Replacing coal with a green technology that uses biomass and carbon capture and storage technologies could create 22,000 new jobs in the U.S. by 2050, according to a new study led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
These new jobs will be in forestry and transportation, they say.
In addition, the researchers believe that their proposed bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) method would also retain 40,000 existing jobs in the coal industry.
The research comes at a time when removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is deemed an important strategy to combat climate change, but many Americans fear the phasing out of fossil fuels, including coal-fired power plants, will result in widespread unemployment.
In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to the international goal of less than 2 degrees Celsius, the U.S. will have to move away from fossil-fuel based energy sources, including coal.
BECCS could help reduce the country's release of greenhouse gases.
Rather than using traditional fossil fuels, BECCS produces energy using biofuels while pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it underground.
BECCS works by collecting CO2 from large emission sources, such as power plants, and injecting it into underground geological formations while using biomass, like plant-based materials, as a source of fuel.
Supporters of this technology believe that 99 percent of stored CO2 is likely to stay in place for over 1,000 years.
Not only would BECCS help fight global warming, but the added advantage is the potential creation of 22,000 jobs in new sectors and the retention of 40,000 jobs in the coal industry.
To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed the major processes involved in the potential energy supply chains for the U.S. coal industry.
They looked at both the supply of sustainable forest resources for biomass, and the cost and design of infrastructure for transporting and injecting CO2 into appropriate geologic sites.
"We also took into account the fact that biomass must be grown and harvested in a sustainable way in order to be considered carbon-neutral and thus obtain negative emissions," Sabine Fuss, a researcher at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, said in a statement.
The researchers used a number of models in their analysis order to analyze data, and found that there would be substantial environmental and economic advantages from employing BECCS.
"In the ambitious attempt to limit global warming below 2 degree Centigrade, BECCS features as the dominant technology, yet it's been under considerable scrutiny for its unknown effects on the environment and society," Piera Patrizio, a research scholar at the IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The researchers used the U.S. as a model for the study because of its current economic, political and environmental frameworks.
"This study shows how investing in climate change mitigation actually eases the transition for coal workers, who would otherwise be confronted with abrupt job losses due to the coal fleet retirement by 2050," Kasparas Spokas, a doctoral candidate in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Princeton University, said in a statement.
The researchers acknowledge that their analysis has some limitations, in that it does not consider other low-carbon options like renewables and uses only a bottom-up supply-chain optimization for specific technologies, so the jobs created by BECCS could therefore vary.
Further analysis could focus on both socioeconomic and macroeconomic effects of transitioning from fossil-fuel based energy, the researchers said.


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Undercooked
By Ed Symkus
Having never seen the critically praised German film Mostly Martha, a bona fide art house hit in 2001, I was quite surprised to watch this treacly little American remake of it, thinking to myself, "How could they take something that was supposedly so good and ruin it so much?"
"There's no greater sin than to overcook a quail," explains Kate (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to her shrink in the opening frames of the film. She's the chef at 22 Bleecker, an ever-busy gourmet restaurant in Greenwich Village.
OK, so we know right away that she's a food snob, cooking for other food snobs. And we soon see that her kitchen is abuzz, with a crack crew banging out the meals, and Kate cracking the whip over them, taking time out once in a while to chill for a minute (literally) in the walk-in freezer. But hey, it's her life choice, and she loves it.
Cut to her sister, calling from her car, head cocked into her cell phone, talking to Kate, and talking to -- and turning around to look at -- her daughter Zoe (Abigail Breslin) in the back seat, all while maneuvering through the streets. Hello! You are a horrible driver. You should not be talking on a cell phone and looking backward while driving. You will die in a horrible accident.
No, we don't see the accident; we just see Kate get the call to come pick up the body and, by the way, become the new guardian of her niece, who should recover just fine.
And that might have made an interesting story, at least if it wasn't already done, poorly, in Raising Helen a couple of years ago. Besides, this is supposed to be a romantic comedy. But there's nothing romantic about a busy woman with no social life -- or social graces -- who gets up at 4:30 every morning to go to work and yells at customers if they have any complaints about their food.
Enter the second plot. While Kate takes time off to move Zoe into her home and get her set in school, restaurant owner Paula (Patricia Clarkson, not given much to do with the role), hires another chef to cover for her. So with bitchy, no-nonsense Kate away, the kitchen staff gets a happy treat by suddenly working under happy-go-lucky, smiling, singing Nick (Aaron Eckhart, the only good ingredient in this bad stew), whom Kate, upon her return, refers to as the "lunatic in my kitchen."
Here's what's supposed to make the story work: Nick, an up-and-comer, is a huge fan of the established Kate, and is thrilled to be working in the same kitchen as her. But she, assuming that he's after her job, immediately despises him.
So what do you think? Will she stop angrily snapping off the classical CDs he brings into the kitchen? Will he figure out the question he puts to her: "Why are you so mad at me?" Will they become an item? Is there any piece of predictable plot turn that isn't blatantly telegraphed?
But that's not even the major problem. Breslin, who proved herself to be a charming and talented actress in Little Miss Sunshine, is given only minimal dialogue; she spends the first part of the film silently pouting. Zeta-Jones is certainly a capable actress, but she just as certainly does not have the chops to pull off the 180-degree character turn that's required of her. She's pretty good as a foul-tempered workaholic. She's also pretty good as a happy, laughing love interest. But the really necessary scenes -- ones that would show how she morphed from one person into another -- don't exist in the film. She just changes.
Thinking back on that, it may not be Zeta-Jones' fault. The script regularly bypasses any character or story development -- it just lets plots change with no explanation. At one point, Kate and Zoe are getting closer. At another, when overworked Kate forgets to pick Zoe up at school, Zoe decides Kate is her enemy. In the next reel, they're pals again, skipping school and work to hang out together. This is called lazy, sloppy writing -- a claim that's proven when the same thing happens with the up-and-down, down-and-up relationship between Kate and Nick. Lots of results, no buildup.
There are two films about food out this summer. Ratatouille is a tasty delight. No Reservations is more like burnt toast and a rotten egg.
As streaming becomes our primary viewing method for new films, the line between TV and movies keeps blurring
With Pixar's latest feature Soul hitting Disney+, a look back at the animation studio's best
Our picks for the best films of 2020
Latest in Film News
WWII-set monster movie Shadow in the Cloud mashes up genres in intriguing but empty ways
By Nathan Weinbender
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a gentle, deeply moving ode to the power of kindness
By Maryann Johanson
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Ed Symkus

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Completely new, state-of-the-art building systems include a central building automation system and HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fire and life safety systems. 17 fully modernized passenger elevators and 2 freight elevators ensure efficient service. Double-paned windows maximize heating and cooling efficiency. Building amenities include a full-service concierge and messenger center for the convenience of tenants. A complete range of floor sizes offers full floor identity opportunities to tenants with varying space requirements. Multiple setbacks provide generous amounts of natural light and magnificent views looking north up Park Avenue, east to the river and beyond and south to Grand Central Terminal. Newly designed air handling systems allow complete tenant control of air conditioning and ventilation.


