text:
Business and Fiscal Affairs
Enhance our distinctive learning experience to produce talented graduates with the knowledge and skills essential for critical thinking, meaningful civic engagement, international competency, an appreciation for the arts, lifelong learning and the ability to lead and adapt in a rapidly changing world.
Objective C
Recruit and retain a nationally/internationally recognized diverse, learning centered faculty and staff.
- Environmental Health and Safety collaborated with a Libyan pharmacologist to develop safety-related training materials for his university.
Objective D
Enhance the quantity and quality of dialogue with our various communities to ensure our academic relevance and distinctiveness.
- Environmental Health and Safety earned the Golden Spoke award from Disability Services for promoting independence and full participation for people with disabilities as a result of an internship provided to a student from the Office of Disability Services.
- Environmental Health and Safety participated in a partnership alliance to design a Scientific and Industrial Laboratory Management Operations and Safety Certification process for the Nigerian government.
Enhance student access to and successful participation in higher education through quality and innovative instruction and student life programs that increase graduation and career placement for a diverse student body.
Objective A
Improve the enrollment and retention of direct-from-high-school, graduate and nontraditional student populations.
- The Rinzler Student Sports Complex and Mulhollan Field opened, enhancing the quality of life for all students.
Objective B
Enhance the academic success of students.
- Environmental Health and Safety staff helped develop curriculum for the Ohio Department of Health's general X-ray machine operator course offered through the Biomedical Engineering Department.
- Department of Environmental Health and Safety staff served as adjunct professors or guest lecturers in the Departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Chemistry, Community Health, and Pharmacology.
- Environmental Health and Safety provided training to hundreds of university faculty and staff on safety topics ranging from animal handling to hazardous materials.
- Human Resources, in partnership with Organizational Development and Learning, provided a variety of trainings for employees and supervisors.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs invited a group of finance students to participate in a bond pricing and sale to provide a unique experiential learning opportunity.
Objective C
Develop effective educational processes to assist students in meeting post-graduate career and educational goals.
- The Department of Environmental Health and Safety and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences created internship opportunities for students.
Expand our scholarship in innovative and targeted ways to address regional, national and global needs.
Objective A
Build a national and international research reputation
- Environmental Health and Safety, Engineering and Construction, and Facilities Planning and Development regularly participated in the Dayton Regional STEM School's job shadowing activities.
- Environmental Health and Safety student internships led to discovery and improvement of unsafe conditions.
- Environmental Health and Safety collaborated on a grant proposal to work on scientific and technological breakthroughs for the world's most pressing health problems.
Objective B
Enhance Research and Sponsored Programs infrastructure, leading to more external funding.
- The Department of Environmental Health and Safety was granted renewal of the university's radioactive materials use license, fulfilling required major revisions and updates to the program.
Provide leadership to promote and support social, cultural and economic development within the region through our collaborations with local, state, national and global partners.
Objective A
Increase the opportunities within the curriculum for community engagement.
- The Department of Environmental Health and Safety staff, working with the American Society of Safety Engineers Kitty Hawk Chapter, created a Wright State student chapter to help students develop professional skills and prepare them for careers in the safety field.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs involved faculty, staff, administration, students, alumni, and community member in a $25 million bond sale.
- Environmental Health and Safety participated in the U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program as a panel participant with an Arabian Gulf delegation focused on public wellness programs.
Objective B
Enhance the university's presence with the Dayton/West Central Ohio regions, and beyond, in ways that benefit communities.
- Environmental Health and Safety received Ohio EPA Water and Wastewater Continuing Education Provider status for its Understanding the Hazard Communication Standard and Laboratory Safety training programs.
- Raider Road was constructed, connecting University Boulevard with Kauffman Road between the Wright State Physicians building and the Rinzler Student Sports Complex.
- St. John Bosco Chapel, the new home of the Catholic Campus Ministry, was constructed on campus.
- The Wright State Physicians building opened, offering an array of care, including neurology, sports medicine orthopedics, family medicine, geriatrics, and dermatology.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs collaborated with the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Cities of Fairborn and Beavercreek to centrally locate road salt storage.
- The university engaged in a dialogue with Central State University, Cedarville University, Clark State Community College, Cleveland State University, and the University of Virginia about Wright State's recycling program, green floor care program, hospital grade disinfect general cleaning program, and training materials.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs helped prepare campus for the 2013 Science Olympiad National Tournament, including preparing pedestrian way finding and signage.
- Through the Organizational Effectiveness Lecture Series and its predecessor, the Human Resource Lecture Series, Human Resources provided successful lectures for human resource management professionals in the Miami Valley.
Develop and sustain the human, financial and physical resources required to accomplish the university's strategic goals.
Objective A
Encourage and support the professional development and wellness of faculty and staff.
- In 2012, Wright State Physicians opened its new building on campus, providing a convenient place for students, faculty, and staff, as well as residents of Clark, Montgomery, and Greene Counties, to receive medical care.
- Training programs conducted by Environmental Health and Safety resulted in a 70 percent increase in safety training offerings provided to on-campus personnel from 2008 to 2012.
- Environmental Health and Safety implemented fall protection measures at areas on campus where fall protection was not designed or was found inadequate.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs led a data-gathering effort to inform a university initiative exploring the restriction of tobacco use on campus.
- The university implemented a new wellness initiative, garnering 77 percent participation among faculty and staff in the biometric screening process, and recruited the first wellness coordinator.
- Human Resources organizes an annual Health and Benefits Fair for all Wright State employees. The fair includes free blood pressure and cholesterol screenings, flu shots, and presentations by retirement providers.
- Human Resources developed PeopleAdmin, single portal online entry for all Wright State faculty and staff positions.
- Human Resources provides a variety of personal and professional development training to faculty and staff, including sexual harassment, preventing workplace violence, and new supervisor trainings.
- Human Resources hired a new health care benefits consultant and is developing a robust wellness program in cooperation with faculty and staff constituent groups.
- A short-term disability program was added to the university's benefit portfolio.
- The president's cabinet reviewed and revised the performance appraisal process to improve compliance and better align the process with institutional values.
Objective B
Enhance fiscal and operational management.
- In 2010, Wright State was awarded more than $118,000 in rebates from Dayton Power and Light for its installation of energy-efficient lighting and heating/air conditioning equipment. The upgrades save the university an estimated $45,000 annually.
- Budget reductions in FY 2012—which were shared by every unit on campus—were softened by a planned $2.1 million increased return on the university's financial investment portfolio and record enrollment of nearly 20,000 students.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs kicked off or completed numerous construction projects, including NEC Building, RaiderConnect, Creative Arts Center renovation, Woods Commons, Student Success Center and Classroom Building, Dunbar Library Circulation, and Nischwitz Stadium Press Box.
- Aggressive bidding by Human Resources lowered insurance costs significantly.
- A campus-wide energy conservation project has annually saved $950,000 in electricity on campus and $110,000 for natural gas.
- Environmental Health and Safety oversaw a campus-wide chemical inventory process to provide a safe work environment and to comply with applicable OSHA rules.
- Safety awareness of university employees, provided through the efforts of Environmental Health and Safety, led to a nearly 50 percent reduction in workers' compensation claims over five years, decreasing workers' compensation costs by $327,000.
- Environmental Health and Safety instituted an "orphan chemical" recycling program, helping labs recycle unwanted chemicals and saving $2,500 in chemical disposal costs.
- Purchasing saved more than $875,000 through strategic sourcing and negotiations with seven vendors, from office supplies and scientific lab supplies to furniture repurposing and express prescription plans. Purchasing also worked with Ohio's Inter-University Council Purchasing Group to save $1.4 million.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs emphasized shared service partnership approaches, including a new salt barn and enterprise printer services.
- A new hospitality services provider was brought to campus to enhance the dining experience across campus while increasing revenue and generating support for campus programs.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs led the development and implementation of a cell phone stipend policy that saved $100,000 annually.
- The university contracted with ABM to implement a $25.5 million energy-performance contract, expected to reduce campus energy consumption by nearly 40 percent.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs implemented a "shut the sash" program, leading to $50,000 in energy savings.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs launched online leave reporting, significantly reducing paper consumption, processing time, and data entry errors.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs negotiated with United Health Care for student insurance rates resulting in $100,000 in savings for FY13.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs developed the eDPO system to eliminate a paper-based system.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs encouraged pro-card use, resulting in the rebate of approximately $250,000.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs managed a quick and successful resolution of a major water leak at the Nutter Center.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs upgraded to a hospital-grade cleaning program, while reducing chemical costs, which was featured in College Planning and Management magazine.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs restructured custodial floor care schedules to a four-day workweek, nearly eliminating overtime costs.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs developed a Capital Projects Wright Way Policy, roles and responsibilities outline, and process maps to encourage consistency, transparency, and engagement of all stakeholders.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs led the development of the 2014–15 SSI model, translating into a more favorable formula in support of Wright State's mission.
- The university secured Moody's A1 rating in October 2012, leading to two successful debt issuances in FY13.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs launched an enhanced investment management model to further manage risk and optimize returns.
- The Office of Business and Fiscal Affairs developed a division-wide appreciative inquiry process to facilitate the reorganization of its division.
- In 2011 and 2012, Purchasing and Communications and Marketing purchased high-end printing from one vendor to save overall printing costs.
Objective D
Increase investments in facilities/technologies to achieve strategic goals.
- The Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building, which is expected to be completed in 2015, will serve as a collaborative research location for Wright State's neuroscience and engineering departments.
- The Matthew O. Diggs III Laboratory for Life Science Research received a Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. The Diggs Lab was the first laboratory in Ohio to receive the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-NC Gold status.
- The university supplemented a $100,000 external grant to create the country's first service dog facility on a college campus.
- The university completed a $1.2 million renovation project that improved the Dining Services kitchen, serving line, dining room, and student services areas at Lake Campus.
- The university awarded a contract replacing all multifunctional copiers on campus from university owned to contractor owned, resulting in a more efficient and cost-effective program and saving approximately $100,000 a year.
- Facilities Planning and Development led an effort of classroom and laboratory new construction or renovations on both campuses in recent years, including Diggs Lab, Rike Hall, White Hall, the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Hall, Russ Engineering, Joshi Research Center, Oelman Hall, Cox Medical Simulation in Kettering, the Charles and Renate Frydman Educational Resource Center, and the Virginia Hamilton and Arnold Adoff Resources Center in Millett Hall, along with new classrooms and science laboratories for Lake Campus.
- Facilities Planning and Development constructed and renovated facilities like the Rinzler Student Sports Complex, Lake Campus dining facility, and new lights on the women's softball field, artificial turf for the Alumni Soccer and Mulhollan Recreation fields, and the campus food pantry.
- The Purchasing Department improved efficiency in the ordering process through the WrightBuy E-Procurement system.
- Human Resources began using PeopleAdmin as a single port of entry for all faculty and staff positions.


