that are taking significant steps to move along the LA and Madrid paths by introducing natural gas for refuse trucks and other commercial vehicles as the best way to improve air quality.
Crucially, however, the Government can also support investment in infrastructure and vehicle development by giving a longer period of confidence on natural gas fuel duty, which is currently only fixed relative to diesel for 3 years. The regimes to promote investment in offshore wind or ground source heat pumps or anaerobic digesters rely on a long term guarantee of income support. An equivalent level of confidence in duty level is required if we are to capture the CO2 reduction prize offered by dual fuel. This will also offer a duty reduction to hauliers who are prepared to invest in the natural gas refuelling infrastructure and vehicles. Once the depot based filling stations are built and depreciated, the Government can look forward to increasing duty on natural gas without it killing the market, but this is 15 years away.
Finally, the Government is preparing to announce the level of the Renewable Heat Incentive which includes the renewable premium paid to biomethane (renewable natural gas made from organic material). If set at an appropriate level this will encourage waste to be converted into biomethane, injected into the gas grid and taken out at existing truck depots. In this way, the dual fuel CNG-diesel development is aligned with the move towards a fossil free economy. National Grid forecast in January 2009, that biomethane could supply around 50% of the gas used by domestic gas consumers. The same resource would supply much more than the 80% of gas required to move haulage to dual fuel.
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Page:Eureka; a prose poem (1848).djvu/17
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which over-profound thinkers are enabled to expel superfluous ideas through the nose; but he obtained a scarcely less valuable celebrity as the founder, or at all events as the principal propagator, of what was termed the deductive or à priori philosophy. He started with what he maintained to be axioms, or self-evident truths:—and the now well understood fact that no truths are self-evident, really does not make in the slightest degree against his speculations:—it was sufficient for his purpose that the truths in question were evident at all. From axioms he proceeded, logically, to results. His most illustrious disciples were one Tuclid, a geometrician," [meaning Euclid] "and one Kant, a Dutchman, the originator of that species of Transcendentalism which, with the change merely of a C for a K, now bears his peculiar name.
"Well, Aries Tottle flourished supreme, until the advent of one Hog, surnamed 'the Ettrick shepherd,' who preached an entirely different system, which he called the à posteriori or inductive. His plan referred altogether to sensation. He proceeded by observing, analyzing, and classifying facts—instantiæ Naturæ, as they were somewhat affectedly called—and arranging them into general laws. In a word, while the mode of Aries rested on noumena, that of Hog depended on phenomena; and so great was the admiration excited by this latter system that, at its first introduction, Aries fell into general disrepute. Finally, however, he recovered ground, and was permitted to divide the empire of Philosophy with his more modern rival:—the savans contenting themselves with proscribing all other competitors, past, present, and to come; putting an end to all con-
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bereft (adj.) Look up bereft at
late 14c., past participle adjective from bereave (v.).
Berenice Look up Berenice at
beret (n.) Look up beret at
also berret, 1827, from French béret, 19c., from dialect of Béarn, from Old Gascon berret "cap," from Medieval Latin birretum, diminutive of Late Latin birrus "a large hooded cloak," perhaps of Gaulish origin. The round, flat cap originally was worn by Basque peasants.
Beretta (n.) Look up Beretta at
Italian firearms manufacturer, business attested from 1520s, founded by gunsmith Bartolomeo Beretta (1498-1565) of Lombardy.
berg (n.) Look up berg at
short for iceberg, attested from 1823.
bergamot (n.) Look up bergamot at
type of citrus tree, also its fruit, both similar to bitter orange, and the essence prepared from the oil of the rind of the fruit, 1690s, from French bergamote (17c.), from Italian bergamotta, named for Bergamo, town in Italy. The name is Roman Bergamum, from a Celtic or Ligurian berg "mountain," cognate with the identical Germanic word.
Earlier (1610s) as a kind of pear deemed especially luscious, in this sense ultimately a Romanic folk-etymologization from Turkish beg-armudi "prince's pear" or "prince of pears," influenced in form by the other word, but probably not from it (the town is on the opposite end of the peninsula from where the pear grows). Also used of garden plants of the mint order with a smell like that of oil of bergamot.
beriberi (n.) Look up beriberi at
also beri-beri, paralytic disease prevalent in much of India, 1703, literally "great weakness," intensifying reduplication of Sinhalese beri "weakness."
Bering Look up Bering at
strait and sea between Alaska and Siberia, named for Danish explorer Vitus Bering (1681-1741), who worked for Peter the Great and led the first European expedition to sight Alaska, in 1741.
berk (n.) Look up berk at
"fool," 1936, abbreviation of Berkshire Hunt (or Berkeley Hunt), rhyming slang for cunt but typically applied only to contemptible persons, not to the body part.
This is not an objective, anatomical term, neither does it imply coitus. It connects with that extension of meaning of the unprintable, a fool, or a person whom one does not like. ["Dictionary of Rhyming Slang," 1960]
Berkshire Look up Berkshire at
Old English Bearrocscir (893), from an ancient Celtic name meaning "hilly place" + Old English scir "shire, district."
Berlin Look up Berlin at
berlin (n.) Look up berlin at
berm (n.) Look up berm at
"narrow ledge," 1729, from French berme (17c.), from Old Dutch baerm "edge of a dike," probably related to brim (q.v.). In U.S., 19c., also the name for the bank of a canal opposite the tow path.
Bermuda Look up Bermuda at
Atlantic island, named for Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez (d.1570), who discovered it c.1515. Bermuda shorts first attested 1946 (in "The Princeton Alumni Weekly"), from the type of garb worn by U.S. tourists there. Bermuda triangle in the supernatural sense was popular from 1972. As the adjective form, Bermudian (1777) holds seniority over Bermudan (1895).
Bern Look up Bern at
Swiss capital, probably originally from PIE root *ber- "marshy place," but by folk etymology from German Bär "bear" (compare Berlin). Related: Bernese.
Bernard Look up Bernard at
masc. proper name, from German Bernhard, literally "bold as a bear," from Old High German bero "bear" (see bear (n.)) + harti "hard, bold, strong" (see hard).
Bernicia Look up Bernicia at
Anglo-Saxon kingdom in northernmost England, founded by mid-6c., eventually merged into Northumbria; the name evidently is a survival of a pre-invasion Celtic name, perhaps that represented by Welsh Bryneich.
Bernoulli's principle Look up Bernoulli's principle at
named for Dutch mathematician Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), who published it in 1738.
berry (n.) Look up berry at
Old English berie, from Proto-Germanic *basjom (cognates: Old Norse ber, Middle Dutch bere, German Beere "berry;" Old Saxon winber, Gothic weinabasi "grape"), of unknown origin. This and apple are the only native fruit names.
berserk (adj.) Look up berserk at
berserker (n.) Look up berserker at
alternative form of berserk (q.v.), from Old Norse berserkr, accusative of berserk. This is the oldest form of the word in its revival in Modern English (1822), and perhaps Scott, who introduced it, mistook the -r for an agent-noun suffix. Further compicated because it has the form of the Old Norse plural, and English berserker sometimes is plural.
berth (n.) Look up berth at
berth (v.) Look up berth at
Bertha Look up Bertha at
fem. proper name, from Old High German Berahta, Perahta, the name of a goddess, literally "the bright one," from Old High German beraht, related to Old English beorht (see bright). Soldiers' nickname Big Bertha for large-bore German mortar of World War I is a reference to Frau Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, owner of Krupp steel works 1903-43.
beryl (n.) Look up beryl at
hard, lustrous mineral, c.1300, from Old French beryl (12c., Modern French béryl), from Latin beryllus, from Greek beryllos, perhaps from Prakrit veruliya, from Sanskrit vaidurya-, of Dravidian origin, perhaps from the city of Velur (modern Belur) in southern India.
Medieval Latin berillus also was applied to any precious stone of a pale green color, to fine crystal, and to eyeglasses (the first spectacle lenses may have been made of beryl), hence German Brille "spectacles," from Middle High German berille "beryl," and French besicles (plural) "spectacles," altered 14c. from Old French bericle.
beryllium (n.) Look up beryllium at
metallic element, 1863, so called because it figures in the composition of the pale green precious stone beryl and was identified in emerald (green beryl) in 1797 by French chemist Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (1763-1829) and first isolated in 1828. At first and through 19c. also sometimes called glucinum or glucinium.
beseech (v.) Look up beseech at
beseeching (n.) Look up beseeching at
"supplication, prayer," c.1300, verbal noun from beseech. Related: Beseechingly; beseechingness.
beseem (v.) Look up beseem at
early 13c., from be- + seem (v.). Related: Beseemed; beseeming.
beseeming (adj.) Look up beseeming at
1520s, present participle adjective from beseem.
beset (v.) Look up beset at
Old English besettan "to put, place; own, keep; occupy, settle; cover, surround with, besiege," from Proto-Germanic *bisatjan (cognates: Old Saxon bisettjan, Dutch bezetten, Old High German bisezzan, German besetzen, Gothic bisatjan); see be- + set (v.). The figurative sense also was in Old English. Related: Beset (past tense); besetting.
beshrew (v.) Look up beshrew at
early 14c., "deprave, pervert, corrupt," from be- + shrew (v.) "to curse;" see shrew. Meaning "to invoke evil upon" is from late 14c.
beside (prep.) Look up beside at
Old English be sidan "by the side of" (only as two words), from be- + sidan dative of side (n.). By 1200, formed as one word and used as both adverb and preposition. The alternative Middle English meaning "outside" led to the sense preserved in beside oneself "out of one's wits" (late 15c.).
besides (prep.) Look up besides at
besiege (v.) Look up besiege at
besmear (v.) Look up besmear at
Old English bismierwan, besmyrwan (West Saxon), besmerwan (Anglian); see be- + smear (v.). Related: Besmeared; besmearing.
besmirch (v.) Look up besmirch at
1590s, from be- + smirch.
Our Gayness and our Gilt are all besmyrcht. ["Henry V," IV.iii.110]
Related: Besmirched; besmirching.
besom (n.) Look up besom at
Old English besma "bundle of twigs" (used as a broom or a flail), from West Germanic *besmon (cognates: Old Frisian besma, Old Saxon besmo, Old High German besmo, German Besen, Dutch bezem), of unknown origin. Perhaps "something bound or twisted," from PIE *bheidh-.
besot (v.) Look up besot at
"affect with a foolish manifestation," 1570s, from be- + sot. Related: Besotted; besotting.
besotted (adj.) Look up besotted at
past participle adjective from besot.
besought Look up besought at
Middle English besohte, past tense and past participle of beseech.
bespangle (v.) Look up bespangle at
1610s, from be- + spangle. Related: Bespangled; bespangling.
bespatter (v.) Look up bespatter at
1640s, from be- + spatter (v.). Related: Bespattered; bespattering.
bespeak (v.) Look up bespeak at
bespeckle (v.) Look up bespeckle at
c.1600, from be- + speckle. Related: Bespeckled; bespeckling.
bespectacled (adj.) Look up bespectacled at
1742, past participle adjective from be- + spectacles.
bespoke (adj.) Look up bespoke at
bespread (v.) Look up bespread at
c.1200, from be- + spread (v.).
besprinkle (v.) Look up besprinkle at
mid-15c., from be- + sprinkle (v.). Related: Besprinkled; besprinkling.
Bessemer Look up Bessemer at
in reference to the process for decarbonizing and desiliconizing pig iron by passing air through the molten metal, 1856, named for engineer and inventor Sir Harry Bessemer (1813-1898) who invented it.
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Mountains and Water: Chinese Landscape Painting
Landscape painting is traditionally at the top of the hierarchy of Chinese painting styles. It is very popular and is associated with refined scholarly taste. The Chinese term for 'landscape' is made up of two characters meaning 'mountains and water'. It is linked with the philosophy of Daoism, which emphasizes harmony with the natural world.
Chinese artists do not usually paint real places but imaginary, idealized landscapes. The Chinese phrase woyou expresses this idea of 'wandering while lying down'. In China, mountains are associated with religion because they reach up towards the heavens. People therefore believe that looking at paintings of mountains is good for the soul.
Chinese painting in general is seen as an extension of calligraphy and uses the same brushstrokes. The colours are restrained and subtle and the paintings are usually created in ink on paper, with a small amount of watercolour. They are not framed or glazed but mounted on silk in different formats such as hanging scrolls, handscrolls, album leaves and fan paintings.
This tour was written to accompany the exhibition Mountains and Water, at the British Museum from 9 February to 28 August 2005. It was the first in a series of displays exploring the different traditions of Chinese painting.
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What causes goose bumps?
Credit: Wikimedia
We've all had goose bumps before — they tend to pop up when we're cold or nervous, or even when we have a visceral response to music. But, why exactly does a good song equal instant goose bumps?
Here to explain goose bumps, or if we're getting all sciency, cutis anserina, is YouTube channel asapSCIENCE. We've already posted their videos on baldness, aging, and my personal favorite — the snooze button — so what's the deal with goose bumps, asapSCIENCE?
First, adrenaline causes the tiny muscles surrounding our hair follicles, known as arrector pili muscles, to contract. This causes the hairs to stand on end, but what triggers the adrenaline at the outset? For mammals with a lot of hair, this serves a very practical function: to insulate from cold weather. Adrenaline is also triggered when we're in fight or flight mode, which is an "involuntary evolutionary response" that makes us appear larger to potential predators.
But how does this explain why we sometimes get "the chills" when we're listening to music? There are several theories on this, but an especially interesting one explains that humans like predictability, so any abrupt changes in a song can actually stress us out or scare us on a subconscious level and trigger an alarm, which releases adrenaline. Eventually, our brains remind us that "it's just music," and the goose bumps go away.
Ultimately though, scientists don't know why this happens with music. The relationship between music, emotion and physiology is so complex that researchers are still studying this fascinating phenomenon. But, as far as being cold or feeling threatened, goose bumps are an evolutionary carryover from our ancestors and, according to asapSCIENCE, "are a fairly useless trait in humans."
Via asapSCIENCE on YouTube
For the latest tech stories, follow DVICE on Twitter
at @dvice or find us on Facebook
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These professional titles are fully protected under law by means of the Engineering Council’s Royal Charter and Bye-laws; further legislation is thus unnecessary. In order to protect these titles action is taken through the courts against their unauthorised use. Through the European Directive on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications 2005, they are also recognised throughout the European Union. More generally, as a benchmark standard, the titles have a world-wide currency.
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1. Why is there no restriction on who can call themselves an engineer in the UK?
The words engineer and engineering have both been in common use for centuries in the UK. Neither is legally defined and in everyday language the term engineer is very often taken to mean anyone who is in some way associated with engineering, including the design, manufacture, maintenance or operation of a technical product or system.
Successive examinations of the subject by the profession and by Parliament have concluded that any attempt to restrict use of the term would have little prospect of success. Indeed, such an approach might be seen as simply meddling with language usage and could thus have a negative effect and alienate people for no good purpose. However, the specific titles that denote professional engineering competence are quite different; these are protected by law and their use is restricted.
The Engineering Council therefore concentrates on promoting awareness and understanding of its professional titles, which demonstrate the professional standing of their holders and which are protected by law.
2. Don’t other professions in the UK manage to protect their titles?
In the majority of cases, it is a very specific title which is protected, rather than a generic one. For example, anyone may call themselves an accountant or a surveyor, but only those who are entitled to do so may describe themselves as Chartered Accountants or Chartered Surveyors. Similarly there is no restriction on the use of the word lawyer, but the professional status of Solicitor, Barrister and Advocate are protected.
One obvious example of restrictions on the use of titles is found in the medical and healthcare professions. Those employed in this field are dealing directly with the care and welfare of individuals and as a result these professions are also regulated by government in a number of ways. These restrictions therefore are essentially for public protection, rather than to promote the status of the professions concerned.
Even where legislation is in place, such as the restrictions on the use of the title Architect established in the first half of the 20th Century, these are limited in scope and are essentially to regulate architectural practices. There is no restriction on the use by individuals of terms such as architectural designer, and anyone may offer architectural services.
3. Isn’t use of the term engineer restricted in other countries?
Although it is commonly assumed that the term is more regulated in mainland Europe, there is in fact a range of practice across different countries and surveys suggest that the UK approach is in the middle of the spectrum (Ref: Survey of regulation of the Engineering Profession in Europe in Special FEANI news Oct 2005)
Even in countries which regulate engineering titles by statute, the controlled title usually includes a prefix; for example, Professional Engineer in Australia, Singapore and USA, Chartered Professional Engineer in New Zealand. This is effectively the same protection as EngTech, IEng, CEng and ICTTech have here in the UK.
4. Shouldn’t the Engineering Council protect the status and interests of its registrants?
It does, through the award and protection of its professional titles. These titles are protected by law (stemming from the Engineering Council’s Royal Charter & Byelaws) and unauthorised use of them is pursued through the courts. The Engineering Council and its licensed Professional Engineering Institutions are vigilant in this matter. It follows that it is incumbent upon individual registrants to bring all suspected cases of misuse to the notification of their respective PEIs.
5. What status do titles such as Chartered Engineer have in Europe?
The EU Directive on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications (2005/36) provides for the Engineering Council’s professional titles to be recognised at the same level as their equivalents in other European countries. This is to ensure mobility of professionals within the European Union. Through its contacts with UK government, and with the European Commission, and its membership of FEANI, the Engineering Council actively promotes the implementation of the Directive and monitors its effects.
6. Shouldn’t there be some restriction on who can practise engineering?
Engineering is continually evolving and by its nature embraces innovation. Accordingly, the engineering profession has always recognised and encouraged this approach. Efforts to restrict its practice would go against this ethos and risk stifling innovation, and would therefore be likely to be seen as anti-competitive and unjustified.
However, there are quite correctly restrictions on practice in some safety-critical areas, such as reservoir engineering, aircraft maintenance, and railway signalling, where specialist registers exist. The Engineering Council would support the extension of specialist registration to other areas when justified.
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National Security
Cuba Almost Became a Nuclear Power in 1962
The scariest moment in history was even scarier than we thought.
Mikoyan arrived in Cuba on November 2, 1962, and over 20 days of often-bitter conversations with Cuban leaders -- culminating in this tense meeting -- Mikoyan began to appreciate the danger tactical nuclear weapons posed if they were left on the island, especially in Cuban hands. On one day, Castro would refuse to see Mikoyan; on another, Fidel would order his anti-aircraft crews to shoot at the American surveillance planes.
The final straw apparently came on November 20, when Castro sent instructions to Cuba's representative at the United Nations, Carlos Lechuga, to mention "we have tactical nuclear weapons, which we should keep" -- partly as leverage in negotiations over inspections, also to establish the fact that the weapons were in Cuban possession. Extremely worried, Mikoyan cabled the Soviet Presidium that he now planned to inform the Cuban leader that all tactical nuclear weapons would be withdrawn from Cuba. Mikoyan had to break this unpleasant news to his hosts, and he had to do it in such a way that they would remain Soviet allies.
This four-hour conversation on November 22 provided the final blow to the Cuban revolutionaries, now that the Soviet Union was removing all the weapons for which Cuba had to suffer so much. Castro opened the conversation saying that he was in a bad mood because Kennedy stated in his speech that all nuclear weapons were removed from Cuba, but surely the tacticals were still on the island. Mikoyan confirmed that "the Soviet government has not given any promises regarding the removal of the tactical nuclear weapons. The Americans do not even have any information that they are in Cuba." But the Soviet government itself, said Mikoyan, not under U.S. pressure, has now decided to take them back.
Castro's mood only got worse. Now the tacticals were coming out. Already the Soviets had given in to American pressure on the IL-28 bombers (technically the bombers could reach Florida so they qualified as "offensive" and they were nuclear capable). Mikoyan tried to persuade Castro that "as far as Il-28s are concerned, you know yourself that they are outdated. Presently, it is best to use them as a target plane." Castro retorts: "And why did you send them to us then?"
Castro was very emotional and at times rough with Mikoyan -- he criticized the Soviet military for failing to camouflage the missiles, for not using their anti-aircraft launchers to shoot down U.S. U-2 spy planes, essentially allowing them to photograph the sites. He went back to the initial offer of missiles and stated that the Cubans did not want the missiles, they only accepted the weapons as part of "fulfilling their duty to the socialist camp." The Cubans were ready to die in a nuclear war and were hoping that the Soviet Union would be also willing "to do the same for us." But the Soviets did not treat the Cubans as a partner, they caved in under U.S. pressure, and did not even consult the Cubans about the withdrawal. Castro expressed the humiliation the Cubans felt: "What do you think we are? A zero on the left, a dirty rag. We tried to help the Soviet Union to get out of a difficult situation."
In desperation, Castro almost begged Mikoyan to leave the tactical warheads in Cuba, especially because the Americans were not aware of them and they were not part of the agreement between Kennedy and Khrushchev. Castro claimed that the situation now was even worse than it was before the crisis -- Cuba was defenseless, and the U.S. non-invasion assurances did not mean much for the Cubans. But Mikoyan rejected Castro's pleas and cited a (nonexistent) Soviet law proscribing the transfer of nuclear weapons to third countries. Castro had a suggestion: "So you have a law that prohibits transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to other countries? It's a pity. And when are you going to repeal that law?" Mikoyan was non-committal: "We will see. It is our right [to do so]."
This ended Cuba's hope to become a Latin American nuclear power.
Ironically, if the Cubans were a little more pliant, and a little less independent, if they were more willing to be Soviet pawns, they would have kept the tactical nuclear weapons on the island. But they showed themselves to be much more than just a parking lot for the Soviet missiles. Cuba was a major independent variable of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Mikoyan treated his Cuban hosts with great empathy and respect, while being highly critical of his own political and military leadership. He admired the genuine character of the Cuban revolution, he saw its appeal for Latin America. But he also saw the danger of the situation spiraling out of control probably better than other leaders in this tense triangle, and thus brought about the final resolution of the crisis.
The following transcript was prepared by a Soviet note-taker, with the Soviet ambassador to Cuba, Alexandr Alexeyev, translating for Mikoyan.
Mikoyan Castro Memcon 11 22 62.PDF
Sergo Mikoyan Collection, National Security Archive.
National Security
History Repeats Itself as Tragedy
The must-read secret Pentagon memo on Syria's 1982 massacre.
The similarities are striking. The regime -- Assad the father then, and Assad the son now -- uses the same brutal tactics of repression. It rains indiscriminate violence from the air, from cannons, and from tanks on the urban centers of the uprising, regardless of civilian casualties. The opposition -- including the Muslim Brotherhood cadres described in this document -- pursues a strategy of violent rebellion that "would also force the Damascus government to become even more oppressive" and thus "cause greater alienation of the Assad government from the Sunni Muslim majority and within the Alawite community," from which even Syrian military might defect, thereby hastening the fall of the regime.
About the Hama massacre, the DIA analysts concluded:
The Muslim Brotherhood leadership was fully aware that they had the Assad regime in a 'no win' situation over Hama. If Assad had not acted forcefully against Hama, the rebellion might have spread to other cities which in turn might have led to a full-scale rebellion. Assad's liberal use of artillery in breaking the resistance in Hama served notice to other cities that he has both the will and the means to retain power. By the same token, however, the government's actions have appalled and sickened a wide spectrum of Syrian society. Nonetheless, Assad's strategy continues to be based on the realization that most Syrians, regardless of their differences with the present government, do not want the Muslim Brotherhood in power, although they would undoubtedly prefer one dominated by Sunni Muslims [instead of Assad's Alawite sect].
The one factual discrepancy in this DIA report, compared to what we know now, is the casualty count on Hama. The document says 2,000 dead, but independent observers (ranging from the British journalist Robert Fisk, who visited Hama, to the Syrian Human Rights Committee) determined after the fact that between 20,000 and 40,000 died at Hama -- all killed in the month of February 1982, within just a few weeks.
Library of Congress
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Fruitless Mulberry
A Guide to Growing the Fruitless Mulberry Tree
The fruitless mulberry tree originated in China. It was initially brought to North America by people who wanted to make money from silk, as the fruitless mulberry is the sole source of food for silkworms. Although the silk industry never took off in North America, the fruitless mulberry tree did and it started to be a popular landscape tree.
What people liked best about this type of mulberry tree was the fact that it was fruitless. People were not overly fond of mulberry trees because they grew fruits which were very messy. Not only did they stain clothing but birds made the ground a mess eating them and then carried the seeds away, scattering them about to make new trees. In fact, in some cities and states, the mulberry tree is considered an invasive species and it is banned.
The fruitless mulberry tree has a round top and can grow to be between thirty and sixty feet high. Its leaves take several shapes and can range in color from a light green tinted with yellow or orange to leaves which are dark green.
The silkworm weaves the thread from which silk is made. Most of the silk in the world is made in the countries of the Far East, especially in China and Japan. The silk farmers feed the fruitless mulberry leaves to the silkworm caterpillars, who then spin it into threads to make their cocoons.
The fruitless mulberry tree grows quickly and is an ideal city shade tree. It is able to handle pollution and also ocean salt water. The tree is easy to grow and not fussy about the soil. It likes to be planted where it can receive full sun. It will thrive in parks or yards with lots of space for it spread out. It can grow to be up to twenty-five feet wide.
This mulberry tree grows best in USDA hardiness zones 5-6. It becomes dormant during the winter. The fruitless mulberry needs to be pruned back dramatically at least every two years. The tree will regain growth of at least 15 to 20 feet the next summer. If the tree goes more than two years without pruning, you will need to hire a professional tree trimmer as it will be considerably overgrown.
This type of pruning is called pollarding. If the pruning is not completed, the tree can develop problems with weak crotches. They can allow moisture in and cause the branches to rot and fall off. This is one of the few problems with the trees as they are quite resistant to insect pests and diseases.
Not only is the fruitless mulberry tree considered invasive in some areas, a different problem with the tree is reported in Arizona and other parts of the Southwest, where many people go to escape from their allergy problems. The tree has been the subject of great controversy in some cities and has been banned in many. The reason is that the trees give off too much pollen which triggers allergies.
Ever since the 1950s, the fruitless mulberry has been planted in great quantities because it is a shade tree that is very easy to grow in a region which has endless sun and heat. The problem is that only the male varieties were planted because it was the female trees which grew messy fruits. The male trees give off huge amounts of pollen. Currently there are bans in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, Las Cruces, and Albuquerque.
If you live in a warm planting zone and there are no restrictions on growing the fruitless mulberry, you may be very happy with this species. It grows very fast and is practically impossible to kill, no matter how much you neglect its care.
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Living With Chronic Bronchitis
If you have chronic bronchitis, you can take steps to control your symptoms. Lifestyle changes and ongoing care can help you manage the condition.
Lifestyle Changes
The most important step is to not start smoking or to quit smoking. Talk with your doctor about programs and products that can help you quit.
For more information about how to quit smoking, go to the Diseases and Conditions Index Smoking and Your Heart article and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's (NHLBI's) "Your Guide to a Healthy Heart." Although these resources focus on heart health, they include general information about how to quit smoking.
Also, try to avoid other lung irritants, such as secondhand smoke, dust, fumes, vapors, and air pollution. This will help keep your lungs healthy.
Wash your hands often to lower your risk for a viral or bacterial infection. Also, try to stay away from people who have colds or the flu. See your doctor right away if you have signs or symptoms of a cold or the flu.
Ongoing Care
See your doctor regularly and take all of your medicines as prescribed. Also, talk with your doctor about getting a yearly flu shot and a pneumonia vaccine.
If you have chronic bronchitis, you may benefit from pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). PR is a broad program that helps improve the well-being of people who have chronic (ongoing) breathing problems.
People who have chronic bronchitis often breathe fast. Talk with your doctor about a breathing method called pursed-lip breathing. This method decreases how often you take breaths, and it helps keep your airways open longer. This allows more air to flow in and out of your lungs so you can be more physically active.
To do pursed-lip breathing, you breathe in through your nostrils. Then you slowly breathe out through slightly pursed lips, as if you're blowing out a candle. You exhale two to three times longer than you inhale. Some people find it helpful to count to two while inhaling and to four or six while exhaling.
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March 1, 2011
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Are yams and sweet potatoes the same?
main memory
noun, Computers.
program-addressable storage that is directly controlled by and generally contained in the CPU: except for cache storage, the fastest type of storage available to any computer system.
Also called main storage, primary memory.
Formerly core memory.
Compare real storage. Unabridged
Cite This Source
Examples from the web for main memory
• The last thing you want is to make an unappealing attraction their main memory of their last vacation.
• It's the speed of light that causes designers fits as they try and remove latency from main memory and cache accesses.
• It is the part of the operating system that loads first, and it remains in main memory.
• They have less main memory bandwidth which can limit the performance for applications that do not reuse data cache well.
• The main memory bus really is not fast enough to support the second processor, so little performance is gained from using it.
• The main memory requirements are smaller than for any other known technique by an order of magnitude.
• The movie may not fit into main memory so blockbuster effectively breaks an image into blocks for efficient display.
• If you plan to pull a large amount of map data from the server, it is recommended that you choose a storage card over main memory.
• Unlike main memory, media storage devices retain data even when the computer is turned off.
British Dictionary definitions for main memory
main memory
the central memory-storage facility in a computer
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
Cite This Source
main memory in Technology
storage, architecture
The storage device used by a computer to hold the currently executing program and its working data. A modern computer's main memory is built from random-access memory integrated circuits. In the old days ferrite core memory was one popular form of main memory, leading to the use of the term "core" for main memory.
Computers have several other sorts of memory, distinguished by their access time, storage capicity, cost, and the typical lifetime or rate of change of the data they hold. Registers in the CPU are fast, few, expensive and typically change every few machine instructions. Other kinds are cache, PROM, magnetic disk (which may be used for virtual memory) and magnetic tape.
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Word of the Day
Difficulty index for main memory
Few English speakers likely know this word
Word Value for main
Scrabble Words With Friends
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dwww Home | Manual pages | Find package
SYNC(8) Linux Programmer's Manual SYNC(8)
sync - synchronize data on disk with memory
sync [--help] [--version]
sync writes any data buffered in memory out to disk. This can include
(but is not limited to) modified superblocks, modified inodes, and
delayed reads and writes. This must be implemented by the kernel; The
sync program does nothing but exercise the sync(2) system call.
The kernel keeps data in memory to avoid doing (relatively slow) disk
reads and writes. This improves performance, but if the computer
crashes, data may be lost or the file system corrupted as a result.
sync ensures that everything in memory is written to disk.
sync should be called before the processor is halted in an unusual man-
ner (e.g., before causing a kernel panic when debugging new kernel
code). In general, the processor should be halted using the shut-
down(8) or reboot(8) or halt(8) commands, which will attempt to put the
system in a quiescent state before calling sync(2). (Various implemen-
tations of these commands exist; consult your documentation; on some
systems one should not call reboot(8) and halt(8) directly.)
--help Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.
Print version information on standard output, then exit success-
-- Terminate option list.
The variables LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LC_MESSAGES have the usual
On Linux, sync is only guaranteed to schedule the dirty blocks for
writing; it can actually take a short time before all the blocks are
finally written. The reboot(8) and halt(8) commands take this into
account by sleeping for a few seconds after calling sync(2).
This page describes sync as found in the fileutils-4.0 package; other
versions may differ slightly.
sync(2), halt(8), reboot(8), update(8)
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
GNU 1998-11-01 SYNC(8)
Generated by dwww version 1.11.3 on Mon Nov 24 14:29:23 CET 2014.
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Search billions of records on
The name Keith comes from a warrior whom Malcolm II dubbed "Marbhachair Chamuis" or Camus Slayer after the warrior slew the Danish General Camus at the Battle of Barrie in 1010. "Marbhachair Chamuis" later held the lands of Keth in Lothian for Malcolm II. This is the origin of the modern name Keith.
A Norman named Hervey later married the heiress of Marbhachair and received charter for the lands of Keth from King David I in 1150. Hervey's son was made Marischal of the King of Scots in 1176. The Marischal, was custodian of the Royal regalia and was to protect the King at Parliament.
Robert the Bruce bestowed Halforest in Aberdeenshire to Robert de Keth in 1308. Here the Keiths built their castle. Sir Robert's nephew was the one to return the Bruce's heart to Melrose abbey after the Douglas's death at the hands of the Moors in Spain. The Bruce also made the office of Marischall herediatry to the Keiths in 1324 in recognition of Sir Robert de Keth, calvalry commander at the Battle of Bannockburn.
Sir William the Marischall added estates in Buchan, Kincardine and Lothian to the family by marrying the daughter of Sir Alexander Fraser, the High Chamberlain. Sir William's brother married the Cheyne heiress bringing the massive estate of Inverugie into the familly. The chief's seat was later to be a castle on the Inverugie lands.
The 3rd Lord Keith was raised to Earl Marischal in 1458. During the reformation the 7th Earl was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London until the restoration. The King then appointed him Privy Councillor and later Lord Privy Seal as reward for his services in the Royal cause. The Earl Marischal had hidden the Honours of Scotland (Scottish crown jewels) on Keith lands for safekeeping.
The Keith family supported the Jacobite cause during the 1715 and '45 uprisings and for their part forfeited their lands.
The 9th Earl of Kintore, Governor General of South Australia from 1889 to 1895, decimated the Kintore estates. The 12th Earl was instrumental in promoting the Clan internationally and appointed a hereditary sennachie to preserve the Keith genealogy. The 13th Earl resides on the Keith Hall estate in Aberdeenshire.
Note: Some genealogies claim that Sir John Keith, below, was son of Hervey de Keith, son of Phillip de Keith and Eda Lorens. Others claim he was son of Sir Robert Keith and Jean Ogilvie. The following account deals only with generally accepted lines.
(1) Sir John Keith married, Marischal of Scotland, born about 1212, died before 1270; married Margaret Comyn/Cumming, born about 1217, daughter of the Earl of Buchan.
1. William, mentioned below
2. Robert, father of:
1. William Keith of Galstown. Father of:
1. Janet Keith, born about 1334 in Galston, Scotland, died after 1406; married David Hamilton II of Cadzow, born in Cadzow, Scotland, died before 1392. Parents of:
1. John Hamilton of Cadzow, born about 1361 in Cadzow, Scotland, died 14 September 1402 in the Battle of Homildon Hill. He married 8 March 1381/1382 Jean (Jacoba) Douglas, daughter of James Douglas of Dalkeith and Agnes Dunbar. Parents of:
1. James Hamilton of Cadzow, born about 1384 in Cadzow, Scotland, died before May 1441, and his wife Janet Livingston, born in Calendar, Perthshire, Scotland. Parents of:
1. Mary/Marjory Hamilton; married William Keith, 1st Earl of Marishal, born about 1397 in Dunnotar, Kincaid, Perthshire, Scotland, died before 16 March 1463/1464.
(2) Sir William Keith, born about 1236 in Humbie, Scotland, died before 1293, he accompanied King Robert's heart to the Holy Land. About 1261, he married Barbara de Seton, born about 1216. Parents of:
1. daughter; married William "the Hardy" Douglas, 1st Lord of Douglas
2. Edward, mentioned below
(3) Edward Keith of Synton, Marischal of Scotland, born about 1280 in Scotland, died 17 October 1346 in Neville, England. He married before July 1305 Isabella Synton. He married second Christian Menteith.
1. Child of Edward and Christian:
1. Janet
2. Children of Edward and Isabella:
1. Katherine; married Alexander de Berkeley/Barclay, 1st of Mathers
2. John, born about 1308
(4) William Keith, Grand Marischal, born in Dunottar, Kincaid, Perthshire, Scotland, died about 1407; married Margaret Fraser, born about 1340, died about 1407. Parents of:
(5) Robert Keith, born about 1363 in Dunnotar, Kincaid, Perthshire, Scotland; married a woman of the Urquhart clan. Parents of:
1. William, mentioned below
2. Elizabeth; married first Robert Irvine, 4th Laird Drum; married secondly his brother Alexander Irvine, second 4th Laird Drum.
Dunnotar Castle, near Stonehaven, in the Grampian region, was the ancestral home of Clan Keith for three centuries, and served as the setting for Franco Zeffirelli's film "Hamlet" starring Mel Gibson.
(6) William Keith, 1st Earl of Marishal, born about 1397 in Dunnotar, Kincaid, Perthshire, Scotland, died before 16 March 1463/1464; married Mary/Marjory Hamilton. Parents of:
1. Egidia, born about 1429 in Kincaid, Perthshire, Scotland, died after 14 August 1473; married James Forbes, 2nd Lord of Forbes, born about 1426
Return to the Main Genealogy Page
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November 15, 2011
E. coli could make biodiesel at extraordinary rate and Venter microbial vision to increase agricultural yield by ten to one hundred times
"The good news is that the engine that makes fatty acids in E. coli is incredibly powerful," Khosla said. "It is inherently capable of converting sugar into fuel-like substances at an extraordinary rate. The bad news is this engine is subject to some very tight controls by the cell."
It turns out that like any high performance engine, the catalytic process in E. coli can only attain peak efficiency when all the controls are tuned just right.
Biodiesel has so far lagged behind ethanol as a means of cutting fossil fuel use in vehicles because ethanol is easier and cheaper to make. But biodiesel has a higher energy density and lower water solubility than ethanol, which offer significant advantages.
"It is closer in chemical properties to a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia than any other biologically derived fuel," Khosla said. Thus it could easily be blended into diesel and gasoline, or used alone as a bona fide transportation fuel.
If researchers can figure out how to manipulate the cellular means of production in E. coli, biodiesel could be made cheaply enough that the little engine of E. coli could end up powering a lot of larger engines at far less cost to the environment than with fossil fuels.
PNAS - In vitro reconstitution and steady-state analysis of the fatty acid synthase from Escherichia coli
2. Al Fin highlights a Scientific American piece on Craig Venter
Scientific American - Can Algae Feed the World and Fuel the Planet? A Q&A with Craig Venter
Microbes will be the (human) food- and fuel-makers of the future, if J. Craig Venter has his way. The man responsible for one of the original sequences of the human genome as well as the team that brought you the first living cell running on human-made DNA now hopes to harness algae to make everything humanity needs. All it takes is a little genomic engineering.
Given algae's multibillion-year track record with photosynthesis and genetic experimentation Agradis's purpose is to turn that genetic cornucopia into improvements in agricultural crops, whether corn or canola—as well as use algae as a model for testing various new genetic combinations. A similar partnership between Monsanto and algae company Sapphire Energy will "use our algae platform that we developed to mine for genes that can transfer into their core agricultural products," explained Tim Zenk, Sapphire's vice president for corporate affairs in a prior interview with Scientific American. "When you do genetic screening in algae, you get hundreds of millions of traits in the screen and that accelerates the chances of finding something that can be transferred."
...look at the potential output from algae, and it's ten to one hundred times better than the best agricultural system.
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Bertha is rubbing her belly and patting her head at the same time.
An event that decreases the likelihood that a response will be repeated is called ___.
The ___ content of a dream contains the surface symbols that disguise the underlying meaning of the dream.
Your dog is begging for food while you eat dinner. Your mother gives him a morsel from her plate and he stops barking. In this situatin, your dog has been ___, and your mother has been ___.
positively reinforced; negatively reinforced
These are examples of abstract concept.
honesty, intelligence, love
The tree steps in memory processing are ___.
encoding, storage, retrieval
Based on observational learning research, which of the following is TRUE?
Children will imitate an aggressive model who appears to receive a reinforcer as a result of the behavior.
Varian is finding it hard to learn Greek in his first year of college because he took Latin his last two years of high school. This is an example of ___.
proactive interference
Irving's doctor prescribed Valium to hel him cope with job-related anierty. He found a less stressful job, and is anxiety-free. However, Irving still craves Valium and keeps taking it, because he likes its effects. He hasn't had to increase the dosaage an dhe did not have withdrawal symptoms when he forgot to take his pills. It is MOST likely that Irving is ___.
psychologically dependent on Valium
This is NOT a parasomnia.
sleep apnea
To the delight of her parents, Mosee has just begun to produce vowel sounds known as ___, while Farina is delighting er parents by emitting all the sounds of human speech, which is called ___.
cooing; babbling
The sound for /ng/ is called ___; whereas the sufix ing is called ___.
a phoneme; a morpheme
This is the knowledge and skills gained through experience and education that increase over a lifetime.
crystallized intelligence
Psychoactive drugs ___.
change conscious experience, mood, or perceptions
Leilani finds that she perspires, breathes rapidly, and has muscle twitches and tremors when she tries to quit using illiegal opiates. This suggest that she has developed ___.
withdrawal symptoms
The memory subsystem that stores unconscious procedural skils, simple classically conditioned responses, and priming is called ___ memory.
implicit/ nondeclarative
The evlutionary/ circadian theory of sleep says that sleep ___.
conserves energy and protects us from predators
Kelsey suffers from ___ amnesia because he cannot remeber the events that led up to the motorcycle accident that injured his brain.
Drug-taking that causes emotional or physical harm to the drug user or others is known as ___.
drug abuse
Based on most people's prototype for fruit, which of the following would take longer to classify?
an avocado
Misjuding your risk of dying in an airplane crash because you just watched 24-hour coverage of one is MOST related to the ___ heuristic.
If a test is valid, then its scores will be useful in ___.
predicting the test-taker's behavior in a similar situation
Nada believes that the drug she just took will make her more lively and outgoing at the aprty she is attending, but it is acutally slowing her system down, and may impair her thinking and her behavior. Which of the following drugs has Nada ingested?
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1. Spend more time before starting you work figuring out what you need to do in order to get your work done more efficiently.
2. Accept that not everything has to be perfect and try to avoid getting bogged down with a specific part of the assignment.
Homework is one part of studying that never seems to go away. Dealing with homework and getting it all done in an efficient and effective way on a regular basis can be hard to do. Sometimes it feels like you are always drowning in work and never seem to finish it all. However, by using a few simple techniques you can find ways to not only get all of your work done but also decrease the amount of time you spend doing it. Approach your work in a smarter and more calculated way and get it done faster.
1. The first step to getting work done is to make a list of exactly what needs to be done. While this may sound simple and like something you already do, there is more to it than just writing down the general assignments. It is important to know exactly what it is you need to do, not just the general assignment. Don’t just think of a paper as 8 pages you need to write but think about how important the paper is in the class, i.e. how much weight does it have in your overall grade. Similarly, if the work is just general homework such as a response to a reading, identify exactly how much effort and thought is required and wanted by the professor. There is no reason to work extra hard or write far more than you need to for a response when it’s not necessary and, in fact, doing so can be counterproductive. Identifying what is truly important and what is not can take more time than just writing a simple to do list but will save you time later when you start your work. In his blog post on, Ryan talks about how true efficiency in doing homework is actually counterintuitive.
“Instead of just sitting down and working at your homework, you have to spend more time NOT doing your homework and less DOING it.
In order to maximize your efficiency when doing homework, you should instead follow these steps.
“Maximum efficiency means a couple things:
1. You know exactly what homework you need to do
2. You have it all prioritized and know what order to do it in
3. You have plenty of energy and your brain is ready for learning
4. Distractions are gone and you have a great work environment”
(“Hacking Your Homework Time (Or How to Decrease HW Time by 50%)” by Ryan on
2. Once you know exactly what it is that you need to get done, you need to budget how much time each item on your list will take. Being able to accurately determine how long an assignment should take you will help you stay on track and avoid getting bogged down and taking too much time on something when it really isn’t necessary. For example, I know that it takes me about half an hour to write one page on the computer. From there I can estimate how long it should take me to finish a paper and if it seems like one page is taking too long then I am probably spending more time on it than it’s worth. Time your self and try to complete work within the time goals that you have set. You may not always be able to accurately estimate how long something will take you and, therefore, might not make the time limits. However, having some kind of time constraint for completing the assignment can motivate and encourage you to stay on track. You can even do this in even shorter increments with math problems for example and time yourself to complete each one in just a few minutes. An article from on tips to get homework done talks about timing yourself.
“Use an electronic timer. Before you begin an assignment, determine how much time it should take to complete the assignment. Add five minutes and set the timer. Challenge yourself to finish it before the timer goes off. This is great way to develop homework motivation (a.k.a. self-discipline) because it becomes a game to play against yourself.”
(“Homework: Staying Focused to Get It Done Faster” by Susan Kruger on
3. As part of identifying exactly what you need to do to complete an assignment, it is important to weigh getting the work done with doing it perfectly. You can’t complete every assignment perfectly and each and every thing that you do can’t be some amazing work of genius. It is important to identify what quality of work is necessary for any given assignment and complete it with that in mind. If the assignment is an online blog that the whole class participates in by writing a quick comment about the reading for class that is graded by completion, then there is no reason to write an in-depth response. Similarly, when you are trying to get work done efficiently it is often better to focus on completing it more than doing incredible work, then you can go back after and revise it if needed. One of the single best techniques that I have used to write more quickly, and arguably better, is telling myself that whatever I’m writing doesn’t have to be perfect and I’m just going to revise the whole thing anyways. This trick has helped me get less caught up in picking the perfect word for each and every sentence and instead focus on getting the paper done. That being said I don’t usually need to do that much revision even when I use this technique. So while I am writing the paper faster, I am also writing a better paper. In a great blog post with a bunch of tips on getting homework done, the author Katherine talks about how important it is to get something done rather than making something perfect.
Aim for completion, not necessarily perfection. Give it your best effort, but realize you are going to be in better shape turning in an “average” quality assignment that is turned in complete and on-time than turning in a “near perfect” assignment that is late.”
(“Tips for Getting That Homework DONE!” by Katherine E. on Chegg Blog)
4. Even after you know exactly what you need to do and have all of your work prioritized, it can still be hard to maintain your focus and avoid getting distracted, especially if you are somebody who is prone to distractions or even if you are just having trouble focusing. We all have trouble focusing at different times for a variety of reasons but the most important thing to do is to force yourself to go back to your work. Try and work in an environment that will provide you with the least distractions possible. For me, this usually means somewhere with very few people because people watching is one of my all-time favorite activities. I usually do work at home in my apartment, because it allows me to avoid the distraction of being around other people in the library and cuts out the extra time (and distraction) of going somewhere else to study. That being said studying at home or in your room doesn’t work for everybody. Regardless of where you study, accept occasional distractions or zoning out as unavoidable when doing work. Allow them to happen and don’t stress out about them too much. In a post by Makerere College School, they mention a few ways to help minimize distractions.
“Don’t waste your time and energy getting too annoyed with yourself if you get distracted – just re-focus your attention, once you get engaged with what you are doing you will be fine.