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Wednesday 10 Rajab 1444 - 1 February 2023
Get to know Islam
Books Articles
Principles of Fiqh
Jurisprudence and Islamic Rulings
Borrowing & Lending
Will the debtor be regarded as no longer liable if the government or bank waive his debt?
Publication : 19-08-2014
I am of understanding that I am punished if I do not payoff all my debt before I die. My question is am i still punishable if i do not pay off my debt but instead the government or bank write off my debt (if my assets do not cover the debt) after I die?
Praise be to Allah.
Firstly:
The Muslim should not be careless about the matter of debt, and he should not take on any debt except in the case of need. If he does take on a debt, then when he is able to pay off his debt, he should do so, without any further delay. If he is not able to pay it off, then he should leave instructions to his heirs or ask the creditor to let him off.
Muslim narrated in his Saheeh (1885) from Abu Qataadah (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) that he stood up before them and said to them: "Jihad for the sake of Allah and belief in Allah are the best of deeds." A man stood up and said: O Messenger of Allah, do you think that if I am killed for the sake of Allah, my sins will be expiated? The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: "Yes, if you are killed for the sake of Allah and you are patient and seek reward, facing (the enemy) and not turning away." Then the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: "What did you say? He said: Do you think that if I am killed for the sake of Allah, my sins will be expiated? The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: "Yes, if you are killed for the sake of Allah and you are patient and seek reward, facing (the enemy) and not turning away, except debt, for Jibreel (peace be upon him) told me that."
Ibn al-Jawzi (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
This hadith contains a warning about debt, because the rights of other people are a serious matter that prevents one from entering Paradise until they are fulfilled. At the beginning of Islam, the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) would refuse to offer the funeral prayer for one who had died in debt. All of that serves as a warning concerning the rights of other people, so how about if one wrongs them?...
It is preferable to avoid debt, because in most cases debts are only taken on for the sake of luxuries.
End quote from Kashf al-Mushkil min Hadeeth as-Saheehayn (2/150)
If a person takes on a debt for a good reason, and he intends to pay it off:
If he could afford to pay off his debt, but he died before it was due to be paid, or he was not able to pay it off, but he left instructions to his heirs to pay off his debt, then he has done what is required of him.
If he could not afford to pay off his debt, but he intended to pay it off, then there is the hope that Allah will pay off his debt for him to his creditor.
Ahmad (24455) narrated that 'Aa'ishah said: The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: "Whoever among my ummah takes on a debt then tries hard to pay it off, but dies without having done so, I am his wali (i.e., I am responsible for his debt)."
Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh at-Targheeb (1800).
Al-Bukhaari (2387) narrated from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: "Whoever takes people's wealth, intending to pay it back, Allah will pay it back on his behalf. Whoever takes people's wealth, intending to consume it (and not pay it back), Allah will destroy him."
At-Tabaraani narrated in al-Mu'jam al-Kabeer (1049) that Maymoonah said: I heard the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) say: "Whoever takes on a debt, intending to pay it off, Allah will pay it off on his behalf on the Day of Resurrection."
Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Jaami' (5986).
"Allah will pay it off on his behalf" means: He will help him to pay it off in this world or He will compensate his creditor in the Hereafter so he will be pleased. End quote.
Mirqaat al-Mafaateeh (5/1957)
At-Tirmidhi (1078) narrated that Abu Hurayrah said: The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: "The believer's soul is detained by his debt until it is paid off on his behalf."
Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh at-Tirmidhi.
Ash-Shawkaani (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
This indicates that it is encouraged for heirs to pay off the debts of the deceased, and it informs them that his soul is detained by his debt until it is paid off on his behalf. This applies specifically to the one who has wealth with which his debt may be paid. As for the one who has no wealth but died intending to pay off his debt, there are hadeeth reports which indicate that Allah, may He be exalted, will pay it off on his behalf.
End quote from Nayl al-Awtaar (4/30)
For more information, please see the answer to question no. 118124
Thirdly:
Bankruptcy does not lead to waiving of debt; rather the debt remains due until the person is able to pay it off, or someone else pays it off on his behalf, or the creditor lets him off.
If the government takes your property as collateral for the debt but it is not enough, so they wrote off your debt, then one of the following two scenarios must be the case:
1. This debt was owed to a specific person and was waived in accordance with man-made laws upon proof of bankruptcy; this debt remains in effect and is not waived, even if the court has written it off.
See the answer to question no. 127591
2. The debt is owed to the bank or the government, then they took your property as collateral but it was not sufficient to pay of the debt, so they wrote off the remainder, because you are unable to pay it off. In this case, you do not have to do anything, because the creditor has written off the remainder of the debt. But if they wrote it off unwillingly, rather it was done in accordance with the law of the land, then the debt remains due and must be paid off when you are able to do it, or you must leave instructions in your will that it be paid off, unless you are completely unable to pay it off. In that case, if your inability to pay it off is for a genuine reason then Allah will pay it off on your behalf, as mentioned above, and you will not have to do anything.
In fact, being certain that it is written off willingly in such cases is difficult or impossible, because the debt in this case is not something owed to a specific person who could give consent or approval willingly; rather it is owed to an organisation or body, in which case the one in charge does not think of the matter in such terms. Rather what usually happens in such cases is that they are handled in accordance with the law that applies to the lending body. Hence it is not possible for the bank manager or the like to waive the debt, even if he wants to do so, unless there is a law which allows that in such cases.
But if the debt is owed directly to the government or to a body that is owned by the government, and the debtor dies without having the means to pay it off, and the government writes off the debt, then it is waived and the debtor does not incur any sin or shortcoming, because it is his right over the government that it should help him in this situation: it should pay off the debt owed by one who is in difficulty from the public wealth, so how about if the debt is owed directly to it?
Al-Bukhaari (8/150) and Muslim (1619) narrated from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: "I am closer to the believers than their own selves. Whoever dies owing a debt, I will repay it, and whoever leaves behind wealth, it is for his heirs."
Al-Haafiz Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
Was this something that applied only to him, or is it a duty of those in authority after him? The more correct view is that it continues to be the case, but the paying off debts is only to be done from the public wealth allocated for that purpose.
End quote from Fath al-Baari (12/10). See also: Nayl al-Awtaar (4/31)
And Allah knows best.
If he bought a car by instalments and dies, will he not be forgiven until it is paid off on his behalf?
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text:
Shiite fighters from Saraya al-Salam, loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr take positions during a patrol in Abu Ghraib district, west of Baghdad, October 16, 2014.
Could Iraq's tribes provide the glue that keeps the country from falling apart?
Saddam Hussein tapped Iraq's tribes, which cross geographic and ethnic lines, to bolster his regime. Now some tribesmen are offering to help fend off the self-declared Islamic State.
By Dominique Soguel Correspondent
October 19, 2014 | Baghdad, Iraq
In recent weeks, the self-styled Islamic State has inched toward Baghdad, putting Iraq's army and government under increasing pressure and challenging their ability to preserve any semblance of a cohesive Iraqi state.
Backed by Western airpower, the Shiite-dominated security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga are fighting back against the Sunni jihadists.
But when it comes to reversing the dramatic IS victories in Sunni areas, some leaders of Iraq's influential tribes say they could prove a vital counterforce, at least until a proposed Iraqi national guard becomes a reality.
Sheikh Wasfi al-Asi, who heads a tribal council opposed to the IS, estimates that more than 20,000 tribesmen are now either in training or already fighting IS alongside Kurdish or government forces across Iraq.
"The number of volunteers is growing as a result of the negative conduct of IS in (their) areas," he says. But he stresses that regiments need to receive arms, salaries, and supplies in order to carry on.
Formed Aug. 6 and endorsed by the government in September, the tribal council groups some of the largest tribes of Iraq – including Al-Jubbur, which is scattered through central and northern Iraq and has Shiite members in the south. Mr. Asi belongs to the Al-Obaidi tribe, named after a noble family that traces its lineage to the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
So far, tribal regiments helped Iraqi forces retake several towns in Diyala Province in the east, where Al-Obeidi, Al-Jubbur, and Al-Azze tribes are engaged, and seize a strategic a border crossing to Syria. In Anbar Province, where IS has recruited among Sunni Arab tribes, four tribes are now fighting alongside Baghdad's forces. They have managed to protect the country's second largest dam but lost an army base near Hit in fighting that sent 180,000 Iraqis fleeing, according to the UN.
"They don't have the upper hand but they (the tribes) can play a very important role if decision makers know how to play the tribal card to achieve reconciliation," says Wathiq al-Hashimi, director of the Al-Nahrein Center for Strategic Studies in Baghdad.
The influence of Iraq's Arab tribal confederations has been waning for decades, particularly since Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003. In the 1990s, Hussein cut deals with powerful tribes in restive provinces like Anbar to avoid possible threats to his rule. Iraqi analysts and sheikhs say he was skillful at tapping the power of the tribes. After the 2003 US invasion brought Shiite Islamist parties to power, they tried to reduce the influence of Sunni tribal leaders, viewing them as allies of the former dictator.
Iraq's largest tribes stretch from north to south, and only a few are made up of a single sect or ethnic group. This diversity, tribal leaders insist, could be instrumental in bridging the country's crippling ethnic and sectarian divides, provided the government can harness their power.
'Tribes can be counted on'
Shiite Sheikh Hussein al-Shaalan of the Al-Khaza'il tribal confederation says tribes that mix Sunnis and Shiites, as well as Arabs and Kurds, help cement the country together.
"The tribes are the true geographic link connecting Iraq," he says. "You can leave them for decades to sow chaos, or you can make them part of the solution. Politically, they can support the process."
Sunni Sheikh Hassan Shwerid, a leader of the Al-Hamdani tribe long active in Iraqi politics, is even more optimistic. He believes "the sectarian problem can be solved in a matter of days" due to tribal links that transcend sect and ethnicity.
"The problems were solved in 2006 and 2007 through the Sahwa [Awakening]. With the leadership of the tribes, Iraq was freed of terrorists and militias all in one go," says Mr. Shwerid. "Today the tribes can again solve the security situation. When there is a strong army and the rule of law, the tribes can be counted on, they have the final word on the ground."
The United States leaned heavily on Sunni tribes during the "surge" campaign of 2006-2007 in a bid to defeat Al Qaeda. However, Shiite politicians, led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, subsequently cut off payments and protection to tribesmen and jailed some of their leaders, setting the stage for the current Sunni insurgency.
At a conference in Amman, Jordan, in July, Washington reached out to religious, tribal, and Baathist factions in a bid to revive old alliances and find a way out of the impasse in Iraq. The outcome was the removal of Mr. Maliki.
Today there are signs of cooperation budding across sectarian and ethnic lines in the face of a larger, common enemy – the Islamic State. A coalition of Sunni tribes and Shiite-dominated government forces successfully defended the Tigris River town of Dhuluiya, north of the capital. Sunni Shammar tribesmen helped Kurdish peshmerga boot IS militants from the strategic border crossing town of Rabia, next to Syria.
Maliki's replacement, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has pledged to give Sunnis and Kurds a larger share in the government. He recently ordered Iraqi Security Forces to stop bombing IS-controlled areas to avoid further inflaming Sunni anger.
On Oct. 11, IS claimed responsibility for suicide bombings that killed more than 43 Iraqis in the Shiite districts of Baghdad. The group has already infiltrated Sunni areas near the capital, like Abu Ghraib. And it remains firmly entrenched in its stronghold in Iraqi's second largest city, Mosul, and in much of Anbar.
Tribes' power diminished under IS
Some point out that in areas under IS-control the tribes are powerless to intervene. Instead, the loudest tribal voices opposing IS are in Baghdad, Erbil, or Amman. And even if many tribal elders are opposed to IS, Sunni youth with limited socio-economic opportunities and negative experiences with Shiite-dominated security forces have been largely sold on the insurgents' ideology.
"No tribal leader (inside Mosul) has dared to speak against IS," notes Zoheir al-Chalebi, a Mosul native and member of the national reconciliation committee in Baghdad. "The issue is that most of the tribesmen joined IS. Most IS members are the sons of the tribes, they are not the sons of doctors, professors, engineers, intellectuals, or officers."
A wildcard is Sunni Mufti Mehdi al-Sumaidai. The Baghdad-based cleric issued a fatwa last month calling for the creation of a separate force to protect Sunnis. Speaking at the well-guarded Umm Al-Taboul mosque on the outskirts of the capital, as walkie-talkies crackle in the background, Mr. Sumaidai claims to have the files of "130,000 volunteers" and an oath of allegiance from the tribes Janaba, Ghrer, Gharagul, Sumaidai, and Al-Qaysiyya.
Such a force is necessary, he says, so that Sunnis, rather than Shiites, take the fight to IS but also protect their own community from sectarian violence.
Those fears are not unfounded. Amnesty International on Tuesday released a report detailing sectarian attacks, arbitrary arrests and execution style-killings carried out by Shiite militias in Baghdad, Samarra, and Kirkuk in apparent retaliation against Sunni civilians for violence committed by the IS.
Warning of 'tribal feuds'
The cleric, who was arrested by coalition forces in 2004 after condemning the US-led military operation Fallujah, views renewed Western involvement in Iraq with skepticism. He warns of "tribal feuds and calls for revenge" in response to any Shiite militia attacks on Sunnis. And unlike Asi, he says he is consulting neither the new government nor coalition forces.
While Sumaidai's claim to have tens of thousands of volunteers ready to go is being viewed by some as posturing, it has raised serious concerns among anti-IS tribesmen. "We are afraid of any religious, bearded cleric who claims to have large numbers loyal to them," says Asi.
And while Asi would like to see each region of Iraq responsible for its own security, he argues against creating Sunni-only national guards, an argument he has relayed to the government and to Gen. (ret.) John Allen, the US envoy charged with building the anti-IS coalition. He recently visited Baghdad and met with tribal leaders there.
"If the national guards became a Sunni force comparable to the peshmerga and Shiite forces that are now present," he says, "then this means we are pushing Iraqi society toward partition and civil war."
Test your knowledge How much do you know about the Islamic State?
Test your knowledge Sunni and Shiite Islam: Do you know the difference? Take our quiz.
Focus Can the Iraqi Army regroup in time to repel the Islamic State?
Pentagon says it will take years to retrain Iraqi forces. Why so long?
Can Sunni recruits help a new Iraqi national guard take on the Islamic State?
Test your knowledge How much do you know about US-Iraq relations? Take our quiz.
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/1019/Could-Iraq-s-tribes-provide-the-glue-that-keeps-the-country-from-falling-apart