text:
13.39: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Pollution
"The chance of averting catastrophic climate change is slipping through our hands with every passing year that nations fail to agree on a rescue plan for the planet." — Greenpeace International director Kumi Naidoo, at the Durban, South Africa Climate Change Conference in 2011.
Reducing Greenhouse Gases
Climate scientists agree that climate change is a global problem that must be attacked by a unified world with a single goal. All nations must come together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, getting nations to agree on anything has proven to be difficult. A few ideas have been proposed and in some nations are being enacted.
International Agreements
The first attempt to cap greenhouse gas emissions was the Kyoto Protocol, which climate scientists agree did not do enough in terms of cutting emissions or in getting nations to participate. The Kyoto Protocol set up a cap-and-trade system. Cap-and-trade provides a monetary incentive for nations to develop technologies that will reduce emissions and to conserve energy. Some states and cities within the United States have begun their own cap-and-trade systems.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference meets in a different location annually. Although recommendations are made each year, the group has not gotten the nations to sign on to a binding agreement. By doing nothing we are doing something - continuing to raise greenhouse gas levels and failing to prepare for the coming environmental changes.
Carbon Tax
The easiest and quickest way is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to increase energy efficiency. One effective way to encourage efficiency is financial. A carbon tax can be placed on CO2 emissions to encourage conservation. The tax would be placed on gasoline, carbon dioxide emitted by factories, and home energy bills so people or businesses that emit more carbon would pay more money. This would encourage conservation since when people purchase a new car, for example, they would be more likely to purchase an energy-efficient model. The money from the carbon tax would be used for research into alternative energy sources. All plans for a carbon tax allow a tax credit for people who cannot afford to pay more for energy so that they do not suffer unfairly.
New technologies can be developed, such as renewable sources that were discussed in Concept Natural Resources. Biofuels can replace gasoline in vehicles, but they must be developed sensibly (Figure below). So far much of the biofuel is produced from crops such as corn. But when food crops are used for fuel, the price of food goes up. Modern agriculture is also extremely reliant on fossil fuels for pesticides, fertilizers, and the work of farming. This means that not much energy is gained from using a biofuel over using the fossil fuels directly. More promising crops for biofuels are now being researched. Surprisingly, algae is being investigated as a source of fuel! The algae can be grown in areas that are not useful for agriculture, and it also contains much more usable oil than crops such as corn.
A bus that runs on soybean oil shows the potential of biofuels.
Carbon Capture and Sequestration
If climate change becomes bad enough, people can attempt to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere after they are emitted. Carbon sequestration occurs naturally when carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by trees in a forest. One way to remove carbon would be to plant more trees, but unfortunately, more forest land is currently being lost than gained.
Carbon can also be artificially sequestered. For example, carbon can be captured from the emissions from gasification plants and then stored underground in salt layers or coal seams. While some small sequestration projects are in development, large-scale sequestration has not yet been attempted.
This type of carbon capture and sequestration comes under the heading of geoengineering. There are many other fascinating ideas in geoengineering that people have proposed that are worth looking at. One wild example is to shadow the planet with large orbiting objects. A large mirror in orbit could reflect about 2% of incoming solar radiation back into space. These sorts of solutions would be expensive in cost and energy.
Just as individuals can diminish other types of air pollution, people can fight global warming by conserving energy. Also, people can become involved in local, regional, and national efforts to make sound choices on energy policy.
- biofuel: A fuel made from living materials, usually crop plants.
- cap-and-trade system: A monetary system that encourages conservation and development of alternative energy sources. A cap is put on a nation's allowed carbon emissions and nations can trade for rights to emit carbon pollution.
- carbon sequestration: Removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so that it does not act as a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
- carbon tax: A tax placed on energy sources that emit carbon to discourage their use and to raise funds to research alternative energy sources.
- A cap-and-trade system gives nations a cap on the greenhouse gas emissions they're allowed and allows them to trade allowances with other nations so that they can meet their cap.
- A carbon tax taxes carbon emissions to encourage conservation.
- Carbon capture and sequestration is a geoengineering solution for removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Use this resource to answer the questions that follow.
1. What is the purpose of carbon sequestration?
2. What are the three pillars of the Global Climate Change Initiative?
3. What is CCS?
4. What is CCS being used for today?
5. What type of stone is carbon dioxide pumped into? Why?
6. What are cap rocks? Why are they important?
1. Why would a carbon tax be effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
2. How does a carbon tax not penalize people who can't afford to pay more for fuel and other items?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using geoengineering solutions to reduce climate change rather than things like cap-and-trade or a carbon tax?
Notes/Highlights Having trouble? Report an issue.
|Highlighted Text
|Show More

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The recent launch of a new multilingual search capability for international science- multilingual WorldWideScience.org (see www.science.doe.gov ) represents a significant step
You can now have multiple access points to Science Accelerator at your fingertips. Just download the new tabbed widget and you will have access to search Science Accelerator, to the RSS feed, and to the Science Accelerator Alerts. Download via the 'Get Widget Options' link or by placing the inclusion code in the online location of your choice.
When you use the widget search feature, a federated search provides one-stop simultaneous searching of multiple networked data resources, including the newly-added resources -- DOE Data Explorer and DOE Green Energy.
On June 11, the Multilingual WorldWideScience.org BETA was officially launched in Helsinki, Finland at the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) annual conference. This new capability is the result of an international public-private partnership between the WorldWideScience.org Alliance and Microsoft Research, whose translations technology has been paired with the federated searching technology of Deep Web Technologies.
By Walt Warnick and Peter Lincoln
Discovery services have begun to appear in the search landscape. Discovery services provide access to documents from publishers with which they have relationships by indexing the publishers' metadata and/or full text. Discovery services are marketed to libraries where patrons appreciate near-instantaneous search results and where library staff is willing to restrict access to sources available from the service (and optionally the library's own holdings.) While these services tout themselves as improvements to federated search, the reality is that there is no alternative to federated search for a number of important applications.


text:
Avira Virus Lab
Date discoveredNov 10, 2015
Reported InfectionsLow
Operating SystemWindows
Stay safe from all these threats with Avira Free Antivirus.Download Free
The term 'TR' denotes a trojan horse that is able to spy out data, violate your privacy, or perform unwanted modifications to the system.
A generic detection routine designed to detect common family characteristics shared in several variants. This special detection routine was developed in order to detect unknown variants and will be enhanced continuously.
Help make the web safer by sending us suspicious files/URLs to analyzeSubmit your file/URL or Go to Avira Answers
Why submit a suspicious file?
If you encountered a suspicious file or website that's not in our database, we'll analyze it and determine whether it's harmful. Our findings are then pushed out to our millions of users with their next virus database update. If you have Avira, you'll get that update too. Don't have Avira? Get it on our homepage.
What's Avira Answers?
It's our thriving community of technical professionals and part-time experts, working together to help solve tech problems. It's the perfect place to pose your question to a community of fellow Avira users.


text:
Family: Trochilidae, Hummingbirds view all from this family
Description ADULT MALE Has green crown and back and rufous tail, tail coverts, and underparts, except for pale chest band. Throat often looks dark, but iridescent red gorget may be seen at certain angles in direct sunlight. ADULT FEMALE Has green upperparts and mainly pale underparts, with rufous on flanks and spots on throat (central red spot seen at certain angles). Tail is mainly rufous with black band and white tips to outer feathers. JUVENILE Resembles adult female, but males soon acquire adult characters.
Dimensions Length: 3-3 1/2" (8-9 cm)
Habitat Common breeding visitor (mainly Feb-Jun) to coastal California, favoring chaparral, parks, and meadows. Most winter in Mexico, but small resident population exists in southern California.
Observation Tips Easy to see within range in spring, but beware confusion with migrant Rufous. Any likely looking bird seen in southern California Nov-Jan is probably Allen's.
Range Northwest, Southwest, California
Voice Call is a sharp tik-tik.
Discussion Hard to separate from Rufous in many plumages, although classic male is distinctive. Breeding and winter ranges are useful guidelines in identification. Tail has pointed feather tips. Sexes are dissimilar.


text:
By Shuli Ren
Yum! Brands (YUM) reported its August same-store sale in China was down 10%. To break down further: KFC same-store sale was down 14%. Pizza Hut was up 4%.
This dismal number followed five months of decline: 13% in July, 10% in June, 19% in May, 20% in April and 13% in March.
Yum's shares rose 2.5% in the morning trading. Market is already expecting this, says Raymond James analysts Bryan C. Elliott and Brian M. Vaccaro:
This news seems to have been priced in following cautious channel checks that were published early last week. YUM shares have been range bound for the past 4-5 months as investors have been willing to give the company "a pass" on soft monthly comps and share management's confidence that China comps will turn positive in 4Q and recover strongly in 2014.
But six months of consecutive decline are hard to swallow. Here is Rachel Rothman of SIG Susquehanna Financial Group:
Management attributed the still weak SSS to the December 2012 poultry supplier issue, which we find surprising since management had previously alluded to an ongoing recovery from the incident as of 1Q13. We find it surprising for the overhang to persist eight months after the event, which would be the longest it has taken to recover from such an incident. We are more inclined to attribute the SSS weakness to a weak consumer (in line with slowing China macro driven by government austerity measures), or an overbuilding problem – neither of which management has acknowledged. YUM maintained its expectation for SSS to turn positive by 4Q.
Investors are patient and giving Yum! a second chance because they have been rewarded handsomely. In the last decade, Yum! returned 17% a year, far outpacing S&P 500′s 5%.
Some analysts are giving Yum! the benefit of the doubt too. Oppenheimer analysts Brian Bittner and Michael Tamas maintain a Buy on Yum!, saying it has the potential to perform:
Management maintained its view of positive 4Q comps (September-December), which suggests September is off to a decent start. We believe easing comparisons, bottoms-up investments and "time" will drive an impressive sales recovery.
As sales ultimately recover, China restaurant margins remain the biggest unknown sensitivity factor. Every 100bps change in China restaurant margins impacts EPS by ~$0.11. Expense control has been impressive thus far and we believe 18% restaurant margins for 2014 are reasonable, vs. Street's conservative 16.8%.
Maintain Outperform and $80 price target. The ride to recovery has been bumpy, but we believe those who stay on, or jump on will be nicely rewarded. The Street will soon turn its focus to '14 and '15 EPS power, which we believe could make a case for a stock price above our price target.
We can debate on whether and when Yum! can pick up sales again, but as far as the consensus goes right now, it is an expensive stock. Yum! trades at 1.8 times PEG, above its 5-year average of 1.4 times or the industry average of 1.2 times, according to data provided by Factset. Yum trades at the same level of McDonald's (MCD), a more diversified and larger fast-food chain.


