text:
There was a Democrat in my district who tried to vote against healthcare, against the stimulus bill, and so on to appease the increasingly anti-government voters. We didn't buy his sudden change. He lost.
There was a Democrat in my district who tried to vote against healthcare, against the stimulus bill, and so on to appease the increasingly anti-government voters. We didn't buy his sudden change. He lost.
So, now you've got a Republican in office. How does that make things better?
There was a Democrat in my district who tried to vote against healthcare, against the stimulus bill, and so on to appease the increasingly anti-government voters. We didn't buy his sudden change. He lost.
So, now you've got a Republican in office. How does that make things better?
We did have one of them [wikipedia.org] once and we may yet see him in Government.
So when you go ask a politician if they intend on bringing the filter online after the election, they won't answer you?
No, they'll answer you, they'll tell you what you want to hear.
Then...they'll do whatever the hell they want. What? You elected them!
(Sadly, that's how it seems to go all over the world.)
It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all those others that have been tried from time to time. -Churchill
It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all those others that have been tried from time to time. -Churchill
This is true, in the same sense as the assertion that "Gonorrhea is the worst form of venereal disease, apart from all the others".
We should not blindly assume that the object of either sentence is something absolutely necessary or desirable in every aspect. In the case of venereal disease, it is clearly unwanted. In the case of government, it needs to be strictly limited, in ways which are not compatible with most implementations of "democracy" in the world today.
once we get in we'll just change it all
Obviously there needs to be consequences for lying politicians. If I lie on a job application, at best I get fired, at worst I could get charged with fraud. If a politician lies during a campaign (what else is it but a job interview?), he should get the same treatment.
Part of the problem is that it just isn't that easy, if you're being honest with yourself, to tell what is and what isn't a lie, even after the fact. The president doesn't control the world, he doesn't control the country, and he doesn't control congress; lots of things can happen that aren't easily forseen which can lead to promises being broken despite the best of intentions. Now, doubtless there are times that things are said, promises made that can't possibly be upheld, but I bet if you're being hones
Honestly, I don't really care. If you can't do the job you were elected to do, get the fuck out and let someone who can do it. For instance, Obama was elected in part based on his promise to get us out of Iraq in 16 months. He's not going to do it, and he hasn't even tried. The people deserve some recourse.
We already get the chance to fire elected officials every few years (2/4/6 years, depending on the position). Just vote for the other guy next time.
Of course, that just replaces one liar with another.
That just gives them license to do whatever they want for n years. There should be a process to hold a vote of no confidence for any position in the government at any time.
I wholeheartedly support your platform. Where country/state/district are you running in?
Precisely. Every time Slashdot published a story on this over the last year or so, people hyped it up so much and responded (as you'd expect) with doom and gloom predictions. I always expected this would happen though - it was obvious from the start that this proposal (in its current form, at least) would never see the light of day. At the end of the day, we are still a very robust democracy, populated mostly by mostly secular, level-headed people. Blind Freddy could see that it would be political suicide t
>Some things I've heard have been ridiculous (e.g. comparisons of Australia to China and Iran - even the proposed filter, as abhorrent as it was, was not anywhere near the scale and scope of those countries).
Pardon me, how are these so different? Mandatory censorship on a national level is exactly what countries like Iran and the UAE do. Heck, Australia might be even worse because it doesn't have the "backwaters Islamic nation" excuse. I also read that the blacklisting agencies this filter would use rou
Wrong again. 62% of your are begging for the filter:
Sorry, you're wrong. The question that poll gave made no mention of any "internet filter":
To the proposition We need Government regulation of content on the Internet the same as we have Government regulation of content for other media
"Regulation of content for other media" is nothing like the internet filter. There is no mandated filter in people's TV sets that automatically blocks certain content.
TV and film and literature are classified so that people can make informed choices about what media the consume. That is not the same as mandatory censorship. The poll you cite is therefore not really relevant
Any poll that DOES directly mention the internet filter, OTOH, generally has well over 75% in the 'against' category. And there have been ma
Oh and incidentally, the Liberal Party is actually the more conservative major party in Australia. Confusingly named I know (there are historical reasons for this). So of course they wouldn't oppose the filter.
The Australian vs. US political spectrums (very roughly, don't nitpick!) look like this:
Greens --- Labor --- Liberal
Democrats ------ Republicans
I've left out minor parties such as Family First in Australia that sit to the right of the Liberals,
You wish!
The ONLY purpose of this "possible" (but actually never happening) shelving is to win people like you over who are dumb enough to believe that "*cries* This time you won't beat me after we're back together, right? This time everything is going to be good! Promise me! *cries*"
I think everyone who votes for a party, that EVEN ONCE before lied (even if it was 50 years ago and "everything changed(TM)"), should be shot on sight. Because the obviously have
Yeah you know, "Opt-in", so you are free to decline and accept a boot on your face when you download something outside of their guidelines.
If they make it opt in, than any amount of people opting in will be seen as support for the filter and it won't be long before they say "If its good enough for your Grandmother its good enough for you"
I'm thinking more of, "Opt-in" like NetNanny is opt-in.
As in, nobody in their right mind would use it on themselves but plenty of people will do it for the sake of their children.
...kids finding out about stuff on the Internet. I mean, we all turned out fine, didn't we?
And we grew up with the ever present possibility of seeing the Goatse guy !
...kids finding out about stuff on the Internet. I mean, we all turned out fine, didn't we?
When you put it that way it makes me wonder why it's legal for a child to be within a 100 feet of a computer.
HAHAHa, too true.
1. we are all born vessels of purity, and the world corrupts us. the idea is to limit exposure to this corruption, and thereby remain a coherent person
2. we are all born with the seeds of rape and murder in our hearts. the idea then is catharsis: express your asocial transgressive tendencies harmlessly on sexual and violent media, and therefore you feel no compulsion to visit those tendencies on real people in real life
i mean its not like the ancient roman or chinese empires, with very little media, were places of calm and devoid of transgression. the opposite in fact is true. the history of mankind is LESS violence and transgression with more civilization (i'm talking domestically... in terms of war, population growth, the rise of nationalism, the march of technology has meant some spectacularly awesome killing fields). people are always talking about how we are all doomed, everyone is getting more violent, etc. the opposite in fact, is the real truth. people are just historically myopic. for every horrible story of murder and mayhem on your 6 o'clock news, human history offers far far worse, in much greater per capita bulk
and you only need to spend 5 minutes in your average kindergarten to come to the undeniable realization that bad behavior is innate, not taught
the fact is, if you took a psychologically normal human being and exposed them to 16 hours a day of violent pornography or violent fps videogames for 10 months, they will not become rapists or murderers. however, a psychologically problematic person might eventually rape or murder. anything could set him off, from his neighbor's barking dog or his boss's reprimands. such a psychologically unhealthy person might also seek out pornography and violent media, in a desperate attempt to get the catharsis most psychologically normal people take for granted. therefore, when violent videogames or pornography are found in the homes of rapists and murderers, someone somehwere will always say "see? that's the cause"
when in fact, there's no causal relationship at all. do some people REALLY believe that if you waved a magic wand and removed all sexual and violent media that everyone would be tranquilized and crime would drop?
in 100% honesty, i assert the opposite: we should ENCOURAGE people to use violent and sexual media. the result would be a LESS violent and sexually transgressive society. i say this with a completely straight face. i believe this wholly and thoroughly
japan has one of the highest production rates of pornography in the world. it also has one of the lowest rates of rape in the world:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita [nationmaster.com]
japan also has free and widely available access violently transgressive media. and it also has very low murder rates
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita [nationmaster.com]
any country can emulate japan's enviable murder and rape statistics: just make pornography and violent media freely and widely available
the simply truth is, if you are honestly interested in the reduction of real world rape and murder, you are also interested in promoting, yes PROMOTING, violent videogame and pornography consumption. i sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that
it all gets back to the psychological notion of CATHARSIS
and understanding that we are NOT vessels of purity that are corrupted. we all carry rape and murder in our hearts. the question is: do we eject these asocial tendencies harmlessly on a computer screen? or in the real world?
access to violent and sexual media is the deciding factor, and MORE access to violent and sexual media results in LESS real world rape and murder
Damn it man, I disagree with you much of the time... and then you have to go and write this. Argh! Why can't I just paint you as a one-dimensional inhuman tool and hate my mind's psychological construct of you?
And now for a serious moment, great summary and insight. Thank you. IMHO, in most multi-cultural countries in the world you'd never get those who are firm believers in Worldview #1 to commit because you'd essentially be asking them to destroy themselves for your sake, and vice versa. That's just re
1. we are all born vessels of purity, and the world corrupts us. the idea is to limit exposure to this corruption, and thereby remain a coherent person
2. we are all born with the seeds of rape and murder in our hearts. the idea then is catharsis: express your asocial transgressive tendencies harmlessly on sexual and violent media, and therefore you feel no compulsion to visit those tendencies on real people in real life
Really, only two? Then I must be the world's third-greatest philosopher for having a view of humanity that is neither of those.
Speak for yourself, kid, I was 45 before I had internet access. But I will agree that the only thing I don't like about your generation is tattoos and piercings, especially on women. A Tattoo on a woman is like marking up the Mona Lisa with a magic marker. And piercings, why do you want to mutilate yourselves like that?
Although from what my dad says, tattoos were popular with women back in the 1920s; I had great aunts with tattoos.
A Tattoo on a woman is like marking up the Mona Lisa with a magic marker.
You mean, like this guy did? [wikipedia.org] They call that art.
It was art; or rather, anti-art. Duchamp was a Dadaist, and the Dada movement was an antiestablishment movement, and anti-art art. Duchamp made very good point about the art establishment when he hung an unadorned urinal on a gallery wall, and critics praised it for its form and beauty.
And, of course, what he marked up was simply a copy of the ML. You can't copy people (yet).
You can't copy people (yet).
Don't tell me what I can or can't do!
...kids finding out about stuff on the Internet. I mean, we all turned out fine, didn't we?
http://www.xkcd.com/598/ [xkcd.com]
Ohhhh, You've been a BAD boy *cracks whip*
Ohhhh, You've been a BAD boy *cracks whip*
If you're doing that to five year olds, then you've got a problem.
Yeah, seriously.
You should be using a 2x4 with a handle cut in the end (ergonomics, you know).
If your kids are particularly unruly, just drill holes of various size in the face of the paddle. This decreases the wind resistance as you swing, and also reduces the overall mass. This makes it easier to swing, hurt worse when it strikes, and less likely to bruise the fleshy parts of the body, namely, the ass (the universally preferred location to apply punishment).
Yes, you can't start using the whip until they're 7. You have to use a paddle before that.
Who'd have thought that adults would possibly object to being treated like pedophiles who rape 5 year olds?
FTFY. Did you notice how anyone who voiced their concern regarding censorship or privacy was immediately 'against us looking out for the children' and thus 'for pedophilia'...
It was "Save the Children".
Except that one of the groups protesting the filter was actually a "protect the children" type of group - can't remember their name off hand but I dod remember their disdain for the proposed filtering.
Obviously, that group is just a front for a pedophile ring, pretending to be "for the children" as a way of hiding their criminal activity. I hope the government investigates them.
>>>Who'd have thought that adults would possibly object to being treated like 5 year olds?
The US FCC has been doing it for 60 years. "Ohnoes... someone flashed a milk-dispensing body part (breast) on television. We musn't let adults see that."
Yet they have no problem with bestiality. They have been showing completely unclothed animals on TV since the early days of broadcast. They even use milk-dispensing body parts to advertise Milk products, sometimes even in cartoon form to get the attention of Children.
I still can't wrap my head around how anyone in a democratic country could consider a nationwide Internet filter a good use of taxpayer money and resources. I can understand authoritarian regimes like the PRC doing it--obviously, money is not nearly as important to them as control (but the money sure helps.) Implementing it somewhere like Australia is just such a gargantuan waste of time and money as to be utterly baffling to me. The Internet, in and of itself, is just not dangerous. It's also far too large for any country--or even all countries together--to police it proactively and censor things.
Anyone who is *that* worried about what's on the Internet should perhaps "opt-out" of live in the developed world and go live in the Outback or something.
That, my friend, is the nature of political parties anywhere. "We want all of the benefits, but none of the drawbacks."
These people want to have full access to the Internet but don't want to have to come across things that they don't like or things they disagree with or have to monitor their children's surfing habits.
I can understand authoritarian regimes like the PRC doing it--obviously, money is not nearly as important to them as control (but the money sure helps.)
Money comes to those who have control. And control comes to those who have money. It doesn't matter if it's a democracy or authoritarian regime.
Censorship is a step in this cycle. While it doesn't make complete sense for a democratically elected official to try to censor the internet, there's still some logic behind it.
You have no idea how much most Australians agree with you. Senator Kate Lundy, who is very technologically savvy, was the Shadow Communications and IT Minister for a while when Labor was in opposition, and did an excellent job. Unfortunately, Conroy is very politically savvy, so while Lundy was doing her job extremely competently, Conroy was making back-room deals that resulted in Lundy being kicked to the back benches and him taking her job with almost zero knowledge of the field.
The one single thing that
Sure, you always have the chance to vote for a party with an open internet policy. That doesn't mean that that party has a chance of winning, even if the open internet policy has overwhelming public support. The media can simply ignore that any other parties exist, making it impossible for it to enter the mainstream.
<embed src="http://puma.vizu.com/v4/swf/andes.swf?t=1"...
Ok, I'm done OfftopicTrolling.
... but they've already exposed what they intend to do if we vote them in.
Kevin '07
Recession '08
Conroy '09
GG Labor. Time to vacate office.
To be fair, Australia never actually went into recession during the financial crisis. In fact we were the ONLY OECD country not to do so.
Of course, this is mostly due to the good financial position the previous Government left us in. But we still could have ended up worse than we did. So I think a least a little bit of credit is due (and this is coming from a life long Liberal voter).
Not that that excuses them for the rest of their abhorrent ideas re net filtering/monitoring. Good riddance if they lose the
The only reason why we had those cash reserves is because the previous govt cashed in assests and didn't spend a lot... we've got the situation where infrastructure lagged and we (tax payers) lost major assets for short term artificial gains.
I think this was exceptional forward-planning by the Lib/Nat party, probably realising they were going to be likely ousted they set about a strategy that would ensure that the subsequent government would be in a less than envious position of playing (infrastructure) cat
Best part of the article:
A Labor senator has called for the filter to be opt-in
I love it! "Yes, please monitor my Internet use and filter out content I know you know I won't like. Or agree with. Can you pick out my next car and decide on a good meal plan too? Do these jeans make my ass look fat?"
http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/fosters-beer.jpg Beer (for impotent wombats)
No one in Australia drinks fosters (not even sexually challenged marsupials). Fosters is only for export.
Nothing is too bad for the rest of the world.
Except Internet filters and having your laptop searched for porn by customs.
You (the US) have that too.
If you can make up a fictional web filter then so can I. Also the Australian Customs Service is backpedaling the laptop searches so fast I'm going to have to check into Perth Customs before I leave Malaysia. Unlike the US's TSA who still have no accountability.
If they put that filter on the shelf, it'll just collect dust. Which, honestly, is the job of a filter. However, I hardly think that will provide maximum efficiency! Perhaps they can sell it on Craigslist and get some of that taxpayer money back.
It never actually got implemented (indeed, the legislation was never even drafted, let alone actually introduced to Parliament). So there isn't really much to 'shelve' other than a plan. And the only taxpayer money spent would have been on a few feasibility studies.
Not to say that was money well spent, of course. But at least they are shelving it now before anything serious was done/spent on it.
Opt-in is currently available from NUMEROUS commercial sources. And if you are opting-in, then those are certainly an option and a hell of a lot cheaper for Australians.
We know nobody wants this and if we do it now we'll be crucified in the elections. So we'll wait until after so we can jamb it up everyone's ass with impunity. OH! Vote for Meeeee!
This is at least the third time
- Colin (from Electronic Frontiers Australia)
Ahhh the Sydney Morning Herald, still shit
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd...is expected to call the election before the end of the year...
Really? Pretty sure the Constitution says we have to have an election by November
Loose bits sink chips.