text:
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text:
Bosniaks in Albania (, ) are an ethnic minority living within the Republic of Albania.

Demographics
The Bosniak community of the Shijak area whose presence dates back to 1875 inhabits almost entirely the village of Borakaj and in the neighbouring village Koxhas they live alongside Albanians and form a minority. Bosniaks from these settlements have also settled in Durrës, Shijak and in 1924 some went and settled in the village of Libofshë where they have mostly become linguistically integrated.

History
With the emergence of the Great Eastern Crisis, in particular the events of the Herzegovina Uprising in 1875 Bosniaks from the Herzegovina Mostar area migrated and resettled in Northern Albania in the Shijak area. On October 13, 2017, Albania passed a Law on National Minorities that recognised nine minorities, including the Bosniak one. Despite the great isolation, the Bosniaks in Albania have preserved their language, culture and customs to this day.

Status
On October 13, 2017, the Albanian Parliament passed the Law on the Protection of National Minorities in the Republic of Albania. In it the Bosniaks were declared a national minority. According to the law, Bosniaks have the right to learn their own language (Bosnian) as part of the regular curriculum. In addition, Bosniaks in Albania now have the right to indicate their ethnicity in censuses.

Further reading

See also
Bosniaks
Demographics of Albania
Bulgarians in Albania
Macedonians in Albania
Serbo-Montenegrins in Albania

References

Ethnic groups in Albania
Muslim communities in Europe
Bosniak diaspora

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This sample application illustrates the MSXML 4.0 DOM API. This is a Visual C++ 6.0 Win32 console application that uses MSXML 4.0 to load a remote or local XML document, adds an attribute to the document's root element; then uses XPath to search for a node, if found, updates the node's value with the current datetime, else creates a new node and sets its value.
3. The above lines import the MSXML 4 type library, include the MSXML header file, and contain a tiny utility function to check the HRESULT value.
5. You'll notice that the main function simply calls some utility functions to load the XML document, update it and print an error if the document fails to load. These functions are declared and defined in a header file called Utils.h. Let's look at each function individually.
7. The above function simply uses the MSXML 4.0 DOMDocument (Msxml2.DOMDocument.4.0) CLSID to search the corresponding COM DLL in the registry. If it is MSXML4.dll, the method returns true, else it returns false.
8. The next function in the Utils.h is loadDocument. It creates MSXML DOMDocument instance using the version dependent ProgID and then loads the document. The method initializes the first parameter (pXMLDoc), and returns True or False based on if the document was successfully loaded or not.
9. Once the XML document is loaded in the DOM tree, the following function is used to add an attribute to the root element, and update/add an element under the root element.
10. The above method first gets the document's root element. It then adds/updates the ISBN attribute on the root node.
Then we use the XPath expression and selectSingleNode method to see if the node named LastSaved already exists as a child of the root element. If found, we just update its value, else we create a new node and attach it as a child to the root element.
When creating the new node (by calling createNode), we make sure to give the same namespace as the default namespace on the root element, so that the newly created node does not contain a blank namespace declaration, and in fact belongs to the document's default namespace.
(Document Object Model) features in C++.
to current date and time.
file using Internet Explorer to see the results.