text:
Although radiocarbon dating is usually applied to organic remains, recent work shows that it can also reveal the age of some inorganic building materials
?sa Ringbom, John Hale, Jan Heinemeier, Lynne Lancaster, Alf Lindroos
Even more than digging implements, archaeologists need tools for
finding the age of the objects they study. After all, many sites and
remains—in caves, in deserts, on the sea floor—require
no excavation, but all must be dated. When archaeologists of the
future write the history of their discipline, the second half of the
20th century will stand out for the development of many scientific
methods for ascertaining the age of artifacts. This article is an
account of how our Scandinavian-American team, which includes a
nuclear physicist, a geologist, an art historian and two
archaeologists, developed the means for dating ancient building
materials that contain lime mortar.
In the early days, archaeologists trying to make age determinations
often depended on information supplied by others. Principally, they
relied on historians, who knew the chronologies of literate
societies of the past five millennia, with their written
inscriptions on seals, records, tombs, monuments and coins.
Archaeologists also relied on geologists, who could sometimes make
age determinations based on the association of human remains with
geological features of known age.
Unfortunately, this dependence on historical dates and geological
associations left large areas of the human past untouched. But
beginning in the late 1940s, a new world opened with the development
of radiocarbon dating for organic remains, tree-ring dating for
wood, thermoluminescence for fired clay and potassium-argon dating
for volcanic materials. Of these, radiocarbon dating had the most
universal importance for archaeology. So vital was its discovery
that the pioneer of the field, Willard F. Libby, was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1960.
Radiocarbon Basics
The underlying principles of radiocarbon dating are straightforward.
Libby and his coworkers realized that cosmic rays impinging on the
upper atmosphere create a steady supply of the radioactive isotope
of carbon: carbon-14 (14C). Plants absorb traces of the
14C during photosynthesis. Animals in turn absorb
14C by eating plants. Initially, the ratio of
14C to normal carbon in plant and animal tissues reflects
the roughly constant atmospheric concentration. But after an
organism dies, radioactive decay reduces the original amount of
14C by half every 5,730 years. This phenomenon provides a
built-in clock for dating most human foods and many raw materials
for tools, weapons, ornaments and buildings. Libby confirmed the
validity of his dating method using wood fragments of known age,
including heartwood of a stump of a California redwood tree almost
3,000 years old and the deck board from the funeral boat of the
Egyptian pharaoh Sesostris III.
Two subsequent developments greatly enhanced the value of
14C dating. Investigators made radiocarbon measurements
on the yearly growth rings of long-lived bristlecone pines, which
provided an annual record of the varying concentrations of
14C in the earth's atmosphere over the past four
millennia. These results made it possible to account for slight
variations in the atmospheric concentration of 14C and
thus to construct a calibration curve that could translate
"radiocarbon ages" (those determined using only a simple
calculation based on radioactive half-life) into true calendar ages.
Equally important was the introduction of particle accelerators to
separate carbon isotopes and count directly the 14C atoms
in the sample, a technique that came to be known as accelerator mass
spectrometry (AMS). This advance drastically reduced the amount of
material needed: Only one milligram of carbon is required for AMS
analysis, whereas the traditional procedure (the so-called
conventional radiocarbon method), which involves the counting of
particles emitted in the slow radioactive decay of 14C,
requires several grams of carbon to produce a date.
Even with these advances, the study of buildings and other
structures presents special problems. Direct dating of an edifice
usually requires that it be made (at least partially) of wood and
that its original timbers be preserved so that they can subjected to
14C analysis or examined to determine characteristic
patterns in the tree rings the wood contains.
Even when such an analysis provides precise dates, an inherent
uncertainty remains because the wood tested could be older than the
building itself—or it could be younger, if material from later
repairs was misidentified as original. In the case of buildings made
of mud brick, stone, mortar or cement, these methods cannot be
applied at all. In such situations, archaeologists often dig through
vast areas around ancient structures—and in consequence
irretrievably disturb or destroy material—in search of coins,
inscribed objects, fragments of charcoal (which contain carbon) or
other datable items that might lie buried in the builders' trenches
or sealed in the walls or floors.
This reliance on secondary dating, aside from its wastefulness in
time and effort and archaeological resources, is vulnerable to
serious error. Older coins, for example, might find their way into a
new building; later objects too might be introduced long after the
main structure was erected. Even the largest elements of the
structure may cause confusion. For example, the monumental columned
porch of the famous Pantheon in Rome bears a prominent inscription
proclaiming that it was made by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of
the first emperor, Caesar Augustus. But the stamps on the bricks in
the great dome prove that everything visible today was built during
the reign of Hadrian, more than a century later.
Archaeologists must find ways to overcome these difficulties, for it
is of primary importance in many cases to know exactly when a
building was constructed. The complex cultural, technological and
economic systems that lie behind all large-scale buildings can
provide important clues to the nature of the particular culture and
period in question. Whether the archaeologist is dealing with a
decorated pyramid in Mexico, a Moorish palace in Spain or a Roman
market, the study loses much of its value if the time of
construction cannot be pinpointed.
In the 1960s investigators in France attempted to extend
14C dating to certain inorganic substances. In
particular, they knew that all building materials based on
lime—mortar, concrete, plaster, whitewash—absorb
atmospheric carbon dioxide as they harden. In this way
14C is fixed in all these lime- derived substances at the
exact time of construction. And from that moment the 14C
clock begins ticking, just as it does for the remains of any plant
or animal immediately after its death. Thus if 14C
analysis could be applied to mortar, the radiocarbon clock could be
rewound to the point in time when the building came into existence.
The principle was simple enough, but its application proved
surprisingly difficult. Although Robert L. Folk and Salvatore
Valastro, Jr., (both then at University of Texas at Austin)
established many of the prerequisites for this technique in the
1970s, in general the results were so poor that after a few more
years, work on this particular application of 14C
virtually ceased. One investigator who persisted was Mark van
Strydonck of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels.
He found that although conventional 14C dating could at
times yield accurate results on mortar samples, the process was both
complicated and unreliable. The main difficulty was the presence of
impurities in all lime-derived building materials—impurities
that could seriously affect the outcome of the analysis. Van
Strydonck recommended that 14C traces in mortar, or in
wood or charcoal fragments embedded in the mortar, might be dated by
the AMS method. The difficulty with analyzing charcoal fragments is
that they (just like the timbers used in construction) could come
from old wood and thus could be anywhere from a few years to several
centuries older than the building in which the mortar was found.
Direct analysis of lime mortar would avoid this problem.
Lime Is Key
Lime is created by heating limestone or marble in a kiln to a
temperature of 900 degrees Celsius, well above the temperature
reached in open wood fires. Charcoal or forced air are thus
prerequisites for the making of lime. When the heat reaches 900
degrees, carbon dioxide is completely released, leaving
quicklime (calcium oxide) behind, a substance much whiter
and more powdery than the original stone.
The quicklime is slaked with water to produce building lime (calcium
hydroxide, the source of whitewash and plaster), which absorbs
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it sets. Unfortunately, most
lime samples contain impurities in the form of incompletely burned
limestone fragments or particles. Because this limestone derives
from fossil carbonate deposits, even small levels of contamination
will make the sample appear far too old when subjected to
14C dating.
An additional source of contamination may be introduced when the
builder decides to make mortar rather than plain lime. This is done
by adding to the quicklime an aggregate—typically sand, gravel
or crushed ceramic material—along with the water. Any of these
substances can affect the 14C analysis of the resulting
mortar, with the limestone often found in beach sand being perhaps
the most troublesome.
Whether pure lime or mortar is used, the chemistry remains the same.
The building lime (calcium hydroxide) reacts with carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere to form calcium carbonate. But even in the hardening
process there are potential problems. Mortar lying on the insides of
walls or behind stone facings may take years or even decades to
solidify, thus yielding a date that is too recent for the building
as a whole. Also, mortar exposed to rain may recrystallize, thus
resetting the radiocarbon clock long after the original hardening,
making the sample again appear too recent.
Such complications probably dissuaded many people from attempting to
determine 14C ages for mortar. But it sometimes happens
in the course of scientific research that an illusory initial
success leads to a genuine advance. Those involved must then
attribute part of their progress to a strange combination of error
and luck. Such was the case with more recent efforts to develop a
reliable method for dating building lime and mortar.
In the late 1980s two scientists from the Åland Islands (a
Swedish-speaking autonomous province of Finland) and from Finland
proper were seeking to date a medieval Franciscan monastery on the
remote island of Kökar, on the edge of the Åland
archipelago. This island had been important during the Bronze Age,
when seal hunters from Germany and Poland established a hunting and
oil-processing station there. Traditional dating placed the
construction of the monastery and its church in about the year 1450.
Archaeologist Kenneth Gustavsson of the Åland Museum in
Mariehamn and physicist Högne Jungner of the Helsinki
University Radiocarbon Laboratory took large samples of mortar from
the masonry of medieval ruins surrounding the church at Kökar
and submitted them for conventional 14C dating.
Gustavsson and Jungner were astonished when the laboratory reported
a date of about 1280—more than a century and a half older than
expected. And they were further surprised when Gustavsson's
subsequent excavations around the church yielded jewelry and other
artifacts of types that supported such an early date. Later,
thermoluminescence dating of roof tiles from the church's
outbuildings also indicated that they had been built in the 13th
century. Thermoluminescence dating (a procedure that uses the small
amount of light released during heating to measure the dose of
natural radioactivity a ceramic sample has received since it was
fired) has its own built-in uncertainties, but the agreement with
the radiocarbon determination was compelling. The extraordinary
value of mortar-dating for archaeology seemed to have been proved.
Only long afterward did these investigators realize how lucky they
had been. Although Kökar and the rest of the Åland
islands are made mostly of granite, some of this bedrock has been
overlaid since the Ice Age with blocks of limestone deposited by
glaciers. Erosion of this glacial cover contributed limestone
particles to most Åland beaches, so the builders of the
medieval stone churches on these islands typically introduced fossil
limestone into the mortar they used when they added beach sand as
aggregate to their quicklime. The little island of Kökar,
however, is different: It has beach sand and gravel composed almost
exclusively of quartz and feldspar. The medieval masons who laid the
early foundation there used the local beach sand, with the result
that the aggregate in their mortar did not throw off Gustavsson and
Jungner's 14C analysis.
This promising start led to a new project intended to date the eight
great medieval "Mother Churches" scattered through the
Åland islands. For that Jungner and Gustavvson joined forces
with two of us (Ringbom and Lindroos). Lindroos, being a geologist,
was well prepared to study the physical, mechanical and chemical
properties of the various carbonate minerals in the mortars,
including the contaminants. Ringbom, in addition to being an art
historian, was drawn to the project because she had a family
interest in mortar: Her father had been a cement engineer.
The Åland churches are important repositories of medieval
sculpture, painting and manuscripts, but no records survive that
document the erection of the buildings themselves. Modern scholarly
estimates of their age have ranged over a four-century span, from
about 1100 to the end of the 15th century. Thus they were prime
candidates for mortar dating. In addition, the Åland churches
offered the possibility—very important for the development of
this method—of comparing 14C dates for mortar
samples with extremely precise dates derived from the tree rings in
the roof beams and tower joists, although it was evident that some
of the timbers were replacements inserted after damage to earlier
beams caused by fire or rot, or as part of a remodeling campaign.
Some of these timbers are as young as the late 16th century and
represent rebuilding during the Lutheran era following the
Protestant Reformation.
Mortar is abundant in all the Åland churches. But the dates
provided by conventional 14C dating of this mortar seemed
suspiciously—sometimes impossibly—early. Why this was so
is now clear: The beach sand on these islands (except for
Kökar) was a constant source of fossil limestone in the mix,
and the conventional method required such large samples that some
contamination always seemed to get through.
While struggling with unsatisfactory results from the Åland
churches, Jungner received an invitation to travel to the United
States and analyze the mortar in the famous and mysterious Newport
Tower in Rhode Island. This unusual structure—a large open
cylinder of rough masonry with an arcade of columns at ground
level—was involved in a chronological and archaeological controversy.
Since the early 19th century, enthusiasts of the Viking sagas had
claimed that the tower was built by Vikings who had come south from
the settlement at Vinland that Leif Ericsson established in about
the year 1000. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow even wrote a poem about
this Viking legend called "The Skeleton in Armor." But
when archaeologists from Harvard excavated around the foundations of
the Newport Tower in the early 1950s, they discovered not Viking
artifacts but Anglo-American colonial pottery dating to the late
1600s. These archaeologists concluded that the tower was nothing
more romantic than the remains of the "stone-built
windmill" that the great-grandfather of general Benedict Arnold
had mentioned in his will as standing at Newport.
After arriving at Newport in 1993 and being feted by the pro-Viking
party, Jungner drilled into the mortar between the stones in the
columns of the tower, going deep so as to get past any recent mortar
that might have been applied during tuck pointing. But the samples
taken from the Newport Tower proved to be too small for conventional
14C dating. So Jungner sent them to the AMS laboratory in
Aarhus, Denmark, where samples as small as one gram of prepared
mortar powder could be dated, thanks to the fact that the AMS method
requires less than one milligram of carbon. At Aarhus, one of us
(Heinemeier), being director of that laboratory, first became
involved in mortar dating. Although a physicist, Heinemeier was
already engaged in archaeological pursuits, namely studies of the
bones of Greenland Vikings.
The samples from Newport Tower were crushed, sieved and then
combined with acid, yielding carbon dioxide, which gave a date of
about 1680. This finding provided additional scientific support for
the late 17th-century date derived from the archaeological evidence.
No Vikings at this site—the tower was a Colonial windmill
after all.
Åland Revisited
When Ringbom, still working on the Åland churches, learned of
the promising results from the Newport Tower, she resolved to
abandon the earlier approach and start over again using only AMS
14C dating. After doing so, the age determinations proved
plausible and consistent. Mortar dating indicated that the naves of
all eight churches had been completed during a very short interval,
from 1280 to 1300, matching the age that ecclesiastical activity
began at Kökar. Studies of the tree rings in timbers found in
the bell tower of one of these churches (at Jomala) dated the
structure to 1281. Five samples of mortar from that tower yielded
14C dates of 1279 to 1290—the most remarkable
bull's-eye yet achieved with the newly developed method.
Indeed, AMS-based mortar dating appeared to yield a full history for
these previously enigmatic structures. The bell tower at Jomala was
later copied in the other parishes. Hammarland church got its west
tower in 1310 and Lemland in 1316. Then after a long gap, towers
were added to the other churches between 1381 and 1467. Porches were
added later still. Thus earlier conflicts about the ages of the
churches could be explained in part by incremental building, a
practice fully revealed by AMS dating of the mortar.
Initially it seemed surprising that all these churches should have
been established in one great burst of concentrated energy,
considering the costs, effort and expertise involved. But Ringbom
found a possible explanation. In about 1280, these islands began to
enjoy an economic boom as the Ålanders supplied timber and
lime mortar for the building of two new cities: Stockholm to the
west in Sweden and Åbo (Turku) to the east in Finland. The
financial fruits of this windfall seem to have found their way into
the eight monumental churches, symbols of the Ålanders'
communal pride and pious gratitude.
This work on the Åland churches brought important refinements
to the mortar-dating method. For example, finer meshes than had
previously been used aided the mechanical separation of pure fired
lime from contaminants, as did adding the steps of dry and wet
sieving. And a technique called
cathodoluminescence—essentially bombarding a sample with
electrons and viewing the light given off—allowed impurities
that could affect the date to be made readily visible. Also, it
proved worthwhile to produce a sequence of subsamples of the carbon
dioxide released from the mortar after the application of an acid so
as to test the consistency of dates derived from various fractions.
It turned out that for most of these samples the very first gas
fraction came from rapidly dissolving carbonate in the hardened
lime, thus yielding the correct date of the building. The second gas
fraction was contaminated with carbon dioxide from slowly dissolving
fossil limestone, thus giving an erratic result that tended to be
too old.
With promising results from Kökar, the Newport Tower and the
Åland churches, the mortar-dating method was securely
established. But from an archaeological point of view, the work was
just beginning. Ahead lay the application of this method to mortar
samples from different periods and environmental settings (including
under- water structures) and the development of precise procedures
for collecting the samples. It was already clear that success might
require site visits by a number of specialists to verify the
original position and condition of each sample: where it lay in the
structure, whether it remained chemically pristine, what the local
sources of raw materials and potential contamination were and so on.
Beginning in 1999, we formed an interdisciplinary team to test this
method on mortars from more ancient sites. Our group includes a
physicist (Heinemeier), an art historian (Ringbom), a geologist
(Lindroos) and two archaeologists (Hale and Lancaster). Our focus
has been on the Mediterranean and the territory of the Roman Empire.
By the time we assembled our group, the method had proved reliable
on sites from the medieval and early modern periods; yet it remained
to be shown that it could work equally well on material from the
classical age. Moreover, the Romans were famous for having used an
alternative to normal sand as aggregate, and there was interest in
seeing how this Roman mortar would behave during analysis.
When in Rome . . .
The city of Rome lies between two extinct volcanic systems. As a
result, its builders had acccess to extensive deposits of
pozzolana, an unconsolidated volcanic ash that is very rich
in silica and alumina. By the first century B.C., Romans were improving their
mortar by adding this local material to the mix. When combined with
building lime, the silica and alumina in the pozzolana cause a
chemical reaction that creates a mortar that is eight to ten times
stronger than mortar made with quartz sand.
Like modern Portland cement, pozzolana mortar will harden under
water, because it can react with dissolved carbon dioxide. By chance
or experiment, Roman builders discovered that a similar mortar with
hydraulic properties could be produced without pozzolana, by adding
crushed terra-cotta as an aggregate. In this case, the fragments of
fired clay from old tiles and pots introduced silica and alumina
into the mortar. Less porous than pozzolana, the crushed terra-cotta
tended to be less chemically reactive and therefore less strong. It
was, however, denser and more resilient to the infiltration of water
than pozzolana mortar and was often chosen for waterproofing
material in tanks, pools, aqueducts and harbor installations. (Some
Roman-era pools and cisterns still hold water today.)
Our mortar-dating team collected samples of Roman buildings from the
provincial capital city of Mérida in western Spain, from
Ostia near the mouth of the River Tiber and from Rome itself. Here
were to be found buildings that could be precisely dated, thanks to
the Roman custom of using datable brick stamps and to their penchant
for inscribing structures with the name of the emperor or rich
citizen who had paid for them. The buildings we chose for testing
included Trajan's Markets, a large-scale imperial complex built
about 110 A.D.; summer houses
in gardens in Ostia built under Trajan and his successor Hadrian;
and in Mérida the spectacular amphitheater and also the
mausoleum of Saint Eulalia, built about 430 A.D. to honor a young girl martyred
by Roman soldiers stationed in the city.
The walls and vaults of Trajan's Markets are among the most
monumental remains of Roman concrete construction, whereas the
mausoleum of Saint Eulalia was a tiny crypt. Yet for all these
places we obtained mortar dates from AMS analysis that matched the
historic dates of the buildings, although on the Roman samples the
correct date was indicated by the second rather than the first
fraction of carbon dioxide released in the analysis, because the
mortar dissolves slowly but contains rapidly dissolving contaminants.
The testing in Mérida presented an opportunity for our team
to tackle the same sort of problem that had been raised by the
Newport Tower and the Åland churches, namely a building of
uncertain date. One of the most impressive Roman monuments at
Mérida is the amphitheater, built for gladiatorial combats
and spectacles involving wild animals. Like the Colosseum in Rome,
Mérida's amphitheater is a vast oval (amphi means
"all around" or "on both sides"), with thousands
of seats for spectators, elaborate gates and staircases for the
crowd, and underground pits for the animals and other performers.
Mérida was a new city founded by Caesar Augustus to serve as
the capital for the province of Lusitania. Many of its buildings
carried inscriptions honoring either Augustus himself or his
right-hand man, Marcus Agrippa.
In the case of the amphitheater, archaeologists had discovered an
inscription with a Roman date equivalent to the year 8 B.C., thus giving Augustus credit
for the building. But perhaps because the Colosseum itself was a
much younger building, many scholars maintained that the
Mérida amphitheater in fact belonged to the period of the
Flavian emperors, almost a century later than the inscription would
indicate. The 14C dates from the amphitheater supported a
date in the 1st century A.D.,
well after the original founding of the city. So the inscription
denoting the year 8 B.C.
appears to be a piece of earlier material deliberately incorporated
into the structure, like the inscription naming Marcus Agrippa that
the emperor Hadrian had put into the facade of the Pantheon. In each
of these cases, the "historical" evidence gives an
incorrect date.
Our work within the old Roman province of Lusitania did not end in
Mérida. Nearby were many large farms or villas, where the
construction and expansion projects over the centuries provide a
barometer of Roman economic prosperity. The largest of these villas
was discovered in 1947 at Torre de Palma in eastern Portugal, which
was excavated by a team from the University of Louisville under the
direction of Stephanie Maloney, starting in 1983. The villa at Torre
de Palma included a richly decorated house for the owner, slave
quarters, barns, granaries, bath houses, stables, work shops, a wine
press and an olive press—not one of which could be dated by
inscriptions or other documentary evidence. Much excavation was
carried out simply in the hope of finding artifacts that might
provide clues to the age of the structure, such as a late Roman coin
sealed in a floor where it had been dropped during the pouring of
the concrete.
The most important building on the site was the early Christian
church or basilica, with an adjoining baptistery and cemeteries.
German art historians had dated the complex on stylistic grounds to
the 6th century A.D., when
Visigothic kings had taken over the rule of Lusitania and the rest
of Iberia. But during the first season of the Louisville
excavations, 10 small bronze coins were found in the mortar under
the marble floor near the altar, all of them minted in the middle of
the 4th century A.D. during
the time of the sons of Constantine, the first emperor to convert to
Christianity. Measurements of the basilica showed that it had been
laid out on a grid of Roman feet, and the high quality of the
masonry there seemed to support the notion that it had been
constructed during the years before the fall of the Roman empire.
Here, as with the Åland churches, mortar dating by AMS
analysis was able to reveal the complexities hidden under the
archaeological surface. The sanctuary around the altar was indeed
constructed during the time of Constantius II in the mid-4th century
A.D., as was the central
part of the baptistery with its unusual "double
cross"-shaped pool. But much of the church had been built long
after the fall of imperial Rome, after the Visigoths took over
control of Iberia in the 6th century A.D. A great building project in
about 580 A.D. raised the
walls of the nave, with their heavily mortared masonry. From this it
follows that in the depths of what are conventionally called the
Dark Ages, this remote corner of Portugal supported active quarries,
lime kilns, marble cutters and polishers, stone masons, architects
and contractors. Such elaborate works could only be carried out in a
healthy economy. The mortar dates for the basilica of Torre de Palma
thus provide important clues about the survival of Roman technology
and social order in the centuries after the fall of the last emperor.
The potential benefits of the new mortar-dating method are great. At
a time when archaeologists try to dig less and less in an effort to
preserve the world's archaeological heritage for future generations,
the method offers the possibility of learning a great deal before
excavation is even attempted. In an optimal situation, remains of
ancient buildings, whether as isolated ruins or incorporated in
later structures, can be dated from samples of no more than a few
grams of mortar. An archaeologist carrying out a field survey may be
able to determine the age of a building that once stood there simply
by collecting fragments of mortar from ancient walls or floors.
Buildings with complex histories of expansion and repair can have
their stories told. And art works such as frescoes and mosaic
pavings can be dated not only on their artistic style but also by
determining the moment when the mortar hardened. The results should
be significant not only for the history of technology but for human
history as a whole.
The authors wish to express their thanks for generous support to
the Åbo Akademi Foundation, to the local government of
Åland and to Nordkalk Corporation, a company that
produces, among other products, quicklime.
You can find this online at http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/2003/2/dating-ancient-mortar/5
© 2016 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society


