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Costa Rica
Aguacaliente (San Francisco) • Alajuela • Alajuelita • Aserrí • Barranca • Calle Blancos • Cañas • Carmen • Cartago • Cinco Esquinas • Concepción • Curridabat • Desamparados • Gravilias • Guadalupe • Guápiles • Heredia • Ipís • Liberia • Limón (Puerto Limón) • Mata de Plátano • Mercedes • Nicoya • Paraíso • Patalillo • Patarrá • Puntarenas • Purral • Quesada • San Antonio • San Diego • San Felipe • San Francisco • San Isidro • San Isidro de El General • San José • San José de Alajuela • San Juan (San Juan de Tibás) • San Juan de Dios • San Miguel • San Nicolás • San Pablo • San Pedro • San Rafael • San Rafael • San Rafael • San Rafael Abajo • San Vicente • Siquirres • Tejar • Tirrases • Turrialba • Ulloa (Barrial) •
In 1502, on his fourth and last voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus made the first European landfall in the area. Settlement of Costa Rica began in 1522.
Official name República de Costa Rica (Republic of Costa Rica)
Form of government unitary multiparty republic with one legislative house (Legislative Assembly [57])
Head of state and government President: Luis Guillermo Solís
Capital San José
Official language Spanish
Official religion Roman Catholicism
Monetary unit Costa Rican colón (₡)
Population (2013 est.) 4,402,000COLLAPSE
Total area (sq mi) 19,730
Total area (sq km) 51,100
Urban-rural population
- Urban: (2009) 63.9%
- Rural: (2009) 36.1%
Life expectancy at birth
- Male: (2011) 76.9 years
- Female: (2011) 81.8 years
Literacy: percentage of population age 15 and over literate
- Male: (2008) 95.7%
- Female: (2008) 96.2%
GNI per capita (U.S.$) (2013) 9,550
Costa Rica is one of the oldest democracies in the Americas. It is a country proud of its heritage and tradition of negotiation over confrontation, social development over military spending and tolerance over hostility. It is the home to many international organizations such as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the University for Peace of the United Nations and the Earth Council.
In 1502, on his fourth and last voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus made the first European landfall in the area. Settlement of Costa Rica began in 1522. The Spanish optimistically called the place "Rich Coast." Finding little gold or other valuable minerals in Costa Rica, however, the Spanish turned to agriculture.
For nearly three centuries, Spain administered the region as part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala under a military governor. The small landowners' relative poverty, the lack of a large indigenous labor force, the population's ethnic and linguistic homogeneity, and Costa Rica's isolation from the Spanish colonial centers in Mexico and the Andes all contributed to the development of an autonomous and individualistic agrarian society. An egalitarian tradition also arose. This tradition survived the widened class distinctions brought on by the 19th-century introduction of banana and coffee cultivation and consequent accumulations of local wealth. Costa Rica joined other Central American provinces in 1821 in a joint declaration of independence from Spain.
Costa Rica abolished its military forces in 1949 and since then has devoted substantial resources to investment in health and education. It is a country that has placed a high priority in investing in public education, including the university system, as well as technical and vocational training. Its population of 4.4 million people enjoys a literacy rate of 96% and a life expectancy of 79.3 years.
The Costa Rican government is ruled by a series of constitutional controls. The executive responsibilities rest on the President, supported by two Vice-presidents and a 57 Congressmen cabinet; all of them are elected every 4 years. The country has a strong legal system managed by the 'Judicial Power', which ensures law compliancen and covers both nationals and foreigners within the country's territory.
The 2008 World Bank Study for Global Governance Indicators ranks Costa Rica in the first place within Latin America for political stability.
Costa Rica is blessed with impressive scenic beauty a fact that is not lost on the more than one million tourists that visit each year. Located in Central America in an area that covers 51.000 square kilometers (19.729 square miles), Costa Rica possesses approximately 6% of the world's biodiversity. Because of Costa Rica's small size, a diverse array of fabulous sites is within easy access. A trip to Costa Rica affords the opportunity to visit 12 different life zones, 20 national parks, 26 protected areas, nine forest reserves, eight biological reserves and seven wildlife sanctuaries. Costa Rica is the birthplace of ecotourism. The country is often cited as a model for conservation in harmony with community development and economic growth.
Today Costa Rica is one of the only developing countries to have adopted a tax on hydrocarbons, partially funding the only national system of payment for environmental services, and becoming the largest buyer of forest carbon in the world. Moreover, Costa Rica has set the goal to become a carbon-neutral country by 2021.
It is not surprising that tourism is Costa Rica's main source of income and hard currency. Costa Rica receives over 1.7 million tourists per year, the majority of whom come from the United States and Canada. Earnings from tourism amount to more than $1.7 billion US dollars per year. It is estimated that up to 80% of all visitors to the country come to do eco-tourism related activities.
One of the pillars of Costa Rica's economic development has been trade liberalization, which has allowed exports to surpass its 30% ratio of GDP in 1980 to a current 50% rate. This trade liberalization has been followed by a series of structural changes resulting in productivity growth, diversification of the economy and a higher level of investment. Today, Costa Rica exports thousands of distinctive products to the world and is highly recognized as one of the top 30 leading exporters of high-tech products. Foreign investors remain attracted by the country's political stability and high education levels. All these changes have translated into important social achievements. In the last 20 years poverty was reduced from 40% to less than 20%.
In 2009, Costa Rica was considered the country with the highest rate of happiness (Happy Planet Index).
Geography of Costa Rica
This Central American country lies between Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south. Its area slightly exceeds that of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. It has a narrow Pacific coastal region. Cocos Island (10 sq mi; 26 sq km), about 300 mi (483 km) off the Pacific Coast, is under Costa Rican sovereignty.
The Land
Extending from northwest to southeast, Costa Rica is bounded by Nicaragua to the north, by the Caribbean Sea along the 185-mile (300-km) northeastern coastline, by Panama to the southeast, and by the Pacific Ocean along the 630-mile (1,015-km) southwestern coastline. At the country's narrowest point, the distance between the Pacific and the Caribbean is only about 75 miles (120 km).
- Relief
Two mountain chains together run almost the entire length of Costa Rica. These are, in the north, the Cordillera Volcánica, noted for its volcanic activity, as the name implies, and, in the south, the Cordillera de Talamanca. The Cordillera Volcánica may be divided into three ranges, from northwest to southeast: the Cordillera de Guanacaste, the Cordillera de Tilarán, and the Cordillera Central. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983, the Cordillera de Talamanca is a massive granite batholith, quite different geologically from the volcanically active northern ranges. Costa Rica's highest point, Mount Chirripó (12,530 feet [3,819 metres]), is in the Talamanca system. Two of the highest peaks in the Cordillera Volcánica, Irazú (11,260 feet [3,432 metres]) and Poás (8,871 feet [2,704 metres]), have paved roads reaching to the rims of their active craters. These volcanoes, overlooking the Valle Central, pose a serious natural hazard, as do earthquakes for most of the country. Arenal Volcano (5,358 feet [1,633 metres]), about 56 miles (90 km) northwest of San José, is the country's youngest stratovolcano. Its last major eruption, in 1968, destroyed two villages, and the volcano continued to spew lava and breccia into the early 21st century.
The Valle Central is separated into two parts by the continental divide. The eastern part is drained by the Reventazón River to the Caribbean, and the western sector forms part of the basin of the Grande de Tárcoles River, which flows into the Pacific. Another large structural valley, the Valle del General, lies at the base of the Cordillera de Talamanca in the southern part of the country. To the north and east of the mountainous central spine lie the Caribbean lowlands, constituting about one-fifth of the country and reaching less than 400 feet (120 metres) in elevation. The Pacific lowlands, which contain several small valleys and plains, include only about one-tenth of Costa Rica's territory.
- Climate
Thermal convection and onshore breezes bring abundant rains to the Pacific coast in the wet season, generally May to October in the north and April to December in the south. Northeasterly trade winds on the Caribbean provide ample year-round precipitation for the country's east coast, with the heaviest amounts occurring in the Barra del Colorado region. The higher mountain ranges have warm temperate climates, and the Pacific slopes have alternating wet and dry seasons.
Situated in the Valle Central at an elevation of 3,800 feet (1,160 metres), San José enjoys moderate temperatures and ample rainfall. Average monthly rainfall there ranges from well under 1 inch (25 mm) in February to more than 12 inches (300 mm) in September, with a yearly average of more than 70 inches (1,800 mm). Temperatures vary with elevation. San José has a mean temperature of 69 °F (21 °C), while means of 59 °F (15 °C) and 80 °F (27 °C) have been reported at stations located at 7,665 feet (2,340 metres) and 682 feet (210 metres), respectively.
- Plant and animal life
Dense broad-leaved evergreen forest, which includes mahogany and tropical cedar trees, covers about one-third of Costa Rica's landscape. On the Talamanca range grow numerous evergreen oaks and, above the timberline, mountain scrub and grasses. The northwest, with the longest dry season, contains open deciduous forest. Palm trees are common on the Caribbean coastline, and mangroves grow on the shallow protected shores of the Nicoya and Dulce gulfs along the Pacific. Mosses, orchids, and other tropical plants are abundant. Many of the world's tropical biologists have carried out studies at the various research stations of the Organization for Tropical Studies, which has its headquarters in San Pedro, a suburb of San José, as well as at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza; CATIE) in Turrialba.
Costa Rica's numerous and varied life zones make the country attractive to biologists. Mammalian life is both abundant and varied and has major ties to South and North American populations. The South American species include monkeys, anteaters, and sloths, and the North American species include deer, wildcats, weasels, otters, coyotes, and foxes. There is a wide variety of tropical birds in the lowlands, and reptiles, such as snakes and iguanas, and frogs are common.
Demography of Costa Rica
The People
- Ethnic groups
Nearly four-fifths of Costa Rica's population is of European descent, and, as a result, Costa Rica has the largest percentage of people of Spanish descent in Central America. The Valle Central, with more than half the country's population, is the most predominantly Spanish region in both its manner of living and its ancestry. The next largest group consists of mestizos (people of mixed indigenous and European ancestry), who constitute close to one-fifth of the country's inhabitants.
The roughly one-tenth of the country's inhabitants who live in Guanacaste provincia (province) are a blend of the descendants of colonial Spanish, indigenous, and African peoples; the Spanish they speak is more like that of Nicaragua than that of the Valle Central.
People of African ancestry, who comprise an even smaller percentage of the total population, live mostly in the Caribbean lowland of Limón province. The descendants of workers brought from the West Indies (mainly from Jamaica) in the 19th century to build the Atlantic Railroad and work on banana plantations, they were the targets of racism, and for many years residence laws restricted them to��>� Caribbean coast. Moreover, in the late 1930s, when Panama disease hit the banana crop on the Atlantic coast and operations shifted to the Pacific coast, forcing many of Limón's inhabitants to seek work elsewhere, some Costa Ricans lobbied for laws barring the employment of blacks. Costa Rica's president signed a law in 1935 prohibiting banana plantation owners on the Pacific coast from employing "coloured" people, claiming that their relocation would upset the racial balance of the country. It was not until 1949 that the government abolished what was in effect Costa Rica's version of apartheid and allowed black residents of Limón to travel, enter the Valle Central region, and become citizens. Discrimination is still present in Costa Rica (though less obvious than before); many among the country's Spanish-descended majority consider blacks inferior because of economic, cultural, and perceived "racial" differences. Because of these circumstances, the black community remains isolated from the national culture and faces many economic and social barriers.
There is a small Chinese population, many of whom are also the descendants of imported labourers. The Chinese community has its own social clubs, although it has assimilated into mainstream culture. Many Costa Ricans of Chinese descent own businesses in the retail and hospitality industries.
Less than 1 percent of Costa Rica's population today are indigenous people—usually referred to as Indians. Although estimates indicate that about 400,000 indigenous people lived in what is now Costa Rica before the Spanish conquest, that number was drastically reduced by the conquest itself, disease, and slave-raiding expeditions. The Bribrí and Cabécar reside in the Cordillera de Talamanca, and the Boruca (Brunca) and Térraba live in the hills around the Valle del General. A small number of Guatuso reside on the northern plains in Alajuela province. Most of Costa Rica's Indians are rapidly becoming assimilated, but those on the Caribbean side in the southern Talamanca region maintain their separate ways, including their animistic religions. Although Costa Rica's indigenous groups are legally assigned to protected reserves, the land is infertile, and most survive through subsistence agriculture. They are among the country's poorest people.
- Languages
Spanish in Costa Rica is spoken with a distinctive national accent and employs peculiar usages. Costa Ricans replace the diminutive ending -tito with -tico (hence their nickname), a practice known elsewhere but uncommon in Central America. Descendants of Africans in Limón province speak both Spanish and Limonese Creole, which resembles Jamaican English. The principal Indian languages spoken in Costa Rica are part of the Chibchan language family and include Bribrí, Cabécar, Maléku Jaíka, Boruca, and Térraba.
- Religion
Slightly less than nine-tenths of Costa Ricans are Roman Catholics. Roman Catholicism is the official religion, and it is supported with a small part of the national budget; however, the constitution of 1949 provides for freedom of religion. Most of the remaining population is Protestant, the majority of whom live in Limón province. A transplanted community of Quakers from the U.S. state of Alabama moved to Costa Rica in the 1950s and founded the town of Monteverde. They were essential in the creation of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve. A small Jewish community resides mostly in or near San José. An extremely small group of Mennonites lives in the Sarapiqui area, at the base of the Cordillera Volcánica.
