NEW DELHI: PTC India Financial Services (PFS) today said that it has divested its entire stake in Ind-Barath Energy (Utkal) for Rs 311.93 crore.
"PTC India Financial Services Limited (PFS) is pleased to announce that it has successfully divested its entire stake in Ind-Barath Energy (Utkal) Limited (Ind-Barath) for an amount of Rs 311.93 crore," the company said in a press release.
Ind-Barath is setting up a 700-MW coal-based thermal power project in Odisha and PFS had invested a sum of Rs 105 crore in the same.
According to the statement, the current divestment of an equity investment will provide headroom for growth and the company shall leverage the same to scale up lending activity and achieve sustained growth.
PFS continues to keep a strong focus on growing its loan book, supported by increased focus on renewable energy and diversification across the energy value chain, it said.
"The exit made with a robust return on our investment will strengthen the balance sheet, augment the company's net worth, and opportunity for increased lending to upcoming power projects," said Ashok Haldia, MD and CEO, PFS, in the statement.
An NBFC promoted by PTC India, PFS has been granted the status of infrastructure finance company (IFC) by RBI. The company offers an array of financial products to infrastructure companies in the entire energy value chain.


We all need some pressure in our working lives - it makes our work satisfying and motivates us to meet often tight deadlines. Too much constant pressure, without an opportunity to recover however, can lead to work stress.
Work stress affects people different - something that is stressful for one person may not be stressful for another. Your susceptibility to work stress can depend on your personality type and how you have learned to respond and cope with pressure.
It used to be called "mid-life crisis" - and haven't all of us joked about it - a turmoil and discomfort that literally turns life upside down. Nowadays this syndrome is being recognized as "work place burnout" and it is becoming more widespread and is affecting men and women alike throughout the entire workforce.


Cheltenham Road's vintage inspired Cox and Baloney have won the award for Best Cafe and Tea Room in the South West.
Premises were inspected by independent inspectors from the Bristol, Bath and Somerset Tourism Board and the tea room was judged to be the best in the region.
As well as a wide selection of loose tea and a busy cafe, this independent, quirky tea room, offers their own infusers, tea cups, saucers and teapots. Ciders and locally sourced gins are available, infused with fresh fruit or herbs, for customers to while away a lazy afternoon.
The next step for the business is redecoration and the possibility of more awards. "We are having a revamp inside to make it a little less flowery and to put our stamp on it. We have been nominated for four Bristol Good Food awards and are automatically entered.into the Visit England national awards following our success," added Amy.


text:
Home/News/Construction maintains decline through May
Construction maintains decline through May
9th June 2020 News 1,745 Views
UK construction companies saw a sustained downturn in business activity during May, although the pace of decline was less fierce than it had been in April,
reflecting a gradual reopening of construction sites as lockdown measures were eased in England.
At 28.9 in May, the headline seasonally adjusted IHS Markit/CIPS UK Construction Total Activity Index picked up from 8.2 in April, but was the second-lowest since February 2009. Any figure below 50.0 indicates an overall decline in output.
Around 64% of the survey panel saw lower construction activity during May, while only 21% saw growth and this was mostly attributed to a limited return to work on site following the shutdowns in April.
Among the issues contributing to the decline were furloughed staff across the supply chain, prolonged business closures in other parts of the economy and disruptions from social distancing measures on existing projects.
Residential work was the most resilient category in May (index at 30.9), followed by civil engineering (28.6). Commercial building also fell at a slower pace during the latest survey period, but was the worst performing broad area of construction (26.2).
May data also showed a rapid drop in new orders for UK construction companies, which was almost exclusively attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey respondents saw a sharp decline in demand for new construction projects, although some said that the reopening of sites had helped to alleviate the scale of the downturn in order books. There were again widespread reports that redundancies would have been far more severe without the use of the government's jobs retention scheme.
Supply chain disruptions have not helped, with lead times for construction products and materials continuing to lengthen at a rapid pace. A lack of capacity for deliveries and ongoing business closures had resulted in the need to source alternative suppliers, which had also pushed up costs.
Looking ahead, construction companies remain downbeat about their prospects for the next 12 months, with sentiment holding close to April's low.
Tim Moore, Economics Director at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey said: "A gradual restart of work on site helped to alleviate the downturn in total UK construction output during May, but the latest survey highlighted that ongoing business closures and disruptions across the supply chain held
back the extent of recovery.
"It seems likely that construction activity will rebound in the near-term, as adaptations to social distancing measures become more widespread and the staggered return to work takes effect. However, latest PMI data points to another steep reduction in new orders, with the pace of decline exceeding the equivalent measures seen in the manufacturing and service sectors.
"Since the start of the lockdown period in March, business sentiment has remained more downbeat than at any time since October 2008."
Duncan Brock, Group Director at the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply said: "The construction sector suffered one of its worst
results in May since the PMI surveys began as building work was grounded by the pandemic and lockdown measures.
" As the sector staggers back to work, and builders put their heads above the parapet, they face a number of obstacles. New safer working practices will ensure
operations can continue but client confidence to place new orders is harder to predict. As the furlough scheme is unravelled towards the end of the summer, the floodgates preventing redundancies may also fly open and job losses will follow without a strong pipeline of work waiting in the wings. It will take a long time for the sector to build strength from the ruins of COVID-19."
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: fill values with select Update: Here is a demonstration of the problem: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!9/15ff5e/1
I am trying to perform a left join on the following 2 tables:
post_metrics

| post_id | likes |
|---------|-------|
| 'aaa'   |     3 |
| 'aaa'   |     7 |
| 'aaa'   |     8 |
| 'bbb'   |     2 |
| 'bbb'   |     4 |

post_history

| post_id | post_text |
|---------|-----------|
| 'aaa'   | 'doug'    |
| 'bbb'   | 'steve'   |

The results are similar to the following:
| post_id | likes | post_text |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| 'aaa'   |     3 | 'doug'    |
| 'aaa'   |     7 | NULL      |
| 'aaa'   |     8 | NULL      |
| 'bbb'   |     2 | 'steve'   |
| 'bbb'   |     4 | NULL      |

I would like to fill these NULL values with data from previous rows, such that the result is like this:
| post_id | likes | post_text |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| 'aaa'   |     3 | 'doug'    |
| 'aaa'   |     7 | 'doug'    |
| 'aaa'   |     8 | 'doug'    |
| 'bbb'   |     2 | 'steve'   |
| 'bbb'   |     4 | 'steve'   |

However, the query I'm using...
SELECT m.id,
       m.likes,
       @username := ifnull(p.username, @username) as username
FROM (select * from `post_metrics` WHERE post_id = @post_id) AS m
LEFT JOIN `post_history` AS p ON (m.post_id = p.post_id)

...is giving me the following results:
| post_id | likes | post_text |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| 'aaa'   |     3 | 'doug'    |
| 'aaa'   |     7 | 'steve'   |
| 'aaa'   |     8 | 'steve'   |
| 'bbb'   |     2 | 'steve'   |
| 'bbb'   |     4 | 'steve'   |

How can I properly fill null values from the previous rows?
These are tables with millions of rows and about 6 columns of sparse null values to fill. The 'post_text' field is not always the same for each post_id (varies occasionally), so I need to propagate those changes to following rows that have NULL.

A: Try below using inner join
SELECT m.id,
       m.likes,
       m.username
       from `post_metrics`  m
inner JOIN `post_history` AS p ON m.post_id = p.post_id

A: The problem with your existing query is that @username is computed based on the unordered row output from your query. So you need to order the data first, and then do the username substitution (or, based on your SQLFiddle, post_text). So I think this query should do what you want:
SELECT post_id,
       date,
       likes,
       @post_text := COALESCE(post_text, @post_text) AS post_text
FROM (SELECT
       m.post_id,
       m.date,
       m.likes,
       p.post_text
      FROM `post_metrics` m
      LEFT JOIN `post_history` AS p ON m.post_id = p.post_id and m.date = p.date
      ORDER BY m.post_id, m.date) o
JOIN (SELECT @post_text := '') t

Output:
post_id     date        likes   post_text
aaa         2018-09-01  3       ccccc
aaa         2018-09-02  7       ccccc
aaa         2018-09-03  8       ccccd
bbb         2018-09-01  2       eeeee
bbb         2018-09-02  4       eeeee