For an extended time this year, the country has been experiencing cold weather that's quite unusual in these tropical islands. PAGASA pointed out that the reason why it's cold here is due to the presence of a cold front passing through the Philippines.
What actually is a cold front? "A cold front is defined as the transition zone where a cold air mass is replacing a warmer air mass."
The said cold front is giving Metro Manila and much of Luzon a colder temperature, with Baguio City reporting temperature readings approaching 6 degrees centigrade while villages in Benguet are wary of andap, local term for frost, that's enjoyed by tourists in this tropical country being a rare phenomenon in most parts of the Philippines, but harmful to Benguet's vegetable farms. The tail-end of the cold front is currently bringing rains and floods to southern Philippines particularly in Mindanao.
Benguet : besides Baguio City, there's Sitio Cada in Barangay Balili in Mankayan, Barangay Madaymen in Kibungan, Barangays Sinipsip and Natubleng in Buguias, Sitios Englandlad and Bosleng in Barangay Paoay, and Sitio Tuludan in Barangay Cattubo.
Barangay Mantalongon, Dalaguete, known as the "Summer Capital of Cebu"
The coldest place in the Philippine, as as claimed by many, is at the peak of Mt Pulag, the second highest mountain in the Philippines.
very interesting info. I've been to Pangasinan, a few towns before climbing the mountain to Baguio on the month of January and man, it does get cold and foggy !
I think most of the places you mentioned are probably on high elevation, hence the colder climate.
sana onte lang nasira sa mga vegies sa baguio..
it'a also cold here in Antipas Cotabato!! 18-28 degrees celcius..


text:
A Bridge Supreme: Connecting Humanism to a Liberal, Loving Christianity
by John Shelby Spong, 2016 Religious Liberty Award • 25 October 2016
Photo by Dick Snyder
John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal Bishop of Newark for over two decades before his retirement in 2000. As a visiting lecturer at Harvard and at universities and churches throughout North America and the English-speaking world, he is one of the leading voices for liberal Christianity, initiating landmark discussions on controversial topics within the church as an outspoken advocate for change.
Spong is the author of some twenty-five books, including Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World; Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism; Why Christianity Must Change or Die; and his autobiography, Here I Stand. His newest book, Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, was published in March.
On May 27, 2016, Bishop Spong was honored with the American Humanist Association's Religious Liberty Award at the AHA's 75th Annual Conference. The following has been adapted from his remarks in acceptance of the award.
I WOULD LIKE to thank all of you for your invitation both to address this gathering and for this honor. I am very pleased to be here.
As I walked in, I saw an interesting slogan. It said: "Good without a god." I would like to tell you that I was a bishop for forty years and I know it is quite easy to be evil with God. And I suspect the other alternatives are also that it is easy to be evil without God and good with God. So slogans do not always tell the whole truth. In the course of my life, I have had sixteen death threats but never by an atheist. I have never had a Buddhist threaten my life. The only people who have threatened my life have been true-believing, Bible-quoting Christians. They seem to have missed that part in the Bible that says thou shalt not kill, which I think is rather interesting.
I was born in the Bible Belt of the South. I grew up about one quarter of a mile from the house in which Billy Graham grew up. When I was a teenager, I delivered the Charlotte Observer to the Graham household for about three years. I am happy to tell you they always paid their bill and on time. But it was the same religious milieu. Billy Graham and my mother went to the same church. So it should not be surprising for me to discover that most of my prejudices I learned inside Christian churches.
The church in which I was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, taught me that segregation was the will of God. They taught me that men were by their nature superior to women. They taught me that it was okay to hate other religions and most especially the Jews. And they taught me that homosexuals were either mentally sick or morally depraved and they should be either cured or persecuted. The fascinating thing is that as they taught me these things they quoted the Bible to justify each deep, distorted prejudice. The Bible has sixty-six books, seventy-nine if you count the Apocrypha. And you can find something in there that you can quote for almost any situation imaginable.
Some years ago, I was the first religious person to be invited to deliver a lecture at the Hemlock Society (which now goes by the name Compassion in Dying). It's a wonderful organization, on whose board I served for a while. The reason religious people have never come to this understanding is that they seem to think that the issue of life and death should be left in God's hands and not put in any human hands. As I prepared for that lecture, I went through the Bible and I pulled out every sin, weakness, and flaw that, if committed by a human being, called for the death penalty. Folks, I want to tell you there would not be one of us still alive if we took the Bible literally.
The Bible says in Deuteronomy that if you are willfully disrespectful of your parents and talk back to them, you shall be given to the elders of the city and stoned until dead at the gates of the city. Raise your hands, please, those of you who would still be alive. The Bible also says that if you have sex outside your marriage, you should be put to death, but I will not ask you to raise your hands on that score. There were others, like, worshipping a false god. Well, who is going to define the true God? Is it going to be the pope? Is it going to be Jerry Falwell? Is it going to be the Ayatollah? Is it going to be Ian Paisley? No matter who defines God, somebody is going to be vulnerable to execution.
My favorite was the death penalty for having sex with your mother-in-law. How many of you knew that was in the Bible? How many of you ever heard anybody speak on that subject? How many of you have even imagined it? And the reason you laugh is that you just tried. You have got to be very careful when you begin to quote the Bible to justify all of your prejudices.
As I grew up in this church, I had to come to grips with all sorts of things that did not fit for me. One of the ways many people do that is to finally abandon the whole religious enterprise. For reasons I am not fully aware of, that was never the path I took. Instead I went more deeply into the religious enterprise and found a new level of meaning and a new level of understanding.
Let me go back to some of those prejudices for just a moment. First: "a man is by his nature superior to a woman." That is a point of view we have held in the Western world for a very long time. That is why American women could not attend college or own property in their own names until the nineteenth century. And in the life of the church, women could not be ordained because somehow the defective body of a woman meant that she did not bear the image of God.
Prejudices are rather irrational. Let me unload that one for just a moment: consider a man and a woman standing before you and begin to strip away from the man's body everything he has in common with the woman's body. It is about 99.9 percent. Strip it all away looking for where the image of God is. And you get down to that single identifiable male organ and you are forced to say, that is where the image of God lives. Is that not irrational? And yet for hundreds of years in the Christian church, this has been the argument for an all-male priesthood. They say it is a sacred tradition. But I think of it as nothing except an ongoing prejudice, one that embarrasses me and that I think should embarrass the Christian church.
Look at the battle we have had over gay rights in this country. By and large the Christian church has been on the wrong side of that battle, and again, the irrationality of the definition was amazing. The primary reason that people thought it was okay to be prejudiced against gay and lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people is that they assumed that these people had chosen this lifestyle. They even used the word "lifestyle." They assumed that they chose to be this deviant kind of person.
Well, I do not know of a scientist or a doctor in the developed world today who thinks that people choose their sexual orientation. How many of those of you who are heterosexual remember the day you chose to be heterosexual? I did not choose. I just woke up sometime between ages twelve and thirteen and suddenly girls did not seem obnoxious to me any longer. I did not make a decision about that. But I began to do really strange things like take baths and use deodorant and comb my hair and dress a little more neatly.
But if you and I do not choose our sexual orientation, I wonder why we have assumed that gay and lesbian people do—and that because they do, they are blameworthy. It is a rather amazing bit of ignorance. And yet look at how long it has been perpetuated in church, in society, and still in great pockets of this country.
