Slater & Gordon Solicitors today lodged a claim in the WA Supreme Court on behalf of an organic farmer seeking to recover loss and damage allegedly caused by a genetically modified canola farmer neighbour. Steve Marsh, an organic farmer from Kojonup, Western Australia, suffered contamination by GM material on his farm in late 2010 leading to the loss of his organic certification and loss of income.
Slater & Gordon Solicitors are acting pro bono in the public interest. The Safe Food Foundation directed by Scott Kinnear, longstanding organic industry representative, is supporting Steve by raising funds to support the case. The SFF will coordinate the fund raising efforts of dozens of groups and thousands of individuals across Australia and internationally who have pledged to help Steve in this landmark legal battle.
"Steve has been deluged with offers of help since news of his story broke. The Safe Food Foundation has taken on the coordination of fundraising as a major project in support of Steve and the right of farmers everywhere to grow GM-free foods; which ultimately equals consumers' right to buy and eat GM-free foods and to avoid potentially dangerous toxic GM foods" said Kinnear.
"There are legitimate concerns, derived from a body of developing research, that GM foods and the herbicide Roundup may be toxic," Kinnear said. Roundup Ready GM crops such as GM canola, are resistant to the application of Roundup which is used on the crops to control weeds, causing Roundup residues to enter our food chain," said Kinnear.
"We suggest farmers considering GM canola for this year, should reconsider their plans until this case has resolved the issue of contamination and common law responsibilities. If this case fails, then there will be no turning back the GM tide as contamination sweeps through our food supply. We simply cannot stand by and let this happen" said Kinnear.


Cut the eggplant into 1/4-inch rounds. Liberally coat the eggplant in herb oil and season with salt and black pepper. Spread the eggplant out in 1 layer in a baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes or until they are fully cooked and soft to the touch. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil. Add the sliced onion, fennel, and thyme and allow the mixture to cook while stirring frequently. Once the onions and fennel have wilted, about 5 minutes, add the sugar and continue to cook until all excess liquid has dissolved and the mixture begins to caramelize on the bottom of the pan. This takes about 30 minutes. Add the golden raisins. Deglaze the pan with the Champagne vinegar and mix well. Mix in the toasted pine nuts and remove any stems of the thyme. Let cool.
Place the roasted eggplant rings on sheet pan spaced equally apart. Top off each ring with the onion and fennel mixture, forming a flat base for the zucchini, yellow squash and tomato slices. Alternate the zucchini, yellow squash and tomato slices around the top of the onion and fennel mixture by layering each piece on top of one another in a circle, tucking under the last piece to form a full, cohesive circle. Top each tian with herb oil, salt and black pepper. Place in the oven to heat for approximately 15 to 20 minutes.
In a pot over medium heat, heat the basil cream and check for seasoning.
Working with the skin side up, use a sharp knife and cut on the bias, to make an incision in the center of each fillet. The incision should not go all the way through to the other side, but should create a pocket. Stuff each incision with a healthy pinch of the fennel tops. Season each fillet with salt and pepper and coat them with homemade herb oil. Grill over high heat. Each fillet will take approximately 6 to 8 minutes to cook (3 to 4 minutes on each side).
Using a spatula, carefully place a vegetable tian on each plate. Pour the basil cream around each tian. Place 1 of the striped ref="http://www.foodterms.com/encyclopedia/bass/index.html" class="crosslink" debug="2184 2196">bass fillets on each plate. Garnish the plate with the remaining fennel tops.
Place the rosemary and the olive oil in a blender and cover. Blend on high speed until the roasemary has been ground into small pieces. Add the tarragon and thyme and continue blending until all the herbs have been broken down into small pieces. Pour into an airtight container and store in the refrigerator.
In a saucepot, add the white wine and garlic cloves. Over medium heat, allow the wine to reduce by half. Add the cream and salt and bring to a boil. Add the basil to the cream and allow it to cook for 1 minute, making sure it is fully immersed so no browning occurs. In a blender, blend the cream mixture in a medium sized batches on high until the mixture is bright green (about 2 or 3 minutes).
Immediately pour the cream into a container resting in ice to chill. Stir constantly. Continue this process until all the cream is blended and cooled rapidly.
Be aware that when purchasing the following items you try to get them all to be the same in diameter for presentation.


I have a dblookup that does NOT lookup any newly added values until the form on which the dblookup is on is resaved, when I resave it I see the new values in the lookup. I have selected ' Refresh Fields on keyword change ' and ' Refresh fields on document refresh ' selected. The database is indexed.
example: I create document A and enter an agency name, then save it. I then open form b with the db lookup on there and the agency isn't in the lookup. I then go to designer, save the form b again, open another form b in Notes and the values are there? HELP!!!!


text:
Constantine John Phipps, 2:e baron Mulgrave, född 19 maj 1744, död 10 oktober 1792 i Liège, var en brittisk upptäcktsresande och politiker, son till Constantine Phipps, 1:e baron Mulgrave, bror till Henry Phipps, 1:e earl av Mulgrave.

Phipps besökte tillsammans med Joseph Banks Eton College men lämnade skolan tidigt och gick tillsamman med sin farbror till sjöss. Han blev redan 1765 Commander och företog tillsammans med Banks, som deltog som naturforskare, en resa till Newfoundland.

Den 4 juni 1773 började Phipps med två fartyg, Racehorse och Carcass, en resa med målet geografiska nordpolen. Till manskapet räknades Horatio Nelson som senare blev nationalhjälte. Resan gick förbi Spetsbergen och vidare igenom Sjuöarna men vid 80° 48' nordlig bredd blev ismassorna för mycket och de bestämde sig för hemresan. I samband med expeditionen beskrev Phipps som förste européer isbjörnen och ismåsen. Dessa studier utgavs 1774 i boken A Voyage towards the North Pole undertaken ... 1773.

Mellan 1768 och 1790 var Phipps huvudsakligen medlem i Brittiska underhuset. Efter sin fars död blev han baron Mulgave. På så sätt fick han pärsvärdighet i Irland och 1790 samma värdighet i England och därmed ett säte i House of Lords.

Källor

Noter

Brittiska upptäcktsresande
Brittiska polarforskare (Arktis)
Födda 1744
Avlidna 1792
Män
Ledamöter av Royal Society