SQLFiddle Demo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Subjective Faith
Recently on a Message board I defended Keirkegaard's idea of fiath as subjective. A fellow Christian said to me:
I think you have fallen into the trap of letting the
>atheists set the agenda fort the meaning of the word
>"subjective."
>I answered:
That's so very irnonic. Becasue by embracing the subject Object dichotomy you are doing nothing more than affirming the atheist world view. There is no way to be a Christian and affirm the subject/object dichotomy in the strict "good/bad" framework, with subject = bad, object = good that atheists impose.
That is empirically and Biblically the case. When God speaks thorugh Jerimaiah and describe the new covenant (ch 31) he says "the new covmenat will not be like the old one, for the broke the old one. NO longer will a man say to his neighbor "know the lord" for they will alll know me from the least to the greatest."
Now laws are objective. Rules are objective. He's saying they broke the objective covenant the one based upon rule keeping. They new one will be subjective (they will all know me--knowing is a jubjective matter because it depends upon the indivuaul's percetions).
so he's saying the objective coveneant will be overturned in favor of the subjective covmenat, the one based upon personal experince.
You have fallen into the trap of not being up to date on Heidegger and not being well versed int he thierkers of the tradition, such as Kierkegaard.
Posted by Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) at 6:46 PM No comments:
Ethical Paraidigms
Many atheists support the notion of morality based upon what is teleological ethics. The end or outcome or the goal is the point. It is the achieved goal tha makes an action moral. The prime exmaple of this form of ethics is Utilitarianism; life is a trade off of pursuit of pleaure and avoidence of pain. the highest goal to which one can aspire morally is to aid othes avoidence of pain.
Of course who could forget that gem of the Utilitarian hit parade, "the grestest good for the geraest number."My view is represented by the deontological school of ethics. to be more prescise, rule deontology is my bag.
The basic concept here is that morality is grounded in duty and obligation. Rule deonology says that all rules must be observed from a standard of following duty and promoting obligation, and keeping these rules determines the morality of a given standard.
Deontology is unfairly criticized as blind rule keeping is often confussed with empty legalism. Quite the conrrary, I think I'm very unlegalistic type of person. Rather than insiting up rule keeping at, my level of ethical standard is one in wich the attempt to fulfill duty or keep an obligation is enough to make an action ethical, so that the agent need not even succeed at keeping the rule.
If I said that actions must confrom of rule keeping I would be a "act deontologist."
On the other hand the notion that actions are judged by their outcomes is "act utilitarianism." Whereas the idea that general percipoles shoudl foster outcomes such that pleasure over pain is promoted is called "rule utilitiarianism." Act utilitairainism is often noted for producing extremes.
Teleological or consquential ethics (HRG's bag) is well know among liberals. It's the brand of ethics most often embraced by liberals and humanitsts (which doesn't mean that I'mn not a liberal and humanist--although Christian humanist).
Even though most liberals tend to embrace teleological ethics, most ethecists do not. Teleological ethics fell into disvaor in the 30s, and has been on the decline every since. IN the 1960s it was considered that John Rawls of Oxford drove the final nail in the coffin when he proved that teleological ethics reduces the indivudal to a faceless aggregat at the bottom of a business ledger.
That would be the key to my attack upon consquentialist ethics, it does not take account of the fine feeling of the indiviual to keep his/her sense of duty of obligation, but urges the indiviudal to do immoral acts and to betreay his or her own personal sense of the moral in order to fulfill some aggreagate sum such as "greatest good for the greatest number."
this can be demonstrated in most life theory games, where one is led to believe that the old lady and the presit must be chucked over the side they can't row as fast.
The Rise of Right Wing "Fundism"
On my board someone echoed Sam Harris's (End of Faith) sentiment that liberal theology didn't do enough to stem the tide of the "fundies." The liberal theologians didn't criticize them enough. While that may be true to a certain extent, it's understandable why they didn't. But we can't find much decent analysis about the reasons for the right-wingization of American religion. I think I can shed some light on that isn't often shed. But one must realize that fundamentalism goes way back in American clutter. There are many good books written on the phenomenon of American conservative mentality and American religion. Martin Marty was one the beast Historians of American Civil religion. Another excellent source is a book by McLaughlin on American Revivals. I think if I recall its called Awakenings in America or something like that. There's also a guy named Smith with a revival book. I read all of this back at Perkins, under the tutelage of Billy Abraham.
As to the charge that liberal leaders didn't do enough to discourage it:
That is absolutely ignorant. The guy (Sam Harris) has no understanding of history. I get the idea he doesn't even bother to do historical research about any of the statements he makes. He probably thinks his understanding of history is so good he doesn't need to research it.
Fundamentalism goes way back in American culture, back to the founding of the original 13 colonies, but it was really structured the way we know it today by the civil war. Calvinist mentality created a degree of guilt over the failure to obtain wealth. That set the conservative mind set in American culture, as each new shifting in American landscape, Wallace's "chaining of the Maze ways" brought new and deeper retest into the mythical "golden age of the past" when people were truly virtuous and faith was truly faithful; the great "golden age" the Reagan era kept evoking.
W.W.I played a major role too, and most of what we know as the fundi movement came about as a result of the shift from post millennialism to pre mil. But of course that was connoted by WW1 and the civil war. But I would be totally remiss if I didn't include the two great awakenings, especially the second one, as the real seed bed of fundamentalism.
Essentially, Post millennialism was liberal, although believing liberals not the 19th century European kind; but socially liberal, abolitionist, progressive era crusaders, social Gospels and the like; in fact there was a major feminist egalitarian movement among Evangelicals in the mid 19th century, that would also figure into the post mil mix. Post millers said we will make the world a better place through our Christian social reforms and Christ will return to find a Christian world. that's where the phrase "Christian century comes from."
So they had all these well meaning liberal crusading types who had very strong Christian triumphalism but only in a purely liberal social sense. That's how they thought of Christian victory. Some of the early influences coming out 2nd great awakening were in the Charles Finney camp.
But after the civil war all that began to change. Post mil began to waver, the war turned everyone cynical and convinced them that post minims wasn't going to work. It also brought in right wing groups, anti-foreigners, anti immigration, anti-reform, or conservative reform such as prohibition of liquor.
If you saw Gangs of New York, the Cutter chatter (the Butcher played by Daniel Day Lewis) represented that kind of thinking. The beginnings of the Jung ho American New York hard hat type.
at this point the mid to late 19th century, liberals in America were growing strong. They didn't have televangelists but they had guys like them, and the most famous ones, such as Horace Bushnelll, were liberal. They did criticize fundies, except there weren't many fundies in the contemporary sense. But that didn't matter because the incoming right winners who themselves as preaching the social Gospel and carrying on the torch of Finney and holiness movement, but the center was slipping over to the right.
After W.W.I post minims was totally dead. Everyone figured cyclically that the world get worse and worse, the war made them see it this way. so the new right wing fundie pessimism was born; the word will get more and more evil until Christ comes back and saves a tiny little remnant from a vastly evil black antichrist world.
Then they started with pre-mil thinking; we can avoid all that because the rapture will come first. Meanwhile the real liberals had no more post millennialism, they had enough of that and began embedding the 19th century Germanium liberalism and questioning the whole faith and rewriting the faith to exclude any super naturalism and taking out all aspect of what fundies consider true faith.
But the funds were largely confide to camp meetings and tent revivals, the rural areas. They were thought of as uneducated hicks, or deep inner city dwellers in Greta poverty. But it was after WW 2 brought them to California and other places, to the city to work in defense that they became part of main stream America and their views began to take over the air waves as they became prosperous enough to buy air time and respectable enough to avoid ridicule.
Reinhold Neibhur tried to instigate a show down with Billy Graham in the 50s over anti-communism. But he couldn't go very far because he would have been seen as a communist. He had an uphill battle because his position was complex and people preferred Graham's simplistic optimism of "get saved and beat communism."
By the 60 the liberals were so far out they weren't even in the ball park of faith anymore, or those that were so shell shocked by the seeming secularization that when the Jesus movement came along they eagerly embraced it because it seemed great; be a Christian hippie meant for them being open and caring about others and living up the social gospel at last. but people like Graham just used it to try and drain off young people protesting the war. So by the late 80's the church was ready for taking over by the Regents and the extreme right wing. The overall center of the country moved right and the funds didn't seem so far out anymore
Descartes,Epistemology, and Phenomenology
We tend to think of epistemology as fashioned by Descartes. the rationalist constucts a neat little system for obtaining certain knlwedge. At the time that Descartres came up with the cogito Europe was emboiled in a crisis of skepticsm. The Skeptics weren't just anti-religious, though, they were Calivnists! The Calvinists challenged chruch authority, and the chruch was the gate keeper of knowledge. So Descartes' system was aimed at wrecking the arguments of the Calvinists, who despized reason and militated for faith as the ulimate route to knoweldge.
Descartes failed in that he didn't bring everyone back to the RCC, but he succeeded beyond his wildest in that he established the method of empirical scientific proof thorugh statistical verifcation, or helped to do so. Since that time we have tenede to think of epistemology as a need little disciplien that sets out a systemstic system and 1,2,3 we have the truth because we know how we know.
But it doesn't work that way in moderity. Things are too complex. One thing that happened since WWII was a current in German thought that goes back to Brintano and the 19th century came to fruition in the guise of a Nazi, even one accepted in the land of the Nazi deafters.
I speak of course of Heigeggerian epistemology. That is a very appropriate juncture for a Christian to move into thinking about epistemolgy, since Heidegger was influenced by two major christian thinkers, in the liberal tradition; the 'father' of modern liberal theology, Schleiermacher, and the "father" of modern existentialism, Keirkegaard. Both were devout christians.
This phenomenological persective runs parell to the persective of mystical religoius experince, which is the most sure fire safe guard on faith of which I know.
Heideggerian phenomenology proceeds from a point of allowing the phenomena to suggest their own categories. Rather than "gathering" all data into a heap and forcing it into pre conceieved categoreis, the phenomenologist begins with the root of the experince in sense data and phenomena, and rather than insisting upon filing it where he thinks it goes, he mentally allows the phenomena to suggest its own category.
That means in practicle terms expeiencing the presence of God rather than insisting thorugh rationalistic means that God exists and God is thus and so. One experinces God and then comes to an understanding of the nature of God.
Now I'm not saying that this can be a total empistemology in and of itself. We also have emprical knowledge and revelation. But you know my view on revelation of the Bible, that is a recored f peopel's experinces of god; that is very phenomenological. rather than be dictated their theological tennets, they recorede their expeinces and that becomes the tennet as the community comopares it to its own experinces; the dialetical presence model of inspiration that Barth and others spoke of.
God imged as big Sky Dadday or great adminstrarotr in sky?
I have traffic hit counters that trace where visitors are coming from. We have quite a collection of international reders:
45 United States
8 Thailand
5 Ireland
2 Australia
2 Singapore
1 Korea, Republic Of
1 Indonesia
I do notice that I've lost ground among UK readers. I guess I'm just not as interesting to UK people as I used to be.
The reason I mention it is because I can follow the links and see where they came from, that is what sight brought to me. One such site was a post on some message board in which the poster made the remarkable observation that the God of the Bible is not a very good administator. The poster seemed to be quite serious about it. Of curse one might think having a whole universe to run is a big deal, but this guy seemed rather emphatic that God has really screwed it all up. For example, all those wars in the Bible. He made such an incredibly frail creation in man, we just canm't keep oursevles out of trouble; all God's fault of course. Atheism forbid that we should ever take responsiblity for our own actions. Its' all because God is such an inept creator that he just couldn't make a perfect speicies.
Of course, unique and original as this line of reasoning must be, it seems flawed somehow. I think the real flaw is in the incessent need that sketpics have to blame teh father. Its' truely freudian, they playout their battles with the superego by construing God as the Big Sky Daddy. Of course i must say, the Bible doesn't help matters that much by occaisoinally portraying God in ths manner. The Bible, chruches, religion in general all set up the image of the big man in the sky with a white beard on a big throne watching us all and decing who get's zapped. That kind of thinking hangs over religious thought like a stench, causing us to reflect upon God as though he were just another drunk in bar on saturday night. We all probably have a sneaking supscion that we could do better than the big white beard guy. We probably could, the thing is, that's not God. It's hard to think of it as not God, because incessently relate to God in such a way as to give that impression. It also could be the case that in those passages where God is portrayed this was a similar public image probelm from that time and perhaps the author's own Fruedian thing at work back then.
The truth of it is there are coutner images where God is imaged as female, or even non human, in the actual Bible. The number of passages in the OT where God is picutured sitting as a big man on a throne are not that many. I can think of Job, and couple in Isaiah, and a couple in Esserah. The word used for God and most often tralstaed "Lord," El Shaddi, means "brest."
"El Shaddai The God who is Sufficient
from the website Hebrew Letters by SARAHLEAH
EL SHADDAI is usually translated as GOD ALMIGHTY - EL, meaning GOD and SHADDAI being a combination word - SHE, meaning WHO and DAI meaning ENOUGH. EL SHADDAI GOD WHO IS ENOUGH, GOD WHO IS SELF-SUFFICIENT (Hagigah 12a). SHADDAI may also be from the Akkadian sadu, meaning MOUNTAIN, or the Hebrew sadeh, meaning BREAST. EL SHADDAI would then be translated respectively as GOD OF THE MOUNTAIN or GOD OF THE BREAST. Variant spelling - EL SHADAI "Adonai appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai" (Exodus 6:3).
(Zohar. 1984. Tr. Harry Sperling et al. New York: Soncino. 3:130).
Jacob giving last instructions to his sons said:
Gen 49:24-25.(24) "But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God (El) of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)25 Even by the God (El) of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty (Shaddai), who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb..."
(For other references to this same usage, see Isaiah 60:15-16 and Isaiah 66:10-13.)
For the full list of female imagery of God:
There are also many ensconces in scripture where God is imaged in female or motherly terms:
Deu 32:11 "As an eagle stirs up her nest, and hovers over her young, and spreads her wings, takes them up, and bears them on her wings.
Deu 32 :18 "Of the Rock that bore you, you were unmindful, and have forgotten God that formed you." (that one may be hard to get, baring children--female image).
Job 38:8 "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb."
Job 38:29 "From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven."
Isa 45 9-10 Woe to you who strive with your Maker, earthen vessels with the potter. Does the clay say to the one who fashions it: What are you making, or Your work has no handles? Woe to anyone who says to a father: What are you begetting? or to a woman: With what are you in labour?
Isa 49:15 "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. (comparing God's attitude toward Israel with a woman's attitude toward her children).
Isa 66:13 As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
Hosea 13:8 "I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and will tear open the covering of their heart";
Mat 23:37 and Luk 13:34 Jerusalem, "Jerusalem, the city that kills its prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing."
But my point is not just that God can be imaged as female. A female could possibly also be thought of as a bad administrtor. There are also images of God that compare the divine to non human: hens, bears, egals, chickens, whirl winds, consuming fires, sotrms, darkness, light. The point is really that God is not an adminstrator. There is no passage that implys that God set up the world to opporate as some form of public works project. Even though God is often compared to kings, taht is no reason to understand creation as a Kingdom in the sinese of a nation state.
The virulent atheist is fond of thinking of religious people as week and needing a crutch. We could just as eaisly think of the atheist (or at least that knee jerk type of atheist) as obressed with castrating the father, and needing an authority figure to best. The problem is in trying to think of God in a way that doesnt conjure up some athropomophic image projected into the heavens, while not losing the warm fuzzy of the parental images. I don't think this is possible. There is no such image that is both human and none human at the same time. Givent he track record of athropomorphizing, it might not be a bad idea to try to think of God in other ways; like the laws of physics for examle, or as some kind of strange attractor (even strage attractors are not real things).
Gournd 0
Donald Trump doesn't like the proposals for re-making ground 0. The proposals call for modern archetecture to be applied to new desinged commemorting the tragedy and the subsequent spirit of triumph. Trump wants to build back twin towers that look almost like the orignals. That to me is very emblemeatic of his generation and the American unorigniality syndrome. Trump and his Ilk, the geniuses who destoryed America's landscape and covered the country in asphault, have no more originality than to just rebuild, which would be the greatest insult to the dead, as though the events of 9/11 had no meaning and never happened.
I think the problem goes deepr than that. I think it's really becasue most Americans have no appreication for the arts. Trump is kind of like the super average American. Not that the Average American can be rich, but the Average american worships wealth and aspires to be like Trump. This sort of anti-intellectual mentality places no value upon atheistics, so the concept of commeneration through astheitics is probably a part of a by-gone era. In the one-dimensional world of Donald Trump remaking the landscape in the shape of the preivous landscpae is just another way to commemorate the only value that can survive in a mercantile age; that of erecting monuments to wealth and power.
what a quick way to get a head ache?
On "Christian Froums" a set of boards that exist for the benifit of atheists so they can look more intelligent than Christians, I've bee having the kind of discussion I hate; all about the ontolgoical argument.
I woud noramlly love discussing that argument, but only if I had someone to discuss it with who know and cared about logic. Most atheists hate logic. They try to pretend that atheism is so much more loigcal than Christianity, but when confronted with real logial arguments (I mean s5modal) they just fold up and strat mocking and openly say logic is no good,it doens't tell us anything ect ect. Some have gone so far as to deny the validity of modus Ponines and some even deny the law of non contradiction! Anything to avoid the horrible conclusin that God can't not exist.
Here's what most people mean by "logic:" "I like X, whoray for X." If you disagree with X you are illogical. Most people do not know that logic has rules, they think that it's just a matter of having a "cool" opinion. So when they say "Christianity is not logical" they really mean "Christianity is not cool."
Here's another aspect of logic that these atheists couldn't handel:
X cannot be p
q = p
therefore, X cannot be q.
they deny the loigc of this. First they denied it in terms of God arugment when the symbolic value represented these concepts:
X = necessity
q = possiblity
p = contingency.
first they deneied the idea that:
if X cannot be contingent and it cannot be impossbile then it must be necessary. Therefore, if God cannot be contingent, and cannot be impossible, then God must be necessary.
Then they denied it in the form above when they didn't know the values.
In four threads of about 4 pages each not one single atheist made a single argument based upon loigc but they all said the OA was illogical.
I am in trouble i need help
I am as far down as I've ever been in life. PLease help.
http://www.webspawner.com/users/palbo/index.html
Bad Moon on the Right
I can't find an article to Chris Hedges article in Hapers for this moth, but it's a very important article: "feeling the hate of the Religious Right." So here's a link to an article about the article.
http://www.liquidlist.com/archives/2005/05/politics_louis.html
I Just saw Hedged talking about this on "Democracy Now" On Free Speech TV. It's a terrible thing to wake up and released I've had my head in the sand. I've known for a long time what the religious right is about, but have paid less and less attention on the assumption that; (1) I can't do anything about it; (2) Americans love to sin and even if the RR establishes theocracy it wont last long.
That later point might have a point to it. But I think we should all be aware of the religious right's agenda. I also want my non Christian friends to be aware of the fact that a minority of hip Christians have always tumbled to the agenda of the Christian fascists, and we are not pleased or amassed. I now see that minority growing. That in itself gives me a bit of hope.
The alarming problem is that most Christians, most Evangelicals are just not willing to listen. 90% are good people who want to please God and have no political savvy so they have no idea what is being said by these people. But the religious right's agenda is to marginalize everyone not a member of their movement. Hedges traces the roots of that movent from the modern Falwell and so on to the segregation's of the 60s to the Ku Klux Klan.
It's in the latest issue of Harpers, we should all read it.
God imged as big Sky Dadday or great adminstrarotr...