text:
China's cyber police have intensified controls over the country's 100 million Internet users in the past few months but that hasn't stopped Western Web firms from pushing ever farther into the market.
Rather than using their clout to help push the boundaries of free speech and information in the one-party state, critics say companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are at best turning a blind eye to the machinations of the cyber police.
"It's too early to say that just by doing business in China and developing the Internet in China they will foster democracy and human rights," said Julien Pain, of Reporters Without Borders. "It doesn't work that way."
Indeed, the group says there is evidence the opposite is happening, with the major Web players accused in the past of pre-empting the government by routinely blocking discussions on sensitive subjects from the 1989 democracy movement to the spiritual group Falun Gong.
China has blocked access to the Web site Google News to force surfers to use the Chinese version of the site, which removes politically sensitive reports.
Microsoft's "MSN Spaces" came under fire for censoring phrases like "human rights" and "Taiwan independence" from the subject lines of its free online journals.
And most recently, Yahoo was accused of supplying data to the authorities that was used as evidence against Shi Tao, a journalist sentenced to 10 years in prison for sending an internal Communist Party message by e-mail abroad.
Yahoo says it was only abiding by local laws. But rights groups say the company, which agreed last month to pay US$1 billion for a 40 percent stake in Chinese Web auctioneer Alibaba.com, is complicit in a system bent on curtailing, not expanding, Internet freedoms.
Since March, online discussion groups at Chinese universities have turned into internal platforms open only to students, in accordance with a demand from the Ministry of Education. The groups now require users and managers to register with their real names.
Web site owners now also are required to register within 30 days of their launch, part of a campaign begun in July that also includes a Web site census conducted by the cyber police.
"The registration requirement issued by the Information Ministry is aimed at not-for-profit Web sites, including personal Web sites and blogs," Southern Weekend newspaper reported.
"It shows the extreme concern from the central leaders of Internet work," the paper said.
Analysts say the regulations are aimed at extending the tentacles of state control to blogs since not only blog communities but individuals who create their own blogs are subject to registration -- and therefore to censorship.
"I am against the online `real name system' ... because the real point of this regulation is to control and even threaten Internet users who say things that jeopardize the government's interests," said Anti, an active online blogger.
The sentencing of Shi Tao in April and conviction in July of dissident Zhang Lin for jeopardizing national security with his Internet posts make clear the threat from speaking out in the relative anonymity of the Internet is real.
In the latest example, a court in Yingkou, Liaoning Province, convicted Zheng Yichun on subversion charges on Thursday and sentenced him to seven years in prison, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said yesterday.