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The years 1947–1949 were among the most decisive in modern Palestinian history, and their outcome was catastrophic for the Palestinian people. By the time the British referred the question of Palestine to the United Nations in April 1947, they had already helped to create a shift in the local balance of power in favor of the Zionists and at the expense of the Palestinians. Relying on the diplomatic and political assets provided by the UN Partition Resolution of November 1947 and on strong U.S. support, the Zionists embarked on an offensive to conquer as much land as possible beyond the recommended partition lines, to destroy and empty whole Palestinian villages and towns, and to transform most of the Palestinians into refugees. Arab military and political support, not nearly commensurate to the scope of the sustained Zionist existential threat, could not prevent the Palestinian Nakba.
British policy in Palestine since the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and the ensuing struggle between the Zionist movement and the Palestinians for control over the future of the country, left Britain incapable of managing the situation politically and militarily, and finally led it, in April 1947, to refer the problem of Palestine's future to the UN. By that time, the population of Palestine was one-third Jewish and two-thirds Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian. On 15 May 1947, the UN created the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to devise a plan for post-Mandate Palestine. After touring both the Middle East and displaced persons camps in Europe that held thousands of Jewish Holocaust refugees, UNSCOP arrived at a plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone in and around Jerusalem. The borders seemed unworkable—each state consisted of three major parts only barely connected with one another—and the Jewish state was larger than the Arab state, yet its population would be only about one-half Jewish. UNSCOP also issued a minority plan that rejected partition in favor of a federal Palestine. The UN General Assembly voted to adopt the UNSCOP majority proposal on 29 November 1947. The Zionists publicly accepted partition; neither the Arab states nor the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the de facto Palestinian leadership, did.
Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine broke out almost immediately after the UN partition vote. Jewish forces were larger and much better organized. They consisted of the Haganah militia and its full-time strike force, the Palmach, plus two smaller militias: Irgun Tzva'i Le'umi (National Military Organization; also called Irgun and Etzel) and the Lohamei Herut Yisra'el (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel; also called LEHI and the Stern Gang). There was no national Palestinian fighting force. The major armed group was the Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas (Army of Holy War), formed by the AHC and led by 'Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni. It operated only in the Jerusalem area. In northern Palestine, an Arab League–sponsored army called the Jaysh al-Inqadh al-'Arabi (Arab Liberation Army) operated. It was made up of volunteers from surrounding Arab countries and led by a Lebanese officer, Fawzi al-Qawuqji. Various villages also formed their own militias for defense. By May 1948, Zionist forces were on the offensive and had captured several major towns such as Jaffa, Haifa, and Tiberias, as well as large areas of the proposed Arab state, particularly in Galilee. Tens of thousands of Palestinians had already fled as refugees, especially after news of Zionist atrocities like that at Dayr Yasin—where on 9 April, Zionist paramilitary forces killed more than 100 Palestinian villagers—spread through the population.
On 14 May 1948, the day that the last British soldiers and administrators left Palestine, Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of a Jewish state called Israel. During the years of the Mandate, the Zionist movement had carefully prepared for independence and had created a network of institutions ready to begin the process of governing. By contrast, there were no real national Palestinian institutions for governance or defense. On 15 May, units of the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia entered the country to protect the Palestinian community and fight the Israelis. Despite being nominally coordinated by the Arab League, these armies generally acted independently of one another. Within two weeks, Arab forces had fought the Israeli army to a standstill. Israeli-Jordanian fighting in Jerusalem's Old City was particularly fierce. After a short truce arranged by the UN on 11 June, the fighting resumed from 8 to 18 July. Israeli forces captured the towns of Nazareth, al-Ramla, and Lydda. By that time, the Israeli army had received a massive shipment of weapons from Czechoslovakia. Newly arrived Jewish immigrants and foreign Jewish volunteers swelled the Israeli army, and aircraft purchased from Czechoslovakia and smuggled from the United States helped create a formidable air force. A second cease-fire held from 19 July until 15 October. Thereafter, the Israeli army went back on the offensive, capturing the rest of Galilee and the Negev, and winning the war.
By early 1949, the proposed UN partition boundaries had become irrelevant. Israeli forces controlled 77 percent of pre-1948 Palestine, including large areas of what was designated in the UN plan as part of the Arab state. Of the other 23 percent of Palestine, Egyptian forces controlled Gaza while Jordanian and Iraqi troops held onto the West Bank and East Jerusalem. No Palestinian state emerged. Although the Arab League endorsed the formation of the AHC-led All Palestine Government in Egyptian-controlled Gaza on 20 September 1948, this body never exercised any real power, even in Gaza. In the West Bank, a gathering of Palestinian notables in Jericho on 1 December 1948 called for Jordan to annex the West Bank.
Palestinians call the war the Nakba—the catastrophe. By far, the most disastrous consequence of the war was the massive depopulation of Palestine's Arabs. More than 725,000 Palestinians had fled their homes or were expelled by Zionist forces, only to become refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, and surrounding Arab countries. Israel categorically refused to allow them to return. The approximately 150,000 Palestinians who stayed, a large number of whom were also internally displaced homeless refugees, were subjected to martial law in the new Jewish state.
The UN intervened to bring an end to the fighting, dispatching the Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte as UN Mediator for Palestine. After several months' effort, Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem on 17 September 1948 by members of LEHI. He was replaced by an American, Ralph Bunche. After the fighting ended, Bunche gathered delegations from the warring sides and brought them to the island of Rhodes to arrange for final armistice agreements. Starting in February 1949 and lasting until July, he arranged armistices between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Iraq never signed an armistice and simply withdrew its forces from the West Bank.
Although the armistices ended the bloodshed, no peace treaties emerged from Rhodes. On 11 December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 194, which created the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP), whose three members were France, Turkey, and the United States. The UNCCP convened the Lausanne Conference in April 1949 to achieve a final peaceful end to the conflict. The conference, which included delegations from Israel and four Arab states—the Palestinians had no official representation—failed to produce an agreement by the end of the conference in September 1949. Resolution 194 also called for the refugees to be allowed to return to their homes or, for those choosing not to, to be compensated for their losses. One year later, on 8 December 1949, the UN General Assembly established an agency specifically for the refugees—the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—to provide relief services such as food rations and health services, as well as social services such as education.
Thus, the uneasy status quo that emerged after the war left the significant issues facing Palestinians—including the situation of the Palestinian refugees and the question of political representation of the Palestinian people—largely unresolved. This lack of resolution only compounded the scale of the disastrous loss of Palestine.
The Arab-Israeli Armistice Agreements, February-July 1949: UN Texts and Annexes. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1967.
Masalha, Nur. Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992.
Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Pappé, Ilan. The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951. New York: I.B. Tauris, 1994.
Rogan, Eugene L., and Avi Shlaim. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Shlaim, Avi. "The Rise and Fall of the All-Palestine Government in Gaza." Journal of Palestine Studies 20, no.1 (Autumn 1990): 37-53.
State of Israel is Proclaimed in Tel Aviv at 4:00 P.M.
George Hanna publishes Tareeq al-Khalas (Path of Deliverance).
Jordan Sets up Civil Administration in Palestine Areas under its Military Control.