text:
What type of rural? Assessing the variations in life expectancy at birth at small area-level for a small population province using classes of locally defined settlement types
Mikiko Terashima1,
Judith Read Guernsey1 &
Pantelis Andreou1
Although efforts have been made to articulate rural–urban health inequalities in recent years, results have been inconsistent due to different geographical scales used in these studies. Small-area level investigations of health inequalities will likely show more detailed pictures of health inequalities among diverse rural communities, but they are difficult to conduct, particularly in a small population region. The objectives of this study were: 1) to compare life expectancy at birth for females and males across small-areas classified by locally defined settlement types for a small province in Canada; 2) to assess whether any of the settlement types explains variations in life expectancy over and above the extent of socioeconomic disadvantage and social isolation; and 3) to examine variations in life expectancies within a (larger) area unit used as the basis of health inequality investigations in previous studies.
Seven settlement types were determined for the 'community' units based on population per-kilometre-road density and settlement forms. Mean life expectancies at birth for both genders were compared by settlement type, both for the entire province and within the Halifax Regional Municipality—the province's only census designated metropolitan area, but also contains rural settlements. Linear regression analyses were conducted to assess the statistical associations between life expectancy and the settlement types, adjusting for indicators of community-level deprivation.
While types of communities considered as 'rural' generally had lower life expectancy for both genders, the effects of living in any settlement type were attenuated once adjusted for socioeconomic deprivation and social isolation. An exception was the village and settlement cluster type, which had additionally negative effects on health for females. There were some variations observed within the Halifax Regional Municipality, suggesting the importance of further investigating a variety of health and disease outcomes at smaller area-levels than those employed in previous studies.
This paper highlighted the importance of further articulating the differences in the characteristics of rural at finer area-levels and the differential influence they may have on health. Further efforts are desirable to overcome various data challenges in order to extend the investigation of health inequalities to hard-to-study provinces.
In the last 10 to 15 years, an increasing number of studies have started investigating inequalities in health and health behaviours between rural and urban regions. However, the answers to the 'rural or urban' question have been mixed [1–3]. Riva and colleagues [1] pointed out that the inconsistencies in the results of comparisons may be attributed to a wide range of health measures used for comparisons, and the level of geographical detail used to define rural areas. Indeed, health measures vary from incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases, injury, suicide and health behaviours to life expectancy, premature mortality, and health services utilization [3–9]. The definitions of rural (and urban) used and size of areas attached to the definitions in empirical studies also vary greatly [10, 11].
In more recent years, studies comparing various health outcomes not only between urban and rural, but also among different degrees of rural, have emerged [1, 6, 12, 13]. In Canada, a classification of rurality called Metropolitan Influence Zone (MIZ) [14] has increasingly been used to assess the inequalities in health within rural regions [4, 8, 9, 15, 16]. MIZ is defined at the Census Subdivision (CSD) level which usually represents municipalities, and is often used in combination with Census definitions of urban (i.e., Census Metropolitan Area and Census Agglomeration Area [CMA/CA]) to show an urban–rural continuum. Some studies linked CSDs with 'communities' [4]. MIZ classifies CSDs into zones (Strong-, Moderate-, Weak- and No-MIZ) based on the levels of influence by CMA/CA, measured by the proportion of commuters and geographical distance to large urban centres of 10,000 or more people [8].
Using MIZ, a national study showed that life expectancies at birth for both women and men in Strong-MIZ are higher than those of other rural or urban areas. Prevalence of asthma for women was lower in Weak-MIZ than other areas including urban, while higher diabetes prevalence was observed in Weak- and No-MIZ. Leisure time and physical activity levels were higher in Strong- or Weak-/No-MIZ than Moderate-MIZ, though not as high as urban. There were greater proportions of smokers in Strong- and Weak-MIZ than urban areas, while the proportions were smaller than Moderate- and No-MIZ [8, 15]. In a provincial study, [4] life expectancy at birth was higher in Strong-MIZ than others, though the differences were not large across the urban–rural continuum. General gradients in accounts of motor vehicle injury-related mortality, respiratory and circulatory related disease mortality, and suicide rates were observed in both the national and provincial studies. Two studies of health service utilization patterns [9, 16] highlighted the heterogeneity in frequency of different service use (e.g., family physicians, specialists, mental health, surgeons, hospital stays) between rural and urban and among different MIZ areas.
MIZ based definitions of rurality provide finer details of differences in health and social characteristics related to health than county or equivalent size areas, yet are big enough to ensure statistical power for analysis involving sparse Canadian rural. As an administrative area unit, CSDs are also convenient in linking many census based data [4] and allow cross provincial comparison with consistent geographical units.
However, there is a notable weakness in studies using MIZ. The geographical area level attached to the definition is municipality, which is still too large a scale to ascertain important differences within the area unit. Commuters to large urban centres are unlikely to be evenly distributed but rather concentrated in specific geographical location(s) within. Municipality-level analysis does not allow investigations of the influence by the social process and relationships unique to smaller settings like communities or neighbourhoods [17, 18].
The challenge of understanding the effects of rurality on health is often compounded by its strong correlations with socioeconomic characteristics (i.e., rural communities tend to have less income earning and employment opportunities). Empirical evidence is not consistent as to whether rurality contributes to health over and above socioeconomic conditions in these areas [5, 8, 19–21]. Assessing the effects of living in different settlement types that "correspond to 'the use of space to provide the setting of interaction'" [17] relevant to health, while isolating out the socioeconomic conditions of the respective areas, will likely add to our understanding of what it is about being rural that influences health.
This study had three specific objectives. First, it compared life expectancy at birth for females and males across small-area units, classified by 7 different settlement types locally defined for Nova Scotia, a province in Canada. This study utilized area units that were designed in consultation with local planning officials to correspond to generally perceived 'community' identities and encompass both urban and rural areas. These are substantially smaller than area units employed in previous studies, and had previously not been used as a basis of population health studies due to their difficulty in geographically linking health data. Second, it assessed whether any of the 7 settlement types explain variations in life expectancy for females and males across the province, above and beyond the proportion explained by two measures of community-level deprivation. Third, it examined whether there was a significant variation between communities within Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM)—the province's largest municipality containing most urban and rural settlement types.
Study context
The Province of Nova Scotia has under 1 million residents (n = 913,465 based on 2006 Census). It is the second smallest province in Canada with an area of about 55,000 km2. According to the MIZ definition, about 40% of the population live in rural areas. Few studies have been conducted that compared population health statuses or health determinants across the whole province at smaller area-level than CSDs [9, 22, 23]. HRM is the only census designated metropolitan area (CMA) in Nova Scotia. The distance between the metropolitan centre and the community furthest away within HRM is about 120 km, with some incongruent settlements in between. Calculation of health statuses and social determinants for this municipality as one community, therefore, will likely mask some important differences within it.
Mortality data from Nova Scotia Vital Statistics (2003–2007) were obtained to calculate life expectancy at birth for females and males (n = 40,694). Canadian census (2006), recalibrated into the 'community' units by the Nova Scotia government, were used to create community-level indices of deprivation.
Area units and life expectancy at birth
Nova Scotia has a set of official area units called 'communities,' which was designed by the Nova Scotia government for the purpose of public policy development and decision making in consultation with local planning officials to better represent generally perceived community identities [24]. At the time of study, they divided the whole of the province into 276 small-areas, or communities. The area units had not been used to calculate population health statuses prior, due to their difficulty in linking any health data. Most health data contain only postal code information, and postal codes are not nested in these communities. Only in the last few years it became possible to link, with high accuracy, the address information in the Vital Statistics data to these communities using an address-based location reference file developed by a local GIS company [25]. Using these communities as a base, we created small-areas having sufficient denominator sizes (population >5,000; 5-year cumulative) needed for a stable calculation of life expectancies as recommended in literature [26]. Communities with less than 5,000 denominator for each gender were combined with other small communities that are adjacent, same settlement type (see below), and within the same counties. Twenty-five of the original communities—five parks and 20 Indian Reserves—were excluded due to very small denominator sizes and suppressed data in the Census. This procedure resulted in a total of 180 communities and community groups (herein called communities). Chiang method [27] was employed to calculate life expectancy at birth for females and males in each of the 180 communities.
Settlement types (or rurality)
The community settlement types were determined by a process involving two steps. First, each of the original 276 communities were classified into several groups based on per km road density using geometric intervals. Geometric intervals are a statistical classification method which minimizes within group variances [28], making each group as homogeneous and unique against each other as possible. Second, a community map describing the classification was overlaid with the satellite image on Google Earth in order to determine the typologies of the classes with types of settlements. These two steps were repeated to see how many groupings would make most sense to distinguish the settlement types, resulting in seven. These classes were named based on the settlement forms and location as the following:
Big satellite town
Mid-size town
Village & Settlement cluster
Sparse settlement
Two measures of deprivation
Two indices of community deprivation were calculated for the 180 communities, adjusted for age and sex compositions based on Nova Scotia as a standard. The indices are similar to the multiple indices of deprivation developed in Quebec, [29] which have now been commonly used and shown the associations with various health indicators in a number of studies [4, 30, 31]. One was of material deprivation, comprised of three variables (average individual income, proportion of people with no high school diploma, and unemployment rate). Another represented social isolation, [30] comprising of variables related to the lack of immediate social ties or fragility of the social network [32] (proportion of people living alone, people who are separated, divorced or widowed, and single parents).
Distribution of life expectancy at birth and deprivation scores by settlement types
Mean life expectancy at birth for both females and males, and mean quintile scores of material deprivation and social isolation were calculated by the seven settlement types. Additionally, mean life expectancy was compared between settlement types considered as urban and rural within HRM.
Statistical analyses of associations between the five settlement types and life expectancy at birth