subset: commoncrawl


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THE SQL Server Blog Spot on the Web
You probably think something like "What! Of course we can!". And so did I when I read the title for a post about this in a forum. Let us first establish that you can have a column alias in ORDER BY:
SELECT p.ProductID AS pid,p.ListPrice AS prFROM Production.Product AS pORDER BY pr
The problem was that a table name was also in the ORDER BY clause. And this is when it becomes weird. The problem isn't the column alias, it is the table alias. Basically the desire is to write something like:
SELECTp.ProductID AS pid,p.ListPrice AS prFROM Production.Product AS pORDER BY p.pr
Above was apparently allowed in SQL Server 2005 2000 (I never did it myself, however). (Update: Erland Sommarskog caught my error, this was allowed in 2000, not 2005.) In order to understand why above is backwards, we need to consider the logical query flow. The first part of a query which is executed is the FROM clause (logically, the optimizer can do as it pleases as long as we get the same result). In above example, I renamed the table (for the rest of the query) from "Production.Product" to "p". That means that we cannot refer to "Product" or "Production.Product" anymore in the query. However, SQL has imperfections and the topic of this blog is an attempt from MS to rectify such earlier imperfections (some of them), i.e., improving the product.
Continuing the logical query flow (WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING), we towards the end find the SELECT clause. Here is where you can rename the columns (a.k.a. column alias) for the rest of the query. After the SELECT list, it is meaningless to talk about different tables (where the data originally comes from), all we have is the result of the query (so far). This is why, we can in the ORDER BY refer to a column alias (generally); ORDER BY comes logically after the SELECT list.
However, the original problem was that one also wanted to include a table alias, which shouldn't be allowed. So, why is it allowed, in the first place - consider it makes no sense from a logical standpoint? For that we need to look as somethining weird, which is allowed (both in T-SQL and ANSI SQL) and that can be somewhat useful:
SELECTProductID AS pid,ListPrice AS prFROM Production.ProductORDER BY ModifiedDateWe don't need to return something to the client app in order to sort over it. Sure, that can be useful, but from a logical perspective, this is spooky. We sort over something which doesn't exist! So, the imperfections of the SQL language is the reason things starts to break down. Basically, what we do is to sort over something as if we would have included it in the SELECT list. We are saying, in the ORDER BY clause something like
"Hey, dbms! Can you please pretend we included Product.ModifiedDate in the SELECT list so we can sort over it. Bur don't return it to the client app, I don't want to see that column."
Where it really breaks down is when we combine table and column alias. Let me repeat the problematic query:
The problem is that it is meaningless to specify a table alias here, the column does exist in the SELECT list. The only reason we can refer to something table-something at all, is to let the DBMS pretend we included something additional from the base tables, so we could sort over it. Such as (allowed):
SELECTProductID AS pid,ListPrice AS prFROM Production.Product AS pORDER BY p.ModifiedDate
One could of course argue that below would be more logical (not allowed):
SELECTProductID AS pid,ListPrice AS prFROM Production.Product AS pORDER BY Product.ModifiedDate
Arguing that one form of two above is more logical than the other is pretty irrelevant, houever. Both are weird constructs, and the language is what it is. Anyone feel like checking the ANSI SQL standard which of above two (first, second or both) are allowed/preferred? No me, I'm off to grab some breakfast!
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Hi Tibor,
Do you know which build of 2005 allowed ORDER BY p.pr? It doesn't work for me in 2005 or 2008.
Using ORDER BY p.ListPrice, ORDER BY ListPrice, and ORDER BY pr all do though.
I'm sure I must be missing something here.
Hi Paul,
Apparently the behavior change was between 2000 and 2005, not 2005 and 2008 (Erland corrected me in http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/transactsql/thread/10e920a0-6d85-45ac-af77-b3a1ce58a7d1/). So, dig up a VM with 2000 or older and give it a spin.
I'm too lazy and just take what people say for granted, leading to these post-corrections... :-)
Ah right - thanks. I see from Erland's comment that it was a bug in 2000. Makes sense now, and reminds me a bit of:
CREATE TABLE #fish (a int);
DROP TABLE SoLongAndThanksForAllThe.#fish;
...which works in 2005 and 2008 :)
That's probably a bug too.
I didn't know you could do that, Paul. Maybe I came across it in some forum. Sometimes I wonder where all these strange uses cases comes from... One if bugs in ones T-SQL code, of course - that I can totally relate to.
> but from a logical perspective, this is spooky
Good timing for this post, since "Halloween" celebration is almost here.
I had the same reaction when I first read the title of this post, but now it makes sense to me.
Thanks for sharing it.
I so disagree with you regarding the logical aspects. I don't pretend to know much about databases, being a C# developer, but from a pure logical standpoint, I should be able to use aliases everywhere.
The underlying problem seems to be leaky abstraction in the sql compiler, if we can call it that. Somehow we are forced to consider technical aspects when we design our query, when the compiler should be very capable to keep track of our aliases.
Also, I could join more tables where it would be natural to give the same aliases to columns in different tables. Now it do make sense to use both table and column aliases.
In my opinion, the change from 2000 to 2005 solved the wrong problem.
This has nothing (little) to do with compiler or parsing. It has all to do with how the SQL language is defined. The SQL language is defined as evaluation order is FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, SELECT, ORDER BY and then TOP (TOP is MS extension). If you want to change that, you change the meaning of the language, which is no small undertaking. We recently had a huge debate over this in the MSDN TSQL forum, btw. Hugo C. (I beelieve it was) posted a simple example of how a query would not mean the same thing if we were allowed to use the column alias "prior" to the SELECT list:
SELECT ProductID, LEFT(Name, 20) AS Name, ProductNumber
FROM Production.Product
WHERE Name IN ('Front Derailleur Linkage', 'HL Hub', 'Internal Lock Washer 7', 'Road-650 Black, 60');
If you want to "dig in", check out this thread: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/transactsql/thread/4ad14cad-1e61-43a0-96f8-70a506106a00
I use ordinals, its easier