text:
Thrown back at me
Deliverance, Deliverance
Laughing at me
I just got Opeth's new album, "Deliverance". It's excellent.
I just got Opeth's new album, "Deliverance". It's excellent.
In general, I'd appreciate it if you don't repeat my brain dumps in public forums. I tend to brainstorm out loud, and it causes problems if that is repeated as my opinion, or even worse as fact.
kbreit: did it occur to you that you *did* miss the 6:52 bus, and then got the next bus? The buses come a bit early sometimes
I'm still in mexico. I head back tomorrow.
For some reason I'm in a really bad mood. It isn't fun.
Right now I'm in mexico working with the ximian hackers here. I'm staying at Federico's place. It's all very nice. The food is excellent and the people are great to work with.
I saw Lord of the Rings yesterday. The scenery was amazing. I had a bit of a problem with actor associations ("Magneto is talking to Agent Smith while Satan from The Prophecy and the Aerosmith girl are having a touching moment,"), but other than that it was really good. After the show federico took this slightly embarassing picture.
Other Stuff
I'm working on porting anjuta2 to gnome2. I've mostly finished with it, but I've been reworking little pieces of it here and there, so I haven't gotten around to committing anything. There's a screenshot here though.
Work on the structure browser has slowed down a bit, because I've been busy with other things. There's a screenshot of that here.
I've also been doing a lot of drawing. I've ended up with this and this.
Argh. As I was working on the structure browser last night, my laptop decided to ignore the AC power and started running on batteries. I couldn't convince the laptop to acknowledge the existence of the power cord.
So I'm basically laptopless for the rest of this vacation.
I'm taking a couple weeks off for christmas. I've been at my parents' house in McCloud for a bit over a week now.
I've been using the time off to do some anjuta2 (formerly gIDE) work. I've been working on the debugger (gnome-debug), and have ended up almost completely rewriting it. I took this opportunity to move gnome-debug over to gnome2. I pretty much agree with what trow says about gnome2.
gnome-debug isn't the only anjuta2 component moving to gnome2. Gustavo has committed an initial port of gdl. When I get back to boston, I plan to start porting anjuta2 itself.
At the moment I'm working on a ddd-style structure browsing widget. I think it will be useful for things other than the debugging display. We'll see. I'll have screenshots next time I have a network connection on my laptop.
Yes. Doing it against someone who has a chance of fighting back.
New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser code is live. It needs further work but already handles most markup better than the original parser.
Keep up with the latest Advogato features by reading the Advogato status blog.
If you're a C programmer with some spare time, take a look at the mod_virgule project page and help us with one of the tasks on the ToDo list!