If you realize your attention is wandering over and over, work out why you are getting stuck with your work – you could write it down as a question.”
(“How to Get Your Homework Done Fast” by Makerere College School on their Media Collections)
5. Homework is often hardest to get done because of when we decide to do it…at night. Most people say that they are most productive at night and while that may or may not be scientifically true, it does lead to most people doing their work at night when there is a higher chance of being tired or sleepy. However, getting tired and/or wanting to fall asleep while doing work can happen at any point during the day and can make it hard to complete an assignment. I experienced the most trouble with this particular phenomenon when doing my reading for my Political Philosophy of Plato class a few semesters ago. While Plato is brilliant and has a lot of interesting things to say, reading 100 pages of one of his dialogues is more than enough to put you to sleep. Normally when we feel tired or sleepy and are doing work, we try to get all of the work done before sleeping. However, taking a power nap before or in the middle of work can get rid of that sleepiness and help you finish your work more effectively. I found an article on the Ririan Project that talks about all of the different types of short naps and their benefits. Check them out and find the perfect length nap to get your work done!
How long is a good nap?
(“10 Benefits of Power Napping, and How to Do It” by Ririan Project on
6. While the other tips are all aimed at helping you complete tasks once you know what they are and have them written down, this last idea is to help you organize and stay up-to-date with all of your homework at any given time. USAToday has a whole article on different iPhone apps that organize your homework and assignments and send you notifications and reminders about them. That old paper agenda that you get each year can instead become digital and you can access everything on your phone. The five apps that they mention include everything from helping teachers keep track of their students grades to helping students consolidate and share their notes from each class. I think getting notifications of assignment on your phone like you can with the first app iStudiez Pro could help you stay organized and remember all of your assignments. These apps really just make your regular to do list more portable, but given how much time we all spend on our phones these days, one of these apps might help out a lot.
Try using these techniques next time you feel overwhelmed with work and see if they help you get your homework done faster and maybe even better. Tell me your own experiences with managing homework and things you do to finish your to-do list.
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Definition of Chest
1. A large box of wood, or other material, having, like a trunk, a lid, but no covering of skin, leather, or cloth.
2. A coffin.
3. The part of the body inclosed by the ribs and breastbone; the thorax.
4. A case in which certain goods, as tea, opium, etc., are transported; hence, the quantity which such a case contains.
5. A tight receptacle or box, usually for holding gas, steam, liquids, etc.; as, the steam chest of an engine; the wind chest of an organ.
6. To deposit in a chest; to hoard.
7. To place in a coffin.
8. Strife; contention; controversy.
Chest Quotations
The home should be the treasure chest of living.
Le Corbusier
Mehmet Oz
Abraham Lincoln
Let me get you to understand I don't bully anybody. I stand up for what I believe in and I'm very honest and I always tell the truth. I'm not a liar, I'm not manipulative and I don't stab you in your back because I will stab you in your chest.
NeNe Leakes
Andres Segovia
More "Chest" Quotations
Chest Translations
chest in Afrikaans is bors
chest in Danish is kiste, bryst
chest in Dutch is boezem, borst
chest in Finnish is rinta
chest in French is sein, poitrine, commode, coffre
chest in German is Koffer, Brust, Kasten, Kasten
chest in Italian is torace, cassapanca, valigia, cassone
chest in Latin is arca archa, armarium
chest in Norwegian is bryst
chest in Portuguese is caixa, peito
chest in Spanish is arca, aparador, baul, cajon, pecho
Copyright © 2001 - 2014 BrainyQuote
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Errors in the use of adverbs
April 27, 2012pdf
Different kinds of adverbs go in different positions in a sentence. The usage is sometimes very different, too. ESL students often find it difficult to use adverbs correctly. Here are some common mistakes in the use of adverbs.
Incorrect: He plays tennis good.
Correct: He plays tennis well.
Good is an adjective. The adverb for this meaning is well.
Incorrect: I am very much sorry.
Correct: I am very sorry.
Very is used without much before adjectives and adverbs in the positive degree.
Incorrect: I am much tired.
Correct: I am very tired.
Much does not mean the same as very.
Incorrect: She is so poor to pay the dues.
Correct: She is too poor to pay the dues.
Incorrect: It is very hot to go out.
Correct: It is too hot to go out.
Note the structure too…to.
Incorrect: She carefully drove.
Correct: She drove carefully.
Incorrect: She angrily spoke.
Correct: She spoke angrily.
Adverbs of manner usually go in the end-position.
Incorrect: The room is enough spacious for us.
Correct: The room is spacious enough for us.
The adverb enough goes after the adjective or adverb it modifies.
Incorrect: I know to swim.
Correct: I know how to swim.
Know cannot be directly followed by an infinitive. Instead we use the structure know how to.
Incorrect: He is not clever to solve the problem.
Correct: He is not clever enough to solve the problem.
Incorrect: He is now too strong to walk.
Correct: He is now strong enough to walk.
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Edition: U.S. / Global
WHAT'S NEW IN TOBACCO; In Tiny Tobaccoville, a Giant Plant
By DAVID BOUL; David Boul is a reporter for The Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record.
Published: August 23, 1987
IN the tiny town of Tobaccoville, N.C., down the road from where farmers stoop in the broiling sun to pluck leaves from tobacco plants, R. J. Reynolds employees are working in the climate-controlled environs of the world's most modern cigarette plant.
Each machine at the new $1 billion factory can turn out 8,000 cigarettes a minute. By December, when the plant reaches full capacity with 72 machines, it will be able to produce 576,000 cigarettes a minute. That means 110 billion cigarettes a year, about 20 percent of the total annual output of the domestic tobacco industry.
''This whole plant probably increases our productivity by 60 percent,'' said James C. Kennedy, director of the Tobaccoville factory, located 14 miles north of company headquarters in Winston-Salem. Only five years ago, he said, most of Reynolds's machines were only half as fast as today's hardware.
''They've developed it to the point that it's almost uncanny,'' added Horace R. Kornegay, a former North Carolina Congressman who retired last year as chairman of the Tobacco Institute. ''If they had not been able to automate, they'd have been in serious trouble.'' He said automation had allowed profits to hold up at a time when the industry is pressured by forces such as health concerns and municipal and Federal regulations restricting smoking.
The two-million-square-foot factory, which opened last year, produces several brands including Winston, Doral and Salem. Rolling robots, guided by wires under the floor, fetch and stack cases of cigarettes. More than 70 different types of tobacco from around the world are delivered, then stored until needed. Each half-ton bale of leaf is tagged with a bar code so computers can track its history. The tobacco is cleaned, blended and dried, the company said, and then it is flavored with secret recipes, then pneumatically fed to machines that sit on parquet floors.
These machines form, cut and pack the cigarettes, using hundreds of different wrappings and filters. About 60 battery-operated robots then transport the finished product to a loading dock. The process is guided by workers perched in front of video screens in glass-enclosed control rooms.
''I guess I was a little surprised at first, but it works,'' said Mr. Kennedy. ''The tobacco goes through this plant without being touched by human hands. There used to be a lot of hand work.''
About 2,000 people work at the plant. In 1976, Mr. Kennedy said, 2,600 people worked at the company's Whitaker Park plant in Winston-Salem to make 10 billion fewer cigarettes each year. And since the plant opened, he said, ''consumer complaints have gone down 20 percent,'' because there are fewer broken cigarettes, detached filters and holes in the paper.
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Vocabulary Word
Word: concomitant
Sentences Containing 'concomitant'
As the number of elderly in the population increases, there will be a concomitant increase in the prevalence of acute and chronic neurological disorders associated with advancing age.
BVC experienced a severe decline in traded volumes since the mid-1990s as a result of a declining economy, the migration of stocks to the U.S. markets in the form of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), corporate takeovers with a concomitant reduction in the number of shares available for trade and an increasing country risk that has frightened investors, particularly foreign investors.
Finally in the 1950s and 1960s, concomitant to his political affiliations, Desoille held to a Pavlovian conception of neurosis, based on reflexes, in what was termed a "rational psychotherapy".
Granulosa and theca cells continue to undergo mitotis concomitant with an increase in antrum volume.
The concept of Soup kitchens spread to the United States from Ireland after the Great famine and the concomitant wave of Irish emigration to the New World.
The gene of interest directly causes production of protein(s) or RNA that produce a desired trait or phenotype, whereas markers (a DNA sequence or the morphological or biochemical markers produced due to that DNA) are genetically linked to the gene of interest. The gene of interest and the marker tend to move together during segregation of gametes due to their proximity on the same chromosome and concomitant reduction in recombination (chromosome crossover events) between the marker and gene of interest. For some traits, the gene of interest has been discovered and the presence of desirable alleles can be directly assayed with a high level of confidence.
This irregularity results in concomitant fluctuations of the sea water composition near the river delta.
While a general decline in health apparently followed the introduction of agriculture in some areas, it is unclear to what degree this change is related solely or at all to dietary patterns, since, as scholars have pointed out, other factors such as increased sedentism, different work habits, greater general caloric scarcity, and denser settlement patterns and concomitant disease transmission may also have played important roles.
While rising portal vein glucose levels increase glucokinase activity, the concomitant rise of insulin amplifies this effect by induction of glucokinase synthesis.
More Vocab Words
::: scuffle - struggle confusedly; move off in a confused hurry; N. CF. scuffling twins ?
::: legerdemain - sleight(dexterity) of hand; CF. light of hand
::: factious - inclined to form factions; causing dissension
::: straggle - stray or fall behind (a main group); spread out in a scattered group; Ex. straggling marathon racer; Ex. straggling branch
::: premeditate - plan in advance; Ex. premeditated murder
::: relent - become less severe; give in(surrender); ADJ. relentless: unyielding; continuously severe
::: untoward - unexpected and adverse; unfortunate or unlucky; Ex. untoward encounter
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Party wall
Party wall (or parti-wall) is a dividing partition between two adjoining buildings (or units) that is shared by the tenants of each residence or business. The wall is sometimes constructed over the center of the property line dividing two terraced flats or row houses so that one half of the wall is on each property. They are sometimes two abutting walls built at different times.
Party walls are typically made of non-combustible material. Where required by code, the party wall could be a fire wall. The wall starts at the foundation and continues up to a parapet, creating two separate and structurally independent buildings on either side. The term can be also used to describe a division between separate units within a multi-unit apartment complex. Very often the wall in this case is non-structural but designed to meet established criteria for sound and/or fire protection between residential units.
This building term which, in England, apart from special statutory definitions, may be used in four different legal senses. Less commonly, it may also be spelled Parti Wall.
It may mean:
1. a wall of which the adjoining owners are tenants in common;
2. a wall divided longitudinally into two strips, one belonging to each of the neighbouring owners;
3. a wall which belongs entirely to one of the adjoining owners, but is subject to an easement or right in the other to have it maintained as a dividing wall between the two tenements;
4. a wall divided longitudinally into two moieties, each moiety being subject to a cross easement, in favour of the owner of the other moiety.
In the United Kingdom, the legal rights and obligations governing work to or adjacent to a Party wall are governed by the Party Wall, etc. Act, 1996 and Party Wall Surveyors specialise in managing the negotiation process between adjoining owners and resolving disputes.
In the USA, the term most commonly refers to the wall within a condominium complex that separates two neighboring units.
Case Law
Andreae v Selfridge & Co. (1938) Dean v Walker (1996) Phips v Pears (1964) Selby v Whitbread (1917)
See also
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Search Currents Currents Archives Contact Currents UC Santa Cruz Home Page
Currents Online
January 16, 2006
New study highlights role of hit-and-run collisions in formation of planets, asteroids, meteorites
By Tim Stephens
Hit-and-run collisions between embryonic planets during a critical period in the early history of the Solar System may account for some previously unexplained properties of planets, asteroids, and meteorites, according to UCSC researchers who published their findings in the January 12 issue of the journal Nature.
Collision between two planetary embryos
Collision between two planetary embryos
Collision between two planetary embryos
The three images (top, center, and bottom) show a typical collision between two planetary embryos before, during, and after the impact. In the first image, the impactor is half the mass of the target, and in the second, the impactor is one-tenth the mass of the target. Blue represents the rocky material of the mantle, and red represents the iron-rich material of the inner core of each planetary embryo. Mantle is lost in some degree from all major remnants of the collisions. In the second image, the impactor is broken into a chain of iron-enriched bodies.
Images and animations: E. Asphaug and C. Agnor
Computer simulations
Computer simulations show a planet about the size of Mars colliding with an object about the size of the Moon. The two movies show the collision from different perspectives, first from the point of view of the target (view first movie) and then from the point of view of the impactor (view second movie). The target can be seen oscillating after the impact as it tries to attain a new equilibrium. The impactor emerges from the collision as a new family of small planets, many of them greatly enriched in iron core material (red), and a spray of escaping mantle material (blue).
But when planets collide, they don't always stick together. About half the time, a planet-sized impactor hitting another planet-sized body will bounce off, and these hit-and-run collisions have drastic consequences for the impactor, said Erik Asphaug, associate professor of Earth sciences and first author of the Nature paper.
"You end up with planets that leave the scene of the crime looking very different from when they came in--they can lose their atmosphere, crust, even the mantle, or they can be ripped apart into a family of smaller objects," Asphaug said.
Asphaug and postdoctoral researcher Craig Agnor used powerful computers to run simulations of a range of scenarios, from grazing encounters to direct hits between planets of comparable sizes. Coauthor Quentin Williams, professor of Earth sciences, analyzed the outcomes of these simulations in terms of their effects on the composition and final state of the remnant objects.
"As two massive objects pass near each other, gravitational forces induce dramatic physical changes--decompressing, melting, stripping material away, and even annihilating the smaller object," Williams said. "You can do a lot of physics and chemistry on objects in the Solar System without even touching them."
"It's like uncorking the world's most carbonated beverage," he said. "What happens when a planet gets decompressed by 50 percent is something we don't understand very well at this stage, but it can shift the chemistry and physics all over the place, producing a complexity of materials that could very well account for the heterogeneity we see in meteorites."
"We've always known that's an approximation, but it's actually not easy for planets to merge," he said. "Our calculations show that they have to be moving fairly slowly and hit almost head-on in order to accrete."
It is easy for a planet to attract and accrete a much smaller object than itself. In giant impacts between planet-sized bodies, however, the impactor is comparable in size to the target. In the case of a Mars-sized impactor hitting an Earth-sized target, the impactor would be one-tenth the mass but fully one-half the diameter of the Earth, Asphaug said.
"Imagine two planets colliding, one half as big as the other, at a typical impact angle of 45 degrees. About half of the smaller planet doesn't really intersect the larger planet, while the other half is stopped dead in its tracks," Asphaug said. "So there is enormous shearing going on, and then you've got incredibly powerful tidal forces acting at close distances. The combination works to pull the smaller planet apart even as it's leaving, so in the most severe cases the impactor loses a large fraction of its mantle, not to mention its atmosphere and crust."
This research was funded by NASA's Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program.
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Manhood and War
[The following is excerpted from The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy. For more information click here.]
A key defense of patriarchy invokes the mysteries of warfare as crucial to understanding the ‘natural’ gender order. As the argument goes, men must be aggressive and develop a capacity for violence in order to defend society and family. As Sam Keen puts it in his book, Fire in the Belly, sacrifice is at the center of men’s lives as they put the welfare of others above their own: “Most men went to war, shed blood, and sacrificed their lives with the conviction that it was the only way to defend those whom they loved. . . . [S]hort of a utopian world . . . someone must be prepared to take up arms and do battle with evil” (p. 47).
The violent-man-as-protector image is connected to patriarchy through the idea that men’s capacity for violence and aggression inevitably leads to male dominance over women, children, and property, since men must be more powerful than those they protect. “Men . . . must be manly,” anthropologist David Gilmore tells us in Manhood in the Making, because warfare demands it” (p.150). But it is no less reasonable to also argue that warfare exists because patriarchal manliness and its related structures of control and dominance demand it.
There are two major problems with using warfare to justify patriarchy and male dominance. First, the romantic images of warfare don’t fit much of what we know about actual men and war. The idea that men are motivated primarily by self-sacrifice doesn’t square with the high value patriarchal cultures place on male autonomy and freedom. According to Keen, autonomy and independence, not self-sacrifice for women and children, were a key to the patriarchal rebellion against goddess religions and men’s ‘servitude to nature.’ The warfare argument for patriarchy also fits poorly with the reality of warfare as most people actually experience it. I don’t know which wars Keen has in mind, but most that I can think of were fought for anything but defense of loved ones, and men in privileged racial and economic classes who presumably love their families as much as the next man have been all too willing to allow those less fortunate than they to serve in their place. Was it love that motivated the endless bloodshed of the Roman conquests, the slaughter of countless religious wars and crusades, the Napoleonic wars, the U.S. Civil War, or the two world wars? Was it to protect women and children that the United States ‘liberated’ the Philippines from the Spanish following the Spanish-American war and then brutally suppressed Philippine resistance to becoming a U.S. colony and gateway to Asian markets? Was it for the sake of hearth and home that U.S. soldiers went to Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and Iraq, or Soviet troops to Afghanistan? Does love of family explain the ethnic slaughter in Eastern Europe and the brutality of civil wars from Cambodia to Somalia to El Salvador? Is the collective emotional rush that typically greets declarations of war and the itchy yen for glorious victory simply a joyous welcome for yet another opportunity for men to demonstrate their love for wife, children, and community and the fulfillment of their duty to protect?
It would seem not. Closer to the truth is that war allows men to reaffirm their masculine standing in relation to other men, to act out patriarchal ideals of physical courage and aggression, and to avoid being shamed and ridiculed by other men for refusing to join in the fight. As Keen himself tells us, war is “a heroic way for an individual to make a name for himself” and to “practice heroic virtues.” It is an opportunity for men to bond with other men, friend and foe alike, and to reaffirm their common masculine warrior codes. If war was simply about self-sacrifice in the face of monstrous enemies who threaten men’s loved ones, how do we make sense of the long tradition of respect between wartime enemies, the codes of ‘honor’ that bind them together even as they bomb and devastate civilian populations that consist primarily of women and children? Could soldiers fighting only out of such lofty motives as love for home and hearth accumulate such an extensive and consistent record of gratuitous rape and other forms of torture, abuse, and wanton violence inflicted on civilian populations? Certainly there are men who refuse to go to war, and others who go with the sense of self-sacrificing mission that Keen describes, but to attribute warfare as a system to such altruistic motives is the kind of romantic thinking that warfare thrives on. In spite of the horrible price that many men pay for their participation in war, we shouldn’t confuse the fact of their being sacrificed with self-sacrificing personal motivations, especially when trying to explain why warfare exists as a social phenomenon.
The second problem with using warfare to explain male aggression and patriarchal dominance is that it’s a circular argument. As much as we like to divide the world into good guys and bad guys, every nation going to war sees itself as justified in defending what it defines as the good. Each side believes in and glorifies the use of male-identified armed force to resolve disputes and uphold deeply held abstract principles, from the glory of Allah to ethnic or racial purity to the sacredness of democracy. Even the most reluctant government may welcome a breakdown of negotiations that will justify using force (unless they think they’ll lose), and it has become commonplace for national leaders to use war as a way to galvanize public support for their regimes, especially in election years. The heroic male figure of western gunslinging cowboys is almost always portrayed as basically peace-loving and unwilling to use violence “unless he has to.” But the whole point of his heroism and of the story itself is the audience wanting him to ‘have to.’ The spouses, children, territory, honor, and various underdogs who are defended with heroic violence serve as excuses for the violent demonstration of a particular version of patriarchal manhood. They aren’t of central importance, which is why their experience is rarely the focus of attention.
The real interest lies in the male hero and his relation to other men as victor or vanquished, as good guy or bad guy. Indeed, the hero is often the only one who remains intact (or mostly so) at the end of the story. The raped wife, slaughtered family, and ruined community get lost in the shuffle, with only passing attention to their suffering as it echoes across generations and no mention of how they have been used as a foil for patriarchal masculine heroism. Note, however, that when female characters take on such heroic roles, as in Thelma and Louise, the social response is ambivalent if not hostile. Many people complained that the villains in Thelma and Louise made men look bad, but I’ve never heard anyone complain that the villains in male-heroic movies make men look bad. It seems that we have yet another gender double standard: it’s acceptable to portray men as villainous but only if it serves to highlight male heroism.
To support male aggression and therefore male dominance as society’s only defense against evil, we have to believe that evil forces exist out there, in villains, governments, and armies. In this, we have to assume that the bad guys actually see themselves as evil and not as heroes defending loved ones and principles against bad guys like us. The alternative to this kind of thinking is to realize that the same patriarchal ethos that creates our masculine heroes also creates the violent villains they battle and prove themselves against, and that both sides often see themselves as heroic and self-sacrificing for a worthy cause. For all the wartime propaganda, good and bad guys play similar games and salute a core of common values, not to mention one another on occasion. At a deep level, war and many other forms of male aggression are manifestations of the same evil they supposedly defend against. The evil is the patriarchal religion of control and domination that encourages men to use coercion and violence to settle disputes, manage human relations, and affirm masculine identity.
None of this criticism means that men can’t feel compelled to lovingly sacrifice themselves. It also doesn’t mean there’s no place for ferocity in the face of danger, as the females of many species, including our own, demonstrate in defense of their young. But as we saw in Chapter 4, there is a difference between patriarchy as a system and the personal motivations of the people who participate in it. When some men go off to war they may feel full of love for family and community, but this doesn’t explain why warfare exists as a social institution or what compels men to march off to it. In similar ways, men may put family needs before their own simply out of love, but this happens in spite of a patriarchal system that encourages them to value their competitive masculine standing above all else. How else do we explain the men who abandon families rather than work at jobs they consider beneath them and leave behind wives who are far less reluctant to do whatever is necessary to support their children? How else do we understand men who insist on ‘sacrificing’ themselves only in ways that tend to impress other men? I suspect that most men would rather work overtime or fight another man, for example, than diaper babies or risk true emotional intimacy, even if the latter provided loved ones with what they needed most. The patriarchal path of least resistance for a man whose wife is raped isn’t to take care of her, but to wreak heroic revenge on the rapist, an act that, if anything, makes things worse for her. But in a patriarchy her well-being is secondary to his rights and standing as a man in relation to other men. In this sense, the rapist does more than assault a woman, for he also violates a man’s proprietary rights of sexual access and casts doubt on that man’s ability to defend his sexual property against other men. The husband’s revenge uses violence in true patriarchal fashion to reestablish his masculine rights and standing in relation not only to the rapist, but to men in general.
When we romanticize patriarchy or define it as noble and socially necessary, we blind ourselves to what’s going on and paralyze our capacity to work for change. In truth, patriarchy is everywhere, from family, sexuality, and reproduction to global politics and economic production, and not seeing it won’t save us from its consequences.
From The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy. For more information click here. See also Allan’s new novel, Nothing Left to Lose, about a family in crisis during the Vietnam War.
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Synthetic Fuels
Written by Administrator
Sunday, 26 August 2007
Fischer-Tropsch process
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The Fischer-Tropsch process is a catalyzed chemical reaction in which carbon monoxide and hydrogen are converted into liquid hydrocarbons of various forms. Typical catalysts used are based on iron and cobalt. The principal purpose of this process is to produce a synthetic petroleum substitute.
• 1 Original process
• 2 History
• 3 Utilization
• 4 See also
• 5 External links
Original process
The original Fischer-Tropsch process is described by the following chemical equation:
CH_4 + \begin{matrix} \frac{1}{2} \end{matrix}O_2 \rarr 2 H_2 + CO
(2n+1)H_2 + nCO \rarr C_nH_{2n+2} + nH_2O
The mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen is called synthesis gas or syngas. The resulting hydrocarbon products are refined to produce the desired synthetic fuel.
The carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide is generated by partial oxidation of coal and wood-based fuels. The utility of the process is primarily in its role in producing fluid hydrocarbons or hydrogen from a solid feedstock, such as coal or solid carbon-containing wastes of various types. Non-oxidative pyrolysis of the solid material produces syngas which can be used directly as a fuel without being taken through Fischer-Tropsch transformations. If liquid petroleum-like fuel, lubricant, or wax is required, the Fischer-Tropsch process can be applied. Finally, if hydrogen production is to be maximized, the water gas shift reaction can be performed, generating only carbon dioxide and hydrogen and leaving no hydrocarbons in the product stream. Fortunately shifts from liquid to gaseous fuels are relatively easy to make.
Since the invention of the original process by the German researchers Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the 1920s, many refinements and adjustments have been made, and the term "Fischer-Tropsch" now applies to a wide variety of similar processes (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis or Fischer-Tropsch chemistry)
The process was invented in petroleum-poor but coal-rich Germany in the 1920s, to produce liquid fuels. It was used by Germany and Japan during World War II to produce alternative fuels. Germany's yearly synthetic oil production reached more than 124,000 barrels per day from 25 plants ~ 6.5 million tons in 1944 ( After the war, captured German scientists continued to work on synthetic fuels in the United States in Operation Paperclip.
Currently, two companies have commercialised their FT technology. Shell in Bintulu, Malaysia, uses natural gas as a feedstock, and produces primarily low-sulfur diesel fuels. Sasol in South Africa uses coal as a feedstock, and produces a variety of synthetic petroleum products. The process is today used in South Africa to produce most of the country's diesel fuel from coal by the company Sasol. The process was used in South Africa to meet its energy needs during its isolation under Apartheid. This process has received renewed attention in the quest to produce low sulfur diesel fuel in order to minimize the environmental impact from the use of diesel engines. A small US-based company, Rentech, is currently focussing on converting nitrogen-fertiliser plants from using a natural gas feedstock to using coal or coke, and producing liquid hydrocarbons as a by-product.
Also Choren in Germany and CWT (Changing World Technologies) have built FT plants or use similar processes.
The FT process is an established technology and already applied on a large scale, although its popularity is hampered by high capital costs, high operation and maintenance costs, and the relatively low price of crude oil. In particular, the use of natural gas as a feedstock only becomes practical when using "stranded gas", i.e. sources of natural gas far from major cities which are impractical to exploit with conventional gas pipelines and LNG technology; otherwise, the direct sale of natural gas to consumers would become much more profitable. There are several companies developing the process to enable practical exploitation of so-called stranded gas reserves. It is expected by geologists that supplies of natural gas will peak 5-15 years after oil does.
There are large coal reserves which may increasingly be used as a fuel source during oil depletion. Since there are large coal reserves in the world, this technology could be used as an interim transportation fuel if conventional oil were to become more expensive. Combination of biomass gasification (BG) and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis is a very promising route to produce renewable or ‘green’ transportation fuels.
In Sept. 2005, Pennsylvania governor Edward Rendell announced [1] a venture with Waste Management and Processors Inc. -- using technology licensed from Shell and Sasol -- to build an FT plant that will convert so-called waste coal (leftovers from the mining process) into low-sulfur diesel fuel at a site outside of Mahanoy City, northwest of Philadelphia. [2]. The state of Pennsylvania has committed to buy a significant percentage of the plant's output and, together with the U.S. Dept. of Energy, has offered over $140 million in tax incentives. Other coal-producing states are exploring similar plans. Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana has proposed developing a plant that would use the FT process to turn his state's coal reserves into fuel in order to help alleviate the United States' dependence on foreign oil. [3]
One issue that has yet to be addressed in the emerging discussion about large-scale development of synthetic fuels is the enormous increase in primary energy use and carbon emissions inherent in conversion of gaseous and solid carbon sources to a usable liquid form. Recent work by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that full fuel cycle greenhouse gas emissions for coal-based synfuels are nearly twice as high as their petroleum-based equivalent. Emissions of other pollutants are vastly increased as well, although many of these emissions can be captured during production. Carbon sequestration has been suggested as a mitigation strategy for greenhouse gas emissions. However, while sequestration is already in limited use, the science and economics around large-scale sequestration strategies are, as yet, unconvincing. [4]
See also
External links
Last Updated ( Sunday, 26 August 2007 )
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Ocean Health: Crazy weather about to get even crazier
Ocean Health: Crazy weather about to get even crazier »Play Video
If you've noticed a change in the weather recently, you're not alone. It's been called "global weirding."
Even the nation's top weather trackers are concerned. Storms are getting stronger and the weather is growing wilder.
Storm damage is now calculated by the billions of dollars.
Compounding the problem, the critical natural resources that help protect us from the storm surges and ocean swells are disappearing.
It's a recipe for disaster; A perfect storm for storms.
As the Earth's temperature rises, the ocean heats up evaporating more water into the air, which can fuel powerful storms.
"The oceans are a major factor in weather. They store the heat that the planet accumulates, and then release it and release moisture with it," said Steve Katona, managing director of the Ocean Health Index. "It's the increased moisture in the atmosphere that contains all the energy that is driving these more intense storms."
Storm experts suggest the intensity of storms may increase dramatically.
"The kinds of changes that we're projecting are much more dramatic than anything we've seen in the last ten thousand years," said Tom Karl of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "This then would suggest that our society is going to be tested in ways that it's never been tested before with major changes in storms in the rainfall patterns, and how intensely the rain occurs."
With rising temperatures also comes rising sea levels, increasing flood risks and the intensity of storm surges.
"About 60% of the population on the entire world lives within 60 miles of the ocean. So just from a weather pattern standpoint there are huge, huge implications to what we do in coastal development and what happens to us from weather patterns because of the behavior of humans," said conservationist Beau Wrigley.
The price tag storm and flood damage is staggering.
"If you take a look at the losses from weather and climate disasters since 1980, just in the US, our losses are well over $750 billion since 1980," said Karl. "In 2011, alone we had close to $60 billion of losses from fourteen separate weather climate disasters."
Mother Nature provides protections from many of the surges, swells, and floods of these storms in the form of mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass meadows, coral reefs and even sea ice. These shoreline habitats have been destroyed to make room for farming and housing. In fact, just as storm activity begins to intensify to record levels, the Ocean Health Index found we've left many of our shorelines - and ourselves - unprotected.
The 2012 Ocean Health Index score for coastal protection score is just 73 out of 100.
"Shoreline protection is an absolutely important goal because so many of our coastal cities, as well as island nations and low lying nations, are threatened by sea level rise and increasing numbers and intensity of storms," said Katona.
Coastal cities are most at risk, but the ripple effects of these intensifying storm patterns could be felt nationwide.
To learn more, you can visit http://www.OceanHealthIndex.org
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Joan of Arc
The historian Kelly DeVries describes the period preceding her appearance with, "If anything could have discouraged her, the state of France in 1429 should have." The Hundred Years' War had begun in 1337 as a succession dispute to the French throne with intermittent periods of relative peace. Nearly all the fighting had taken place in France, and the English use of chevauchée tactics had devastated the economy. The French population had not recovered from the Black Death of the previous century and its merchants were cut off from foreign markets. At the outset of her career, the English had almost achieved their goal of a dual monarchy under English control and the French army had won no major victory for a generation. In DeVries's words, "the kingdom of France was not even a shadow of its thirteenth-century prototype. The French king at the time of Joan's birth, Charles VI, suffered bouts of insanity and was often unable to rule. The king's brother Duke Louis of Orléans and the king's cousin John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, quarreled over the regency of France and the guardianship of the royal children. This dispute escalated to accusations of an extramarital affair with Queen Isabeau of Bavaria and the kidnappings of the royal children. The matter climaxed when the Duke of Burgundy ordered the assassination of the Duke of Orléans in 1407.
Robert de Baudricourt granted her an escort to visit Chinon after news from the front confirmed her prediction. She made the journey through hostile Burgundian territory in male disguise. Upon arriving at the royal court she impressed Charles VII during a private conference. He then ordered background inquiries and a theological examination at Poitiers to verify her morality. During this time Charles's mother-in-law Yolande of Aragon was financing a relief expedition to Orléans. Joan petitioned for permission to travel with the army and wear the equipment of a knight. She depended on donated items for her armour, horse, sword, banner, and entourage. Her armor was said to be white. Historian Stephen W. Richey explains her attraction as the only source of hope for a regime that was near collapse:
"King of England, and you, Duke of Bedford, who call yourself regent of the kingdom of France...settle your debt to the king of Heaven; return to the Maiden, who is envoy of the king of Heaven, the keys to all the good towns you took and violated in France."
Her Letter to the English, March–April 1429; Quicherat I, p. 240, trans. Wikipedia.
She arrived at the siege of Orléans on 29 April 1429, but Jean d'Orléans, the acting head of the Orléans ducal family, initially excluded her from war councils and failed to inform her when the army engaged the enemy. This did not prevent her from being present at most councils and battles. The extent of her actual military leadership is a subject of historical debate. Traditional historians such as Édouard Perroy conclude that she was a standard bearer whose primary effect was on morale. This type of analysis usually relies on the condemnation trial testimony, where she stated that she preferred her standard to her sword. Recent scholarship that focuses on the nullification trial testimony asserts that her fellow officers esteemed her as a skilled tactician and a successful strategist. Stephen W. Richey's opinion is one example: "She proceeded to lead the army in an astounding series of victories that reversed the tide of the war." In either case, historians agree that the army enjoyed remarkable success during her brief career.
The French army set out for Reims from Gien-sur-Loire on June 29 and accepted the conditional surrender of the Burgundian-held city of Auxerre on July 3. Every other town in their path returned to French allegiance without resistance. Troyes, the site of the treaty that had tried to disinherit Charles VII, capitulated after a bloodless four-day siege. The army was in short supply of food by the time it reached Troyes. Edward Lucie-Smith cites this as an example of why she was more lucky than skilled: a wandering friar named Brother Richard had been preaching about the end of the world at Troyes and had convinced local residents to plant beans, a crop with an early harvest. The hungry army arrived as the beans ripened.
"Prince of Burgundy, I pray of you — I beg and humbly supplicate — that you make no more war with the holy kingdom of France. Withdraw your people swiftly from certain places and fortresses of this holy kingdom, and on behalf of the gentle king of France I say he is ready to make peace with you, by his honor."
"Her Letter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, 17 July 1429; Quicherat V, pp. 126–127, trans. Wikipedia.
After minor action at La-Charité-sur-Loire in November and December, Joan went to Compiègne the following April to defend against an English and Burgundian siege. A skirmish on 23 May 1430 led to her capture. When she ordered a retreat, she assumed the place of honor as the last to leave the field. Burgundians surrounded the rear guard.
"It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly. I am not content with these truces and do not know if I will keep them, but if I hold them it will only be to guard the king's honor: no matter how much they abuse the royal blood, I will keep and maintain the royal army in case they make no peace at the end of those fifteen days."
"Her Letter to the citizens of Reims, 5 August 1429; Quicherat I, p. 246, trans. Wikipedia.
It was customary for a captive's family to ransom a prisoner of war. Unfortunately, Joan and her family lacked the financial resources. Many historians condemn King Charles VII for failing to intervene. She attempted several escapes, on one occasion jumping from her 70 foot (21 m) tower in Vermandois to the soft earth of a dry moat, after which she was moved to the Burgundian town of Arras. The English government eventually purchased her from Duke Philip of Burgundy. Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, an English partisan, assumed a prominent role in these negotiations and her later trial.
The trial for heresy was politically motivated. The Duke of Bedford claimed the throne of France for his nephew Henry VI. She had been responsible for the rival coronation so to condemn her was to undermine her king's legitimacy. Legal proceedings commenced on 9 January 1431 at Rouen, the seat of the English occupation government. The procedure was irregular on a number of points. In 1456, Pope Callixtus III declared her innocent of the heresy charges brought against her.
To summarize some major problems, the jurisdiction of judge Bishop Cauchon was a legal fiction. He owed his appointment to his partisan support of the English government that financed the entire trial. Clerical notary Nicolas Bailly, commissioned to collect testimony against Joan, could find no adverse evidence. Without such evidence the court lacked grounds to initiate a trial. Opening a trial anyway, the court also violated ecclesiastical law in denying her right to a legal advisor. Upon the opening of the first public examination Joan complained that those present were all partisans against her and asked for "ecclesiastics of the French side" to be invited.
Several court functionaries later testified that significant portions of the transcript were altered in her disfavor. Many clerics served under compulsion, including the inquisitor, Jean LeMaitre, and a few even received death threats from the English. Under Inquisitorial guidelines, Joan should have been confined to an ecclesiastical prison under the supervision of female guards (i.e., nuns). Instead, the English kept her in a secular prison guarded by their own soldiers. Bishop Cauchon denied Joan's appeals to the Council of Basel and the pope, which should have stopped his proceeding.
The twelve articles of accusation that summarize the court's finding contradict the already doctored court record. The illiterate defendant signed an abjuration document she did not understand under threat of immediate execution. The court substituted a different abjuration in the official record.
Heresy was a capital crime only for a repeat offense. Joan agreed to wear women's clothes when she abjured. A few days later she was sexually assaulted in prison. She resumed male attire either as a defense against molestation or, in the testimony of Jean Massieu, because her dress had been stolen and she was left with nothing else to wear.
Eyewitnesses described the scene of the execution by burning on 30 May 1431. Tied to a tall pillar in the Vieux-Marche in Rouen, she asked two of the clergy, Fr Martin Ladvenu and Fr Isambart de la Pierre, to hold a crucifix before her. A peasant also constructed a small cross which she put in the front of her dress. After she expired, the English raked back the coals to expose her charred body so that no one could claim she had escaped alive, then burned the body twice more to reduce it to ashes and prevent any collection of relics. They cast her remains into the Seine. The executioner, Geoffroy Therage, later stated that he "...greatly feared to be damned.
Joan of Arc wore men's clothing between her departure from Vaucouleurs and her abjuration at Rouen. This raised theological questions in her own era and raised other questions in the twentieth century. The technical reason for her execution was a biblical clothing law. The nullification trial reversed the conviction in part because the condemnation proceeding had failed to consider the doctrinal exceptions to that stricture.
Joan of Arc's religious visions have interested many people. The consensus among scholars is that her faith was sincere. She identified Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine, and Saint Michael as the source of her revelations although there is some ambiguity as to which of several identically named saints she intended. Some Catholics regard her visions as divine inspiration.
Analysis of her visions is problematic since the main source of information on this topic is the condemnation trial transcript in which she defied customary courtroom procedure about a witness's oath and specifically refused to answer every question about her visions. She complained that a standard witness oath would conflict with an oath she had previously sworn to maintain confidentiality about meetings with her king. It remains unknown to what extent the surviving record may represent the fabrications of corrupt court officials or her own possible fabrications to protect state secrets. Some historians sidestep speculation about the visions by asserting that her belief in her calling is more relevant than questions about the visions' ultimate origin.
Documents from her own era and historians prior to the twentieth century generally assume that she was both healthy and sane. A number of more recent scholars attempted to explain her visions in psychiatric or neurological terms. Potential diagnoses have included epilepsy, migraine, tuberculosis, and schizophrenia. None of the putative diagnoses have gained consensus support because, although hallucination and religious enthusiasm can be symptomatic of various syndromes, other characteristic symptoms conflict with other known facts of Joan's life. Two experts who analyze a temporal lobe tuberculoma hypothesis in the medical journal Neuropsychobiology express their misgivings this way:
"It is difficult to draw final conclusions, but it would seem unlikely that widespread tuberculosis, a serious disease, was present in this 'patient' whose life-style and activities would surely have been impossible had such a serious disease been present.
Historian Régine Pernoud was sometimes sarcastic about speculative medical interpretations. In response to another such theory alleging that she suffered from bovine tuberculosis as a result of drinking unpasteurized milk, Pernoud wrote that if drinking unpasteurized milk can produce such potential benefits for the nation, then the French government should stop mandating the pasteurization of milk. Ralph Hoffman, professor of psychology at Yale University, points out that visionary and creative states including "hearing voices" are not necessarily signs of mental illness and names her religious inspiration as a possible exception although he offers no speculation as to alternative causes.
Her subtle replies under interrogation even forced the court to stop holding public sessions. If her visions had some medical or psychiatric origin then she would have been an exceptional case.
Hundred Years War
The Hundred Years' War continued for 22 years after her death. Charles VII succeeded in retaining legitimacy as king of France in spite of a rival coronation held for Henry VI in December 1431 on the boy's tenth birthday. Before England could rebuild its military leadership and longbow corps, lost during 1429, the country lost its alliance with Burgundy at the Treaty of Arras in 1435. The duke of Bedford died the same year and Henry VI became the youngest king of England to rule without a regent and his weak leadership were probably the most important factors in ending the conflict. Kelly DeVries argues that Joan of Arc's aggressive use of artillery and frontal assaults influenced French tactics for the rest of the war.
Joan of Arc came from an obscure village and rose to prominence, when she was barely more than a child, and she did so as an uneducated peasant. The French and English kings had justified the ongoing war through competing interpretations of the thousand-year-old Salic law. The conflict had been an inheritance feud between monarchs. She gave meaning to appeals such as that of squire Jean de Metz when he asked, "Must the king be driven from the kingdom; and are we to be English? In the words of Stephen Richey, "She turned what had been a dry dynastic squabble that left the common people unmoved except for their own suffering into a passionately popular war of national liberation." Richey also expresses the breadth of her subsequent appeal:
In 1452, during the postwar investigation into her execution, the Church declared that a religious play in her honor at Orléans would qualify as a pilgrimage meriting an indulgence. She became a symbol of the Catholic League during the 16th century. Monsignor Félix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orléans from 1849 to 1878, led the effort for Joan's beatification, but did not live to see it come about.
Joan of Arc's beatification finally came about in the year 1909 - directly following upon the passage of the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, at the time considered a major blow to the Catholic Church's position in French society. Her canonization followed on 16 May 1920. Her feast day is 30 May. As Saint Joan of Arc, she has become one of the most popular saints of the Roman Catholic Church.
Joan of Arc was not a feminist. She operated within a religious tradition that believed an exceptional person from any level of society might receive a divine calling. She expelled women from the French army and may have struck one stubborn camp follower with the flat of a sword. Nonetheless, some of her most significant aid came from women. King Charles VII's mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, confirmed Joan's virginity and financed her departure to Orléans. Joan of Luxembourg, aunt to the count of Luxembourg who held custody of her after Compiègne, alleviated her conditions of captivity and may have delayed her sale to the English. Finally, Anne of Burgundy, the duchess of Bedford and wife to the regent of England, declared Joan a virgin during pretrial inquiries. For technical reasons this prevented the court from charging her with witchcraft. Ultimately this provided part of the basis for her vindication and sainthood. From Christine de Pizan to the present, women have looked to her as a positive example of a brave and active female.
Three separate vessels of the French Navy have been named after her, including a helicopter carrier currently in active service. At present the controversial French far-right political party Front National holds rallies at her statues, reproduces her likeness in party publications, and uses a tricolor flame partly symbolic of her martyrdom as its emblem. This party's opponents sometimes satirize its appropriation of her image. The French civic holiday in her honor is the second Sunday of May.
Traditional Roman Catholics, in France and elsewhere, also use her as a symbol of inspiration, often comparing the 1988 excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (founder of the Society of St. Pius X and a dissident against the Vatican II reforms) to her excommunication.
Alleged relics disproven
In 1867, a jar was found in a Paris pharmacy with the inscription "Remains found under the stake of Joan of Arc, virgin of Orleans". They consisted of a charred human rib, carbonized wood, a piece of linen and a cat femur — explained as the practice of throwing black cats onto the pyre of witches. The Catholic Church recognized them and they are now in a Chinon museum. In 2006, Philippe Charlier, a forensic scientist at Raymond Poincaré Hospital (Garches) was authorized to study the relics. Carbon-14 tests and spectrometry were performed, and the results show that the remains come from an Egyptian mummy from the sixth to the third century BC. The charred appearance comes from the embalming substances, not from combustion. Apparently the mummy was part of the ingredients of Medieval pharmacopeia and it was relabelled in a time of French nationalism.
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A Different Kind of Reconciliation
The Reconciliation of Severus Snape
By Sarah J
First, it is important to understand the definition of reconciliation. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "reconcile" as "to reestablish a close relationship between; to settle or resolve; to bring (oneself) to accept." 1 Basically, to be reconciled is to come into relationship with another, to settle one's differences, or to accept another. I also like to think of it as looking at something from another's point of view and accepting the way he or she sees things. For the purposes of this essay, reconciliation is not only reestablishing a relationship with another, but also coming to accept that person for who he is. It is looking past the hatred and supposed views into the depths of a person, and coming to new realizations and acceptance. I believe that we see the desire for the first form of reconciliation alongside the second form in the character of Severus Snape.
If so many relationships in the Harry Potter series remain estranged, why is it important for Snape and Harry to find reconciliation? While both parties are at fault in their relationship, most of Harry's reasons for hating Snape stem from either minor unpleasantness, such as the way Snape treats Harry in potions lessons, or, more seriously, from actions that Harry perceives as wrongdoings on Snape's part. Three of these occurrences stand out in particular. First, Harry blames Snape for Sirius's death. While many, myself included, believe that nothing would have kept Sirius from rushing to Harry's aid in the Department of Mysteries, and therefore, Snape had nothing to do with Sirius's actions or his death, Harry believes that Snape was, at least partly, to blame for Sirius's death. Confronting Dumbledore after the battle at the Department of Mysteries, Harry blames Snape for constantly goading Sirius and for failing to teach Harry Occlumency, a failure that leads Harry to the Department of Mysteries in the first place. Even though this hatred is unreasonable, he holds on to it, as evidenced in his first encounter with Snape after the battle: "Snape had emerged from the staircase leading down to his office, and at the sight of him Harry felt a great rush of hatred beyond anything he felt toward Malfoy¦. Whatever Dumbledore said, he would never forgive Snape ¦ never." 5
Then, Harry's hatred of Snape deepens when he realizes that Snape is the one who delivered a portion of the prophecy to Voldemort that condemned his parents to death. Finally, when Snape kills Dumbledore Harry's hatred becomes so deep that it seems that reconciliation would be utterly impossible. This act is unforgivable and from that point onward, Harry wants to meet Snape only so that he may kill him. Harry appears incapable of considering Snape's point of view or the possibility that he may have had a reason for killing Dumbledore beyond what Harry understands.