text:
Judge Timothy Grendell ruled on Wednesday that The United Way is not allowed to use, distribute, disburse or release any money from The Chardon Healing Fund without getting written permission from the court until at least the next hearing.
That is scheduled for June 7 at noon.
The families of the Chardon shooting victims are suing United Way.
The organization set up The Chardon Healing Fund to help those families affected by last year's high school shooting.
The families say the fund raised nearly $1 million, but they have only received 15% of the money.
On Feb. 27, 2012, 18-year-old TJ Lane opened fire in the Chardon High School cafeteria. He killed 17-year-old Russell King, Jr., 16-year-old Demitrius Hewlin and 16-year-old Daniel Parmertor. Three other victims were injured in the shooting.
TJ Lane was convicted and sentenced to life in March. He is currently appealing his conviction.
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The Double Outlet Lock can protect 2 outlets of an oil tank – the inspection hole, and fill point.
Single Oil Tank Locks
The Single Outlet Lock protects the inspection hole on the oil tank, which is otherwise left vulnerable.
Vent covers are included with some Tank Arms, where appropriate. If your oil tank has a vent, it is worth securing it as another oil tank security measure.
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Things to Know About the New Chartbeat Publishing Design
The goal of product interface design is to develop a product's personality (the new Chartbeat Publishing is friendly, trustworthy, fast, modern), and tell a story (publishers can build and retain a loyal audience from our data). Everything about a product's design relates back to its personality and story, including the visual style, the interaction design, and the language. This isn't something we can get at the first go – it requires a lot of experimentation.
So at Chartbeat we have a process in place that allows us to rapidly try out ideas: not just at the design level, but at every stage of the project. We create a quick rough series of wireframes, and do the same for visual design sketches. Early on we prototype these designs in the browser (we love AngularJS over here), and even have a system that allows for quickly prototyping data in the backend (a custom LUA scriptable real-time backend). At every step of the way, we're testing and tweaking to make sure that our choices support the personality and story we're trying to portray.
In the middle of all this endless iterating, we reached a point where we're ready for an initial stable release. While we will keep nurturing and iterating on this product, here are four major design improvements that are in the new Chartbeat Publishing today.
Improved signaling
A major goal in rebuilding Chartbeat Publishing was to further reduce the burden of interpretation on our users, i.e., make the product – not our already very busy clients – do more of the heavy-lifting. That goal was realized by a couple of different approaches, especially figuring out ways to answer common client questions of "what does this number mean?" and "how well is my site doing right now compared to at other times?".
We expanded the product's efficacy by using our technology not just to report numbers to you, but to interpret numbers for you, too. For instance, now when you mouse over your Engaged Time section in the dashboard, a tooltip tells you how strongly your site is performing as compared to the past month – are you "on par" or "over-performing" – along with your site's monthly average Engaged Time and its maximum average Engaged Time. We go one step further by pointing out which articles are potentially responsible for either an over-performing or under-performing Engaged Time. And at all times we call out which articles should be regarded as "good for your site's health."
I talk a little more about the subject of signaling and invisible design on my own site.
Next up: see how the product's signaling starts even before you start processing your dashboard data – thanks to our strategic use of color.
Color isn't just color
Color is now a fundamental signaling element in the dashboard – we're moving away from color as a legend – allowing you to interpret what's happening in the dashboard (and thus on your site), even more quickly than before. If you see green, your brain automatically picks up that something positive is happening, whereas anything red implies that something is underperforming or past its prime. By using these simple cues, paired with a baseline blue palette, users can navigate the product even more efficiently without having to refer to a legend.
General affordance
Our first version of the new Chartbeat Publishing dashboard was powerful in many regards. But we noticed that some dashboard elements, particularly a few crucial features related to building your loyal audience, were hard to discover. This was definitely not the client's fault – it's up to Design and UX to figure out how to make these things easy for clients to find. In our case, this issue had more to do with the fact that we had learned even more about the industry after users started beta-testing our first version of the new product.
We decided to make it really easy to find all our different types of filter and sorts we made available. The UI for sorting on Engaged Time is now as prominent as we think it is useful. Filtering by something like your "new" visitors are reading is really easy to find in the new dashboard. So you're doing less guessing and more getting right to it. This easier-to-navigate interface allows us to expose more advanced features.
Things are more flexible than ever before
One of those features is multi-pivoting, which lets you combine different filters. In the original Chartbeat Publishing dashboard, you could click into a story and drill down into a particular story's data. The new dashboard lets you pivot and manipulate the dashboard to pull out almost any specific data you want – whether it's the number of mobile readers you have in Spokane, Washington, or which stories are attracting your most loyal visitors right now – thus increasing the number of actions you can take. Being able to do more within the dashboard allows you to surface the insights you need to inform your decisions and processes.
All in all
Our mission is to keep improving what we hope is an accessible dashboard that presents actionable insights. Right now we're looking at how people are using the new Chartbeat Publishing, and we'll take those learnings, along with whatever major needs arise in the industry, to inform the next batch of updates.