text:
Lasagna leaves Italy and heads to the Bayou with the addition of shrimp and spicy sausage.
To reduce the spiciness, swap the sausage with 2 cups of cut-up cooked chicken instead.
Save preparation time by using mini lasagna (mafalda) noodles and stirring the ingredients together to make an oven casserole.
© 2017 ®/TM General Mills All Rights Reserved


text:
1 John 2:17 - And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (NKJV)
Philippians 2:12 - Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; (NKJV)
ONE: God's plain, revealed Will in Scripture
- Should I cheat on my taxes?
- Should I get divorced because I love someone else?
- We're engaged, can we sleep together?
- Is it okay to get drunk occasionally?
TWO: God's Will for the "gray" areas NOT plainly and directly addressed in the Bible
- Is it a sin to drink a glass of wine?
- Should kids go to public school or be home schooled?
- Can you ever see a Rated-R movie, or any movies at all?
- What clothing is appropriate?
- Should you celebrate Halloween or Christmas?
- Can a Christian be in the military and kill someone in a war?
We'll do the "simple" part in this post, and begin next time looking at how to determine God's will for the "gray" areas.
The "simple" part is when our questions are directly and plainly answered in Scripture. It's only "simple" however in the sense that we can know God's will; obedience however is frequently NOT so simple.
The command might be simple;
obeying the command is often difficult.
Now I want you to prepare yourself. I'm about to impart to you some incredible, ground-shaking wisdom. Here goes: when it comes to knowing God's Will about those things that are plainly and directly addressed in Scripture...
Find out what the Bible says, and do it.
Okay, that wasn't exactly original or earth shattering, but it is beautiful in its simplicity and incredible in its effectiveness. And, I have to confess, I didn't make it up either.
James 1:22 - But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (NKJV)
While in concept "finding and doing" is simple, it is NOT simple to actually do it. You have to diligently search the Scriptures (2Tim 2.15; Acts 17.11) and when you find a plain answer, you must obey it, or you are in danger of deceiving yourself about your walk with God.
Obedience has many benefits:
- You can know you are in God's will
- You can be assured God is pleased with you
- You don't have to worry you're doing the wrong thing
- It brings assurance of salvation (1 John 5.2)
- You can trust that you aren't deceived about your faith (James 1.22)
For questions to which there is a plain answer in Scripture, we must not fall prey to "relativism" where we decide that in "some" situations, exceptions can be made to plain Scripture. We fallen and sinful humans are masters at making excuses and justifying sin. Once we open the door of "relative truth" then everything is up for grabs because we can always formulate a "reason" why we are the "exception" to God's Word.
Let me give a few examples where the Bible gives a black and white answer to certain questions about God's will:
- Can I divorce my spouse because of " irreconcilable differences"? No (Matthew 5:31; 1 Corinthians 7:10-16)
- Can I lie if it is for a "good" reason? No (Colossians 3:9)
- Can we sleep together if we're engaged and in love? No (Col 3.5; Heb 13.4)
- Is it okay to gossip for any reason? No (Matt 12.36; Prov 17.9)
- Am I supposed to read my Bible every day? Yes (2Tim 2.15; Acts 17.11)
- Should we assemble together with other Christians regularly? Yes (Heb 10.25)
- Should I care for widows and orphans? Yes (James 1.27)
- My employer treats me bad, do I still have to work hard? Yes (1Thess 4.11-12; Col 3.17; 1Pet 2.18-19)
- Is it okay to treat some people better than others based on their social status or income? No (James 2.2-4)
These are just a few examples of God's will where the answer is "black and white". But you can't know these plain answers if you don't diligently search the Bible for them. God has promised to reward the sincere seeker of Scriptural wisdom though (James 1.5).
How can we know God's will? First, find out if God's Word has a plain and direct answer to your question or circumstance. If it does, then obey God regardless if you like it, agree with it or how you feel about it.
If there is no plain or direct answer in Scripture.... well, that's where we will pick up next time I post on this topic.
What are your questions about Knowing God's Will, or your comments about this post? Leave us a comment...
~ Brent