text:
Robert Kelchen
Blog (Kelchen on Education)
Higher Education Accountability
Tag: U.S. News
How the New Carnegie Classifications Scrambled College Rankings
Carnegie classifications are one of the wonkiest, most inside baseball concepts in the world of higher education policy. Updated every three years by the good folks at Indiana University, these classifications serve as a useful tool to group similar colleges based on their mix of programs, degree offerings, and research intensity. And since I have been considered "a reliable source of deep-weeds wonkery" in the past, I wrote about the most recent changes to Carnegie classifications earlier this year.
But for most people outside institutional research offices, the first time the updated Carnegie classifications really got noticed was with this fall's college rankings season. Both the Washington Monthly rankings that I compile and the U.S. News rankings that I get asked to comment about quite a bit rely on Carnegie classifications to define the group of national universities. We both use the Carnegie doctoral/research university category for this, putting master's institutions to a master's university category (us) or regional universities (U.S. News). With the number of Carnegie research universities spiking from 334 in the 2015 classifications to 423 in the most recent 2018 classifications, this introduces a bunch of new universities into the national rankings.
To be more exact, 92 universities appeared in Washington Monthly's national university rankings for the first time this year, with nearly all of these universities coming out of the master's rankings last year. The full dataset of these colleges and their rankings in both the US News and Washington Monthly rankings can be downloaded here, but I will highlight a few colleges that cracked the top 100 in either ranking below:
Santa Clara University: #54 in US News, #137 in Washington Monthly
Loyola Marymount University: #64 in US News, #258 in Washington Monthly
Gonzaga University: #79 in US News, #211 in Washington Monthly
Elon University: #84 in US News, #282 in Washington Monthly
Rutgers University-Camden: #166 in US News, #57 in Washington Monthly
Towson University: #197 in US News, #59 in Washington Monthly
Mary Baldwin University: #272 in US News, #35 in Washington Monthly
These new colleges appearing in the national university rankings means that other colleges got squeezed down the rankings. Given the priority that many colleges and their boards place on the US News rankings, it's a tough day on some campuses. Meanwhile, judging by press releases, the new top-100 national universities are probably having a good time right now.
Author RobertPosted on September 9, 2019 Tags college rankings, data, U.S. News, Washington Monthly2 Comments on How the New Carnegie Classifications Scrambled College Rankings
Rankings, Rankings, and More Rankings!
We're finally reaching the end of the college rankings season for 2014. Money magazine started off the season with its rankings of 665 four-year colleges based on "educational quality, affordability, and alumni earnings." (I generally like these rankings, in spite of the inherent limitations of using Rate My Professor scores and Payscale data in lieu of more complete information.) I jumped in the fray late in August with my friends at Washington Monthly for our annual college guide and rankings. This was closely followed by a truly bizarre list from the Daily Caller of "The 52 Best Colleges In America PERIOD When You Consider Absolutely Everything That Matters."
But like any good infomercial, there's more! Last night, the New York Times released its set of rankings focusing on how elite colleges are serving students from lower-income families. They examined the roughly 100 colleges with a four-year graduation rate of 75% or higher, only three of which (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, and the College of William and Mary) are public. By examining the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants in the past three years and the net price of attendance (the total sticker price less all grant aid) for 2012-13, they created a "College Access Index" looking at how many standard deviations from the mean each college was.
My first reaction upon reading the list is that it seems a lot like what we introduced in Washington Monthly's College Guide this year—a list of "Affordable Elite" colleges. We looked at the 224 most selective colleges (including many public universities) and ranked them using graduation rate, graduation rate performance (are they performing as well as we would expect given the students they enroll?), and student loan default rates in addition to percent Pell and net price. Four University of California colleges were in our top ten, with the NYT's top college (Vassar) coming in fifth on our list.
I'm glad to see the New York Times focusing on economic diversity in their list, but it would be nice to look at a slightly broader swath of colleges that serve more than a handful of lower-income students. As The Chronicle of Higher Education notes, the Big Ten Conference enrolls more Pell recipients than all of the colleges ranked by the NYT. Focusing on the net price for families making between $30,000 and $48,000 per year is also a concern at these institutions due to small sample sizes. In 2011-12 (the most recent year of publicly available data), Vassar enrolled 669 first-year students, of whom 67 were in the $30,000-$48,000 income bracket.
The U.S. News & World Report college rankings also came out this morning, and not much changed from last year. Princeton, which is currently fighting a lawsuit challenging whether the entire university should be considered a nonprofit enterprise, is the top national university on the list, while Williams College in Massachusetts is the top liberal arts college. Nick Anderson at the Washington Post has put together a nice table showing changes in rankings over five years; most changes wouldn't register as being statistically significant. Northeastern University, which has risen into the top 50 in recent years, is an exception. However, as this great piece in Boston Magazine explains, Northeastern's only focus is to rise in the U.S. News rankings. (They're near the bottom of the Washington Monthly rankings, in part because they're really expensive.)
Going forward, the biggest set of rankings for the rest of the fall will be the new college football rankings—as the Bowl Championship Series rankings have been replaced by a 13-person committee. (And no, Bob Morse from U.S. News is not a member, although Condoleezza Rice is.) I like Gregg Easterbrook's idea at ESPN about including academic performance as a component in college football rankings. That might be worth considering as a tiebreaker if the playoff committee gets deadlocked solely using on-field performance. They could also use the Washington Monthly rankings, but Minnesota has a better chance of winning a Rose Bowl before that happens.
[ADDENDUM: Let's also not forget about the federal government's effort to rate (not rank) colleges through the Postsecondary Institution Ratings System (PIRS). That is supposed to come out this fall, as well.]
Author RobertPosted on September 9, 2014 September 17, 2014 Tags college rankings, neat ideas, New York Times, U.S. News, Washington Monthly1 Comment on Rankings, Rankings, and More Rankings!
Free the Pell Graduation Data!
Today is an exciting data in my little corner of academia, as the end of the partial government shutdown means that federal education datasets are once again available for researchers to use. But the most exciting data to come out today is from Bob Morse, rankings guru for U.S. News and World Report. He has collected graduation rates for Pell Grant recipients, long an unknown for the majority of colleges. Despite the nearly $35 billion per year we spend on the Pell program, we have no idea what the national graduation rate is for Pell recipients. (Richard Vedder, economist of higher education at Ohio University, has mentioned a ballpark estimate of 30%-40% in many public appearances, but he notes that is just a guess.)
Morse notes in his blog post that colleges have been required to collect and disclose graduation rates for Pell recipients since the 2009 renewal of the Higher Education Act. I've heard rumors of this for years, but these data have not yet made their way into IPEDS. I have absolutely no problems with him using the data he collects in the proprietary U.S. News rankings, nor do I object to him holding the data very tight—after all, U.S. News did spend time and money collecting it.
However, given that the federal government requires that Pell graduation rates be collected, the Department of Education should collect this data and make it freely and publicly available as soon as possible. This would also be a good place for foundations to step in and help collect this data in the meantime, as it is certainly a potential metric for the President's proposed college ratings.
Update: An earlier version of this post stated that the Pell graduation data are a part of the Common Data Set. Bob Morse tweeted me to note that they are not a part of that set and are collected by U.S. News. My apologies for the initial error! He also agreed that NCES should collect the data, which only understates the importance of this collection.
Author RobertPosted on October 17, 2013 October 17, 2013 Tags accountability, data, financial aid, IPEDS, U.S. News1 Comment on Free the Pell Graduation Data!
Burning Money on the Quad? Why Rankings May Increase College Costs
Regardless of whether President Obama's proposed rating system for colleges based on affordability and performance becomes reality (I expect ratings to appear in 2015, but not have a great deal of meaning), his announcement has affected the higher education community. My article listing "bang for the buck" colleges in Washington Monthly ran the same day he announced his plan, a few days ahead of our initial timeline. We were well-positioned with respect to the President's plan, which led to much more media attention than we would have expected.
A few weeks after the President's media blitz, U.S. News & World Report unveiled their annual rankings to the great interest of many students, their families, and higher education professionals as well as to the typical criticism of their methodology. But they also faced a new set of critiques based on their perceived focus on prestige and selectivity instead of affordability and social mobility. Bob Morse, U.S. News's methodologist, answered some of those critiques in a recent blog post. Most of what Morse said isn't terribly surprising, especially his noting that U.S. News has much different goals than the President's goals. He also hopes to take advantage of any additional data the federal government collects for its ratings, and I certainly share that interest. However, I strongly disagree with one particular part of his post.
When asked whether U.S. News rewards colleges for raising costs and spending more money, Morse said no. He reminded readers that the methodology only counts spending on the broadly defined category of educational expenditures, implying that additional spending on instruction, student services, research, and academic support always benefits students. (Spending on items such as recreation, housing, and food service does not count.)
I contend that rewarding colleges for spending more in the broad area of educational expenditures is definitely a way to increase the cost of college, particularly since this category makes up 10% of the rankings. Morse and the U.S. News team desire to have their rankings based on academic quality, which can be enhanced by additional spending—I think this is the point they are trying to make. But the critique is mechanically true, as more spending on "good" expenditures still would raise the cost of college. Additionally, this additional spending need not be on factors that benefit undergraduate students and may not be cost-effective. I discuss both of these two points below.
1. Additional spending on "educational expenditures" may not benefit undergraduate students. A good example of this is spending on research, which runs in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars per year at many larger universities. Raising tuition to pay for research would increase educational expenditures—and hence an institution's spot in the U.S. News rankings—but primarily would benefit faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars. This sort of spending may very well benefit the public through increased research productivity, but it is very unlikely to benefit first-year and second-year undergraduates.
[Lest this be seen solely as a critique of the U.S. News rankings, the Washington Monthly rankings (for which I'm the methodologist) can also be criticized for potentially contributing to the increase in college costs. Our rankings also reward colleges for research expenditures, so the same critiques apply.]
2. Additional spending may fail a cost-effectiveness test. As I previously noted, any spending on the broad area of "educational expenditures" would be a positive. But there is no requirement that the money be used in an efficient way, or even an effective one. I am reminded of a quote by John Duffy, formerly on the faculty of George Washington University's law school. He famously said in a 2011 New York Times article: "I once joked with my dean that there is a certain amount of money that we could drag into the middle of the school's quadrangle and burn, and when the flames died down, we'd be a Top 10 school as long as the point of the bonfire was to teach our students." On a more serious note, additional spending could be used for legitimate programs that fail to move the needle on student achievement, perhaps due to diminishing returns.
I have a great deal of respect for Bob Morse and the U.S. News team, but they are incorrect to claim that their rankings do not have the potential to increase the cost of college. I urge them to reconsider that statement, instead focusing on why the additional spending for primarily educational purposes could benefit students.
Author RobertPosted on September 20, 2013 September 20, 2013 Tags college rankings, cost, U.S. News, Washington Monthly
Comparing the US News and Washington Monthly Rankings
In yesterday's post, I discussed the newly released 2014 college rankings from U.S. News & World Report and how they changed from last year. In spite of some changes in methodology that were billed as "significant," the R-squared value when comparing this year's rankings with last year's rankings among ranked national universities and liberal arts colleges was about 0.98. That means that 98% of the variation in this year's rankings can be explained by last year's rankings—a nearly perfect prediction.
In today's post, I compare the results of the U.S. News rankings to those from the Washington Monthly rankings for national universities and liberal arts colleges ranked by both sources. The rankings from Washington Monthly (for which I'm the consulting methodologist and compiled them) are based on three criteria: social mobility, research, and service, which are not the particular goals of the U.S. News rankings. Yet it could still be the case that colleges that recruit high-quality students, have lots of resources, and have a great reputation (the main factors in the U.S. News rankings) do a good job recruiting students from low-income families, produce outstanding research, and graduate servant-leaders.
The results of my comparisons show large differences between the two sets of rankings, particularly at liberal arts colleges. The R-squared value at national universities is 0.34, but only 0.17 at liberal arts colleges, as shown below:
It is worth highlighting some of the colleges that are high on both rankings. Harvard, Stanford, Swarthmore, Pomona, and Carleton all rank in the top ten in both magazines, showing that it is possible to be both highly selective and serve the public in an admirable way. (Of course, we should expect that to be the case given the size of their endowments and their favorable tax treatment!) However, Middlebury and Claremont McKenna check in around 100th in the Washington Monthly rankings in spite of a top-ten U.S. News ranking. These well-endowed institutions don't seem to have the same commitment to the public good as some of their highly selective peers.
On the other hand, colleges ranked lower by U.S. News do well in the Washington Monthly ranking. Some examples include the University of California-Riverside (2nd in WM, 112th in U.S. News), Berea College (3rd in WM, 76th in U.S. News), and the New College of Florida (8th in WM, 89th in U.S. News). If nothing else, the high ranks in the Washington Monthly rankings give these institutions a chance to toot their own hour and highlight their own successes.
I fully realize that only a small percentage of prospective students will be interested in the Washington Monthly rankings compared to those from U.S. News. But it is worth highlighting the differences across college rankings so students and policymakers can decide what institutions are better for them given their own demands and preferences.
Author RobertPosted on September 11, 2013 September 10, 2013 Tags college rankings, methodology, U.S. News, Washington Monthly1 Comment on Comparing the US News and Washington Monthly Rankings
Breaking Down the 2014 US News Rankings
Today is a red-letter day for many people in the higher education community—the release of the annual college rankings from U.S. News and World Report. While many people love to hate the rankings for an array of reasons (from the perceived focus on prestige to a general dislike of accountability in some sectors), their influence on colleges and universities is undeniable. Colleges love to put out press releases touting their place in the rankings even while decrying their general premise.
I'm no stranger to the college ranking business, having been the consulting methodologist for Washington Monthly's annual college rankings for the past two years. (All opinions in this piece, of course, are my own.) While Washington Monthly's rankings rank colleges based on social mobility, service, and research performance, U.S. News ranks colleges primarily based on "academic quality," which consists of inputs such as financial resources and standardized test scores as well as peer assessments for certain types of colleges.
I'm not necessarily in the U.S. News-bashing camp here, as they provide a useful service for people who are interested in prestige-based rankings (which I think is most people who want to buy college guides). But the public policy discussion, driven in part by the President's proposal to create a college rating system, has been moving toward an outcome-based focus. The Washington Monthly rankings do capture some elements of this focus, as can be seen in my recent appearance on MSNBC and an outstanding panel discussion hosted by New America and Washington Monthly last week in Washington.
Perhaps in response to criticism or the apparent direction of public policy, Robert Morse (the well-known and well-respected methodologist for U.S. News) announced some changes last week in the magazine's methodology for this year's rankings. The changes place slightly less weight on peer assessment and selectivity, while putting slightly more weight on graduation rate performance and graduation/retention rates. Yet Morse bills the changes as meaningful, noting that "many schools' ranks will change in the 2014 [this year's] edition of the Best Colleges rankings compared with the 2013 edition."
But the rankings have tended to be quite stable from year to year (here are the 2014 rankings). The top six research universities in the first U.S. News survey (in 1983—based on peer assessments by college presidents) were Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, and Chicago, with Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, Carleton, and Oberlin being the top five liberal arts colleges. All of the research universities except Berkeley are in the top six this year and all of the liberal arts colleges except Oberlin are in the top eight.
In this post, I've examined all national universities (just over 200) and liberal arts colleges (about 180) ranked by U.S. News in this year's and last year's rankings. Note that this is only a portion of qualifying colleges, but the magazine doesn't rank lower-tier institutions. The two graphs below show the changes in the rankings for national universities and liberal arts colleges between the two years.
The first thing that jumps out at me is the high R-squared, around 0.98 for both classifications. What this essentially means is that 98% of the variation in this year's rankings can be explained by last year's rankings—a remarkable amount of persistence even when considering the slow-moving nature of colleges. The graphs show more movement among liberal arts colleges, which are much smaller and can be affected by random noise much more than large research universities.
The biggest blip in the national university rankings is South Carolina State, which went from 147th last year to unranked (no higher than 202nd) this year. Other universities which fell more than 20 spots are Howard University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Rutgers University-Newark, all urban and/or minority-serving institutions. Could the change in formulas have hurt these types of institutions?
In tomorrow's post, I'll compare the U.S. News rankings to the Washington Monthly rankings for this same sample of institutions. Stay tuned!
Author RobertPosted on September 10, 2013 Tags college rankings, data, U.S. News, Washington Monthly2 Comments on Breaking Down the 2014 US News Rankings
To Be a "Best Value," Charge Higher Tuition
In addition to the better-known college rankings from U.S. News & World Report, the magazine also publishes a listing of "Best Value" colleges. The listing seems helpful enough, with the goal of highlighting colleges which are a good value for students and their families. However, this list rewards colleges for charging higher tuition and being more selective, factors that are not necessarily associated with true educational effectiveness.
U.S. News uses dubious methodology to calculate its Best Value list (a more detailed explanation can be found here). Before I get into the rankings components, there are two serious flaws with the methodology. First, colleges are only eligible to be on the list if they are approximately in the top half of the overall rankings. Since we already know that the rankings better measure prestige than educational effectiveness, the best value list must be taken with a shaker of salt right away. Additionally, for public colleges, U.S. News uses the cost of attendance for out-of-state students, despite the fact that the vast majority of students come from in-state. It is true that relatively more students at elite public universities (like the University of Wisconsin-Madison) come from out of state, but even here over 70% of freshmen come from Wisconsin or Minnesota. This decision inflates the cost of attending public institutions and thus shoves them farther down the list
The rankings components are as follows:
(1) "Ratio of quality to price"—60%. This is the score on the U.S. News ranking (their measure of quality) divided by the net price of attendance, which is the cost of attendance less need-based financial aid. It is similar to what I did in the Washington Monthly rankings to calculate the cost-adjusted graduation rate measure. This measure has some merits, but suffers from the flaws of a prestige-based numerator and a net price of attendance that is biased toward private institutions.
(2) The percentage of undergraduates receiving need-based grants—25%. This measure rewards colleges with lots of Pell Grant recipients (which is just fine) as well as colleges with large endowments or high posted tuition which can offer lots of grants (which isn't related to the actual price a student pays). If every student with a household income of under one million dollars received a $5 need-based grant, a college would look good on this measure…this measure can be gamed.
(3) Average discount—15%. This is the average amount of need-based grants divided by the net price of attendance. This certainly rewards colleges with high posted tuition and lots of financial aid.
Once again, I don't focus on the actual rankings, but I will say that the top of the list is dominated by elite private colleges with massive endowments. Daniel Luzer of Washington Monthly (with whom I've had the pleasure of working over the past six months) has a good take on the top of the Best Value list. He notes that although these well-endowed institutions do provide a lot of financial aid to needy students, they don't educate too many of these students.
I am glad that the 800-pound gorilla in the college rankings game is thinking about whether a college is a good value to students, but their methodological choices mean that colleges which are really educating students in a cost-effective manner are not being rewarded.
Author RobertPosted on September 14, 2012 Tags college rankings, cost-effectiveness, U.S. News1 Comment on To Be a "Best Value," Charge Higher Tuition
Measuring Prestige: Analyzing the U.S. News & World Report College Rankings
The 2013 U.S. News college rankings were released today and are certain to be the topic of discussion for much of the higher education community. Many people grumble about the rankings, but it's hard to dismiss the rankings due to their profound impact on how colleges and universities operate. It is not uncommon for colleges to set goals to improve their ranking, and data falsification is sadly a real occurrence. As someone who does research in the fields of college rankings and accountability policy, I am glad to see the rankings come out every fall. However, I urge readers to take these rankings as what they intend to be—a measure of prestige rather than college effectiveness.
The measures used to calculate the rankings are generally the same as last year and focus on six or seven factors, depending on the type of university:
–Academic reputation (from peers and/or high school counselors)
–Selectivity (admit rate, high school rank, and ACT/SAT scores)
–Faculty resources (salary, terminal degree status, full-time status, and class size)
–Graduation and retention rates
–Financial resources per student
–Alumni giving rates
–Graduation rate performance (only for research universities and liberal arts colleges)
Most of these measures can directly be controlled by increasing tuition and/or enrolling only the most academically prepared students. The only measure that is truly independent of prestige is the graduation rate performance measure, in which the actual graduation rate is regressed on student characteristics and spending to generate a predicted graduation rate. While U.S. News doesn't release its methodology for calculating its predicted graduation rate measure, the results are likely similar to what I did in the Washington Monthly rankings.
I am pleased to see that U.S. News is using an average of multiple years of data for some of its measures. I do this in my own work on estimating college effectiveness, although this was not a part of Washington Monthly's methodology this year (it may be in the future, however). The use of multiple years of data does reduce the effects of random variation (and helps to smooth the rankings), but I am concerned that U.S. News uses only the submitted years of data if not all years are submitted. This gives colleges an incentive to not report a year of bad data on measures such as alumni giving rates.
Overall, these rankings are virtually unchanged from last year, but watch colleges crow about moving up two or three spots when their score hardly changed. These rankings are big business in the prestige market; hopefully, students who care more about educational effectiveness consider other measures of college quality in addition to these rankings.
I'll put up a follow-up post in the next few days discussing the so-called "Best Value" college list from U.S. News. As a preview, I don't hold it in high regard.
Disclaimer: I am the consulting methodologist for the 2012 Washington Monthly college rankings. This post reflects only my thoughts and was not subject to review by any other individual or organization.
Author RobertPosted on September 12, 2012 Tags college rankings, cost-effectiveness, U.S. News
Robert Kelchen on Twitter
Robert Kelchen Blog at WordPress.com.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Call ruby script from another user not using rvm When I need to run a script from my linux user "user1", I do the following commands (right after login with "user1"):
rvm use 1.9.3
cd /var/proj
ruby main.rb