Linear regression analyses were conducted to assess the ecological-level associations between the settlement types and life expectancy at birth for females and males. First, the settlement types were treated as a continuous variable with a gradient between most urban (metro) to most rural (sparse settlements). While treating it as continuous, the gradient of rurality does not measure precise, equal intervals and only shows general ranking of how rural these types are. However, it was employed for a purpose of comparison with models that treat settlement types as a series of unique categories. Next, the seven types were dichotomized into urban (metro, suburb and big towns) and rural (mid-size town, small town, village & settlement cluster, and sparse settlement). Then, each of the settlement types was examined for its associations separately. Finally, the same analyses were repeated, adjusting for the two measures of deprivation. All the statistical analyses were conducted using SAS (Cary, NC).
Community and population distribution by the settlement types and the two measures of deprivation are presented in Table 1. The table also shows the population grouped by rural and urban. According to the grouping, about 46% of the province's population resides in a rural setting. About 30% of the province's population resides in Halifax Metro, while about 25% reside in sparsely populated communities.
Table 1 Community and population distribution by rurality (settlement types and rural–urban), socioeconomic deprivation, and social isolation in Nova Scotia, 2006
The mean life expectancy at birth for the province was 81.1 years of age for females (95% CI: 80.8, 81.5), and 75.8 years of age (95% CI:75.4, 76.21) for males. Figure 1 shows a comparison of mean life expectancy at birth for females and males among the seven settlement types. For both genders, the highest mean life expectancy was seen in suburbs, and the lowest mean was seen in the village & settlement cluster group-for females and mid-size town for males. Overall, the highest and lowest groups had 2.16 and 1.71 years of differences for females and males, respectively.
Comparison of mean life expectancy at birth with 95% confidence intervals among seven settlement types. 1. Metro, 2. Suburbs, 3. Big satellite town, 4. Mid-size town, 5. Small town, 6. Village & settlement cluster, 7. Sparse settlement. Data source: Nova Scotia Vital Statistics (2003–2007).
Figure 2 compares mean quintile scores of material deprivation and social isolation by settlement types. Affluence is clear in Metro (mean = 1.50) and suburbs (mean = 1.47), while the material condition of big satellite towns (mean = 2.79) is similar to smaller size towns (mid-size and small, mean = 2.50 and 2.69 respectively), and the two most rural settlement types were similarly deprived materially (mean = 3.69 and 3.94). Social isolation score was the highest in big satellite towns (mean = 4.71), while there appears to be general gradients of the more rural, the lower social isolation, with an exception for suburbs having a distinctly low mean score (mean = 1.47).
Mean quintile score of material deprivation (left) and social isolation (right) with 95% confidence intervals among settlemen types. 1. Metro, 2. Suburbs, 3. Big satellite town, 4. Mid-size town, 5. Small town, 6. Village & settlement cluster, 7. Sparse settlement. Data source: Census of Canada (2006), Nova Scotia Community Counts.
Before adjustment for deprivation (data not shown), the linear regression analyses indicated that the continuous measure of rural had a statistically significant, negative effect (that life expectancy was lower) for females (coefficient: -0.225; 95% CI: -0.409, -0.040), though not for males (coefficient: -0.161; 95% CI: -0.374, 0.053). The dichotomous measure of rural had a significant negative effect for both females (coefficient: -0.964; 95% CI: -1.747, -0.180) and males (coefficient: -0.912; 95% CI: -1.814, -0.010). Living in a suburb had a positive effect (that life expectancy was higher) for both females (coefficient: 1.470; 95% CI: 0.261, 2.679) and males (coefficient: 1.639; 95% CI: 0.252, 3.026), while living in a village or settlement cluster had a negative effect only on females (coefficient: -0.770; 95% CI: -1.470, -0.069).
Tables 2 and 3 show the regression models, starting with only the two deprivation measures, and then adding measures of rurality (continuous, rural–urban, and individual settlement types). The adjusted coefficient R2 and F-statistics indicate the proportions of variance explained by the models (with different numbers of explanatory variables) and significance of the model. Material deprivation and social isolation had statistically significant associations with life expectancy for both genders (Model 1). No interaction between material deprivation and social isolation was observed and therefore it was not included in the models. The continuous (Model 2) and dichotomous measures of rural (Model 3) remained statistically significant for females after adjusting for material deprivation and social isolation, but not for males. Adding measures of rural (Models 2 and 3) increased the proportion of variance explained slightly for females (7.6% to 10.3% and 10.0%), while it made little difference for males. The effects of living in suburbs were no longer statistically significant once adjusted by the deprivation measures (Model 4b). Only living in the village & settlement cluster type had a sustaining significant negative effect on life expectancy for females after adjusting for the two deprivation measures (Model 4e).
Table 2 Linear regression models on life expectancy at birth (female) and measures of rurality, adjusting for socioeconomic deprivation and social isolation, Nova Scotia 2003–2007
Table 3 Linear regression models on life expectancy at birth (male) and measures of rurality, adjusting for socioeconomic deprivation and social isolation, Nova Scotia 2003–2007
Approximately 10% of the population in HRM (13 out of 41 communities) lived in communities considered as rural (Table 4). The mean life expectancy at birth for these communities was 81.45 (95% CI:79.93, 82.97) and 76.46 (95% CI: 75.49, 77.42) for females and males, respectively, while those were 82.16 (95% CI:81.76, 82.56) and 77.16 (95% CI:76.34, 77.98) for their urban counterpart.
Table 4 Comparisons of distribution of mean life expectancy at birth (with 95% confidence interval) by urban and rural – HRM only, rest of Nova Scotia, and Nova Scotia overall
The objective of this study was to assess variations in life expectancy at birth for females and males using locally defined settlement types, at a smaller-area level than those employed in previous studies in the province. We asked whether there was an additional effect of living in rural communities other than conditions of material deprivation and social isolation, and if so, what types of communities had those effects. Additionally, we asked if there were important variations in life expectancies across communities within HRM—the most populated municipality encompassing of most urban to most rural settlement types in the province.
In general, life expectancy at birth was lower for both females and males in rural communities in Nova Scotia, which was consistent with previous studies [4, 8]. The differences by settlement type were not very clear, except for suburbs being advantageous for both genders, and villages and settlement clusters being a disadvantage for females, suggesting that the impacts on health are not necessarily gradient by the level of rurality.
The health advantage of living in suburbs appears to be explained away by deprivation (i.e., suburbs being the most affluent and having the lowest level of social isolation) for both genders. One statistically significant effect of settlement type observed even after adjusting for deprivation was that of living in village and settlement clusters for females. The most rural, sparse settlement type was not associated with lower life expectancies, which suggests that there is something other than the size, remoteness or distance to amenities that produce negative effects on health in village and settlement clusters, particularly for females. To our knowledge, there is no special advantage in health service access in the most rural of communities (sparse settlements) as opposed to the village and settlement clusters in the province. The gender differentials in the effects of settlement types need to be explored further.
Although there was no statistically significant difference (i.e., there were considerable overlaps in 95% confidence intervals), mean life expectancy at birth in urban communities within HRM was about 0.7 years higher than the rural counterparts for both genders (Table 4). Moreover, the mean life expectancies of both rural and urban settlement type communities within HRM were somewhat higher than those for the rest of the province. Living in HRM appears to have an additional positive effect on health. The finding suggests that it is beneficial to investigate multi-scale of ecological (contextual) factors—community- and municipality-levels in this case.
There are some important limitations in this study. First, the study only looked at life expectancy at birth and not other health outcomes. Studies suggest that the variations in more general health statuses tend to be smaller, and a greater magnitude of variations are seen in specific diseases [4, 7]. Due to its small population size, it remains a challenge for Nova Scotia to calculate different community health statuses beyond all-cause, all-age mortality at small-area level. Moreover, the use of community area units used in this study requires a better geo-reference than postal codes. Currently, there is no available health data in the province with any location information finer than postal codes, except for Vital Statistics data. Second, this is an ecological study investigating population health status and its association with settlement types of communities, adjusting for indicators of community deprivation. It does not take into account risk factors at individual level, making it impossible to clearly separate out the effects of the compositions of certain characteristics of individuals from the 'true' effects of the settlement types. The modest proportions (no more than 12%) of the variance in life expectancies across communities explained by the community-level factors also suggest the importance for further investigating other factors such as the clustering of individual characteristics.
What this study addressed were issues of area size and the definition of 'rural'—which have not been dealt with adequately in many health inequality studies [4]—taking advantage of the 'community' area units, and detailed geo-reference data recently developed in the province. Use of areas designed to represent community entities was also an important component as they represent geographical settings in which social relations are constituted [17, 33]; an issue not always addressed in the rural–urban comparison studies (or area health inequality studies in general).
Detailed pictures of "serious, complex, and changing" [34] health problems in rural environments—whether in Canada or elsewhere—can only be clarified by compilation of more comprehensive studies investigating variations in health statuses and health determinants at the small-area level. In addition, regional geographical specificity has to be taken into account if diversity of rural communities were to be fully understood. Research therefore needs to find ways to overcome various data challenges in order to extend the investigation of rural–urban and within-rural health inequalities to hard-to-study provinces due to their population size. This study is a step forward to better understand the distribution of any health conditions across rural–urban continuum for a small province, using area units that are much smaller than those used in previous studies.
MIZ:
Metropolitan influence zones
HRM:
CSD:
Census subdivision
CMA:
Census metropolitan area
Census agglomeration area.
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MT was supported by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Strategic Training Program, the Public Health and Agricultural Rural Ecosystem (PHARE) graduate fellowship, Killam Predoctoral Scholarship, and the Atlantic RURAL Centre graduate fellowship. The authors wish to thank Nova Scotia Vital Statistics for providing the data.
Department of Community Health & Epidemiology, Dalhousie University, 5790 University Avenue, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 1V7, Canada
Mikiko Terashima, Judith Read Guernsey & Pantelis Andreou
Mikiko Terashima
Judith Read Guernsey
Pantelis Andreou
Correspondence to Mikiko Terashima.
MT designed and carried out the statistical analysis, collected the data, and drafted the manuscript. JRG participated in the revision of the paper. PA participated in the design of the study and performed some of the statistical analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Terashima, M., Read Guernsey, J. & Andreou, P. What type of rural? Assessing the variations in life expectancy at birth at small area-level for a small population province using classes of locally defined settlement types. BMC Public Health 14, 162 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-162
Small area analysis