text:
Top - Minty Meets Munt (Crown St, Sydney)
Jeans - Bardot
Shoes - Doc Martens (not shown)
Hat - Black Fedora, Sportsgirl (not shown)
Jewellery - Everywhere
Wore this out yesterday for Sunday drinks and dinner.
Love to keep it casual.
Was such a lovely afternoon and perfect weather for some G and T's.
Another heat wave is going to hit again soon I think...really NOT a fan.
My Topshop order arrived just a few hours ago...YAY!
And everything fits (thank god).
Can't wait to share some of my new purchases soon.
Also FINALLY got around to buying the lastest RUSSH.
As always....so inspiring.
Hope you all had great weekends.


text:
Oops. White lie. Also found the TIE Bomber at WalMart near Atlantic City. They had about nine or so as of last weekend. Oh, and the Imperial Shuttle - lest not forget that one - bought that earlier this year.
That's about it. I swear.
Oops. White lie. Also found the TIE Bomber at WalMart near Atlantic City. They had about nine or so as of last weekend. Oh, and the Imperial Shuttle - lest not forget that one - bought that earlier this year.
That's about it. I swear.
The movie changed my life. It was much better than Cats. I'd go see it again and again and again.
Finally found some new things today - alot actually - at the Target in Germantown :
Ashla & Jempa - 2 left
Lama Su - 1 left
Aayla Secura - 1 left
Research Droids - 0 left
Barris Offee - 1 left
Yoad & Chian - 1 left
Blond Imperial - 0 left
Red Battle Droid - 0 left Got home and saw the cashier bent the card when she shoved it in the bag, so i guess it goes back.
WM at Germantown had nothing, everything moving around.
The target at Gaithersburg had nothing but empty pegs, so maybe soon they will fill in
Nice score Major Karr.
After not being able to drive for 5 weeks due to neck surgery, I really expected to find some new stuff. Wrong. The only thing "new" that I've seen was the 4-pack @ TRU.
Potomac Mills Target has a few figs that are mostly Jango Pilot & Lott Dodd. I've pretty much given up all hope with the Pot Mills WalMart. They've got 8 pegs set aside for SW and 4 of those pegs are full of the Cantina sets. The other 4 pegs are mostly Pilot Jangos.
Is it me or has Virginia been forgotten?
From other reports I've read on Forums...it's been pretty much the whole U.S. Problems overseas? SARS? Imperial 4-pk. is the last thing I've found. KB Toys has 12" Gamorean Guard on their web site...but the stores I've called don't have a clue! I never saw the 12" Lando wave anywhere!
"In my experience there's no such thing as luck."
I havn't been hunting for a while (so forgive me if this is old news), but it seems KB has another "value pack." It's 3 peg warmers and an electronic Lightsaber. I saw these at the Fair Oaks KB.
I finally found 1 new figure @ the 7 Corners Target - Arena Mace, and it's bubble was crushed!
If Yoda is capable of kicking someone's @$$, imagine what a muppet could do!
Glen Burnie Target on Crain Hwy.(Rte. 3) got in 1 case Collection 2 figures: Bariss/Aayla, Yoda/Chian, Ashla/Jempa, 1 blonde Imp. officer, red battle droid & research droid 2-pack. All there as of 10 am this Thursday. Happy hunting! Toys R Us in Glen Burnie has Imp. 4-pack, as well as their usual wall o' Lott Dodd & Boba Fett.
"In my experience there's no such thing as luck."
KayBee Toys in Marley Station Mall(Glen Burnie) uncovered 1 case of 4 12" Gammorean Guards. 3 left as of 6 pm. Arundel Mills Kay Bee may have buried in back room. They got a truck today too!
"In my experience there's no such thing as luck."
Kaybee in Frederick also has the Gammorean Guard. Very nice 12" Figure!
The Lego outlet at Potomac Mills has all StarWars kits in stock at 20% off including the STAR DESTROYER I picked up for $250 including tax. mmmmmmm 3104 pieces. mmmmmmmm!
Just got back from a 4 day trip to Albany, NY. Did manage to score a blonde Imp. Officer. That was about it. Did see the 12" Gammorean Guard at a KB while I was there.


text:
Faustine Odaba
this wiki
Last updated: 30 November 2016
Faustine Odaba is the Director of Natural Resources and Waste Management Alliance (NAREWAMA). Earlier, Ms. Odaba was Head Trainer at the former Solar Cookers International East Africa Office. When Solar Cookers International (SCI) hired Faustine Odaba as a Field Assistant in 2000, she had already proven her mettle.
In the very early 1990s, Faustine was an active member and a leader of the Amagoro Housewives Group in the Busia District of western Kenya. The group soon met up with US Peace Corps volunteer Barbara Ross, who brought with her a wooden solar box cooker obtained from Trans World Radio (TWR).
The members of the group shared the cooker, and soon learned to be expert solar cooks. They quickly realized that one solar cooker was not enough and began searching for ways to acquire more, but were unable to afford the TWR cookers. When they heard of Solar Cookers International, they contacted them for information about making low cost solar box cookers from cardboard.
After receiving basic instructions from SCI, the group followed up with several more correspondences seeking additional tips, including how to test aluminized gift wrap, which was very easily available, as a substitute for aluminum foil. (Tip: heat a small sample of the gift wrap by conventional means or in an existing solar cooker. Many aluminized gift wraps will melt. Others will hold up fine in temperatures of 300° to 400°F (150° to 200°C).)
By 1992, Faustine and her colleagues were demonstrating solar cooking at fairs, agricultural shows, markets and even along roadsides. In 1993, Faustine explained to a reporter from the Kenya Times that, "after using it in our homes, we did not want to keep this information to ourselves."
She also told the reporter that solar cookers work well for arrow root, sweet potatoes, githeri, and ugali from both cassava flour and from maize flour. The recipe she gave for ugali was "for every cup of unga, put two cups of cold water, stir it well, place it in the cooker and leave it for a while. After one and a half hours, it will be well cooked and hard. This cooker saves us time as well as having a smoke-free environment." (Note: preferences for ugali's texture apparently vary from region to region; not all people will necessarily enjoy Faustine's ugali recipe.)
In 1994, Faustine and other members of the Amagoro Housewives attended the first Kenya-wide solar cooking conference. As the only seasoned Kenyan solar cooks in attendance, they were stars of the show, overwhelming the doubts of skeptics with their first-hand experience of solar cooking success.
When SCI launched the world's first solar cooking refugee camp field project in Kakuma Refugee Camp in 1995, Faustine was there, one of three volunteers who led the initial teaching program. Faustine was also a key volunteer when SCI launched its first project for settled communities in Zimbabwe in 1996.
Again, in 1997, Faustine was deeply involved with the launching of SCI's project at the Aisha Refugee Camp in Ethiopia.
Faustine began service as Field Supervisor for the Nairobi East "SOLACOOK" solar cooking program. She also continued to help out with SCI's field projects. In 1999, she distinguished herself again while on a working trip to Kakuma by helping to convince a depressed refugee to not commit suicide.
In 2010, Solar Cookers International inducted Faustine - as first non-American - into its Order of Excellence.
NAREWAMA continues to provide solar cooking training to communities throughout Kenya. In 2013, Ms. Odaba and traveled to Liberia at the request of Marylanders for Progress (Liberia) to introduce solar cooking to communities eager to learn about this technology.
Experience, commitment and great heart! SCI is indeed proud to have Faustine Odaba as a partner in East Africa. In 2012 and 2013, NAREWAMA partnered with SCI to provide quality solar cooking training to several communities in the Nairobi area.
- November 2016: Faustine Odaba conducted a workshop about solar and heat-retention cooking cooking in Lordariak, Kajiado County, located between Nairobi and the Tanzanian border, for 132 participants.
- October 2016: EcoZoom meets Mama Solar! - Ecozoom UK
- February 2016: Steam collection in evacuated tube cooking: Faustine Odaba from NAREWAMA, describes the behavior of steam inside a tilted vacuum evacuated tube.
- June 2015: On June 10, Faustine Odaba gave a presentation on solar and fireless cooking to a women's initiative in Ringsaker, Norway after being invited by several NGOs.
- February 2015: "Mama Solar" celebrates 20 years of spreading solar cooking in East Africa - To mark 20 years of work to disseminate solar cooking in Africa, Faustine Odaba, Director of Natural Resources and Waste Management Alliance (NAREWAMA), traveled to Uganda for 10 days to give presentations on solar cookers, fireless cookers, and gasifiers. Esther Nattabi of Awamu Biomass Energy, Kampala assisted Faustine with the presentations.
- October 2014:
- 1. On 4th October 2014, the Natural Resource and Waste management Alliance was invited to the launch of the Kenya Interfaith Network on Environmental Action(KINEA). The event that was held at Tangaza college in Nairobi and was attended by various universities, colleges, NGOs and different religion denominations, of which the guest of honour was Rt. Rev. Bishop Alfred Kipkoech Arap Rotich. The network engages in programs related to climate change and livelihood enhancement, which include faith-based institution promotion of tree growing, education for sustainable development(ESD), and sustainable agriculture and faith based wildlife conservation programs.
- 2. A training of Alliance of women in Coffee at the coffee plaza office in Nairobi on 25th September 2014. The women were trained in solar cooking, plastic waste recycling, and water testing. They learned of the need to be self-reliant and environmentally aware. The training was attended by 30 members.
- 3. At home in Nairobi, I spread the solar news when guests visited my home, and trained them in solar cooking, fireless cookers, and plastic bag recycling.
- September 19, 2014: At her home in Nairobi, Faustine shared solar news with guests and trained them on solar cooking, fireless cookers, and plastic bags recycling.
- September 2014: Faustine Odaba recently demonstrated solar cooking to interested Makerere University students and to employees of Awamu Biomass Energy Ltd. in Kampala, Uganda.
- September 2014: Launch of new website - NAREWAMA, located in Nairobi, Kenya and under the direction of Faustine Odaba, has brought their organization and renewable energy activities online. Visit at: Natural Resources and Waste Management Alliance - NAREWAMA
- June 2014: Development of Pot Riser for Panel Cookers - Faustine Odaba has developed a pot riser for panel cookers, made of used clothes hangers. Pot risers direct more sun rays to the bottom of the pot, thus decreasing cooking time.
- February 2014: Solar Cookers and fireless cookers presented at GACC conference in Nairobi - Faustine was on hand to display how panel-style solar cookers will work, with mutual benefit, with fireless cookers at the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves conference in Nairobi, Kenya to the GACC director Radha Muthiah and the Vice-President's wife.
- October 2013: Faustine Odaba and Nicholas Okeya present solar cookers and haybaskets during a festivity of the Catholic Church in Nairobi.
- September 2013: Faustine Odaba presents solar cookers and haybaskets use to the Asulma Centre School Kenya.
- August 2008: With support from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, the long anticipated "training of trainers" water testing and solar pasteurization workshop was held in June at Tom Mboya Labour College in Kisumu, Kenya. Participants included 20 top staff members each from the Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA) and the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation (MPHS). Solar Cookers International (SCI) staff members Margaret Owino, Faustine Odaba, Elijah Achola, Dinah Chienjo, Simon Ogutu, John Amayo and Karyn Ellis were instrumental in the success of this workshop, as was John Rimberia from Embu. Microbiologist and SCI Board President Dr. Bob Metcalf led the workshop. Topics included a review of bacterial properties and growth, pasteurization principles, use of the bacterium Escherichia coli as a contamination indicator, properties of the Colilert® and Petrifilm™ tests for E. coli, and solar pasteurization using the CooKit solar cooker and SCI's wax-based, reusable Water Pasteurization Indicator (WAPI).
Audio and video
- December 2014:
- July 2014:
- September 2012:
- April 2014: The Water Boiling Test for Solar Cookers – WBT SC - Bernie Mueller & Faustine Odaba
See also
Email: email@example.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/MamaSolarAfrica