When developing this script, I have created a bundle with bundle install, reading my Gemfile (containing httparty and other stuff).
This is working fine (no reason it would not work :) )
When I log with another user "user2", I'd like to execute the script but cannot have it working:
cd /var/proj
/home/user1/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p327/bin/ruby main.rb

The error I get:
/home/user1/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/custom_require.rb:36:in `require': cannot load such file -- httparty (LoadError)
from /home/user1/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/custom_require.rb:36:in `require'
from main.rb:3:in `<main>'

It seems it cannot see the bundle created by the other user. Any idea of what needs to be changed ?
I'd like to run this script within supervisor but this is the same thing.

A: It is not the recommended but you can use RVM from other a/c . Just set the rvm required path in another user a/c.
Details instruction:
First go to user1 and follow this steps
  rvm use 1.9.3
  echo $PATH

now copy the path which include rvm word , in my case it is
/home/paritosh/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin:/home/paritosh/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/bin:/home/paritosh/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin:/home/paritosh/.rvm/bin

now go to another user2 a/c and use PATH=copied_path:$PATH so in my case it is
PATH=/home/paritosh/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin:/home/paritosh/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/bin:/home/paritosh/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin:/home/paritosh/.rvm/bin:$PATH

Now go to
 cd /var/proj
 ruby main.rb

btw, if you want to make the path permanent put the PATH in ~/.bashrc of user2 a/c .

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
SYNONYM

#### According to
The Catalogue of Life, 3rd January 2011

#### Published in
Revis. gen. pl. (Leipzig) 3: 498 (1898)

#### Original name
Didymosphaeria syringae Fabre, 1879

### Remarks
null

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: wordpress - query_post loop for first post I am using query_post to show a list of recent post.
And I want to give special style and html markup to the first post.
This is my current code:
 $cat_args=array(
              'orderby' => 'name',
              'order' => 'ASC'
               );
            $categories=get_categories($cat_args);
              foreach($categories as $category) {
                $args=array(
                  'showposts' => -1,
                  'category__in' => array($category->term_id),
                  'caller_get_posts'=>1
                );
                $posts=query_posts($args);
                  if ($posts) {
                    echo '
term_id ) . '" title="' . sprintf( __( "View all posts in %s" ), $category->name ) . '" ' . '>' . $category->name.'
 ';

                    while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
                        if( $wp_query->current_post == 0 ) :?>
                            <?php if ( has_post_thumbnail()) : ?>
                                <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" class="thumb" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>" ><?php the_post_thumbnail('post-thumb'); ?>
                            <?php endif; ?>

<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?>

                        <?php else : ?>
                            <?php if ( has_post_thumbnail()) : ?>
                                <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" class="thumb" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>" ><?php the_post_thumbnail('post-thumb'); ?>
                            <?php endif; ?>

<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?>

                        <?php endif;

                    endwhile;
                  } // if ($posts
                } // foreach($categories

A: All you need to do is just wrap your snippet into if statement and call the_post function before while loop. By calling the_post function you will fetch first record from your queue. It should be like this:
if ( have_posts() ) :
    the_post();

    if ( has_post_thumbnail()) :
        ?><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" class="thumb" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>" >
            <?php the_post_thumbnail('post-thumb'); ?>
        <?php
    endif;
    ?>