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The One Word that Can Change Your Life
The power of saying, "I'm sorry."
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(4) aliza, August 30, 2012 2:41 AM
(3) TMay, October 2, 2011 6:15 AM
The music in the background is BEAUTIFUL! I don't recognize the tunes. We have different tunes in Canada and the US.Maybe the British community should make a CD? I receive the rabbis's parshas weekly. I always read them with my own voice. This is the first time I have heard him speak. I wonder if from now on I will read them with a British accent and a deep voice in mind.
(1) THEO, September 25, 2011 6:52 PM
So true...


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The extra-light Carbon chassis and arms link to each other and work like a joint – for great freedom of movement forward and back, but with brilliant stability side to side.
A clever addition to our boots – simply heat the boot with a heater, put it on and it will mold to your foot for a completely personalized liner in a matter of minutes.
For all our skating boots we use an SNS Pilot outsole, which connects to your ski with 2 axes for extra stability and control.
The new Wrapping Lace keeps the fit solid. Quicklace adjustment lets you fine-tune without the need for a ratchet.
The lightweight Atomic Redster Worldcup Skate is our top skating boot for competitive skaters, packed full of World Cup technology. The genius of this boot is the new Custom Fit we've added to it: simply heat the liner with a heater and it molds to your foot for a completely personalized liner in minutes. It also comes with an innovative Carbon 3D Chassis with exceptional torsional rigidity. So all your physical strength is directed into your ski for explosive acceleration. At the same time, the ultra-stiff outsole ensures maximum stability for skating. And another clever innovation is the Precision Closure system, which combines ratchet closure, wrapping lace and dissociated quicklace for a really precise fit and excellent traction.


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- ON thesheperd's Page
hello everyone. it's been quite a while since i've been updating my story. i've been working up on the mountain and fighting fires in CA and OR. after that this sept i went to HI for a couple months, had a great time, met some great people and finally got some sun. i came to PA to visit my family for the...
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VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
greetings folks. just an update on my ramblings... i've been in washington, living in the mountains, in the snow, doing the park ranger thing and i also fought to wildfires this summer which was pretty amazing. right now i'm wrapping up a two month vacation in maui then i'll be back in the PNW soon for a little while, then i'm...
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greetings from mount rainier...i have returned...as of june 10 i am back in washington and no only that, but i'm only about 50 miles from portland, home of the suicidegirls woo hoo!!! i love this place! i love you all!!!
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
Happy Valentine's Day to you all and to all a Happy Valentine's Day!!!
hey everybody! i made it to midterms...wow, and i'm not even failing any of my classes...boy how much a year changes things...this time last year, i was returning from iraq and now i'm 50% through my first semester of school in 8 years! i know you all are extremely proud because whether you know it or not, the SG community was a tremendous support unit to me and helped me stay sane throughout my transition...take care all and love you all, keep up the fantastic work and i will do my best to do the same!
school starts tomorrow at SRU. 8 years , a liitle nervous and a lot excited...wish me luck!
Digging in for the Steelers game! Good luck SG Pittsburgh down in the 'Square!
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Hello there. Altho I have loved every minute of our "friendship" ... you've been cut off.
I dont know .. I feel like we are strangers. We've drifted, and I dont know if Im ready for this kind of commitment yet.
I mean, it's a big step. And this is why the Gods created the BookMark tab.
Maybe later .. when Im more comfortable and I feel like we really bonded, Ill be ready for this jump. =)
I dont know .. I feel like we are strangers. We've drifted, and I dont know if Im ready for this kind of commitment yet.
I mean, it's a big step. And this is why the Gods created the BookMark tab.
Maybe later .. when Im more comfortable and I feel like we really bonded, Ill be ready for this jump. =)
home for the holidays for the first time in six years...happy holdays to all of SG and to all of SG goodnight!!!
back in pa after two x-country back-to-back road trips...whew...happy holidays all...luv ya
i hate rental agencies...when you don't need them they seem to have great deals, but they find out your desperate and they try to milk you for every penny...
had a shitty time in san diego...failed to accomplish all of my goals...things didn't work out as i hoped they might...should have expected as much...i'll be back on the road tomorrow accrossed country for the third time in two months...i hope my poor jeep makes it...


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Rajon Rondo has led the Boston Celtics to a 93-76 win over the Brooklyn Nets in the first of the NBA's Christmas Day games.
Rondo has scored a game-high 19 points and contributed six rebounds and five assists to pull the Celtics level with the Nets with a 14 win, 13 loss record.
The LA Lakers are playing host to the New York Knicks before the Oklahoma City Thunder visit the Miami Heat in a 2012 finals rematch.
Thunder forward Kevin Durant says it's a cool day to be playing basketball.
Durant says it's a blessing and an honour to play on Christmas after watching the games as a kid growing up.
Kevin Durant says the finals were a long time ago.
He says he's learnt a lot since then but this game is just another game on the schedule.
This afternoon, the Houston Rockets will visit the Chicago Bulls and the LA Clippers will play host the Denver Nuggets.


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The Table Visualizer enables the user to examine ETS and Mnesia tables. Once a certain table has been opened in the tool, the content may be viewed at various levels of detail. The content viewed may also be sorted, using any element as key. The table may be polled anytime; either regularly at specified intervals, or manually. New and deleted objects, as well as those altered, are marked with characteristic colors.
start() -> Pid
Pid = pid()
start/0 starts the Table Visualizer.
For a complete description of the Table Visualizer, please see the TV User's Guide.


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IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefèvre says: "On March 29, 2008, cities across the world will turn off their lights for Earth Hour, an event designed to raise awareness about climate change and symbolize that working together the people of the world can make a difference in the fight against climate change.
Earth Hour has grown from a single event in Sydney, Australia in 2007 to a global phenomenon that will occur across six continents and in as many as 20 cities in 2008.
The goal now is to get thousands of businesses and individuals to participate in this historic event, through which they can show the world that addressing climate change is one of the most critical issues facing our world today.
Last year 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour. This massive collective effort reduced Sydney's energy consumption by 10.2 percent for one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for a year.
With Sydney icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House turning their lights off, and unique events such as weddings by candlelight, the world took notice.
This is now a global movement which IUCN wholeheartedly supports – as this movement grows we encourage more cities and communities to participate in Earth Hour."
To set up interviews, please contact:
Sarah Halls, IUCN Media Relations Officer, Tel: +41 22 999 0127; Mobile: +41 79 528 3486; Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
About Earth Hour
Organized by WWF and created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming. This simple act has captured the hearts and minds of people all over the world. As a result, at 8pm on March 29, 2008, millions of people in some of the world's major cities, including Copenhagen, Toronto, Chicago, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tel Aviv and Manila will unite and switch off for Earth Hour. www.earthhour.org
About IUCN
IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges by supporting scientific research; managing field projects all over the world; and bringing governments, NGOs, the UN, international conventions and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice.
IUCN is the world's oldest and largest global environmental network. IUCN is a democratic union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and some 10,000 volunteer scientists in more than 150 countries. IUCN's work is supported by 1,100 professional staff in 62 countries and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. www.iucn.org