- Settlement patterns
Since the beginnings of European colonization, the Valle Central has been the heartland of Costa Rica. In the 19th century, settlement slowly expanded from the core areas around Cartago and San José into the western parts of the valley. This expansion was based on coffee production from small family farms. Such farms still prevail but had become less numerous by the second half of the 19th century, when Costa Rica started to export coffee beans. Only large farms had the capacity and labour to prepare and package the coffee for shipment. Small properties were bought and integrated into larger landholdings. Nevertheless, more than half of Costa Rica's coffee farms are 10 acres (4 hectares) or less in size, a factor that contributes to the democratic heritage for which the country is famed.
During the 20th century, Costa Rica's settlement frontiers expanded outward rapidly from the Valle Central to incorporate peripheral areas, until virtually all the suitable lands in the country were settled and the spread of population effectively ended.
In the Caribbean lowlands the banana industry thrived from the 1880s until the 1920s, when Panama disease forced closure of the plantations. New disease-resistant varieties of bananas allowed reestablishment of the Caribbean plantations in the late 1950s, thus reviving the economy. The southern Pacific coastal region was opened for banana production about 1938 by the development of plantations around Parrita and Golfito. After World War II, competition from other banana-producing countries increased, causing national production to decline, and the last company-owned plantations in the Pacific region were closed or replanted with oil palms by 1985. Elsewhere in the south, habitation of the Valle del General increased rapidly following construction of the Inter-American Highway during World War II and into the 1950s.
The San Carlos Plain, part of the northern lowlands, was settled mainly after 1945, when roads were built that connected it with the Valle Central. In the 1970s and '80s more new roads brought additional expansion of agriculture and cattle grazing to this fertile area.
The northwestern province of Guanacaste—where many people work on large cattle ranches, or haciendas, while also maintaining small agricultural plots of their own—was once a part of Nicaragua and still retains a variety of Nicaraguan cultural influences. In many ways, this is the least traditionally Costa Rican part of the country.
San José is the only true metropolitan area in Costa Rica. The congested downtown contains major stores, government buildings, and the offices of many businesses. The few high-rise buildings are located in this city centre. Outside the downtown, San José has expanded outward to incorporate surrounding towns. The San José metropolitan area, which contains overall about one-fourth of Costa Rica's population, is a functionally integrated urban region that reaches from Alajuela and Heredia on the west to Cartago on the east.
- Demographic trends
In the mid-20th century, Costa Rica's population growth rate was among the highest in the world. As general prosperity and urbanization increased, however, the population growth rate decreased despite a drop in both the general and infant mortality rates. This decrease in the population growth rate was largely attributable to the fact that, by the late 20th century, middle-class Costa Rican families were having fewer children than previous generations. Life expectancy in Costa Rica is substantially longer than in most other Central American countries and is more comparable to life expectancies in developed countries.
European immigration and customs have helped to mold Costa Rican history and influence its character. German, Italian, and British immigrants in the 19th century left an imprint on Costa Rican education, science, and culture. In the 1970s immigrants mainly came from Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. However, in the 1980s immigrants and refugees arrived from nearby countries. Economic problems and political and armed conflict in Nicaragua and other Central American countries drove thousands of refugees (mainly mestizos) into Costa Rica, altering the ethnic composition of the country. Since the 1990s there has been a constant flow into Costa Rica of Nicaraguans, more than 400,000 of whom were estimated to be living in the country in the early 2000s. Many of these immigrants face barriers in housing, education, and health care and live in run-down neighbourhoods. During Nicaragua's dictatorship and civil war in the 1980s, the Costa Rican government set up refugee camps to aid its neighbours. Furthermore, after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Costa Rica granted asylum to many Nicaraguan refugees. In the early 2000s, however, the government enforced harsher measures to control illegal immigration, including tighter border controls and fines for businesses that employed undocumented workers. It is estimated that one-tenth of the Nicaraguans in Costa Rica are illegal aliens. Nationwide polls show that many Costa Ricans possess negative stereotypes of Nicaraguans. Costa Rica has also become a mecca for retirees from the United States, tens of thousands of whom now live there.
Economy of Costa Rica
Costa Rica is neither rich, as its name ("Rich Coast") implies, nor as poor as many of its neighbours. The country's wealth is better distributed among all social classes than elsewhere in Central America. During the 1980s the Costa Rican standard of living declined somewhat as a result of economic stagnation and inflation, but by the 1990s and into the 21st century the country was again vying with Panama and Belize for Central America's highest per capita gross national product (GNP).
The government controls key utilities, including electricity, water, fixed-line telephone, and port and rail facilities, and the entire population is eligible for free medical care, but private enterprise is still strong and influential in policy making. Continuous efforts to diversify the economy have succeeded in reducing the traditional dependence on agricultural exports, particularly coffee, bananas, and beef. Despite stringent efforts to reduce spending, the Costa Rican government operates at a deficit, a condition that has fed the country's already large international debt. The economy rebounded after the economic stagnation of the 1980s; by the beginning of the 21st century, the rate of annual GNP growth was above the Central American average and was double the world average, while the country's chronic inflation had been brought largely under control. Per capita national debt, however, is among the largest in Central America.
- Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Notwithstanding the country's traditional dependence on agriculture, less than one-sixth of economically active Costa Ricans work in the agricultural sector, which contributes about one-tenth of GNP. Sugar and coffee, from the highlands; bananas, produced mainly in the Caribbean lowlands; and pineapples, grown in farms located throughout the country, are some of the most important crops, accounting for nearly half the total value of all exports. Nontraditional agricultural products such as cut flowers, gourmet coffee, herbs, and macadamia nuts have increased in importance, and manufactured food products, fertilizer, handicrafts, garments, and publishing also have made inroads in the traditional economy. Palm oil for domestic consumption is an important product from the southern Pacific lowlands. Costa Rica has the capacity to feed itself but dedicates a large share of its land to the production of export crops.
Extensive deforestation went unchecked in the last few decades of the 20th century, when much of Costa Rica's timber reserves were cleared to make way for pasture or cropland. But by the end of the century the government had taken measures to limit use of trees for wood and fuel, had joined the private sector in further managing forest harvesting, and was compensating owners of woodlands for the environmental benefits of maintaining their forests. The best remaining stands of tropical hardwoods are in protected parks and forest reserves.
Costa Rica's fishing industry, concentrated mostly on the Pacific coast and focusing primarily on tuna and shrimp, supplies both the domestic market and exports. Tilapia fish farming, which grew significantly in the 1990s, has made Costa Rica the principal supplier of tilapia to the United States.
- Resources and power
Costa Rica's agricultural land and climate are its most important natural resources. The country has few mineral resources. The most important are the yet-unexploited bauxite deposits in the General and Coto Brus valleys and copper in the Cordillera de Talamanca. There is manganese on and near the Nicoya Peninsula, gold on the Osa Peninsula and parts of the Pacific slopes, and magnetite on scattered beaches, particularly on the southern Caribbean coastline. Geologic conditions are promising for petroleum in the southern Caribbean coast, but exploration has proved disappointing. For many years a number of hydroelectric plants have supplied domestic needs and provided a surplus for export. In fact, by the early 21st century about four-fifths of the country's electricity was produced from these plants, which do not emit greenhouse gases. The Angostura hydroelectric plant in central Costa Rica, which began operations in 2000, is the country's largest.
Government and Society of Costa Rica
- Constitutional framework
Costa Rica is governed by its constitution of November 1949, the 10th in its history. A president, two vice presidents, and a unicameral Legislative Assembly are elected at the same time for a term of four years, the assembly by proportional representation. Presidents may not run for immediate reelection, though they are eligible to serve again after sitting out two successive presidential terms.
Since the adoption of the constitution of 1949, Costa Rica has given an unusual degree of power to autonomous agencies, including state-financed universities and regional development institutes such as the National Insurance Institute, the Social Security Institute, and the Costa Rica Tourist Institute. These agencies provide additional opportunity for participation in government, but because of powers independent of the central administration they have made central planning more challenging.
- Local government
The country's seven provinces are administered by governors appointed by the president. The provinces represent judicial and electoral jurisdictions; most government agencies with their own administrative branches may not account for provincial boundaries. Each province is divided into cantones (cantons), and each canton is divided into distritos (districts). Councilmen for the cantons are elected locally, but budgets for all political units are approved by the national government, which controls nearly all the funds available to local governments.
- Justice
In the Costa Rican system of justice, cases may be decided by a single judge or by a panel of judges; the jury system is not used, but the courts are generally noted for their fairness. Capital punishment is banned, and sentences to the penitentiary must be for a stated number of years. The highest court is the Supreme Court of Justice. Magistrates of the Supreme Court are chosen by the assembly for eight-year terms and automatically continue for a second eight-year term unless removed by a two-thirds vote. An independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which has extraordinary powers during elections, oversees the election process.
- Political process
All citizens over age 18 are obliged to register to vote and to participate in elections. Voter turnout has traditionally been high, averaging about four-fifths of eligible voters from the 1960s through 1994, before falling thereafter. Costa Rica has a stable democratic government. The fairness of national elections has been indicated by the fact that almost every four-year period since the mid-20th century has seen a change in the party winning the presidency. Two parties have traditionally dominated: the National Liberation Party (Partido Liberación Nacional; PLN), which since 1949 has controlled the National Assembly more often than not, and the Social Christian Unity Party (Partido Unidad Social Cristiana; PUSC). The former, founded by the moderate socialist José Figueres Ferrer in 1948, was largely responsible for establishing the health, education, and welfare reforms for which Costa Rica is noted. The PUSC, a four-party coalition formed in 1977, is more conservative and business-oriented than the PLN. In 2000 the Citizen Action Party (Partido Acción Ciudadana; PAC) was founded as an alternative.
- Security
Costa Rica has no army and promotes demilitarization elsewhere as a part of its foreign policy. It maintains a nonconscripted civil guard that has police duties. There also are district police.
- Health and welfare
Costa Rica has greatly reduced the incidence of diseases associated with tropical climates. Malaria has been virtually eliminated except in the border areas with Nicaragua; waterborne diseases are rare; and mortality rates are low. The incidence of cancer and heart disease has risen, however. Costa Rica's Social Security Institute, founded in the 1940s, is often considered a model for other Latin American countries.
A number of agencies promoting human rights have established headquarters in San José, including the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. The Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, created in 1988 by Óscar Arias Sánchez following his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, lobbies for gender equity and equal opportunity and peace and security and includes a higher education and research division.
- Education
The constitution provides for free and compulsory education. The central government oversees school attendance, curricula, and other educational matters. About one-fourth of the country's budget is allocated to education, and more than nine-tenths of the population is literate. School attendance is relatively high, with more than nine-tenths of children age 6 to 11 enrolled in primary schools and more than three-fifths of students age 12 to 16 enrolled in secondary schools.
The University of Costa Rica (1941) has a well-planned, functional main campus in San Pedro, a suburb of San José, as well as a number of branches in outlying cities; the National University has a smaller campus in Heredia; and the "open" university, Universidad Estatal a Distancia (1977), offers courses by television from offices in San José. The Autonomous University of Central America (1976) is also located in San José, as are several private institutions of higher education. Through the initiative of Pres. Rodrigo Carazo Odio (1978–82), Costa Rica became the home of the University for Peace in 1980. The Technological Institute of Costa Rica (Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica [ITCR]; founded in 1971 in Cartago) provides engineering and other technical training. Scores of foreign universities maintain exchange programs with Costa Rica's universities.
Culture Life of Costa Rica
- Cultural milieu
Most Costa Rican diversions are cosmopolitan rather than nationalistic in nature. Ticos attend films with great frequency, enjoying international cinema. They listen to an extraordinary variety of music, especially from the many radio stations in the country. Cable television enables them to keep up with global events. Residents of the Valle Central attend the National Theatre, where the music played and the drama performed may come from any part of the world. Extended family and other personal connections through school, business, political, or religious associations are very important to ticos.