        <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
            <?php the_title(); ?>

<?php

    while ( have_posts() ) :
        the_post();
        if ( has_post_thumbnail()) : ?>
            <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" class="thumb" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>" ><?php the_post_thumbnail('post-thumb'); ?>
        <?php endif; ?>

<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?>

    endwhile;
endif;

A: Depending on what you want to style [the whole post, the title, whatever], you're going to want to identify the first post, and then conditionally output a class or whatever HTML you want for that post. The "loop" is the part of your code between the while and the endwhile. So right before the loop, put:
$is_first_post = TRUE;

then inside the while loop, before whatever it is you're trying to add styles to, put:
if ($is_first_post == TRUE){
    echo (" .... THIS WOULD BE ADDED TO THE FIRST POST ONLY ....");
    $is_first_post = FALSE; //this flags the next post as not being first
}


MADE FROM RECLAIMED TEAK FROM THE TSS NESTOR, BROKEN AT HUGHES AND BOLCKLOW SHIPBREAKERS, BLYTHE.
The plaque is undated. The table originally had a bench seat with it, but it was destroyed some years ago.
Here is a photo of your TSS Nestor, you may be aware the TSS stands for Turbine Steam Ship, She was a Blue Funnel ship, and the third to carry that name.
Built in 1913 by Workman Clark and Co at Belfast, Gross Registered Tonnage, 14,501 tons, length 563 feet 2 inches, beam 68 feet 4 inches, speed 13.5 knots, cost Pounds 248,250.
Designed by Henry B. Wortley, to be launched on 7/12/1912.
Her maiden voyage on 13/5/1913, with a general cargo from Liverpool to Brisbane Australia with calls at Cape Town/Adelaide/Melbourne/ Sydney/Brisbane. She was back in UK on the 19/9/1913 after a 4 months round trip.
In 1949 the same voyage took 5 months and 20 days due to inferior coal, and labour disputes, mainly in Australia.
From September 1915 until 1918 she operated as an Australian Expeditionary Force transport, ferrying troops, and resumed her commercial service on the 22nd. of April 1920.
In 1936 she managed to get a tow line with her very last rocket across to Australia United's Mungana, which was drifting onto rocks off Cape Jaffa, and then towed that vessel 170 miles to Adelaide.
In September/October 1940,TSS Nestor carried Australian sailors from Australia to England to man the new Australian N Class Destroyer HMAS Nestor.Her final voyage to Australia was on the 23/12/49, she arrived at Faslane ( on the Clyde in Scotland ) on the 8/8/1950 to be broken up by Metal Industries Limited.
As you believed she was not broken up at Blyth ( not Blythe ) by Hughes and Bolckow ( not Hughes and Blocklow ).
At the end of her career, the ship had completed 68 round voyages, steaming some 2,111,602 miles.
Her Captains, T. Bartlett, R.D. ( Daddy ) Owen, G.K. Houghton, W. Christie, F. Adcock, J.J. Power, J.H. Blythe, and E.W. Powell.
Pete, these notes come from a huge web site about the history of The Blue Funnel Line, so I anticipate that they are correct about where the ship was broken up.
I am not able to track down anything about your teak table, but trust these few notes may be of interest.


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Last month, a Carson City judge approved a proposed ballot measure for a $13 minimum wage, allowing supporters to begin gathering the necessary signatures to put the measure before voters in November. If approved, Nevada's minimum wage could rise by 58 percent, gradually moving from $8.25 up to $13 in 2024.
Proponents claim that the wage hike will pull families out of poverty and boost the economy, but the people of Nevada should take a lesson from the Great Recession.
In 2006, Nevada voters gave final approval to a ballot initiative to raise the state's minimum wage and link it to rise automatically with inflation. Within two years, it became clear that this was a big mistake: Nevada's wage floor rose on autopilot in 2008, 2009 and 2010, when the recession was at its most severe. In 2010, fully one-third of Nevada's job-seeking teens couldn't find work, and many more dropped out of the workforce altogether.
To be clear, the dire state of the entry-level job market in Nevada wasn't solely because of this three-step minimum wage increase. But empirical research confirms that it played a role. A 2015 study by Jeffrey Clemens and Michael Wither of the University of California found that minimum wage increases made the Great Recession even worse for less-skilled jobseekers.
These jobs weren't cut because Nevada employers are hard-hearted. For low-margin businesses such as restaurants and grocery stores, mandated increases in labor costs that can't be offset through higher prices leave business owners with little option but to scale back elsewhere. That is especially the case during a recession, when customers are even more price-conscious than usual. Research from Dr. Joseph Sabia of San Diego State University found that a minimum wage increase enacted during a recession has more than double the negative impact for some less-educated employees.
Looking beyond the state's own experience with minimum wage hikes, Nevadans should consider the very recent evidence emerging from cities that have raised their minimum wages close to the $13 level. Oakland's decision to increase its minimum wage to a comparable $12.25 in 2015 had disastrous consequences: The San Francisco Chronicle reported that at least 10 businesses in and around the city's Chinatown, including four restaurants and six grocery stores, closed in part due to the 36 percent wage hike.
The negative impact wasn't limited to restaurants: Asiya Jabbaar and Muriel Sterling, owners of child care facilities in San Francisco, both had to cut shifts and shave employee hours after the wage hike. In total, a survey conducted by the Employment Policies Institute of more than 220 affected businesses in the city found that roughly one-third had taken this same step.
The exact jobs impact of a $13-an-hour minimum wage in Nevada is difficult to pinpoint, although recent studies help provide an estimate. In 2014, the Congressional Budget Office predicted a $10.10 federal minimum wage would cause a reduction of 500,000 jobs nationally. Following this methodology, economists from the University of Miami and Trinity University estimated that 6,700 jobs would be lost from a $12 minimum wage in Nevada. At $13, this figure would rise even higher.
As they did in 2004 and 2006, proponents will try to make the minimum wage debate about stories, rather than statistics. Nevadans shouldn't ignore stories of poverty and hardship, but they owe it to those affected to acknowledge the economic and historical evidence of the negative consequences of an increased minimum wage.
— Michael Saltsman is research director at the Employment Policies Institute, which receives support from restaurants, foundations and individuals.


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During the climate negotiations, LRI lawyers (the 'Liaison Officers'), talk delegates through legal issues and provide ad-hoc assistance. If more complex substantive advice, additional research or specific legal expertise is required they write up a formal query and forward it to the LRI 'Situation Room'. There the query is matched with an available expert adviser. The resulting legal opinion is reviewed and returned to the requester. The Liaison Officer provide further explanations and clarifications.
During climate negotiation sessions LRI operates a 'Situation Room' in the London offices of the city firm Simmons & Simmons. A team of mostly volunteer lawyers forward the legal queries drafted by the Liaison Officers to a legal expert with the appropriate expertise and subsequently review the resulting legal opinion. They undertake additional research and produce a daily update on the negotiations.
LRI's network of legal advisers comprises more than 150 lawyers from law firms, barrister chambers, academia and NGOs in over ten different jurisdictions. They have expertise in a wide range of areas including public international law, international environmental law, treaty law, human rights, trade, insurance, carbon trading, intellectual property or maritime law.