Snape is not blameless in the relationship. He takes great pleasure in picking on Harry during lessons, giving him numerous, unpleasant detentions, frequently telling Harry of James's arrogance, and making life just plain miserable for the boy. He is a truly nasty man in many ways. Overall, however, this unpleasantness frequently masks how much Snape consistently looks out for Harry. It is Snape who saves Harry from Quirrell in the first Quidditch match. It is Snape who first defends Harry when Mrs. Norris is Petrified. It is Snape who gives Umbridge fake Veritaserum when she intends to interrogate Harry, aiding not only Harry, but Sirius as well. It is Snape who sounds the alarm when he realizes that Harry has gone to the Department of Mysteries. It is Snape who keeps the other Death Eaters from attacking Harry as they flee following Dumbledore's death. Finally, it is Snape who leads Harry to Gryffindor's sword, allowing him to accomplish the task of destroying the Horcruxes.
A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snape's throat.
"Take ¦ it¦. Take ¦ it¦."
"Look ¦ at ¦ me¦." he whispered.
When Harry revealed himself, Snape could have simply died. He could have ignored Harry's presence as the young man stood over him. Instead, under enormous strain, Snape spoke, reached out, grabbed Harry and released memories he had withheld for, in some cases, nearly thirty years. He knew that he would not live to see Harry's forgiveness, but understood that he must reveal the truth to Harry. Some may say that he did this to clear his name so that when the battle was over, everyone would know the truth and he would not be branded as a Death Eater for eternity, but a man faithful to Dumbledore to the very end. Others may say that he did this to keep his promise to Dumbledore that he would reveal to Harry that Harry must die at the hand of Voldemort for Voldemort to be defeated. To both of these, I respond, why, then, did Severus reveal his history with Lily? Why did he reveal his love for Harry's mother? Would it not have sufficed to reveal only those memories that cleared his name or the one memory that revealed to Harry what must happen next? Instead, Snape allowed Harry to see his true self, the self that loved Harry's mother until the moment he died ("Look ¦ at ¦ me").7 He revealed the lengths to which he had gone in order that he might ensure Harry's safety.
Another reason for Snape to reveal so much of himself to Harry is to prove his authenticity and sincerity of action. Harry reveres his mother more than anyone else. Even though he doubts his father after seeing Snape's memory of the incident after the Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s,8 he never doubts his mother or her character. I believe that Snape would be aware of these things, especially since many, if not all, of Harry's doubts about his father stem from Snape's own comments and memories. Snape knew that his feelings for Lily gave what he was imparting to Harry about his long relationships with both Dumbledore and Voldemort credibility. I also believe that Snape's memories, simply because they were memories, were credible on their own. Memories, unless they are altered in some way, are truth. Harry knows what a doctored memory looks like, and for that reason, would have trusted what he saw in the Pensieve, even if the memories came from the man he hated.
But was this Snape's greatest concern? Voldemort knew that Harry would eventually have enough of seeing those he loved die for him and would come out personally to confront him. Snape himself knew Harry well enough by this point to be aware of his "hero complex." Why then would Snape make such an effort to ensure that Harry would do what he already knew was the boy's natural tendency? Why would Snape expend his final energies giving Harry information that he might not have needed? Granted, the key was for Harry to sacrifice himself willingly (as opposed to dying in combat), but I believe that Snape's motives went deeper than just bringing down Voldemort. The clue lies in Snape's final action: looking into Lily Potter's eyes. Severus Snape had no desire for reconciliation with Harry Potter. While Snape had spent his life protecting the boy, he formed his opinion of Harry the moment he saw James Potter in miniature walk into the Great Hall to be sorted and loathed him. Yet, through his commitment to defend Harry, Severus Snape could achieve his one great desire: to be reconciled to the only person he ever loved, Lily Evans Potter.
Snape's desire to be reconciled to Lily Potter is clear by the memories he chooses to leave with Harry. Rather than giving Harry memories where Snape and Lily are happy together, he shows Harry memories of mistakes he made in their relationship. The first memory shows something that he had planned for what appears to be a long time, but it did not go as expected. He divulges the memory where he reveals to Lily that she is a witch and he is a wizard. As the memory ends, Harry observes: "And Harry, the only one left to observe him, recognized Snape's bitter disappointment, and understood that Snape had been planning this moment for a while, and that it had all gone wrong¦." 9 Snape's memories continue to reveal his mistakes and errors10 as he sends a branch down on Petunia's head, convinces Lily to show him the letter that Dumbledore sent Petunia, as he sees her sorted into Gryffindor while he is sorted into Slytherin, Lily questioning his choice of friends. These mistakes lead to the memory of that fateful afternoon following the Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L when Snape calls Lily a Mudblood and her putting an end to their friendship permanently, along with all of his hopes. Snape then shows a memory of himself begging Dumbledore to protect Lily from the consequences of his fatal mistake of revealing the prophecy to Voldemort. He begs for her life, just as I am sure he begged Voldemort to spare her. The memories then show Snape grieving bitterly for Lily and Dumbledore's proposal that Snape do everything in his power to protect her son, who just happens to have her eyes. Snape sees this opportunity as his chance to do something to reconcile himself to Lily, even if he can only be reconciled in his own heart and mind.
We then come across a memory which shows Snape's desire to be reconciled to Lily more than any other. This moment takes place as Dumbledore tells Snape that Harry must die:
"But this is touching, Severus' said Dumbledore seriously. "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"
"After all this time?"
"Always' said Snape.11
If anyone needs more evidence of this, one can find it in Snape's final words and action. Snape lovers the world over cannot forget his last words: "Look ¦ at ¦ me." 13 His final act is to look into Harry's eyes, the eyes of Harry's mother, the eyes of Lily Potter, the woman Snape had loved since childhood. Delving into the realm of speculation, I imagine that as Snape looked into Harry's eyes, even though the moment only lasted for a few seconds before he died, he saw Lily. As he looked into her eyes, he might have thought, "Now, I've done it. I've done everything I can to make it up to you. I've lived the last sixteen years protecting your son, all in your name. Now I've given him what he needs to face Voldemort, even if it means his death. I've kept my promise to Dumbledore. And I did it all for you." And as he died, I imagine that he felt an immense peace looking into the eyes he loved and in his own heart and mind, finding reconciliation with Lily Potter. He also, in my opinion, found forgiveness from Lily in this moment, even if that forgiveness was only in his own mind as he died. I'm not sure, however, if he ever forgave himself for the things he did to Lily, especially her death. I think that he was more concerned with having peace and reconciliation with her than finding peace with himself. Although Snape never outwardly demonstrated remorse, his dedication to Harry, whom he so loathed, was certainly a sign of penance, which indicated he understood the wrong he had committed. This makes for a very complex situation with Snape, but his is a complex character and I expected nothing less.
Even if Severus Snape never truly sought reconciliation with him, Harry Potter finds reconciliation with Snape in his final moments and in the memories that Snape reveals. One need only read the Deathly Hallows epilogue to discover the proof of this reconciliation. As Harry's youngest son prepares to board the Hogwarts Express, the boy voices his fears of sorting into Slytherin. Harry's response shows his change of heart regarding Snape: "Albus Severus, you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew." 14 Harry not only names his second son for the man he once passionately hated, but tells his son that Severus Snape, whom he had once called a coward, much to Snape's anger, is the bravest man he ever knew. Snape began the process of reconciliation as he breathed his last and the proof of it is in Harry's son. Harry views Snape on the same level, if not higher, than he views his parents and Dumbledore.
1. Dictionary.com, s.v. "reconcile."
2. Rowling, Deathly Hallows, 671’72.
3. Ibid., Order of the Phoenix, 518’21.
4. Ibid., Goblet of Fire, 712.
5. Ibid., Order of the Phoenix, 851.
6. Ibid., Deathly Hallows, 657’58.
7. Ibid., 658.
8. Ibid., Order of the Phoenix, 650’71.
9. Ibid., Deathly Hallows, 665.
10. Ibid, 668’79.
11. Ibid, 687.
12. Harry asks Dumbledore in the last chapter of Sorcerer's Stone (page 299’300) about Snape's hatred of his father and himself. Dumbledore answers that Snape felt indebted to James for saving his life and this was something he could not forgive.
13. Rowling, Deathly Hallows, 658.
14. Ibid., 758.
Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reconcile (accessed 24 July 2007).
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Hummingbird House The Garden Helper
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Wild Willy
How to Create a Terrarium Garden
November 27, 1999
When summer becomes nothing more than a memory, and the garden has gone to sleep for the winter, many gardeners revert to 'indoor mode'. While caring for house plants is somewhat satisfying, a potted plant sitting alone, on a table is just not the same as a garden filled with flowers.
The Terrarium Concept
A terrarium is a collection of compatible plants grown in an enclosed, or partially enclosed, clear container.
Your choice of containers is only as broad as your imagination.
There are many ready made terrariums available, or you can use bottles, jars, aquariums, fishbowls, or even brandy snifters.Get creative!
Terrariums allow you to grow plants which require a high degree of humidity, which otherwise would probably perish in the dry atmosphere of a heated home.
Once the plants become established within your miniature garden, the terrarium begins to create a climate of its own.
The plants transpire moisture through their leaves, which then condenses on the glass, and flows back to the soil.
This 'rain effect' allows the terrarium to go for weeks without watering.
Terrariums should never be grown in FULL sun!
For your new terrarium to succeed, it is extremely important that it is properly set up.
As with any landscaping project, selecting appropriate terrarium plants is also very important.
Terrarium plants need to be compact, and slow growing, as well as being able to survive the same conditions as their companion plants.
To avoid insect and disease problems, be sure to only use a good quality, commercial potting soil which has been pasteurized to kill any organisms which may be present.
Additional planting materials, like the rock you will use for drainage, and stones or driftwood you use for landscaping accents should be rinsed with clean, HOT water, before using.
Inspect the plants you are using, very carefully, for signs of insects or disease, or any other potential problems.
For the beginner, I recommend that you choose a large, open container such as an aquarium. These are much easier to work in. With experience, you can advance to using 'chopsticks' and dibble sticks to plant your garden inside a small mouthed container, much like building a 'ship in a bottle'.
Set up Your Terrarium Environment
Before you begin construction, get all of your tools, materials, plants, and of course your container, together in one convenient place.
Your planting foundation will consist of four layers.
• The bottom layer is for drainage, and consists of pea gravel, pebbles, or very coarse sand.
Proper drainage is essential to ensure that the soil doesn't become over-saturated, which may lead to root rot, and the death of your plants.
Depending on the size of your container, you will want to spread at least an inch of drainage material evenly across the entire bottom of your terrarium. For large or deep containers, up to 3 inches of material may be used.
• On top of the drainage layer, it is a good idea to spread a thin layer of activated charcoal, like you would use in your aquarium filter.
This layer will help to clean the air of the fumes caused when the organic materials begin to decompose.
• The third layer is a thin cover of sphagnum moss, spread evenly over the first two layers.
The purpose of this, is to prevent the soil from sifting down into the drainage layer, which would render it useless.
• The final level is that of your soil. Many garden centers sell a potting mix specifically for terrariums. In reality, all that you normally get for the extra money is sand added to their regular potting mix. You may choose a pre-mixed terrarium soil, or if you prefer, just add one part coarse builders sand, and one part leaf mold (or humus) to each two parts of your usual mix.
Never use beach sand in any potting mix!
Do not add any fertilizer to the terrarium mix. It already has enough nutrients to last a long time. Too much fertilizer will cause the plants to out grow their surroundings much too quickly.
• If your intent is to create a desert type terrarium garden, be sure to add extra sand to the soil mixture, and additional gravel to the drainage level.
Creating Your Terrarium Landscape
While the bottom tree layers are laid in evenly, the terrarium will seem more realistic if you add contour to the landscape, with different levels of soil.
You can create terraces, valleys, and hills.
Use your own special stones or pieces of wood as landscape accents, just as you would use driftwood or boulders in your outdoor landscape. Use your imagination.
The main difference in this case is that you must miniaturize everything you do.
If you intend to add critters of any kind (like lizards or tarantulas) to your terrarium, be sure to create a 'lake' somewhere within the landscape for them to drink from. This can be made out of any shallow dish or saucer, depressed into the soil.
Your terrarium plants should be chosen for their compatibility in lighting, watering, and humidity needs. Choose plants of varying height, shape, texture and color to create the desired landscape effect.
Small specimens of plant varieties that do not grow too quickly are your best choice.
Adding Suitable Terrarium Plants to Your Garden
Once your decision is made as to where you will set your terrarium up, and you have chosen the appropriate plants, you are ready to go to work. Your new landscape should be structured and set up for the best visual effect from the viewers point of view. For example, if the garden will be viewed from all sides, a large plant should be planted in the middle, with lower plants around it. If your terrarium will primarily be viewed from only one side, the tallest plant should be placed near the rear of the container, with lower plants in the foreground.
It is sometimes a good idea to use something special as a focal point in the landscape, such as a rock or stick to simulate boulders or logs. In these cases, or if you should decide to include a small statue as part of the garden, be sure that it is about the same scale as the plantings.
Before you do any planting, take your time and make certain that the arrangement of your plants creates the desired effect. While they are still in their pots, set the plants around inside the terrarium. In narrow mouthed containers, it is a better idea to put your ideas down on paper. Adjust the soil level to create hills at the back, and valleys in the foreground. Move your logs and boulders to different locations within the landscape. Step back a foot or two and see if your arrangement creates the desired effect. If not, do a little more rearranging, and check it again. When you decide that you have created the right 'scene', you are ready to do your planting. No special tools are needed for planting your terrarium, unless you are using a bottle or other narrow mouthed containers. Most likely, you will use a kitchen spoon as your shovel, a fork as your rake, and small scissors as your shears. Narrow-mouthed terrariums require special tools to get the plant down into the terrariumand into the right spot. (i.e. a funnel to add the soil, long slender sticks to dig with, and some type of 'grabber' (unless you are good with chopsticks) to lower the plants in, and to actually plant them. Once you have determined the arrangement of the plants and terrain, you are ready to landscape.
Remove the plant from it's pot, and set it into a pre-dug hole.
Unlike planting in the garden, it is not necessary to loosen the plant's roots. In a terrarium, you don't want the plants to grow too quickly, and leaving the root ball compacted will slow the growth of the plants.
Firm the soil gently around the roots. Do not crowd the plants or place them directly against the sides of the container. Allow sufficient space for them to grow and spread, without becoming entangled in other plants.
After planting, the soil should be slightly moistened.
Never allow the soil to be soggy, unless you are growing 'Bog' plants!
A lid should then be placed on your terrarium.
Normally, a clear sheet of glass is used, but you may have to use your imagination to find the appropriate lid.
Terrarium Maintenance
Check the terrarium frequently for the appearance of condensation on the glass.
If large water drops appear on the glass, the container should be left open for a while, until any excess moisture evaporates. In some cases, it may be necessary to keep the lid slightly opened, to allow for fresh air circulation.
However, keep in mind that a balanced terrarium should have a certain amount of moisture on the glass.
A completely enclosed terrarium requires little or no watering. If it is not totally enclosed, you may have to water on a weekly or monthly basis (more often for completely open terrariums or dish gardens).
The addition of water only becomes necessary if no condensation accumulates on the glass. When water is eventually needed, it should only be added a small amount at a time, since there is no place for the surplus water to run off.
Over watering quickly increases the danger of fungus or mold.
Recheck the next day, and if no condensation has appeared, more water may be added.
When in doubt, always water less, but watch carefully so that plants do not become too dry and wilt.
Generally, terrariums should not need fertilizing, but if the plants start to appear malnourished, you may feed them using a very weak mixture (1/4 strength) of an all purpose house plant food.
Occasionally, it may become necessary to prune or to replace a dead plant.
Diseased plants should be removed immediately.
Although confined plants tend to grow very slowly, any plant that has outgrown its environment should be replaced.
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Sixty miles southeast of St. George, Utah, on the rough dirt road that takes you to Grand Canyon Parashant National Monument, stands a reminder of the remote community of Mount Trumbull, Arizona. The only remaining intact structure is the schoolhouse. This is more than a schoolhouse however, it is a testament to the lives and memories of the remote Arizona Strip's settlement history.
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and visible systems that control our lives, and that is what is really with regards to our election system. we don't think about it. we think that the people so that the politicians, but actually in fact this matrix of election laws and systems and regulations shape who gets elected and the policy in the country and they determine or shape the level of mercury in the air that we brief, how many kids are in a classroom in the city of detroit, so they have a huge impact the we don't always appreciate. >> explain how that matrix works. where do they start and how far do they go? >> one unique thing about the united states is that we don't have a central system in terms of the election. we have got over 4,000 difrent election systems and the of different rules and laws and people who administer them said there isn't like one puppet master like some grand conspiracy. we've got all these different systems and the people that are familiar with the most common example of this which would be gerrymandering where politicians draw districts that favor them. congress is about a 14 or 15% approval rating o
a shadow of a doubt i welcome. this is, we are told, the most important election in our lifetime and it may be that more people believe that this year than believe in 2008-2004-2004 another election where that is regularly said. for this to be true, among other things elections must have genuine consequences for the making of public policy particularly with regard to domestic policy. we could have separate conversation about the issue of presidential power with regard to foreign policy, military policy but let me say my primary interest in the book and my remarks this evening is more domestic policy and the extent to which elections do or do not bring us close to resolving important issues of domestic public policy. for the older members of this audience there have been at least one election that did fundamentally change america and that is 1954. a mere 48 years ago, when all of the stars were aligned and not only to create a landslide victory for president lyndon johnson, richard nixon got a landslide victory in 1972, but a landslide democratic majority in the house and senate and let us n
republican congress and fighting for it advantage in fighting to win the next election. that did not happen by accident. it did not happen by accident. i believe in the free enterprise system and i believe in incentives. they work. we have created a political system in which every incentive is to not cooperate and not compromise and not talk to somebody who has different ideas than your own. and you know, that's great. it's great to be pure on your principal. but we are a nation of 310 million people. and we have all different backgrounds and we have all different life experiences and we have different ideas that we feel strongly about. the way a democracy the size has to work. no matter how deeply you feel about one issue or another, at some point, you have to be able to sit down with someone who has a different idea and find where the overlap is, find where you can give a little and get a little and get the bridges built. and get the programs that a constitutional program that government is responsible for and make them happy. so let me tell you how we have created this. by the way, just
days after running for the senate in 1948, six day after the election he is still behind. suddenly a ballot box from precinct, found in the desert. it contains a number of votes. if i have this right 2 in hundred two votes. interesting votes because they are written in the same handwriting. they are all written with the same pen and then you had a register book in texas and these 202 voted in alphabetical order. those 202 votes were the crucial votes where johnson emerged as the winner by 87 votes. i remember one of his aides said it wasn't for that box we wouldn't have a great society. we wouldn't have had vietnam. american history might have been different. people are always saying when they're stealing elections in texas which is true. johnson bent those rules and pushed the envelope further than ever before to get to the senate. when i started these books everyone said we never really know lyndon johnson stole that election and i am never writing about lyndon johnson's life unless i have done everything i could to find out whether he did still the election. i did manage to find
in a different direction. after three straight losses in presidential elections between 19901998, they been in the practices of their old beliefs while continuing to espouse them in theory. these new democrats will say anything an objective that an immense commensurately requires them requires them to emulate republicans, particularly with respect to money grabbing on the fund-raising circuit. many of them left only a term or two because if people want a republican, they will vote for the real thing. what is developed in america over the last three decades is a 1.5 party system as democrats opportunistically cleave to the center, which in a relativistic universe of american politics keeps moving further to the right, and the quote. well, so far so bad. i relisted painted a rather dim canvas of what now comes to choose the political system of lincoln's last best hope for mankind. i do have some potential solutions because as you have no doubt heard, it is in my nature to be bloodlessly up be. [laughter] the solutions are also in the book. there rather than by continuing to talk, how about so
'm confident about the election. a terrible record as is documented in the brief. we have a very good candidate, and we have electrodynamics which i think are very strong in favor of there public. let me explain that. yet to win 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. two-thirds of them are already pretty much decided. we know that texas is going to vote for mitt romney. we know that new york and california are going to vote for president obama. we just know that. that is -- national polls don't even help you very much. almost beside the point to the extent they include people from states which are not in any way competitive. what we know is that there are ten key states and three not city-state's. of those we know that indiana and north carolina are certain wines for mitt romney. democrats will try and tell you, were going to win north carolina. not even close. president obama won it. traditionally red sea state. an enormous turnout. it will not be able to replicate. a lot of its independence and seven democrats that they would give the democrats try. i'm not worried about north carolina. i
in the u.s. in washington d.c. to send a message. so for that i hope the united states whoever is elected will take a decision to stop the nuclear race today. something very interesting when you look at the arab leaders they are afraid from iran becoming nuclear so for that matter i think we would like to take action for the u.s. to sit idly by israel has to do it by itself. missiles fly in from iran, lebanon, and gaza would send hundreds of missiles but allowing iran to become nuclear to the option of fighting ourself, it is clear message of what to do with the redoubt the u.s. one of the main points of my book is the issue of the two-state solution. you must finish the conflict and it will be a palestinian state if obama adopted the approach to build up the palestinian state but in my book i prefer a new paradigm we have tried it for the last 20 years we tried with gaza and it did not help us as well. it should be a three state solution. i speak about jordan, egypt and israel. we should not be a palestinian state the tests with lap band and the gaza. islamic radical forces. >> guest: to
about what collective pardoning powers do. means the governments, the people rather their elected representatives have to sit down with government unions and bargain with them as equals over how do we spend taxes, how is the government going to be operated? unless the government unions agree the public policy can't be enacted so if you have school district selected overwhelmingly on a platform of ending tenure and evaluating teachers on the basis of performance and giving promotion to the best teachers in removing ineffective teachers from the classrooms at school board is not that the power in our democracy to enact that platform. they have to sit down with the unions in the unions say no and that is that. the school board doesn't have the power for these reforms. that is undemocratic and that is something the union movement in itself once recognize. a half-century ago in 1959 afl-cio executive council stated and i'm quoting directly, in terms of accepting collective bargaining procedures government workers have no right beyond the authorities of congress but since then the union
, the big change began in 1980 with the election of ronald reagan because he brought with him to washington a very underrated figure in the recent history, some i don't think this is due as an important area and that is edwin meese because he was first an advisor and then as attorney general said look, they're has been a liberal agenda at the supreme court of their needs to be a conservative agenda at the supreme court. what was the agenda? expand executive power and attend to a system for americans from a speech that execution, welcome religion into the public sphere and above all, reverse roe v wade in the last months again to the abortion. a big part of the revolution was the arrival in washington of a group of young and committed conservative lawyers who wanted it to work on behalf of the agenda. word the best and brightest in your group? john roberts and samuel alito. in 1985 in a memo plotting the litigation strategy of the solicitor general's office, he wrote what can be made of this opportunity to advance the goal of bringing about the eventual overruling of roe v wade? later that y
to solve the problem we never elected them, but money is choosing them. we have to deal with not simplistic answer when it comes to separate religion from states, what do you have? directing the state or imposing decision on to the state which is also imposing decision on to us as citizens. this western model, i think, be washington. we all have to deal with problems and crisis from within. i wouldn't push the arab world to follow blindly the western model, but take the better, the best from the others and try their own way. having said that, the first problem is the nature of the state. why -- i was referring to this dpsh voided referring to islamic states, and if you listen now to what is coming from tunisia and what is coming from egypt they don't speak about islamic state. it's a civil state, and the civil state means that religion is now going to impose a frabbing work and structure. having said that, that's fine. are we playing with words or are we really now talking about how much the state is a bottom up delegation of power and religion and it has no power on the decision on the sta
the republicans are the or the democrats. in the last two elections, democracy and socialist party together brought under 40% that can bind the vote. an explosive party is the party called the cerise a party. it is a far left-wing party that is against all oesterle programs and wants to solve greece's problems they want to take wealth away from the greek rich. they got 27. the only reason that the government agrees now of the right is because of a law for the greece, under greek law, whatever party comes in first, i will take a step back. it has proportional representation. that the reserves a rule of comment. you should have the same percentage of delegates in congress that write the law. 18% of the people while party a, and it will come to deciding what laws get passed. they will effectively screwed that in which you would think of the idea. in european countries, we have torsional representation. you get a cut off of 5%. that is how many seats that you get. if you get 51% of the vote, you get it all and the 49% worked. by the way, we have had proportional representation in the united sta
is a state that is two to one democrat. so getting elected, vowing to be a penny pincher, spending my first time proving that i was a penny pincher beyond reproach and then getting reelected by a bigger margin the second time than the first time, i think -- i think that speaks to the fact that people really appreciate good stewardship of tax dollars. >> the libertarian party is often associated with changing the drug laws and you've advocated for that as well. >> changing the? >> drug laws. the >> has come since 1989 of advocated legalizing marijuana, controller cannot regulate, tax it. we had a tipping point with regard to marijuana and legalizing it. i think that colorado is going to do that. it's on the ballot in colorado this november, regulate marijuana like alcohol. i think it is going to pass. when it passes and if it doesn't pass the colorado come is going to pass the 50% of americans now say they support the motion. it is a growing number. it's a growing number because people are talking about the issue more than they ever have before, recognizing 90% of the drug problem is prohibi
, they actually do the opposite. they are short-term oriented to the next election. they have their own agenda. they don't respond to the marketplace the way a business should. they have their own agenda in terms of those special interest groups and the like. the bigger they get from them were hardly due to the economy and the less chance that they have to improve your lot in life, as abraham lincoln put it. >> host: is reality a part of capitalism to smack it is the basis of capitalism. contrary to the hollywood cartoon character of business people rubbing their hands in glee at the misery of others, even if you lust for money, you don't get it unless you provide products or services that somebody else wants. so without us even realizing it, it enhances humanity. you have to create change and cooperation and you have to get people to work with you. you have to persuade people to buy what you're offering. in that sense, free markets open up for her creativity. anyone can go anywhere and do something. but by golly, you have a chance to do it. it breaks barriers between communities and ethnic gr
them in israel. and the values are democracy. we are following very carefully the elections here in the united states. and it's getting to be interested. i can tell you in the last three weeks it's become more interesting. but we do follow it, and we do love the american people and t american values. sometimes too much. for example, in the day of independence in israel, which is a big celebration in may, you will find people putting the israeli flag and the american flag. i don't like it. why people do it, because they do it because of the value and democracy of the american people. but one of my main points in my book is that israel is not america. even though we love america, we are not muck, and -- america, and we are not america because we cannot make a mistake. if israel makes mistakes, we cannot correct it. and we saw it in the past. and my main point in my book, that evil must take the decisions according to the interest of israel period, we do not have to think or to try to satisfy anyone even if it means telling to our allies to have the american president to the u.n., w
became. the big issue, big change began in 198 1980 that goes with the election of ronald reagan ronald reagan brought with them to washington a very underrated figure in a recent american history, somehow i don't think gets his due as an important person. that's edwin meese because edwin meese at first was in flash and then attorney general. said look, there has been a liberal agenda at the supreme court. there needs to be a conservative agenda at the supreme court. what was that agenda? expand executive power and end racial preferences, speed up execution, welcome religion into the public sphere, and above all, reverse roe v. wade and allow states once again to ban abortion. a big part of the reagan revolution was the arrival of washington of a group of young and committed conservative lawyers who wanted to work in that, on behalf of that agenda, who were two of the best and the brightest of that group? john roberts and samuel alito. 1970 -- in 1985, a memo at the solicitor general's office, alito wrote what can be made of this opportunity to advance the goal of bringing about the eve
. what size do you wear? 14. [laughter] anna belle passed around fliers describing reagan's electives meant for distribution to the middle school kids. we've got every sport but swim team, said jeff square yus, who was on four of those team, counting golf. we need a swim team. anna belle said, you want to be on it? the bus pulled out of the lot. the kids bounced in their seats, away from class for an hour. they rode off toward middle schools they'd once attended on errands to convince at least a few that reagan high might have more to offer than tax cramming and the avoidance of getting stabbed. anna belle tucked a leg and surveyed her troop. the band kids had been an easy choice, the drum line in particular. they drew a crowd wherever they went from the mueller parking lot to formal competition. they'd been called up to play on the friday night lights tv show. still, jaqua rick us was the main attraction. on the football field, she stood out just by showing up. some college programs were looking at him, baylor and a couple of bigger ones too. as he told it, that had been his plan all
at all after political scientists say the time between election day in november and inauguration day is 11 weeks they are saying that is too short a time for a president to get ready. linda and some had two hours and 6 minutes from which he was sworn in on the plane on air force one and let's get airborne and landed in washington. he had to get off the plane ready to be president of the united states. to see him step in with no preparation at all at a time when president kennedy's entire legislative program, civil-rights and everyone of his major -- was stalled by the southern committee chairman who controlled congress, to see him get that program up and running and has it, ramming it through. to watch lyndon johnson do that in the first weeks after kennedy's assassination is a lesson in what a president can do if he not only knows all the levers to pull but has the will. in lyndon johnson's case almost vicious drive to do it, to win, to say over and over again as i am always saying to myself when i do the research look what he is doing. look what he is doing here. i don't say i succ
of the electives we have every sport except swim team. we need us when team said anabel. do want to be on it to? >> the bus pulled out of a lot. they rode off to middle schools they once attended to convince a craters reagan high may have more to offer and cramming and getting stabbed. she surveyed her true. the band drew a crowd where ever they went. they had been called to play up on a friday night lights tv show and tonight they were dressed up. jaquarius was the main attraction and tour attention for showing up. baylor and some bigger programs are looking at him. he said that was his plan all along to shine against a backdrop of a falling dennis d. parker he did not do it alone. he also has to throwback his back foot that leads to inaccurate passes. when he could stand up and deliver it looks like a different player. and for all of his attention he wins drawing more attention on the basketball court. they made the list of the 10 teams to watch and a sports writer said they have been surprising people. burned from a quarterfinal loss to lbj the team was drawing crowds with there's not much t
campaigned around the county that summer, running into some of them, and then on the night of the election, we were all in the courthouse like something from the movie, and you look at that stuff from, you know, out of mississippi and other places that was happening right there in georgia, and we were at the white courthouse that night, and standing -- because they were counting the paper ballots, and we were watching them count, and out the back room, the gater walked past us and spoke, and then he realized he just talked to charles sherrod. he was angry because we had meetings, and my husband kept telling people do not put another johnson in office, and they had gotten that word back to him. that's why he was angry. he walked a few feet away and came back and said i take that back. i didn't know who you were. [laughter] he is standing there with a gun on his side, and my husband is standing there, and they are staring each other in the -- i mean, just staring at each other, and i was about to have a heart attack because i knew even with all of those people in the room, the gater was just
to paraphrase james' old saying in the election of 1992, it's the economy, stupid. it's the culture stupid. the culture of america is changing for the worse, and we see it in our terrible, competitiveness ratings, you know, with the foreign countries in math, science, ect. it's not hard to make chose changes. politically, it will be very difficult, but it's really quite cheap, and nobody ever talks about the kinds of things we have to do, and it's not putting more money into education, ect.; it's getting the kids to want to learn. if they want to learn, we could spend half of what we spend and we'll get better students. >> host: bill, thank you very much. michael, you start. >> guest: anybody who is concerned about american values and american culture should read "that used to be us" because there's an extensive discussion of both, and we do feel it over the last 20 years, some of the core values have eroded. in particular, there's now a greater emphasis on the short term than there used to be, and not as much emphasis as we need on the long term. there's no doubt that culture and values a
of the party that wins in a general election. the queen has a specific power under the constitution to be consulted and to encourage and to warn. she does that in all of her private audiences with the prime ministers and many other government officials, members of the clergy and members of the judiciary to come to her for completely confidential audiences which are extremely important to them. [inaudible question] >> well, the first constitution is so different from ours. underwritten, accumulation of laws and traditions. their subjects of the queen. that is what, you know, the term is. >> i need to ask, asking questions just temporarily, please stick around for more questions from the audience. c-span will be here shortly to continue. there will be taking questions year from that history and biography pavilion and also from national colors. please stay with us. we would love to have you continue. and if you have questions, we will be back with you in it slightly less than ten minutes. thanks so much for your patients. please stay with us, and please thank our author >> visit booktv
served on who had been in elective office. she had been majority leader of the arizona state senate and there is nobody there that has ever had to face the public and, you know, for some of them i'd sure that that is a good thing. but it's kind of a narrow professional biography that's pretty interesting. what that reflects is the current state of the confirmation process. presidents don't want to take a chance. how do you not take a chance? you get somebody that has already been acting as a judge and you get to look at how they have performed as a judge and a deal with legal materials and how they comport themselves and so on. that is a kind of very rough proxy for how they might be hit on the u.s. supreme court of course because you are found by the supreme court presidents and they cannot go off on their own frolic and once you are on the supreme court they'll pay homage to this notion you've heard starting to stand by the president, but that doesn't mean they have to. they can do what they call what the five votes to do. so a very sort of precedent balad lower-court judge doesn'
than 50/50 will act and probably before the election. [inaudible] >> that's very soon. and i think the reason, frankly, bruce, israel is likely to. because of what i call the the two-handed sort of schizophrenic policy of this administration. obama's people point all the time look at the unprecedented defense cooperation and missile defense and other things, and it is unprecedented. well, it's precedented because the bush administration beforehand had begun that ratcheting up of cooperation between with the israel defense forces after 9/11. that cooperation is a two-way street. the israelis have designed equipment that has saved the lives of americans in afghanistan. and, indeed, self sealing bandages, it's one of the reasons it saves lives of people who have been hit, improved wound healing. so it's a two-way thing. they're constantly talking, swapping tactics, things about drones. so a lot of good things there. but what the right hand giveth with defense, the left-handed diplomatic takes away with pressure to free settlement, something the palestinians have never asked for, israe
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Rescue (disambiguation).
For the article rescue project, see Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron
Rescue team in Dresden, Germany, in 2006
Helicopter rescue
Real Helicopter rescue in Malta in 2007
Patient in mountain rescue stretcher
Rescue comprises responsive operations that usually involve the saving of life, or prevention of injury during an incident or dangerous situation.
Tools used might include search and rescue dogs, mounted search and rescue horses, helicopters, the "jaws of life", and other hydraulic cutting and spreading tools used to extricate individuals from wrecked vehicles. Rescue operations are sometimes supported by special vehicles such as fire department's or EMS heavy rescue vehicle.
Ropes and special devices can reach and remove individuals and animals from difficult locations including:
Rescue operations require a high degree of training and are performed by rescue squads, either independent or part of larger organizations such as fire, police, military, first aid, or ambulance services. In the U.S., they are usually staffed by medically trained personnel as NFPA regulations require it.[citation needed]
Old meanings[edit]
In former centuries the word "rescue" had other meanings: for example, there is an old record of a countryman living where Wythenshawe is now, being prosecuted in a local court for "making rescue" of a pig which had been seized as a distress for non-payment of money owed.[citation needed]
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
The dictionary definition of rescue at Wiktionary Media related to Rescue at Wikimedia Commons
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Active and Inactive Volcanoes of Nicaragua
Across the horizon of Nicaragua, you can see volcanoes peek up at frequent points along the way. The country has quite a few volcanoes, some active, some dormant, but all breathtaking. Some are more accessible than others, and some are more scenic than others, but they are all monuments to Earth's violent core. Here are a couple of special interest you may want to examine while in the country.
San Cristobal is the highest volcano in the country, at just under 1750 meters. It remains active, and routinely billows gas and water vapor from its peak. It is possible to scale this volcano, but it is no simple task. The volcanic sand provides little traction, meaning you slide downhill one step for every two steps forward. The hike above the tree line is especially daunting. On a clear day, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Gulf of Fonseca are visible from the summit.
Consiguina also sits above the Gulf of Fonseca. At 850 meters, it is not high, but a good hike none-the-less. The last time this volcano erupted was in 1835, and the effect was a large crater that is now a lake. Views from the top of this peak take in the Pacific Ocean, and it is possible to drive most of the way to the top before beginning your hike.
It is possible to drive all the way to the top of another active volcano, Masaya. There is even a parking lot with attendants. The air is sulfur-laden and thick, but not so overpowering that you can't gaze over the rim and into the crater. As you drive up, you will see large lava flows along both sides of the roadway. It is possible to walk to a few other craters at the top if you so choose, but this is definitely the most accessible volcano around.
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The Floating University
I. Psychology: The Science of the Human Mind
A. Psychology is about
1. human nature/us
2. language and perception
3. memory
4. dreams
5. love and hate
6. morality
7. depression and anxiety
8. happiness
9. everything that matters to us
B. Areas of Study
1. Neuroscience: studies the brain
2. Developmental psychology: studies human development
3. Social psychology: studies relationships
4. Cognitive psychology: studies mental processes; how do we understand language, recognize faces, remember facts., etc.
5. Evolutionary psychology: studies the evolution of the mind
6. Clinical psychology: studies mental illness
II. Case Study: Compassion - concern for other people
A. Components of a baby’s brain
1. There are 100 billion neurons in a baby’s brain
2. Neurons: basic cells that process and transmit information
3. Brain works via neuro networks, about 1.8 million connections between neurons per second
4. Jeff Hawkins: the baby’s brain is like filling a football stadium with cooked spaghetti, shrinking it to the size of a soccer ball, then making it really dense
B. Nature vs Nurture
1. One view, that the brain starts out as a blank slate, is what philosopher John Locke called a Tabula Rasa
a. Development is all about learning from the environment
2. Second view: early specialization – extraordinary early understanding
a. Psychologist Leda Cosmides and John Tooby described the brain as a Swiss Army knife with each part specialized for different functions
b. Which theory is right is a big debate in psychology because it affects our views of morality and compassion
C. Morality: Are Children born moral?
1. One idea is that children start off immoral and do not know the difference between good and evil
2. Bloom thinks the data supports another view
a. If babies see other babies cry, or in silent pain, they will cry and be distressed showing that it seems to be part of our nature to suffer at the suffering of others
b. Babies share and soothe, older children help others with their goals
c. Innate compassion: children want to help others without being taught
(1) Experiment done by Felix Warneken and Michale Tomasello showing toddlers in the presence of an adult in mild distress will help the adult without prompting
(2) This shows altruism, kindness, and compassion seem to be natural instinctsd. this innate kindness seems to apply to people that are close to us
3. The extent of our compassion
a. Some say we start off with a broad compassion
b. Evidence seems to show that instead, initially our sense of morality only applies to people close to us
D. Responses to Strangers
1. Stranger anxiety: toward strangers the natural default reaction is a mix of fear and hatred/stranger anxiety
a. Stranger anxiety kicks in around 9 months old
b. Stranger anxiety fades or intensifies in different cultures
(1) Anthropologist Jared Diamond studied small-scale societies in Papua New Guinea and says that to meet people outside of their territory could mean death
(2) Margaret Meade said there was a lot to learn from these “primitive cultures,” but their treatment of strangers wasn’t one of them
2. Disgust
a. Paul Rozin described it as the “body/soul emotion"
b. I t is a human universal
(1) Universally we are disgusted by feces, urine, blood, vomit, rotten flesh, and most meat
(2) Disgust has a characteristic facial response
c. This relates to compassion because we are often disgusted by other people, particularly strange people
d. Any category of human is something you belong to (in-group) or you don’t (out-group)
e. People vary in how easily disgusted they are
f. The more easily disgusted you are the more aversion you have to out-groups (like immigrants, sexual minorities, and in particular male homosexuals)
(1) Experiment: bring people into a lab and ask them questions about their feelings toward groups and policies; a second group gets the same questions but are in a room with a flatulence smell; the group with the flatulence smell will be meaner in their reaction to out-groups
(2) This shows there’s a connection between visceral disgust and our tolerance of out-groups
g. Human compassion is a natural instinct, but it is limited
h. However, we care about people in other countries, from other races, that we have never seen, that we never will see, and we do things like give blood and resources to people we’ve never seen after a natural disaster
i. What forces extend our compassion to strangers?
(1) Self-interested altruism: I care because your fate is linked with mine
(a) Robert Wright: global interconnectedness and interdependence have expanded our moral circle
(b) The more contact you have with people the more you care about them in as part of self-interested altruism
(2) Persuasion: how we expand compassion
(a) We can expand our compassion to strangers by thinking of them as individuals, particularly as our friends and family
(b) Joseph Stalin: “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”
(c) Mother Teresa: “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
(d) Psychologist Paul Slovic did experiments where they showed people were more likely to give, and give more, to a charity if they were presented with an individual’s story of suffering than if they were presented with statistics of suffering
E. Compassion & Moral Progress
1. Many argue through history our moral circles are expanding, that we believe we have moral obligations to other races, nationalities, etc
a. Example: the end of slavery was partly due to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which showed slaves as real people and persuaded readers to extend their sympathies
2. So morality, sense of right and wrong, is connected with compassion and our feelings toward others
3. Scholar David Hume argues that a sense of compassion is central to becoming a fully moral being
III. Case Study: Racism
A. Generalizations
1. Cognitive psychologists point out that in order to survive we have to make generalizations
a. We make generalizations about things and categorize them
b. Example: dog vs. apple vs. chair
c. Without categories and generalizations we wouldn’t know what to eat, how things react, etc.
2. Part of being a successful human is the ability to learn, and part of learning is making statistical generalizations on the basis of limited experience
3. Generalizations are adaptive, rational, reasonable
4. However, some categories we form are of people, on the basis of sex, age, race, profession, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.
B. Stereotypes - categories of people
1. Stereotypes are often accurate and positive, particularly about groups we are a part of
2. Problems with stereotypes
a. Can be based on biased information
(1) Examples: basing your opinion on Italian-Americans solely on The Sopranos, or your opinion of Jews only off of Shakespeare’s character Shylock
b. Can have a negative effect on the people they apply to
(1) Stereotype threat: risk of subconsciously living up to a negative stereotype
(2) Experiment: female Asians do worse on a math test if they first have to identify their sex and better if they have to identify their race
c. Can have inherent in-group vs out-group biases
(1) When you’re a member of a group you tend to boost it and denigrate groups you’re competing with
(2) Example: in 1942 Americans described Russians as “brave and hard-working” then after the war, in 1948, they described them as “cruel and conceited”
d. Can have moral implications
(1) Even if stereotypes are accurate we believe that it’s morally wrong to judge individuals based on the group they belong to
(2) Conscious vs. unconscious bias: some evidence shows we can succeed in consciously not letting stereotypes affect our judgments
(3) Example: over the years polls show an increase in Americans that would vote for a qualified African-American to be President; by the mid-90s the statistics show most people would say they would and the election of Barack Obama shows people were being truthful, that they have an honest egalitarian viewpoint
(4) But the conscious is in tension with the unconscious system that is more statistics driven, biased, and less moral
(5) Example: people are shown photos of Tony Blair and Barack Obama and asked who is “more American” and most pick the more fair-skinned Tony Blair
(6) Experiment by Jack Dovidio: given two people of equal, moderate qualifications a white candidate is more likely than a black candidate to be recommended for a job; this experiment has been repeated as recently as 2005
(7) The good news: we can structure our world so that we can diminish the role of unconscious bias
(8) Example: women were perceived as worse musicians than men by symphony orchestras and were underrepresented until orchestras started doing blind auditions where they didn’t know the gender of the musician
(9) We can manipulate our world in order to give our conscious self more control
IV. Case Study: Sex
A. Sex and Evolutionary Biology: Parental Investment
1. Males have smaller sex cells than females
2. Puzzle: why do males have smaller sex cells but are bigger and more aggressive?
3. Answer from Robert Trivers: males have less parental investment than females
4. Parental investment: any investment by the parent in an individual offspring that increases the offspring’s chances of surviving at the expense of the parent’s ability to invest in other offspring
5. Males have less investment because the male can keep having other offspring while a female is pregnant, but a female cannot have other offspring while she’s pregnant
6. Males can basically have unlimited offspring, whereas females can have a very limited number of offspring
7. This makes a difference in the game theoretic structure of human sexuality
8. Therefore males compete for access to females
9. Males can be more into quantity while females can be more into quality. Quality = competition between males
a.Male vs. male manifests itself into aggressive traits, even special organs like giant horns, or the outlandish feathers of a male peacock
10. Relative chooisness – females are more choosy
a. Example: prostitution mostly caters to male customers
11. Pornography – males like images of sexually receptive women
a. Experiments show rhesus monkeys will “pay” to see the behind of a female monkey and high status male Rhesus monkeys = two of the major human vices, pornography and celebrity worship, are not uniquely human
B. Sex and Evolutionary Biology: What is Universal?
1. Sense of beauty
a. Some studies show you evaluate the beauty of a face in 1/10th of a second
b. Beauty differs by culture and time, but there are universals
c. Certain universally attractive traits equate beauty to youth and health and thus signals of fertility: round eyes, full lips, smooth tight skin, absence of deformities, clear eyes, unblemished skin, intact teeth, average faces
d. Averages faces actually look pretty good
e. Human attractiveness has been studied widely, across cultures and ages, and even babies tend to prefer the same faces adults prefer
f. Experiment by Langlois: shows women and men faces of the opposite sex that look overly feminized and masculinized, found that women prefer the more masculinized men when ovulating and the more femininized man when not ovulating, suggesting that our sexual psychologies are linked to our reproductive preferences
2. Attraction to kindness
a. The more you love someone, the better looking you think they are
b. Study by David Buss across 37 different cultures: the number one thing people, both men and women, look for in a mate is kindness
V. The Study of Psychology
A. Review of what was covered in this lecture
1. Studies of a baby’s brain: development of compassion
2. Studies of an adult’s brain: concepts of race, sex, attraction
3. Developmental psychology: studies development of compassion in children
a. Studies our understanding of groups and the nature of racism
b. Studies development of romance and sexuality pre and post puberty
4. Social psychology: questions about dealing with other people and how we make sense of others
5. Cognitive psychology: studies perception – faces, categories (in- and out-groups), comprehension
6. Evolutionary psychology: studies the development of sexuality, morality, and compassion across species
7. Clinical psychology: studies sexual deviancy, immoral and amoral behavior, and lack of compassion
8. People are particularly interested in the psychopathology in mental illness; in morality, psychopaths and people who don’t have a conscience or feel compassion
B. Psychology and You
1. Psychology is “the perfect liberal arts major” because it connects to many disciplines
2. Philosophers, chemists, literature experts all have in common the study of the mind
3. Every interesting question for psychologists is interesting to scholars outside of psychology
C. The Future of Psychology
1. Approaching the mind from a serious scientific point of view allows us to appreciate its complexity and uniqueness
2. We have come a long way in our understanding of mental life but it is still a relatively new field that an individual can have a big impact on; it’s the “wild west of intellectual disciplines”
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Edit Article
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Children are very sensitive for encouragement and stimulus. They need the support from adults from their environment to grow up well balanced.