As a predominantly Roman Catholic country, Costa Rica observes many holy days and feasts. Among the most important are Semana Santa, or Holy Week, when most of the country's towns suspend business for several days of ceremonies and parades, and the Day of the Virgin of Los Angeles (August 2), which honours Costa Rica's patron saint and is marked by fireworks and feasting. On a secular level, Juan Santamaría Day (April 11) celebrates the Costa Rican patriot who organized a volunteer army to turn back the invading American adventurer William Walker in 1856. The Guanacaste region, in Costa Rica's northwest, is known for raising cattle, and in late July several of its towns hold fairs that feature bullfighting, dancing, equestrian competitions, and cavalcades. Celebrations in San José draw crowds to its unique collection of plazas—notably the Democracy, Culture, Free Elections, and Social Guarantees plazas.
- The arts
Costa Ricans take a strong interest in their pre-Columbian art, which includes large stone statues from the Pacific northwest of the country, exquisitely carved stone spheres (probably cemetery markers) from the Pacific southwest region, and fine figurines of gold and jade. The fine arts have seldom flourished in Costa Rica, but they have received some impetus from government support, particularly with the creation in 1970 of the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports. Painting, sculpture, and music all showed considerable development in the latter part of the 20th century. Particular pride was taken in the growth of the National Symphony Orchestra since 1971, with the ensemble playing large halls and also taking music to the countryside. Costa Ricans have been marginally active in the field of literature. Roberto Brenes Mesén and Ricardo Fernández Guardia were widely known in the early 20th century as independent thinkers in the fields of education and history, respectively. Fabián Dobles and Carlos Luis Fallas have attracted international attention as writers of novels with social protest themes. Carmen Naranjo is one of several noted female writers. Among the folk arts, Costa Rica is most famous for its highly decorated oxcarts and wood carvings.
- Cultural institutions
Most of the country's cultural institutions are centred in and around the capital. The country's architectural crown jewel, the Renaissance-style National Theatre (1897), on the south side of the Plaza of Culture, features statues, marble staircases, magnificent murals depicting Costa Rican life, and a ceiling fresco. The National Museum in downtown San José houses the country's largest collection of pre-Columbian art. A fine collection of gold objects can be found in the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, located beneath the Plaza of Culture. The Fidel Tristan Jade Museum contains the largest collection of jade in the Americas. Outside of San José, Guayabo National Park, near Turrialba, features the country's only preserved pre-Columbian archaeological site. Because of the small population in the colonial period and the absence of significant wealth at that time, genuine colonial architecture is rather scarce, the most famed example being a 17th-century mission in the town of Orosí. Cartago's older buildings, destroyed by earthquakes, have in some cases been restored; new ones like them have also been built.
- Sports and recreation
As elsewhere in Central America, football (soccer) is the Costa Rican national pastime, and there are dozens of local and provincial teams. The sport was introduced to the country by English settlers in the early 20th century, and succeeding generations have refined an aggressive style of play that has repeatedly earned Costa Rica's national team the Central American Soccer Union (Unión Centroamericana de Futbol; UNCAF) Nations Cup as the champions of Central America. Although its Olympic committee was not founded until 1953, Costa Rica participated in the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin, and Costa Rican athletes have attended every Summer Games since 1956, finding their greatest success in football. But it was swimmer Claudia Poll Ahrens who won the country's first gold medal, in the 200-metre freestyle event at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.
Costa Rica has developed the largest national park system, relative to its size, of any Latin American country. These parks include a sweeping range of tropical ecosystems, such as tropical rainforest (Corcovado National Park; Manuel Antonio National Park), cloud forest (Monteverde), dry forest, and elfin forest. Other parks include active volcanoes, turtle nesting sites (Tortuguero National Park, Playa Grande, and Ostional National Wildlife Refuge), and coral reefs (Cahuita National Park). International tourists are attracted by these parks, some of which are noted worldwide for their vegetation and wildlife. The country's national beaches are a major attraction for Costa Ricans as well, who flock to them on weekends and major holidays. Popular beaches include Manuel Antonio, Conchal, Flamingo, Tamarindo, and Grande.
Although it features picturesque uncrowded beaches on both its Caribbean and Pacific coasts, Costa Rica was somewhat late in developing an ocean sports industry. That changed when Costa Rica's Pacific beaches were prominently featured in the 1994 American film The Endless Summer 2. Surfers from around the world began to descend on such magnificent surfing spots as El Potrero, Roca Bruja, Pico Pequeño, Callejones, Mal País, and Puerto Viejo. The last, lying alongside a tall coral reef, offers especially challenging surfing. Others flock to the same beaches for their outstanding diving sites and clear, warm waters. Sportfishing on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is popular with tourists.
- Media and publishing
Numerous publishing houses operate in the country, issuing both fiction and nonfiction on a wide range of topics. The government-operated Editorial Costa Rica and publishing outlets of major universities are the most prolific of the publishing houses. Both the number and variety of publications available in Costa Rican bookstores surpass those of any other Central American country and some South American countries as well. La Nación ("The Nation"), an independent but conservative daily, is the most widely read of Costa Rica's newspapers. It is balanced by La Républica ("The Republic") and La Prensa Libre ("The Free Press"), independents that lean more toward reform ideas. The Tico Times, an English-language newspaper, has established a reputation for its investigative reporting. There are several television stations, one of which is government-owned.
History of Costa Rica
Costa Rica was inhabited by an estimated 400,000 Indians when Columbus explored it in 1502. The Spanish conquest began in 1524. The region grew slowly and was administered as a Spanish province. Costa Rica achieved independence in 1821 but was absorbed for two years by Agustín de Iturbide in his Mexican empire. It became a republic in 1848. Except for the military dictatorship of Tomás Guardia from 1870 to 1882, Costa Rica has enjoyed one of the most democratic governments in Latin America.
In the 1970s, rising oil prices, falling international commodity prices, and inflation hurt the economy. Efforts have since been made to reduce reliance on coffee, banana, and beef exports. Tourism is now a major business. Óscar Arias Sánchez worked to simultaneously heal his country's economic woes and foster peace in Central America.
José Maria Figueres Olsen of the National Liberation Party became president in 1994. He opposed economic suggestions made by the International Monetary Fund, instead favoring greater government intervention in the economy. The World Bank subsequently withheld $100 million of financing. In 1998, Miguel Angel Rodríguez of the Social Christian Unity Party became president, pledging economic reforms, such as privatization. In 2000, Costa Rica and Nicaragua resolved a long-standing dispute over navigation of the San Juan River, which forms their shared border. A psychiatrist, Abel Pacheco, also of the Social Christian Unity Party, won the presidency in elections held in April 2002. In May 2003, several national strikes took place, by energy and telecommunications workers over
A Brief History
Costa Rica has become a household name in terms of tourist destinations within Latin America. Gracefully posing as the bridge between Mesoamerican and Andean cultures', as well as the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, this little country beckons the patronage of approximately 1.5 million tourists a year, nearly half of whom are Americans. There are many reasons why Costa Rica calls the attention of foreign travelers and investors while the rest of the region struggles for stability.
Beginning by establishing a national park system that makes up 25% of the entire country, Costa Rica is able to protect lush and exotic flora and fauna that make up 5% of the world's biodiversity (the country itself makes up only 1% of the worlds land mass). They have paved the way for and encourage the spread of ecotourism: a more people and planet friendly way to enjoy what the country has to offer. By nationally protecting the vast riches that the country naturally possesses and laying the foundation for tourism to flourish in a more natural, eco-friendly manner, Costa Rica exudes an openness and hospitality not easily found in other developing countries.
Other things catch one's eye when noticing the warmth of the country; one of those being the fact that Costa Rica was the first nation in the world to voluntarily abolish its army. Under the presidency of Jose Figueres Ferrer, the abolition of the national army was engraved into the constitution in 1949, allowing its funds to be redirected towards education and culture, and its official building revamped into the National Museum of Costa Rica. This act became hugely significant in the years to come by nearly abolishing its illiteracy rate (95% of its population is literate), and allowing the country to focus on humanitarian and environmental efforts, on both domestic and global levels, rather than the country's security.
In Latin America's colonial era, Costa Rica was the southern most province in what was known as Captaincy General of Guatemala. When independence from Spain was declared in 1821, Costa Rica was the last to know, thus any form of physical upheaval was unnecessary and their independence was gained without any human sacrifice. This, along with the fact that its population is largely monochromatic (94% European/Mestizo with only 3% African and 1.7% Indigenous), leaves little room for the scuffles that its Central American neighbors seem to be presented with. Nonetheless, massive immigration mostly from Nicaragua, Colombia and Taiwan, especially during the last decade, is significantly changing the ethnic panorama of the country into a more multicultural society.
Costa Rica is also a huge advocate for peace and humanitarianism holding a seat in the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the International Criminal Court. It's current President, Oscar Arias received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his work in the Esquipulas II Peace Agreement promoting democracy and peace in Central America.
The Threat of Globalization It is important to point out the negative effects of globalization that is now threatening Costa Rica's peace tradition and historical progress. In more recent decades, Costa Rica's "Pura Vida" (translated pure life) approach has become threatened due to many factors. The harmony of local communities is being transformed due to the ramifications of the tourist trade, the importation of technology, and the threats of privatization through trade agreements.
Its economic dependence on tourism has encouraged a rapid growth of large scale beach resorts and real estate development, especially on its west coast, thus generating conflict between local communities and developers over the use of water, (a resource that is becoming increasingly scarce in the region) as well as generating land disputes as a result of public land privatization.
Because of its educational level, Costa Rica has become a hotspot for technology and pharmaceutical development. Previously Costa Rica focused on its agricultural sector but has recently announced a 7 year plan for technological development giving tax credits to companies like Intel and Proctor & Gamble, which sees in the country's location the key factor for their choice: Costa Rica has direct ocean access to the rest of Latin America, the US, Western Europe, South-East Asia, and Russia.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the USA (at this point not ratified yet by the Congress due to public pressure) has become one of the issues of controversy and division among the population. Costa Ricans' especially treasure the state-run telecommunications and power companies, as well as their universal health insurance system, which could be negatively impacted by the action of transnational corporations favored by CAFTA.
Costa Rica maintains a positive global reputation due to its continued commitment to peace, human rights and the environment. Due to accords such as CAFTA, and other booms in private development, this reputation could be in jeopardy. A significant number of Costa Rican citizens are afraid that their successful development model based on social security and solidarity will become drastically transformed.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Again Gains Presidency
- osta Rica has a reputation as one of the most stable, prosperous, and least corrupt Latin American countries. But in fall 2004, three former Costa Rican presidents (José Maria Figueres Olsen, Miguel Angel Rodríguez, and Rafael Angel Calderon) were investigated on corruption charges. In 2006, Óscar Arias Sánchez was elected president. Arias, who had served as president once before (1986–1990), won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for fostering peace talks that eventually ended the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
The Costa Rican government voted in November 2008 to implement the Central American Free Trade Agreement that voters had approved in October 2007.
First Woman Elected President
- In February 2010, Laura Chinchilla became the country's first woman to be elected president, taking 47% of the vote. She's a protégé of outgoing centrist president Oscar Arias. Due to Article 132 of Costa Rica's Constitution, Chinchilla was ineligible to run for a second consecutive term.
- Luis Guillermo Solís was elected president in May 2014. A member of the center-left Citizens' Action Party, Solís easily won the presidency after first round runner-up, San José Mayor Johnny Araya Monge stopped actively campaigning.
Costa Rica in 2005
Costa Rica Area: 51,100 sq km (19,730 sq mi) Population (2005 est.): 4,221,000 Capital: San José Head of state and government: President Abel Pacheco de la Espriella Corruption scandals, trade ...>>>Read On<<<<
Costa Rica in 2004
Costa Rica Area: 51,100 sq km (19,730 sq mi) Population (2004 est.): 4,252,000 Capital: San José Head of state and government: President Abel Pacheco de la Espriella For much of 2004, national...>>>Read On<<<<
This is not the official site of this country. Most of the information in this site were taken from the U.S. Department of State, The Central Intelligence Agency, The United Nations, [1],[2], [3], [4], [5],[6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14],[15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24],[25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30],[31], [32], [33], [34], and the [35].
Other sources of information will be mentioned as they are posted.