As everyone knows, Barack Obama and John McCain are competing for the presidency. Also, our country is having some economic trouble; nothing too serious, but something in need of our politicians' attention. I wanted to bring up what, I think, is the reason our government has been seriously inept at using competent approaches to solve the many complex problems we face. Oil drilling, renewable energy, global warming, terrorism, hostile states, various moral issues, taxes, health care, I could look stuff up and add many more. In short, we need politicians that can tackle these problems. The reason why we don't tackle them well, is because of our broken, abused political system.
Now, more than ever, politics has become less friendly talk and more divisive, what-the-hell-why-don't-you-agree-with-me-moron talk. Our two parties, Dems and the GOP, have become more concerned with gaining numbers and struggling for power than ACTUALLY DEALING WITH THE ISSUES AT HAND. Because politics has become the grounds for changing the morality of America and because the nature of those morals is really divisive, the parties have lost almost all common ground. Let's say, because Mr. Gore thinks abortion is OK and Mr. Bush doesn't, the two refuse to cooperate together on other issues. No matter how what issue, the two are incapable of agreeing and try their best to use the issues to force the other out of power.
Are issues like abortion, gay marriage, and the death penalty important? Yes, to the extent that they piss a lot of people off. Ever since the two parties have divided on these, their main priority has been to gain power over the other party, rather than DO THEIR DAMN JOB AND WORK FOR US, THE PEOPLE WHO ARE STRUGGLING UNDER THEM. Every political debate and commercial is not focused on using cooperation to constructively solve our problems, but only on smearing the other party as unintelligent and incapable. Every vote in Congress, every Presidential act, every word uttered by our leaders is not to help America prosper and become more powerful, but only to help those leaders fight the other party. Personally, I don't give a damn what your stance on anything is, but being a brick wall, impenetrable to any other viewpoint, has the potential to bring our country to pitiful levels.
The issues we face as a country are large and complicated. Neither side of the aisle has a perfect plan that fulfills all of our wishes, such as a strong economy, good jobs, good health care, and international clout. In fact, they are both pathetic. How so? Because Americans are so drawn in to the issues, the politicians try to give them simple answers to complex problems, each answer aimed at PULLING DOWN THEIR OPPONENT, NOT ACTUALLY SOLVING THE PROBLEM INTELLIGENTLY. Our politics has become just like our court system. Rather than working together to help the American people, each side is only interested in winning. In this fierce competition, the issues are oversimplified, our response to them are idiotic and fail miserably, and the political struggle is not for our well being and prosperity, but only for our vote. Down with the party system!
As our 1st president warned, we have political parties now....and several hundred years later it does leave us inept to handle the big problems because we are bickering over our own personal moralities.
We are going against what this nation was founded on, we broke off from England because of taxation w/o representation....now I feel we are not being represented not because we cant vote, but because of the divisions within the parties. Also with all those morality crap, religion and government were STRICTLY STATED TO BE SEPARATE. Therefore I think that people that run on political platforms should not even be permitted to run.
I do have hope, Obama seems to me to be like a black JFK...young, inexperienced, and having the ability to bring together a divided nation...I just hope he does not meet the same fate.
For whatever reason, this upcoming election seems more like a ridiculous reality television show than an actual election. To be honest, I don't like either candidate. McCain obviously has the experience but what on earth was he thinking when choosing Palin as his running mate? To me it seems almost like he chose her so all the pissed off people from the Clinton camp can suddenly look at her and go "Oh $&*#! It's like he has a Clinton of his own over there!" and run over to his side...or just to appease all the feminists of the country. Obama isn't going to be safe from my rant here either, has he's promising a bit too much right about now. I'll agree that he is essentially a black JFK, but he's made some seriously flawed choices. First off, why on earth would Obama choose Biden as a running mate? Did Obama forget that Biden was actually against him during the Democratic nomination race? And why not pick Clinton? Everyone who once wanted Clinton as the Democratic nominee now either follows Obama because they actually have a brain, or they spend their time trying to sabotage Obama's chance at becoming president. In all honesty, I would have to say this election is going to be more about "shock value" than anything. I can't really explain what I mean by that, but how often were your own feelings toward either candidate suddenly swayed by a single action? Also, now to get back on topic, neither candidate seems to be getting the fact that this election will determine who has to clean up the massive mess left behind by the Bush Administration as well as the incompetent people running the suddenly failing corporations. Both candidates seem more interested, as mentioned above, in smearing the other to make themselves seem less flawed. But correct me if I'm wrong here: wouldn't it be better for the country as a whole to embrace both views of both parties, that way everyone gets the best of both worlds? I'm not saying eliminate the party system entirely, but rather eliminate the need for a running mate before being elected. Whoever "wins" the election obviously becomes president, but whoever "loses" should become the vice president. Think of that for a moment. You'll get the best of both worlds: the Republicans are better with foreign policy while the Democrats are better with domestic affairs. Any other issue such as gay marriage, abortion, whatever can be debated afterward. Oh, and by the way, why exactly do so many people think that not having a religious background of some sort make a candidate unqualified for the job of president? As previously mentioned, the United States government has a policy of separation of church and state...that means no religion in politics. So before all of you politicians go off declaring you are a "born again Christian" or whatever, remember that you are henceforth stomping on the graves of our forefathers.
Ok...I'm done my rant. Chances are I've got a bunch of misguided views in there...as usual correct me if I'm wrong.


text:
Government Shutdown Affects NSF, FDA, Other Science Agencies
The ongoing stalemate over the federal budget has forced one-quarter of the US government to begin a second week of closure.
Catherine Offord
ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, RIVERNORTHPHOTOGRAPHY
Around 25 percent of the US Government remains closed after attempts to resolve a dispute over the federal budget were abandoned on Thursday (December 27), CNN reports. The impasse, which forced science agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency to begin partially shutting down operations last week (December 22), is now likely to drag into 2019.
"I deeply regret that we face these challenges at any time—and especially at this time of the year," wrote FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in a letter to staff last week (December 20) and obtained by MedTech Dive, when the likelihood of a shutdown became clear. "I remain optimistic that Congress will work quickly to maintain the government's funding so we may continue to carry out all of the activities that support our important mission."
The dispute centers on President Donald Trump's insistence on securing $5 billion in funding to build a wall on the US-Mexican border—a demand that Democrats and several Republican members of Congress oppose. The resulting shutdown is the third this year.
See "As Government Suspends Operations, Science Projects Go on Hold"
While some federal science agencies—including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health—remain open thanks to special funding bills, many government offices have now wound down all but essential operations, with hundreds of thousands of remaining employees being required to work without pay.
The move means that grant checks from funding agencies such as the NSF won't be issued, nor will new grant applications be reviewed. In a statement on its website, the NSF advises its reviewers to "monitor news outlets to determine if the Federal government, and therefore the NSF, is open for business. If the government is closed, panelists are instructed not to travel." (Emphasis NSF's.)
"Any shutdown of the federal government can disrupt or delay research projects, lead to uncertainty over new research, and reduce researcher access to agency data and infrastructure," says Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and himself a former lawmaker (D-NJ), in a statement. "We urge Congress and the White House to work together in a bipartisan manner to reach an agreement on fiscal year 2019 appropriations that allows continued operation of research agencies. . . . Continuing resolutions and short-term extensions are no way to run a government."
After yesterday's attempts to pass a budget fell apart, efforts to reopen the government will now likely be delayed until Congress reconvenes—with a Democratic majority in the House resulting from November's midterm elections—on January 3.
US Science Agencies Reopen After Shutdown
Government Shutdown Keeps Young Scientists in Limbo
Scientists Suffer in Continued Government Shutdown
US Government Shutdown's Effects on Science Ripple Overseas