1. Stimulate Children's Self Confidence Step 1.jpg
Give kids self confidence. It's important that kids develop a positive image of their own. A positive image means that you are self confident, that you know your own limits and trust yourself. People who have a positive image have more fun in life. They can handle themselves in tough situations. This feeling is not congenital. It's created by the environment of the child. Verbal and non verbal messages give all sorts of signals to the child. He or she translates this into feelings of being accepted and/or unaccepted. These messages are forming the base from the image that kids have from themselves.
2. Stimulate Children's Self Confidence Step 2.jpg
Give kids the feeling that they are valuable.The most important thing is that you accept them for the person that they are.
3. Stimulate Children's Self Confidence Step 3.jpg
Let kids do a lot of stuff on their own. Even if it takes longer or if they make a mess, kids actually learn a lot more by trying things out for themselves. Patience and confidence can do a lot. Give kids the time and space to try. Help them if they need it, and be proud if they achieved their goal. The more learning possibilities the kid gets, the faster they make progress. Kids learn this way to become more self reliant.
4. Stimulate Children's Self Confidence Step 4.jpg
Encourage kids to try out new things. By giving kids positive reinforcement they learn to improve their skills. They learn to expand their limits and learn not to be discouraged. You, as the parent, must accept that children sometimes make mistakes and sometimes even fail. Give them the room to mess up, so that they can learn about it.
5. Stimulate Children's Self Confidence Step 5.jpg
Give them a good role model. Kids learn a lot from adults. The way you and other adults deal with them influences them a lot. You have to give them the right example (this doesn't mean that you always have to be serious).
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File system
For library and office filing systems, see Library classification.
More formally, a file system is a set of abstract data types that are implemented for the storage, hierarchical organization, manipulation, navigation, access, and retrieval of data. File systems share much in common with database technology, but it is debatable whether a file system can be classified as a special-purpose database (DBMS).[citation needed]
Data retrieval process
When a computer retrieves any file from a disk, the program in which the file is opened first calls on an API (Application Programming Interface) in order to build a dialogue box for viewing the file or folder. The operating system calls on the IFS (installable file system) manager. The IFS calls on the correct FSD (file system driver) in order to open the selected file from a choice of FSD's that work with different storage systems.
The FSD gets the location on the disk for the first cluster of the file from the FAT (File Allocation Table) or, in the case of NTFS, the MFT (Master File Table). In short, the whole point of these are to map out all the files on the disk and record where they are located (which track and sector of the disk).
Once the FSD knows where the file is located, it passes the read command to the I/O subsystem (input/output subsystem). This is generally an assistant to FSDs, doing chores such as routing messages back and forth between FSDs and lower, device-specific drivers. The VTD (Volume Tracking driver) might come into action if the file is not located on a drive. The VTD would only come into action if the file was stored on a floppy, CD, DVD, or other removable drive. The only thing the VTD does is determine if the correct disk is in the correct drive. Once this is done, the operation is passed off to the TSD (Type Specific Driver) which passes the read signal to the correct drive adapter. There is a separate TSD for hard drives, floppy drives, etc. Finally, the adapter takes over, moving the read/write head to the correct series of disk clusters to read the file into RAM so that it can be viewed and edited.
Aspects of file systems
The most familiar file systems make use of an underlying data storage device that offers access to an array of fixed-size blocks, sometimes called sectors, generally a power of 2 in size (512 bytes or 1, 2, or 4 kib are most common). The file system software is responsible for organizing these sectors into files and directories, and keeping track of which sectors belong to which file and which are not being used. Most file systems address data in fixed-sized units called "clusters" or "blocks" which contain a certain number of disk sectors (usually 1-64). This is the smallest logical amount of disk space that can be allocated to hold a file.
File names
Meta data
Other bookkeeping information is typically associated with each file within a file system. The length of the data contained in a file may be stored as the number of blocks allocated for the file or as an exact byte count. The time that the file was last modified may be stored as the file's timestamp. Some file systems also store the file creation time, the time it was last accessed, and the time that the file's meta-data was changed. (Note that many early PC operating systems did not keep track of file times.) Other information can include the file's device type (e.g., block, character, socket, subdirectory, etc.), its owner user-ID and group-ID, and its access permission settings (e.g., whether the file is read-only, executable, etc.).
Arbitrary attributes can be associated on advanced file systems, such as XFS, ext2/ext3, some versions of UFS, and HFS+, using extended file attributes. This feature is implemented in the kernels of Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X operating systems, and allows metadata to be associated with the file at the file system level. This, for example, could be the author of a document, the character encoding of a plain-text document, or a checksum.
Hierarchical file systems
Traditional file systems also offer facilities to truncate, append to, create, move, delete and in-place modify files. They do not offer facilities to prepend to or truncate from the beginning of a file, let alone arbitrary insertion into or deletion from a file. The operations provided are highly asymmetric and lack the generality to be useful in unexpected contexts. For example, interprocess pipes in Unix have to be implemented outside of the file system because the pipes concept does not offer truncation from the beginning of files.
Secure access
Types of file systems
Disk file systems
Flash file systems
A flash file system is a file system designed for storing files on flash memory devices. These are becoming more prevalent as the number of mobile devices is increasing, and the capacity of flash memories catches up with hard drives.
While a block device layer can emulate a disk drive so that a disk file system can be used on a flash device, this is suboptimal for several reasons:
• Random access: Disk file systems are optimized to avoid disk seeks whenever possible, due to the high cost of seeking. Flash memory devices impose no seek latency.
• Wear levelling: Flash memory devices tend to wear out when a single block is repeatedly overwritten; flash file systems are designed to spread out writes evenly.
Log-structured file systems have all the desirable properties for a flash file system. Such file systems include JFFS2 and YAFFS.
Database file systems
Transactional file systems
Transaction processing introduces the guarantee that at any point while it is running, a transaction can either be finished completely or reverted completely (though not necessarily both at any given point). This means that if there is a crash or power failure, after recovery, the stored state will be consistent. (Either the money will be transferred or it will not be transferred, but it won't ever go missing "in transit".)
Journaling file systems are one technique used to introduce transaction-level consistency to filesystem structures.
Network file systems
Main article: Network file system
Special purpose file systems
Main article: special file system
File systems and operating systems
Flat file systems
File systems under Unix-like operating systems
Wikibooks Guide to Unix has a page on the topic of Filesystems and Swap
Unix-like operating systems create a virtual file system, which makes all the files on all the devices appear to exist in a single hierarchy. This means, in those systems, there is one root directory, and every file existing on the system is located under it somewhere. Furthermore, the root directory does not have to be in any physical place. It might not be on your first hard drive - it might not even be on your computer. Unix-like systems can use a network shared resource as its root directory.
Unix-like systems assign a device name to each device, but this is not how the files on that device are accessed. Instead, to gain access to files on another device, you must first inform the operating system where in the directory tree you would like those files to appear. This process is called mounting a file system. For example, to access the files on a CD-ROM, one must tell the operating system "Take the file system from this CD-ROM and make it appear under such-and-such directory". The directory given to the operating system is called the mount point - it might, for example, be /media. The /media directory exists on many Unix systems (as specified in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) and is intended specifically for use as a mount point for removable media such as CDs, DVDs and like floppy disks. It may be empty, or it may contain subdirectories for mounting individual devices. Generally, only the administrator (i.e. root user) may authorize the mounting of file systems.
1. In many situations, file systems other than the root need to be available as soon as the operating system has booted. All Unix-like systems therefore provide a facility for mounting file systems at boot time. System administrators define these file systems in the configuration file fstab, which also indicates options and mount points.
5. A similar innovation preferred by some users is the use of autofs, a system that, like supermounting, eliminates the need for manual mounting commands. The difference from supermount, other than compatibility in an apparent greater range of applications such as access to file systems on network servers, is that devices are mounted transparently when requests to their file systems are made, as would be appropriate for file systems on network servers, rather than relying on events such as the insertion of media, as would be appropriate for removable media.
File systems under Linux
Linux supports many different file systems, but common choices for the system disk include the ext* family (such as ext2 and ext3), XFS, and JFS.
File systems under Mac OS X
File systems under Plan 9 from Bell Labs
The Inferno operating system shares these concepts with Plan 9.
File systems under Microsoft Windows
Windows makes use of the FAT, NTFS (New Technology File System) and HPFS (High Performance File System) file systems .
FAT - File Allocation Table:
Is supported by all versions of Microsoft Windows; it is an evolution of Microsoft's earlier operating system (MS-DOS, which, in turn, was based on 86-DOS). FAT can ultimately trace its roots back to CP/M. Over the years various features have been added to it, inspired by similar features found on other file systems used by other operating systems such as Unix.
There are several versions of FAT used in Windows, these are: FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32; WinFS was supposed to have been included with Windows Vista.
Fat Overview
FAT is by far the most simplistic of the file systems supported by Windows. The FAT file system is characterized by the file allocation table (FAT), which is really a table that resides at the very "top" of the volume. To protect the volume, two copies of the FAT are kept in case one becomes damaged. In addition, the FAT tables and the root directory must be stored in a fixed location so that the system's boot files can be correctly located.
A disk formatted with FAT is allocated in clusters, whose size are determined by the size of the volume. When a file is created, an entry is created in the directory and the first cluster number containing data is established. This entry in the FAT table either indicates that this is the last cluster of the file, or points to the next cluster.
Updating the FAT table is very important as well as time consuming. If the FAT table is not regularly updated, it can lead to data loss. It is time consuming because the disk read heads must be repositioned to the drive's logical track zero each time the FAT table is updated.
There is no organization to the FAT directory structure, and files are given the first open location on the drive. In addition, FAT supports only a few file attributes: read-only, hidden, system, and archive.
Older versions of the FAT file system (FAT12 and FAT16) had file name length limits, a limit on the number of entries in the root directory of the file system and had restrictions on the maximum size of FAT-formatted disks or partitions. Specifically, FAT12 and FAT16 had a limit of 8 characters for the file name, and 3 characters for the extension. This is commonly referred to as the 8.3 filename limit. VFAT, which was an extension to FAT12 and FAT16 introduced in Windows NT 3.5 and subsequently included in Windows 95, allowed long file names (LFN). FAT32 also addressed many of the limits in FAT12 and FAT16, but remains limited compared to NTFS.
HPFS - High Performance File System:
HPFS is only supported under Windows NT versions 3.1, 3.5, and 3.51. Windows NT 4.0 cannot access HPFS partitions. It was also used by IBM's now defunct OS/2.
HPFS Overview
The HPFS file system was first introduced with OS/2 1.2 to allow for greater access to the larger hard drives that were then appearing on the market. Additionally, it was necessary for a new file system to extend the naming system, organization, and security for the growing demands of the network server market. HPFS maintains the directory organization of FAT, but adds automatic sorting of the directory based on filenames. Filenames are extended to up to 254 double byte characters. HPFS also allows a file to be composed of "data" and special attributes to allow for increased flexibility in terms of supporting other naming conventions and security. In addition, the unit of allocation is changed from clusters to physical sectors (512 bytes), which reduces lost disk space.
Under HPFS, directory entries hold more information than under FAT. As well as the attribute file, this includes information about the modification, creation, and access date and times. Instead of pointing to the first cluster of the file, the directory entries under HPFS point to the FNODE. FNODE (pronounced "eff node") occupies a single sector and contains control and access history information used internally by the file system extended attributes and Access control list the length and the first 15 characters of the name of the associated file or directory and an allocation structure. The FNODE can contain the file's data, or pointers that may point to the file's data or to other structures that will eventually point to the file's data.
HPFS attempts to allocate as much of a file in contiguous sectors as possible. This is done in order to increase speed when doing sequential processing of a file.
HPFS organizes a drive into a series of 8 MB bands, and whenever possible a file is contained within one of these bands. Between each of these bands are 2K allocation bitmaps, which keep track of which sectors within a band have and have not been allocated. Banding increases performance because the drive head does not have to return to the logical top (typically cylinder 0) of the disk, but to the nearest band allocation bitmap to determine where a file is to be stored.
Additionally, HPFS includes a couple of unique special data objects:
Super Block
The Super Block is located in logical sector 16 and contains a pointer to the FNODE of the root directory. One of the biggest dangers of using HPFS is that if the Super Block is lost or corrupted due to a bad sector, so are the contents of the partition, even if the rest of the drive is fine. It would be possible to recover the data on the drive by copying everything to another drive with a good sector 16 and rebuilding the Super Block. However, this is a very complex task.
Spare Block
The Spare Block is located in logical sector 17 and contains a table of "hot fixes" and the Spare Directory Block. Under HPFS, when a bad sector is detected, the "hot fixes" entry is used to logically point to an existing good sector in place of the bad sector. This technique for handling write errors is known as hot fixing.
Hot fixing is a technique where if an error occurs because of a bad sector, the file system moves the information to a different sector and marks the original sector as bad. This is all done transparent to any applications that are performing disk I/O (that is, the application never knows that there were any problems with the hard drive). Using a file system that supports hot fixing will eliminate error messages such as the FAT "Abort, Retry, or Fail?" error message that occurs when a bad sector is encountered.
Note: The version of HPFS that is included with Windows NT does not support hot fixing.
NTFS - New Technology File System:
NTFS, introduced with the Windows NT operating system, allowed ACL-based permission control. Hard links, multiple file streams, attribute indexing, quota tracking, compression and mount-points for other file systems (called "junctions") are also supported, though not all these features are well-documented.
WinFS - Windows Future Storage:
This was intended to be released with Windows Vista but it was canceled with no further information provided, except for that they are still working on WinFS.
File systems under OpenVMS
Main article: Files-11
File systems under MVS [IBM Mainframe]
Main article: MVS#MVS filesystem
See also
Cited references
General references
Further reading
External links
Categories: Computer file systemsHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007
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Definitions for delightdɪˈlaɪt
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word delight
Random House Webster's College Dictionary
1. a high degree of pleasure or enjoyment; joy; rapture.
2. something that gives great pleasure.
3. (v.t.)to give delight to.
4. (v.i.)to have or take great pleasure:
She delights in walking.
Origin of delight:
1175–1225; < OF deliter, < L delectāre (see delectable )
Princeton's WordNet
1. delight, delectation(noun)
a feeling of extreme pleasure or satisfaction
"his delight to see her was obvious to all"
2. joy, delight, pleasure(verb)
something or someone that provides a source of happiness
3. please, delight(verb)
give pleasure to or be pleasing to
4. delight, enjoy, revel(verb)
take delight in
"he delights in his granddaughter"
hold spellbound
Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary
1. delight(noun)ɪˈlaɪt
a feeling of great pleasure
The boy grinned with delight.; He took great delight in teasing the kids.
2. delightɪˈlaɪt
sb or sth that makes you feel delight
Your daughter is a delight to teach.
3. delight(verb)ɪˈlaɪt
to make sb feel delight
The cartoons delighted the viewers.
1. delight(Noun)
joy; pleasure
2. delight(Verb)
To give pleasure to.
3. Origin: A wrong spelling, in imitation of words like light, might, etc.; the analogical modern spelling would be delite;, from deliten, from deleiter, deliter, from delectare, frequentative of delicere; see delicate.
Webster Dictionary
1. Delight(verb)
2. Delight(verb)
that which gives great pleasure or delight
3. Delight(verb)
licentious pleasure; lust
4. Delight(verb)
5. Delight(verb)
1. Delight
Delight is a town in Pike County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 279 at the 2010 census. It is the birthplace of country musician Glen Campbell, though the actual early home of the Country Music Hall of Fame inductee was in nearby Billstown, which Campbell describes as a "suburb" of Delight. Delight is also the home of former Arkansas State Auditor and Treasurer Gus Wingfield, and the father of actor and singer Scott Reeves.
British National Corpus
1. Spoken Corpus Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'delight' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #4820
2. Nouns Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'delight' in Nouns Frequency: #1752
Translations for delight
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary
to please greatly
I was delighted by/at the news; They were delighted to accept the invitation.
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Surrounding China’s String of Pearls
(Note: the following article was written for the Mother Jones blog as part of its special investigation series “Mission Creep: U.S. Military Presence Worldwide.”)
In 1919, the English geographer Halford Mackinder argued that control of the “Eurasian heartland” was the key to world domination. Mackinder believed that Eastern Europe was the gateway to controlling this huge landmass stretching from his home country to the far shores of Asia. And indeed, Eastern Europe proved pivotal in the next conflagration, World War II, as well as in the U.S. policy of containing the Soviet Union in the Cold War era.
This Heartland strategy remains central to U.S. plans, as NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe to the very borders of Russia demonstrates. But in Asia, a different theorist of geopolitics applies. U.S. political scientist Nicholas Spykman focused not on Eastern Europe but what he called the “rimland,” namely the coastal regions that lie between the land powers and the naval powers.
China has its own plan for controlling these pivotal coastal areas. Dubbed the “string of pearls,” this strategy involves building or upgrading its military and commercial facilities along the Asian littoral from its own Hainan Island to a shipping facility in Bangladesh to a new naval base in Gwadar, Pakistan. Importantly, though, this strategy is largely economic. China has wooed and won its neighbors in Asia through a mixture of trade and aid, not by building up strong bilateral military alliances.
China is no Soviet Union. It is a major American trade partner and it holds a sizable portion of U.S. debt. Washington and Beijing cooperate on counterterrorism and on reining in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. So containment of China is not going to look like the old-style containment of the Soviet Union, which depended on hard-power confrontation. In the post-Cold War era, US basing strategy in Asia has shifted accordingly: away from fixed sites toward a rapid-response capability.
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• Inside the Lincoln Sitting Room
Lincoln Home
National Historic Site Illinois
Third Debate: Jonesboro, Illinois
September 15, 1858
Approximately 1,500 from the sparsely populated heavily Democratic area attended. Most of those in attendance had moved to the area from slave-holding states or were descendants of people who had moved from slave-holding states.
Douglas charged Lincoln and the Republicans said one thing in nothern Illinois, something different in central Illinois, and something all together different again in southern illinois. Douglas charged Lincoln stood for racial equality. Lincoln denied he said different things in different parts of the state and then quoted various documents and speeches by Democrats to prove they said different things in different parts of the states.
Text of debate follows.
Mr. Douglas' Speech
Mr. Lincoln's Speech
Mr. Lincoln was then introduced to the audience by D.L. Phillips, Esq., and was greeted with three cheers, and then "three more;" after which he said:
While I am upon this subject, I will make some answers briefly to certain propositions that Judge Douglas has put. He says, "Why can't this Union endure permanently, half slave and half free?" I have said that I supposed it could not, and I will try, before this new audience, to give briefly some of the reasons for entertaining that opinion. Another form of his question is, "Why can't we let it stand as our fathers placed it?" That is the exact difficulty between us. I say, that Judge Douglas and his friends have changed them from the position in which our fathers originally placed it. I say, in the way our fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. I say when this Government was first established, it was the policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new Territories of the United States, where it had not existed. But Judge Douglas and his friends have broken up that policy, and placed it upon a new basis by which it is to become national and perpetual. All I have asked or desired any where is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the fathers of our Government originally placed it upon. I have no doubt that it would become extinct, for all time to come, if we but readopted the policy of the fathers by restricting it to the limits it has already covered-restricting it from the new Territories.
In complaining of what I said in my speech at Springfield, in which he says I accepted my nomination for the Senatorship (where by the way he is at fault, for if he will examine it he will find no acceptance in it;) he again quotes that portion in which I said that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." Let me say a word in regard to that matter.
Again, in reference to our platform: On the 16th of June the Republicans had their Convention and published their platform, which is as clear and distinct as Judge Douglas's. In it they spoke their principles as plainly and as definitely to the world. What is the reason that Judge Douglas is not willing I should stand upon that platform? Why must he go around hunting for some one who is supporting me, or has supported me at some time in his life, and who has said something at some time contrary to that platform? Does the Judge regard that rule as a good one? If it turn out that the rule is a good one for me-that I am responsible for any and every opinion that any man has expressed who is my friend-then it is a good rule for him. I ask, is it not as good a rule for him as it is for me? In my opinion, it is not a good rule for either of us. Do you think differently, Judge?
MR. DOUGLAS-I do not.
"To the first and second interrogatories, I answer unequivocally in the affirmative.
"To the fourth and fifth interrogatories I unhesitatingly answer in the affirmative.
T. Campbell
JUDGE DOUGLAS.-Give me the date of the letter.
Yours, etc.,
R. S. Molony
I reckon we ought to except Cook. [Laughter.]
"F. C. Sherman."
"Will-Joel A. Matteson, S. W. Bowen."
"McHenry-W. M. Jackson, Enos W. Smith, Neil Donnelly."
"La Salle-John Hise, William Reddick."
William Reddick! another one of Judge Douglas's friends that stood on the stand with him at Ottawa, at the time the Judge says my knees trembled so that I had to be carried away. [Laughter.] The names are all here:
"DuPage-Nathan Allen."
"DeKalb-Z. B. Mayo."
JUDGE DOUGLAS-What is the date of those resolutions?
"Our education has been such, that we have ever been rather in favor of the equality of the blacks; that is, that they should enjoy all the privileges of the whites where they reside. We are aware that this is not a very popular doctrine. We have had many a confab with some who are now strong 'Republicans,' we taking the broad ground of equality and they the opposite ground.
"We were brought up in a State where blacks were voters, and we do not know of any inconvenience resulting from it, though perhaps it would not work as well where the blacks are more numerous. We have no doubt of the right of the whites to guard against such an evil, if it is one. Our opinion is that it would be best for all concerned to have the colored population in a State by themselves [in this I agree with him]; but if within the jurisdiction of the United States, we say by all means they should have the right to have their Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to vote for President. With us 'worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow.' We have seen many a 'nigger' that we thought more of than some white men."
I have here also a set of resolutions passed by a Democratic State Convention in Judge Douglas's own good old State of Vermont, that I think ought to be good for him too:
"Resolved, That no more slave States should be admitted into the Federal Union.
"Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State Constitution, and ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the English bill-some ninety-three thousand - will you vote to admit them?"
The second interrogatory that I propounded to him, was this:
In the Senate of the United States, in 1856, Judge Trumbull, in a speech, substantially, if not directly, put the same interrogatory to Judge Douglas, as to whether the people of a Territory had the lawful power to exclude slavery prior to the formation of a Constitution? Judge Douglas then answered at considerable length, and his answer will be found in the Congressional Globe, under date of June 9th, 1856. The Judge said that whether the people could exclude slavery prior to the formation of a Constitution or not was a question to be decided by the Supreme Court. He put that proposition, as will be seen by the Congressional Globe, in a variety of forms, all running to the same thing in substance-that it was a question for the Supreme Court. I maintain that when he says, after the Supreme Court have decided the question, that the people may yet exclude slavery by any means whatever, he does virtually say, that it is not a question for the Supreme Court. He shifts his ground. I appeal to you whether he did not say it was a question for the Supreme Court? Has not the Supreme Court decided that question? When he now says the people may exclude slavery, does he not make it a question for the people? Does he not virtually shift his ground and say that it is not a question for the court, but for the people? This is a very simple proposition, a very plain and naked one. It seems to me that there is no difficulty in deciding it. In a variety of ways he said that it was a question for the Supreme Court. He did not stop then to tell us that whatever the Supreme Court decides, the people can by withholding necessary "police regulations" keep slavery out. He did not make any such answer. I submit to you now, whether the new state of the case has not induced the Judge to sheer away from his original ground. Would not this be the impression of every fair-minded man?
Again: I will ask you, my friends, if you were elected members of the Legislature, what would be the first thing you would have to do before entering upon your duties? Swear to support the Constitution of the United States. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the Constitution of the United States guaranties to your neighbor the right to hold slaves in that Territory - that they are his property-how can you clear your oaths unless you give him such legislation as is necessary to enable him to enjoy that property? What do you understand by supporting the Constitution of a State, or of the United States? Is it not to give such Constitutional helps to the rights established by that Constitution as may be practically needed? Can you, if you swear to support the Constitution, and believe that the Constitution establishes a right, clear your oath, without giving it support? Do you support the Constitution if, knowing or believing there is a right established under it which needs specific legislation, you withhold that legislation? Do you not violate and disregard your oath? I can conceive of nothing plainer in the world. There can be nothing in the words "support the Constitution," if you may run counter to it by refusing support to any right established under the Constitution. And what I say here will hold with still more force against the Judge's doctrine of "unfriendly legislation." How could you, having sworn to support the Constitution and believing it guarantied the right to hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended to defeat that right? That would be violating your own view of the Constitution. Not only so, but if you were to do so, how long would it take the courts to hold your votes unconstitutional and void? Not a moment.
JUDGE DOUGLAS-Didn't they carry you off?
MR. LINCOLN-There; that question illustrates the character of this man Douglas, exactly. He smiles now and says, "Didn't they carry you off?" But he said then, "He had to be carried off;" and he said it to convince the country that he had so completely broken me down by his speech that I had to be carried away. Now he seeks to dodge it, and asks, "Didn't they carry you off?" Yes, they did. But, Judge Douglas, why didn't you tell the truth? I would like to know why you didn't tell the truth about it. And then again, "He laid up seven days." He puts this in print for the people of the country to read as a serious document. I think if he had been in his sober senses he would not have risked that barefacedness in the presence of thousands of his own friends, who knew that I made speeches within six of the seven days at Henry, Marshall county; Augusta, Hancock county, and Macomb, McDonough county, including all the necessary travel to meet him again at Freeport at the end of the six days. Now, I say, there is no charitable way to look at that statement, except to conclude that he is actually crazy. There is another thing in that statement that alarmed me very greatly as he states it, that he was going to "trot me down to Egypt." Thereby he would have you to infer that I would not come to Egypt unless he forced me-that I could not be got here, unless he, giant-like, had hauled me down here. That statement he makes, too, in the teeth of the knowledge that I had made the stipulation to come down here, and that he himself had been very reluctant to enter into the stipulation. More than all this, Judge Douglas, when he made that statement, must have been crazy, and wholly out of his sober senses, or else he would have known that when he got me down here-that promise-that windy promise-of his powers to annihilate me, wouldn't amount to anything. Now, how little do I look like being carried away trembling? Let the Judge go on, and after he is done with his half hour, I want you all, if I can't go home myself, to let me stay and rot here; and if anything happens to the Judge, if I cannot carry him to the hotel and put him to bed, let me stay here and rot. I say, then, there is something extraordinary in this statement. I ask you if you know any other living man who would make such a statement? I will ask my friend Casey, over there, if he would do such a thing? Would he send that out and have his men take it as the truth? Did the Judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt to scare me to death? Why, I know this people better than he does. I was raised just a little east of here. I am a part of this people. But the Judge was raised further north, and perhaps he has some horrid idea of what this people might be induced to do. But really I have talked about this matter perhaps longer than I ought, for it is no great thing, and yet the smallest are often the most difficult things to deal with. The Judge has set about seriously trying to make the impression that when we meet at different places I am literally in his clutches-that I am a poor, helpless, decrepit mouse, and that I can do nothing at all. This is one of the ways he has taken to create that impression. I don't know any other way to meet it, except this. I don't want to quarrel with him-to call him a liar-but when I come square up to him I don't know what else to call him, if I must tell the truth out. [Cheers and laughter.] I want to be at peace, and reserve all my fighting powers for necessary occasions. My time, now, is very nearly out, and I give up the trifle that is left to the Judge, to let him set my knees trembling again, if he can.
Mr. Douglas' Reply
Mr. Douglas on again taking the stand was greeted with thundering applause. He said:
My friends, while I am very grateful to you for the enthusiasm which you show for me, I will say in all candor, that your quietness will be much more agreeable than your applause, inasmuch as you deprive me of some part of my time whenever you cheer. (All right, go ahead, we won't interrupt, &c.)
I will commence where Mr. Lincoln left off, and make a remark upon this serious complaint of his about my speech at Joliet. I did say there in a playful manner that when I put these questions to Mr. Lincoln at Ottawa he failed to answer, and that he trembled and had to be carried off the stand, and required seven days to get up his reply. (Laughter.) That he did not walk off from that stand he will not deny. That when the crowd went away from the stand with me, a few persons carried him home on their shoulders and laid him down, he will admit. (Shouts of laughter.) I wish to say to you that whenever I degrade my friends and myself by allowing them to carry me on their backs along through the public streets, when I am able to walk, I am willing to be deemed crazy. ("All right, Douglas," laughter and applause. Lincoln chewing his nails in a rage in a back corner.) I did not say whether I beat him or he beat me in the argument. It is true I put these questions to him, and I put them not as mere idle questions, but showed that I based them upon the creed of the Black Republican party as declared by their Conventions in that portion of the State which he depends upon to elect him, and desired to know whether he indorsed that creed. He would not answer. When I reminded him that I intended bringing him into Egypt and renewing my questions if he refused to answer, he then consulted and did get up his answers one week after,- answers which I may refer to in a few minutes and show you how equivocal they are. My object was to make him avow whether or not he stood by the platform of his party; the resolutions I then read, and upon which I based my questions, had been adopted by his party in the Galena Congressional District, and the Chicago and Bloomington Congressional Districts, composing a large majority of the counties in this State that give Republican or Abolition majorities. Mr. Lincoln cannot and will not deny that the doctrines laid down in these resolutions were in substance put forth in Lovejoy's resolutions, which were voted for by a majority of his party, some of them, if not all, receiving the support of every man of his party. Hence, I laid a foundation for my questions to him before I asked him whether that was or was not the platform of his party. He says that he answered my questions. One of them was whether he would vote to admit any more slave States into the Union. The creed of the Republican party as set forth in the resolutions of their various Conventions was, that they would under no circumstances vote to admit another slave State. It was put forth in the Lovejoy resolutions in the Legislature; it was put forth and passed in a majority of all the counties of this State which give Abolition or Republican majorities, or elect members to the Legislature of that school of politics. I had a right to know whether he would vote for or against the admission of another slave State in the event the people wanted it. He first answered that he was not pledged on the subject, and then said, "In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the admission of anymore slave States into the Union, I state to you very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in the position of having to pass on that question. ("No doubt," and laughter. Mr. Lincoln looks savagely into the crowd for the man who said "no doubt.") I should be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the Union; but I must add that if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during the territorial existence of any one given Territory, and then the people, having a fair chance and clean field when they come to adopt a Constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as adopt a slave Constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union."
Now analyze that answer. In the first place he says he would be exceedingly sorry to be put in a position where he would have to vote on the question of the admission of a slave State. Why is he a candidate for the Senate if he would be sorry to be put in that position? I trust the people of Illinois will not put him in a position which he would be so sorry to occupy. ("There's no danger," &c.) The next position he takes is that he would be glad to know that there would never be another slave State, yet, in certain contingencies, he might have to vote for one. What is that contingency? "If Congress keeps slavery out by law while it is a Territory, and then the people should have a fair chance and should adopt slavery, uninfluenced by the presence of the institution," he supposed he would have to admit the State. Suppose Congress should not keep slavery out during their territorial existence, then how would he vote when the people applied for admission into the Union with a slave Constitution? That he does not answer, and that is the condition of every Territory we have now got. Slavery is not kept out of Kansas by act of Congress, and when I put the question to Mr. Lincoln, whether he will vote for the admission with or without slavery, as her people may desire, he will not answer, and you have not got an answer from him. In Nebraska slavery is not prohibited by act of Congress, but the people are allowed, under the Nebraska bill, to do as they please on the subject; and when I ask him whether he will vote to admit Nebraska with a slave Constitution if her people desire it, he will not answer. So with New Mexico, Washington Territory, Arizona, and the four new States to be admitted from Texas. You cannot get an answer from him to these questions. His answer only applies to a given case, to a condition things which he knows does not exist in any one Territory in the Union. He tries to give you to understand that he would allow the people to do as they please, and yet he dodges the question as to every Territory in the Union. I now ask why cannot Mr. Lincoln answer to each of these Territories? He has not done it, and he will not do it. The Abolitionists up North understand that this answer is made with a view of not committing himself on any one Territory now in existence. It is so understood there, and you cannot expect an answer from him on a case that applies to any one Territory, or applies to the new States which by compact we are pledged to admit out of Texas, when they have the requisite population and desire admission. I submit to you whether he has made a frank answer, so that you can tell how he would vote in any one of these cases. "He would be sorry to be put in the position." Why would he be sorry to be put in this position if his duty required him to give the vote? If the people of a Territory ought to be permitted to come into the Union as a State, with slavery or without it, as they pleased, why not give the vote admitting them cheerfully? If in his opinion they ought not to come in with slavery, even if they wanted to, why not say that he would cheerfully vote against their admission? His intimation is that conscience would not let him vote "No," and he would be sorry to do that which his conscience would compel him to do as an honest man. (Laughter and cheers.)
In regard to the contract or bargain between Trumbull, the Abolitionists and him, which he denies, I wish to say that the charge can be proved by notorious historical facts. Trumbull, Lovejoy, Giddings, Fred Douglass, Hale, and Banks, were traveling the State at that time making speeches on the same side and in the same cause with him. He contents himself with the simple denial that no such thing occurred. Does he deny that he, and Trumbull, and Breese, and Giddings, and Chase, and Fred Douglass, and Lovejoy, and all those Abolitionists and deserters from the Democratic party, did make speeches all over this State in the same common cause? Does he deny that Jim Matheny was then, and is now, his confidential friend, and does he deny that Matheny made the charge of the bargain and fraud in his own language, as I have read it from his printed speech. Matheny spoke of his own personal knowledge of that bargain existing between Lincoln, Trumbull, and the Abolitionists. He still remains Lincoln's confidential friend, and is now a candidate for Congress, and is canvassing the Springfield District for Lincoln. I assert that I can prove the charge to be true in detail if I can ever get it where I can summon and compel the attendance of witnesses. I have the statement of another man to the same effect as that made by Matheny, which I am not permitted to use yet, but Jim Matheny is a good witness on that point, and the history of the country is conclusive upon it. That Lincoln up to that time had been a Whig, and then undertook to Abolitionize the Whigs and bring them into the Abolition camp, is beyond denial; that Trumbull up to that time had been a Democrat, and deserted, and undertook to Abolitionize the Democracy, and take them into the Abolition camp, is beyond denial; that they are both now active, leading, distinguished members of this Abolition Republican party, in full communion, is a fact that cannot be questioned or denied.
But Lincoln is not willing to be responsible for the creed of his party. He complains because I hold him responsible, and in order to avoid the issue, he attempts to show that individuals in the Democratic party, many years ago, expressed Abolition sentiments. It is true that Tom Campbell, when a candidate for Congress in 1850, published the letter which Lincoln read. When I asked Lincoln for the date of that letter he could not give it. The date of the letter has been suppressed by other speakers who have used it, though I take it for granted that Lincoln did not know the date. If he will take the trouble to examine, he will find that the letter was published only two days before the election, and was never seen until after it, except in one county. Tom Campbell would have been beat to death by the Democratic party if that letter had been made public in his district. As to Molony, it is true he uttered sentiments of the kind referred to by Mr. Lincoln, and the best Democrats would not vote for him for that reason. I returned from Washington after the passage of the Compromise Measures in 1850, and when I found Molony running under John Wentworth's tutelage, and on his platform, I denounced him, and declared that he was no Democrat. In my speech at Chicago, just before the election that year, I went before the infuriated people of that city and vindicated the Compromise Measures of 1850. Remember the city council had passed resolutions nullifying acts of Congress and instructing the police to withhold their assistance from the execution of the laws, and as I was the only man in the city of Chicago who was responsible for the passage of the Compromise Measures, I went before the crowd, justified each and every one of those measures, and let it be said to the eternal honor of the people of Chicago, that when they were convinced by my exposition of those measures that they were right and they had done wrong in opposing them, they repealed their nullifying resolutions and declared that they would acquiesce in and support the laws of the land. These facts are well known, and Mr. Lincoln can only get up individual instances, dating back to 1849-'50, which are contradicted by the whole tenor of the Democratic creed.
But Mr. Lincoln does not want to be held responsible for the Black Republican doctrine of no more slave States. Farnsworth is the candidate of his party to-day in the Chicago District, and he made a speech in the last Congress in which he called upon God to palsy his right arm if he ever voted for the admission of another slave State, whether the people wanted it or not. Lovejoy is making speeches all over the State for Lincoln now, and taking ground against any more slave States. Washburne, the Black Republican candidate for Congress in the Galena District, is making speeches in favor of this same Abolition platform declaring no more slave States. Why are men running for Congress in the northern districts, and taking that Abolition platform for their guide, when Mr. Lincoln does not want to be held to it down here in Egypt and in the center of the State, and objects to it so as to get votes here. (He can't get any.) Let me tell Mr. Lincoln that his party in the northern part of the State hold to that Abolition platform, and that if they do not in the South and in the center they present the extraordinary spectacle of a house divided against itself, and hence cannot stand. (Hurra.) I now bring down upon him the vengeance of his own scriptural quotation, and give it a more appropriate application than he did, when I say to him that his party, Abolition in one end of the State and opposed to it in the other, is a house divided against itself, and cannot stand, and ought not to stand, for it attempts to cheat the American people out of their votes by disguising its sentiments. (Cheers.)
Mr. Lincoln attempts to cover up and get over his Abolitionism by telling you that he was raised a little east of you, (laughter,) beyond the Wabash in Indiana, and he thinks that makes a mighty sound and good man of him on all these questions. I do not know that the place where a man is born or raised has much to do with his political principles. The worst Abolitionists I have ever known in Illinois have been men who have sold their slaves in Alabama and Kentucky, and have come here and turned Abolitionists whilst spending the money got for the negroes they sold, (that's so, and laughter,) and I do not know that an Abolitionist from Indiana or Kentucky ought to have any more credit because he was born and raised among slaveholders. (Not a bit, not as much, &c.) I do not know that a native of Kentucky is more excusable because raised among slaves, his father and mother having owned slaves, he comes to Illinois, turns Abolitionist, and slanders the graves of his father and mother, and breathes curses upon the institutions under which he was born, and his father and mother bred. True, I was not born out west here. I was born away down in Yankee land, (good,) I was born in a valley in Vermont (all right,) with the high mountains around me. I love the old green mountains and valleys of Vermont, where I was born, and where I played in my childhood. I went up to visit them some seven or eight years ago, for the first time for twenty odd years. When I got there they treated me very kindly. They invited me to the commencement of their college, placed me on the seats with their distinguished guests, and conferred upon me the degree of LL.D. in Latin (doctor of laws,) the same as they did old Hickory, at Cambridge, many years ago, and I give you my word and honor I understood just as much of the Latin as he did. (Laughter.) When they got through conferring the honorary degree, they called upon me for a speech, and I got up with my heart full and swelling with gratitude for their kindness, and I said to them, "My friends, Vermont is the most glorious spot on the face of this globe for a man to be born in, provided he emigrates when he is very young." (Uproarious shouts of laughter.)
I emigrated when I was very young. I came out here when I was a boy, and I found my mind liberalized, and my opinions enlarged when I got on these broad prairies, with only the Heavens to bound my vision, instead of having them circumscribed by the little narrow ridges that surrounded the valley where I was born. But, I discard all flings of the land where a man was born. I wish to be judged by my principles, by those great public measures and Constitutional principles upon which the peace, the happiness and the perpetuity of this Republic now rest.
Mr. Lincoln has framed another question, propounded it to me, and desired my answer. As I have said before, I did not put a question to him that I did not first lay a foundation for by showing that it was a part of the platform of the party whose votes he is now seeking, adopted in a majority of the counties where he now hopes to get a majority, and supported by the candidates of his party now running in those counties. But I will answer his question. It is as follows: "If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need and demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave property in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for or against such legislation?" I answer him that it is a fundamental article in the Democratic creed that there should be non-interference and non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States or territories. (Immense cheering.) Mr. Lincoln could have found an answer to his question in the Cincinnati platform, if he had desired it. (Renewed applause.) The Democratic party have always stood by that great principle of non-interference and non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories alike, and I stand on that platform now. (Cheer after cheer was here given for Douglas.)
Now I desire to call your attention to the fact that Lincoln did not define his own position in his own question. ("He can't, it's too far South," and laughter.) How does he stand on that question? He put the question to me at Freeport whether or not I would vote to admit Kansas into the Union before she had 93,420 inhabitants. I answered him at once that it having been decided that Kansas had now population enough for a slave State, she had population enough for a free State. ("Good; that's it," and cheers.)
I answered the question unequivocally, and then I asked him whether he would vote for or against the admission of Kansas before she had 93,420 inhabitants, and he would not answer me. Today he has called attention to the fact that, in his opinion, my answer on that question was not quite plain enough, and yet he has not answered it himself. (Great Laughter.) He now puts a question in relation [to] Congressional interference in the Territories to me. I answer him direct, and yet he has not answered the question himself. I ask you whether a man has any right, in common decency, to put questions in these public discussions, to his opponent, which he will not answer himself, when they are pressed home to him. I have asked him three times, whether he would vote to admit Kansas whenever the people applied with a Constitution of their own making and their own adoption, under circumstances that were fair, just and unexceptionable, but I cannot get an answer from him. Nor will he answer the question which he put to me, and which I have just answered in relation to Congressional interference in the Territories, by making a slave code there.
It is true that he goes on to answer the question by arguing that under the decision of the Supreme Court it is the duty of a man to vote for a slave code in the Territories. He says that it is his duty, under the decision that the court has made, and if he believes in that decision he would be a perjured man if he did not give the vote. I want to know whether he is not bound to a decision which is contrary to his opinions just as much as to one in accordance with his opinions. (Certainly.) If the decision of the Supreme Court, the tribunal created by the Constitution to decide the question, is final and binding, is he not bound by it just as strongly as if he was for it instead of against it originally? Is every man in this land allowed to resist decisions he does not like, and only support those that meet his approval? What are important courts worth unless their decisions are binding on all good citizens? It is the fundamental principles of the judiciary that its decisions are final. It is created for that purpose, so that when you cannot agree among yourselves on a disputed point you appeal to the judicial tribunal which steps in and decides for you, and that decision is then binding on every good citizen. It is the law of the land just as much with Mr. Lincoln against it as for it. And yet he says that if that decision is binding he is a perjured man if he does not vote for a slave code in the different Territories of this Union. Well, if you (turning to Mr. Lincoln) are not going to resist the decision, if you obey it, and do not intend to array mob law against the constituted authorities, then, according to your own statement, you will be a perjured man if you do not vote to establish slavery in these Territories. My doctrine is, that even taking Mr. Lincoln's view that the decision recognizes the right of a man to carry his slaves into the Territories of the United States, if he pleases, yet after he gets there he needs affirmative law to make that right of any value. The same doctrine not only applies to slave property, but all other kinds of property. Chief Justice Taney places it upon the ground that slave property is on an equal footing with other property. Suppose one of your merchants should move to Kansas and open a liquor store; he has a right to take groceries and liquors there, but the mode of selling them, and the circumstances under which they shall be sold, and all the remedies must be prescribed by local legislation, and if that is unfriendly it will drive him out just as effectually as if there was a Constitutional provision against the sale of liquor. So the absence of local legislation to encourage and support slave property in a Territory excludes it practically just as effectually as if there was a positive Constitutional provision against it. Hence, I assert that under the Dred Scott decision you cannot maintain slavery a day in a Territory where there is an unwilling people and unfriendly legislation. If the people are opposed to it, our right is a barren, worthless, useless right, and if they are for it, they will support and encourage it. We come right back, therefore, to the practical question, if the people of a Territory want slavery they will have it, and if they do not want it you cannot force it on them. And this is the practical question, the great principle, upon which our institutions rest. ("That's the doctrine.") I am willing to take the decision of the Supreme Court as it was pronounced by that august tribunal without stopping to inquire whether I would have decided that way or not. I have had many a decision made against me on questions of law which I did not like, but I was bound by them just as much as if I had had a hand in making them, and approved them. Did you ever see a lawyer or a client lose his case that he approved the decision of the court? They always think the decision unjust when it is given against them. In a Government of laws like ours we must sustain the Constitutions as our fathers made it, and maintain the rights of the States as they are guarantied under the Constitution, and then we will have peace and harmony between the different States and sections of this glorious Union. (Prolonged cheering.)
Fourth Debate
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Story: Te Maari-o-te-rangi, Piripi
Page 1 - Te Maari-o-te-rangi, Piripi
Te Maari-o-te-rangi, Piripi
Ngati Kahungunu leader, farmer, protester, orator
Piripi Te Maari-o-te-rangi was prominent as a defender of the rights of the Wairarapa people to their lands and lakes, from the 1860s to his death in 1895. The evidence which he and his brother, Hohepa Aporo, gave to the Native Land Court stated that his father was Aporo Waewae. But he was sometimes reputed to have been the son of Te Maari-o-te-rangi, whose brother Te Kai-a-te-kokopu had, until the 1840s, supreme rights over hapu using the food resources of Onoke, the southern Wairarapa lake.
There is no doubt about other relatives. Piripi Te Maari's mother was Hariata Ngarueiterangi of Ngati Hinewaka; his elder brother, Piripi Iharaira Aporo, of the Whareama district; his younger brother, Hohepa Aporo, who married Maikara Paranihia. His sisters were Ihipera Aporo, who married Hemi Te Miha (with whom Piripi was closely associated); and Ani Aporo, who married Ratima Ropiha of Porangahau. His hapu were Ngati Tukoko, Rakaiwhakairi, Ngati Rakairangi, Ngati Manuhiri, Ngati Hinewaka (a branch of Ngai Tu-mapuhi-a-rangi), and Ngati Hineraumoa.
Some time after 1832 Wairarapa was again invaded by tribes from the north and west, and Wi Tako Ngatata, a leader of Te Ati Awa, killed Te Maari-o-te-rangi. The Wairarapa tribes then began their withdrawal to the north for safety. Many went to Nukutaurua on the Mahia peninsula. Some stayed at Waimarama in Central Hawke's Bay, among them the family of Piripi Te Maari. There Piripi was born, perhaps in 1837; and he was taken back there for burial after his death.
In the early 1840s members of Piripi Te Maari's family began to return to Wairarapa. He joined them in the early 1850s, by which time he was married to Meri Te Haeata. While he was away, he had been educated at the school of CMS missionary William Williams at Waerenga-a-hika, near Gisborne. This education equipped him for his future activities as the 'man of affairs' for his people.