A real or fancied evil leads to demands to do something about it.
A political coalition forms consisting of sincere, high-minded reformers (i.e. 'baptists') and equally sincere interested parties (i.e. 'bootleggers').
The incompatible objectives of the members of the coalition (e.g., low prices to consumers and high prices to producers) are glossed over by fine rhetoric about 'the public interest', 'fair competition', and the like.
The coalition succeeds in getting [Parliament] to pass a law. The preamble to the law pays lip service to the rhetoric and the body of the law grants power to government officials to 'do something'.
The high-minded reformers experience a glow of triumph and turn their attention to new causes.
The interested parties go to work to make sure that the power is used for their benefit. They generally succeed.
Success breeds its problems, which are met by broadening the scope of intervention.
Bureaucracy takes its toll so that even the initial special interests no longer benefit.
In the end, the effects are precisely the opposite of the objectives of the reformers and generally do not even achieve the objectives of the special interests.
Yet the activity is so firmly established and so many vested interests are connected with it that repeal of the initial legislation is nearly inconceivable.
Instead, new government legislation is called for to cope with the problems produced by the earlier legislation and a new cycle begins.


text:
Family Educator
Feeder High Schools
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St. Michael's Catholic Primary School is a single-stream parish school in the Inner Western Region of Sydney. The school was established in 1912 in the St Michael's Parish Church. The first school building was opened on 18 June 1916. An extension was added in 1977. The original building was demolished in 1996 to make way for an administration building, classrooms, library and hall. In 2011, further reconstruction occurred under the Building the Education Revolution (BER) which has transformed St Michael's into an engaging, exciting and stimulating learning environment for all students.
The buildings are noise ameliorated and have reverse cycle air conditioning. The school was originally staffed by the Sisters of Mercy (Parramatta Congregation) until the end of 1964 when they handed over administration to the Grafton Mercy Congregation. The first lay Principal took over leadership of the school in July 1993. The school has the use of Weekley Park for lunchtime play each day. The school is well resourced in terms of technology and curriculum support materials.
St Michael's Stanmore provides a highly engaging and interactive learning environment including:
a multipurpose hall
interactive whiteboards in all classrooms
broad range of technology including iPads, MacBooks, Chromebooks and laptop access for all students
a well-resourced and vibrant Library.
Address: Percival Rd
Sydney Catholic Schools
Archbishop's Charter
Enrolment Policy
Student Management: Suspension, Transfer and Exclusion
Resolution of Complaints Policy
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Home Artworks Cairo, looking West
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Cairo, looking West
Louis Haghe (1806 - 1885)
David Roberts (1796 - 1864)
published 1842-9
Country: Egypt
City: Cairo
Place: British Embassy
David Roberts, son of a shoemaker from Stockbridge, Edinburgh, began his career at the age of ten as an apprentice to a house painter. On completing his apprenticeship he was employed on the decoration of Scone Palace in Perthshire. He later became a scene painter for James Bannister, who ran a circus in Edinburgh, and at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, before moving to London in 1822, where he turned to easel painting. Roberts exhibited at the British Institution, Society of British Artists and Royal Academy. He is best-known for topographical paintings and illustrations resulting from trips to Spain and the Middle East. He died aged 68 at his home in Fitzroy Street, near Tottenham Court Road, London, and is buried at Norwood Cemetery.
Africa, Egypt, Middle East
topography, townscape/cityscape, hill, desert, stone wall, mosque, pyramid, dome, minaret
Materials & Techniques
lithograph, colour lithograph
height: 33.10 cm, width: 50.50 cm
Purchased from Agnew's, January 1982
GAC number