text:
Meet the Atlanta, GA artist who mixed psychedelia and soul music, played the chitlin circuit, collaborated with Jimi Hendrix, pioneered funk music, and has reemerged of late through joining the Music Maker Foundation.
PlayPause Song
Ain't No Other Way
Hermon Hitson
By Nick Loss-Eaton
When Music Maker Foundation took the latest version of its Music Maker Blues Revue to the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival in Colorado, the band included a guitar player and singer from Atlanta named Hermon Hitson. He was brand new to the Music Maker family, but he had a musical track record of more than 50 years, playing with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and many others. When Hermon first met the Gospel Comforters — another band we brought to the fest — they all looked at his shoes.
"Where did you get those James Brown boots?" a member asked. "They don't make those anymore. Only James had those made."
There Hitson stood, in Colorado, wearing a pair of custom-made boots that no one but James Brown himself and those who played with him could ever put on their feet.
Hitson with Albert White at Telluride
Like those boots, Hermon Hitson himself is unique in the truest sense of the word. No other human has the wild mix of experiences that make up Hermon's life. And certainly no one plays the guitar like Hermon does — a mind-bending mix of psychedelic rock, the blues, rhythm & blues and soul music.
Sam Duffy, brother of Music Maker co-founder Tim Duffy, joined the Music Maker Blues Revue for their final set at Telluride. "It was Hermon's turn," Sam remembers, "and he said, 'OK, we're going to do Howling Wolf's 'Back Door Man.' Then he just launched into this …"
Sam pauses for a long time, seemingly unable to muster the words needed to describe what he experienced playing with Hermon. "I'm still blown away," he finally continues. "It was crazy. I've never … I can't really describe it…. It was this psychedelic, LSD-feel blues. It, like, triggered me, back to 'Wow, I think I'm tripping again.' It was like, 'What is going on?'"
"I'm walking off stage and I'm like, 'Hermon, how did you … what were you doing on your guitar?'" Sam recalls. "I just accosted him as we were walking off stage. 'How did you do that? What is going on here?' He just smiled at me. He said, 'I don't know. I just played the guitar.'"
From Colorado to Memphis
He wore those same shoes to sessions in Memphis, TN.
"That was a good jam, man," Hitson said. "The spirit was there with us."
Recorded and co-produced by Bruce Watson at his Delta Sounds Studio in Memphis, Hitson's backed on the new album by guitarist and co-producer Will Sexton and some of Memphis' best musicians:
The cast includes Mark Edgar Stuart on bass, and Will McCarley on drums, plus Art Edmaiston on horns, Al Gamble on organ, and singer-guitarist Marcella Simien. Garage rock legend Jack Oblivian played guitar on "Bad Girl."
"Tim Duffy at Music Maker asked me to produce Hermon with the Sacred Soul Sound Section backing him for a record that was intended to be released on another record label," says Watson. He continues, "I was vaguely familiar with Hermon's history but really had never heard him outside of some poorly produced CD releases from the '80s. Hermon arrived at the studio and from the first note of the soundcheck it was clear that this session was going to be special. We cut the record in two days. Hermon was unstoppable and the Sound Section was on fire."
One Music
In the music business, there are certain sidemen — players who back the stars — who play with such prowess that they gain fame of their own. By all rights, Hermon Hitson should be one of those people. Over the years, he played with Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Joe Tex, Bobby Womack, Wilson Pickett, Garnet Mimms, Major Lance, Jackie Wilson, the Drifters, the Shirelles, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters and many others. "I played behind Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke on the same doggone show," he said, recalling one night at the Royal Peacock. Along the way, he picked up every style of music that was popular in the early years of his career. Hermon's cousin is Dave Prater (of Sam & Dave).
One night, Hitson was 100 miles south in Macon to see the flamboyant, influential guitarist and showman Johnny Jenkins. At the show he met a tall, slim musician who didn't even own a case for his guitar.
"That's the first time I saw Jimi," Hitson said.
Arguably, the original seeds of psychedelic rock were planted after Hitson and Hendrix became running buddies in the early 1960s. Both were playing the Chitlin' Circuit, tours that would load somewhere between ten and two dozen African American musicians on a bus and tour the South, playing Black nightclubs.
"The backwoods chitlin circuit! The greasy mouths and the greasy food, people have a good time, for real! The juke joints, man, where they dance all night and really appreciate your music! That's where it was, buddy! People sharecroppin', but Friday and Saturday come, boy, they'd shake a leg. All over Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama. But the money was tough. We'd have to hustle sometime in the pool halls, you know," He told Wax Poetics Magazine.
Jimi and Hermon spent weeks together, Hermon says.
"Me and Jimi used to stay up all night, sitting on the bed, eating soda crackers and sardines, and drinking Coca-Cola and Pepsi," Hermon recalls.
"Hell, I never knew that man's name was no Jimi-damn-Hendrix. He was a great guy, man. He wasn't no wild guy. He was a mellow dude." Hermon Hitson
He moved from there to straight-up soul music, recording his own compositions — including the luscious "Been So Long" — in Atlanta, where he had settled, for labels like Royal, ATCO and Minit. He witnessed a girlfriend's murder and was mistakenly arrested at first. He was innocent, but ATCO still dropped him from the label.
After the 1970s rolled in, Hermon wound up playing funk guitar, recording some tracks with the Ohio Players and releasing some of his own funk singles, including the powerful "Ain't No Other Way," a number firmly in the James Brown vein which he reprised on 'Let The Gods Sing.'
"Hell, I never knew that man's name was no Jimi-damn-Hendrix," Hitson said with a laugh. "He was a great guy, man. He wasn't no wild guy, talking wild. He was a mellow dude."
Hendrix fit right in, staying at the Bellevue or Hitson's apartment between tours.
"Sometimes he would stay over at my apartment with me and my wife," at a two-story redbrick building that still stands at 738 Formwalt Street, Hitson recalled.
"He wouldn't stay long," he added.
"Ain't No Other Way" (2022)
"I was born in Philadelphia in '43," he says. "Then my father died, and my mother took me down where her people was, and that was in deep Georgia — a place called Ocilla, GA." The tiny town, with population under 4,000, sits about 80 miles north of the Florida line in south central Georgia.
"I was only listening to country," Hermon recalls. "And those guys really, really excited me. There was no Black radio for me to hear the Black guys doing music. So, country was all I knew besides gospel."
Hermon told Wax Poetics, "Sharecropping, man, it was rough. I had to get up way early, cut wood for the stove, start the fire, feed the chickens and the hogs, milk the cows, eat, walk barefoot a mile from the farm to the street, then walk to school. And sometimes, boss man would try to run over us with their trucks… One time they drove into the ditch and ran over my cousin's head, killed him. Nothing happened to them."
To build a better life for her children, Hermon's mother moved to Jacksonville, FL, where her brothers were, then soon moved Hermon and his brother there.
"Sometimes, boss man would try to run over us with their trucks… One time they drove into the ditch and ran over my cousin's head, killed him. Nothing happened to them." Hermon Hitson
He started a local doo-wop group, the Stereophonics. One night the guitarist didn't show, so Hitson grabbed the instrument and did his best on it, buying his own guitar the next day.
"That's when everything busted out," Hermon says. "I began to see these guys walking down the streets, man, with the head rags on their heads, with guitars tied around their neck, the harmonica blowing. I would see them sitting in front of me at the barbecue joints. They're sitting and they're drinking. These guys influenced me. It was the blues, man. I had the gospel and the country. Now, here I am, and all this mixture became one music to me."
Back With Jimi in New York
Perhaps it was that fact — that all music became one music in Hermon's mind — that kept him from making hits of his own in the 1960s and '70s. No producer ever sat down with Hermon and told him to make the record he wanted to make, to take the pure creativity inside him and express it on vinyl however he chose.
By Timothy Duffy
Instead, producers wanted to insert the stylistically versatile Hitson into whatever kind of music they believed most likely to turn into a hit. "Once we got to Atlanta round '62, it got better. This whole town was a whole lot different then. Auburn Avenue was like coming down Broadway: music jumping, lights beaming, man; people dressed real nice. Home of the Royal Peacock, Henry's Grill, Treasure Island, Morocco Lounge—first club I played. I am in an entertainer's town now, buddy!," he said to Wax Poetics.
Hitson began working with Lee Moses, another soul singer and guitar player, introducing him to acid. Both of them worked with a producer named Johnny Brantley. In 1969, Hitson and Lee Moses opened for The Allman Brothers Band at Atlanta's Piedmont Park. That night, Duane Allman joined him and Moses on stage at Mamie's Diner, a Black-run club on Bankhead Highway that would welcome hippies, Hitson said. "We played all night long," Hitson said. "Ain't do damn separation there. Jimi come out there with me a couple of times."
He told Wax Poetics, "See, I'd play the White rock clubs, then go play the Black afte-hours spots, and White people would follow. I was playing rock and soul. I was a real hippie, buddy! Had a cowboy hat or headband on," continuing, "Hell, I even jammed with the Grateful Dead."
Hermon's first four recordings were issued on the Royal label. "Been So Long," a slow soul ballad, was chosen as the single and was a regional hit after WLAC in Nashville, TN began playing it. Hermon released several other singles while in Atlanta.
Then, in the mid-1960s, he moved to New York City, where he once again hooked up with Hendrix. Early in 1966, Hermon began work on his own psychedelic rock album under the title "Free Spirit." Hermon sang and played lead guitar, and Hendrix played bass on a few tracks that went unreleased by ATCO at the time. Those recordings wound up being the source of a controversy in the 1980s that brought Hermon's name into the limelight in a different way. The title song of the album, "Free Spirit," was released on two albums of music allegedly recorded by Hendrix and then "lost" to history.
"Back then, he [Hendrix] thought he couldn't sing. We had to keep pushing him: 'Man, you can sing. Man, just sing like you. People going to love you for you, man.'" Hermon Hitson
That's my song," Hermon says today. "Jimi heard it, and he would go to the studio with me when I come to New York, because he was hanging out with [producer] Johnny Brantley, too. He [Hendrix] didn't never play no lead on nothing of mine. And he didn't sing on nothing of mine. In fact, back then he thought he couldn't sing. We had to keep pushing him:
"Jimi would say, 'I can't sing.' I'd say, 'Man, you don't have to be Wilson Pickett. All you got to do is sing like you sing."
A few months later, the Jimi Hendrix Experience came together in the UK. The rest is history, a history that Hermon Hitson was not a part of.
In September, 1970, Hitson got a call saying Hendrix had died in London. "That was a hard pill to swallow," Hitson said.
Hitson himself become hooked on heroin and estranged from his wife and children — just as James Brown warned him could happen to road musicians. After serving time for drugs and "running women," Hitson worked as a snake-clearer in the sugar cane fields of south Florida, armed with a flamethrower.
He'd get clean and find purpose in the Nation of Islam, which led him to meet Muhammad Ali, and he even learned to paint from an influential Black artist in Atlanta.
Coming Back Into View
Hermon never stopped playing, but his career was mostly limited to nightclub gigs in his hometown of Atlanta. Hermon was realistic about where his career stood when he first met Music Maker's Tim Duffy in 2021, unknown to all but the most hardcore record collectors, Hendrix fans, readers of Wax Poetics Magazine (who profiled him recently), and fans of the legendary Ponderosa Stomp festival (which had featured him both at its main festival in New Orleans and at a SXSW showcase in 2008). Though his early sides had recently seen a reissue anthology, "he realized he was invisible to everybody," Tim says.
But Hermon soon agreed to join the Music Maker Blues Revue for its gigs at Telluride in September of that year.
Hermon proved himself on the Telluride stage for three days in a row, which lifted his spirits tremendously.
"That was great, man: the scenery and all the beautiful people, man," he says. "The fans were so great, man. I can't explain the whole deal of what I felt and what I saw. It was just so beautiful, man. And I would love to do that again."
On the new album, Hitson also revives "Suspicious!," another song attributed to Hendrix but with the vocals turned down in the mix to obscure Hitson's singing and playing. Hendrix played bass on the sessions, which Hitson said were largely recorded in Atlanta.
"That was supposed to be my album," Hitson said, reflecting on those sessions with Hendrix in the late 1960s. "All those guys were going to be sidemen."
Hitson's new album also features Hitson's new performance of maybe his best-known R&B songs — the funky, frenetic "Ain't No Other Way." He also covers "Bad Girl," written by his longtime bandmate Moses, and a 1972 single for Hitson.
Doubtless, now that he is firmly set as a member of the Big Legal Mess and Music Maker families, Hermon will have that chance. And he'll continue to flabbergast not only the audiences he plays for, but also the musicians he plays with.
Co-producer and guitarist Will Sexton attests to that, saying, "He comes down with wickedest grove filling the room, a perfect balance of soul and communication. He's one of the old guard of the groove. He literally forced everybody to get loose and then tight. The most fun I've had in years. To play with a psychedelic pioneer with the guidance to take us in some trippy places."
Let The Gods Sing by Herman Hitson
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Up until now, the T has been testing that one new Orange Line train on that weird third track north of Boston, but look at this photo from the T's Joe Pesaturo tonight. Could we actually see it in operation as promised by the end of the year?
I'm so happy I'm going to leave my snarky comment to a separate thread.
Your post has such childlike innocense and naive hope. It's ok to dream, my child. It's ok to dream.
How many sleeps, Mr. Pesaturo, until we can ride the new trains?
I was In Chinatown station tonight, thinking about the not-so-far-away days when we will trek up to the Seashore Trolley Museum to gaze at the 40-year-old subway cars of yesteryear. And then I got on one to ride home.
Do you think Patrick, Davey, and Scott will be there for the RC?
You know. The T leadership that made this happen?
Though methinks that you are giving Scott too much credit on this. Patrick, on the other hand, did push this, at the end of his second term.
Conversely, astronomical winter starts on Friday, with us being in meteorological winter since the first of this month. It doesn't look like MassDOT will be able to deliver on their promise in fall of 2017 that the winter of 2017-18 would be the last one the bus riders at Forest Hills will have to endure without a proper place to get on the bus.
Of course, who knows when the bike paths will be done. Perhaps 2020?
They've painted stripes on the pavement, there's an emergency call box installed, there are even signs telling drivers not to idle their engines. I think/hope the Forest Hills busway is just a week or so away from opening day. But I really wish there were some better updates on the situation than me thinking/hoping about it.
When Joe P sells the future of the MBTA to the media and the riding public it is because he knows he can't defend the present day disaster that will play out this winter.
to make the ceremonial run so they can say they were rolled out in 2018.
Still bet we are 2 years out from seeing a maor roll out.
At least the old Forest Hills bridge didn't collapse and kill a bunch of people.