Let me go to the prejudice that I think is most uniquely Christian. When I was going to Sunday school in North Carolina and being taught the Bible, I never once was introduced to a good Jew. There appear to be no good Jews in the Bible. Every Jew I met was dark and sinister and evil. They had funny names like Caiaphas, Ananias, Sadducees and Pharisees, and of course Judas Iscariot. You know, in all the time I was going to Sunday school, nobody ever told me that Jesus was a Jew. Somehow that escaped their notice. I looked at a picture of him and he did not look Jewish to me at all. He had blond hair and blue eyes and fair skin. I assumed he was a Swede. Judaism is the womb in which the Christian story was born. Judaism is our mother. And we have spent hundreds and thousands of years spitting on our mother.
Fortunately, that is changing. For example, a professor of the New Testament at Vanderbilt Theological School is a Jewish woman, Amy-Jill Levine. She is a magnificent scholar. And here we have a Jewish scholar teaching future clergy the New Testament. That is a sign of things to come. Géza Vermes is another great figure. He started his life as an Orthodox Jew, converted to Roman Catholicism, and later reconverted to Judaism. So he has looked at religion from all sides, and he has helped people understand the other point of view. And that kind of rapprochement is beginning to develop.
There are some things about the Bible I think humanists ought to know because I think they are important to the things you value. In the story of the judgment that only Matthew tells, the judge comes at the end of time and separates the nations of the world between the sheep and the goats. And then the judge tells them the basis upon which that judgment is being made. It has nothing to do with believing the creed. It has nothing to do with whether you have been baptized or confirmed. It has nothing to do with how often you have gone to church. The standard of judgment in the Gospel of Matthew is whether you have been able to see the holiness of God in the life of your fellow human being, even those who are "the least of these." Even those upon whom you have been taught to look down. That is a humanistic standard, and, I think, a profoundly religious standard at the same time.
Only one time in the New Testament does Jesus articulate his purpose or have his purpose articulated for him. That is in John's Gospel, written around seventy years after Jesus died. Once again, it seems to me that this is a place where humanist and religious people can find unity. Because Jesus says, "I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly." Nothing about being religious. Nothing about saying creeds. Everything about the quality of your life.
Photo by Carissa Snedeker
It seems to me that humanism is a philosophy of life that encourages us to be more humane. To be anti-humanist is to be inhumane. I, as a Christian, see my humanist brothers and sisters as my allies in the attempt to build a humane world where the humanity of every child of God will be totally respected.
When I see God or talk about God, I do not talk about the theistic supernatural old man in the sky. I talk about the experience. When I think of God, I think of life calling me to live, to live fully. I think of love freeing me to love, to love beyond my boundaries and beyond my barriers; free to give my love away wastefully, never stopping to count the cost. Finally, when I think about God, I think about the ground of all being that gives me the courage to be all that I can be.
The task of the Christian church is not to convert the world to some religious ideology. The task of the Christian church is to free every person in this world to live more fully, to love more wastefully, and to have the courage to be all that they can be in the infinite variety of our humanity. I submit, my brothers and sisters, that that is not far removed from the ideals and the goals of the American Humanist Association. So I salute you as my allies in the attempt to build a more human and a more humane world. Thank you very much.
Excerpts from the Q&A
John Shelby Spong: I do have a rule. The first question has to come from a woman. And every other question after that has to come from a woman. I refuse to participate in the male attempt to silence the female voice in this country.
Q: Okay, you got your first woman. As a humanist, I've always stayed away from religion until I got exposed to Pope Francis. I really admire his stand and want to know how you relate to Pope Francis.
A: Without being negative, let me say I think anybody they elected would have been an improvement. I think they hit the bottom with Benedict XVI. He used to refer to homosexual people as deviant. I was doing a lecture at the law school at Marquette University and I quoted him. I was challenged by one of the professors who happened to be a Jesuit priest. He said, "That is not what Pope Benedict XVI means by deviant. He means that you have placed yourself in a position where you cannot reproduce." And I said, "Then all of your clergy are deviant, are they not?" That discussion did not go very far.
But I think Francis is a great and gracious human being. And moving that institution forward is not easy. I mean, in the nineteenth century they declared themselves infallible. And it is awfully hard to change when you have already decided that you are infallible. That does not lend itself to progress. But thank you for your question.
Q: My question may sound flippant, but I would love to know: How on this earth did you ever get promoted?
A: Let me give you a commercial for my church. The Episcopal Church is part of the Church of England. The Reformation was not ideological—everybody in England had to be a member of the Church of England, so it had to be broad enough to incorporate the whole population. So you can be an Anglican and be as Catholic as the pope or as evangelical as Jerry Falwell and you'll still be an Anglican. So there is a broadness about a church that was not founded on the basis of a creed but on the basis of a nation.
This church has, over the centuries, encouraged not everybody, but encouraged some people to press the boundaries of its life theologically. They always meet great resistance. But about a generation after they have died, their point of view becomes the new orthodoxy, and their opponents are long forgotten. And so I lived happily within it.
I was never forced out. The fierce opposition came when I ordained the first openly partnered gay man to the priesthood in America and indeed in the Anglican Communion. That was in 1989. It was an incredible experience for me. It was also an incredible experience for those close to me because the hostility was overwhelming. I received about 5,000 letters a week for a period of time. And about 4,999 of them were hostile.
My wife and I would go to lectures, and we would be spat upon by Christian protesters as we walked into the venue. Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, picketed me every time I came within 500 miles of Topeka. I guess after a while my church decided that they had to do something, so they introduced a resolution to disassociate themselves with the Bishop of Newark and his diocese for ordaining a gay man.
When they met to vote on this, they went through three hours of debate. And when they finally had the vote, the final count was seventy-eight in favor of disassociating themselves with me and seventy-four opposed, with two abstentions. And I was one of the two abstentions because I did not know how to vote on whether I wanted to associate with myself or not.
I had an agreement with the presiding officer, that I would not participate in the debate (because there was no doubt about the fact that I had done this thing) but would have the privilege of addressing the House of Bishops after the vote no matter how it went.
And so I stood up immediately and the presiding bishop recognized me. I am enough of a politician to know you take a power position when you can. So I walked up to the presiding bishop's desk, pushed him aside, took over the microphone in the center of the room, and delivered a forty-five-minute purple-passionate oratory on my own life and how I had gone from the homophobia of my childhood to the position where I was willing to risk my life and my career for the sake of justice for gay and lesbian people.
When I finished, I received what I call a semi-standing ovation. That is, those that stood ovated and those who did not stand did not ovate. I returned to my desk and some twelve bishops came over and said, "If I could have heard what you said before the vote, I would have voted in favor of you." I knew at that moment that we had a majority in the House of Bishops on that issue, and that majority never failed.
Today, my church has two out-of-the-closet partnered bishops serving openly, one in California and one in New Hampshire. The one in New Hampshire has just retired. But when I retired as the bishop, I had thirty-five out-of-the-closet gay and lesbian clergy serving in the Diocese of Newark. Thirty-one of them lived openly with their partners. And I must tell you, I have never had a complaint about any kind of sexual misbehavior from any of my gay and lesbian clergy. I cannot say that about my heterosexual clergy.
So I have a great affection for my church, which has allowed me to live within it and to push it into new positions. I do not really have to push it anymore because they have caught up. I am not even controversial. They now refer to me as our beloved old bishop. That is a status that comes just before you die. Thank you for your question, and thanks to you all. I loved being with you.