His reputation was enhanced by his success as a farmer. He leased land from his relatives and ran sheep and cattle. He operated on such a large scale that he needed to employ Pakeha workers. The skill he showed in adopting the agricultural and business practices of the settlers helped him to achieve recognition as a man competent to deal with land and fishing rights. He was consistently concerned that Maori landowners should lose none of their rights. This concern led him into the great battle of his life, the struggle to prevent settler encroachment on the rights and lands of the owners of the two Wairarapa lakes. The lands bordering on the lakes had been purchased for the government by chief land purchase commissioner, Donald McLean, in 1853. The deeds of sale were not clear about the precise boundaries of the blocks purchased by McLean, but he had given a verbal agreement that the lakes themselves should stay in Maori hands, together with the low-lying swampy areas, below the high-water flood line. He had agreed, too, that any settler who opened the shingle bar dividing the lower lake from the sea would be fined £50.
The two lakes were very important as a source of food. In southerly storms the shingle bar at the seaward end of the lower lake would build up to form a dam; brackish water would spread inland, and the eels in the lake would be brought towards the sea and could be caught in huge numbers against the bar. In good years 20 tons of eels could be taken and dried. Dried eels were exchanged with other tribes for preserved birds and seafood; this exchange system extended as far as Wairoa and Gisborne. Dried eels were also important as gifts.
By the 1860s Pakeha pastoralists were enviously eyeing the flood plain of fine silt building up on the borders of the lake, and in some cases using it without permission. But the floods which brought the harvest of eels hampered the Pakeha farmers. By the end of the 1860s they were seeking the power to open the shingle bar without the agreement of the owners of the lakes. In 1868 Piripi Te Maari, with Raniera Te Iho-o-te-rangi and others, asked the government to honour the arrangements made with McLean. For a time things went amicably. Sums of £40 were paid for permission to open the bar, but Piripi and others did not give permission during the height of the eel season, between January and March.
But this did not satisfy the settlers, who put pressure on the government to purchase the lakes, and so bring to an end the annual flooding of their properties. In 1872 a meeting of Rakaiwhakairi was called at Te Waitapu, near Tuhitarata, in response to approaches made by a local settler, Richard Barton. The meeting decided against selling the lakes, a position maintained by Piripi for the rest of his life. However, in 1876 a deal was concluded, known as 'Hiko's Sale': Te Hiko, Hemi Te Miha and 15 others were induced by Te Manihera Te Rangi-taka-i-waho and Edward Maunsell (the government agent) to sign away their fishing rights to the lower lake. When Maunsell came to pay the purchase money, he was met by Piripi Te Maari who objected to the sale because only a fraction of the owners of the lakes had been consulted.
By this time Piripi Te Maari was a prominent leader. He was chairman of a committee opposed to any further sale of Wairarapa lands, a committee probably of the runanga of Wairarapa, founded in 1859. By the 1880s he was regarded as the leader in all matters to do with the lakes. He was a member of the committee of 12 appointed at Papawai in 1883 to investigate all grievances between Maori and Pakeha in Wairarapa. He made numerous appearances in the Native Land Court on his own behalf and on behalf of others, often as a trustee for minors. He also became an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, being baptised in that church at Te Waitapu on 2 June 1887, and helping to translate the Book of Mormon into Maori. His religion brought him into conflict with Ngati Porou, who sought the assistance of Te Kotahitanga to exclude the Mormons from the country.
Through the 1880s the battle over the lakes continued. Piripi Te Maari applied to the Native Land Court in 1881 to hear the claims of the non-sellers of Lake Wairarapa. At the first hearing, in 1882, he sought to get the government's case dismissed, on the grounds that it was based on the purchase of only 17 persons' interests. This tactic was successful. A second hearing, in 1883, registered Piripi Te Maari, Raniera Te Iho and 137 others as owners of the two lakes. This was a significant victory.
Maunsell returned to the attack in 1885. At Tauanui in lower Wairarapa he met Piripi Te Maari who agreed to put the matter before his committee, but warned that no one with a real interest in the lakes was willing to sell. Maunsell replied that the government was determined to acquire the lakes and would buy individual shares. During these discussions Piripi set out the grievances of the owners. First, an earthquake in 1855 had raised up land which had been below the original high-water mark; this land belonged to the Maori owners, but the government had sold some of it. Second, the lakes were gradually filling up, and this was destroying the fishing. If the government decided to open a permanent drain to the sea the fishing would be totally gone. Third, commercial hunters were shooting the duck population. All this was happening on lakes which still belonged solely to Maori owners.
By 1886 Piripi Te Maari was ready to come to a compromise. At a meeting at Papawai attended by the native minister, John Bryce, the owners of the lakes agreed to let the bar be opened at the end of April. Later that year Piripi offered to give up two months of the fishing season – April and May. This was a major concession. With Wi Hutana, he met the new native minister, John Ballance, on 12 November 1886, representing the committee of owners.
But the prospects of an agreed solution were shattered by the Ruamahanga River Board. The board declared Lake Wairarapa to be a public drain, and asked the government to support it in its effort to open the lakes. (The property of its chairman, Peter Hume, was most affected by flooding.) In 1888 the board, to test the right it claimed, sent 33 men, accompanied by 2 constables, to work with spades to open the bar. Piripi Te Maari arrived with his followers, and after a tense discussion, put his protest into a statement which was signed as 'received' by the board's representative.
Piripi Te Maari then petitioned the government to inquire into the situation. The 1891 commission of inquiry into the Wairarapa claims was chaired by Alexander Mackay. It returned an ambiguous report. It stated that the flood line was the boundary of Crown purchases at least in the Turanganui block, that Maori ownership of the lakes included the shingle spit, and that endangering the fishing rights of the owners was contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi. But it added that the lake owners were not justified in allowing land sold by them to be flooded.
In 1892 the Ruamahanga River Board tried to force a channel. Its men were resisted by 100 Maori and their solicitors. A police inspector watched and advised each group in turn. But the owners were threatened with prosecution for obstruction, and let the board's workers do their job.
Piripi Te Maari did not give up. He took a case to the Court of Appeal, only to have it dismissed. He organised a further petition, and gave notice that he intended to seek a ruling from the Privy Council. Another petition, in 1895, to the Native Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, secured a favourable decision, that the owners of the lakes had been wronged and should be compensated.
This was the only victory Piripi Te Maari lived to witness. On 26 August 1895 he died at Greytown and was buried at Waimarama; he was survived by five of his eight children from two wives, Meri Te Haeata and Heni Te Taka. Next year Tamahau Mahupuku arranged a settlement by which the lake owners received compensation in the form of £2,000 and the promise of 'ample reserves'. But it was not until 1915 that 230 Wairarapa people were given 30,486 acres in the Pouakani block at Mangakino, in Waikato. The land was of poor quality and part was sold later, but some Wairarapa families settled these distant lands and several are there still.
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Visual Statistics: Seeing Data with Dynamic Interactive Graphics
Visual Statistics: Seeing Data with Dynamic Interactive Graphics
Author(s): Forrest W. Young, Pedro M. Valero-Mora, Michael Friendly
Published Online: 13 SEP 2011 08:42AM EST
Print ISBN: 9780471681601
Online ISBN: 9781118165409
DOI: 10.1002/9781118165409
About this Book
A visually intuitive approach to statistical data analysis
A companion Web site complements the book by further demonstrating the concept of creating interactive and dynamic graphics. The book provides users with the opportunity to view the graphics in a dynamic way by illustrating how to analyze statistical data and explore the concepts of visual statistics.
Visual Statistics addresses and features the following topics:
* Why use dynamic graphics?
* A history of statistical graphics
* Visual statistics and the graphical user interface
* Visual statistics and the scientific method
* Character-based statistical interface objects
* Graphics-based statistical interfaces
* Visualization for exploring univariate data
This is an excellent textbook for undergraduate courses in data analysis and regression, for students majoring or minoring in statistics, mathematics, science, engineering, and computer science, as well as for graduate-level courses in mathematics. The book is also ideal as a reference/self-study guide for engineers, scientists, and mathematicians.
With contributions by highly regarded professionals in the field, Visual Statistics not only improves a student's understanding of statistics, but also builds confidence to overcome problems that may have previously been intimidating.
Table of contents
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
does anyone have a good definition for what a binary protocol is? and what is a text protocol actually? how do these compare to each other in terms of bits sent on the wire?
here's what wikipedia says about binary protocols:
A binary protocol is a protocol which is intended or expected to be read by a machine rather than a human being (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_protocol)
oh come on!
to be more clear, if I have jpg file how would that be sent through a binary protocol and how through a text one? in terms of bits/bytes sent on the wire of course.
at the end of the day if you look at a string it is itself an array of bytes so the distinction between the 2 protocols should rest on what actual data is being sent on the wire. in other words, on how the initial data (jpg file) is encoded before being sent.
any coments are apprecited, I am trying to get to the essence of things here.
share|improve this question
possible duplicate of binary vs text protocols – dkinzer Oct 14 '13 at 0:00
8 Answers 8
up vote 44 down vote accepted
Binary protocol versus text protocol isn't really about how binary blobs are encoded. The difference is really whether the protocol is oriented around data structures or around text strings. Let me give an example: HTTP. HTTP is a text protocol, even though when it sends a jpeg image, it just sends the raw bytes, not a text encoding of them.
But what makes HTTP a text protocol is that the exchange to get the jpg looks like this:
GET /files/image.jpg HTTP/1.0
Connection: Keep-Alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.01 [en] (Win95; I)
Host: hal.etc.com.au
Accept-Language: en
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 03:52:51 GMT
Server: Apache/1.2.4
Last-Modified: Wed, 08 Oct 1997 04:15:24 GMT
ETag: "61a85-17c3-343b08dc"
Content-Length: 60830
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: image/jpeg
<binary data goes here>
Note that this could very easily have been packed much more tightly into a structure that would look (in C) something like
struct request {
int requestType;
int protocolVersion;
char path[1024];
char user_agent[1024];
char host[1024];
long int accept_bitmask;
long int language_bitmask;
long int charset_bitmask;
struct response {
int responseType;
int protocolVersion;
time_t date;
char host[1024];
time_t modification_date;
char etag[1024];
size_t content_length;
int keepalive_timeout;
int keepalive_max;
int connection_type;
char content_type[1024];
char data[];
Where the field names would not have to be transmitted at all, and where, for example, the responseType in the response structure is an int with the value 200 instead of three characters '2' '0' '0'. That's what a text based protocol is: one that is designed to be communicated as a flat stream of (usually human-readable) lines of text, rather than as structured data of many different types.
share|improve this answer
+1 for the 1-liner definition "The difference is really whether the protocol is oriented around data structures or around text strings." – Frank Shearar Apr 15 '10 at 12:33
Tyler, thanks for the answer, a rather deep one I should say. geek scenario that resides on what we all agree upon, on the wire travel only 0's and 1's. tell me please whether this captures what you ment. say I want to send number 15 (dec) over the network (you have 2 identical computers over the network, no big/little indian chaos etc). if I am going to use a binary protocol (say I send it through a TCP socket) this will go on the wire as 00001111 but if I am going to use a text protocol it'll go as 00110001 (ASCII for char 1) AND 00110101 (ASCII for char 5) true or crap? :) – der_grosse Apr 15 '10 at 13:29
That's correct. The advantage of doing it the text way is not only human readability but also not having to worry about endianness if your numbers are more than one byte long. – Tyler McHenry Apr 15 '10 at 14:24
I don't agree with the 1-line definition neither with the example of sending char 15, to see the differences, as I put in my answer, you have to know the whole charset and the delimiters/protocol, You can't say based on a single data example if the protocol is text based or binary based. You could be "looking" at the cable and see a 65 (char 'A') and you still can't say it's a text based or a binary protocol. Both could have same representation for a single char or not, but that's not fundamental. – Hernán Eche Apr 26 '10 at 12:37
Here's a kind-of cop-out definition:
You'll know it when you see it.
This is one of those cases where it is very hard to find a concise definition that covers all corner cases. But it is also one of those cases where the corner cases are completely irrelevant, because they simply do not occur in real life.
Pretty much all protocols that you will encounter in real life will either look like this:
> fg,m4wr76389b zhjsfg gsidf7t5e89wriuotu nbsdfgizs89567sfghlkf
> b9er t8ß03q+459tw4t3490ß´5´3w459t srt üßodfasdfäasefsadfaüdfzjhzuk78987342
< mvclkdsfu93q45324äö53q4lötüpq34tasä#etr0 awe+s byf eart
[Imagine a ton of other non-printable crap there. One of the challenges in conveying the difference between text and binary is that you have to do the conveying in text :-)]
Or like this:
< HELLO server.example.com
> HELLO client.example.com
< GO
> GETFILE /foo.jpg
< Length: 3726
< Type: image/jpeg
> GO
< ... server sends 3726 bytes of binary data ...
[I just made this up on the spot.]
There's simply not that much ambiguity there.
Another definition that I have sometimes heard is
a text protocol is one that you can debug using telnet
Maybe I am showing my nerdiness here, but I have actually written and read e-mails via SMTP and POP3, read usenet articles via NNTP and viewed web pages via HTTP using telnet, for no other reason than to see whether it would actually work.
Actually, while writing this, I kinda caught the fever again:
bash-4.0$ telnet smtp.googlemail.com 25
Connected to googlemail-smtp.l.google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
< 220 googlemail-smtp.l.google.com ESMTP Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:19:39 +0200
< 501 Syntactically invalid HELO argument(s)
> HELO client.example.com
< 250 googlemail-smtp.l.google.com Hello client.example.com [666.666.666.666]
> RCPT TO:Me <[email protected]>
< 503 sender not yet given
> SENDER:Me <[email protected]>
< 500 unrecognized command
> RCPT FROM:Me <[email protected]>
< 500 unrecognized command
> FROM:Me <[email protected]>
< 500-unrecognized command
< 214-Commands supported:
> MAIL FROM:Me <[email protected]>
< 250 OK
> RCPT TO:You <[email protected]>
< 250 Accepted
< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
> From: Me <[email protected]>
> To: You <[email protected]>
> Subject: Testmail
> This is a test.
> .
< 250 OK id=1O2Sjq-0000c4-Qv
< 221 googlemail-smtp.l.google.com closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.
Damn, it's been quite a while since I've done this. Quite a few errors in there :-)
share|improve this answer
Man, +1, just... +1. – Camilo Martin Jul 27 '12 at 3:23
+1 for "One of the challenges in conveying the difference between text and binary is that you have to do the conveying in text". – hydroparadise Jan 11 '13 at 14:59
Both uses different char set, the text one, use a reduced char set, the binary includes all it can, not only "letters" and "numbers", (that's why wikipedia says "human being")
o be more clear, if I have jpg file how would that be sent through a binary protocol and how >through a text one? in terms of bits/bytes sent on the wire of course.
you should read this Base64
I think the essence for narrowing the charset, is narrowing the complexity, and reach portability, compatibility. It's harder to arrange and agree with many to respect a Wide charset, (or a wide whatever). The Latin/Roman alphabet and the Arabic numerals are worldwide known. (There are of course other considerations to reduce the code, but that's a main one)
Let say in binary protocols the "contract" between the parts is about bits, first bit mean this, second that, etc.. or even bytes (but with the freedom of use the charset without thinking in portability) for example in privated closed system or (near hardware standars), however if you design a open system you have to take account how your codes will be represented in a wide set of situations, for example how it will be represented in a machine at other side of world?, so here comes the text protocols where the contract will be as standar as posible. I have designed both and that were the reasons, binary for very custom solutions and text for open or/and portable systems.
share|improve this answer
I know about base64 and what it does and this is exactly wat I had in mind when I posted the question. base64 is good when I want to send anything in its ASCII representation (encoding) so that would be a text protocol. technicaly it splits the bit-input into pairs of 6, uses a lookup table and so on. can anyone provide some similar explanation for how a binary procol works? supplemental question: at what OSI level can we talk about binary and text protocols and what are the exact meaning of these worlds at those levels? – der_grosse Apr 15 '10 at 12:38
Example of binary are low level protocols like simple serial communication (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_serial_communication) or how data is stored in memory (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_structure_alignment). About OSI..well because text and binary protocols are used to represent data (not only for comunication) they don't need to be at any OSI level, said that, I can tell layer 1,2,3,4 have "binary protocol", and "text protocol" can be on 5,6,7. – Hernán Eche Apr 15 '10 at 12:56
As most of you suggested we can't differentiate whether the protocol is Binary or text simply by looking at the content on the wire
Binary protocol - Bits are boundary Order is very critical
Eg., RTP
First two bits are version Next bit is MarkUp bit
Text protocol - Delimiters specific to protocol Order of the fields is not important
Eg., SIP
One more is, in binary protocol, we can split a byte, i.e., a single bit might have a specific individual meaning; While in a text protocol minimum meaningful unit is BYTE. You can't split a byte.
share|improve this answer
Examples of binary protocols: RTP, TCP, IP.
Examples of text protocols: SMTP, HTTP, SIP.
This should allow you to generalise to a reasonable definition of binary vs text protocols.
Hint: just skip to the example sections, or the diagrams. They serve to illustrate Tyler's rocking answer.
share|improve this answer
Frank, thanks for the links but when I'll be done with the RFC's it will be 2099 :) I wanted some answers from people who've already read those. I'm still pondering on Tyler McHenry's answer though... – der_grosse Apr 15 '10 at 12:54
I accidentally found this old question and decided to add my opinion, at least to check it.
Most answers explain how text and binary protocols are different from machine point of view. From human point of view, a text protocol is human readable/editable one (a human can read and write packets w/o decoder/encoder). This means at least two benefits: simplified debugging/maintenance of text protocol implementation and possibility to test by simple and universal tools like telnet.
One more small benefit: text protocols are treated as more trustful, because (I guess) it's impossible or just difficult to use a hole in protocol implementation to execute some malicious code, e.g. by exploiting buffer overflow. It's a small benefit because binary protocols can achive the same by base64 encoding.
There're also some disadvantages of text protocols:
• Text protocols implementation are usually more difficalt to implement than binary, because of parser.
• Binary protocols are less bandwidth consuming
Trying to compile some final recommendation from this:
Desing a protocol as a text one when:
• It's a control protocol that can be treated as series of commands or requests/replies ((interactive). From implementation point of view, it can be implemented as a finite state machine. As an example, consider multimedia streaming: RTSP - a control protocol, uses state machine and consists of requests/replies - is a text protocol, when RTP is a binary protocol because carries mostly natural binary data like multimedia streams.
• It's intended for mass usage: by many people, implementations or applications; so simplified debugging/maintenance is very important.
share|improve this answer
Your security argument is completely BS. Parsing a text protocol is harder and more prone to errors than a binary protocol, hence more chance of security bugs. – Nicolás Apr 3 '13 at 2:23
@Nicolás: you're right. A benefit is you don't need to base64-encode your protocol to tunnel via e.g. HTTP to bypass proxy server. – Andy T Apr 3 '13 at 12:25
HTTP handles binary data just fine. Do you think web servers send JPEG images in base64 encoding? – Nicolás Apr 4 '13 at 3:46
How can we send an image file in SOAP: Click here
This shows that binary data is attached as such [ATTACHMENT] and its reference is saved in SOAP message.
So, The protocol is text based and data[Image] is binary attachment whose encoding is not relevant
Thus, SOAP is text protocol due to the way we specify Soap headers and not actual data encoded in it.
share|improve this answer
I think you got it wrong. It's not the protocol that determines how data looks on the "wire", but it's the data type that determine which protocol to use to transmit it. Take tcp socket for instance, a jpeg file will be sent and received with a binary protocol 'cause it's binary data (not human readable, bytes that go among the 32-126 ascii range), but you can send / recv a text file with both protocols and you wouldn't notice the difference.
share|improve this answer
no I don;t think I got it wrong. I am still looking for a (good) definition of WHAT a binary protocol IS. the example with the jpeg was to clarify my question and nothing else, don't make it the center of the question. I should say that the protocol determines how the data looks when transmitted on the wire otherwse why is that a protocol?? – der_grosse Apr 15 '10 at 12:31
I gave you a precise definition, you have just to read carefully. "A binary protocol manages bytes that go among the 32-126 ascii range, also called non printable characters" – Simone Margaritelli Apr 15 '10 at 12:35
the text protocols handle those also by splitting them into smaller ones that will fit the ASCII table. and so on. so in the best case is your definition vague. but thanks for the contribution. – der_grosse Apr 15 '10 at 13:36
Your Answer
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Chernobyl’s Radiation Seems to Be Robbing Birds of Their Sperm
Mousseau and Moller
Chernobyl’s Radiation Seems to Be Robbing Birds of Their Sperm
New study could shed light on how nuclear disasters affect birds.
By Rachel Nuwer
Published: 06/25/2014
When Anders Moller stumbled across a century-old paper describing sperm-milking techniques for artificially breeding budgies, he knew he was on to something good. Although sperm harvesting--which involves gently pressing on the muscles around a male bird's cloaca, causing a contraction that triggers (nonconsensual) ejaculation--is practically an art among turkey and chicken farmers, it's not a skill taught at ornithology school.
As with any other skill, practice makes perfect, so Moller--an evolutionary biologist and research director of the French National Center for Scientific Research--began experimenting in the field with some very unhappy males. "In the early years, half of his attempts led to something other than semen being produced," says Timothy Mousseau, a biologist at the University of South Carolina and Moller's longtime collaborator. "The samples were just filled with shit."
Thousands of, er, massages later, Moller is now a pro. He recently put that skill to good use in Chernobyl, site of the world's worst nuclear accident, in 1986. There his team has built the largest avian sperm dataset ever collected in the field. Contrary to media claims that Chernobyl's wildlife is thriving, detailed scientific surveys show that birds and other wildlife in the area's most contaminated tracts have suffered from mutations and population declines, and that some species have disappeared entirely. Studies have shown that men exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl catastrophe have fewer and less mobile sperm, but this is first such investigation in multiple bird species.
Over two years, the researchers used mist nets to capture 566 male birds from 46 passerine species. They sampled eight study sites in Chernobyl and the surrounding forests, with background radiation levels ranging over three orders of magnitude, from levels lower than those that occur in Central Park to ones hot enough to cause fatal cancers. Moller would coax out a few precious drops of sperm, release the birds, and immediately analyze the samples for sperm speed, mobility, and density using a microscope at the team's impromptu field station.
The sperm's health and behavior, they report today in PLoS One, varied wildly between species. Their samples ranged from no sperm, to deformed or sluggish swimmers, to sperm that appeared perfectly normal. "Radiation clearly affected many of these birds, but in different ways," Mousseau says.
In highly contaminated sites, nearly 18 percent of samples contained no sperm, compared with just 3 percent in radiation-free zones. According to the authors' calculations, birds trapped in the contaminated areas were almost nine times more likely to fire blank shots than those found in control sites. At one particularly hot site, samples from 44 birds, or 40 percent of those tested, didn't have a single sperm.
Mathieu Giraudeau, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Zurich, says the study is an important contribution to our understanding of radiation's effects on birds, echoing most outside experts interviewed for this story*. "The decrease of sperm quality, or even the aspermy of many birds in contaminated areas, could be a major factor explaining the decline in wild bird populations in Chernobyl," says Giraudeau, adding that more tests, conducted under controlled lab settings, are needed to verify the link.
Pierre Deviche, a professor of environmental physiology at Arizona State University, praised the paper, although he says he would have liked to have seen the authors dig into the differences between species. Do long-lived birds have more damaged sperm, for instance, or do migratory species have lower aspermy rates? "Surprisingly, the authors do not address this important issue to any significant extent," he says.
But other scientists are less convinced. One, Christelle Adam-Guillermin, head of the Laboratory of Radionuclide Ecotoxicology at IRSN in France, questions the study's methodology. Adam-Guillermin points out that the researchers based their statistics on ambient radiation levels in the environment rather than on each bird's absorbed dose, or the amount of radiation it's exposed to both internally and externally.
That's something the team has been investigating in hundreds of birds and mammals at Chernobyl and Fukushima, the site in Japan where, in 2011, a local nuclear plant's six reactors disastrously melted down. They attached miniature dosimeters the animals' bodies for external readings and measured internal doses via a portal gamma spectroscopy lab. "Overall, there is a very good relationship between measured internal dose, external dose, and ambient radiation levels," Mousseau says, adding that he plans to publish those results soon.
This latest sperm study builds on the team's previous research showing that wild Barn Swallows' sperm quality significantly decreases in contaminated areas. But the scientists' work is revealing that there's likely no single way birds respond to nuclear disasters. In a paper they published in May, for example, they reported that several species--including Tree Pipits, Black Redstarts, and European Robins--seem to be adapting to Chernobyl's radiation. Yet the team has also found that overall bird populations in contaminated areas are smaller and that some species are missing entirely; that Barn Swallows living there live comparatively short lives; and that sex ratios skew toward males.
Which organisms will adapt to what and when are complex questions that need to be teased out with further studies. Mousseau, Moller, and their colleagues are likely the ones who will continue tackling the challenge, building on their two decades of work--and 60 papers--addressing radiation's impact on creatures ranging from spiders to fungus. After all, says Mousseau, the Fukushima meltdown has shown the world that additional nuclear accidents are possible. If and when others happen, today's radiation investigations could better prepare us to deal with the fallout.
*Three experts declined to comment on the study. Some in the evolutionary ecology field see Moller as a black sheep since a 2003 scandal in which a Danish research committee discovered that one of Moller's 1998 papers contained data that didn't support the conclusions. (Moller claims it was an inadvertent mistake, others disagree.)
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Type: Author | From: Audubon Magazine
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Found on http://www.britannica.com/eb/a-z/r/5
The ragfish, Icosteus aenigmaticus, is a ray-finned fish of the northern Pacific Ocean; although a perciform, its skeleton is mostly cartilage, and the larvae have pelvic fins that disappear as they mature. It is the sole member of the family Icosteidae, and some authorities place it into its own order Icosteiformes. The ragfish body is scaleless
Found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragfish
No exact match found
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Enzymes can use sugar to power your smart phone
Put a new word in your dictionary. A research team at Virginia Tech announced a biobattery that has 10X the energy storage of lithium ion batteries using a 15% solution of maltodextrin, a form of sugar, with a collection of 13 enzymes. The title of their report is A high-energy-density sugar biobattery based on a synthetic enzymatic pathway.
Plants provide biomass for conversion to green energy
Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The research report published in Nature magazine on Jan. 21, 2014 outlines the results to date for the project. The summary findings of this development were a significant improvement in electrical current density as compared to lithium ion batteries, while using sugar as the fuel material. Lithium batteries have had significant problems with overheating, as seen in the grounding of a fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
“High-energy-density, green, safe batteries are highly desirable for meeting the rapidly growing needs of portable electronics. The incomplete oxidation of sugars mediated by one or a few enzymes in enzymatic fuel cells suffers from low energy densities and slow reaction rates. Here we show that nearly 24 electrons per glucose unit of maltodextrin can be produced through a synthetic catabolic pathway that comprises 13 enzymes in an air-breathing enzymatic fuel cell.
This enzymatic fuel cell is based on non-immobilized enzymes that exhibit a maximum power output of 0.8 mW cm−2 and a maximum current density of 6 mA cm−2, which are far higher than the values for systems based on immobilized enzymes. Enzymatic fuel cells containing a 15% (wt/v) maltodextrin solution have an energy-storage density of 596 Ah kg−1, which is one order of magnitude higher than that of lithium-ion batteries. Sugar-powered biobatteries could serve as next-generation green power sources, particularly for portable electronics.”
The research was headed by Y. –H Percival Zhang and a team from several research areas at Virginia Tech that included biological systems engineering. The major researchers on this project have formed a new company, Cell Free Bioinnovations, Inc.
While commercial development of biobatteries is thought to be three or more years, there is other scientific research to indicate that using enzymes in alternative energy production has a significant future. One application that will be discussed in a future article has enzymes used to convert biomass directly into hydrogen.
Enzymes have had significant developments achieved through genetic engineering. Enzymes have now been produced through yeast cultures and through microbes that offer the possibility of enhancing anaerobic digester output, and progress is being made in converting CO2 into formic acid and then into methanol.
The report, Research On Enzyme-Catalyzed Sequential Reduction of Carbon Dioxide, released by the International Congress on Energy 2011, defines the initial steps to convert the CO2 back into a useful energy form, i.e. methanol, or to produce formaldehyde, which is a valuable chemical compound.
The byproduct of the biobattery includes water, which is generally not friendly to the components of a smart phone. Using genetic engineering to produce sequences of enzyme provides a development path to utilize biomass and CO2 to provide significant amounts of energy that can replace hydrocarbon fuels and reduce the global environmental stress from the continued increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Although not there yet, alternative energy production is making major strides due to research in using enzymes to enhance biochemical processes and to convert the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back into usable energy sources.
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20 November 2014
Parshat Toldot - 5775
28 Marcheshvan 5775
Erev Shabbat Kodesh
Parashat Toldot – Behavior and Character Traits – Rabbi Meir Kahane
The lads grew up and Esau became one who knows hunting, a man of the field; but Jacob was a wholesome man, abiding in tents. Isaac loved Esau for game was in his mouth; but Rebecca loved Jacob. (Gen. 25:27-28)
G-d chose Abraham because of his behavior and his merits; He rejected his son Ishmael and chose Isaac, too, because of his merits; again, He rejected Esau and chose Jacob due to his behavior. So after three successive generations of tzaddikim, all the subsequent offspring of the Patriarchs could be considered spiritually fit. G-d could forge them all into a chosen, treasured, and exalted nation, who would be His emissary to the human race and a light unto all the nations, to teach them the correct ways which they should follow. This process of choice and rejection is realized to a good degree by the intervention of the Matriarchs, Sarah and Rebecca, who interpreted the behavior of Ishmael and Esau more correctly than Abraham and Isaac. The mother instinctively recognizes the son because she raises him, she educates him, the child is in her trust, and when it comes to the child, the mother is the expert. And therefore, when talking about Rebecca, the Torah emphasizes that she was the mother of Jacob and Esau – that she understood both of them thoroughly. The holy language of the Torah expands the concept expressed by the word "em" (“mother”) to the extent that the word "emunah" (“faith”) comes from the root "em". For who is more faithful and loyal to a child, who is more willing to sacrifice their very life for the child’s sake, than a mother? And this is an additional reason that Rebecca is referred to there by the term “mother”: she faithfully clung to the truth, understood that Jacob had to be the spiritual heir – and for this, she was willing even to go against Isaac, to the extent of deceiving him, and telling her son Jacob, “Let your curse be upon me, my son.” (Genesis 27:13).
G-d chose Abraham because of his behavior and his merits: It says [regarding Abraham] (Gen. 18:19), “I have given him special attention that he might command his children and his household after him, and they will keep the ways of the L-rd, doing charity and justice.” Thus G-d commanded Abraham to perform acts of charity and kindness, as well as to further justice by causing G-d's role to be acknowledged. By doing what G-d had commanded, Abraham's kindness and mercy became rooted in him. These traits passed on to Isaac and then to Jacob and his seed. R. Natan bar Abba said in the name of Rav:The wealthy of Babylonia go to hell. When Shabtai bar Marinos came to Babylonia, he sought work, but they would not provide it nor would they feed him. He said, “These [wealthy Babylonians] are of the mixed multitude, for it says, 'G-d will make you merciful and have mercy on you' (Deut. 13:18). When anyone acts mercifully, we know he is of Abraham's seed; if he acts unmercifully, we know that he is not.” (Betza 32b) Kindness, like all traits found in the Torah, is nothing but a Divine attribute we were commanded to emulate and accept upon ourselves with the goal of being G-d-like. Thus we learn (Shabbat 133b): “This is my G-d and I will glorify Him” (Ex. 15:2)... Abba Shaul said, “To 'glorify' Him means making ourselves similar to Him. Just as He is kind and merciful, so must we be kind and merciful.” There is a double message here. Not only must we be kind and merciful, but we must “make ourselves similar to G-d,” i.e., we must be kind and merciful the way G-d explains these terms rather than the way we perceive them.
The real meaning of kindness and truth is that these principles are only part, albeit an exceedingly marked and conspicuous part, of the Torah's main purpose and goal – self-abnegation and suppression of our evil impulse and arrogance. All the mitzvot were given for this purpose, but kindness and mercy are the most direct path to this goal. By contrast, the Jews who distort the Torah are so influenced by the alien [Western] culture that they turn kindness and mercy into goals in and of themselves. By such means they elevate them above all the mitzvot, necessarily diminishing the value of all other mitzvot. They also push the concepts of kindness and mercy to foolish and dangerous extremes, while they themselves include wicked enemies of the Jewish People.
The Torah's goal is to create a person who diminishes himself, who bridles his arrogance, breaking down and negating his ego, who suppresses his evil impulse and liberates himself from covetousness and haughtiness, which are the root of evil and impurity. The most direct, clear and immediate way to achieve this is by loving one's fellow man and by being kind to him. Such acts express the Torah's essence, breaking down one's ego. Hillel therefore called this “the whole Torah”, since indeed breaking down the ego is G-d's whole aim, and this is expressed in the clearest, most acute fashion by loving one's fellow man. “All the rest”, however, the other mitzvot, are the commentary on this. That is they show us how to suppress our evil impulse.
Whoever behaves ethically and with love, agreeing with these attributes [only] because they are esthetic and pleasant, will never reach the true goal of breaking down his ego. Yet by fulfilling all the mitzvot, even those lacking any rationale, and all the more so those difficult mitzvot that contradict, so to speak, love and morality, one makes clear that loving one's fellow man is not a goal in and of itself, but a large part of man's true goal – breaking down his ego and accepting G-d's yoke. Similarly, whoever understands the true role of kindness and mercy in the Torah framework, will also understand their limitations, and where it is forbidden to show kindness and be mercifulKindness and mercy – in the right time and place – is the obligation of every Jew. It is a means of suppressing one's passions and becoming less selfish, thereby exalting oneself almost to the level of the ministering angels, and perhaps higher. Hence, from the general theme of kindness and mercy emerge countless mitzvot and ideas which have always guided the Jew in his daily life.
It is clear that a prerequisite for acquiring any good trait is destroying its opposite. First, one must “turn away from evil” (Ps. 34:15) – and only then - “do good” (Ibid.) Thus, to become loving, we must cease to be hateful. To learn respect, we must cease to scorn our fellow man. I must warn once again that all the principles I quote from the Torah and our sages are rulings that have come down as precise law, and they apply only in the time and place that our holy Torah says they apply. Hence, whoever sets out to eradicate hatred should have in mind only that hatred which opposes our Torah, false hatred, defined by our sages as sinat chinam, “groundless hatred”. Nothing originating from G-d can be “groundless”. If there is no Divine reason for hatred, it is absolutely forbidden and despised by G-d. Yet when G-d commands us to hate the evildoer, that is “truthful hatred”, a sacred duty from which no one is exempt.
The same applies as far as love. There is not, never was, and never will be a Torah concept of “groundless love”. G-d does not concede regarding hatred of those who hate Him and or the evildoers who destroy what is sacred to the Jewish People. I shall never tire of bringing our sages' words (Bava Kamma 50a), “Whoever says G-d indulgently forgoes sin, shall forgo his life” (“because he is teaching his fellow man to sin” - Rashi). Love and hate, like all Divine traits, came into the world with well-defined parameters, virtually possessing a set of laws of their own. Whoever preaches that hatred is never valid, or presents a false picture of love, shall have to account for it in the future.
All the same, where indeed inappropriate, hating one's fellow Jew is a heinous sin. Our sages said (Arachin 16b): “Do not hate your brother in your heart” (Lev. 19:17): I might think [it would suffice] not to hit him, slap him or curse him. It therefore says, “in your heart.” The verse refers even to hatred in one's heart. It is forbidden to hate a Jew even in one's heart. Rather, one must make known one's objections and rebuke him.
[Source: Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from "The Jewish Idea" and "Peirush haMaccabee (Shemot)" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY"D]
R' Mizrachi on the Har Nof Massacre
27 Marcheshvan 5775
27 Marcheshvan 5775
Finally, a few voices of sanity...
Karlin-Stolin Rebbe Says Throw the Arabs Out of the Mosdos!
FLASHBACK: Hagon HaRav Chaim Kanievsky Calls On Yeshivos To Fire Arabs
Shoppers leave their groceries rather than buy where Arabs are employed
Ashkelon mayor: No Arab construction workers in kindergartens
...but they stand to be drowned out by the hypocritical destroyers of Israel.
Arab workers' firing draws wall-to-wall condemnation from Israeli politicians
Despite the fact that the mayor of Ashkelon is only talking about temporarily removing Arab workers using hoes and shovels around kindergarten children, Economy Mnister Naftali Bennet has the nerve to say that "Israel must have zero tolerance for racism in the workforce...." He says further that “...99.9% of Israeli Arabs are loyal and want to integrate. There is a tiny minority that uses violence and causes terrorism and we must crack down on that but also integrate and bring closer the vast majority of Israeli Arabs. This is a key to our future here."
"...Finance Minister Yair Lapid said calls not to employ Arabs are racist, unacceptable and intolerable."
"Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Labor) said the Ashkelon mayor's decision was immoral."
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said that to prevent Israeli Arabs from making a living just because they are Arabs is against "our fundamental values."
Netanyahu on discrimination of Israeli-Arabs: An entire community should not be stigmatized
These people wouldn't recognize a "Jewish value" if it snuck up and bit them. Losers - one and all!
It is certainly no coincidence that as Kislev and Hanukah approach, we are going to hear more and more how "Jewish values" = "Western democratic values."
This is just another chapter in the war between Jews of faith and the Hellenists among us.
UPDATE on the so-called "Jewish State Bill"...
Netanyahu announces support for 'Jewish state bill'
..."The judiciary, which recognizes Israel's democratic side, will also have to recognize that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People," Netanyahu said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting.
The prime minister vowed to push the bill forward, but said it must undergo many changes.
"In the end, we will make it clear that Israel is the Jewish nation-state, while promising equal rights to all its citizens," he added.
Nix 'Jewish State' bill in favor of a 'declarative vision,' Livni report says
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni on Wednesday announced that a report she commissioned on Israel as a Jewish and democratic state had recommended against passing a law to that effect and in favor of a vaguer declarative vision.
The 20-page report, authored by renowned constitutional law Professor Ruth Gavison, explained that a new law would only inflame controversy among diverse sectors in the country and Jews in the Diaspora.
In contrast, she said a new non-binding vision or re-affirming the vision of Israel’s Declaration of Independence could focus on aspects of being Israeli which unify the diverse Jewish and non-Jewish sectors.
...Gavison’s vision leaned more toward the democratic side, as she divided the core, undisputed, guiding principles as “Judaism, democracy, and human rights.”
As Binyamin pointed out in his recent message, we're already under gentile rule.
Buffalo Buried!
27 Marcheshvan 5775
18 November 2014
"Under the Nations' Rule"
26 Marcheshvan 5775
Communication with Binyamin
in Jerusalem, 16 Cheshvan 5775
"Under the Nations' Rule"
I feel that the government is already not a Jewish government.
I feel that we are already in the rule of the nations.
I feel that we the Jews - are a minority here in the land, even though there are, so to speak, something like six million Jews here, but I feel that we, the real-Jews, are few.
I feel black spiritual clouds over Eretz Yisrael .
I feel that the Third World War is already here, and I feel that until Pesach, our world will be another world entirely.
Am Yisrael!
Look around at what they are calling 'Medinat Yisrael'...
Look upon the places of the tzadikim, the holy-places, where all our tzadikim are buried...
Look upon our leaders...
Observe well our rabbis, from all the various types...
Look well, observe thoroughly, look around at our society, hear all the slogans of the Knesset members, the secular as well as the religious, and also the so-called 'chareidim', and see what a problem, what a difficult problem, that we have.
And those who don't want to see, want to continue the big party, the rampage with materialism - they'll never see the truth. They will want to continue it, to continue the nonsense. But, the few who are real-Jews, in a little bit, will suddenly be able to see the truth, really.
Am Yisrael, no matter how much I try to explain it to you - you don't want to hear.
Let's go over a bit what's happening here.
The Arabs are very angry. And the Jews, the Prime Minister and his friends from all sides, from all directions - are playing a game with us, a "game of chase", whoever catches can understand. But, no one knows how to catch what's really going on.
They're taking groups of people and worrying that one will start with the other, that there will be unrest between Jews and gentiles and between Jews and Jews.
They're going from country to country and they're doing it in every place, meanwhile mainly in Arab countries, one Arab against another. And a serious part of the Arabs who are attacking - they belong to the heads of these groups, they belong to the "New World Order" that wants to rule over everyone.
And these, the great evildoers - they are Edom, like we spoke about not just once. And the Arabs, they are simply 'pere adam', it's possible to easily inflame them against the Jews and against the Edomim. Against the Jews - they've always had anger, since Yishmael and Yitzchak, but the hatred between the Edomim and the Arabs, it's not as much time, it's since the birth of Islam. Because, before that the Christians ruled, and suddenly came Islam and conquered an enormous part of the world, so there is very, very deep hatred between them. They even hate them more than the Jews. But, they both want to get rid of the Jews, and we're 'under supervision', but first of all they will make war between themselves.
I'm not saying that Jews won't die until then from these wars, G-d protect us, but at the end of it we, the real-Jews, will arrive to the complete redemption. But, look around, what murder, what hatred. It's true, it's true that the Arabs are really not ok, but also the 'supposedly-Jews' are not ok. There are police here, and part of the police are really no better than all the police all over the world, no nicer nor better. Once, at the establishment of the state - no one was afraid of the police. But, now, fear of the police also exists among the Jews, even though supposedly the police are 'Jews', but it's something else.
And the government from one side says that they need to make a law that officially it's to be called a "Jewish State" and those on the other side are trying to destroy Judaism with laws like the conversion law, that every 'so-called rabbi' can gather a few Jews to a beit din and accept every gentile like a Jew, to turn him in one second into a Jew.
And then they want to dilute the Jews. And it could be the Land of Israel full of gentiles, but in their identity card it's written "Jews"! Thus it will be a place "Jewish-but-gentile." And this is the goal. And whoever opposes so, they will either remove him from life in general, they will erase him, G-d forbid, like they did in many places, or he will agree to surrender and to be what they want. Thus is our situation. That's the situation.
And this government - it's not a Jewish government. It could be that a majority of the people in the Knesset are with a circumcision, but that's not to say they are Jews! They're Erev Rav. Simply Erev Rav. Erev Rav - and nothing more. It could be that perhaps among them there is another Jew that can do teshuvah, but I really don't understand why the chareidim are still sitting in the 'Knesset'. What more is there to do?... To win what!?... Do you not see that everything is gentile, everything gentiles!?...
On the other hand, I'm glad it appears so, because it says that in a little bit Mashiach will be revealed. Because we need to be underneath the rule of the nations nine months. And I hope that much of these nine months have already passed. But, what is clear: - They're not Jews. They're playing a game. They don't speak about HKB"H. I don't believe they know what it is - HKB"H, with their button-kippah on the head. I don't believe that Lapid knows what it is to be a Jew, even though he says that he wants his daughter to marry only a Jew, maybe it was his son, I don't recall. So, what [does he mean by] a 'Jew'?... For sure it's a Jew who receives some kind of 'conversion' by some movie producer, who knows?
I only know that it's time for the real-Jews, those who strongly feel HKB"H, who are holding fast to the spiritual rope that connects us to HKB"H, that we will begin to organize ourselves and strengthen ourselves more and more, to be close to one another, and organize a few groups, a few places, that we will know that these are our places, and we will be shut inside.
And we will pray strongly to Hashem to rescue the true Am Yisrael and to rescue the real-Jews all over the world and that all of us will merit to receive our righteous Mashiach. And that's what we need to do. That's all that we need to do.
The time that remains to us until the big explosion - it's little, so I request from every Jew that they will make efforts to come close to HKB"H, no matter what happens, and will make efforts to help others, the real-Jews, to return to HKB"H. In a little bit you will see more clearly who is and who is not. Meantime, make efforts with every Jew who says he is a Jew as there is an assumption that he really is a Jew - make efforts to help him to return. That's what there is for us to do now. And "kedoshim tihiyu" [be holy], don't forget. That's the basis for everything. Kedoshim tihiyu! Kedoshim tihiyu! Kedoshim tihiyu!
[Questions and Answers to follow, iy"H]
The Terror Pyramid
25 Marcheshvan 5775
This is my view of the global terror network and how and why it functions. Each level has its own agenda. Ultimately, "terror" serves the interests of the "Elite."
"TPTB" is The Powers That Be - Creators of the "NWO"
17 November 2014
"The Noose Is Getting Tighter"
25 Marcheshvan 5775
Discussion with Moishela (with his family)
A Handicapped child
3 Cheshvan 5775 (Oct 26, '14)
[Like all of the Moishela messages, this one was received in English by email.]
The Noose Is Getting Tighter
The world has absolutely gone mad, absolutely mad. Murder, accidents, weather related deaths, riots, plagues, Mamash a very scary world. Every day something new. Every day something more bloody. Every day more and more deaths. Every day we become more and more frightened.
The noose is getting tighter and tighter around us, and the worst part about it is that no one seems to feel it except a very few. Very few people feel it at all. Either they don’t want to feel it so they ignore it, or they are really in some very strong daze or under some kind of drug that keeps them from seeing what is happening. It doesn’t even have to be medication, although I would imagine that in the western world at least 50% of the people are on some kind of psychiatric medication. They drug themselves on Gashmius on materialism so they won’t know, so they won’t feel, so they won’t be afraid. What is happening is frightening because the world is beginning to feel the effects of being ruled by a group of absolute maniacs, of people that are evil to their bone. They are planning crazy things and thinking they can get away with it, thinking that they can turn the world into their private domain, that they can take the Jewish people and turn them into Goyim. Their greatest goal that they want to achieve is they want to destroy, to kill nine-tenths of the world population. What can I tell you? We Yidden are being targeted. Our faith is being targeted, and we must, must come back to Hashem in order to stop it.
I have dreams, I have such frightening dreams every night. I see cities being blown up. I see all kinds of terrible things happening. I see wild men killing and plundering. I see planes shooting and bombing. I see people dying of thirst and hunger, and I cry and I cry. I am so nervous and so afraid, not for myself - for my family and for Am Yisroel, how terrible, how terrible. I’m not even giving you the details of what I see but it’s very very frightening! I don’t know how to pass on to my fellow Jews through what I am writing, the difficult things we still have to face.