text:
Web Stories
Held mail has been released
Posted November 6, 2001; 01:18 p.m.
The university's incoming mail that was held the last week of October -- after the discovery of a very small amount of anthrax at the main Princeton post office in West Windsor -- is no longer on hold, as of Tuesday, Nov. 6. The United States Postal Service has determined that there is no need to decontaminate this mail.
In related news, the post office building on Roszel Road in West Windsor reopened to the public on Monday, Nov. 5.
All students, faculty and staff are encouraged to regularly check the University home page , the crisis response Web site and the Web site of the emergency preparedness task force for frequently updated information on steps being taken to address concerns about recent developments regarding anthrax and other possible terrorist threats. This email summarizes some of the steps that have been taken and refers you to other helpful information. Please continue to check these three Web sites regularly.
Click here to read the University-wide email that was sent Nov. 2, which includes information about mail, health and safety issues.
Contact: Marilyn Marks (609) 258-3601


text:
Featured Events
Conversation on higher education will feature Tilghman, Shapiro
A conversation on "Higher Education: Past, Present, Future" featuring former Princeton University presidents Shirley M. Tilghman and Harold T. Shapiro, as well as Cedar Crest College president Carmen Twillie Ambar and Swarthmore College president Rebecca Chopp, will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29, in the Friend Center, Room 101. The conversation will be moderated by Princeton University trustee and former television news anchor Charles Gibson. The event is part of the Princeton Adult School's conversation series and is co-sponsored by the University's Office of Community and Regional Affairs. Tickets are $25 and more information is available on the Princeton Adult School website.


text:
Get an overview of this hotelFamily-friendly Knysna apartment in Garden Route with 2 outdoor swimming pools
Located on a lake, this family-friendly apartment is 3.1 mi (4.9 km) from Sedgefield Beach and 6.8 mi (11 km) from Goukamma Nature and Marine Reserve. Knysna Elephant Park and Pledge Nature Reserve are also within 16 mi (25 km).
Property Features
This apartment features 2 outdoor pools, a full-service spa, and a restaurant. Other amenities include an indoor pool, a fitness center, and a bar/lounge.
Room Amenities
All 24 apartments feature kitchenettes with refrigerators, stovetops, microwaves, and dishwashers. Other amenities available to guests include balconies or patios, sofa beds, and DVD players.Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!Opens in a new window
Lake Pleasant Living
Apartment Amenities
Apartment Amenities
Lake Pleasant Living features a full-service spa, 2 outdoor swimming pools, an indoor pool, and a sauna. The apartment offers a restaurant. A bar/lounge is on site where guests can unwind with a drink. Guests can enjoy a complimentary breakfast.
This luxury apartment also offers a children's pool, a fitness center, and spa services.
- Airport transportation (surcharge)
- Total number of rooms - 24
- Babysitting or childcare
- Bar/lounge
- Barbecue grill(s)
- Free breakfast
- Dry cleaning/laundry service
- Fitness facilities
- Full-service spa
- Number of outdoor pools - 2
- Laundry facilities
- Spa treatment room(s)
- One meeting room
- Garden
- Restaurant
- Pool sun loungers
- Conference center
- Sauna
- Spa services on site
- Steam room
- Supervised childcare/activities
- Children's pool
- Indoor pool
Family Friendly Amenities
- Family Hotel
- Outdoor pools
- Indoor pool
- Children's pool
- Kitchenette
- Laundry facilities
- In-room childcare (surcharge)
- Babysitting or childcare
- Playground on site
- Sofa bed
- Refrigerator
- Microwave
- DVD player
Room Amenities
- DVD player
- Balcony or patio
- Air conditioning
- Ceiling fan
- In-room climate control (air conditioning)
- Phone
- Kitchenette
- Microwave
- Refrigerator
- Minibar
- Coffee/tea maker
- Daily housekeeping
- Private bathroom
- Free toiletries
- Hair dryer
- Separate bathtub and shower
- In-room childcare (surcharge)
- Iron/ironing board
- In-room safe
- Sofa bed
- Cribs/infant beds available
- Cookware, dishware, and utensils
- Dishwasher
- Stovetop
- Room service
- Connecting/adjoining rooms available
- Rollaway/extra beds (surcharge)
- Sofa bed size
Where to Eat
A complimentary breakfast is offered.
Bistro on the Lake - This restaurant overlooks the pool. Guests can enjoy drinks at the bar. A children's menu is available.
Room service is available.
Nearby Things to Do
2 outdoor swimming pools are on site along with an indoor pool. In addition to a children's pool, other recreational amenities include a sauna and a fitness center.
The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or nearby; fees may apply.
- Golfing nearby
- Fishing on site
- Playground on site
- Rowing or canoeing on site
- Volleyball on site
Spa Services
Health Spa on the Lake has massage/treatment rooms and couples treatment room(s). Services include massages, facials, body scrubs, and body treatments. A variety of treatment therapies are provided, including aromatherapy. The spa is equipped with a sauna.
Guests under 12 years old are not allowed in the spa.
- Minimum age to access spa is 12
- Couples treatment rooms
- Manicures and pedicures
- Body scrubs
- Aromatherapy treatments
- Sauna in spa
- Massages
- Body treatments
- Facial treatments
Apartment Policies
Check-in time starts at 2 PM
Check-out time is 10 AM
Payment types
Children and extra beds
- Children are welcome.
- Kids stay free! Children 3 years old and younger stay free when using existing bedding.
- Rollaway/extra beds are available for ZAR 150.00 per night.
- Cribs (infant beds) are available.
- Pets not allowed
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
Optional extras
- Rollaway bed fee: ZAR 150.00 per night
Apartment Name
- Lake Pleasant Living
- Lake Pleasant Living Apartment
- Lake Pleasant Living Apartment Knysna
- Lake Pleasant Living Knysna
- Lake Pleasant Living Hotel Knysna
We should mention
Reservations are required for massage services and spa treatments. Reservations can be made by contacting the apartment prior to arrival, using the contact information on the booking confirmation. Children 3 years old and younger stay free when occupying the parent or guardian's room, using existing bedding. The property has connecting/adjoining rooms, which are subject to availability and can be requested by contacting the property using the number on the booking confirmation.
National Rating
Quality Graded by the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA) – South Africa's official quality assurance organization.