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One look at the transportation infrastructure of the present times, and you know what convenience truly feels like. Connecting nearly every major port, city, and town in the world, the world's transportation has evolved with time. Trains have, and will always make transportation simpler and easier for the people, not just across cities, but also within the city. Today, as every corner of the world is getting connected via one or more modes of transport, the trains seem to be running to their full capacity.
Among the many train stations across the world, there are a few that run to their full capacity. A few have come up with solutions like drawing new lines, having more platforms etc. on the stations to manage the inflow.
Here we have curated a list of 10 busiest train stations in the world, and what they are doing to manage the inflow.
1. Shinjuku in Japan
Japan has created uniquely defined yet complex transport complexes to handle the daily influx of passengers. The Shinjuku station(heart of tokyo) has been built to handle a capacity of 3.5 million passengers. For one, this station is the connecting link between Central Tokyo and the western suburbs within the city. With 10 platforms, 20 tracks, 12 train links and a total of five stations, the complexity just about increased, making it the largest train station in the world. For a long time, there have been plans of adding the train station to the high speed rail lines in the Shinkansen network.
2. Zurich Hauptbahnhof in Switzerland
A total of 2900 trains pass by this station on a daily basis, making it one of the busiest stations in Europe. This train station has tried multiple routes including adding units, creating through routes for the S-Bahn trains and other formations to ensure proper crowd management at the station. Despite all the efforts thrown in, the station remains to be busy. With the Durchmesserline project, there should be enough space for expansion and altercations in the train routes and system.
3. Gare du Nord in France
Each year, about 180Mn travelers, pass through this route, thus making it one of the busiest stations in the world. There are a total of 44 platforms currently operational on the train station. The station underwent a major expansion in 1964, a post which it could manage the daily influx of passengers. This railway line is being served by the Paris Metro Transit System, the Reau Express Regional and other bus routes within the country. There are plans to build a hallway between Gare du Nord station and Gare de l'Est.
4. Penn in the U.S.
In a span of 90 seconds, this station experiences close to 1000 passengers boarding or getting down a train, making it the busiest railway station in North America. Connecting Washington D.C. as well as Boston Massachusetts, this train station provides a corridor to travel across North America. In the expansion plans, the city's station is all set to add 13 Jersey transit routes and eight Amtrak trains during peak hours. The current projects are all set to increase the commuter capacity at the train station.
5. Union station in Canada
The train station serves close to 2,50,000 passengers on a daily basis, across the 2000 routes it can rightfully travel. With this single statement, we have just touched the brink of the complexity this station has to offer. Apart from providing inter-city transport to the commuters, the train station is also connected to the Toronto Transport Commission subway. The current projects are focused on the pedestrian movement along the train station as well as to create a mega complex within the station.
6. Umeda Station in Osaka Japan
If you visit this station in Japan, you are both intrigued and frightened by the high capacity it manages on a daily basis. The station manages close to 20 lakh passengers. The station connects the Hankyu Railway, Hanshin Electric Line and the Osaka Metro. Several projects have been defined to manage the traffic and the inflow of the trains, in order to manage the crowd.
7. Yokohama Station in Kanagawa Japan
This is the first ever train station in Japan, and it's a commuter railway station and has survived several disasters, and has undergone a good amount of renovation and expansion. The station has been serving 760 Mn passengers on a daily basis since the year 2013. The station is being served by the JR East lines, as well as Keikyu, Sotetsu, and Tokyo Corporation. They have created separate lines and segregated them in order to make it easier for the passengers.
8. Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo Japan
This train station is seen to be buzzing with passengers as it connects you to the heart of the city and all the grandeur attached. The station is served by East Japan Railway Company as well as the Tokyo Metro. The station manages about 2.71Mn passengers on a daily basis since 2007. It is mostly used by the commuters.
9. Shibuya Station in Tokyo Japan
A commuter platform connecting you to the central and other main areas of Tokyo, this station holds a traffic of approximately 2.4Mn passengers on the weekday. The station is known to handle a good amount of commuter traffic flowing in from the central city as well as the suburbs.
10. Kita Senju in Tokyo Japan
When you talk about the Tokyo metro network, there is one station that definitely comes to your mind- the Kita Senju station. Also served by the JR east station, it is one of the busiest stations in Tokyo. Apart from JR East, the station is also served by the Tobu Skytree Line and Tokyo's metro lines. The station layout has been planned to handle the metro as well as the commuter and inter-state trains.