text:
Hieronder een overzicht van alle landen en alle spelers die hebben deelgenomen aan het door Nederland gewonnen Europees kampioenschap voetbal 1988 in West-Duitsland.

Groep 1

Denemarken

Italië

Spanje

West-Duitsland

Groep 2

Engeland

Nederland

Ierland

Sovjet-Unie

Zie ook
 Nederland op het Europees kampioenschap voetbal 1988

selecties


BECHARM - becharm v. (transitive, archaic) To charm; fascinate; hold by a charm or spell.
BRECHAM - Sorry, definition not available.
CHAMBER - chamber n. A room or set of rooms, particularly.
chamber n. (obsolete) Clipping of chamber pot: a container used for urination and defecation in one's chambers.
chamber n. (figuratively) The legislature or division of the legislature itself.
CHAMBRE - chambre n. Alternative spelling of chamber.
chambré adj. Of wine: brought to room temperature for the room in which it is to be served. [from 1960s].


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text:
SolaRoad's new phase: a motorway that also generates electricity
future view
7 March 2019 • 4 min reading time
It began with a bicycle path in Noord-Holland that attracted worldwide attention as the first road surface to generate energy. SolaRoad technology is now being applied at various locations in the Netherlands and France. The next phase is now commencing: projects with heavy traffic on public roads. If part of our 140,000-kilometre road network were to produce energy, it could make an important contribution to the energy transition.
Energy producing SolaRoad: from cycle path to motorway
"One of the most important challenges for the large-scale production of solar energy is fitting solar panels into our limited space," says Sten de Wit, Commercial Director of SolaRoad BV. "You can't install solar panels on an unlimited number of water surfaces or fields. You have to make clever use of what already exists, such as roofs, facades or roads. Our road network has a total paved surface of about 1,200 square kilometres. By equipping the suitable parts of this with solar panels, at least ten percent of our electricity needs could be covered. And a third of our road network can produce enough energy to power nine million electric cars."
StEPS TOWARDS SCALING UP
The principle is simple: the road is covered with robust solar panels, covered by a transparent and non-slip coating. Sunlight passes through the coating to the crystalline silicon solar cells, where it is converted into electricity. The challenge was for the solar panels to capture as much light as possible and at the same time be strong enough to allow vehicles to drive over them. Experience has already been gained in various bicycle traffic projects, but the load from buses or heavy goods vehicles is another story. In recent years, through close collaboration with TNO and Strukton, the SolaRoad road surface has been made suitable for use on roads with heavy traffic. The provinces of Noord- and Zuid-Holland are now applying these solar road surfaces for the first time in two projects: a bus lane along the N218 in Spijkenisse and on the parallel road of the Fokkerweg (N232) at Schiphol.
Large scale application required
"Now that we have proven that generating electricity from bicycle paths works, this is a logical next step," says Prof. Dr. Wim Sinke, Principal Scientist Solar Energy at ECN part of TNO. "We need to move towards large-scale application of this technology, towards generating volume and realising economies of scale. If that happens, the technology will become cheaper and we will enter a positive spiral. Pilots are an essential step in this. We will demonstrate that SolaRoad also works when heavy traffic drives over it for long and intensive periods. Once it has been demonstrated that the road is safe and reliable while still providing substantial energy, market introduction will be one step closer."
Sustainable innovations
The provinces are active in stimulating sustainable innovations concerning mobility and infrastructure, leading to energy conservation, energy generation and a cleaner environment.
In Zuid-Holland, solar panels are being installed 100 metres from a bus lane at the Halfweg-Molenwatering business park near Spijkenisse. In Noord-Holland, this is taking place on a road over which lorries travel to and from a large distribution centre. As road authorities, both provinces want to gain experience in the management, maintenance and, in the future, tendering of solar road surfaces. It will be interesting to see the difference in energy yield between the road surface on which buses run with a more or less fixed frequency and weight and the road surface with much more intensive and load-varying lorry traffic. The projects will be monitored for three years.
Permanent monitoring
Everything is being constantly and accurately measured by the sensors in the road surface and in the surroundings. Both test sites are also equipped with a weather station to determine the influence of temperature, air pressure, wind and other factors on the amount of energy generated. "The conditions on the road are completely different from those of panels on a roof. We will carefully monitor all of this. The measurement results provide essential information about the performance of road surfaces and what we can do to improve them in the future," says Sten de Wit.
"The energy transition requires a mix of innovations, to which roads with solar panels can make an important contribution."
The Province as a launching customer
The pilot with the bus lane near Spijkenisse is one of many projects within the energy transition programme for mobility and infrastructure in the province of Zuid-Holland. "In a number of cases, we take on the role of launching customer," says Programme Manager Jan Ploeger. "There is a working product, but market introduction is too risky. It is then difficult for market parties to obtain financing for further development. The province can play a stimulating role here. By purchasing innovative products as a public client, we give the market the signal that we have confidence in them. This will hopefully be the prelude to market introduction and large-scale use."
The province is collaborating with Noord-Holland and other provinces on the formation of a purchasing consortium, in order to be able to buy products such as solar panels for the road on a massive scale. If the pilot project meets expectations, an assessment will be made of which parts of the many hundreds of kilometres of provincial roads are to be converted into SolaRoads. It should also show to what extent solar panels outweigh tarmac roads in terms of costs and revenues.
This TNO project supports the following Sustainable Development Goals
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text:
Cut Scores for Smarter Balanced and PARCC: Trying to Be Like NAEP
Both the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) are looking to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to determine their cut scores– the scores that separate individual student scores into artificially-contrived achievement groupings.
It is important to remember that achievement categories are not natural groupings. Someone must create them and assign importance to them.
Both SBAC and PARCC once advertised their wares as "next generation assessments" that were supposed to be marvels surpassing the well-known "bubble" tests– of which NAEP is one.
However, it seems that the realities of time and money constraints have both SBAC and PARCC as indeed being "bubble" tests, and not only that– they are "bubble" tests with cut scores modeled after NAEP determinations of "proficiency."
All newfangled assessment roads lead back to NAEP, a test with achievement levels that appear not to have been formally finalized and are long overdue to be re-examined themselves. That noted, NAEP "proficiency" should not be confused for "just passing."
Of course, NAEP is also not "aligned" with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). However, if certain percentages of student scores are "expected," for example, to "happen" to fit NAEP's (overdue for reconsideration) distribution of "fewer than four in ten" students scoring "proficient" in 2013, then mastery of CCSS takes a back seat to an expected scoring distribution outcome.
All this for in-consortium, state-to-state "comparisons" financed by a White House administration on its way out in 2016. A Race to the Exit.
SBAC and PARCC involvement is much more political than it is educational. There is no other reason for NAEP high scorer Massachusetts to officially join PARCC other than the fact that Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester chairs the PARCC governing board. PARCC is struggling, and frankly, it looks bad for the PARCC governing chair to not have his state "all in."
Chester says that PARCC "will give teachers better information about which kids need extra support."
That's not how it works. In-house diagnostics are more streamlined and timely than a consortium-based, annual assessment with delayed scoring.
But back to SBAC, PARCC, and NAEP.
Each state can decide the meaning of individual student scoring outcomes on PARCC and SBAC. Again, if states model their scoring after NAEP percentage outcomes (or the percentage outcomes of any previously administered standardized test), the issue becomes less about CCSS "mastery" and more about ranking— where a student scores relative to other test takers.
The issue also becomes one of state officials' cut score decisions as determining other outcomes– including a state's percentage of "failing" teachers and "failing" schools.
State cut score setting on high-stakes tests is not an "objective" process. It is highly subjective, and one in which the person setting the cut score wields incredible power to punish.
When I was an undergraduate at LSU, I had one course in which the professor told us on the first day that our class' final grades would fit the normal distribution. The course was Evolutionary Psychology. The professor said there would be a few A's and a few F's. Based on his determination, it did not matter who dropped the course (i.e., if those most likely to score F's dropped) or how many of those present on the first day completed the course. It also did not matter the degree to which individuals mastered the material– if a student wanted an A, that student had to rank higher than enough others in the room. As one might expect, this made for a tense, anxious classroom atmosphere, one in which students were reluctant to help one another lest the person one helped might outscore the helper. I did not enjoy this "every man for himself" class, and I was aware that other students were concerned about my grades. (Students I did not know openly verbalized as much.)
I have often thought of that Evolutionary Psychology class when considering the current atmosphere of punitive, test-score-driven, so-called "reform."
In quite a different experience, my doctoral advisor had a policy that he roughly adhered to a ten-point scale to determine letter grades but that he would look at the scores of all students to see where the top scores "broke" (i.e., where there was a notable gap in scores) in order to place the cut score between A's and B's. This policy often translated into an eleven- or twelve-point "A" category in which the professor considered both degree of material mastery and scoring distribution characteristics.
The latter professor's behavior encouraged both mastery of material and a cooperative learning atmosphere.
What America has with CCSS and its consortium tests, SBAC and PARCC, does not equal what the second professor above afforded his students. CCSS and its appendaged SBAC and PARCC do not encourage mastery of material and cooperative learning. No. These education-business-feeding creations encourage skills-based teaching and abundant test drill– neither of which have any influence on those cut scores. A teacher can spend every class period drilling students to take tests, but his/her efforts do not influence the setting of those power-wielding cut scores. The bureaucratic thinking that "raising" cut scores equates "forcing" better instruction from teachers and higher levels of learning from students is unsubstantiated nonsense.
I think it's time for America to model our standardized testing after Finland.
Finland gives only one high-stakes test, at high school graduation.
It is unlike anything promoted by CCSS, SBAC or PARCC.
Click the link above to read Valerie Strauss' reporting on the test administration schedule, question format, grading (first done by teachers of the students themselves), and sample questions.
(Here are a few more informative readings on education in Finland, and here is some info comparing professional salaries within Finland, though it is from 2007.)
A closing thought from Strauss' post:
If your path brings you to learn in Finland, be prepared to engage in deep discussions about politics, religion, poverty, spiders, junk food, young people questioning authority and other topics absent from the tests you took in high school, regardless how you feel about these topics. College readiness is to be ready to deal with all aspects of the world we live in, not just those that resonate well with your own. [Emphasis added.]
Take a lesson, SBAC and PARCC.
(Thought it would be interesting to see salary based on hours per teaching time. American teachers work twice as long, including "bureaucratic responsibilities" that do not exist in Finland.)
Schneider is a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author of the ed reform whistle blower, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who's Who In the Implosion of American Public Education.
From → Common Core, High-stakes Testing, International Education
psmirn permalink
An excellent analysis, as always.
I have only one quibble: May we please call it #RaceToTheDoor? 😉
Arne, please turn off the lights on your way out.
Gene Glass permalink
Wish I had an hour to sit down and tell you the history of NAEP and cut scores. I was on the board in that era.
G-
_________________________ Gene V Glass Emeritus Regents' Professor Arizona State University
-Sent from my mobile-
deutsch29 permalink
Gene, the decision of those cut scores doesn't sound solid.
calanghoff permalink
None of this would have happened if the educrats had the least amount of respect for the intellect of public school teachers. They think we're stupid and will just roll over and accept without questions what we're told. Instead teachers like you, Mercedes, hold them and their schemes up to public ridicule and derision. Well done! Thanks!
Bridget permalink
Don't forget that the real culprits are our elected officials who allow these initiatives to become the law of the land, both federal and state. It's time we hold them accountable for their complicity. Most of them are clueless about education. Yet they pass laws that are harmful to our children. It's time we "educate" them!
bydesign001 permalink
Reblogged this on PUMABydesign001's Blog.
Jill Reifschneider permalink
This is what I know about the difference and similarities between NAEP and PARCC and SBAC which I learned from DIane Ravitch's book "Reign of Error". She was on the governing board for seven years…. "Congress authorized the National Assessment of Educational Progress to administer tests to national and regional samples of students. The first assessment was administered in 1969. In 1992, NAEP began reporting the scores of states that volunteered to be assessed. Most states participated, but not all. Participation in NAEP testing did not become mandatory for all states until the passage of No Child Left Behind."
"After No Child Left Behind, the federal government assumed a command-and-control role that was never envisioned in 1979."
The "main NAEP" has tested samples of students in the states and in the nation every other year since 1992 or 1990, depending on the subject. The questions have gotten more challenging over time.
There is another version of NAEP that the federal government has administered since the early 1970s. This "long-term trend assessment" tests students who are ages 9, 13 and 17. This test has used a large number of questions that have been used consistently for more than 40 years. The content seldom changes except removing obsolete terms. The long-term trend NAEP is administered to scientific samples of students every four years.
"NAEP is central to any discussion of whether American students and the public schools they attend are doing well or badly. It is administered to a sample of students; no one knows who will take it, no one can prepare to take it, no one takes the whole test. There are no stakes attached to NAEP; no student ever gets a test score. NAEP reports the results of its assessments in two different ways." – Diane Ravitch
Scale scores: range from 0 to 500. What students know and can do.
Achievement scores: Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic. These are judgements "set by external panels that determine what students should know and be able to do. The NAEP governing board authorized the establishment of achievement levels in the early 1990s. At the time, people complained that the process was rushed and the standards were flawed. No Child Left Behind created an expectation that all students ought to be Proficient. " – Diane Ravtich
Education reformers have pointed to the scores and misinterpreted them claiming that a large percentage of students are scoring below grade level in subjects. They make these false claims by using "Proficient" as equivalent to "At Grade Level" which is incorrect.
Laura H. Chapman permalink
This is another unusually long post.
I worked on the first and second NAEP tests in the visual arts, vintage 1970s. The subject has no deep tradition of testing and serious issues in thinking through the role of talent and education in achievement. The most useful part of two rounds of NAEP tests in the visual arts was the background information, including the dismal record of access to instruction in and beyond school.
That said, I have also looked at the background on the CCSS and federal funding for PARCC and SBAC tests. USDE had a test-funding plan for the CCSS in April 2010, before the CCSS were published in June. By September grants were awarded to the PARCC and SBAC groups to begin test development $300 million total.
Then out of the blue, the two consortiums applied for supplementary funds for curriculum work needed to do the test development. That was a huge snafu in USDE's thinking from the get go—just do standards and tests, nothing needed in between. In seeking more money, the grant applicants made these statements:
PARCC will "coordinate with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium on… artificial intelligence scoring, setting achievement levels, and anchoring high school assessments in the knowledge and skills students need to be prepared for postsecondary education and careers" (PARCC, 2010, December, p. 3).
The SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) asserted: "SBAC and PARCC are strongly committed to ensuring comparability between their assessments…[including] collaborative standard setting that will facilitate valid comparisons of achievement levels in each consortium's summative test…" (SMARTER, 2011, January, p. 31)
Sounds to me like a master plan for reporting one national score tweaked from data on two tests of the CCSS –Form A test from PARCC, Form B from SBAC. Of course their references to "achievement levels" meant they would seek comparable cut scores. .
Here are some real problems not addressed.
1. The pending reauthorization of ESEA may make the tests and cut scores entirely optional or just obsolete.
2. Major changes in ESEA were introduced for RttT in 2010, including the financing of these tests, and also a change so the phrase "college-and career-ready" replaced the word "proficiency" in earlier versions of ESEA. So with or without the PARCC and SBAC tests, states are dealing with the idea of college-and career-ready as the new term of art for high stakes. There are other changes in the federal definitions for college-and career-ready. These may settle the issue of cut scores. I doubt if NAEP cut scores will pass muster as a guide.
3. "College- and career-ready (or readiness)" means, with respect to a student, that the student is prepared for success, without remediation, in credit-bearing entry-level courses in an Institution of Higher Education (IHE) (as defined in section 101(a) of the Higher Education Act), as demonstrated by an assessment score that meets or exceeds the achievement standard for the final high school summative assessment in mathematics or English language arts. (Note the OR on the high school test, one or the other, but not necessarily both).
4. Here is a brief version of the federal definition of an "Institution of Higher Education" (For a full definition, refer to Section 101 and 102 of the Higher Education Act). An Institution of Higher Education is a school that:
—Awards a bachelor's degree or not less than a 2 year program that provides credit towards a degree or,
—Provides not less than 1 year of training towards gainful employment or,
—Is a vocational program that provides training for gainful employment and has been in existence for at least two years. And meets all three of the following criteria:
—-Admits as regular students only persons with a high school diploma or equivalent; or
—-Admits as regular students persons who are beyond the age of compulsory school attendance
—-Is public, private, or non-profit; accredited or pre accredited; and is authorized to operate in the state.
5. One more definition and note the last line. : "Achievement standard" means the level of student achievement on summative assessments that indicates that (a) for the final high school summative assessments in mathematics or English language arts, a student is college- and career-ready…; or (b) for summative assessments in mathematics or English language arts at a grade level other than the final high school summative assessments, a student is on track to being college- and career-ready. An achievement standard must be determined using empirical evidence over time.
Source https://www2.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/announcements/2010-2/040910e.html
I think that this means the feds have no idea what they are a doing with tests.
This seems to say that USDE will be looking at "longitudinal data" to make inferences about cut scores. The data of most relevance will be: (a) either a math test score or an ELA test score; (b) test scores from PARCC or SBAC; and (c) records of students who have taken at least one of these these and been admitted into a post-secondary program without the need for remedial courses (presumably remedial course work in eLA or math.)
In 2011 NAEP commissioned a study intended to find out what college tests and cut scores determined entry-level students' need for remedial/developmental courses in reading and mathematics based on nationally representative data. The study sought evidence of the validity for statements in NAEP reports about 12th grade students' academic preparedness for college."
The conclusion was that NAEP scores will not likely to work as a standard for placement in remedial courses, because there is nothing approaching a national norm. There is too much variability in preferred college entry tests and cut scores. The full study is here. http://www.nagb.org/what-we-do/preparedness-research/types-of-research/survey.html
For other reasons, the reasoning for these tests and their uses is deeply flawed.
PARCC (following USDE specifications for lots of formative assessments) came up with a total of nine rests a year for grade 8, five in ELA, four in math. In math, four quarterly scores were supposed to be reduced to a summary score. In ELA the same protocol, with an extra performance measure required but not counted. The same boilerplate was set forth for all grades. (I made a spreadsheet to discern these ambitions). So the piloted tests now available are but a shadow of what might have been, and what USDE wanted.
More reasons for burying the whole of the Obama/Duncan/Gates agenda and questioning the purposes of the PARCC and SBAC tests.
Jacky permalink
I love your blog. I organize my ed research on Pinterest, but can not pin your blog. Please consider making your blog Pinterest friendly by adding an image that's "pinable." Thank you for all your dedication.
Links 3/2/15 | Mike the Mad Biologist
U.S. Dept. of Ed Wanted Much More Testing From PARCC and Smarter Balanced | InTheKnow
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With the growing base of young talent in the city of Mississauga, connecting students with industry professionals is one of the most important ways to empower innovation and create a future with successful entrepreneurs. On January 24, the Digital Enterprise Management (DEM) Society at the University of Toronto Mississauga hosted the Young Entrepreneurs' Conference. RIC Centre was proud to sponsor the Youth Innovation Award, a $5000 award generously supported by the Business Acceleration Program, a ONE program delivered by MaRS.
The winner of the Youth Innovation Award was "TapBand", as chosen by our RIC Centre judging panel: Karen Grant, Executive Director of the Angel ONE Investor Network, Andrew Yoshioka, President of Sanbonki Inc., and Baraa El-Kadri, Industrial Technology Advisor at National Research Council of Canada – IRAP.
From the ten teams that presented, Team TapBand met the judges' criteria: strength of the team, size of the opportunity and its competitive environment, the product, business stage, marketing opportunity, and various other factors.
RIC Centre applauds the organizers at the Young Entrepreneurs' Conference for giving students the opportunity to explore their creative side, and look at ideas from an entrepreneurial perspective.