text:
Family: Strigidae, Owls view all from this family
Description ADULT Has reddish brown plumage overall. Upperparts are beautifully patterned with pale spots, largest on back and wings, finest and densest on head; underparts are whitish, but heavily streaked rufous. Facial disc is more oblong than round, flushed buffy reddish around margins and with white "eyebrows" framing yellow eyes. JUVENILE Recalls adult, but has mainly reddish brown upperparts and orange buff underparts with white between the eyes.
Dimensions Length: 7" (18 cm)
Habitat Fairly common, but low-density breeding species in conifer and mixed forests. Interior northern populations migrate south for winter and some altitudinal migration is seen in otherwise rather sedentary populations.
Observation Tips Easiest to locate by imitating song (with practice, this is easy to whistle), and listening for response. Otherwise hard to locate, but usually indifferent to observers if discovered.
Range Western Canada, Northwest, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Plains, Southeast, New England, Alaska, Eastern Canada, Rocky Mountains, Southwest, Texas, California
Voice Male's territorial call (heard in spring) comprises an almost mechanical-sounding, repetitive series of piping whistles, fancifully recalling a saw being sharpened (whetted); a good 21st-century comparison might be an intruder alarm.
Discussion Endearing, plump-bodied owl with a large head and short tail. Entirely nocturnal and roosts in dense cover during daytime. Nests in tree holes. Sexes are similar.


text:
World's finest big game bullets
Maximum performance and reliability
Premium selected powders & legendary primers
Partitioned copper jacket
Deep penetration & ultimate stopping power
You spend all year dreaming of the moment of truth-why trust it to anything less than the best? Federal Premium Vital-Shok Ammo is available with the world's finest big game bullets. Match that with world-class brass, select powders, and legendary primers to create a reliable, hard-hitting hunting cartridge.
Long ranges are the Sierra GameKing BTSP bullet's specialty. This bullet type is an excellent choice for everything from varmints to big game animals. GameKing's tapered, boat-tail design provides extremely flat trajectories. The design also gives it a higher downrange velocity, so there's more energy at the point of impact. Reduced wind drift makes it a good choice for long shots. Box of 20 rounds.


text:
How did Solyndra get a sweetheart interest rate?
posted at 4:05 pm on September 7, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
ABC News discovered that the solar-tech firm Solyndra got unusually low interest rates on its federally-guaranteed loans before it collapsed last month, sending 1000 workers to the unemployment line in California. Other green-tech firms receiving loans paid as much as three and four times the interest rate Solyndra secured for its $535 million from Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus bill from the Treasury's Federal Financing Bank. ABC notes that other green-tech firms didn't have the connections that Solyndra had to Obama:
The $535 million loan to Solyndra Inc., issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury's Federal Financing Bank, included a quarterly interest rate of 1.025 percent, the government bank reported in July. Of 18 Energy Department loans cited in the bank's report, Solyndra's rate was lowest. Eight other Energy Department projects, each also backed by the Federal Financing Bank, came with rates three or four times higher, the report shows.
That treatment is in keeping with the history of the loan to the California solar panel maker, an arrangement inked in September 2009 with great fanfare — and touted, not long after, during a factory visit from the president. Monthly government bank reports filed since then reveal Solyndra's rate as the lowest for any energy-related project in nearly every report; in every case its rate was well below that of most energy projects, which ranged from cutting-edge electric car makers to wind and solar ventures. …
Solyndra's most prolific financial backer is George Kaiser, an Oklahoma oil billionaire who was a bundler of campaign donations for Obama's 2008 race. Kaiser's Argonaut Ventures and its affiliates have been the single largest shareholder of Solyndra, according to SEC filings and other records. The company holds 39 percent of Solyndra's parent company, bankruptcy records filed Tuesday show.
And guess who gets paid out of the bankruptcy first?
Under terms of the bankruptcy filing, investors including Argonaut — which led a $75 million round of financing for Solyndra earlier this year — will stand in line before the federal government and other creditors.
When Solyndra announced that round of fundraising this February, it noted that the DOE had refinanced terms of the $535 million loan to extend the payment period. Under an "inter-creditor agreement" cited in the bankruptcy filing, the investors in the $75 million financing are considered first lien holders. That leaves Obama officials to confront the prospect of waiting behind private companies.
Don't think that this happened by accident. Before Obama took office, Solyndra applied for the federally-subsidized green-tech loan, and only scored a B+ from appraisers, which ABC calls a "red flag." Dun & Bradstreet only gave a "fair" rating to Solyndra credit, another indication that a big loan might be risky. Instead of slowing the process down to protect taxpayers, the Obama administration fast-tracked Solyndra's application and made the company a poster child for its promise of a green-jobs "explosion."
The White House has to explain why it overruled the FFB's auditors and ignored the warnings from appraisers while fast-tracking over half a billion dollars to a teetering company at loan rates far below what FFB charged other companies. Obama also needs an explanation of why his bundler George Kaiser will get his capital back before taxpayers see the first dime of that $535 million that got destroyed in Solyndra's collapse. If they don't have a legitimate explanation for these, then Congress may need to start issuing subpoenas to get answers, because right now it looks very much like Obama used taxpayer money to try to bail out a key campaign donor and left us all holding the bag.
Breaking on Hot Air
In Venezuela, even the 'chavistas' are turning on President Maduro
In California you may soon be able to pick from three genders on official documents
- Solyndra, Inc. announces plans to file for bankruptcy | Studio4 LLC
- The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : A Stroll Through Obama's Spain-and-Solyndra Timeline
- IT'S A DUCK « For What It's Worth . . .
- American ARTEMIS and more Greek-myth based punditry! « Temple of Mut
- Sweethearts: Bankrupt Solar Power Firm Well Connected to White House | The Western Experience
- How did Solyndra Get a Sweetheart Interest Rate? - Tech Support Forums - TechIMO.com
- Ed Driscoll » FBI Raids Solyndra
- Oh my. FBI raids bankrupt Obama-favorite Solyndra « Public Secrets
- Oh my. FBI raids bankrupt Obama-favorite Solyndra | Conservatives for America
- Funny business at Solyndra and the White House
- Blue Star Chronicles
- Obama Pays Off Campaign Bundler With $500 Million Loan « Steven Birn Speaks
- Craig Medred: You Know, Crony Capitalism is Really Just Networking | Congress Arizona
- The Phony Solyndra Solar Scandal
- The Solyndra Collapse | thefrenchresolution
- Seeing the Forest: The Phony Solyndra Solar Scandal
- How Conservatives and Big Oil are Using a Phony Scandal to Undermine Obama, Clean Energy, and Government Itself « MasterAdrian's Weblog
- Why Is Solyndra Obama's Scandal « The Demise of America
- Why Is Solyndra Obama's Scandal » Stand Up Patriots
- Obama Wants a Level Playing Field? Not in Energy Sector.Institute for Energy Research | Institute for Energy Research
- Obama Wants a Level Playing Field? Not in Energy Sector. | My Blog
- Michelle Malkin » Yet Another Solyndra Weekend Doc Dump
- Save us Chuck Woolery | Yet Another Solyndra Weekend Doc Dump
- Yet Another Solyndra Weekend Doc Dump | Michelle Malkin
- Yet Another Solyndra Weekend Doc Dump | Inspirations, dreams, humaniora
- Shocking: More Friday night Solyndra document dumps | Radio Vice Online
- Save us Chuck Woolery - Saving American One Trillion Dollars at a Time.
- The Phony Solyndra Solar Scandal - Campaign for America's Future | Blog
- Solyndra Financing History | Credit Debt


text:
Pornchai Mittongtare
Farmers' markets offer the widest selection of fresh baby potatoes, but if you can't find golf-ball-size versions of any of the varieties in this recipe, simply purchase large potatoes and cut them into 1 1/2-inch pieces.
Leave a Review
how can I retain color for this recipe? will boiling potatoes first per a reviewer do the trick?
I roasted my own freshly harvested baby Yukon Golds and my own pesto. YUM!
Loved this recipe!! I used three different kinds of potatoes from my CSA box (purple, red and yukon). Amazing! Perfect touch on the pesto, I actually forgot the parm at the end and it didn't matter. Cooking was less for me as well but only because I roasted on convection. So it was about 20 minutes the first round and back in for 10. Would do well for a summer dinner party or a weeknight.
Since I had on hand red potatoes, that's what I used. I sliced them thin so they roasted quickly and crisped nicely. The basil/shallot combo with parmesan added at the end of cooking was delicious-- i enjoyed the potatoes very much, great for summer cooking.
A good recipe with a colorful presentation. Flavor-wise, it is good but not a wow! The cooking times are way off about half.
Mine looked nothing like the photo and was not tasty at all. A total waste of time and ingredients.
i was interested in this recipe but was in the mood for a layered potato dish so here is another way to prepare this recipe. i sauteed 8 scallions then i used the cuisinart to slice the four varieties of (homegrown!) potatoes. i tossed the potato slices with melted butter, the sauteed scallions and grated parmesan cheese. poured these into a dish and baked for 30 minutes. they started to turn golden and i dumped a cup of traditional pesto and more parmesan on top and baked another 15 minutes. baking time will depend on how thick the potato layers are. i also tried to keep my purple potatoes separate and in their own layer but once everything was baked it was hard to identify a true purple layer (waste of time). it was yummy and easy and just a different preparation of this recipe.
This was easy and absolutely delicious! Will do it again and again!
I was a little disappointed in the color and flavor but that's because I roast potatoes all the time with rosemary and they are so good. Next time I think I'll try smooshing them and adding the pesto right before serving to preserve the bright green color.
I served this as a chilled salad. Sliced potatoes into rounds, dressed while warm. Used only half the garlic to make the pesto dressing. Add a grind of sea salt and served over arugula. Also great topped with crisp bacon or proscuitto. Perfect served next to grilled chicken or a lobster salad.


text:
Our faculty are courageous thinkers and passionate teachers who drive the mission of the University of Chicago. Propelled by rigorous debate and cross-disciplinary collaboration, they form an intellectual community that produces ideas that matter and enrich human life. UChicago's belief in free and open inquiry has created a unique intellectual environment that faculty say allows them to do their best and most innovative work as they also prepare the next generation of thinkers.
Resources for faculty
These links and many more resources can be found in the University's portal, my.UChicago. You will be prompted to log in.
Academic resources
- Resources for Researchers
- Library
- Online Faculty Access (class lists, grade rosters, customize evaluations)
- University Research Administration
- Time Schedules
Faculty life
Office of the Provost
UChicago's provost is responsible for the planning, implementation, and administration of academic programs, and for ensuring the robust health of our academic values.
Human resources and administrative services
Manage your benefits, address, emergency contacts, paycheck details, and other important personal information here.