subset: commoncrawl


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The appeal is undeniable and any decision to invest, financially and/or personally, into Australia's future prosperity...
Entrepreneur Visa Update
The upcoming Entrepreneur Visa -
Pilot announced for South Australia (but 'flight time' yet unknown) as South Australia Business Innovation visas remain on hold.
Updating my blog of March 12th http://www.sellanesclark.com/blog/entrepreneur-visa, only the most cynical among readers would consider that the Home Affairs Minister's choice of South Australia as the state to trial the proposed, totally new, Entrepreneur visa might in any way have been linked to the then upcoming state election, but there's no denying that the concept received wide publicity in the lead-up to March 17th, election day.
The Liberals won convincingly, but what's happened to the proposed trial?
Thinking charitably, it is one thing to announce a concept, another thing entirely to draft the complexities of its purpose, guidelines and structure. Even though the announcement may have been timed for political reasons (which actually would be both logical and understandable) the ultimate product may well incorporate a number of modifications, deemed necessary during its evolution.
What do we know to date?
The proposal is designed to attract overseas entrepreneurs, investors and innovators, with supporting business plans, to apply for a temporary visas to build their ventures within Australia.
Aspirants will not require funding (previous versions required a minimum of $200,000) but applications will be thoroughly vetted by state or federal government entities, or by local incubators and accelerators on the government's behalf.Potentially eligible aspirants will then be nominated by government.
In the Minister's words, we know that the visa's purpose will be to "foster business growth, increasing job opportunities, investment and the standard of living for all Australians."
What do we know of the requirements for applicants?
Little detail has been revealed to date, but we are aware that;
- All applicants must be under 45 years of age
- They must have vocational level English (IELTS Level 5 or above)
- There will be no requirement for capital outlay (unlike current Entrepreneur and obviously Investor Visas)
What questions still need to be answered?
At this stage in the progress of a new opportunity, so many questions remain unanswered, which is why our team at Sellanes Clark are constantly monitoring developments. Immigration is a very complex field of interconnected regulatory issues:
- Will this visa require specific skills?
- With what permanent residency visa category will this temporary visa be linked?
- Should the entrepreneur require more time to complete the project, will the visa provide options for onshore extensions? If so, how many?
- What happens, should a visa-holder exceed the 45 year age limit prior to completion or upon completion of initial project? Will any age exemptions apply?
- Having "no capital outlays" how will the visa category be funded and if it proves popular, will it be capped?
When will the South Australian pilot commence?
This takes us back to our first question and certainly it would be a pressing question in the state itself.
With the recent "temporary closure" of application acceptances for South Australia's 188/132 Business Innovation and Investment visa category (Refer my blog February 6th 2018 http://www.sellanesclark.com/blog/188-132-applications – applications closed until at least early April, due to the number of places being exceeded) the proposed Entrepreneur visa would be warmly welcomed in the state.
The Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Peter Dutton, did nominate a timeline, indicating that the pilot would commence in South Australia "during 2018" then be extended nationally "in 2019".
Now is the time to gather information, to prepare appropriate business plans and to formulate individual strategies.
Support from the front line
In the complex jungle of immigration, it really does pay dividends to obtain professional assistance; skilled practitioners who are specialised in the field, comprehensively trained to recognise the traps and the trends. It can save so much time and avoid so much unnecessary expense.
For more information on this or on any relating issues, contact the migration experts – Sellanes Clark and Associates – specialising in all immigration matters.


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- Ice Guide : Southeast : Juneau : Mount Juneau : Green Weenie
Rating: WI5-
Climb follows obvious drainage through steep curtain. This route is visible from downtown.
Anchor/Descent: Alders exist throughout the side of the route for rappel.
ALERT: Avalanches can be deadly in this drainage. Avalanches have been seen to rip all the way down to Basin Road. Check the conditions before climbing on this route. After any sizeable snowfall or heavy winds stay off the route until conditions improve.
View Mount Juneau Ice Climbing in a larger map
Drive out Basin Road from downtown Juneau. After the right hand curve, park at the first major drainage. Hike drainage uphill to base of route.
Send us your video of this climb.


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Aviva finance five assurtech canadian
Justine Montminy
April 5, 2018 11:30
Photo : Freepik
Aviva Canada and the innovation centre for startups OneEleven will support five canadian companies in the framework of a programme launched in February to help assurtech and thus to stimulate innovation in the insurance. The five selected startups will participate in an intensive programme of growth, of a duration of four months with Aviva Canada and OneEleven. The program begins immediately.
The company specializes in health Maple, the platform in real estate MapYourProperty, the comparison site financial RateHub, an application that captures the waves of the advertisements surrounding in order to allow consumers to buy instantly the product demonstrated Soundpays platform and streamlining of financial and insurance services WealthTab are the assurtech selected by Aviva and OneEleven.
"These five businesses offer a wide range of solutions in assurtech and they touch both the health services, financial and commercial," says Ryan Spinner, head of the sector of digital and innovation at Aviva Canada. The insurer plans to invest $ 170 million in startups and technology over the next three to five years.


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This tale from China, while encouraging, is not for the faint of heart. (Link contains disturbing graphic images).
SKEWERED ALIVE Factory robot impales worker with 10 foot-long steel spikes after horror malfunction
A CHINESE factory worker has survived being skewered with TEN metal spikes when a robot malfunctioned.
The 49-year-old, named as Mr Zhou, was working on the night shift at a porcelain factory in Hunan province when he was struck by a falling robotic arm.
The accident resulted in him being impaled with foot long, half-inch thick metal rods, the People's Daily reported.
He was first taken to a local hospital before he was transferred to the Xiangya Hospital of Central South University due to the severity of his injuries.
Six steel rods fixed on a steel plate pierced his right shoulder and chest, and four penetrated elsewhere in his body.
During the operation, doctors found that one of the rods missed an artery by just 0.1mm.
1) He's making a full recovery;
2) Don't ever mess with this man;
3) This was not a malfunction; it was attempted homicide;
4) Never, ever, ever turn your back on a bot;
5) Coming soon to a "factory" near you.


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[Junk Machine] - Transform an old Sony tape recorder into a midi controler
I had the idea to build the "Junk Machine" during a workshop at IMAL in Brussels in june 2008. That workshop (Hybrid Scrapyard) was managed by Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki. The constraint was to work with material found in a trash.
This is an old Sony Tape Recorder completely out of order. He has so beautiful switches, potentiometer allowing interactivity. The first part of my job was to cut everything that I didn't need (a lot of useless wires). After what I soldered new wires connected to an Arduino board.
To grab the data on my Mac I use the serial over USB link. The final goal is to produce sounds and make music. So I have used Cycling '74 Max/MSP and Arduino2Max. As I'm not a great fan of the MSP sound engine, I prefer send Midi data (through MidiYoke - now obsolete) from Max to my favourite Native Instrument Synth : Massive.
Finally, the result of the workshop was presented in public. Here is the video :
After what it seemed more interesting to avoid Max/MSP sending directly from the Arduino Midi data. I used that simple scematic available at ITP Physical Computing.
We also added a lot of new wires connected to other switches allowing more interactivity. It is now a real homemade midi controler.
I have used that version during the DorkbotBRU #2 at IMAL-Brussels in june 2008.
Here is a video of me performing and improvising with the Junk Machine.
It is a work in progress; I'm still working today on that machine. I try to use the sound coming from the playhead of the Sony Tape Recorder to play with. There will be more on that site soon.