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Police Beat items are compiled from public information contained in Los Alamos Police Department Records. Charges or citations listed in Police Beat do not imply innocence or guilt. The Los Alamos Police Department uses the term "arrest" to define anyone who has been physically arrested, served a court summons, or issued a citation.
Dec 13
12:52 a.m. — Jordan Agoyo, 24, of Santa Fe was arrested in Santa Fe on a Los Alamos Magistrate Court warrant.
(No time given) — Police arrested a 16-year-old teen and referred him to juvenile authorities after finding him possession of drug paraphernalia in the 1300 block of Diamond Drive.
8:07 p.m. — Samantha Dutra, 33, of Los Alamos was arrested on an out-of-state warrant in the 1700 block of Central Avenue.
Dec. 14
2:23 p.m. — Police arrested a 16-year-old teen after he allegedly trespassed onto school property at Los Alamos High. He was released to his parents and referred to juvenile authorities.
5:01 p.m. — William Vonharders, 36, of Los Alamos was arrested on a charge of aggravated driving while under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs in the 3700 block of Arkansas Avenue.
Dec. 15
7:38 p.m. — An 18-year-old man reported to police his car was broken into in the 600 block of Meadow Lane.
Dec. 17
10:50 a.m. — Roberto Roybal, 27, of Embudo was arrested in the 2500 block of Trinity Drive on a charge stemming from a warrant in another jurisdiction.
Dec. 18
12:05 p.m. — Jesse Sterba, 28, of Hobbs was arrested on a charge contained in a district court warrant in the 2500 block of Trinity Drive.
Dec. 19
5:39 a.m. — Peter Blossom, 37, of Los Alamos was arrested for aggravated assault in the 3700 block of Alabama Avenue.
8:24 a.m. — Michelle Pinkerton, 34, of Los Alamos was arrested for driving with a suspended or revoked license in the 2300 block of Diamond Drive.
1:07 p.m. — Police arrested a 13-year-old juvenile for bringing a folding razor knife to the Los Alamos Middle School. He was referred to juvenile authorities and released to his parents.
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The "Cobra Spotlight" is a weekly highlight of a student-athlete at Coker College. Each week we take a different athlete from a different sport and display some facets to get more familiar with them. This week we take a look at Adri Watford & Sarah Elliott, members of the women's tennis team.
Name: Adri Watford
Sport: Women's tennis
Hometown: Turbeville, S.C.
Year: Senior
Major: Physical education and sport studies with a concentration
Why did you choose Coker? I originally chose Coker because Hartsville wasn't too far from home and the school offered the prerequisites need for me to become a physical therapist. Also, I came to play volleyball; so who knew that I would be playing tennis now.
What is your best memory at Coker (athletic related)? My first tennis match is my best athletic memory. I was brand new and completely lost. My opponent had to keep score the entire match and tell me when to switch. She could've cheated for all I knew but I was having fun and that's all that matters, right?
What is your best memory at Coker (non-athletic related)? Best memory is the ski trip to Sugar Mountain Resort with Dr. Parker's outdoor education class. That day was awesome, but scary at the same time. It took me about two hours to get down the ski slope and I fell about 25 times, including almost falling off the side of Sugar Mountain.
Which athletic team would you play on at Coker other than your own? Softball, mainly because growing up softball was my main sport and where my heart was.
Favorite class: Outdoor education
Favorite professor: Dr. Parker
Plans after graduation: My plans after graduation are to go to PTA school, become personal training certified and obtain my massage therapy certification.
Favorite movie: Footloose
Favorite type of music: Country pop
Favorite food: Chicken alfredo
Favorite sports team: I like to watch football, no specific team though.
Favorite color: Purple
Favorite TV show: That 70's Show and Friends
Most prized possession: The ring my great-aunt
One word that describes you: Awesome
Name: Sarah Elliott
Sport: Women's tennis
Hometown: Pawleys Island, S.C.
Year: Freshman
Major: Business administration with a concentration in sport management
Why did you choose Coker? Coker gave me a chance to play my favorite sport and still be pretty close to home.
What is your best memory at Coker (athletic related)? Winning my first collegiate tennis match against Converse College.
What is your best memory at Coker (non-athletic related)? All of the snow days we've had this semester.
Which athletic team would you play on at Coker other than your own? Spirit Squad
Favorite class: Sport in society
Favorite professor: Professor Puffer
Plans after graduation: Attend graduate school.
Favorite movie: Pitch Perfect
Favorite type of music: Hip-hop/pop
Favorite food: Any type of pasta
Favorite sports team: University of Alabama. ROLL TIDE!
Favorite color: Pink
Favorite TV show: Friends
Most prized possession: My iPod
What is something people may not know about you? I was a competitive cheerleader for years before my mom made me quit after she saw someone shatter her elbow at a competition. I only picked tennis because of the cute outfits at first.
Do you have a nickname? If so, how did you get it? Sarah Beth, a few friends of mine on the softball team and a few of my relatives have started calling me that.
One word that describes you: Adventurous.