How can I beg? How can I plead with Am Yisroel to open their eyes, to get rid of the Gashmius, to stop looking like street people, to start looking again like Jews, to start acting again like Jews? I’m talking to the Frum. What else can I say to you? What else can I do? If you read over everything I’ve said to this point, you should already be doing Teshuva in the strongest way, but I see in the streets that people are buying and buying things that are not necessary. I see that they are making fancy parties and fancy Chasunas and things that are not necessary. I see and I feel that children are growing up to love, to lust after Gashmius. I see how we are eating like gluttons, but have become very very weak in our Mitzvos and it makes me cry. Now we are facing the most horribly difficult time in history and we’re messing around with nonsense.
What can I say? What can I do? I’m only a young person with an old head and an old heart, but I can tell you this: you better straighten up fast. You better get your act together because the suffering is going to be unbelievable if not, and if you take yourself in hand then you can save yourself so much suffering, so much misery. Do you understand? People, do you understand? You can save yourselves so much suffering, but if not it will be unimaginable suffering. I’m begging you. I’m begging you. Put your trust in Hashem not in people, not in science, not in chief rabbis, or in heads of state. Put your trust only in Hashem, only in Hashem, only in Hashem. We have to be like the Yidden that left Mitzrayim and spent forty years in the desert. We have to be like that. We have to have that kind of trust of Hashem without question, no matter what happens, no questions asked. We must know in our hearts and our souls that it’s all for our good, it’s to help us go higher, to help us reach the next stage of Creation which is Olam Habah of Moshiach Tzidkainu, and our journey upwards, to total salvation, to completely become one with Hashem. That’s what I have to say.
I’m afraid that my words have become useless because people have become used to listening to them, even though they are harsh and they are strong and people see around them terrible things happening, but they are getting used to it. They want their Gashmius more than they want to listen. So I will say a few more sentences to make sure you understand. Please, please do Teshuva. Change your way of life. Become Tzniusdik, the men and the women. Trust Hashem in everything. Don’t go looking outside of your Daled Amos for the Yeshua. The Yeshua is only with Hashem, only with Hashem. In the near future we are going to witness very bloody happenings, very frightening and very bloody. Here in Eretz Yisroel there will be more riots and more trouble, but in Chutz La’aretz it will be really bad, really bad.
Between now and Chanukah we are going to have a rush of incidents all over the world, that will put great fear into most of the population of the world. You won’t know where to look first, up, down, left, right. Everywhere there will be trouble big big trouble. Hashem is trying to show us that the inevitable must be and that means that we are coming very close to the Geula Sheleima, and the hardest part of this birth is now and therefore you can either have an easy birth or a very difficult one. It’s your choice.
I told you I’m finished for now.
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ascribing to
Creation according to Genesis
Creation according to Genesis refers to the Hebrew narrative of the creation of the heavens and the earth as told in chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis, the first book of the Pentateuch.
The text
The modern division of the Bible into chapters dates from c.1200 AD, and the division into verses somewhat later. The distinction between Genesis 1 and 2 is therefore a relatively recent development. Many Biblical scholars regard Genesis as beginning with two accounts of the creation, 1:1-2:3 and 2:4b-2:25, each with its own focus of attention, with 2:4a forming a bridge between them. Others view the "second account" as simply a continuation of the story.
First account - "Creation week"
The creation week narrative consists of eight divine commands executed over six days, followed by a seventh day of rest: "When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God's breath hovering over the waters, God said, 'Let there be light.' and there was light"
• First day: God creates light ("Let there be light!") - the first divine command. The light is divided from the darkness, and "day" and "night" are named.
• Second day: God creates a firmament ("Let a firmament be...!") - the second command - to divide the waters above from the waters below. The firmament is named "heavens".
• Third day: God commands the waters below to be gathered together in one place, and dry land to appear (the third command). "Earth" and "sea" are named. God commands the earth to bring forth grass, plants, and fruit-bearing trees (the fourth command).
• Sixth day: God commands the land to bring forth living creatures (seventh command); He makes wild beasts, livestock and reptiles. He then creates Man and Woman in His "image" and "likeness" (eighth command). They are told to "be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it." Humans and animals are given plants to eat. The totality of creation is described by God as "very good."
2:4a These are the tôledôt of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
The phrase "These are the tôledôt ('generations') of the heavens and the earth when they were created" lies between the "creation week" account and the account of Eden which follows. It is the first of ten "tôledôt" phrases used by the author to provide structure to the book of Genesis. Since the phrase always precedes the "generation" to which it belongs, the "generations of the heavens and the earth" should logically be taken to refer to Genesis 2; a position taken by several commentators. Nevertheless, other commentators from Rashi to the present day (e.g., Driver) have argued that in this case it should apply to what precedes.
Second account (Eden narrative)
The Eden narrative addresses the creation of the first man and woman:
• Genesis 2:4b - the second half of the bridge formed by the "generations" formula, and the beginning of the Eden narrative - places the events of the narrative "in the day when YHWH Elohim made the earth and the heavens...
• Before any plant has appeared, before any rain has fallen, while a mist waters the earth, Yahweh forms the man (Heb. adam) from dust of the ground (Heb. adamah), and breathes the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man becomes a "living being" (Heb. nephesh).
• Yahweh plants a garden in Eden and sets the man in it, and causes pleasant trees to spout from the ground, and trees necessary for food, and the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (An unnamed river is described: it goes out from Eden to water the garden, after which it parts into four named streams.) He takes the man who is to tend His garden and tells him he may eat of the fruit of all the trees except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, "for in that day thou shalt surely die."
• Yahweh resolves to make a help-mate for the man. He makes domestic animals and birds, and the man gives them their names, but none of them is a fitting help-mate. Yahweh causes the man to sleep, and takes a rib, and forms a woman. The man names her "Woman" (Heb. ishah), "for from a man (Heb. ish) has this been taken." A statement instituting marriage follows: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
• The man and his wife are naked, and feel no shame.
Genesis 1-11 – the “Primeval History”
Genesis 1-2 opens the “primeval history,” a unit Genesis forming an introduction to the stories of Abraham and the Patriarchs. It contains the first mention of many themes which are continued throughout the book of Genesis and the Torah, including fruitfulness, God's election of Israel, and his ongoing forgiveness of man's rebellious nature. It is therefore impossible to understand either Genesis 1-2 or the Torah as a whole without reference to this introductory history.
Ancient Near East context
The world whose creation is described in Genesis 1 was the standard universe conceived in ancient Middle Eastern cosmology: a flat disk, with infinite water both above and below. The "firmament", the dome of the sky, was a solid metal bowl - tin according to the Sumerians, iron for the Egyptians - separating the surrounding water from the habitable world of men; the stars were embedded in its surface, and it was fitted with gates to allow the passage of the Sun and Moon. The habitable earth formed a single island-continent surrounded by a circular ocean, of which the known seas - the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea - were inlets. Beneath the earth was a fresh-water sea, the source of rivers and wells.
In addition to their cosmology the ancient Israelites shared with their neighbours a common inheritance of religious beliefs, from which Yahwistic monotheism emerged only gradually. This shared heritage can be traced in Genesis 1-11, which "appears to be a reformatting of motifs and characters from four Mesopotamian myths, Adapa and the South Wind, Atrahasis, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish.
According to the Enuma Elish, which has the closest parallels with Genesis, the original state of the universe was a chaos formed by the mingling of two primeval waters, the female saltwater god Tiamat and the male freshwater god Apsu. The two waters engendered six successive generations of gods, at the end of which the god Marduk slew Tiamat, cut her hide in two, and used one half to form the earth and the other half to form the firmament of the heavens. (The Euphrates and the Tigris were believed to emerge from the eye-sockets of the slain Tiamat - a faint trace of this can perhaps be seen in the river which emerges to water Eden in Genesis 2). The gods then consulted and decided to form mankind, whom they made - in seven pairs, male and female - from clay mingled with their own spit and the blood of another slaughtered god. Mankind was set on earth to be the servant of the gods, while Marduk was enthroned in Babylon in the Esagila temple, "the house with its head in heaven," near his ziggurat of Etemenanki, the Bible's Tower of Babel.
Genesis is not, however, a simple re-telling of the Babylonian myths: instead, the myths are inverted to serve a theological purpose. For example, the Babylonian serpent-god Ningishzida is a friend of mankind who helps the human hero Adapa in his search for immortality, while Genesis' serpent is man's enemy, seeking to trick Adam out of the chance to attain immortality. The inversions represent a rejection of the power of Babylon's gods in favour of the might of Yahweh; more than this, they replace the essentially optimistic world-view of the Mesopotamians - "things were not nearly as good to begin with as they have become since" - with a world-view in which the world was created perfect but grew steadily worse, until God finally had to do away with all mankind except for the pious Noah who would beget a new and better stock.
Exegetical points
"In the beginning..."
The first word of Genesis 1 in Hebrew, "in the beginning" (Heb. berēšît), provides the traditional Jewish title for the book. The ambiguity of the Hebrew grammar in this verse gives rise to two alternative translations, the first implying that God's first act of creation was the heavens and the earth, the second that "the heavens and the Earth" already existed in a "formless and void" state, to which God brings form and order:
1. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void...God said, Let there be light!" (King James Version).
2. "At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, when the earth was (or the earth being) unformed and void . . . God said, Let there be light!" (Rashi, also with variations Ibn Ezra and Bereshith Rabba).
The name of God
Two names of God are used, Elohim in the first account and Yahweh Elohim in the second account. This difference, plus differences in the styles of the two chapters and a number of discrepancies between them, formed one of the earliest pieces of evidence that the Pentateuch had multiple origins, and was instrumental in the development of source criticism and the documentary hypothesis.
"Formless and Void"
The phrase traditionally translated in English "formless and void" is tōhû wābōhû (תהו ובהו). In most Bibles the phrase is translated by various combinations of adjectives with which translators attempt to capture the flavor of the primeval terrestrial moment which tōhû wābōhû describes. This phrase is shrouded in ancient obscurity, and although it has some limited traffic in Modern Hebrew, is deemed to be a deeply mystical concept.. The Greek Septuagint (LXX) rendered this term as "unsightly and unfurnished" (Greek: ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος), paralleling the Greek concept of Chaos.
The rûach of God
Some English translations have "the spirit of God," others "a wind from God." The Hebrew rûach has the meanings "wind, spirit, breath," but the traditional Jewish interpretation here is "wind," as "spirit" would imply a living supernatural presence co-extent with yet separate from God at Creation. This, however, is the sense in which rûach was understood by the early Christian church in developing the doctrine of the Trinity, in which this passage plays a central role.
The "deep"
The "deep" (Heb. tehôm), is the formless body of primeval water surrounding the habitable world. These waters are later released during the great flood, when "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth" from under the earth and from the "windows" of the sky.(). The word is cognate with the Babylonian Tiamat, and its occurrence here without the definite article ha (i.e., the literal translation of the Hebrew is that "darkness lay on the face of tehôm) indicates its mythical origins.
The firmament of heaven
The "firmament" (Heb. rāqîa) of heaven, created on the second day of creation and populated by luminaries on the fourth day, denotes a solid ceiling which separated the earth below from the heavens and their waters above. The term is etymologically derived from the verb rāqa, used for the act of beating metal into thin plates.
Great sea monsters
Heb. tanninim is the classification of creatures to which the chaos-monsters Leviathan and Rahab belong (cf. , , ).] In Gen 1.21, the proper noun Leviathan is missing and only the class noun tanninim appears. The tannînim are associated with mythological sea creatures such as Lotan (the Ugaritic counterpart of the biblical Leviathan) which were considered deities by other ancient near eastern cultures; the author of Genesis 1 asserts the sovereignty of Elohim over such entities. The NJV translates it as "sea monsters".
The number seven
Seven was regarded as a significant number in the ancient Near East. It has been argued that the author of has intentionally embedded it into the text in a number of ways, besides the obvious seven-day framework: the word "God" occurs 35 times (7 × 5) and "earth" 21 times (7 × 3). The phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each. The first sentence of contains 7 Hebrew words, and the second sentence contains 14 words, while the verses about the seventh day contain 35 words in total.
Man and the image of God
The meaning of the phrase "image and likeness of God" has been much debated. The great medieval Jewish scholar Rashi believed it referred to "a sort of conceptual archetype, model, or blueprint that God had previously made for man;" his colleague Maimonides suggested it referred to man's free will. Modern scholarship still debates whether the image of God was represented symmetrically in Adam and Eve, or whether Adam possessed the image more fully than the woman.
Structure and composition
Genesis 1 consists of eight acts of creation within a six day framework. Each of the first three days is an act of division: dark/light, waters/skies, sea/land & plants. In the next three days this framework is populated: heavenly bodies for the dark and light, fish and birds for the seas and skies, animals and (finally) man for the land. This six-day structure is symmetrically bracketed by day zero when primeval chaos reigns and day seven representing cosmic order.
Genesis 2 is a simple linear narrative, with the exception of the parenthesis about the four rivers at Genesis 2:10-14. This interrupts the forward movement of the narrative and might therefore be an insertion based on the spring or stream at Genesis 2:6 which waters the ground "on the day when Yahweh Elohim formed earth and heavens.
The “Primeval History” mimics Genesis 1’s intricate structure of parallel halves. The first half runs from Creation to Noah, the second from the Flood to Abraham. Each half is marked by the passage of ten generations (ten from Adam to Noah, another ten from Noah to Abraham). Like Genesis 1, each half has a six-part structure, and the content of each half exactly mirrors the other. Each follows the same themes, but with very different results: in the first half, God creates a perfect world for man, but man sins and God eventually returns his creation to its original state of chaos (i.e., the water of tehom); in the second, man finds himself in a newly created post-Flood world, as if given a chance to start again, but sins again (the Tower). But the result the second time is different: God choses Abram and makes his name (Heb. shem) great. The word shem appears to have structural significance: in Genesis 1, God names the elements of his Creation; in Genesis 2, “the man” (not at this stage named Adam), names the creatures over which he has been given dominion; Noah’s eldest son is “Shem”, and Yahweh is identified as “the God of Shem,” ancestor of Abraham and the Chosen People.
According to Jewish tradition the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses. Opinions differed among the rabbis on just how Genesis fitted into the picture, some saying God revealed it to Moses on Sinai, others holding that Moses compiled it in Egypt from writings left by the Patriarchs, with an account from Adam providing details on the Creation. The tradition of Mosaic authorship was adopted by the earliest Christians and is still held by many believers today, most notably among Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians.
Today virtually all scholars accept that the Pentateuch "was in reality a composite work, the product of many hands and periods.” In the first half of the 20th century the dominant theory regarding the origins of the Pentateuch was the documentary hypothesis. This supposes that the Torah was produced about 450 BC by combining four distinct, complete and coherent documents, known as the Yahwist (“Y” or “J”, from the German spelling of Yahweh), the Elohist (“E”), the Deuteronomist (“D”), and the Priestly source (“P”). Genesis 1 is from P, and Genesis 2 from J.
Some scholars believe that the Genesis account is a single report of creation, which is divided into two parts, written from different perspectives: the first part, from , describes the creation of the Earth from God's perspective; the second part, from , describes the creation of the Garden of Eden from Humanity's perspective. One such scholar wrote, "[T]he strictly complementary nature of the accounts is plain enough: Genesis 1 mentions the creation of man as the last of a series, and without any details, whereas in Genesis 2 man is the center of interest and more specific details are given about him and his setting" (Kitchen 116-117).
Other scholars, particularly those ascribing to textual criticism and the Documentary hypothesis, believe that the first two chapters of Genesis are two separate accounts of the creation. (They agree that the "first chapter" should include the first three verses and the first half of the fourth verse of chapter 2.) One such scholar wrote: "The book of Genesis, like the other books of the Hexateuch, was not the production of one author. A definite plan may be traced in the book, but the structure of the work forbids us to consider it as the production of one writer." (Spurell xv). For some religious writers, such as Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the existence of two separate creation stories is beyond doubt, and thus needs to be interpreted as having divine importance.
Some of the issues involved in the single vs. dual account debate include:
• Genesis 1 has creation in the order: plants; sea creatures and birds; land animals; man and woman (together); in Genesis 2 the sequence is: man; plants; land animals and birds; woman.
• Genesis 1 refers to God as Elohim, Genesis 2 uses the composite name Yahweh Elohim (Yahweh is often translated "LORD," but does not have this meaning in Hebrew - it is, rather, the name of the God of Israel). Single account advocates assert that Hebrew scriptures use different names for God throughout, depending on the characteristics of God which the author wished to emphasize. They argue that across the Hebrew scriptures, the use of Elohim in the first segment suggests "strength," focusing on God as the mighty Creator of the universe, while the use of Yahweh in the second segment suggested moral and spiritual natures of deity, particularly in relationship to the man. Dual account advocates assert that the two segments using different words for God indicates different authorship and two distinct narratives, in accord with the Documentary hypothesis.
• Though not so obvious in translation, the Hebrew text of the two sections differ both in the type of words used and in stylistic qualities. The first section flows smoothly, whereas the second is more interested in pointing out side details, and does so in a more point of fact style. One of the principles of textual criticism is that large differences in the type of words used, and in the stylistic qualities of the text, should be taken as support for the existence of two different authors. Proponents of the two-account hypothesis point to the attempts (e.g., The Book of J, by Harold Bloom, translated by David Rosenberg) to separate the various authors of the Torah claimed by the Documentary Hypothesis into distinct and sometimes contradictory accounts.
Proponents of the single account argue that style differences need not be indicative of multiple authors, but may simply indicate the purpose of different passages. For example, Kenneth Kitchen, a retired Archaeology Professor of the University of Liverpool, has argued (1966) that stylistic differences are meaningless, and reflect different subject matter. He supports this with the evidence of a biographical inscription of an Egyptian official in 2400 B.C., which reflects at least four different styles, but which is uniformly supposed to possess unity of authorship.
Theology and interpretation
The theology of Genesis
According to Professor Klaus Nurnberger, the motive of the biblical authors was not to put forward a coherent statement of their theology, but "to reassure fellow believers...of the strict, but benevolent, commitment of their God to his people." The rationale which holds together the "vastly divergent" biblical materials can therefore only be understood through studying the evolutionary process by which the texts were created.
The vast majority of modern scholars agree that "primeval history" within the Torah (Genesis 1-11) is composed of two distinct sources, the Yahwist and the Priestly (best understood today as bodies of texts with distinctive markers, rather than as distinct documents). The Priestly source "emphasizes the continuity of God's care for Israel as demonstrated in its history." This is expressed in certain pervasive themes: God's blessing (Genesis 1:28 provides the first of four important blessings within the overall Priestly narrative: "And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'"); God's word (God's important involvements with the world are expressed through his spoken words, throughout the "And God said" Creation sequence of Genesis 1, and through the three subsequent major covenants with Noah at Genesis 9, Abraham at Genesis 17, and Israel at Exodus 20); and God's continuing presence among the Chosen People.
The Yahwist writer tends to express his theology through speeches of Yahweh placed at decisive points in the story. Six of the eight major speeches in Genesis occur in the "primeval history," the first being the speech at Genesis 2:16-17 prohibiting the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil. The import of these stories is that man will fail if he tries to become as God (the Eden story, repeated in the Flood story and again in the Tower of Babel story). But God is merciful, (each attempt produces a progressively more merciful response from God), and selects a people who will be his own (the promise to Abraham at Genesis 12, which is the fulcrum of the Yahwist history - Abraham is the ancestor of David, the culmination of God's promise). "Abraham, and hence David and all Israel, were chosen to be an instrument of blessing: 'Through you all families of the earth shall bless themselves/be blessed.'" The universal promise was planted when the Yahwist prefaced the national story of Israel with the "all-world" Primeval history.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and other theologians suggest that the disobedience of Adam and Eve (taking the knowledge of good and evil for themselves) was the beginning of judgmentalism and remains an obstacle to our intended unconditional love for others.
Interpretative approaches
Biblical literalists believe that the seven "days" of Genesis 1 correspond to normal 24-hour days of history during which God created the world in eight divine acts, or "fiats" - hence the view is also referred to as "fiat creation. Young Earth creationism holds that the creation week occurred a mere six to ten thousands years ago. Other literalists have attempted to reconcile their literal reading with the findings of modern geology regarding the age of the Earth. Gap creationism inserts a "gap" between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 into which geologic time can be inserted, during which the world of a presumed pre-Adamite race was destroyed and then rebuilt – a position called the "Ruin-Reconstruction Interpretation". Arthur C. Custance has documented numerous precursors to "gap creationism" centuries before literalists found themselves debating scientists, and has suggested that it may be more accurate to think of this view as a textual debate among literalists first, and a debate topic versus evolution second. Another response, the day-age theory, holds that each "day" (Heb. yom) of Genesis 1 represents an "age" of perhaps millions or even billions of years.
The "framework interpretation" of Genesis 1, advanced by biblical scholars Meredith G. Kline and Henri Blocher, and with antecedents in St. Augustine of Hippo, argues that the "Creation week" should be read as a monotheistic polemic on creation theology directed against pagan creation myths. Klein and others have pointed out that Genesis 1 is built upon a literary framework where the sequence of events is topical rather than chronological, and builds to the establishment of the Sabbath commandment as its climax - the Sabbath being a prime concern of the Priestly source of the Torah.
A similar spectrum of views is encountered in relation to . Many biblical literalists and fundamentalist Christians read this as strictly literal and historical - that God literally breathed into the nostrils of a being formed out of dust, turning it into a living man; there was a literal Garden of Eden with a literal Tree of Life; a literal couple (Adam and Eve) ate a literal forbidden fruit at the urging of a talking serpent; Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and barred from re-entering it by a literal flaming sword. Other conservative Christians and Jews read it as a record of real events, but consider that the actual details are re-cast as symbols - thus the forbidden fruit, the serpent, the fig leaves and so forth, possibly even the Garden itself, are metaphors for religious or spiritual concepts that underlie the original sin of Adam, and/or an allegory describing the creation and sin of each individual human being. Many modern commentators note that "architecture" and depiction of the Garden of Eden resembles that of the Temple in Jerusalem, suggesting religious symbolism.
• Rouvière, Jean-Marc, (2006), Brèves méditations sur la création du monde L'Harmattan, Paris.
• Anderson, Bernhard W. Creation in the Old Testament (editor) (ISBN 0-8006-1768-1)
• Anderson, Bernhard W. Creation Ver Bernhard W. Understanding the Old Testament (ISBN 0-13-948399-3)
• Reis, Pamela Tamarkin (2001). Genesis as Rashomon: The creation as told by God and man. Bible Review '17' (3).
• Kitchen, Kenneth, Ancient Orient and Old Testament, London: Tyndale, 1966, p. 118
• G.J. Spurrell, Notes on the Text of the Book of Genesis, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896.
• Davis, John, Paradise to Prison - Studies in Genesis, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1975, p. 23
• P.N. Benware, "Survey of the Old Testament," Moody Press, Chicago IL, (1993).
• Bloom, Harold and Rosenberg, David The Book of J, Random House, NY, USA 1990.
• Stone, Nathan, Names of God, Chicago: Moody Press, 1944, p. 17.
• Nicholson, E. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Tigay, Jeffrey, Ed. Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, USA 1986
• J.D. Douglas et al, "Old Testament Volume: New Commentary on the Whole Bible," Tyndale, Wheaton, IL, (1990)
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In Politics, What Is Brain Trust?
President Woodrow Wilson used a brain trust called "The Inquiry" to advise him on peace negotiations near the end of World War I.
Andrew Jackson relied on a brain trust-type group called the Kitchen Cabinet.
FDR formed a group of intellectual minds to advise him on public policy.
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Brain trust is a term used to describe a group of close advisers, nearly synonymous with kitchen cabinet and think tank. All of those terms hold their origins in political history—Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) had a brain trust, Andrew Jackson a kitchen cabinet—but have also been used to refer to a team of advisers in any context. Think tanks, for example, can be political organizations that brainstorm and conduct research, but they're also used in scientific and technological research as well as in various other fields.
The term brain trust originated in 1899, when the U.S. was politically concentrated on trust-busting, what the government called its efforts to break up unlawful monopolies. The Marion Daily Star, an Ohio newspaper, coined the term brain trust in one of its articles, asking, "Since everything else is tending to trusts, why not a brain trust?...Our various and sundry supplies of gray matter may as well be controlled by a central syndicate."
The term wasn't applied to any team of advisers, however, until FDR ran for president in 1932. FDR had been inspired by Woodrow Wilson to form a close group of intellectual minds to advise him on public policy. Wilson had, in 1917, formed a group of advisers, dubbed The Inquiry, to advise him on peace negotiations toward the end of World War I.
Following Wilson's example, FDR formed a tight-knit group of advisers to assist him during the presidential campaign, minds that would help the new president craft much of what would become the New Deal. A reporter for the New York Times, James Kieran, was the first to dub FDR's team a "Brains Trust." As the term became adopted nationally, it was shortened to brain trust. The group of advisers primarily consisted of Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Raymond Moley, and Rexford Guy Tugwell, three professors from Columbia University. After becoming president, FDR drew from a larger pool of advisers that continued to help him shape public policy.
Roosevelt's advisers may have been the first team to be called a brain trust, but it wasn't the first group of presidential advisers. There was Wilson's advising group, The Inquiry, but there have been other notable presidential advisers as well. Andrew Jackson used a group of unofficial presidential advisers, which were dubbed the Kitchen Cabinet. Jackson used his advisers—made up of newspapermen and personal friends—to help him on a number of issues. The term is a play on the president's official group of advisers, called the Cabinet, and was coined by political enemies of Jackson in an effort to slander his presidency.
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The owner, publisher, and editor of the Marion, Ohio Star in 1899 was Warren G. Harding, later to be elected Senator for Ohio, and 29th President of the United States in 1920.
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Alternative Names
Seasonal Affective Disorder; Selective Serotonin-Reuptake Inhibitors
The causes of depression are not fully known. Most likely a combination of genetic, biologic, and environmental factors are at work.
Genetic Factors
Because depression runs in families, and has a strong genetic component, there is compelling evidence that it is a biologic phenomenon. Data from family, twin, adoption, and genetic studies have confirmed this. Studies have found that first-degree relatives of patients with depression are two to six times more likely to develop the problem than individuals without a family history.
Biologic Factors
Evidence now strongly supports the theory that depression has a biologic basis and that certain brain chemicals and neural pathways responsible for regulating mood and associated behaviors are altered.
• Serotonin. Perhaps the most important neurotransmitter in depression is serotonin. Among other functions, it is important for feelings of well-being. One 2003 study indicated that serotonin improves a persons ability to pick up emotional cues from other people, which is important for healthy relationships. Another study further suggested that people deficient in serotonin were less likely to take risks for high rewards than those with normal levels.
• Other Neurotransmitters. Other neurotransmitters possibly involved in depression include acetylcholine and catecholamines, a group of neurotransmitters that consists of dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine (also called adrenaline). Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), which is believed to be a stress hormone and a neurotransmitter, is thought to be involved in depression and anxiety. Increased CRF concentrations appear to interact with serotonin and have been detected in patients with either depression or anxiety.
Endocrine glands
The degree to which these chemical messengers are disturbed is determined by other factors, such as light, structural abnormalities in the brain, sleep disorders, or genetic susceptibility. For example, researchers have identified a defect in the gene known as SERT, which regulates serotonin and has been linked to depression.
Reproductive Hormones. In women, the female hormones estrogen and progesterone most likely play a role in depression. [See Box Depression in Women.]
Insomnia and Sleep Disorders
Studies estimate that 20% of people with insomnia suffer from major depression and 90% of people with depression have insomnia. Although stress and depression are major causes of insomnia, insomnia may also increase the activity of the hormones and pathways in the brain that can produce emotional problems. Even modest alterations in waking and sleeping patterns can have significant effects on a person's mood. Persistent insomnia may actually be a symptom of later emotional disorders in some cases.
Depression as Adaptive Strategy
Some experts theorize that low mood is an adaptive response to situations in which expectations fail to match achievements (such as with an unrequited love affair, career failure, or a challenge of authority). In its healthy state, the pain this response causes provides both an incentive to disengage and a passive, withdrawn state that allows a period of thought before changing direction. Depression as a disorder (characterized by pervasive pessimism, low self-esteem and total lack of initiative) may develop if there are constant unachievable objects or goals and there are no positive relationships to help a person change direction. (Such cases could certainly occur in highly competitive societies that lack strong social support and where the media holds up unattainable images as desirable.) Such a theory does not, however, rule out biologic or other factors that can contribute to depressive disorders.
Depression in Women
Women, regardless of nationality or socioeconomic level, have significantly higher rates of depression than do men. The causes of such higher rates appear to be a mix of biologic and cultural factors.
Hormonal Fluctuations and Life Stages
Extreme hormonal shifts can trigger emotional swings in all women. The role of hormones in depression is not clear, however, and is mostly based on observations of depression during specific stages in female development. Female hormones undoubtedly play some role in premenstrual dysphoria, postpartum depression, and SAD. These forms of depression recede or stop after menopause.
Early Puberty. Girls who go through puberty early (reaching the midpoint at 11 years or younger) are more likely to experience depression during adolescence than girls who mature later.
Premenopause. Premenopausal women between the ages of 20 and 45 were most susceptible to depression, with 22% of this age group reporting symptoms of major depression. Specifically, premenstrual dysphoric disorder (severe depression before a period) affects an estimated 3% to 8% of women during their reproductive years. [See Well-Connected Report # 79 Premenstrual Syndrome.]
Perimenopause. Depression often occurs around menopause (the perimenopausal period), when, in addition to hormonal changes, other factors such as cultural pressures favoring young women, sudden recognition of aging, and sleeplessness are involved. In one study, more than half of perimenopausal women were diagnosed with major depression. Women who suffered depression before menopause may also have a risk for entering the premenopausal period at a slightly earlier age than women without depression.
Postmenopause. Once women pass into the postmenopausal period, studies suggest that average depression scores are nearly as low as those in premenopausal women. In fact, many women report that after menopause, previous bouts of depression, particularly when caused by seasonal changes or premenopausal syndrome, recede or stop completely.
Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
The syndrome of severe depression, irritability, and tension before menstruation is known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PDD or PMDD), also called late-luteal dysphoric disorder. It affects an estimated 3% to 8% of women in their reproductive years. A diagnosis of PDD depends on having five or more standard symptoms of major depression that occur during most menstrual cycles, with symptoms worsening a week or so before the menstrual period and resolving afterward. PMDD has features of both anxiety and depression disorders, although experts increasingly believe it is a distinct disorder with specific biochemical abnormalities. [For more information,seeWell-Connected Report #79 Premenstrual Disorder.]
Depression and Pregnancy
Depression During Pregnancy. Pregnancy is certainly an occasion of great celebration for most women most of the time. However, emotions during that time are not always straightforward, and depression is a common (although most often a temporary) companion. A 2001 study found that depression during pregnancy was more common than depression after pregnancy, with the highest depression scores occurring in week 32.
Prenatal depression can affect a mother's sleep, physical activity, adherence to care, and appetite--all of which can affect the unborn child.Some research suggests that depression during pregnancy may pose a risk for later language and behavior problems in the child later on.
Miscarriage. Miscarriage poses a very high risk for depression, particularly in the first month after the loss. Older women with no previous successful pregnancies and those with a history of depression are at particular risk during this time. (There has been some concern that depression increases the risk for miscarriage in the first place, but a 2003 study found no evidence to support this, at least in the first 22 weeks.)
Postpartum Depression. Most new mothers experience weeping, irritability, and confusion for a few days following childbirth. Such symptoms, known as the "baby blues," are not considered to be indicators of postpartum depression, however, unless they persist in severe form nearly every day for more than a week or two.
Postpartum depression can first develop as long as three months after delivery. Studies have reported that between 8% and 20% of women have diagnosable postpartum depression within that time. In one study, 5% of these women had suicidal thoughts. (It should be noted that many male partners of new mothers also suffer from depression around the birth of a child.)
Studies have not found any association between a higher risk for postpartum depression and a woman's educational level, the gender of the child, whether or not she breastfeeds, whether or not the pregnancy was planned, or whether the delivery was vaginal or cesarean. The rapid decline of reproductive hormones that accompany childbirth is likely to play the major role in postpartum depression in susceptible women. Fluctuating thyroid hormones can also contribute to depression. Different studies have suggested that women who are more sensitive to hormone fluctuations and so at greater risk for postpartum depression have one or more of the following conditions:
• A history of prior depressive episodes.
• A family history of mood disorders.
• Stressful life events (such as being a new mother and having an infant with medical problems).
• Lack of social support or feeling as if it is lacking.
Treatment During and After Pregnancy. Although a mother's depression during and after pregnancy can have serious effects on her child, treatment is problematic.
Psychotherapy is helpful in the short term of women with postpartum depression but may not be any more helpful than routine care from a physician in the long run.
Physicians are reluctant to give antidepressants to pregnant women. Encouraging studies to date, however, suggest that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) do not pose a higher than normal risk for miscarriage or birth defects or later problems in the offspring. High doses, however, may reduce birth weight. Also, taken late in pregnancy, however, SSRIs may affect serotonin levels in the newborn. Studies on the effects on infants of nursing women taking SSRIs report very low levels of the medications in blood but no observable negative effects on the babies. More research is needed, however, and most physicians advise women to avoid, if possible, any medications during pregnancy and nursing.
The Theory of Affiliate Behaviors and Oxytocin
Depression in women is more likely to follow interpersonal problems, while in men depression tends to be attributed to stressful life events. One theory about the higher risk of depression in women concerns affiliate behaviors, which are those that involve activities surrounding relationships, and a peptide called oxytocin (OT).
Oxytocin is found in mammals and stimulates uterine contraction during labor and milk release during nursing. And evidence suggests it may also play a role in affiliate behaviors such as maternal caregiving and sexual bonding after puberty. Under primitive conditions, the release of OT after puberty coincided with early mating and breeding. In modern cultures, however, there is typically a long delay between puberty and childbirth. Some experts theorize that release of OT and the subsequent inability to mate and procreate creates feelings of loss and separation in women that can lead to depression.
This theory is backed up by some studies suggesting that young women most vulnerable to depression are those who are also most sensitive to separation from parents, friends, or loved ones.
Social and Economic Factors in Women
The role that work, marriage, and children play in a woman's depression is complex. Many women feel that they must be everything to everyone and at the same time feel as if they are no one at all. Such a self-image is common and should be strongly considered as a major contributor to depression in many women, particularly those who work and have small children. The following are results of studies suggesting the difficulty of assessing the relationship between a woman's social status and depression, however.
In a report on women worldwide issued by the World Health Organization in 1996, married women with children had a higher risk for depression than did married childless women, single women, or single or married men.
A survey of women in the Boston area reported, however, that women between the ages of 36 and 44 who had children were significantly less likely to be depressed than childless women. And the more children they had, the less depressed they tended to be. This study targeted older premenopausal women. The difference between this study and others may be due to the presence of older children, who might add a supportive emotional network, rather than dependent toddlers.
The perceived low status and isolation accompanying the role of housewife may play a role in a young mother's depression. A European study reported that depression increased in men and fell in women between 1980 and 1995, a period coinciding with more women entering the work force. (Work outside the home that fails to provide social support, however, will not necessarily help protect against depression.)
Other studies in the U.S. have reported that grandmothers who care for their grandchildren and mothers of toddlers, regardless of whether they worked outside the home or not, have a very high risk for depression.
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Navigation beam
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Navigation beam
Dave Bailey utilizes an earpiece to monitor the Enterprise's navigation beam
A navigation beam was a directed-energy transmission utilized by starships for the purpose of identifying information regarding ship's position, speed, etc. This information would then be relayed back to the ship's navigator, sometimes via earpiece.
In 2266, when the USS Enterprise encountered the extremely powerful First Federation flagship Fesarius, all efforts by the Enterprise crew to establish communications met with failure, until Balok, the Fesarius's master, began transmitting a message over the Enterprise's navigation beam, a message which was subsequently detected by Dave Bailey, the ship's navigator. (TOS: "The Corbomite Maneuver")
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Tuesday, November 13, 2012
As the Bible teaches, "Listen to the truth and the truth shall make you free."
Martin Luther King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963) is one of our nation's more elegant statements about American law as taught by the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776:
Several times Sir Winston Churchill made mention to moral force with the power to change the direction of a nation or the world if used correctly. Gandhi of India while not using the reference of moral force, did use moral force to force Great Britain out of India without firing a shot to win national independence for India.
Martin Luther King refers to moral force when he says we must morally obey just laws but also have the moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. What he is saying is that moral force is what makes law either lawful or else unlawful. The U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776 appeals to moral law given us from God based upon moral force to enforce that moral law is why the Thirteen Colonies had the legal right to secede from Great Britain. In other words, if Great Britain had respected the God-given rights of Americans and treated justly the Thirteen Colonies, then they would still have owed legal obedience and loyalty to Great Britain as their national government. An early 1776 explanation of what constituted legal tyranny and made a government legally a tyranny was when law and government denied the God-given rights of the people, then that law and government was a tyranny. When the people were to choose between God by honoring and obeying the laws of God given us to govern society by or else repudiating God by living under laws and policies hostile to God, this choice would be between freedom for mankind or else political and legal enslavement of mankind on earth, and so our choice between a government of freedom for mankind or else a government of tyranny for mankind to govern us by. The Thirteen Colonies chose freedom under the laws of God over slavery by a government turned into a tyranny by denying us our God-given rights and freedom to live by in society.
Wash., D.C. no longer believes in God-given rights of the American people. Wash., D.C. has secret Satanists with great wealth pulling key strings in Wash., D.C. We also have an alleged elected President who hates our Christian God as he is both a Communist and a Muslim in his personal beliefs and loyalties. He was trained to be cunning in deception by his Communist mentors who are public record if you care to check him out. And a fellow classmate of his in college said Obama told him that he was a dedicated Communist. Straight from the horse's mouth! He is also a Muslim. He has apparently been wearing for years a Muslim ring which says in Arabic, "We have no god but Allah." And the missing Muslim saying that goes with this is: "And Mohammed is His Prophet!"
As of today reports are all over the internet documenting voter fraud across America to put Obama in the White House. In one area I understand even 105% of the voters voted for Obama. How many dead voters did they resurrect in the name of Allah to do that? Obama and the Democratic Party basically flushed down the toilet many to all of the U.S. military votes coming from abroad. They were not counted with various Democratic "accidents" and "clerical errors" so the basic U.S. military vote from abroad was not counted. This was by obvious plan as they did not count all the Florida votes and certify them until the end of this last week. But the U.S. military vote was thrown away without counting during this same time period as Florida finished counting its state votes. No accident here as Obama and the Democratic Party knew that if those votes were counted as they were heavily in favor of Mitt Romney, not Obama, then Obama lost the electoral college vote as well as the popular vote of America. Because this national election was so obviously "crooked as all hell," I pushed nationally and correctly under law that the votes for Obama could not legally count as he was not a natural born citizen as required by the U.S. Constitution if you would run for the White House. Natural born citizen meant when the U.S. Constitution was written that you had to have two parents who were U.S. citizens to make you legally a natural born citizen under law. Under the U.S. Constitution, Mitt Romney by automatic default of Obama who could not legally run for the White House was legally elected President of America and Mitt Romney should then be sworn in for the White House on Sunday, January 20, 2013, not Obama! Also, two sets of official birth certificates for Obama show he was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, so he is not even a U.S. citizen unless he got secretly naturalized later on. And it was shown on the internet where Obama in 2006 was talking to American citizens that foreigners coming to America should be given all the same legal rights as native born Americans and Obama was filmed saying as an example, Obama himself was born in Kenya, not Hawaii! Straight from the horse's mouth!
What leaders in Wash., D.C. obey or uphold the U.S. Constitution? If we believe in obeying the U.S. Constitution, then Mitt Romney has to be sworn in on January 20, 2013, not Obama. If Wash., D.C. has no legal integrity towards the U.S. Constitution including the U.S. Supreme Court, then Obama will be sworn in, not Mitt Romney as votes for Obama were automatically null and void and do not count under legal authority of the U.S. Constitution. How law works in America these days. If a law is not enforced, then it is not treated as law by government. If the U.S. Constitution is not treated as national law any longer, then we do not have a constitutional government any longer but a national government of dictatorship under Obama and co-traitors in the Democratic Party who no longer have any allegiance to America then in that case. I am speaking the truth in a nation under near total news censorship in key areas controlled by most of the main news media of America. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt commented many years ago, "Nothing happens by accident in Wash., D.C." Okay, are the reports true that the Director of the C.I.A. was about to prove how criminal Obama really was and so had to be knocked out and discredited before he released his legal evidence blocking Obama from entering a second term at the White House. To misquote William Shakespeare in Hamlet, "How things stink in Wash., D.C.!"
Years ago trying to head me off from helping America to a bright future, Wash., D.C. as a barbarian government, not civilized, saw that my personal library close to Wash., D.C. was destroyed. I had given to me by six top economists I had studied under many exclusive economic documents, books, etc. from these six were six of the most brilliant economists of America and Europe including a German economist endorsed by Albert Einstein to be teaching the only true economic science in the world in the 20th century. This economic library all destroyed by Wash., D.C. and I had already then been written up by a prestigious international organization as "The Einstein of American Economics." My father with his Vatican endorsed food process Pope Pius XII had contacted 23,000 Catholic priests and all Catholic bishops in the world telling them this was so important to world health that it must be publicized in all nations of the world, my father's engineering reports, lab reports, correspondence from the Vatican, leading health experts in the world, etc., all this destroyed by Wash., D.C. They did not want me to show America how you boom the American economy beyond imagination with non-stop prosperity. This broke the power of the Satanist bankers to constantly confiscate much of the national wealth each cycle of boom and bust secretly engineered by them upon the gullible American people who know next to zero about how national economics really works. And the great health the American people would enjoy for life, Satanist controlled Wash., D.C. could not tolerate, so used Wash., D.C. as their front to use all dirty tricks of Wash., D.C. to block me from reestablishing my father's Vatican endorsed food product for the American people and people of the world. After all, Pope Pius XII upon advice of his science advisers had endorsed this as potentially the greatest news for mankind since the coming of Christ since it could potentially solve the twin problems of starvation and malnutrition in the world. By constantly blocking me with all sorts of criminal and dirty tricks since I left the university as a history major, Wash., D.C. under Satanist secret control and influence has murdered maybe even 3 billion humans worldwide by constant suppression of this Vatican endorsed food process from America and the world.
By the way, speaking of dirty tricks, unless you American people are really dumb as they think you are, you pretty well know that these militant critics who attack my reports and invent nonsense arguments why not to back me are mostly to all of them secret operatives for federal intelligence operations of Wash., D.C., thought a few independent operatives of the Satanist Illuminati might also be mixed in with them. However likely, they are all united in apparent secret loyalty to Satan as their planned coming world god to replace Jesus Christ and of course others including Allah and other gods of religions. They use nonsense con arguments since they think you are dumb enough to fall for nonsense arguments instead of honest and good arguments and scholarship. They use trickery on you. I use truth on you!
My sources of information to spy on the Satanists used to report that they using Wash., D.C. as their front wanted to use tricks on mankind to wipe out all of mankind but 500 million left alive on earth and all ruled in their planned Satanist worldwide Global Plantation as the slaves of the Satanists rulers and masters over the earth now. Later their figure dropped to 200 million humans left alive on earth to be their slaves for their planned Global Plantation. Latest figure I was recently told they now want only maybe 20 million humans left alive on earth as automated manufacturing equipment, computers, etc. make unnecessary more humans than that to be their slaves and keep them in great comfort and pleasure as the Satanic rulers of the tiny part of the human race left alive by them.
In this national report I have been using moral force in the form of truth to damage and destroy the power base of the great deceivers running Wash., D.C. today. I don't have to be perfect before God nor do you! God looks at our heart and what is in our heart is far more important than being "perfect" in public appearance but little or no genuine charity or love in your heart for your fellow man on earth. Because of the truth and justice I stand for and not due to my personal merits as far as I know, God did a public display in 1990 that I am backed by God and enemies of God foam at the mouth when I bring this up. How they hate God and spit in the face of God all they can by their attempted cunning words to try and overthrow the Cause of God on earth called Christianity which they savagely hate as you can see clearly in comments acid in comment when I state support for Christianity in my reports.
Quick item first as they think I am vulnerable for stating that I descend from the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great who legalized and championed Christianity in the Roman Empire when alive. Rome had intrigue and conspiracy in top power circles. Part of the family of Constantine the Great due to divided loyalties had to be arrested and executed as the Roman Empire would have suffered a civil war otherwise. I assume he did not want to do this, but either sacrifice part of his family or the Roman Empire would suffer bloody civil war otherwise. He could not do this to his own Roman people. The same story in effect occurred when Czar Peter the Great of Russia loved dearly his son and yet eventually had to order the arrest of his own son who hated him for modernizing the society of Russia so it could compete against the far more advanced Western Europe then. Peter the Great could not let his own son be used to overthrow the future of Russia as a nation and so he had to let his own son die for high treason against Holy Mother Russia. Sometimes great monarchs of the past had to put down traitors in their own families. Such was the painful reality Constantine the Great faced and so saved the Roman Empire by sacrificing any traitors in his own family. He was a great patriot of Rome, not a villain, for saving Rome from would-be civil war if he had not been willing to sacrifice even his beloved in his own family to save Rome from mass bloodshed. This is like the story of the Roman general who found that two sons of his had left their military camp in violation of his orders. He ordered their death the same as required for any other soldiers for desertion of post under his command. Romans had honor and kept their word of honor including to hold political office or military command with integrity. Wash. politicians don't know what legal integrity is to the U.S. Constitution or U.S. Bill of Rights. They are not Roman in character. That is why Jesus Christ came to make the Roman Empire his chosen main people to found Christianity with. They made great Christians as they had honor in their Roman character. They made Christianity a world power with their greatness. If Jesus had started with Americans instead, would you have been willing to stand up for Christ against tyranny in government and been so strong in character, you would have ended up leading Christianity to storm the known world then as a major world power? The Romans did!