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Jun 11, 2018
I'm really enjoying this course. I'm about half way through. I'm looking forrward to how the various courses in this series take me farther and farther into language learning theories and techniques.
Sep 06, 2018
This was an entertaining way to learn the theories. Theories can be very dry and through the videos, I had a good visual of the different considerations when designing language learning experiences.
por Bernabé N G•
Dec 07, 2018
Awesome and simply amazing content. I learned so much! This course even made me a better RLA (English to Native Language English speakers) teacher! I am a sub at Rio Salado College Adult Basic Education (GED students) and the last three times I have subbed each class had students that wanted to know what days I taught so that they could switch to my class! Thank you!
por Marie G•
Sep 06, 2018
This was an entertaining way to learn the theories. Theories can be very dry and through the videos, I had a good visual of the different considerations when designing language learning experiences.
por Angie J•
Dec 04, 2016
Great presentations on what language instruction approaches have looked like in the past and present. Each approach is discussed and evaluated so the "best of's" can be applied in your own teaching.
por Weisi Z•
Feb 27, 2016
The course content is perfect, however the rating system is kind of disappointing. First, the rating is very subjective, thus I might pay great efforts to my submission but get a grade below my expectation. Second, sometimes I can be busy on weekends thus I want to finish the peer review earlier on Friday, however, there might often be not enough submission to be reviewed, thus I am very pressured to do this with a exhausted mind and body in the evening on Sundays. Could I just pass if there's no other submission to review?
por Eric F•
Jul 31, 2019
I liked the use of the time machine to visit the people who came up with the methods of teaching English!
por José D R A•
Feb 18, 2019
Great course.
por Nguyễn V T•
Dec 13, 2018
very good
por Ibtihal A B A Y A•
Nov 27, 2018
A highly informative, applicable& easy to follow course by absolutely knowledgeable professors. The thorough, well-organized& engaging course content reflects the the professionalism & the extensive knowledge of the professors in this field. Really looking forward to enrolling in other courses by the same professors & Arizona State University . Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to learn from you.
por Maria I•
Nov 29, 2018
excellent and interesting
por Lina J•
Dec 17, 2018
Great and enganging course
por YUN S L•
Dec 20, 2018
I like this course very much!
por Malak H•
Dec 06, 2018
For my instructors big respect and love for this just most amazing and exciting course I've ever attended. I really owe you BIG thanks for your efforts and genuine giving spirit that I learned a lot ..You were actually following the precise and precious values you teach through this course. I highly recommend teachers to have this course in order to maintain a broad view on teaching methods and grasp the useful themes and techniques that enrich their teaching process.
por Ana P R•
Jan 28, 2019
I've learned so much about the various theories, philosophies, and approaches. My teaching skills definitely need polishing, and this course have broaden my knowledge. It's an excellent course with amazing teachers and overall teaching style. The information is fun, and it sticks. Thank you.
por Nan Z•
Jun 11, 2018
I'm really enjoying this course. I'm about half way through. I'm looking forrward to how the various courses in this series take me farther and farther into language learning theories and techniques.
por maria b•
Nov 26, 2018
por S A•
Dec 13, 2018
I've learned so much on this course and had so much fun. It was fantastic! Thank you for your great effort!
por Christian N L M•
Dec 15, 2018
I am a student of pedagogy and finding this course especially the second is a great opportunity to learn more about teaching methods in the classroom.
por Omayma A•
Dec 15, 2018
It was an amazing course in all its aspects .
Thank You very much
por Min S T•
Dec 04, 2018
Very excellent course!
por Jennifer B•
Jan 09, 2019
A great course!
por Suu Y M•
Jan 10, 2019
very nice
por Hasnan Y•
Jan 10, 2019
This is a great course. I know a lot more about some theories of SLA.
por K S A•
Jan 09, 2019
Excellent; benefiting and interesting.
por Endia D•
Jan 09, 2019
Highly recommended.
por Karen H•
Dec 29, 2018
Great teachers that explain things so they are easily understandable. Pay attention to historical names for final assessment. Not really in notes. I really enjoy this program series to become TEFOL certified.


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The Fair's in Town!
It's that time of year again… The OC Fair is officially open!
The Orange County Fair, also known as the OC Fair, takes places annually in Costa Mesa, California. Located at the OC Fair & Event Center, this summer event lasts a whole 23 days and is jam-packed with fun for the whole family. This year, the fair is open from July 15-August 14 every Wednesday-Sunday from Noon-Midnight Wednesday-Friday and 10am-Midnight on Saturdays and Sundays.
You can check out the OC Fair's official website at http://www.ocfair.com/ for official dates and prices, parking information and ticketing, but in the meantime, we've compiled a list of some of the event's main draws and attractions.
- The Carnival
When it comes to orchestrating a fun fair outing for the kids, the carnival section is right up their alley! Carnival Midway Tickets can be purchased and are valid for rides and games. In total, there are over 60 different rides and attractions to choose from.
- The Action Sports Arena
If rides aren't for you and your family, perhaps the Action Sports Area will be of interest. Each day, the OC Fair offers viewership of an action-packed event. On any given day, these sports range from motorcycle racing and demolition derbies, to bull riding and other various extreme rodeo sports. Seats of this venue are offered on a first come, first serve basis, so be sure to plan your day carefully if you're expecting to catch one of these shows.
- The OC Fair Food
Some people eat to live, and some people live to eat. If you're one of the latter, than the food the OC Fair has to offer may be just for you! They've got everything from deep-fried treats to your favorite BBQ delights. And FYI – for all you foodies out there – from Noon-4pm every Thursday, you can "taste your way through the Fair" for only $2 a taste! The food vendors and menu changes weekly, but luckily you can take a look at the OC Fair website or their mobile app to check out the current week's list.
- The Free Entertainment
Free entertainment? Who wouldn't be down for that? Aside from the Action Sports Arena, the OC Fair offers several daily and nightly shows that range from your usual live music to hypnotism and acrobatics. Turkey stampedes and pig races can also be watched at select times and days. When it comes to free entertainment that's fun for the family, the list is really an endless one. Hit up the OC Fair website, mobile app or even box office to see what's being offered on the day you're planning to attend.
- The Shopping
The shopping vendors of the OC Fair sell literally everything a person could ever need. From necessities such as culinary equipment to a wide variety of unique products such as spas and hammocks, this event has it all. Booth locations and an exact vendor list can be found online. Check it out to see what merchandise the fair is offering that may be of interest to you.


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Ever been to a silent disco? Mark your calendars for Día del Libro 2018
The annual Day of the Book is back with more books and roses
Apr 12, 2018
The Día del Libro or Day of the Book lives on this year at Instituto Cervantes de Manila. Thousands of English and Spanish books across various genres will be available, and each purchase will entitle you to a rose, following the Spanish tradition.
One of the activities is called disco muda, or silent disco. It's an event where people dance to music via wireless headphones, so it gives the effect of a room full of people dancing to nothing. Pretty interesting, right?
Similar to last year's activities, another Don Quixote writing chain will be held. 500 volunteers will write the Miguel de Cervantes novel by hand (participants will be given two minutes each), and the finished book will be given to the Library Miguel Hernández of Instituto Cervantes.
There will also be an open house at the Instituto Cervantes grounds on the same day. Expect activities like chuta-gol or football (hosted by La Liga, Spain's football league), film screenings, live poetry, street art, and a tribute concert to Filipino and Spanish music by the Manila Symphony Orchestra. Of course, lots of Spanish food will be served as well.
See the full program below:
10 a.m. Opening ceremony
10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Book Market
10 a .m. to 9 p.m. Escribo el Quijote
10:15 a.m. Inauguration of the Pop-up Library
10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. De Manila al Cielo. Cadena de poesía
10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Chuta-gol (football)
11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. Storytelling for children
11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Mi Primera clase: free Spanish class
1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Meet the writer: Elaine Castillo
2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Silent Disco
2:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Book signing: Meet the writers
3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Book Presentation: Mabuhay (R. Vilaró)
5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Concierto en el Parque: Manila Symphony Orchestra
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Silent Disco
9 p.m. Closing
Día del Libro will be held on Apr. 21, 2018 at Ayala Triangle Gardens.
Header courtesy of The Atlantic
Read more:
Trick yourself into reading books again
From street to store: Guerilla booksellers find home in Taft
These best-selling books are turning into movies this year
Read more from Bea Llagas:
The evolution of disco as captured by photographers
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This year has seen the proliferation of proposed applications and startups using blockchain technology. Predicting which will succeed and which will fail with 100 percent accuracy is, of course, impossible. But the likeliest candidates for success are the cases where the benefits of not relying on a central intermediary most exceed the extra costs of using a blockchain to process transactions. Will our health records and deeds to our homes end up on blockchains? The answer will depend greatly on these costs and benefits.
The benefits of not relying on a central intermediary are often larger than we first assume. Let's look at the most well-known blockchain application — payment processing — and one of the most important functions of today's intermediaries, namely keeping our data secure.
We use central payment-processing systems such as credit cards, PayPal, or bank transfers all the time, almost without thinking about it. As we do so, we implicitly trust these intermediaries to protect our personal and financial data from being stolen and to not misuse the data themselves. Data hacks of epic proportions do happen, but let's assume that the probability of something bad happening when we use one of these intermediaries is very low. Does that mean the cost of relying on these intermediaries to secure our data is low? Not necessarily.
We place our trust in these intermediaries because they have made costly investments over time to engender that trust. Firms that centrally process payments spend millions per year on hardware, software, employees, and research and development to communicate to customers that their data is safe in each transaction. And all the major credit cards require their e-commerce merchants to meet the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, first rolled out in 2004. Merchant compliance, which includes network security, monitoring, and several other standards, is expensive. For the smallest e-commerce merchants (defined as under 20,000 transactions per year) accepting Visa, MasterCard, or Discover, becoming compliant costs an estimated $75,000 to $90,000, and maintaining compliance costs an additional estimated $35,000 annually. For the largest merchants (processing over 6 million transactions per year), the costs are estimated to be 10 times as large.
Intermediaries pass security costs along to consumers in the form of credit card or banking fees. But if blockchain technology's advocates are correct and if a network has enough independent computing "nodes," we can avoid these costs while providing perhaps even greater security.
Data security is, of course, just one problem with relying on centralized intermediaries. Financial intermediaries can grow large enough to dictate fees to consumers or influence government policy, and many people have privacy and other concerns. And intermediaries often cost more than we initially think.
But these problems are just one side of the story. Central intermediaries generally process data at a lower cost per transaction than blockchains (Jeffrey Tucker, our newest addition to the AIER family, recently described the latest news in the battle over scaling Bitcoin's ability to process transactions).
The market will ultimately determine whether the benefits of decentralization outweigh the costs in payment-processing and other industries, but intermediaries often cost more than we initially think.