text:
Posts Tagged 'cold'
Mother nature to drizzle on Perth all week
Posted in weather, tagged 30 to 50 millimetres, 50mm, all week, area, bands, cloud, coastal, coastal parts, cold, cold fronts, days, drizzle, drizzle on Perth, dry, dry days, excess of 100kmh, fallen, fronts, gust, gusts, gusts of 90kmh, Indian Ocean, link up, Mandurah, Margaret River, millimetres, Monday, Mother nature, nature., ocean, perth, potential, rain., rainfall, returning, ruled out., Saturday, severe, Showers, south, strength, stronger, surrounds., the city, to Perth, today, trees, WA, week, western australia, wettest, wettest days, windiest, winds on July 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »
After four dry days, showers are returning to Perth and are likely each day through to the end of next week, bringing 30 to 50 millimetres of rain.
The area from Mandurah to Margaret River should be the wettest with more than 50mm for some.
The wettest days are likely to be today, Saturday and Monday as three cold fronts link up with bands of cloud from the Indian Ocean.
These days are also likely to be the windiest with potential severe gusts of 90kmh or stronger in coastal parts, south of about Perth. Winds of this strength can bring down trees. Gusts in excess of 100kmh cannot be ruled out.
July is traditionally the wettest month of the year for southwest Western Australia and this coming wet spell will take most of the region to about two-thirds of the monthly average. So far, less than half the monthly average rainfall has fallen.
Perth has had 52mm, compared to the average of 149mm.
With this rain to come, this July is still unlikely to be wetter than last year when 179mm fell.
Source : www.watoday.com.au
Two more swine flu cases in WA, Scotch College student ill
Posted in Local News, tagged affected by swine flu, against, aged, annual, annual influenza vaccine, anti-viral, areas, Australia, big shock, boarding school, burning temperature, call, camp, children, close, closing, cold, communicable, community, cough, coughing, cover, cover their nose and mouth, Department of Health, developing, director Paul Effler, disease control, doctor, eastern states., extending, feeling, flown, flown to Melbourne, flu, flu-like, football, frequently, H1N1 virus., has, Health, Health Department, Health Department's, healthdirect Australia, home quarantine., hot, ill, illness, immediate, including Victoria., influenza, June 1, Local News, medication, Melbourne, mild illness., most importantly, mouth, music camp, new strain, nose, over 65, panic, particularly, people, perth, Peter Freitag, plans, policy, positive to swine flu, precaution., principal, protect, public, public to panic, quaratine, recently, relatively, returned, returning, rule out, school, school down, school music camp, Scotch College, seasonal influenza., serious, sick., sneeze, sneezing, sneezing or coughing, spread, staff, statement., stay home, Students, suffering, sweating, swine, swine flu ill, swine-flu virus, symptoms, team, temporarily, test, tested, tested positive, travelled, under five., vaccine, Victoria, virus, viruses, voluntary quarantine policy, vulnerable groups, WA, WA's exclusive, wash their hands, website, www.health.wa.gov.au, youth football team on June 6, 2009| 2 Comments »
NEARLY 100 staff and students at WA's exclusive Scotch College are being tested for swine flu after an 11-year-old boy fell ill with the virus.
Eleven-year-old Scotch College student, Harry, who returned from Melbourne on June 1, has tested positive for the H1N1 virus.
A 23-year-old woman, who returned from Melbourne on June 3, was also confirmed to have it.
Harry had flown to Melbourne with a youth football team and on returning to Perth went on a school music camp before developing symptoms.
He did not return to school after the camp because he was feeling sick.
"I had a really burning temperature," Harry said yesterday from home quarantine.
"It was really hot. I was sweating."
Harry's mother, Jennifer, said: "It was a really big shock. If there was no talk of swine flu and no Melbourne issue I would have just thought it was the same old cold or flu he has had before."
Eighty-nine students and 10 staff also on the Scotch College camp are being tested for the virus and anyone with flu-like symptoms is being urged to stay home.
Four teammates suffering "flu symptoms'
It is believed four other boys in Harry's football team are suffering from flu-like symptoms.
Scotch College acting principal Peter Freitag said there were no immediate plans to close the school down.
"It would be very difficult to close the school," he said.
"It's a boarding school, we have 170 boarders.
"We wouldn't want to close the school unless we have to.
"At this stage we're not anywhere near that."
However, Health Department's communicable disease control director Paul Effler did not rule out temporarily closing the school if students on the music camp tested positive to swine flu and had since been to school.
WA flu tally reaches four
The Health Department confirmed that WA's swine flu tally had reached four.
"We are contacting the students, parents and teachers who participated in these events with the young boy and the close contacts of the young woman," Dr Effler said.
"The close contacts of the cases have been asked to remain in home quarantine and have been provided with anti-viral medication as a precaution.
"The school has been very co-operative in helping us reach students, families and staff in a timely manner."
More than 1000 cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Australia, with the most in the eastern states.
On Thursday the Health Department issued a statement extending its voluntary quarantine policy for children who have recently travelled to areas affected by swine flu, including Victoria.
Dr Effler said there was no need for the public to panic because in most instances the swine-flu virus appeared to cause a relatively mild illness.
"I would encourage people to make sure they cover their nose and mouth if sneezing or coughing, to wash their hands frequently (and) most importantly, stay home if you are sick to limit the spread of the viruses in our community," he said.
Dr Effler said people should continue to get their annual influenza vaccine, particularly people in vulnerable groups, including those aged over 65 and under five.
While the influenza vaccine won't protect against the new strain of swine influenza, it will protect against serious illness caused by seasonal influenza.
If you think you have swine flu phone your doctor or call healthdirect Australia on 1800 022 222. For more information on swine flu visit
Department of Health website www.health.wa.gov.au
Source www.news.com.au


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These are the Most Extreme Temperatures Ever Recorded in Indiana
Travis Sams
Travis Sams Published: December 3, 2022
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be caught up in these weather conditions!
When it comes to the weather in Indiana, we all know that Mother Nature never can seem to make up her mind. One day it's cold, the next it's warm, then out of nowhere, it's snowing. It's like we can get all four seasons in one week here in Indiana. You really never know what you're going to get. That being said, have you ever wondered what the highest and lowest temperatures in the state have been? How about the most rain or snowfall we have received?
Stacker compiled a list of the most extreme temperatures ever recorded in each state. So, I thought it would be interesting to see how Indiana faired. The all-time highest temperature recorded in Indiana occurred on July 14th, 1936 Collegeville St Joseph County Airport in South Bend. It was a whopping 116° F...and I don't think that includes the heat index. More recently, on January 19th, 1994, in New Whiteland the all-time lowest temperature ever recorded in Indiana was -36° F. Once again, I'm sure that doesn't include the wind chill that day either.
When it comes to the most rain and snowfall ever recorded in Indiana, Stacker based this on the most rain or snow recorded within a 24-hour period. The highest 24-hour snowfall happened on December 23rd, 2004 in Salem. The town received 33 inches of snow that day. I couldn't imagine trying to drive to work in that! Stacker also shared the highest 24-hour precipitation too. This one actually comes from right here in the Evansville area. According to Stacker:
On Aug. 6, 1905, Princeton, a city in Indiana's Gibson County, recorded the highest one-day-long rainfall event in the state at 10.5 inches. More recently, in June 2019, severe storms in central and southern Indiana caused floods that left thousands of households powerless. Several roads also had to be closed after there were reports of cars being stuck in the floods.
So whenever you find yourself complaining about the weather here in Indiana, just remember...it could always be worse!
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Source: These are the Most Extreme Temperatures Ever Recorded in Indiana
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Background: Adolescents require at least 60 minutes of daily moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (PA) for optimum health benefits. Reduced active and increased sedentary time can adversely affect health independently. This study investigated the sedentary behavior and physical activity patterns of Singaporean adolescents.
Methods: 233 adolescents aged 13-15 years participated in the study. Accelerometery was used to assess the daily PA patterns for three weekdays and two weekend days consecutively. Height, weight, BMI, waist circumference and waist-hip ratio were determined as surrogate measures of health.
Results: None of the participants achieved the recommended 60 minutes of daily MVPA on all five days. Significantly more time was spent engaging in sedentary activity compared to MVPA on both weekdays and weekends. MVPA and sedentary time were positively associated on weekdays after controlling for gender (p < .001). Weekday MVPA was positively associated with waist circumference (p < .001) and waist-hip ratio (p < .001).
Conclusion: Singaporean adolescents fall substantially short of meeting the daily PA recommendations. Separate strategies to promote PA may be necessary for adolescents of differing weight status and gender. Pragmatic rather than idealistic targets to promote PA need to be set based on population-specific baseline data.