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Home > Wrestling Sports > daniel bryan
WWE News: Daniel Bryan Picks His Favorite For Cruiserweight Classic
By Shawn Lealos
Jun. 23 2016, Updated 7:25 a.m. ET
Daniel Bryan is coming back to the WWE. Of course, Bryan will never wrestle again due to his numerous concussion issues, but Fox Sports reported that Daniel has signed to be a color commentator at the WWE Cruiserweight Classic. SmackDown commentator Mauro Ranallo will be the main announcer for what promises to be a great event with some of the best cruiserweight wrestlers from around the world, including many who are not under a WWE talent contract.
On top of his work as a commentator for the WWE Cruiserweight Classic, Bryan showed up at the WWE Performance Center and met with a number of the cruiserweight wrestlers who will be competing in this tournament. The WWE even released a video of Bryan meeting up with TJ Perkins, Zack Sabre Jr., Shinsuke Nakamura, and Finn Balor.
There was also a moment at the end of that video that included Daniel Bryan, Triple H, and Brian Kendrick talking about the WWE Cruiserweight Classic. It was almost surreal to see since fans who watch WWE television are used to hearing stories of Triple H holding Daniel Bryan down because of his smaller size, and here was Triple H talking about finding all these amazing cruiserweights from all over the world who are amazing and how exciting it is to show them off.
Of course he does! https://t.co/iwHzVn2duN
— Cageside Seats (@cagesideseats) June 23, 2016
That scene from the video is also interesting because Wrestling Inc. reported that Daniel Bryan has listed his pick to win the WWE Cruiserweight Classic. Bryan didn't choose top up and comers like Zack Sabre Jr., who Bryan wrestled in the past. Instead, he said he would like to see Brian Kendrick win the WWE Cruiserweight Classic.
"The guy who I want to win the whole thing, because he's my friend and I had my very first match against him, is Brian Kendrick. We came up together. I've wrestled him or been in tag matches with him in hundreds of matches. It's really cool seeing these guys getting this kind of chance."
@jessceracera but what about Daniel Bryan and Brian Kendrick circa 2000 pic.twitter.com/wiq8OLzFDV
— wil (@wilrett) January 30, 2016
Those matches between Daniel Bryan and Brian Kendrick stretch back to the start of their career, and they were both stars when Ring of Honor Wrestling first started their promotion back in 2002. Both Daniel Bryan (then wrestling as Bryan Danielson) and Brian Kendrick (then wrestling as Spanky) were on the first ever ROH card, The Era of Honor Begins. Kendrick won an ROH contract and Bryan was in the main event, a triple threat match with Christopher Daniels and Low Ki.
As a matter of fact, the very first Ring of Honor tournament to crown an ROH Champion saw Low Ki beat Kendrick, Doug Williams, and Christopher Daniels for the title. However, the year before Ring of Honor started operations, Daniel Bryan wrestled Brian Kendrick in the 2001 King of the Indies Tournament. Bryan went on to become one of Ring of Honor's most successful wrestlers.
Both Daniel Bryan and Brian Kendrick were a success in the WWE as well. Daniel Bryan, of course, became one of the biggest stars in the WWE, a very popular competitor who went on to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship from Batista at WrestleMania in 2015. Kendrick was also successful in the WWE as he teamed with his close friend and fellow Ring of Honor alumni Paul London to hold the tag team titles longer than anyone in WWE history.
Of course, Brian Kendrick is a long shot in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic, despite Daniel Bryan's enthusiasm. Other big-time indie talent competing in the tournament includes names like Tommaso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, Zack Sabre Jr., TJ Perkins, Drew Gulak, Tyson Dux, Tony Nese, Rich Swan, and more. The WWE Cruiserweight Classic starts airing on the WWE Network on July 13 and the finale will take place on September 14.
[Image via WWE]
Latest daniel bryan News and Updates