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MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Saint Anselm College softball team secured a 6-3 Northeast-10 Conference win over Saint Michael's College on Friday in the home opener at the South Athletic Fields.
The Hawks improve to 13-6 overall and 1-0 against NE10 opponents while the Purple Knights fall to 1-10 overall and 0-1 in league play. Saint Anselm hosts a doubleheader on Saturday, Mar. 30 against Stonehill College with game one set to start at 12 p.m.
The big inning for the Hawks came in the second frame, keyed by a solo home run by junior Erin Thompson (Newton, N.H.) and a two-run blast by freshman Bailey Cain (Wellington, Fla.).
Junior Morgan Perry (Bethany, Conn.) collected her 37th career victory at the Hilltop, moving her ahead of Courtney Marden '98 and into sole possession of fifth all-time in program history. She went four and two-thirds innings, finishing with seven strikeouts. She allowed three runs on seven hits and a walk.
After a scoreless first inning, Saint Anselm jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the home half of the second. Thompson led off with a solo shot to left center field to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead. Sophomore Maddison Leite (Cumberland, R.I.) then doubled to center, before advancing to third on a ground out. After freshman Kylie Fitzpatrick (Danville, N.H.) drove in Leite, Cain came up to bat and sent the ball over the right center field fence to make it 4-0.
Perry retired the next four batters she faced but the Purple Knights got on the scoreboard in the top of the fourth inning. Fallon Tierney singled before advancing to second on a single by Maggie Welling. Tierney came around to score on a single down the right field line by Aleksandra Apkarian to make it 4-1 in favor of the Hawks.
Saint Michael's came to within a run in the fifth inning. A leadoff walk to Leigh Brandenburg started the inning, before she moved to second on a groundout to the pitcher. She advanced to third on a single by Torie Rathwell, before scoring on a wild pitch. Tierney drove in Rathwell with a two-out double to make it 4-3.
Saint Anselm got that run back in the home half of the fifth. A leadoff walk to Thompson followed by a bunt single by Leite started the inning. Fitzpatrick was hit by a pitch a batter later and then a two-out walk to junior Shannon Colson (Rochester, N.H.) made it 5-3.
The Purple Knights threatened in the sixth again with the bases loaded and just one out. However, freshman McKenna Smith (Old Town, Maine) got the first batter she faced to swing at strike three before getting a pop up in foul territory to end the threat. The Hawks added an insurance run in the sixth. Junior Maggie Murphy (Scarborough, Maine) singled before moving to second on throwing error. She stole third and scored on a single by sophomore Lauren Washburn (Carmichael, Calif.).
Smith shut down the Purple Knights in the seventh, getting all three batters to swing at strike three for her second save. The Hawks had five players with multi-hit games.


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Please use the link below, located on both the District's and schools' homepages, to begin your student registration process. You will be walked through each section step-by-step and it will indicate what you need to do to complete you child(ren)'s registration in the Branford Public Schools.
This can be done BEFORE you come in for PreK--Kindergarten registration on May 2-3-4, 2017. Registration devices will also be available at the elementary schools on those 3 days for your use.
The Branford Public Schools District is committed to ensuring accessibility of its website for students, parents, and members of the community with disabilities. All pages on the Branford Public Schools website will conform to the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative's (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA conformance, or updated equivalents of these guidelines.
Copyright © 2019 Linda B. Chipkin Early Years Center


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Welcome to modern house - including a room with kitchen annex, bedroom, work room and terrace. We paid attention to the smallest details - in meshes and textures. Effect? See for yourself - it has uncompromising quality when it comes to meshes, lighting, baked Global Illumination, materials and textures.
74,14 € * 105,91 € *
inkl. MwSt. zzgl. Versandkosten
Nettopreis 62,30 € exkl. MwSt.
Lieferzeit ca. 1-3 Werktage
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Aromatics can do more than soothe your mind. Scientific studies show that aromatherapy — inhaling or absorbing aromatic plant extracts — also may help soothe your body and relieve pain.
Stressed Out? Aromatherapy Can Help You to Feel Calmer
A scent can be more than a passing pleasant experience. If you're feeling stressed out or tired, scents can help to lift your mood, and help you to feel calmer and more energized. When you use scents to improve your health or mood, you're using aromatherapy, which is a form of complementary therapy. In aromatherapy, … Read More


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When official corruption becomes fashionable, that is a corruption of fashion. It is a fashion that should be made unfashionable. Corruption-related news here and there not only illustrates the fashion of corruption but also the failure of containment.
Understandably, the corruption-related spotlight on former Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, which was activated in London, caused a sensation that is continuing sensationally. Yesterday's powerful woman remains free, but her freedom is chained. Against the backdrop of ongoing investigation of her corruption status, she reportedly cannot leave the UK based on judicial restriction.
Perhaps also understandable is a defensive familial statement, on October 8, by Oscar M. Onwudiwe, on behalf of the Agama and Madueke families. The statement said: "It is worth emphasising that Mrs. Alison-Madueke was never arrested or detained and her passport was never seized. She was merely invited, and she honoured it promptly." Of course, euphemism is allowed in such a defensive situation, even when the euphemistic is not euphonistic.
The statement's apparent clarification of Alison-Madueke's health status is not just of particular interest; it is of public interest. It said: "Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke has been receiving treatment for cancer in the UK which started while she was in office. The health crisis has unfortunately exacerbated in recent times. She completed months of chemotherapy just last week and she is scheduled to undergo surgery next week in London."
This information should silence those who alleged that the poor woman was on the run, and had run away to the UK to escape a probe at home. But her cancer status must not arrest investigation of her corruption status.
Cancer seems a penetrating metaphor for the operation of official corruption in Nigeria's corridors of power. The devastating potency of the disease and its destructive metastasis make it a vivid image of the power of corruption among the powerful. Literally and figuratively speaking, if corruption doesn't kill the corrupt and the corrupted, they are unlikely to kill corruption.
The idea that corruption can be seen as a cancer spreading among the country's power elite is perhaps reinforced by a publicised 88-page petition to the Senate against a high-profile ministerial nominee, former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi. The petition, aimed at rubbishing Amaechi's nomination and stopping his confirmation, came from a Non-Governmental Organisation, "The Integrity Group," based in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
It is striking that the petition's title is corruption-related: "Petition against ministerial nominee: Chibuke Rotimi Amaechi: Demand to withdraw and reject his nomination and appointment on grounds of corruption, criminal breach of trust, unlawful enrichment and conversion of over N70 billion Rivers peoples' monies by the former governor of Rivers State."
On the surface, this move to discredit Amaechi may be politically inspired, considering the continuing conflict between the All Progressives Congress (APC), his party, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the state's ruling party. But beneath the surface, and beyond the surface, there may be dirt. In other words, the anti-Amaechi petition may not necessarily be anti-corruption, but that is not to say it is merely a tool to corrupt Amaechi's screening for ministerial office.
Essentially, these narratives concerning Alison-Madueke and Amaechi, irrespective of their innocence or guilt, show that the possibility of corruption transcends political complexion.
How President Muhammadu Buhari will confront corruption is critical to the future of corruption. There is no question that a confrontational spearhead is compulsory for the conquest of corruption. Interestingly, a corroboration of this necessity came from an unlikely figure when Ijaw leader Chief Edwin Clark hosted the Think Nigeria First Initiative Group at his Asokoro home in Abuja. Clark spoke about the anti-corruption failure of former President Goodluck Jonathan, whose leadership he had supported unapologetically. Clark reportedly said: "Jonathan is a gentleman. He is too gentle. Drivers under his administration are now living in palatial buildings. In advanced countries, when you are living above your means, people will query you. This is not so in Nigeria…Jonathan meant well for this country, but the willpower to fight corruption was not there…Being a gentleman is not enough to govern this country."
For the avoidance of distraction, Clark's message deserves public attention more than the confusion of the messenger. It is unclear whether Clark's revealing portraiture is a revelation he has just had. It is also unclear whether Clark's clarity is connected with the new period of political change and the fierce anti-corruption position of the Buhari administration.
However, it is clear enough that the country has been corrupted by a chain of corruption-friendly governments and sponsors of corruption-friendly governance. Some months before Jonathan was dumped by the electorate in March, he identified what he described as "two main problems confronting us as a nation." It was at a special New Year service at the Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja. According to Jonathan, "There are two main problems confronting us as a nation: The issue of insecurity in the North where we have the Boko Haram terrorists and in the South where we have commercial kidnapping. The next thing that people worry about after security is the issue of corruption."
Jonathan had boasted: "We are coming out with programmes and plans to clean up." He was quoted as saying: "These are things you just don't use a magical wand to wave off; otherwise even before I became President, there wouldn't have been corruption in Nigeria."
It would appear that the country, contrary to Jonathan's reasoning, is in dire need of a magic wand that is magical enough to correct the corrupt condition of corruption. Perhaps even more than a magic wand, the country deserves a magician of wonders. The mentality of a magician is absolutely necessary because a magic wand without a magician with a solid determination to use it to achieve magical results is ultimately of no use.