In 1990, Lane Brewer of the Seneca Police in Seneca, SC was mass smashed to pieces in a car accident.. The car door to his police car as he was coming out from it was hit hard at high speed by a car smashing into it. His body was crushed behind the door and much of his body received terminal injuries. He was rushed by ambulance to the emergency ward at Oconee Memorial Hospital then since renamed Oconee Medical Center. The local hospital told the secretary at the local newspaper that he would not live through the day. If somehow he did, then he would be paralyzed for life. I was contacted about him as I attended church with him. We formed a church prayer group after the very bad report from the hospital to pray that he did not die that day. And that contrary to the hospital report, he would live and not be paralyzed for life as the medical staff predicted if he somehow lived. Then what I would call a revelation, not an audible voice, indicated that Jesus would give me his life if I asked Jesus and heal him. I prayed and with a prayer different than I had planned. Since Jesus was returning to earth soon, let Lane Brewer live and be healed until His return. It was apparently almost immediately after that Lane Brewer arose from his hospital bed with all injuries instantly healed with only bruise marks remaining where they had been. He put on his police uniform and began walking out of the hospital. The started chief surgeon Dr. Nimmons who knew him personally mumbled to him as he walked out, "I don't understand this." My local church was shocked over this obvious Miracle of God. Also, two other local churches. But sad commentary on the churches. They are so American in character instead of Roman like the early Christians and never reported to other churches and publicized across America this stunning Miracle of God that had happened in Seneca, SC in 1990. The youth of America is being swayed away from Christianity because the "politically correct" churches of America are ashamed or else afraid to publicize stunning Miracles of God that would win the youth of America back to Christ and Christianity. I later understood that Jesus gave me this Miracle of God to endorse me as backed by Jesus Christ since I stood for the truths and justice that real Christianity stands for, but the "politically correct" churches in America have Wash., D.C. and Obama as head of their churches since they take orders from Wash., D.C. instead of Jesus Christ. An encouraging item for Christians in America. I am good at heart but certainly not perfect. Jesus is willing to use us as we are and not wait until we are perfect or else Jesus might have no one to use for serious Christian work in America or elsewhere! It is far more important to Jesus that we show by deed and not idle non-backed words that we really love Jesus and our fellow man on earth. What is in our hearts is what really matters most to Jesus, not waiting for us to become perfect which might have to wait until the life hereafter to achieve.If Jesus can put up with me despite any shortcomings in character, Jesus can surely put up with you also and Jesus welcomes all of us to come to him as we are. He will improve our characters as we let him take over our hearts and souls in our lives.
Give me a lot of relevant material in some field and with my scientifically inclined mind, I may well figure out scientific formulas or governing principles with the involved subject matter. I think from scientific observation, to some extent I know what moral force is that Sir Winston Churchill sometimes referred to and which Gandhi of India used but never defined. Conscience is the subtle voice of God telling us when we have done wrong and need to do good instead. But conscience appeals to the hidden moral code God has put into all of us and we have in us regardless of teachings from our schools, societies, governments, or even our own local churches. Watch cats, dogs, or other animals you give food to and then another animal wants to take that food away from them. They know by moral force installed in their character that this food was given to them and is their property. They therefore are prepared to growl at the other animal to tell them that this food is theirs and does not belong to the other animal. The other animal having moral force installed in its character from birth on recognizes the claim of the one animal that this food belongs to it and unless much stronger or driven by wrong instincts will respect the right of the first animal to that food that it is its food. Regardless of formal church instruction or not, husbands know that they have wronged their wives when they cheat on them and commit adultery. The wife knows the same thing when she cheats and commits adultery against her covenant of marriage with her husband. You steal from someone and you know it is wrong regardless if raised as a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist or whatever. It is not education but God instilled moral values in you that you have and this code of moral force is what gives force to and makes valid the laws and policies of a nation. As Justin Martyr around 130 years after Christ with a debate with a Jewish scholar about Christianity mentioned, he said the Jews had to have the 10 Commandments given in formal written law to them because spending so long in carnal Egypt had deadened the moral code God had already put in their hearts, so needed a formal written law given to them to substitute for the moral law they had known in their heart but got silenced by living too deeply in a carnal world around them which was Egypt in this case.
Ten Commandments or not, we know in our hearts that it is wrong to steal from others, to lie to others, to become obsessed with jealously that someone else had more possessions than you in life so you want to steal it from them in jealousy of them. We know that adultery in marriage betrays the trust of the other partner to the marriage covenant between us. We know that children should respect the authority and wisdom of their parents who love them and want to raise them right so they reach their potential when they are grown up. It is natural to believe in God and basically unnatural to be an atheist. That is why atheists have to turn Nazism or Communism, Evolution or Politically Correct, etc. into religions to replace the religions our religious nature by moral force wants to be our religion to govern our natural lives with. We know that it is right to not murder ordinary citizens. Yet in our inner being we know that it is also right to defend our families from deadly enemies out to kill them or defend our nation when an enemy wants to war against us and wipe us out as a nation and race if possible. This moral force within us is not there because of education but we are born with this regardless of nation, race, culture, religion, etc. It is sad that the 10 Commandments says that we should honor God at least once a week. That is stated for a people not very grateful to God for giving them life, talents, opportunities, a society and nation to live in. A grateful people at least informally would honor God daily in their lives with their conduct and deeds and words in society, and would likely even be motivated to pray daily to this God we are grateful to and love for our many blessings from this God.
I have identified many of the items in this moral force I find in people of all races and nations. Moral force also controls public opinion worldwide. Laws and policies worldwide may be evil or conspiratorial in intent but the leaders trying to trick the people know by instinct that they have to put forward what sounds like moral force as justification for this law or policy. For example, Hitler or Obama sets up these laws to officially protect you. Translation, I am setting up a national police state to imprison you in, but I want you to think this is to protect you. Then you will not resist by the moral force code you are born with and nothing to do with the values taught you by society.
I let Wash., D.C. victimize me by only paying me $4,400,000 short term for the huge amount of money they stole from me and this amount of money is a drop in the bucket to what they really owe me. Moral force overwhelmingly says that I am supposed to be paid at least this $4,400,000 and now or else Wash., D.C. is a total jackass, criminal government, etc. as obvious to all the people. I am way too reasonable and even then they shine through as total jackasses, criminal, etc. as a national govenment. I make them frame themselves under moral force by letting them prove to the American people how really jackass, criminal, etc. they are by being too decent and reasonable for them to have any reason why they do not meet with me on my $4,400,000 terms so I don't legally chop off the heads of all the key people in the U.S. Justice Dept. later on. If later on, I play my key legal aces against them, the people approve as they would feel justified under moral force to do the same if I later legally chop off their federal heads symbolically speaking. Now that the game has been played, I used Nesara News to become a national and world court of law appealing to moral force which is the basis of all law in America and the world. The people judge according to the standards of moral force God installed in their hearts when born. If I later legally hit Wash., D.C. like a sledgehammer or the Wrath of God let loose on earth, no one is sorry for Wash., D.C. They judge Wash., D.C. deserved the legal nuclear bombs I explode under it hitting upon federal scandal after federal scandal to launch my legal attacks to end the tyranny of Wash., D.C. and establish truly a free and God centered government in Wash., D.C. to replace the moral cesspool government now in power there.
I have not told Wash., D.C. how I hit them legally if I don't see at least $4,400,000 of my federally stolen money returned to me by then and also the other person now paid $80,000 which is a justified figure for them under involved circumstances of moral force approving the settlement against injustice under moral force done against me and associate. And if I file a $100 trillion claim against Wash., D.C. to be paid to the people and states of the South, the whole world will approve and back me as moral force is on my side and not that of Wash., D.C. Of course, if the $100 trillion claim is filed under international law, then the South forms the new national government of America with all states elsewhere as security against the $100 trillion claim which will be valid under international law and moral force backing this. When the South forms the new national government of America to replace the financially defaulted upon Obama government, of course the South will be Christian and generous. The North ends up with a great new national government, great national prosperity, freedom, and a nation under God and blessed by God in the process.
Pass this report all over America. Look up other national reports of mine in the search box at the top left side of Nesara News. Should be about 80 national reports I have posted with them in the last 7 months or so. Put in my pen name of Erasmus of America to read them. Also, put in Omni Law and read my proposed national law based upon moral force where moral good and the national will run the national government, not corrupt and cowardly politicians.
Yours for God and Country, Erasmus of America (pen name. With my pen name I aim to be the author of a free, prosperous, and God blessed nation of America. As a wise French intellectual said of America after visiting us in the early part of the 19th Century, "America is great because America is Christian. If America ceases to be Christian, then America will cease to be great." I plan to make America truly great as is supposed to be its destiny by making it a Christian nation once more. The evil side is not the only side with brains. We also have a lot of smart Christians in the Christian side. And I bet we win!)
1. Fun fact: the 'wise French intellectual' Erasmus is referencing is Alexis de Tocqueville, as some readers must have guessed, and the "America is great..." quote is a famous false attribution. No line like this has ever been found in de Tocqueville's work. On top of that, Erasmus actually changed the wording of an already unverified quote by replacing 'good,' with 'Christian.'
Tsk, tsk.
Erasmus seems to have a penchant for throwing around false attributions and spurious quotes. He really needs to vet his work better before publishing. Silly mistakes like this cheapen his message.
(PS, wasn't it Abe Lincoln who once said, "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that it's difficult to determine whether or not they are genuine." ???)
2. The CSA Constitution specifies only natural born citizens as president. Erasmus is neither, yet complains about Kenyan Obama?
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The molecular makeup of water
Introduction to How Water Works
At its most basic, water is a molecule with one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, bonded together by shared electrons. It is a V-shaped polar molecule, which means that it's charged positively near the hydrogen atoms and negatively near the oxygen atom. Water molecules are naturally attracted and stick to each other because of this polarity, forming a hydrogen bond. This hydrogen bond is the reason behind many of water's special properties, such as the fact that it's denser in its liquid state than in its solid state (ice floats on water). We'll look closer at these special properties later.
Water is the only substance that occurs naturally as a solid (ice), a liquid and a gas (water vapor). It covers about 70 percent of the Earth for a total of approximately 332.5 million cubic miles (1,386 million cubic kilometers) [source: U.S. Geological Survey]. If you're familiar with the lines "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink" from the poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," you'll understand that most of this water -- 97 percent of it -- is undrinkable because it's saltwater (see illustration on next page). Only 3 percent of the world's water supply is freshwater, and 77 percent of that is frozen. Of the 23 percent that is not frozen, only a half a percent is available to supply every plant, animal and person on Earth with all the water they need to survive [source: National Geographic].
So water is pretty simple, right? Actually, there are a lot of things about it that scientists still don't fully understand. And the problem of making sure that enough clean, drinkable water is available to everyone and everything that needs it is anything but simple. In this article, we'll look at some of these problems. We'll also explore exactly what plants, animals and people do with water and learn more about what makes water so special.
Where does our water come from?
The World's Water Supply
• Lakes: 21,830 cubic miles (91,000 cubic km)
• Rivers: 509 cubic miles (2,120 cubic km)
[source: World Business Council for Sustainable Development]
This aerial photograph shows damage to the Aral Sea caused by diversion of its water.
Photo courtesy NASA
Water Regulation
In many areas, water is regulated and distributed by governments. In the United States, it's regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act. However, government control isn't always in the best interests of all people. In the 1930s, to irrigate cotton fields, the Soviet government created canals to divert the rivers that fed the Aral Sea (located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan). As a result, the surface area of the sea has shrunk by more than 50 percent and its volume by 80 percent over the past 50 years [source: Swanson]. Its salinity increased and it became polluted with pesticides, fertilizer runoff and industrial waste. The loss of the sea meant the decline of the commercial fishing industry, which helped to send the region into poverty. The pollutants from the exposed seabed have been found in the blood of Antarctic penguins [source: Swanson].
Some regions have privatized their water distribution, which has often led to conflict. In the late 1980s, the United Kingdom sold its water boards (governmental water-supply organizations) to private companies, which improved the infrastructure. Many people were outraged that companies could profit off such a basic need, especially when people who could not pay their bills suffered harsh penalties. The problem was later remedied with legislation.
In 2000 and 2005, demonstrators took to the streets in Bolivia to protest the privatization of the water supply. When foreign companies took over Bolivia's water system, the cost of water became too expensive for the poor. In the city of El Alto, "the cost of getting a water and sewage hook-up exceeded a half-year's income at the minimum wage" [source: Shultz]. The 2000 revolt, called the "Bolivian Water Wars," led to martial law and 100 injuries. After both incidents, the Bolivian government canceled the private company contracts.
Currently, more than a billion people, about 17 percent of the world's population, don't have access to clean water [source: World Health Organization]. There are several governmental and nongovernmental organizations, including UNICEF and Water Aid, working to help poor communities in Asia and Africa obtain sustainable supplies of drinking water and sanitation facilities. Water shortages happen in the United States, too -- many states have programs to assist the disadvantaged with obtaining enough water and paying their water and sewer bills.
Obviously, lack of water is a big problem. But why is that, exactly? In the next section, we'll look at the part that water plays in the human body.
Why do humans need water?
Human Water Consumption
On the next page we'll learn about purifying water.
Water Survival Techniques
If your water becomes contaminated and you don't have bottled water, you can purify it in a few different ways. If it is cloudy, first filter it through clean cloths or allow it to settle and then pour off the clear water. Then, you can boil the water for one minute to kill most disease-causing organisms.
You can also add one-eighth of a teaspoon of household chlorine bleach per gallon of water (or follow directions on the label). You should double the amount if the water is discolored or murky. Stir and let it stand for 30 minutes. Chlorine bleach tablets are sold at camping supply stores to purify water for drinking. You can also use five drops of iodine per gallon to disinfect water.
Store boiled or disinfected water in clean, covered containers. If the boiled water tastes too flat or the chlorine taste is too strong, pour it from one container into another.
Water Purification
Water that is safe to drink is called potable water, or drinking water, in contrast to safe water, which can be used for bathing or cleaning. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency sets maximum levels for the 90 most commonly occurring contaminants. If something happens to your water supply, your supplier has to contact you to let you know what precautions you should take.
Water treatment requires six basic steps.
• Next, the water is shaken into larger clumps, called flocs.
• The sedimentation process requires that the water stand for 24 hours, which allows the clumps to settle to the bottom.
• The water is then filtered, disinfected (usually with chlorine) and aerated.
• Aeration helps to remove certain contaminants like radon.
In the next section, we'll take a closer look at exactly how water circulates in animal and plant cells.
Water regulates the temperature of plants and transports nutrients through them.
Martin Poole/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Plant and Animal Water Consumption
Plants contain even more water than animals do -- most of them are anywhere from 90 to 95 percent water [source: BBC]. Just as it does in animals, water regulates the temperature of the plant and transports nutrients through it. But instead of taking in water by drinking and eating, plants get it through dew, irrigation and rainfall.
Plants take in water through their roots, and green ones use it in photosynthesis, which is how they create sugar for food. (You can learn more about the process of photosynthesis in How the Earth Works.) Plants also need water to support themselves. Pressure from the process of osmosis -- the movement of water from the outside to the inside of the plant's cells -- keeps up the plant's cell walls.
When you water a plant, it sucks up the water through capillary action. Then the water travels from the roots through tubes called xylem vessels. Water reaches the leaves of the plant and escapes through small holes called stomata, which open when the plant needs to cool down. This process is called transpiration and is similar to how people (and some animals) sweat. Carbon dioxide also enters the plant through the stomata.
Processing water is more complicated in animals and people, although it's also similar in a lot of ways. Water that you consume is absorbed in the upper small intestine through osmosis. It enters the bloodstream and is transported all over the body. Unlike plant cells, however, animal cells do not have cell walls. This is why animals have circulatory systems -- otherwise, our cells would absorb water and salt until they swelled. Our circulatory systems move water around our bodies and remove it as needed through sweating and urination.
A few animals, like a microscopic organism called the tartigrade, can go without water for an extraordinary period of time. If the tartigrade's environment doesn't have enough water, the animal goes into a life without water, called anhydrobiosis. Sugar takes the place of water in its cells, making it impervious to extremes in temperature. Its metabolism lowers, and the tartigrade stays at this barely alive state until it has enough water to really live again.
Some plants have also found unique ways to live with little or no water. One way is a variation of photosynthesis called Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) photosynthesis. In CAM photosynthesis, a plant stores carbon dioxide as acid and keeps its stomata closed during the day to save water (evaporation happens at a slower rate at night). It can even keep its stomata closed at all times if conditions are especially arid. Cacti use CAM photosynthesis to survive the extreme heat and drought of the desert.
Next, we'll look at how the hydrologic, or water, cycle functions.
Water vapor that ends up in clouds eventually condenses into water droplets and precipitates as rain, sleet, hail or snow.
Pete Turner/The Image Bank/Getty Images
The Water Cycle
The water cycle is the continuous movement of water in and around the Earth. As previously mentioned, water never really goes away -- it just changes form. The sun drives the entire water cycle and is responsible for its two major components: condensation and evaporation. When the sun heats the surface of water, it evaporates and ends up in the atmosphere as water vapor. It cools and rises, becoming clouds, which eventually condense into water droplets. Depending on the temperature of the atmosphere and other conditions, the water precipitates as rain, sleet, hail or snow.
Some of this precipitation is captured by tree canopies and evaporates again into the atmosphere. The precipitation that hits the ground becomes runoff, which can accumulate and freeze into snow caps or glaciers. It can also infiltrate the ground and accumulate, eventually storing in aquifers. An aquifer is a large deposit of groundwater that can be extracted and used. This runoff also comes from snowmelt, which occurs when the sun and climate changes melt snow and ice. Finally, some of this runoff makes it way back into lakes and oceans, where it is again evaporated by the sun. You can learn more about the water cycle in How the Earth Works.
Water that falls to the ground and stays in the soil ends up evaporating and retiring to the atmosphere. But groundwater, which is the major source of our drinking water, can accumulate in aquifers over thousands of years. Unconfined aquifers have the water table, or the surface where water pressure equals atmospheric pressure, as their upper boundaries. Confined aquifers often lie below unconfined aquifers and have a layer of rock or other materials as their upper boundaries.
In the United States, the oldest groundwater, known as fossil water, is contained in the Ogallala Aquifer. Lying below about 175,000 square miles (450,000 square kilometers) of eight states in the Great Plains, the Ogallala Aquifer stores about 2,900 million acre-feet (3,600 million kilometers cubed) of water [source: High Plains/Ogallala Aquifer]. The Ogallala Aquifer was formed between 2 and 6 million years ago, when the Rocky Mountain chain was forming. Because the climate of the Great Plains is arid, water in the aquifer is being used faster than it can be recharged. That's why some scientists refer to using fossil water aquifers as water mining.
Groundwater may also exist on other planets. Images from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft show what looked like gullies carved out by rivers of water on the surface of the planet. According to NASA, the water is probably 300 to 1,300 feet (100 to 400 meters) below the surface. Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, may also have subsurface water. As our need for water outweighs the Earth's supply, scientists wonder if we may one day mine for water on the other planets and moons in our solar system.
Water has a lot of unique and amazing properties that make it so important to life. They're why we're constantly looking for better ways to obtain and conserve it. In the next section, we'll look at these properties and learn more about water itself.
A water strider demonstrates surface tension.
Steve Maslowski/Getty Images
Water Properties
Lots More Information
Related ArticlesMore Great LinksSources
• "The Chemistry of Water." Chemistry Tutorial, University of Arizona, January 28, 2003.
• Cossi, Olga. "Water Wars." New Discovery Books, 1993.
• "Dehydration -- Why is it So Dangerous?" Rehydration Project, August 6, 2007.
• "Green Plants as Organisms." BBC.
• "Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality." World Health Organization.
• High Plains/Ogallala Aquifer.
• Hoversten, Paul. "Groundwater May Be Source for Erosion in Martian Gullies." NASA, December 6, 2006.
• Jespergen, Kathy. "Safe Water Should Always Be on Tap." On Tap Magazine, National Drinking Water Clearinghouse, University of West Virginia, Spring 1997.
• Mullen, Leslie. "Extreme Animals." NASA Astrobiology Institute.
• Ojha, Ghanashyam. "Buddha Boy in Nepal Goes Missing Again." All Headline News, March 9, 2007.
• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.,3352,en_2825_293564_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
• Schirber, Michael. "The New Mystery of Water." LiveScience, December 1, 2004.
• Shultz, Jim. "The Politics of Water in Bolivia." The Nation. January, 28, 2005. http://www.thenati
• Sutherland, Ben. "Water shortages 'foster terrorism.'" BBC, March 18, 2003.
• Swanson, Peter. "Water: The Drop of Life." Northwood Press, January 1, 2001.
• "Water Facts & Trends: World Business Council for Sustainable Development." World Health Organization.
• "Water: How Much Should You Drink Every Day?" Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, May 23, 2006.
• "Water, Sanitation and Hygeine Links to Health." World Health Organization, 2004.
• "Water Use in the United States." United States Geological Survey.
• "Where is Earth's Water Located?" United States Geological Survey. August 28, 2006.
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Annies Remedy - Herbs for Self Healing
• medicinal herbs A-Z Medicinal Herb Chart Over 450 traditional medicinal herbs and plants are profiled along with detailed herb descriptions, common names, botanical names, medicinal uses, folklore, and references from the leading herbalists of today and ancient times. Use the alphabetical herb chart to find information on a specific herb or plant you are interested in learning about, and learn about the healing properties and actions of medicinal plants.
See Herbs
See Herbal Remedies
American Herbal Thanksgiving
thanksgiving cornicopia
The celebration of Thanksgiving is a celebration of the early American colonists survival in a new and dangerous land. Each year we celebrate not only their triumphs, but also give thanks for our own. They brought precious seeds and cuttings of herbs and medicinal plants with them on the perilous sea voyage and many European plants were naturalized in the colonies. Early American settlers learned the uses of local plants and herbs from Native Americans and this combined herbal lore carried them through those first dark years and formed the basis of uniquely American herbal traditions. The colonial garden provided food for the larder, dyes to brighten for homespun clothes, savory herbs for the pot, and medicinal plants that served in good stead in a time where doctors were scarce and pharmacies non-existent. The garden also provided a bright solace for the soul in an otherwise hard existence, and flowers and herbs were grown not just for utility, but for their beauty as well.
As the leaves turn and mornings begin with frost we celebrate the harvest with feasting and family. Savory herbs such as parsley , sage, rosemary and thyme are the culinary stars of the Thanksgiving celebration. The recent Halloween jack-o-lantern pumpkin now provides the makings of creamy pies and custards. The kitchen is redolent with the heady aroma of spices - cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove studded oranges. Walnuts and hazelnuts, rich in fats, minerals, and vitamins, still claim a high place in the holiday tradition even though modern life has dulled the memory of how they helped our ancestors survive the deprivations of winter.
Thanksgiving is as much about feeding the soul as the body. Enjoy.
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Atanu Dey On India's Development
The Freedom to be Offended
- W. Somerset Maugham
The story is pretty simple. A Danish newspaper, Jylland-Posten, published in September 2005 a dozen cartoons depicting Muhammad after a writer complained that nobody dared illustrate a book he was writing on Muhammad. The newspaper pointed out “that the drawings illustrated an article on the self-censorship which rules large parts of the Western world. Our right to say, write, photograph and draw what we want to within the framework of the law exists and must endure – unconditionally!”
It took some time but the predictable is happening.
“The editor of “Jyllands-Posten”, Carsten Juste, and the cartoonists who did the 12 illustrations have received several death threats, say RSF and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Juste has hired bodyguards to protect his journalists, and the cartoonists have gone into hiding. Similar threats have been made against “Magazinet”. [See the International Freedom of Expression article for some details.]
Many Islamic countries have withdrawn their diplomatic staff from Denmark, besides demanding that the Danish government apologize for the insult to Muslims and to punish the newspaper editor and the cartoonists. The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Rasmussen, declined to meet with the ambassadors from 11 Islamic nations saying that he had no control over what the Danish press published and further that he had no wish to have such control.
Mr. Rasmussen’s stand contrasts sharply with the craven lack of support from any of the leaders of the liberal democracies of the world who would talk very loudly about freedom of expression from the comforts of their own home.
Expressing oneself freely within the confines of the law and without duress is one of the cornerstones of liberal societies. That freedom, like the notion of self-ownership, is non-negotiable. There cannot be and must not be any attempt at censoring of any views and their expression provided it does not violate the law of the land.
The Danish government understands that point and as long as the newspaper has not broken any Danish law, they are powerless to censure those responsible for the publishing of the cartoons.
Now it is undeniable that millions of Muslims are offended. Just as it is the right of the Danish to exercise their freedom of expression granted to them by their society, the Muslims are free to be offended by whatever they wish to be offended by. Irrespective of how many people take offense at something, the right to express oneself within the limits set by the law of a society cannot be trampled upon.
Muslims have taken offense because Islam forbids the depiction of Muhammad or Allah. Muslims are bound by this restriction but non-Muslims living in their own liberal lands are not since they are not governed by Islamic laws. Attempting to impose Islamic restrictions on non-Muslims living in secular or non-Islamic states is silly and pointless.
My position is that the freedom of expression is an inalienable human right. Societies that deny this right are despotic, barbarian, and regressive. And people who don’t value the full exercise of the right to free expression are not fully evolved.
Societies impede their own progress when they tamper with the right to free speech and expression. The Christian church barbequed quite a few free-thinkers in its day and tried to shut up a lot more. Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilie come immediately to mind. What these two said was offensive to Christians.
Of course, one may argue that those matters dealt with views on the natural world, and not about artistic freedom to caricature religious leaders. I don’t see the material difference between the two. Freedom to speak and write freely cannot be based on the content of the expression.
Certainly, it is not hard to find someone who will be offended by the most innocuous of objects. Piglet (of Winnie the Pooh fame) is no longer allowed as a decoration on one’s desk in one county in the UK because it could offend Muslims who consider pigs to be unclean. Not just objects, even symbols offend some. Every now and then, some group or the other takes up a call to ban the symbol sacred to the majority of Indians, the swastika. Why? Because the Nazis had used it.
My advice to anyone who is offended by the lawful expression of free speech is simple: don’t watch, hear, or read whatever it is you find offensive. Nobody is forcing you to read or watch you find offensive. Reach for the remote and switch the channel. If you cannot find the channel you want, start your own channel. Or newspaper. Or whatever. But for the sake of sanity, keep your sensibilities to yourself if you find free expression offensive.
{Go to The Freedom to be Offended — Part 2}
Related links: Where’s the anger? (Albion’s Seedling) The comments are revealing as well.
This cartoon about Piglet is priceless.
An old item from Nov 2003: “BC” cartoon seen as a slur on Islam. This one is pretty unbelievable.
• Parvati
“My position is that the freedom of expression is an inalienable human right. Societies that deny this right are despotic, barbarian, and regressive. And people who don’t value the full exercise of the right to free expression are not fully evolved.” – I think that societies and human beings who have no idea how to respect another religion are despotic, barbarian and regressive. Right to freedom of expression is not the be-all and end-all of life. Life is more important than this right. Understanding others and being sensitized to other people is of foremost importance in this world full of a billion different ideas.
There are certain things people are willing to kill for – to you it might be the right to freedom of expression, to the next person it might be his dedication to his religion.
A wife might be willing to give up her right to this freedom for the welfare and harmony of her family. Same goes to the world as a whole. At least where religion goes, people should know when and how to express their opinions.
Within the law of a society and right to freedom of expression – the combination of these two things itself is a joke. In which case make the law of a society such that such foolishness as in Denmark doesnt repeat itself or such dastardly breaking upof the Babri Masjid as an expression of the anguish of Hindus over not being able to have a proper full fledged temple for Sri Ram doesnt ever happen in any other country. Freedom of expression doesnt mean stupidity, or a hardened desensitized nature or such arrogant narrow mindedness as evinced by the journalist of the paper…
• Sahil
Atanu, you discuss the Swastika and the fact it is sacred to many Indians. But in the context of free speech and expression, sanctity is irrelevant; even the Nazis can use it to express themselves. When interpreting the law, people too often get trapped in the morality of the situation. I was offended by the caricatures. They were dispicable, yes; illegal, probably not.
Atanu’s response: Yes, the swastika is sacred to Indians. And it is a symbol of Nazi oppression to Jews. Jews can lump it if they don’t like Hindus using the swastika as a symbol of good health and fortune.
That is what it is all about. Symbols and their interpretations depend on the people who imbue the symbols with meaning. Insisting that you don’t use a symbol that is offensive to me is at best silly. If I don’t like the symbol that you use, I am free to go find some other symbol that I want to use. My insistence that you stop using some symbol merely because I go ballistic when I see that symbol is imposing my will on you. My imposing my will on you is not consistent with your freedom.
• Nath
Agreed. The tough part is choosing where exactly to draw the line between legal and illegal.
Freedom of speech is not limitless. To use a cliched example, you can’t walk into a crowded movie theatre and shout ‘Fire!’. You can’t publicly defame another entity. The primary purpose of free speech (in democracy) is to allow balanced assessment of a government’s policies without fear of retribution, in order to allow people to make an informed decision.
The Muhammad cartoons are not slander. They don’t create stampedes in movie theatres. Frankly, I don’t even see what’s so offensive about them. However, there’s no denying that they have caused significant harm in Denmark and elsewhere. Should the cartoonists be punished? Of course not — they did nothing illegal. Should there be laws preventing this sort of thing from happening in the future? I hope not, but a case could certainly be made for them.
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• Dreamweaver
I guess by the same standard I can burn the Indian flag outside India, or as the Arabs did, boycott Danish goods. So why the furore?
Atanu’s response: Yes, that is right. Freedom of expression includes the freedom to express oneself by burning flags — they are symbols just like words are symbols. You may need to re-examine your understanding of why a symbol cannot be used. Burning flags to show disgust with something should be protected speech.
One should be free to burn whatever — including the flag — provided that it is one’s property and if the burning does not impinge on the other person’s right to clean air.
• Mihir
Good piece Atanu.
A pov from freedom of speech perspective:
This sort of reaction is certainly not restricted to the Muslim world. Sans the extremism, anything offending we find against the Hindus, we will certainly make a huge outcry about. Of course no death threats would be involved. We would sign petitions over petitions which is a democratic way of going about it. But the question is why do we get offended so easily?
Remember the incidents like certain offensive scenes in Eyes wide shut which had Sanskrit mantras in the background, Indian gods on toliet seats, and other much minor other incidents?
I have always wondered why we tend to take anything we see in the foreign media so offensive? Is it because we cannot ever see such things happening in India? Why is not the population in the western world not offended by some cartoons we print in our newspapers slandering Bush or even burning effigies or flags of public folks of the western world? Are westerners able to take criticism/humor much better than asians? Do Asians perceive freedom of speech differently than westerners? Is the western world too insensitized to the eastern world and vice versa? Is it religion?
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• Anurag
Well, most things that could be said about this have been said. Tolerance, or sentivity, of intolerance is certainly not acceptable in a liberal society. As a free individual, the cartoonists are well within their rights to print watever the heck they like, as long as it is within the laws of the land. Anyone heard the mullahs in Iran and elsewhere openly calling Jews the “sons of pigs” and wat not, from the pulpit no less. I don’t see any demonstartions there to be sensitive to other cultures. Wat is right for them, ain’t right for others, that it? Shameless!
• Sharad
There are two issues here that seem to be intertwined in this controversy.
1) The freedom of speech angle, which the Danish newspapers seem to be harping on. I think it isn’t about that at all. Full Freedom of speech that these newspapers are talking about is not in any of these countries constitutions. Germany and France have laws in the books that criminalize anti-Semitic speech. Try painting a swastika for fun in a wall in Berlin.
2) Freedom from Consequences: You can say what you want, it is my freedom to get offended by what you are saying. It can also be my choice to ‘teach you a lesson’. So don’t complain when I organize a boycott. People in the middle east not buying Danish dairy products aren’t muzzling free speech, they are making sure that there are consequences to free speech.
The whole issue was set up for controversy. It is a naive editor who would not have expected death threats from the Mullahs. Those threats would have predictably caused other Europeans to scream ‘Look how backward those Mullahs are’ (they are) and by extension the rest of the Muslim world.
That was precisely the motive. There wasn’t any sacred ‘freedom of speech’ motive behind those cartoons.
There was no intention of having any rational debate on the issues on hand, it was just a shrill call for the crazies on both sides to crawl out of their woodwork.
• sarat
i hav been reading ur articles for quite some time now..good to find liberals like u. completely agree with u. in my mind the question of freedom is simply unarguable. its a basic and fundamental right and ignoring this will only lead to more misery. organised religion based on fear of retribution and the resultant mob mentality is and sadly will be a major bane for the world at large.
• Sameer
I guess a lot has been said about this issue. I saw one of the cartoons that depicted Mohammad as a terrorist with a bomb in his turban. I don’t see how that is different than the anti-semitic statements made by the Mullahs in Iran. It shows how the cartoonist views the Muslim world.
European nations routinely condemn the statements by the Mullahs, but I don’t see similar expressions of condemnation about that (particular) cartoon.
Drawing those cartoons isn’t illegal and the paper had all the rights to publish them. But doesn’t that one cartoon (or may be some others too) depict a rash generalization that all Muslims are terrorists. Doesn’t it perpetrate a stereotype that is probably accepted by many Europeans?
Defending the freedom of expression is fine. How about condemning hatred? You want to draw cartoons of Mohd. or Allah, fine! But is it OK if those cartoons spread hate too! By that logic Nazi literature and all other hateful works should be OK too.
• Rachel
Well-said, Atanu! :-) This issue has been getting a lot of play in the blogosphere, and I’m pleased that you’ve weighed in on it so wisely.
• GetStucco
“If a nation or an individual values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too.â€
-W. Somerset Maugham
And for this reason above all others is the neocon notion of a Free Iraq fatally flawed. For Islam and freedom are diametrically opposed by their very natures, and Iraq is an Islamic society.
• GetStucco
This is a beautifully written piece, and you are a hero of freedom. Keep up the good work, and beware of the enemies of freedom who might try to thwart your efforts.
• GetStucco
nath said…
Please do tell what that case would be? To protect societies against the backlash of repressionists who would happily revoke the right of free expression?
I am an American. There are many elements of American culture which I personally find deeply offensive — Howard Stern, Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh, and the Fox News Network come immediately to mind. But nonetheless, I would come to the immediate defense of each and every one of these offensive individuals’ (or corporation’s) right to free expression. I can’t stand any of them, and I don’t ever watch or listen to any of them except through second-hand accounts, but my personal freedom of expression is nonetheless inexorably bound to theirs.
• http://anon anon
One question, where are securalist in India when you need them ?
These secularist were up in arms when Hindus took offense to MF Hussain painting Goddess Saraswati nude. Where is Javed Aktar, Shabana azmi today ? Why are they not fighting for freedom of speech. Freedom is not a one way street.
• Ravi
A well written, balanced post. I wish I could write like this. But then, I’d have to think like this, right? Glad we have you in blogosphere….
• spek
Freedom does not mean do anything you want, without recourse. Why not yell at an old woman on the street–or beat up a disabled person? We have the freedom to. But with that freedom comes responsibility, and ideally a balance of right, wrong and the sensitivities of the world at large. By saying that this is not right or insensitive or even plain dumb, is not infringing on anyone’s right–it is simply the difference between right and wrong. When people go on about how important freedom is, they sometimes forget what freedom is. Being strong isn’t about pressing weights–just like having freedom isn’t about saying whatever you want whenever you want without thinking about the world around you.
• Aditi
The debate over these cartoons and outrage misses a fundamental point – while millions of muslims have taken offence , the people who are burning buildings and creating mayhem are mostly poor marginalized young people – they have few opportunities and no voice. The only way they can make themselves be counted is by rioting on the streets, and they are easy pray for doddering hate mongering clerics.
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• ijaz khan
You have written a long lecture on freedom of speech, which almost everyone will agree to. But that’s not the issue here: the question is whether racist views are being passed off in the pretext of freedom of speech.
Articles criticing muslims faith are printed practically everyday and in every magazine across the world. If anything, almost every community in the world spends more time analyzing the muslims rather than themselves :-) But muslims are not objecting to any of those articles.
This was a specific case of intentionally provoking muslims with racist and offensive stuff. It came at a time when Denmark right wing groups had grown rapidly with the newspaper that published the cartoons itself being a christian right wing supporter.
Note that this controversy cannot be compared to the toilet paper one as this was an intentional provocation, not accidental. A closer comparison to the toilet paper controversy was that of Nike using muslims scriptures on their shoes.
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November 26, 2014
Homework Help: 8th Grade
Post a New Question | Current Questions
8th grade pre algerbra
problem solving investigation: draw a diagram problem: kelly is using 3-inch square tiles to cover a 4-foot by 2-foot area the tiles are 0.5 inches tall if the tiles were stacked on top of each other to create a tower, how many inches tall would the tower be?
Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 7:44pm
8th grade
Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 1:39am
8th grade
A panel of four light switches can be set in 2^4 ways. A panel of lfive light switches can be set in twice this many ways. In how many ways can five light switches be set? I got 2^4=16 16x2=32 Is this right. If not can someone help?
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 7:07pm
8th grade
Data plotted on a graph results in a line that slopes upward from left to right. This graph tells you that a)when one variable increases, the other variable decreases. or b) when one variable increases, the other variable increases?
Monday, October 11, 2010 at 7:16pm
what is the 8th continent?
Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 5:07pm
algebra 8th
-4.7-(-4.7) = 0 ???
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 9:29pm
algebra 8th
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 9:16pm
8th grade
if the scale of a map is 1/4inches = 1 miles. the distance between two cities on the map is 3 1/4inches. what is the acutal distance ,in miles,between the two cities.
Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 11:44pm
Those familiar with the story Animal Farm Please help me come up with a thesis for the prompt: Napoleon Continues to announce new rules that seem less than desirable. The animals seem confused and somewhat annoyed, yet none protest or dare to speak the truth. What do you think...
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 8:34pm
in triangle abc, angle c is a right angle, AC=8,Bc=15 and AB=17 a.find Sine a b.Find cosine A c.Find Sine B d. Find COsine B E. the measure of angel A f. the measure of angela b Can u tell me the answers and how to do it. Because im in 8th grade
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 5:58pm
valedictorian speech topic?
I'm supposed to write an end-of-the-year reflection of my middle school years(valedictorian speech).. help? my teacher choose me to write the speech, almost like a valedictorian speech... its supposed to be describing "my educational experience of 6th, 7th, and 8th ...
Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 5:57pm
8th grade
1 methods of controlling fullness. 2 what is fastening. 3 uses of fastening. 4 pictures of methods of controlling fullness. 5 what is controlling fullness.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at 3:04pm
8th grade
warren is going to use the $26,200 in his savings account to buy a new car. The car he plans to buy costs $24,244.33 plus sales tax, which is 4 1/4%(fractions (0.0425). How much money will warren have in his account after buying the car and paying the sales tax?
Friday, April 23, 2010 at 10:38pm
find my grade average
-10% of my grade *82 -20% of my grade *100% *100% *100% *100% *100% *100% *100% *100% *82% -30% of my grade none -40% of my grade *76% reply as soon as possible. thank you!!!!
Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 6:11pm
8th grade
write each radius from the problem situation as a power. radius of 8-inch drumhead: r = radius of 18-inch drumhead: r = radius of 16-inch drumhead: r =
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 8:57pm
Math 157-1
Use the data in the grade-distribution Use the data in the grade-distribution table below to construct a circle graph showing the distribution of grade types in Ike’s class. Grade Frequency A 2 B 8 C 11 D 2 F 1 How would the graph change if there were twice as many of ...
Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10:01am
classroom instruction
Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 10:37pm
Hi. My name is Samantha. I'm in the 8th grade. Lots of people have been talking to me abou specialized high school. Can you please give me some information on specialized high school(I mean like what are the good and bad things obout specialized high school)? And can you ...
Friday, February 5, 2010 at 7:29pm
8th grade algebra
A train load of cars and trucks is en route to an automobile dealer for whom you work. Before they arrive, the dealer receives an invoice showing a total of 160 vehicles. Unfortunately, the part of the invoice showing how many of each kind of vehicles has been torn off and ...
Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 8:30pm
8th grade math
Carlos and maria drove a total of 258 miles in 5 hours. Carlos drove the first part of the trip and averaged 53 miles per hr maria drove the remainder of the trip and averaged 51 miles per hr for how many hrs did maria drive
Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 7:39pm
8th grade
Laura is training her pet white rabbit, Sugar, to climb up a flight of 25 steps. Sugar can hop up one or two steps at a time. She never hops back down, only up. How many different ways can Sugar hop up the flight of steps? PLEASE HELP!!!! I'M TOTALLY LOST!!!
Monday, January 18, 2010 at 9:18pm
1st grade Math Fair
My school is planning a Math Fair. Each grade will compete with same grade team members. The rules are: TO make it fun and use Al. math strands . The problem is I dont know where or how to begin this project. Can anyone help?
Friday, January 1, 2010 at 12:30am
8th Grade Social Studies
I'm sorry, I know that you really can't give out answers but I've been trying to figure this out for a couple hours so I'm posting it anyways. (-_-') The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the authority to a. bring criminal charges against a ...
Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 11:13pm
physical science 8th grade
Copper has 2 known isotopes: ^63CU atomic mass= 62.9298 and ^65 CU atomic mass=64.9278. The average atomic mass of copper is 63.546 amu. Calculate the fraction(percent) of each of the 2 isotopes of copper
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 5:34pm
Use the data in the grade-distribution table below to construct a circle graph showing the distribution of grade types in Ike’s class. Grade..Frequency A......2 B......8 C......11 D......2 F......1 How would the graph in Exercise 7 change if there were twice as many of ...
Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 4:34pm
8th grade
Can you write an essay of the great wakening as told by a colonist that explains why at least one figure was popular (ig: George Whitefield), explains why someone of influence has ability to persuade, explains themes of great awakening and applies themes of great awakening to ...
Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 11:12pm
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 10:52am
8th grade
At a faculty costume party, each teacher from transylvania Middle School came dressed as his or her favorite creepy creature. The teachers arrived one at a time, and when a new teacher came in, each of the teachers already there lined up at the door and shook hands with the ...
Monday, October 26, 2009 at 4:44pm
8th grade math
An airplane flies from New Orleans to Atlanta at a rate of 320mph. The airplane then returns at a rate of 280mph. The total travel time is 3 hours. What is the flying time from New Orleans to Atlanta?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 11:37pm
8th grade math
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 11:35pm
8th grade
Lori wants to go to the beach on saturday but she's not sure if she has enough gas in her car to drive there and back home. The beach is 77 miles from Lori's house but the car gets about 28 miles per gallon. How many gallons of gas does Lori need to have in her car to ...
Monday, October 19, 2009 at 11:47pm
8th grade physical science
A student measured the mass of an object and obtained the following results: 10.1 g, 11.0 g, and 10.5 g. The actual mass of the object was 10.6 g. a. What should the student report as the mass of the object? My answer: The student should report the mass as 10.5, because that ...
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 3:34pm
8th grade science
the length of a piece of string is known to be exactly 9.84 cm. two students measured the string. student A used a ruler marked in centimeters and got a measurement of 10 cm. student B used a ruler marked in millimeters and centimeters and got a measurement of 9.8 cm. how ...
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 1:51pm
8th grade - science
the length of a string is known to be exactly 9.84cm. two students measured the string. student A used a ruler marked in centimeters and got a measurement of 10 cm. student B used a ruler marked in millimeters and centimeters and got a measurement of 9.8 cm. which student'...
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 10:20am
8th grade math
Light travels approximately 5.87 X 10^12 miles in one year. This distance is called a light year. Suppose a star is 2 X 10^4 light years away. How many miles away is that star? Please help with detailed steps to solve problem. Thanks.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 12:34pm
8th grade math
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 5:09pm
8th grade
According to the CIA fact book there were 1018057384 internet users in 2005. The same source states that in 2005, Canada had 22 million internet users. What percentage of internet users in 2005 were canadian? Give the answer in standard, word, expanded form and scientific ...
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 9:03pm
8th grade
You complete a project for your social studies class. There are 3 parts to the project, worth a total of 100 points. You get 50 out of 50 points on part A, and 23 out of 25 points on part C. The total score you received is 93 out of 100. How many points did you get on part B?
Monday, August 24, 2009 at 1:52am
Algebra 1- 8th Grade
According to the 1990 Census, the population of the United States was 2.49 x 10^8. The cost of taking the census in 1990 was 2.6 x 10^9 dollars. How much did the census cost per person in the United States?
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 9:52pm
Language Arts
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 10:03am
8th Grade Algebra
To make the Chinese dish "dragon's beard noodles," fold a 5 ft. strand of dough in half. Stretch the dough back to its original length so that two thinner strands are formed. Repeat this folding and stretching process over and over to produce increasing numbers ...
Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 2:59pm
8th Grade Algebra
You know how to solve quadratic equations using algebra, graphs and the quadratic formula. Sometimes one method of solving is more convenient than another method. Describe how you would solve each equation. Give reasons for you answers. A) 16x^2 = 1600 B) x^2 - 350 = 0 C) x^2...
Monday, March 30, 2009 at 9:34pm
8th Grade Algebra
10) a. A recipe for pizza dough says to use a 10 in. by 14 in. rectangular pan. Jake only has a circular pan with a 12 in. diameter. If Jake makes the pizza in his circular pan, will the crust be thicker or thinner? Explain. b. Suppose Jake wants to make a round pizza that is ...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 8:16pm
8th grade history project
I am doing a history project on marketing inventions from the 1800s. I have to create a poster that includes a catchy slogan for a factory system. (remember that it is from the 1800s.) If you could help give me some ideas that would be great!!! thank you so much! If possible, ...
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 9:00pm
Science (atoms) 8th grade
Speeds up or slows down? By stirring a gas in a liquid, its solubility ____________ the dissolving process. High or low? A gas's solubility is is faster in a liqud when under __________. How do the methods of speeding the rate of solution for dissolving a solid in a liquid...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 4:30pm
8th Grade Algebra
These are extra credit questions, and I just want to know how to solve them. 1) The sum of two-digits of a two digit number is 14. If the number represented by reversing the digits is subtracted from the original number, the result is 18. What us the orinal number? 2) If 27 is...
Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 12:20am
8th Grade Algebra
Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:49pm
8th Grade Algebra- Answer Check
Solve each system of equations, give the solution and state whether there are no solutions or many solutions. 1 )3x + 8y = 1 7x + 4y = 17 Answer: (3,1) 2) -3x + 5y = -7 9x + 2y = 38 Answer: (4,1) 3) 7r + 3s = 13 14r - 15s = -16 Answer: (1,2) 4) 2x - 7y = 42 4x - 14y = 64 ...
Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 8:47pm
8th math(Algebra)
what is 8a+b=1 8a-3b=3
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 6:36pm
8th Grade Space and Earth Science
I have two questions about my study guide for my science test tomorrow. Thank you for any answers that I can get! How does the atmosphere give evidence for divine design? How can a satellite telephone user communicate if radio waves reflect off the ionosphere? Perspiration ...
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 9:44pm
8th grade algebra
You see a firefighter aim a fire hose from 4 feet above the ground at a window that is 26 feet above the ground. The equation h=-0.01d^2+1.06d+4 models the path of the water when h equals height in feet. Estimate, to the nearest whole number, the possible horizontal distances...
Sunday, February 1, 2009 at 12:24pm
8th grade
People can be left-handed, right-handed or ambidextrous. The number of boys in Canadian secondary schools who are left handed is about 1/7 the number of boys who are right-handed. About 11% of boys are left-handed. Write and solve an equation to determine what percent of boys ...
Monday, January 26, 2009 at 7:52pm
8th grade Math
Megan has at most $1500 to invest. She plans to invest some of the money in a long-term CD at 6% and some of it in a short-term CD at 3%. She wants to earn at least $75 in interest per year. Write a system of inequlites to represent the situation, and use it to find all of the...
Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 4:17pm
8th Grade Algebra: Answer Check
Find the length of the 3rd side of each right triangle. 1. 8^2+15^2=c^2 Answer: c=17 2. 5^2+b^2=13^2 Answer: b=12 3. 9^2+13^2=c^2 Answer: c~15.81 Simplify. Assume that all variables are nonnegative. { this means square root 4. {12 Answer: 2{3 5. 2{75 Answer: 10{3 6. -3{72 ...
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 10:42pm
8th Grade Algebra-Radicals:Answer Check
4. 3ã11 + 4ã11 Answer: 8ã11 7. 7ã2 - 2ã8 Answer: 1ã2 ?? 8. ã48 + ã75 Answer: 9ã3 9.(3ã10) Answer: 19 + 6ã10 10. ã27/64 (...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 11:23pm
8th Grade Algebra-Radicals:Answer Check
Change each decimal to a fraction in lowest terms. 1) 0.4242.... Answer: 14/33 2)0.58 Answer: 29/50 3)0.14 (Repeating sign over both numbers) Answer: 14/99 Write each expression in simplest form. ( means that it is inside a square root. 1. (54 Answer: 3(6 2. (98 Answer:(14*(7 ...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 10:45pm
8th grade
2 cylinders are proportional the smaller cylinder has a radius of 4 centimeters, which is half as large as the radius of the larger cylinder. the volume of smaller cylinder =250 cubic cemtimeters. what is the volume of the larger cylinder?
Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 11:22am
8th Grade Algebra1
I don't understand this question, so if anyone can answer it, that would be great! We are doing motion problems, so as you probably know, the formula is d=rt. (distance equals rate times time.) We have to make a chart to answer the following question... A roller coaster ...
Friday, November 7, 2008 at 7:06pm
3rd grade
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at 12:58am
Friday, October 3, 2008 at 4:54am
8th grade math
the sum of three intergers is 193.The smaller two are consecutive intergers and the larger two are consecutive even intergers.What are the three intergers?
Monday, September 22, 2008 at 10:05pm
8th grade
Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 6:00pm
8th grade
Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 11:12pm
8th Grade Algebra
To find the image length, of a 4-foot-tall object in a spherical mirror with a focal length of 2 feet, L=4(2/o-2)^2 can be used, where 2 is the distance, in feet, of the object from the mirror. What is the image length of the object when it is 1.5 feet away from the mirror?
Friday, August 22, 2008 at 7:01pm
8th Grade Algebra
Friday, August 22, 2008 at 6:57pm
Business studies
Hi, my question involves listing assets and liabilities for week ending 14th of January for a plumbing company. The plumber has bought some tools on the 8th but is not paying for them until the 23rd. Would I need to list the tools as a fixed asset (as they benifit the company)...
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 12:59pm
A school has 6th, 7th and 8th period Social Studies classes. One student from each class will be chosen to represent the school in an essay contest. The 6th period finalists are Mike, Sara, Luis and Ed. The 7th period finalists are Ben, Eric, and Sandy. The 8th period ...
Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 9:50am
English Expression
Friday, April 18, 2008 at 12:25pm
Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 12:26pm
Science 8th grade please check (revised answer
Mr. Jones went to his doctor because for the past few days he has been having frequent burning uriation. The doctor preformed a urialysis. This was done by have the patient void into a collection container. The urine was cloudy and yellow in color. There was an unusual ammonia...
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 5:46pm
working with data
Sunday, February 24, 2008 at 4:45pm
8th grade math
Your uncle is three years older than your aunt. The product of their ages is 3190. What are their ages? I know the answer is 55 and 58. But I can't come up with the correct formula or equation to get the answer. I've tried 3(A+3)=3190. It doesn't come up with the ...
Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 9:52pm
Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 5:19pm
math - 8th grade
use the numbers one to nine, each one only once. now multiply a two digit number by a three digit number and get a four digit answer using each of the digits, 1-9 each only once. 12 x 345 = 6789 of course that isn't a true statement though.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 11:10pm
Question: algo menos de moda que pantlaones de cuadros Answer: Unas faldas armarillo moda que los que pantalones de cuadros This one really confused me - and it is my last one. Do you accept 8th grade students for private tutoring in spanish thanks.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 7:49am
A = {a1, a1 + d1, a1 + 2d1, …}, B = {a2, a2 + d2, a2 +2d2, …}. Investigate whether A + B and A x B are arithmetic or geometric sequences. If an arithmetic sequence is identified, state its common difference. If a geometric sequence is identified, state its common ...
Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 2:30pm
Is concrete a heterongeneous or homogeneous mixture? Your exact answer here:ciber00/8th/matter/sciber/matter.htm
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 9:12pm
8th grade technology
what are good sites to study for technology final exams? This site may help you.ol/staff/whip/8thgradeproftests.htm However, your best preparation is go study your text and your notes and any handouts your teacher has given you.
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 5:50pm
physics-energy conservation
Tuesday, May 8, 2007 at 4:41am
wat is a corresponding angle.............. in the math 8th grade is really most of the test goin to be angles In triangles, it is the angle between two specified sides. It also refers to tha angles formed when one line cuts through two or more parallel lines, as in www....
Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 9:27pm
Math - 8th grade
We are just starting this section, and I'm confused...Please help me understand how to solve this inequality: (one fifth r is less than two) 1/5r < 2 Also, simplify: (the #s are exponents) z3 . z3 x12/x3 By 1/5r you mean r/5 or 1/(5r)? z^3 . z^3 = z^6 x^12/x^3 = x^9 If ...
Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 8:17pm
math / linear programming
Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 6:44pm
i'm researching stonehenge for my 8th grade gifted class. where can i find a website that will show me how to build a replica of it?ages/0002-Stonehenge-Restored-plan/
Monday, December 11, 2006 at 6:27pm
science (8th grade)
Which of the following is not a characteristic of a crystal? a. The arrangement of the atoms in a crystal determines its shapes. b. A crystalline structure is always geometric. c. Crystals are classified according to their mineral content.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 9:04pm
give the demensions of rectangles with the perimeters of 70 feet and length-to-width ratios of 3 to 4, 4 to 5, and 1 to 1. Ok, the perimeter is 70 and perimeter = 2(length + width) The ratio is length:with=3:4 so length = (3/4)width 70 = 2(length + width) =2((3/4)width + ...
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 at 1:54am
Chemistry Numerical
The half life period of a radioactive element is 27.96 days. Calculate the time taken by a given sample to reduce to 1/8th of its initial activity
Thursday, November 20, 2014 at 6:00am
java programming
Monday, November 3, 2014 at 2:12pm
The 4th term of an AP is 6 if d sum of d 8th and 9th term is -72 the common difference is
Saturday, November 1, 2014 at 9:36am
Monday, October 27, 2014 at 6:47pm
What is the wavelength of a photon having a frequency of 71.6 THz? So I know 1 THz = 10 to the power of 15 Hz And c= 3 x 10 to the 8th and h= 6.63 x 10 to the -34th
Friday, October 10, 2014 at 2:51am
Sunday, October 5, 2014 at 7:17pm
Saturday, October 4, 2014 at 8:58am
algebra 1
Friday, October 3, 2014 at 8:03am
a car cover 100 m in 5th second and 120 m in 8th second during its motion ?calculate the acceleration and distance covered in 20th second?
Friday, September 19, 2014 at 2:41pm
Friday, September 12, 2014 at 11:29am
Friday, September 12, 2014 at 11:15am
Wednesday, August 13, 2014 at 2:43pm
Saturday, August 2, 2014 at 7:14pm
The 8th term of a g.p is -7/32 fine it's common ration if its first term is 28
Sunday, July 6, 2014 at 9:18am
I'm an on-going 8th grader, and I'm taking a class for Algebra 2. What should I expect that is different from Algebra 1? P.S. I've taken Geometry online.
Sunday, June 8, 2014 at 11:13pm
Post a New Question | Current Questions
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Lower Manhattan
Manhattan History
The name Manhattan (“hilly island” or possibly “place of intoxication”) is from the Algonquian languages of the earliest known inhabitants of the area. Legend has it that the island was purchased from the natives for $24 in beads and other such trinkets. The first European discovery of Manhattan is generally credited to English explorer Henry Hudson sailing for the Dutch, who first entered Upper New York Bay on September 11, 1609, and sailing up the lower Hudson River, anchored off the tip of northern Manhattan that night. However, the earlier Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano explored New York harbor in 1524, and a few months later so did the Portuguese Estevan Gomez; the latter also recognized the Hudson River (calling it the Rio de San Antonio), and both, in all likelihood, saw Manhattan island while in New York Harbor.
The island was settled by the Dutch in 1624.
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Edition: U.S. / Global
Stuck Antenna Hinders Jupiter Mission
Published: April 17, 1991
The main communications antenna on the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft has failed to unfurl properly, threatening to limit severely the scientific mission's ambitious plans to explore the giant planet and its moons.
Flight controllers said yesterday that they were mystified by the malfunction, which apparently left the 16-foot-wide dish antenna only partly and unevenly deployed. But they said they had not given up hope that the mission could be saved, either by repeated deployment attempts or by sending a communications relay satellite to orbit Jupiter to assist the crippled Galileo. Project Manager Is Optimistic
Scientists are counting on the billion-dollar spacecraft for a wealth of detailed discoveries about Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, and its intriguing moons. Jupiter and its moons were viewed in passing by the two Voyager craft more than a decade ago. If the automated, three-ton spacecraft fails, there will be no other exploration of the outer solar system in this decade.
As trouble-shooting engineers analyzed data from the spacecraft and considered possible solutions, Franklin O'Donnell, a spokesman at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said, "There's a fair amount of optimism that it is correctable."
Dr. William J. O'Neil, the Galileo project manager, said in a telephone interview: "We're going to get on top of this. I'm pretty sure that we'll get the antenna open, because we've seen other cases of antennas temporarily hung up that responded to subsequent exercising."
The surface of the antenna is made of gold-plated molybdenum wire woven into a mesh that is stretched across 18 graphite-epoxy ribs, much like an umbrella. The furled antenna had been stowed behind a sun shield since Galileo's launching in October 1989. Dr. O'Neil said an analysis of data indicated that a possible snag in the mesh or some stuck ribs had caused the antenna to open halfway on one side and only one-quarter of the way on the other.
The trouble occurred Thursday afternoon as Galileo was cruising 37 million miles out from Earth, headed toward the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Because of its size and other circumstances, Galileo is taking a circuitous route toward its planned rendezvous with Jupiter in December 1995. It has swung by Venus and Earth to pick up a boost from gravitational energy and is to make another pass of Earth in December 1992 before finally heading all the way out to Jupiter.
Flight controllers are able to send commands and monitor spacecraft operations through two small antennas, which have been deployed since the beginning of the mission. These antennas could also transmit a limited amount of scientific data. By recording much of the data and transmitting it slowly, Galileo could manage to return the scientific results of a rendezvous with an asteroid this October and of an instrumented probe it is to send into the dense Jovian atmosphere.
But only the large antenna is capable of transmitting the voluminous data and many photographs Galileo should be collecting when it orbits Jupiter and makes repeated flights by the planet's four major moons.
The deployment, driven by two electric motors, was supposed to take less than 10 minutes. But after 15 seconds, flight controllers noted electrical currents increasing substantially, as if the motors were laboring. Then the radio signals that were expected to confirm full deployment never came.
Dr. O'Neil said another attempt would probably be made next week to use the electric motors to "coax the antenna all the way out." The operation could be repeated several times, as long as there appeared to be no risk of damaging the antenna. The motors, as well as other systems, are functioning normally, engineers said.
If this fails, controllers might try again when the spacecraft flies back closer to the Sun for its next encounter with Earth. This would warm the craft's exterior, the temperature change possibly loosening the metal mesh and ribs. Or it may be that colder temperatures might be just the thing. When Galileo is far out in the asteroid belt, engineers said, the motors can be switched on again. If some of the ribs had stuck together the cold might free them.
Another idea circulating among engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is, if all else fails, to dispatch a satellite to Jupiter to act as Galileo's communications relay to Earth. If it was small enough the satellite could travel a direct course and arrive at Jupiter soon after Galileo's own arrival.
Officials at the laboratory said this was just an idea that has not been formally proposed to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. But they added that if the alternative was a failed mission to Jupiter, building and launching the rescue satellite might be worth the cost in the eyes of planetary scientists.
Chart: "Still Furled" A 16-foot dish antenna on Galileo designed to transmit data from the spacecraft's exploration of Jupiter has failed to unfurl. The antenna is gold-plated molybdenum wire mesh stretched across 18 graphite-epoxy ribs. High-gain antenna for communication with Earth. (Source: NASA)
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The Http Gem*
Gem Version Build Status Code Climate Coverage Status
*NOTE: this gem has the worst name in the history of SEO. But perhaps we can fix that if we all refer to it as "The HTTP Gem". Entering that phrase into Google actually pulls it up as #4 for me!
The Http Gem is an easy-to-use client library for making requests from Ruby. It uses a simple method chaining system for building requests, similar to libraries like JQuery or Python's Requests.
Add this line to your application's Gemfile:
gem 'http'
And then execute:
$ bundle
Or install it yourself as:
$ gem install http
Inside of your Ruby program do:
require 'http' pull it in as a dependency.
Making Requests
Let's start with getting things:
>> Http.get("")
That's it! The result is the response body as a string. To obtain an Http::Response object instead of the response body, chain .response on the end of the request:
>> Http.get("").response
Making POST requests is simple too. Want to POST a form? "", :form => {:foo => "42"}
Want to POST with a specific body, JSON for instance? "", :body => JSON.dump(:foo => '42')
Or have it serialize JSON for you: "", :json => {:foo => '42'}
It's easy!
Adding Headers
The Http library uses the concept of chaining to simplify requests. Let's say you want to get the latest commit of this library from Github in JSON format. One way we could do this is by tacking a filename on the end of the URL:
Http.get ""
Http.with_headers(:accept => 'application/json').
This requests JSON from Github. Github is smart enough to understand our request and returns a response with Content-Type: application/json. If you happen to have a library loaded which defines the JSON constant and implements JSON.parse, the Http library will attempt to parse the JSON response.
Shorter aliases exists for HTTP.with_headers:
Http.with(:accept => 'application/json').
Http[:accept => 'application/json'].
Content Negotiation
Curb Compatibility
The Http gem provides partial compatibility with the Curb::Easy API. This is great if you're transitioning to JRuby and need a drop-in API-compatible replacement for Curb.
To use the Curb compatibility, do:
require 'http/compat/curb'
Contributing to Http
• Fork Http on github
• Make your changes and send me a pull request
• If I like them I'll merge them
Copyright (c) 2013 Tony Arcieri. See LICENSE.txt for further details.
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Whitworth Communications
For Immediate Release
March 20, 2000
NASA Thrusts Whitworth Scientist into Project Testing
New Electric Propulsion System for Spacecraft
If you think gas prices approaching $2 per gallon are steep, be glad you don't commute to work in the space shuttle.
It costs $10,000 per pound to launch payloads into space due to the high cost of rocket fuel and the inefficiency of existing chemical thrusters. But a Whitworth College professor will soon be working with NASA scientists on a new electric propulsion system that is 10 times more fuel-efficient than today's rockets and may make it practical to mount longer and more distant missions than ever before.
Richards Stevens, an assistant professor of physics at Whitworth, has been awarded a highly competitive fellowship that will allow him to spend 10 weeks this summer at a NASA laboratory working on a laser-testing system to improve the reliability and longevity of electric thrusters. The fellowship, sponsored by NASA and the American Society of Engineering Education, also will open doors for Whitworth students and faculty to participate in space science and research, Stevens said.
"The fellowship is designed to foster collaboration between NASA scientists and scientists at colleges and universities," Stevens said. "My research is in an area that is useful to NASA on this particular project, and I hope the relationships that come out of this collaboration will create funding opportunities to support our students and the growing research program at Whitworth."
Stevens will be helping NASA scientists develop a laser spectrometer for testing the rate at which key components in electric propulsion systems are breaking down. This is a problem that continues to plague electric thrusters despite the promise they have shown in NASA's recent Deep Space 1 mission and in several commercial satellite launches.
While traditional rocket thrusters create thrust by burning chemicals such as hydrogen, electric propulsion systems function by ejecting electrically charged particles out of a thruster at extremely high speeds. The process is relatively simple. An electrical power processing unit -- essentially a solar-powered battery -- is hooked up to the thruster chamber. The battery's positive electrode is connected to a porous plate in the center of the chamber while the negative electrode is connected to a similar plate at one end of the chamber. Particles of xenon -- a non-flammable, non-reactive gas -- are fed into the chamber. As the xenon ions pass through holes in the positively charged plate, they are attracted with great force to the negatively charged plate and are thrust out of the end of the chamber. The xenon particles are ejected at speeds greater than 60,000 miles per hour, creating 10 times the thrust of chemical propellants.
These thrusters are relatively weak, but they make up for it by running continuously. The little bit of force they generate adds up and, over the course of a year, can increase the speed of a spacecraft by up to 300,000 mph. The downside is that the continuous operation speeds up wear and tear on key components.
"The charged plates that generate the particle acceleration are essentially sand-blasted in the process," Stevens says. "That reduces the useful life-cycle of the thruster."
This is where Stevens comes in. His expertise in laser spectroscopy will help NASA develop a system for quickly testing the rate at which electric thruster components are breaking down. By shining a laser into the exhaust plume of a thruster and analyzing the wavelengths of light that bounce back, Stevens can detect and measure the amount of a particular material present in the exhaust.
"The idea is that NASA would like to test a number of different configurations in the thruster, but they don't want to have to wait two years to see which configuration, if any, actually slows down wear and tear," Stevens says. "Our technique allows us to determine right away whether a particular change significantly reduces the rate at which thruster components are breaking down."
Stevens is developing a laser spectroscopy laboratory at Whitworth to give his students the opportunity to tackle some of the same research challenges facing NASA scientists.
The electric thruster project is particularly appealing, he says, due to its potential to revolutionize space exploration. "If the moon turned lead into gold, it wouldn't be economically worth the effort right now because it costs so much to launch payloads into space," he says. "But if we can work out the kinks, ion propulsion systems re-write the rule book. Missions that were cost-prohibitive or impractical, such as sending humans to Mars, become possibilities. It's an exciting time and it's exciting to be a part of it."
Richard Stevens, assistant professor of physics, (509) 777-4508 or [email protected]
Related Links
Physics Home Page > Department Spotlight >
Whitworth Press Release Index
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Teaching Kids Programming
Getting kids interested in programming is a lot harder than it used to be. I was lucky enough to come of age during the PC revolution. My brother and I would carefully enter multiple pages of BASIC code from computer magazines, and then play games for weeks (making our own modifications along the way).
The problem now is the threshold of “interesting & engaging” has risen dramatically: today’s kids are surrounded by games and applications that have had hundreds of person years of development with gorgeous 3D graphics rendered in 1080p on huge color screens. They all carry personal supercomputers, are never off-line, have all the world’s information at their fingertips, and can download any of ~1 million applications (many for free).
Hello world” doesn’t cut it anymore.
How do we get kids engaged with learning software development, without them first having to spend a month writing code?
Minecraft is a fabulous starting point. (I think it will go down in history as one of the most brilliant games ever.) In our household, it’s the virtual neighborhood playground. Quincy will often get on to play with a bunch of friends after school (with TeamSpeak, so they can trash talk while building secret hideouts, chasing monsters, designing complex contraptions, or just pushing each other off cliffs).
But what’s most interesting is Minecraft is fully programmable with “redstone“, a set of digital circuit components. You can build a combination lock for your secret room (that blows up with the wrong combination), a completely automated train system, or even a scientific calculator or 8 bit computer. It’s fun, it’s play, and it’s something to show off to friends. And, it’s programming.
Taking the Minecraft a step further, there’s the physical world itself. Between Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and an ever-growing set of easy to use components and modules, it’s never been easier to sense and manipulate physical things with software. You want an alarm that goes off when somebody goes in your bedroom? No problem. Now, let’s enhance it so it only goes off when it’s your sister, and also sends a text message with a picture of the offender. You’re not downloading that from the app store!
Presale Resistance Syndrome (PRS)
I’ve written previously about presales (e.g. Kickstarter or Indigogo) as a tool for hardware startups. The model enables risky & crazy ideas that would normally never see the light of day. Most will fail, but some will get through and be hugely disruptive. For example, Pebble’s record setting Kickstarter campaign accelerated their business and more fundamentally, defined the entire smart watch category.
In spite of this, I still meet entrepreneurs that resist the idea. Objections vary, but include:
• Our target demographic does not line up with Kickstarter’s.
• OUYA had a very successful campaign, but still failed. We don’t want to be associated with that.
• It’s a lot of marketing work and distraction.
• We’d rather just raise equity financing [and not have to ship all those orders].
• We’ve launched products before; we know how to do this.
A presale is the marketing analogy to software testing: it tests product-market fit & demand before risking production investment. Of course, it’s not perfect: just like a “passed” test case is no guarantee a system works, a successful presale does not guarantee market success. But a failure is extremely telling, and a presale (like software testing) can be a powerful tool to de-risk the journey.
From Felony Technique to iOS Feature
Last year, I shared a letter I sent to US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, AUSA Stephen Heymann, and others that prosecuted Aaron Swartz. I felt (then and now) the government over-prosecuted this case, consuming significant prosecutorial & investigative resources and taking a negotiation stance way out of line with what Mr. Swartz actually did.
One of the key points in the government’s indictment was Mr. Swartz changing the MAC addresses on his laptop to avoid MIT’s attempts to block access. (Since MIT’s network is completely open, MAC address tracking and blocking is the only real way to shut someone down, short of finding the physical device.)
And now, Apple has announced that MAC addresses in iOS 8 will be randomized, a user privacy feature to thwart tracking. In other words, Apple has feature-ized the same technique Mr. Swartz used to avoid being tracked and blocked! There’s a certain absurdity here I can’t quite express.
To be clear: I’m not defending what Mr. Swartz did. But this is one small example why this case has gotten so much attention. When our prosecutors and law enforcement professionals don’t understand the technology (and don’t bring in experts that do) in complex cases, justice isn’t served.
If You’re Developing Any 3D Printing Tech, Don’t Buy A Stratasys Printer
I’ve written before about the risks of building on various Internet platform APIs (e.g. Facebook, Google, etc.) — many SDK agreements let the platform copy anything they want, while you have no recourse.
I just learned about a similar example in the hardware world. From Stratasys’s licensing agreement:
Customer hereby grants to Stratasys a fully paid-up, royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, transferable right and license in, under, and to any patents and copyrights enforceable in any country, issued to, obtained by, developed by or acquired by Customer that are directed to 3D printing equipment, the use or functionality of 3D printing equipment, and/or compositions used or created during the functioning of 3D printing equipment (including any combination of resins, such as combinations relating to multi-resin mixing, color dithering or geometrical resin-mixture structure of the resin) that is developed using the Products and that incorporates, is derived from and/or improves upon the Intellectual Property and/or trade secrets of Stratasys. Such license shall also extend to Stratasys’ customers, licensors and other authorized users of Stratasys products in connection with their use of Stratasys products.
In simpler terms, if (a) you own a product subject to this license, and (b) invent something related to 3D printing, Stratasys and all of their customers have a right to use your invention without paying you.
(Technically, it says that your invention must incorporate, or be derived from, or improve upon their IP. Given the breadth of their patents, they will argue anything in 3D printing meets this test. They also include “trade secrets”, which are, well, secret.)
I’ve seen some audacious licensing agreements, but this one takes the cake!
Tech Cases at the Supreme Court
I thought two recent Supreme Court cases were especially interesting.
In Riley v California, the court ruled police need a warrant to search your cell phone. The court recognized that your phone contains so much information, it deserves Fourth Amendment protection. Justice Alito made an interesting point though: if you’re arrested carrying your phone bill and your cell phone, the police can use the call log information on bill. But if you have just your phone, they need a warrant to get the call log. But, he conceded he does “not see a workable alternative”.
ABC v Aereo, Inc. is less straightforward. Aereo is the company that rents out tiny antennas in Manhattan, so users can stream broadcast TV on-line. The court found Aereo infringed the Copyright Act, which says that copyright holders have exclusive rights:
(Emphasis added). This “transmit clause” (2) was added in 1976 in response to cable TV, when Congress noted:
… the Committee believes that cable systems are commercial enterprises whose basic retransmission operations are based on the carriage of copyrighted program material and that copyright royalties should be paid by cable operators to the creators of such programs.
By using individual antennas, Aereo tried to thread the needle on the semantics of “public” and “perform” and most of the court’s opinion addresses that hair splitting.
This is a pattern we’ll see more and more: companies using new technology to go right up to the edge of the law (nobody imagined private antennas in 1976) and courts splitting legal hairs to (try and) sort it all out.
Y U No Kickstart?
The presale, best typified by Kickstarter, has become a powerful tool for hardware companies to sample market demand and fund initial manufacturing. It’s not the endless beta-test that software developers have, but it moves in that direction.
Presales are not perfect: a successful sale is not necessarily evidence of product-market fit. Witness Ouya, which had one of the most successful campaigns ever, shipped product as promised, but then failed to create a library of compelling games. In this case, users bought into a vision that turned out to be much harder to realize than expected (namely, enabling a vibrant, non-proprietary, micro-console game development ecosystem).
In other cases, a presale may find the hard-core early adopters, but may not represent the broader market. Kickstarter is littered with small, but successful products that never transitioned to mainstream.
However, a presell failure can be quite telling: if you can’t find (say) a few hundred or thousand buyers out of those bleeding edge adopters, how will you succeed in the main market?
Which leads to a very reasonable investor question: if your hardware startup has no presale plan, why not? There may be some good reasons, but that’s become the exception, not the rule. After all, a presale yields valuable insights, early in the product cycle, for a relatively low amount of work (and work you’re mostly going to have to do anyway). The process forces a lot of good MVP hygiene: entrepreneurs have to describe the value clearly, converge the features & design, and understand pricing & margins.
It’s certainly possible that Kickstarter is the strategy fad of the decade, much like India offshore development was 10+ years ago. But I don’t think so: the hardware presale is here to stay!
Prototypes As Sales Tools
I’m continually surprised by hardware startups that meet with potential investors, advisors, or partners and don’t bring hardware to show!
If you’re making something physical and it’s transportable, bring it to your meetings.
If you don’t have something to show, consider spending some time on a prototype that you can demonstrate. A “works-like” or “looks-like” prototype (or both) will go a long way to conveying your vision.
Why Spectrum Auctions are a Bad Idea
Unless you’re still on a flip phone, it’s hard to miss the demand for mobile wireless bandwidth. The FCC is under intense pressure to make more spectrum (frequencies) available for data services, repurposing underused spectrum and obsolete applications (e.g. old UHF TV channels).
As you might imagine, an exclusive FCC license can have significant commercial value. Given this, the primary method of making wireless bandwidth available (as directed by Congress) is to auction it off.
On the surface, this seems like a reasonable approach. Companies shouldn’t get a government “free lunch”, and we can certainly use the cash ($60 billion to date). Companies can’t mine Federal land without paying, and the patent system shows how exclusivity incents commercial investment. Also, a market-based system sounds appealing.
But if our goal is driving innovation and meeting growing bandwidth needs, it’s time to consider that the policy (as the primary way to allocate bandwidth) is seriously flawed.
Unlike oil drilling, spectrum is not a commodity: 1GB used today doesn’t mean there’s less tomorrow. And license exclusivity is not like patents: the wireless bidders are not providing a documented technological advance. Spectrum is a public right-of-way: what if your local government auctioned off public roads to the highest bidder? (To be clear: I’m not suggesting government wireless infrastructure.)
The real problem is that we’re stuck in the translation trap that often happens when we attempt to treat intangible licenses as physical property. The failure is becoming more clear: much auctioned spectrum remains underused. Winners generally have little obligation to actually do anything, and technology advances make it notoriously difficult to estimate future value and bid accurately. Licenses are for very long periods, not matched to the rapid pace of innovation.
As a result, licenses become expensive trading cards for large wireless companies, with lawyers and regulators involved with every exchange. Witness the arguing and posturing that’s between Sprint, Clearwire, and all the other wireless companies. (TL;DR: Clearwire’s WiMAX business hasn’t gone so well, Sprint wants to buy them for the spectrum value). Spectrum ends up stuck in a slow-moving, heavy-friction “market”, without being efficiently deployed.
We need a policy that removes friction, by making more unlicensed (or lightly licensed) spectrum available. The unlicensed bands are a source of significant innovation, starting with CB Radio, and continuing with cordless phones, the Family Radio Service, Wifi, and Bluetooth. Where else can you buy a 150mbit radio for under $3? We all switch our phones over to Wifi if it’s available (often provided by a $50 access point).
Our current spectrum policy is a vestige of the old “walled garden” mobile market, where the wireless carriers had exclusive control of the mobile device. We need a policy that’s aligned with the app-store world, with more spectrum available to innovators that don’t have lawyers and billions of dollars.
This is Not Your Father’s Software Industry
The software industry has seen major changes in the past 10 years, as the business of software has gotten increasingly efficient and friction-free. Expensive software stacks, primitive tools, million dollar server farms, and 50+ person development teams have given way to free, open source, high-quality tools, small teams, and rentable infrastructure. There are more skilled people creating software than ever before, and the market provides ways for the best talent to find opportunity well above an annual salary. And just when you think it couldn’t get any easier to create software, it does.
As friction goes away, things become much more fine-grained. You don’t need $5m anymore to start a company: a laptop and a cafe wifi connection will do. This enables an explosion of new projects, but with smaller teams and narrower ideas. The industry gorilla platforms fuel a “feature ecosystem”: are those icons on your phone “apps” or “features”? Viewed in person terms: a thousand 100-person software teams might now be 30,000 3-person teams. Software is no longer a sport of kings.
This effect, in turn, is flattening the industry. Most projects now start on nearly identical footing, often with many competitors or near-competitors. It’s like starting a civilization in a desert vs the mountains; there are far fewer strategic passes and valleys to control and extract disproportionate value from surrounding areas. It’s a maddening conundrum for entrepreneurs and investors: we’re all toting personal super computers, the world is bathed in wireless access, and there are millions & millions of mobile apps and Web sites. But why does it feel harder than ever to create a $1b software company? This is why.
Does this mean software’s dead? Not at all, not even close. When Marc Andreessen said “software is eating the world“, he got it exactly right. Software & computation are fueling a level of innovation, disruption, and advancement never seen before. But the way software companies extract value is evolving. In the beginning, software was sold as a product; then, rented as a service. Now, many companies use software to enable other services and business models.
However, for the reasons outlined above, companies who are “just software” will have a much harder time achieving scale. The real opportunities are in the next phase: embedded software. This might be software literally embedded in hardware, or cases where software value is embedded in (and enabling) some other business. For example, Amazon is on their way to being the world’s largest retailer, and is the largest software company that doesn’t sell any software. Uber is building the world’s largest virtual taxi fleet, and Airbnb has built the world’s largest vacation rental network.
My bet is that the next wave of disruptive software companies will look more like these examples, and less like Oracle, Microsoft, Facebook, or Salesforce.com.
This is not your father’s software business any more.
Game Consoles: The Last Remaining Walled Garden
The reddit user kmesithax wrote a brilliant comment yesterday about the realities of game console development, describing the tools and costs:
Well, no, there is no OpenGL or any graphics API for that matter, it’s all some stupid low-level hardware API that you have to tickle to get any 3D rendering to work.
So let’s say you get over your initial API shock, you have a decent handle on what all the little libraries do, and you wanna buy some development hardware now. Well, uh, okay. That’ll be anywhere from $2,600 (leaked 3DS devkit figures) to $10,000 or more (leaked Xbox 360/PS3 devkit figures).
This reminds me exactly of the pre-iPhone “walled garden” mobile app world, when you needed ~$10,000 for a development license for Qualcomm’s “BREW“. The original article “The Minecraft Test” (e.g. could your platform spawn the next Minecraft?) is a fabulous way to think about platform openness. (Also see Nate Brown’s post “Stupid, Stupid Xbox!!” for an insider critique).
The console platforms have completely missed the market transition to open, low-friction developer on-ramps, and it’s no surprise the console market is now anemic. In contrast, the new OUYA console (I have one on pre-order) has a fledgling, but very open SDK and just had a “game jam“. The OUYA is under-powered relative to current consoles, but I bet the openness will more than make up for that issue.
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Discuss as:
First tuberculosis drug approved in 40 years
Sirturo, known chemically as bedaquiline, is the first medicine specifically designed for treating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. That's a form of the disease that cannot be treated with at least two of the four primary antibiotics used for tuberculosis.
"The antibiotics used to treat it have been around for at least 40 years and so the bacterium has become more and more resistant to what we have," said Chrispin Kambili, global medical affairs leader for J&J's Janssen division.
The drug carries a boxed warning indicating that it can interfere with the heart's electrical activity, potentially leading to fatal heart rhythms.
"Sirturo provides much-needed treatment for patients who have don't have other therapeutic options available," said Edward Cox, director of the FDA's antibacterial drugs office. "However, because the drug also carries some significant risks, doctors should make sure they use it appropriately and only in patients who don't have other treatment options."
Last week, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen criticized that approach, noting the drug's outstanding safety issues.
"The fact that bedaquiline is part of a new class of drug means that an increased level of scrutiny should be required for its approval," the group states. "But the FDA had not yet answered concerns related to unexplained increases in toxicity and death in patients getting the drug."
More health news from NBCNews.com:
'Vomiting Larry' helps scientists analyze norovirus
Schoolkids need daily recess, pediatricians argue
Fungal meningitis: Michigan hospital leads fight against deadly outbreak
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Starting from rest, a 2.81 kg block slides 2.76m down a rough22.2 degree incline. The coefficient of kinetic friction betweenthe block and the incline is .495. The acceleration of gravity is9.8 m/s2. A) Find the work done by the force of gravity.B) Find the owrk done by the friction force between the block andthe incline. C) Find the work done by the normal force.
I already found the answer to part A. I didWgravity=mg(h0-hf) and got28.71774366 J, which is the right answer. The last two parts I'mnot sure what formula I'm supposed to use or why I'm supposed touse it. The answer to part B is -34.8335 J and the answer to part Csays "think about it!" so that doesn't really help.
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A detailed demonstration of how to make a cup speaker, including a discussion of materials needed.
The science behind the Cup Speaker activity, including how electromagnets work, and how in this activity the magnet pushes the bottom of a cup back and forth, vibrating the air and creating sound.
Our host, Stephanie Chasteen, shares some fun facts and activities having to do with the science of sound.
Learn how to build a version of a Brazilian instrument called the cuica, which demonstrates principles of sound. This podcast was created collaboratively in a teacher workshop at the Exploratorium.
This video captures the energy and excitement of traversing across the sea ice to the Offshore New Harbor Field Camp.
An introduction to the bee hummer, a simple musical instrument that sounds like a swarm of buzzing bees when you spin it around.
A detailed demonstration of how to make the bee hummer, including a discussion of materials needed, troubleshooting tips if your hummer isn't humming well, and a demonstration of how the instrument should be played.
The science behind this simple musical instrument, including the concepts of sound, vibration, and amplification.
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12 to 16 November 2012 Tech Universe Digest
Tech Universe: Monday 12 November 2012
• A SLOW READ: Scientists from the Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co Ltd in Japan have developed a slow-refresh LCD panel that can reduce the eye strain amongst those who watch displays for long hours. The specific technology reduces the number of screen refreshes needed to display a still image from 60x per second to 1x per second or less. The panel uses red, green and blue LEDs for backlighting. The researchers say the wavelength of this particular blue light isn’t harmful to our eyes, so that also reduces eye strain. It must reduce power draw too. Tech-On!
• SAIL INTO THE WIND: Conventional wind turbines have giant blades, are expensive and inefficient. The Saphonian from Saphon Energy has no spinning parts but rather a sail-shaped body. The wind is harnessed by a sail that follows a non-rotational back and forth motion. Pistons convert the kinetic energy into mechanical energy. That creates hydraulic pressure that can be stored or directly converted into electricity. A prototype was twice as efficient as conventional wind turbines at almost half the cost. I can see how the wind would push the sail back, but what allows it to come forward again? Saphon Energy.
• STACK UP THE BREEZE: The lazy turn of a ceiling fan can be quite relaxing, but the Exhale fan doesn’t use blades at all. Instead it uses a stack of rapidly spinning discs that move the air out to the sides by laminar flow. That circulates and mixes the air around the room, rather than just stirring the air beneath the fan. A gentle breeze all over the room. Indiegogo.
• STRAIGHT HIT: Bulky steel and lightweight Kevlar are both good at stopping bullets. But how about a thin and almost weightless fabric? Researchers at MIT developed a self-assembling polymer using rubbery layers for resilience, alternating with glassy layers for strength. Then they developed a technique for studying the effects of different kinds of impact. In scaled down tests the team found that head-on hits were absorbed 30% more effectively than edge-on impacts. Being able to effectively measure the effects of impacts is what may allow new materials to be developed. Just so long as the shooters aim straight on. MIT news.
• MATHS PLANET: Thanks to some very powerful statistical software astronomers have found a new potential habitable exoplanet around the star HD 40307. It’s a mere 42 light years away in the constellation Pictor. The software analyses exoplanets radial velocity data, in this case gathered from the Arecibo telescope. Who ever thought of explorers and discoverers would be folks who sit around doing maths? Planetary Habitability Laboratory.
Tech Universe: Tuesday 13 November 2012
• LET’S ALL SPEAK MANDARIN: It’s something of a dream to think of speaking in one language and having your words, in your own voice, be heard correctly phrased in another. So it’s startling to see a real-life demo. Microsoft used a technique called Deep Neural Networks to train more discriminative and better speech recognisers than previous methods. The system converts spoken English into text, much like dictation apps, but with greater accuracy. Then those words are translated in real-time into Mandarin and spoken aloud using sounds captured from the speaker’s own voice. It’s still not perfect, of course, but it feels like a step into the future. The Next Web.
• DON’T WASTE WASTE: There’s one resource that isn’t in short supply around the world: urine. Three teenage girls in Africa developed a generator that produces 6 hours of power for every litre of urine fed into it. Most people produce a couple of litres of urine per day. The device uses an electrolytic cell to extract hydrogen from the urine. The hydrogen is then purified with a typical water filter and fed into a cylinder of liquid borax to remove excess humidity. From there the purified hydrogen can power a generator to produce 6 hours of electricity. Couldn’t that revolutionise city or even household sewage systems! I wonder what the waste products are. Inhabitat.
Tech Universe: Wednesday 14 November 2012
• A LONG DRIVE: Sunita Williams, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, recently used a laptop to drive a robot in Germany. She was testing Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, an Internet for space. Problems with sending and receiving data in space include interruptions when craft are behind a planet or moon, solar storms, and of course delays as signals may need to travel long distances. The Curiosity rover on Mars, for example, receives signals direct from Earth, or sometimes via a satellite orbiting the planet. Interruptions and delays mean data can be lost. The DTN will take currently discrete items, such as the individual rovers, and build them into a network that can store data and send it on once a connection becomes possible. The Internet here on Earth has transformed how we do things. Doing the same for space is a new challenge. BBC.
• MUSIC TO THE EARS: We can quickly decide whether music we hear comes from a violin or a piano, thanks to timbre. But people with hearing loss can’t easily do that because hearing aids discard much of a sound in favour of the parts that convey speech. Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University studied sound and the way our brains process it. Then they devised a computer model that can accurately mimic how specific brain regions process sounds as they enter our ears. In tests, the model was able to almost perfectly pick which of 13 instruments was playing. The research could help improve hearing aids or lead to computer systems that are better at processing music. I bet music publishers wouldn’t mind a wider market. The Johns Hopkins University.
• LEND THEM YOUR EARS: To let us balance ourselves and hear sounds our ears convert mechanical energy into an electrochemical signal. They don’t produce much energy — it’s measured in nanowatts. Still, it’s enough to power a tiny chip that contains a 2.4-gigahertz radio transmitter. A team from MIT created the device and tested it on a guinea pig. The animal’s ear provided enough power to run the transmitter without damaging the guinea pig’s hearing. The researchers hope this finding could lead to implantable sensors and health monitoring devices. Did you ever think of yourself as a power station? Discovery News.
• FLIP THE SWITCH: It’s well-known that strobe lights can trigger seizures, but researchers at Stanford and Pierre and Marie Curie University in France found that pulses of light could also stop them. Tests on genetically altered rats targeted pulses of light to cells in the thalamus region of the brain. The light immediately stopped the seizure activity. The genetic alteration though may mean this approach would be too risky to try on humans. There are probably some people whose seizures are severe or frequent enough they’d be willing to give it a try. Technology Review.
• DUMMY SURGEONS: At the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Scotland trainee surgeons are practising surgical techniques on 3D models and animations instead of working on cadavers or dummies. The interactive system means students can work at their own pace and repeat any elements they want to work on. The system could also be used to help patients better understand their diagnosis and treatment options. The cadavers and dummies are sure to be grateful for the reprieve. Golden Jubilee National Hospital. prieve. Go
Tech Universe: Thursday 15 November 2012
• HOLD THAT POSE: Photos are just so flat and 2D. A shop in Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood lets you print out a tiny 3D doll of yourself. You hold a pose for 15 minutes or so while a technician scans your body. Then a realistic 10 cm figurine is printed that shows your features and the basic textures of your clothing and hair. So how much weight does that camera add to your image? io9.
• GROW A SPACESHIP: NASA’s turning to 3D printing to make small parts for its next heavy-lift rocket and to save millions of dollars at the same time. They’re using an M2 Cusing machine, built by Concept LaserSelective in Germany. The laser melting process uses a high-energy laser to melt metal powder in a designed pattern. The melted dust builds up in layers to create the parts. It’s a quick process, compared to conventional manufacturing. Because they don’t need welding, the parts are also stronger and more reliable, which means vehicles are safer. It must be rewarding too, to see parts being created in your own work area. NASA. Video:
• ESCAPE PORTS: Fish are an important food source, but it’s a challenge to catch only fish that are wanted and not all sorts of by-catch too. Although smaller fish should be able to escape through the mesh in nets the gaps are often distorted by the force of the water. What’s more the fish often can’t see where they could escape. The SafetyNet is a redesigned net to solve these problems. It contains escape ports — lit rings powered by battery or by tiny turbines. It also uses fish behaviour to help endangered cod escape through the bottom while allowing the intended catch to gather near the top. Reducing the weight of fish in the net also helps reduce fuel used by the fishing boats. It’s efficient all around. SafetyNet. Video:
Tech Universe: Friday 16 November 2012
• TRUE EXPLOSIONS: What do you do when your film script calls for a priceless car to be blown up? In the James Bond movie Skyfall the Aston Martin DB 5 explodes in flames, so the props makers created 3 precise copies using 3D printers. The car detail had to be as true to life as possible, so after printing using the plastic material PMMA the components were assembled, painted and had chrome added, along with bullet holes. The meticulous work paid off: one model was blown up, and another auctioned for $100,000. It must be a strange profession, doing your best work so it can be blown up. 3ders.org.
• BIKE WARMER: The Dutch like their bicycles, but it can be pretty chilly and icy in winter. So why not heat the bike paths? A test project in the Dutch province of Utrecht and the city of Zutphen will put pipes 50 metres below the bike paths. In the summer the pipes collect and store heat then release it in winter to warm the paths. The authorities aim to reduce the cost of ice and straw, and save money from fewer accidents. Mind you, it may be cheaper just to cover the paths. TreeHugger.
• ARE YOU IN PAIN?: People in a vegetative state may be awake sometimes, but have no perception of themselves or the outside world. This may be a result of an injury to the brain. Doctors recently used fMRI to scan the brain of one man in a vegetative state while asking him questions. One question was “are you in pain?”. His pattern of brain activity showed he was clearly choosing to answer the questions, and that he responded “no” to the pain question. The doctors say that means the man knows who and where he is, and that it’s a breakthrough for working with such patients. How powerful to be able to communicate via a brain scan when no other option is available. BBC.
• BED BUGS: Hospitals are full of germs, and it stands to reason that sheets and gowns would carry bacteria and other organisms. Scientists at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BarcelonaTech in Spain were able to eliminate infectious bacteria from medical textiles by treating them with nanoparticles and biopolymers. The process adds antimicrobial nanoparticles to the fabric that remain in place even through 70 washes. The treated fabrics should help prevent infections from spreading and so reduce the average length of stay. 70 washes is better than none, but that’s not many in the context of a hospital, surely. Phys.org.
• DON’T GET UP: Toyota’s human support robot is designed to help people with limited mobility do simple tasks around the home, such as picking up items from the floor, opening curtains, retrieving items from high shelves, and serving as a bedside assistant. The small, roughly humanoid robot is controlled from a tablet. It has a single arm, with a pincer for picking up objects and can extend to reach high shelves. Limited mobility … or the lazy. DVICE.
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