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National tour to nest at the old Anderson High!
By Jane Matthews
Shetland Arts has confirmed that it will host the spectacular exhibition Natural Selection by Andy Holden and Peter Holden at the old Anderson High School site at The Knab in Lerwick from 26 January - 10 March 2019.
Natural Selection is the beautiful and thought-provoking result of a five-year collaboration between artist Andy Holden and his father, the well-known ornithologist Peter Holden.
Birds – and the human fascination with their habits and habitats – are at the heart of the exhibition which includes film, sculpture, photographs and animation. The origin of this commission lies in his Peter Holden's authority in the fields of natural history and ornithology. Peter Holden worked for the RSPB for 45 years, building the Young Ornithologist Club, which Andy Holden joined as a boy, into the largest wildlife club in the world. He also regularly featured as 'the bird man' on BBC's Blue Peter.
The exhibition is co-commissioned and supported by Artangel, an organisation that produces and presents extraordinary art in unexpected places in London, across the UK and around the world. Thanks to funding from the National Lottery through Creative Scotland the exhibition will tour to Shetland, Arbroath, and Inverness throughout 2019 following a successful show at Inverleith House in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh.
In Shetland the project has received generous support from The Sullom Voe Association Ltd and Lerwick Community Council, with additional transport support from Northlink Ferries. Shetland Arts is working in partnership with SIC to enable the exhibition to be staged in the old Anderson High School at The Knab in Lerwick ahead of the site's redevelopment.
Jane Matthews, Exhibition Manager at Shetland Arts explains, "It's so fantastic to be able to bring work of this calibre to Shetland, and to bring the old school back to life for the duration of the show. The setting is perfect for this beautiful and beguiling exhibition that explores characteristics in birdlife that are innate or inherited, from nest building to egg laying, in an exquisite way that both delights and educates in spades. It's a show for young and old alike and we are so grateful for all the support that has enabled us to host it".
Beyond Bonhoga


Our Practice Manager is Mrs Susan Reid. She is responsible for the management and administration of the practice.
Our Office Manager is Mrs Debbie Horne.
Our receptionists are the first point of contact for general enquiries and provide an important link for patients with the practice. They make most of the appointments with GPs and Practice Nurses and provide general information, directing you to the right person or service. They also carry out a lot of the important tasks such as processing and issuing repeat prescriptions and working with medical records, keeping the records up to date and helping with audits.
We have three Practice Nurses, Ann Sutherland, Colleen Reid and Julie Clarke . Our nurses hold clinics for various chronic diseases such as Asthma, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Hypertension and COPD. They can help you with various procedures, such as cervical smears, dressings, stitch removal, injections. Our receptionists need to know why you are requesting an appointment with the nurses to make sure you are given the correct appointment.
We have a phlebotomist, Carol Kirk, who has appointments four mornings per week. She is responsible for taking blood tests but can also check blood pressure and carry out weight checks. Our new patient medicals are also carried out by our Phlebotomist.
Contact directly by telephoning 730611.
If you need to see or seek advice from a doctor outwith normal surgery opening times, please contact NHS24 by dialling 111.
You can also look at NHS24 online.
A weekly clinic is held in the surgery by a Community Midwife.


A fresh look at the most expensive cities from the Center for Housing Policy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology.
Food and clothes consumed 60 percent of consumer spending in 1900, but as we found more efficient ways to make burgers and socks, that number fell all the way to 17 percent in 2003. As a result, in most major cities, we spend the majority of our income on planes, trains, automobiles, and dwellings.
But the overall number conceals incredible variety within the country. In small cities or rural areas, housing can be quite cheap. In the Miami metro area, middle-lower-income families spend a whopping 72 percent of their income on housing and transportation (henceforth: H&T). In Washington, D.C., average monthly H&T costs are the highest in the nation. But as a share of the capital's high income, H&T is, remarkably, the most affordable of any major city.
The Price of Density: Housing in Houston isn't so bad -- it's the 8th most affordable large city to own a home in. But the same thing that helps make it an affordable place to own a home (lots of space!) also raises its commuting costs. Factor in transportation, and it's the 8th least affordable large city to live. On the other hand, dense expensive cities like San Francisco, Boston and New York are considerable more affordable when you add in transportation costs because of their superior public transit.
It's Worse for the Poor: For homeowners earning between 50 percent and 100 percent of the median income in each city, H&T costs for homeowners who still owe a mortgage average -- average! -- a whopping 72 percent. Stated differently: Homeowners whose earnings put them in the second quartile of households pay three in every four dollars in mortgage and transportation.


What do the following activities have in common: Golfing, fishing, vacationing, and contacting lost or unhappy customers. Give-up? They're all ideal ways to spend your free time.
Typically, dealing with an unsatisfied customer isn't the most pleasant thing to do during your off-hours, however, in a business where referrals can make or break your business, an unhappy customer can do a lot of damage.
Contacting an ex-customer can help you determine if the problem is widespread and affecting others customers. If so, you can ask them for ways to help you fix whatever is broken within your organization. Here are four things to keep in mind when contacting lost customers.
Before you do anything, ask yourself some simple questions. Do you want the customer back? How profitable was the customer? Did the customer conform to your company's ideal customer profile? What percentage of your total business did this customer represent and what percentage of your time was required to service their business? If you come back with positive answers to these questions, it indicates that this customer is worth pursuing. But if you're having a hard time convincing yourself that the customer was worth the hassle – then think twice before losing sleep over the situation.
Schedule a meeting. Once you've made the decision to try and bring a customer back, you'll want to schedule a meeting to discuss the future of the account. It's necessary to remember that convincing your customer to reverse their decision is not your ultimate goal for the meeting. Instead, you should view it as a fact-finding mission. Why did they leave – price? Quality? Was it something that can easily be corrected? The most important thing you can take away from this Q&A is finding out the likelihood of your other customers experiencing the same problem.
Even if you decide it's best for both you and the customer to part ways, it's imperative to still schedule a follow-up meeting. This will help you bring closure to the account and part on more professional terms. You don't want your former customers giving negative reviews to potential customers.
Stay in touch Some salespeople call the staying-in-touch approach "drip irrigation." Stay close, but not so close that the customer feels pressured. You want the customer to feel missed (by continuing to include them on your direct mail campaigns, special promotions and friendly "thinking of you" letters), but avoid a full court press. You can do this by being patient, dropping the customer short notes from time to time, or even by doing unexpected small favors for the customer.
Always be honest. It's also vital to remember that as a contractor, you shouldn't just limit yourself to thinking only about the logistics of your business. While it's important to explain tangibles such as "price per gallon", remember the intangibles of the job or the "human-interest" aspects of the job. Explain your charges might be more expensive than those of the competitor's. For example, if you're using a high-quality product like Flood's Tropitech Spa-N-Deck® Exterior Wood Finish, the price per gallon will be slightly higher, but the customer saves money on labor. Spa-N-Deck is a 100 percent acrylic premium quality wood coating that can be used to finish a deck in one day – saving you labor and giving your customer a beautiful deck in just half the time of most competitor's. Ultimately, being honest and upfront with your customer is the best policy.
Losing a customer can be a devastating blow to any organization, but don't exert all of your energy toward reselling a lost customer. Sometimes it's better to move on. "Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently," said Henry Ford – a man who failed and went broke five times before finally succeeding.