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But felt through this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
- Henry Vaughan
This is the eternal source of art: a man is faced by a
form which desires to be made through him into
a work. This form is no offspring of his soul, but is an
appearance which steps up to it and demands of it the
effective power. The man is concerned with an act of
his being. If he carries it through, if he speaks the
primary word out of his being to the form which
appears, then the effective power streams out, and the
work arises.
- Martin Buber
I've often wondered what a life-affirming reconstruction in the discipline of philosophy will entail. What could be the defining characteristics of such a task? Where to begin such a formidable task? As far as I can tell, these are timely questions, for while not yet exhausted, philosophy at the present moment, circa 2010, is certainly mortally wounded.
You will notice that my concern in this inquiry is not with the vocation for philosophical reflection, for that sincerely felt inquietude to understand has never been in question, dating to its earliest embodiment with Thales of Miletus. Philosophical vocation is not something that genuine practitioners will develop through contrived, and what are often artificial ways of 'doing philosophy,' as some academics refer to this process. The problem, as I see it, lies with a surrogate kind of philosophy that has essentially been turned into an academic cottage industry.
I suspect that any sincere quest to reconstruct philosophy, as this is practiced today in our academic institutions, will eventually be forced to revisit the illuminating thought of John Henry Newman. Newman's ideas concerning liberal education and the purpose of the university are some of the most constructive and endearing that man has ever conjured up. After much experimentation and many self-serving, destructive approaches to academic philosophy, it is perhaps time that we begin to respect this, the mother of all disciplines, with the same regard that she has rewarded sincere thinkers for over twenty-five hundred years.
In addition, any worthwhile reconstruction in philosophy will also be well advised to garner newly found respect for discussion of the great books. Just because time passes and books age does not mean that fruitful and time-proven ideas should be discarded. In fact, the opposite is worth considering in fresh terms, for the value of liberal education has to do with securing and transmitting our individual and collective history to future generations. This is actually a very practical idea. It is also indispensable in safeguarding learning and liberty in democracies.
In addition, we must not be coy to recognize that the experimental educational goals set up by radical ideologues, beginning over fifty years ago, have proven to be utterly disastrous to the psyche and spirit of western man, and to the health of our culture. Western man must face up to this fact in order to keep our institutions of higher learning from becoming glorified technical schools. Regrettably, the idea of liberal education has been turned on its head. Today, liberal education can no longer be considered enlightened education, but rather sterile, listless instruction, which, at least in the arts and sciences, never apologizes for being sectarian and virulently doctrinaire.
Hobbling about on the courageous, superhuman strength of some of her time-proven, conscientious practitioners, philosophy is today held in a stranglehold by the excesses and maniacal indiscretions of her current detractors and pretenders to the thrown of her former glory. Unfortunately, in many instances, these two are virtually indistinguishable.
In order to revive philosophy again to her once radiant glory, one must also be prepared to entertain the formidable task to rehabilitate words like intelligibility, intellectual honesty, as well as rational and moral integrity, and accountability. In addition, the practitioner of philosophy as a way of life, which incidentally consists of fidelity to truth, must also re-learn to cultivate respect for common sense. Let us not forget that the spirit of philosophy is such that reflection is practiced as an intrinsic end. Socrates and Boethius, for instance, allowed their vital vocation as philosophers to deliver them peacefully onto death and the afterlife.
Thought and thinking-proper are life-long endeavors that allow us to complement our moral/spiritual fulfillment. However, as important as the accumulation of facts and historical understanding are to preserving culture and civilization, these cannot survive if philosophical reflection does not know what to do with them. That is the unfortunate state in which we currently find ourselves as autonomous beings that are endowed with free will.
For instance, any diligent thinker and reader will readily encounter more profound and coherent philosophy in poets of a former age, than in academic 'philosophers' of today. Consider the scope and depth in the thought of metaphysical poets such as Vaughan, Donne and Herbert, and romantic writers like Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelly and Keats. These writers coupled imagination and rational reflection in ways that sought to comprehend transcendent truth, and which cultivated the possibility of an encounter with the sublime.
Other forms of exploitation that the discipline of philosophy is currently undergoing include the explosion of pretentious jargon, as well as an abysmal privation of imagination in our current disregard for truth. Both of these have done tremendous damage in keeping philosophy from being a meaningful discipline in the lives of intelligent and thoughtful people outside the academy. Lamentably, ours is a reason-starved, morally/spiritually bankrupted, as well as culturally insipid age. Ironically, this is the kind of historical epoch in which philosophy can play a productive and valuable role.
Our inability to practice moral/spiritual or aesthetic humility, this, coupled with our destructive, radical ideological arrogance, currently has philosophy in a death choke. Of course, not to be excluded from any well intentioned future revamping of philosophy, as a vocation and vital discipline, is the understanding that she can no longer survive as the handmaiden of radical ideology.
The sentient observer quickly discovers that there are several practical ways for one to assess the current state and health of philosophical reflection. It is not very difficult to realize the extent of our lamentable dearth of philosophical vocation today. One only needs to look at the dispirited disregard that most academics have for the spirit of philosophy, in their daily encounter with her, to realize that they are beating a dead horse. Philosophy is not only in disparate need of rehabilitation, but also of being revived and resurrected.
In many respects, it seems that the last place where one would go today to encounter philosophy head on is in the academy. This is a major criticism leveled against academics by intelligent, well-read people in other fields. With the exception of the usual stalwarts who spawn creativity out of coerced methods of discussion and teaching, philosophy in the academy, is the plaything of unimaginative scholastics and the graduate students who they entertain.
One interesting way to take the pulse of philosophy today - the foundation of all humanistic disciplines - is to converse with and listen closely to people outside the academy. It is not a coincidence that reflective, thoughtful people outside the academy continue to garner great respect for common sense. They depend on it for their well being, lively hood and survival. Outside the insular walls of the academy, even a minor lapse in common sense can cause a person dearly. Just think of pilot error or mistakes committed by machine operators, health care professionals or soldiers in the field. It is helpful to remind ourselves that a classic definition of insanity is to continue to break one's head against tried and tested failure and pretend that we will get new results.
However, the failure of academic philosophy ought to come as no surprise to those who serve inside the hallowed halls of academia. Part of the problem lies in that once we divorce philosophy from the vital aspects of human existence that she is best suited for, we then merely end up with a listless carapace, a grotesque residue of her former self. Of course, this carcass is easy to pick at by parasitic pretenders.
While the man in the street seeks illumination and insight for his own vital sake, elite academics merely offer him irrationality and fashionable barbarity. And, while most human beings seek certainty and understanding, these same scholastics can only muster radical, debilitating doubt, moral/spiritual disorientation and a devastating sense of social/political alienation.
Thus, it does not take long before these sincere seekers of understanding and truth become frustrated by the likes of those that they have come to view as multi-degreed charlatans. This is a lamentable travesty that casts much negative light on our institutions of higher learning. Whether reflective people everywhere may or may not be correct in their assessment, nonetheless, it is true that they remain profoundly disenchanted and alienated by 'professional' philosophers. It is very rare today that the timeless wisdom that people outside the academy have come to expect from philosophy, is supplied to them by our ultra-modern schoolmen and women, people who happen to possess expensive graduate degrees. People outside the academy are very perplexed and confused by the latter.
Another way to come to terms with the plight and lowly position that philosophy finds herself today is to talk to and listen carefully to small children. The naiveté of the child is a refreshing antidote to the often cynical and, what is today the institutionalized politicization of all aspects of human existence. The child, we are often surprised to witness, asks questions not out of rhetorical and pedantic needs, but rather because it actually seeks a coherent response. Children ask questions because they want to make sense of their experiences. The matter is as simple as that.
Luckily, given their moral/spiritual health, children possess no radicalized political baggage, thus their concerns are solely motivated by a vital search for understanding, and nothing more. This is the elenchus that Socrates promoted. This is the core of the spirit of philosophy. We find that under normal circumstances children possess untold awe and wonder, much like the vital words and living ideas that we first encounter in the heyday of ancient Greek philosophy. The interconnection of awe and wonder is highly suggestive of the healthy spirit of philosophy in its infancy. This is also indicative of the constructive future opportunities for philosophy to make sense once again.
The one profound and lasting lesson that we can take from a child's sense of wonder is that they do not proceed in their questioning from a preconceived idea of what it is that they seek. This is an essential characteristic of all genuine attempts at understanding. The search for truth is a vital response to the often overwhelming exigencies of human existence. Sure, we have scientific methods of research and methodological truth-seeking, etc., but none of these compare to the sincere and vital manner in which sages and children reflect.
Whether children refer to this activity as truth-seeking is hardly the point. A fine case in point is that of Gilgamesh's search for immortality. While he hears from the town elders that one does not question the order of things, the young man has no difficulty securing understanding for himself. The kind of knowledge that Gilgamesh seeks does not have a precedent. We can understand this to mean that human existence does not come with an existential manual, as it were. Yet philosophy has traditionally served as the foundation and guide to this particular form of reflection. However, this reflective activity cannot take place after the fact - that is - "there exists philosophy, thus we might as well question things." This self-conscious artificiality is precisely the modus operendi of hairsplitting, analytic and modish scholastic professors. It is undeniable that, even in the twenty-first century, man's most pressing concerns still remain that of an existential kind.
Hence, philosophy can become relevant once again. However, we must realize that when we refer to philosophy, we are really talking about two distinct things. One of these refers to the institutionalized brand of professional 'philosophizing' that has essentially exhausted itself, and as a result, has become a soulless activity. In that particular world, philosophy merely exists in the capacity of being a specialized activity. Undeniably, like any other activity, this kind of work requires coherence and competence, especially since professional philosophers are, first and foremost, teachers of the history of philosophy. This is a professional activity in that it requires its practitioners to know their craft like other professionals, say, a competent auto mechanic.
The teacher-scholastic profession, as it now stands, has made it its mission to evade vocation as the true purpose of philosophy. Most philosophical scholastics may have turned their back on vital, existential concerns, and may even revel in their own sense of importance, but they can do very little to curtail and stifle the spirit of genuine philosophical reflection.
The spirit of philosophy or what is to philosophize proper, not as a sport or because the profession requires it, but as an existentially pressing need, continues to be a timeless staple of human existence. What we encounter when we first discover the use of our hands as infants in a crib, is already a sign of the profound possibilities that we will encounter as discerning adults. We are born and eventually die, but in between these two poles, we can come to fashion a manner of autonomous existence that is heretofore unprecedented in the cosmos by any other sentient beings – as far as we know.
Man cannot live without certainty. When we look around the logical and even meaningful affairs of our daily world, we do not encounter irregularity, but rather the opposite. What we do find plenty of is resistance to all our whims and passions. As a result of this, we are summoned by reason to make sense of our experiences. We have no other vital choice. This, in turn, requires much care and concern in building the edifice of purpose and meaning that enable us to cultivate the totality of our being.
In return, what we uncover allows us to touch the mystery of being as this is manifested in our own lives, and our need to seek the ultimate cause of our existence. Human existence, then, cannot flourish without regard to our primal need to be moved by the laws of the sublime. All our waking hours, our culture and civilization, and our possibility to become enlightened and contented spiritual beings are all framed by the latter.
Any philosophy that foregoes the possibility of embracing transcendence, and which fashions man as just one more 'natural' being among a field of other animals and material processes, does an incalculable disservice to man's capacity for self-knowledge.