This topic describes how to deploy service mesh for Pivotal Application Service (PAS).
For more information about service mesh, see Service Mesh (Beta).
Navigate to the Networking - Service Mesh pane of the PAS tile.
Under Service Mesh (Beta), select Enable.
vSphere: Enter static IPs for the Istio Routers. You must configure your load balancer with these IPs as well.
Other: Leave this field blank.
For Ingress Router TLS Keypairs, complete the following fields. You can add more than one keypair if desired using the Add button.
Name: Enter a name for the keypair.
Certificate and Private Key for Istio Router: Enter the Private key and certificate for TLS handshakes with clients. These must be in PEM block format.
To configure a load balancer for service mesh, do the following. The exact procedure varies by IaaS.
Navigate to your DNS provider and create a DNS name, *.mesh.YOUR-CF-APPS-DOMAIN, that resolves to the IP of the load balancer. This is the default domain for service mesh and it is not configurable.
Navigate to the Resource Config pane of the PAS tile.
In the Load Balancer column of the istio-router row, enter the name of the load balancer you created.


Who can help me as a company when I want to add Verge as a payment method?
The file for windows will be labeled as such. You don't need the sourcecode.zip. In this example, you only need the VERGE-qt.exe and VERGEd.exe.
Verge-QT for Windows isn't really an install as much as it is an "download". Simply create a directory anywhere on your hard drive, and download VERGE-qt.exe and VERGEd.exe. It's good practice to call the folder you create the version number.
Go ahead and fire off a download of it since it will take a few minutes. We'll come back to this later in the guide.
Once it completes you'll see this screen.
Once you have launched the wallet you'll notice it has a LOT of blocks to download and sync. To speed up this process, you can download the blockchain data. which was optional step1. If you have done so, and have launced the wallet, it has created some folders at c:\users\%currentuser%\AppData\Roaming\Verge. Unzip the blockchain files you downloaded in Option Step1 into this folder and re-launch VERGE-Qt.exe and you will have minimal blocks to sync.
and unzip the new files to that directory.
It's perfectly acceptable to have multiple versions on your computer. Just don't run the older versions. There's no real need to keep the older versions after a certain point in time, and older versions eventually stop working outright.
Just make sure you don't confuse yourself if you do this. Make sure that no matter what versions you have on your hard drive, you are RUNNING the latest !
Very good guide Marpme. Testing the comments section.


text:
UD Trucks Launches Croner To Help Customers Maximize Productivity
Developed for growth markets, UD Trucks' all-new medium duty truck range delivers a wide range of customizable configurations for extra productivity and superior uptime
Ageo, Japan – March 1, 2017 – UD Trucks today launched Croner, an all-new medium duty truck, to continue its rich Japanese legacy of building the "truck that the world needs today" specifically for its growth markets across Asia, Africa, Middle-East and South America.
Making the best of your time
Croner is a reliable and versatile truck range built with robust and quality components delivering extra productivity and superior uptime. By understanding customers' demand and business needs, Croner is engineered to help customers stay ahead of competition, through the simple concept of saving time.
"UD Trucks believes that more time spent on the road and less time in the workshop adds up to the success of our customers' business. It is our aim for Croner to make every moment count, through maximizing productivity and minimizing downtime on every run our customers make," said Jacques Michel, President, Volvo Group Trucks Asia & JVs Sales.
"The superiority of Croner comes from the best of three worlds – UD Trucks' strong Japanese heritage and craftsmanship, Volvo Group's global technology and sourcing, and local manufacturing and customer support. Further to that, with UD Trucks' Ultimate Dependability standard and Gemba spirit incorporated in every aspect, each component is the result of years of development and stringent stress testing – a true testament to the Japanese hallmarks of quality," said Jacques.
Named after the god of time in Greek mythology, Croner is designed to excel in the medium duty segment to compete in growth markets.
Croner has options for three gross vehicle weight (GVW) models: MKE, LKE and PKE; and their wheelbase variants, which can offer up to 21 different basic configurations to suit specific demands of various industries. Additionally, the air suspension on all variants is available as an option to protect customers' cargo especially when travelling on rough road conditions.
"As drivers spend a good amount of time on the road, we at UD Trucks leaves nothing to chance, and that includes safety and drivability. With superior braking and handling features, Croner keeps customers' drivers and their fleets in prime condition," said Nobuhiko Kishi, Senior Vice President, Brand and Product, UD Trucks.
"As for drivability, Croner's automatic transmission option can be crucial for markets like South Africa where it is facing serious driver shortage due to the strenuous demands on drivers, especially in long haul driving. Croner can help customers attract drivers as this option provides ease of drive and reduce fatigue for both experienced and inexperienced drivers."
"Similarly, automatic transmission can be seen as a game changer for the truck industry in the Asia region as it helps lower cost and downtime, as manual transmission is more susceptible to wear-and-tear especially to its clutch in a long run," added Kishi.
According to Kishi, Croner's superior uptime stems from its reliability due to robust components such as its driveline and new chassis frame that are more durable and allow for longer time between scheduled service intervals.
Fuel is a high expenditure for fleet owners considering the number of trucks and journey they make.
"Croner is one of our most fuel efficient trucks ever. It utilizes the fuel needed efficiently without waste, thanks to the new GHE engine series, automatic transmission, a built-in fuel couch, and a more aerodynamic cab which reduces the coefficient of drag (CD) more significantly by 5 percent," said Kishi.
"Going the Extra Mile" is the brand promise of UD Trucks with a focus on fuel efficiency, uptime, reliability and drivability, while meeting today's high standards for safety and environment, allowing UD Trucks to provide customers with the best products and services in the market to meet their business needs.
Extra Mile Support services
UD Trucks takes pride in its comprehensive set of UD Extra Mile Support services, such as UD Genuine Service and Parts, UD Driver Training, and UD Trust Service Agreements. These were developed to ensure its trucks such as Croner run and remain in optimum condition to go the extra mile, saving minutes, hours, and days over the years.
In addition to its Extra Mile Support, UD Trucks also offers professional telematics solution that provides customers with real time information and reports to improve their fleets' operation. By connecting its trucks to the UD workshops, UD Trucks enables proactive and continuous workshop support to its customers.
The production of Croner will be done in UD Trucks Bangkok Factory in Bang Na, Thailand. Units made will be sold locally to the Thai market as well as exported out to other growth markets in Asia, Africa, Middle-East and South America.
Arisa Tsujie
Media and Communications, UD Trucks
Info.udtrucks.global@udtrucks.co.jp


text:
Salepur rape victim breathes her last
Cuttack: The six-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped and strangulated in Salepur of Cuttack district on April 21, today breathed her last while undergoing treatment at SCB Medical College and Hospital, informed the Medical Superintendent Shyama Kanungo. The minor girl was under ventilator and being treated by a team of 13 doctors. SCB emergency officer, […]
Published: Sunday, 29 April 2018
Last updated: 29 April 2018, 08:16 PM IST
Salepur-rape-victim
Cuttack: The six-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped and strangulated in Salepur of Cuttack district on April 21, today breathed her last while undergoing treatment at SCB Medical College and Hospital, informed the Medical Superintendent Shyama Kanungo.
The minor girl was under ventilator and being treated by a team of 13 doctors.
SCB emergency officer, Bhubanananda Moharana had on Thursday informed that her condition was critical and her chances of survival were little.
The girl, who suffered deep injuries in her head, face, neck, chest and private parts, was rescued from inside a school campus near her house in Jagannathpur village of Salepur on April 21 night. She was immediately rushed to a hospital in Salepur and later shifted to the SCB.
The family members alleged that the girl was raped and an attempt also made to kill her. Police had arrested an accused identified as Md Mustafa, on April 22 from the same village.
Meanwhile, family members of the girl demand that the accused should be hanged till death so that no one ever dares to commit such crime in future.
"He had lured my sister with chocolates and raped her. I demand that he should be hanged," said the victim's sister.
"My daughter could not breathe nor move her limbs. She had responded to the treatment only for a day. Stringent action should be taken against the accused," demanded the victim's father.
"The accused has been forwarded to court. After the death of the girl murder charges under section 302 of IPC will also be slapped against him," said ASP, Cuttack (Rural), Krutibash Jena.
Meanwhile, expressing shock over the incident, Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda tweeted,
Awful, awful. This was 1 of 2 instances of minors raped in my constituency last week. Sadly this yr alone has seen a *large* number of such gruesome attacks on minors in Odisha. In some other parts of the country too, but the surge that Odisha is seeing is truly disheartening.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik also condoled the death of the minor girl and conveyed his deep sympathy to the bereaved family. He further announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh for kin of the deceased.
Minor Girl Rape
Salepur
Salepur Rape Victim
Scb Cuttack
Shyama Kanungo
PM Modi State Of The World Address: Modi Showcases India As Future Tech & Economic Powerhouse
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State Of The World Address: Modi Showcases India As Future Tech & Economic Powerhouse


If you are an experienced kayaker, we have a selection of quality sea kayak rental equipment.
Dartmouth is a busy and tidal estuary; therefore before you can rent our kayaks you need to have done one of our 2-day skills courses or have a British Canoeing 2 star award or equivalent qualification. Please click here to see details of the British Canoeing 2 star award.
We do not provide a safety or rescue service and paddlers renting our kayaks do so at their own risk. You must have the experience to kayak safely without any assistance from Sea Kayak Devon. You are welcome to take the kayaks to any location you think is safe to visit and we can also provide inflatable roof racks that fit most cars and vans.
We securely store your credit card details as a deposit. The replacement cost of any equipment that is lost or damaged, other than normal wear and tear, will be debited from the card that you have provided as deposit. A list of the replacement cost of the equipment is below.