Join #HealthyWayMag Fitness Chat EVERY Monday 5pmP/8pmE on Twitter and pick up workout motivation, exercise accountability and fitness tips! You'll chat with others also on their fitness journey, share successes, problem solve challenges.
Chat with others, offer your thoughts and input on questions, have fun!
On your journey to healthy and fit, you'll learn the importance of not only healthy food choices, but healthy portions as well. Take the guess work and frustration of questioning accuracy out of the equation with EatSmart Products. EatSmart Products is the leading designer and manufacturer of digital scales. In fact, their Digital Bathroom Scale is the best seller and top rated scale on Amazon! They offer high-quality, user-friendly and reliable nutrition scales and bathroom scales, making it easier to reach your health and fitness goals. Now you can focus on other aspects of your healthy lifestyle plan, instead of worrying about the reliability of your support gear. For more information, please check out their blog. And be sure to follow them on Twitter @EatSmartScales.
Break Up Your Day with Fitness!
Do a set of pushups, wall squats or planks.
Instead of sending an email, walk to your co-workers office.
Perform a cardio burst of jumping jacks, jog in place or squat jumps.
Pay it forward. Know a fellow exerciser who is struggling with exercise motivation? Reach out an offer a few encouraging words, a text, an email, a phone call or simply a smile.
Say Thank You. Say thank you to those who have helped your fitness journey.
Acknowledge your progress. Pull out your old workout logs for visual reinforcement of your progress. Pull out old race photos and relive your most fun fitness day.


Launched in 2016, Scenic Azure marries cutting-edge technology with the opulent flourishes you've come to expect from Scenic. Developed to negotiate the meandering flow of the majestic Douro, this 80 metre Space-Ship affords a truly blissful experience for those seeking a break amid the scenic splendour of this exquisite waterway.
Featuring 48 guest cabins and carrying just 96 passengers, Scenic Azure affords an intimate and exclusive journey. Couple this with the ship's 1:2 crew-to-guest ratio, and you can look forward to an attentive, stress-free getaway from the moment you step aboard this illustrious vessel.
Throughout the ship, you'll find a roster of unique features designed to help you make the most of the Portuguese sun. This is most evident on the Sun Deck, whose Vitality Pool, sun loungers and alfresco dining venue, Riverview Terrace, allow you to relax and unwind beneath the sultry seasonal sunshine for hours on end.
Each generous cabin aboard Scenic Azure is perfectly proportioned to guarantee your complete enjoyment and relaxation, and 87% of suites benefit from Scenic's bespoke Sun Lounge, allowing you to make the most of the Douro's warm winds and sunlit days.


Services Scoop is the pioneering trade magazine of the Caribbean. With the emphasis on 'trade in services', this magazine highlights the critical, yet underrated role the services sector plays in our economic development. Services Scoop explores how the region can better realize trade in services, seize regional and international opportunities, and highlights examples of success. The objective of this publication is to raise awareness on the value of the services sector and the potential of trade in services and thereby encourage more support in the enhancement of both.
This world-class, informative magazine is the annual publication of the Caribbean Network of Service Coalitions.


The transportation and logistics industries are undergoing sweeping change. Electric vehicle and lithium battery costs are falling quickly, autonomy software is improving at a rapid pace, and ride-sharing platforms are leading customers to question the need to own their own car.
These three trends – electrification, autonomy, and access-over-ownership – are reshaping every part of the industry and moving the sector into a new era of integrated mobility. The resulting vision is one of a seamless transit experience incorporating multimodal, public and private transport.
As the transport value chain expands to become the mobility value ecosystem, the old way of doing business just doesn't cut the mustard.
Previously, airlines only competed with airlines, car makers with car makers, and Apple just made mobile devices and laptops. Electric vehicles, automation technologies, and alternative mobility solutions like ride-hailing are forcing automotive manufacturers (OEMs) and transportation providers to rethink their business models.
After being in stasis for decades, the market is now on the move as players jockey for position and a new, integrated mobility value ecosystem emerges, bringing all modes of public, private and commercial transport together.
This flux is forcing collaboration and partnerships that would have been unimaginable five years ago.
A new era of 'open integrated mobility' is upon us: movement is decentralised, multimodal, automated, and aspires to be increasingly sustainable. It goes beyond the traditional automotive industry and brings together bikes, trains, planes, ships and new and emerging transport types like drones and hyperloop.
As the personal transportation market moves toward access rather than ownership, the same assets are being used for commercial and consumer purposes, blurring the lines between logistics, public transit, and private transport.
Uber has already experimented with grocery deliveries, Mobike and Ofo dominate bike-sharing in China, and Citymapper, a UK mapping startup, is running a bus service in London.
Data created and captured by software (operating systems in autonomous vehicles, in-transit applications for entertainment, and multimodal mobility consumer applications) and the internet of things (sensors such as gyroscopes, LIDARs, cameras, radars, accelerometers, and proximity sensors) is becoming the most important resource, as it enables automation and connectivity.
An example is the FOAM Proof of Location protocol, which offers secure location services independent of external centralised sources such as GPS through time synchronisation.
Once data is captured, it gets authenticated, validated and secured using decentralised infrastructure like distributed ledgers and self-sovereign identity, such as Sovrin. Their data transport layer defines how data moves across databases, networks, and systems and is important for the facilitation of data and value interoperability between participants.
Another example, Haja networks, is building a trustless peer-to-peer database to support a global data layer.
Marketplaces for artificial intelligence, personal, IoT data and digital assets allow participants to trade, exchange and monetise their data in order to be processed, analysed and provide automation via smart contracts and machine learning.
Ocean protocol enables such an ecosystem for sharing data and associated services and Fetch.AI facilitates autonomous economic agents that can exchange data and insights.
However, are incumbents with vast amounts of data expected to hold on to it or share? Large incumbents, such as Waymo, Apple, Amazon, are unlikely to be willing to share their data, but new participants will benefit from data exchange and value interoperability to an extent where big players might be forced to follow suit.
The convergence mobility ecosystem is increasingly being characterised by the removal of data silos, as well as the advent of data marketplaces, self-sovereign ID and new economic value being unlocked.
Removal of silos: DLTs, by their very nature, facilitate value interoperability, which points to a shared and integrated mobility ecosystem characterised by widespread collaboration where resources, value, and data can be exchanged seamlessly and invisibly.
Data marketplaces:?Through a combination of IoT, AI, and tokenisation we will see end-users, OEMs, auto manufacturers and fleet operators incentivised to open-up, and exchange data as digitised assets through data marketplaces.
Self-sovereign sign-in:?Users and vehicles, individually and in concert, own and manage self-sovereign identity to unlock a global, 'single sign-in', user-account that is not centrally controlled by any one corporation, allowing them to access a distributed ecosystem of mobility assets and services.
New economic value unlocked:?Smart contracts, distributed computation, automation, and security advances unlock new business models. Vehicles increasingly become computers on wheels, powered by software, with their own autonomous economic agency and new in-transit user interfaces and experiences.
Without fundamentally rethinking our approach to infrastructure for this emergent integrated mobility landscape, we will face a tragedy of the commons. Without shared infrastructure and a collaborative approach, siloed operating systems and data will limit the transformational impact of multimodal mobility.
The consumer will have to navigate a range of different systems, as they move between modes of transport. Businesses will not be able to fully utilise their assets and smart cities will remain only a dream.
However, for all parties to rely upon any one entity to control this system would be to submit to a monopoly that would gain from increasing data and intelligence advantages, becoming almost impossible to remove. That isn't likely to happen.
We need a mobility ecosystem based on shared infrastructure in which resources, data, and value can be exchanged seamlessly. The convergence ecosystem is a valuable framework for understanding how this decentralised, multimodal, automated, and sustainable infrastructure can be designed and built.