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Idaho Falls,ID,USA
Member Since:
Apr 21, 2007
Goal Type:
Local Elite
Running Accomplishments:
2007 St. George Marathon 2:32:06 (marathon PR)
2014 St. George Marathon 2:32:45 (close to old PR...7 years later!)
2014 Boston Marathon, 2:39:00, 298th OA, 8th AG, 1st Idahoan
2013 Lake Lowell Marathon, 2:48:34 (Course Record), 1st Overall (#6)
2012 Boston Marathon, 2:43:26 (HOT!!), 114th OA, 9th Master OA, 1st Idahoan
2010 B&A Trail Marathon (MD), 2:40:18, 1st Overall (#3), Master's Course Record (still!)
2010 Mesa Falls Marathon, 2:48:55, 1st Overall (#4)
2009 Pocatello Marathon, 2:37:22, 1st Overall (#2)
2011 The M.A.D. Marathon, 2:55:14, 1st OA (training run) (#5)
2006 Teton Dam Marathon, 2:50:48 1st Overall (#1)
2015 Hood to Coast Relay (195 miles), 1st Masters Team (6th OA), 19:59:57, 6:03 avg pace for the team
2008 Ragner Relay Del Sol (182 mile relay) 1st place team 17:04:37, 5:38 pace avg for the team
50,000 lifetime miles from spring 2000 to October 2019.
Logged (on computer) 24,901 miles (circumference of the earth) in 2,889 days (11/29/12) http://jeff.fastrunningblog.com/blog-My-alarm-went-off-I-got-up-eventually-/11-29-2012.html
Short-Term Running Goals:
Keep on running, enjoy it for the sake of running, relax and enjoy life...de-stress.
No racing, retired.
Long-Term Running Goals:
Keep running until this old body says no, running for fun.
Born in 1968. I live in Idaho Falls, ID. I started running competitively in 2005 and ran my first marathon in 2005. Now retired from competitive racing.
Married for 26 years with two children (20 and 17).
Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer;
answer me, for I need your help.
Protect me, for I am devoted to you.
Save me, for I serve you and trust you.
You are my God.
Be merciful to me, O Lord,
for I am calling on you constantly.
Give me happiness, O Lord,
for I give myself to you.
O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive,
so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.
Listen closely to my prayer, O Lord;
hear my urgent cry.
I will call to you whenever I'm in trouble,
and you will answer me. - Psalm 86:1-7
Favorite Blogs:
Went out for a run in 3 inches of new snow and some coming down in big fluffy flakes. 3 miles with Moxie, then 4.3 more miles with Andrea. It was warm (25 degrees) and fun to run in the snow even though it was really slow. A good first real winter run!
5 miles in the dark and cold on the icy roads, 3 solo then 2 with Moxie. Heading back to work after a week of vacation...not too excited about it but it has to be done and it should be a busy day. (Fireblades)
6.1 miles at lunch on a cold but clear day. A little wind made it chilly but it was a good run on the slick pathway around the river at a relaxed pace due to the footing. Good midday break from the first day back at work. (Ride Red)
5 miles in the cold and on the slightly icy pathway with Moxie. Ran early so Kami could get off to work...almost didn't make it out of bed but somehow got my feet on the floor and then out the door. (Fireblades)
I wanted to go for another run today but I got slammed at work so I couldn't go at lunchtime. In the afternoon we had conferences at school for the kids, then afterwards I spent time with Justin instead of getting out...then it was just too late to go. So, only one run but some fun time with my son instead....a good trade.
No morning run...just couldn't get out of the warm bed to face the cold and my left hammy was acting up so I didn't go. This chilling out mode is hard on my mental state...torn between guilty feeling of not running and knowing that the break will be beneficial in the long run.
6 miles at lunch in a snow storm...but at least it was warmer. The pathway was a bit slick so I wore my ice joggers which helped. It was actually a good run! 2 miles with Pat and the rest solo made for a good break today.
Decided to stay warm and get some speed work in today, so I went to the gym at 4:15am. 1 mile easy at 7:00 pace, then hit the acceleator. 1 mile at 5:45, then then next 4 miles were at a faster pace for 0.5M with a 0.25 M slower segement (~6:15pace) ramping up for the next 0.25M (~6:00 pace) then back to fast (~5:40-5:00 pace). Good run, overall time of 37:40 for a 6:04 average pace for the run. (Launch)
6 miles in the slush on the pathway around the river. A slow tender run as both hammy's were tight and cold and I didn't fuel enough today due to work meetings. So, my last 2 miles were really slow...plus dodging slush puddles didn't help. (Ride Red)
10 miles in 1:02:20 (6:16 average pace) on the TM at the gym this morning. It was fairly warm outside, but very icy due to temps and rain/slush so I stayed inside. 2 miles easy, then the remainder near goal MP with some fast pickups included. Everything felt pretty good this morning, it is just hard to stay motivated for an hour on the TM...people watching at the gym and an IPOD can only do so much to stave off the boredom of running in place. Now for a day off to do some shopping, decorating and various chores.
14 miles in 1:54:40 outside on the slick pathways in 22 degree weather. 2.6M with Moxie before meeting up with the group for the rest of the run. At around 13.75 miles into the run while we were in my neighborhood, Andrea took a fall and landed on her knee and got a good bump. Dang I miss the warm weather and clear roads.


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Sort of a-penny-a-day.
Visit 21st Century Paladin
Sort of a-penny-a-day.
Visit 21st Century Paladin
MK Hermesh urges Matthew, a son of the World Jewish Congress president Edgar Bronfman, to leave WJC over financial scams he ran in Israeli Discount Bank. Bronfman economic empire started with bootlegging.
Shortly after Bronfman junior (World Jewish Congress) was urged to step down amid charges of financial fraud, discreditable information on Israel Singer's (former WJC boss) associate Hoxter has been publicized. Curtis Hoxter received $709,000 from the March of the Living for nothing. Israeli Finance Minister Hirchson received bribes from the same organization, funded by the Claims Conference which pockets the money received from Swiss banks for the Jews who perished in Holocaust. The Claims Conference distributes minor amounts to Holocaust Survivors while spending the most for salaries, benefits, bribes, and irrelevant programs.
amid charges of financial fraud in WJC and related organizations. Bronfman run WJC for decades as his private company. WJC peddles influence for its bosses, the self-appointed "Jewish leaders." WJC conducts no activities that benefit common Jews.
urges the Pope to suspend sanctification of the Pope Pius XII amid his role in the Holocaust. A strong position against Judaism is an advantage for Catholic saint.
American Jewish Congress voices opposition against the World Medical Association boycott of Israeli doctors. WMA called for boycott because Israel searches ambulances that cross from Palestine into Israel. No ambulances are straightforwardly allowed from Mexico into the United States, and it isn't clear why should Israel care of the Hamas' voters.
Ronald Lauder, who handled the readjustment of Jewish National Fund with considerably success, wants to lead World Jewish Congress, made by Bronfmans their private charity. Bronfmans actually donated only about a million dollars annually to the WJC. European Jewish Congress and Kadima support Kaplan, a board chief directly responsible for WJC financial fraud.
American Jewish World Service, United Jewish Appeal, and other Jewish Diaspora organization held a fund-raiser in London to rally Jewish help for Darfur. Sderot was not discussed.
Israeli Gay and Lesbian Center revealed it receives funding from Jewish Federations of America and Jerusalem Municipality.
Jewish Agency's boss Zeev Bielsky demanded that Israel recognizes Reform and Conservative Judaism. Reform Judaism has no obligatory laws whatsoever; its follower can reject every commandment and still be considered a Jew or even a convert to Judaism. Conservative Judaism has no centralized tenets: every half-educated Conservative rabbi can make his own rules that suit the congregation that hired him. Both Reform and Conservative movements ordain gays and lesbians as rabbis.
Vyacheslav Kantor, one of the Putin's court Jews, will likely be elected next week the chief of European Jewish Congress. EJC's chief is elected by bureaucrats and mobsters of Jewish origin rather than by Jewish people. Kantor and Levi Livaev replaced Khodorkovsky as Russia's official Jews.
Aliyah figure is the highest since 1983. The immigrants are mostly young. Though the Jewish Agency boasts of the figure, the aliyah is almost entirely a success of Nefesh B'Nefesh religious NGO.
The infamous Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee, who claim to represent American Jews, decry the Supreme Court's ruling that allows the US government to fund faith-based programs. The Jewish organizations never argued against Jewish tax money used to fund Christian programs, but rather oppose the government's minuscule financing of Jewish religious education.
Hundreds of Jews marched in front of the UN building demanding release of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers. The UN has no authority over the issue.
In ADL's survey, more than half of residents in several European countries believe that Diaspora Jews act in favor of Israel rather than their host countries. If only that were true.
German Jewish organizations protest Jewish Agency and Nativ's efforts at encouraging aliyah from Germany. German Jewish bosses fear the calls for aliyah will cause division among German Jewry. Zionist propagandists encountered similar problem in Germany in 1930s.
The Reform Movement, WZO-Ameinu, other politically correct self-hating Jews lambasted the Knesset's effort at blocking the Supreme Court's ruling that commanded the Jewish National Fund to lease Arabs the land developed with Jewish donors' money.
In the phony outrage over the pope's meeting with one of anti-Semitic Polish priests, Anti-Defamation League sent the pope a letter praising his "priceless credibility and integrity."
Children attending the Reform Sunday schools are 9% more likely to intermarry than other Jews (study by Hebrew Union College).
Israeli government's move runs against the vested interests of squandering Jewish efforts and money over Darfur issue. Israel deporting the illegal Black migrants doesn't look good with US media. Reformist leaders present Jews as suffering, nice, and tolerant rather than sensible. Egypt, for its part, decidedly shows cruelty to the Blacks to press Israel into accepting the infiltrators.
Latest: Diaspora16.11 ADL: Down with Jews
29.01 Rabbis use Holocaust to support Soros
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03.03 ADL is cheap
30.04 Where does Jewish money go?
22.05 Jewish snobs are happy with Obama
18.11 Fake organization for fake Jews
02.12 American assimilators protest aliyah campaign
12.12 Justice minister: we will have a majority of non-Jews in Israel
19.12 Would Jewish leaders meet Pollard?
22.12 J Street activist becomes a chief rabbi
24.02 American Jews, the people of the checkbook
25.02 What does it take for a Jew to condemn our enemy?
27.03 J Street as useless as AIPAC
04.04 How Jewish are the American Jews?
21.05 Haredim demonstrate against the richest Jew
09.06 American Jews tend to forget Israel
12.07 It takes Palestinian Jew-haters to instill sense in British Jews
25.08 Some rabbis support Obama