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1. Bella called and called Jacob to try to find out what was wrong. Do you think it was the right thing for him to try to just ignore her and move on? Or do you think Jacob should have tried to get a message to her sooner?
I think jacob should have tried to get the message to her sooner, i mean that was kinda harsh, how much can one person take, first she goes catatonic, then when she's finally floating again you take way her floatie and she's trashing about again, not fair.
2. What was your first impression of the "new" Jacob with his short hair and larger frame? Did you think he was frightening? Di you think he really had Bella's best interest in mind?
He probably really tried, but he just couldn't tell her so yea.
3. Billy accuses Bella of leading Jacob on. Bella herself uses the term "breaking up" to refer to the end of her relationship with Jacob. Do you agree with Billy that Bella was playing Jacob, or do you think she was sincere in her feelings?
I don't think she was intentionally leading him on. I think she was at a stage in her life where she really needed some happiness in her life and grabbed it by the rails when it came by and she eventually fell in love with him and as intense as edward but regardless she falls in love with him.
4. What did you think the sound was tapping at Bella's window at the end of the chapter. Did you think it was Jacob... or Edward... or Victoria... or someone else all together?
I hoped it was edward, empty dreams, empty dreams.


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Related Links
Strome, 19, led the Niagara IceDogs in scoring with 94 points (34 goals, 60 assists) in 53 games this season, marking the sixth-highest point total in the Ontario Hockey League. He added three points (two goals, one assist) in five OHL Playoff games, as Niagara fell to the Oshawa Generals in the opening round. The Mississauga, ON native concluded his OHL career with 295 points (105 goals, 190 assists) in 225 regular-season games and 41 points (15 goals, 26 assists) in 44 OHL Playoff games.
The Islanders' first-round (fifth overall) selection in the 2011 National Hockey League Draft, Strome represented Canada at his second-career World Junior Championship this season, earning his second consecutive bronze medal and finishing second on the team in scoring with nine points (three goals, six assists).
A 6'0, 179-pound forward, Strome scored a career-high 106 points (33 goals, 73 assists) in 2010-11, finishing third in Ontario Hockey League scoring and first on Niagara. He led the IceDogs to a franchise-best 45 wins and 96 points and was voted Most Improved Player and Best Playmaker in the OHL Eastern Conference Coaches Poll. His 1.63 points-per-game ranked first among OHL forwards and he was named to the OHL Second All-Star Team.
Strome scored 68 points (30 goals, 38 assists) in 2011-12 with Niagara, finishing third on the team in goals despite playing in just 46 of the team's 68 games. After signing an Entry-Level Contract with the Islanders on Oct. 4, 2011, Strome missed OHL games due to NHL training camp, the World Junior Championships and a facial injury suffered Jan. 14; he posted the highest points-per-game on the IceDogs (1.48) and added 23 points (7g/16a) in 20 postseason games, leading the team to the 2012 OHL finals.
The Sound Tigers return to action tomorrow night at the DCU Center against the Worcester Sharks before opening a four-game homestand on Thursday morning against the Sharks. For ticket information, call the Sound Tigers at (203) 334-GOAL or visit soundtigers.com.


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Omb***** Gud**** first visit photos
Sometimes when you turn back and see after you have trekked for long this is wat you get to see--The jungle you crossed..
We camped here on the first day.
Golden showers.
Spot us trekkies if you can..(you can see only in the full size)
View from the peak
The killer views which makes the struggles and hardships of a trek worth it.
The post below is about this trek..


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Saucy sausage pasta
Nutrition and extra info
- kcal645
- fat30g
- saturates10g
- carbs74g
- sugars0g
- fibre5g
- protein24g
- salt2.77g
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Olive oilol-iv oyl
Probably the most widely-used oil in cooking, olive oil is pressed from fresh olives. It's…
- packet of 8 pork sausages (the best your budget will allow) cut into chunky pieces
- 1 large onion, chopped
Onions are endlessly versatile and an essential ingredient in countless recipes. Native to Asia…
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 400g can chopped tomatoes
- 300g short pasta such as fusilli or farfalle (just over half a 500g bag)
Pasta is the Italian name for Italy's version of a basic foodstuff which is made in many…
Put a large pan of water on to boil. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the sausage chunks on a fairly high heat until they are golden brown all over. Now turn the heat down and add the onion and garlic, cooking them until they have softened.
Stir in the chilli powder and tomatoes with the sausages, bring the sauce to the boil then turn the heat down and let it bubble for about 10 minutes while you cook the pasta.
Drop the pasta into the pan of boiling water and cook according to the pack instructions. Drain the pasta, then tip it into the frying pan with the sausage sauce, mixing well to coat. Dish up immediately with crusty bread.


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Roberto Rivera y Carlo writes from his home in Alexandria, Va.
The story of civilization is the story of how men's hearts were turned toward home.
A lifetime in my skin has taught me about the intersection of beliefs, moods, and personal circumstances in my own life ... and how I am prone to the sin of despair.
It's about more than just a day; it's about a season.
Would you rather be "happy" or "blessed"?
Faith is a way of knowing, not a warm fuzzy.
Evangelical singles are in fact more likely to engage in sexual relationships than non-evangelicals, and at an earlier age. So what?
Though not obvious, there's a meaningful link between the increase in childless couples and the weakening of marriage among the non-college educated.
Most well-educated women have chosen to stay at home with their babies rather than work in the market economy. Now why would some people find that shameful?
Our marriages are more than simply an expression of mutual affection. They affect the people around us, and are in turn affected by those around us.
The myth of "balance" is one of our culture's most pervasive and destructive myths. And Perpetua did not fall for it.
Our moods, and the biology behind them, don't have to have the final word.
Judith Warner's book, "Perfect Madness" is getting a lot of press, as is the broader topic of mommy anxiety. It's high time to expose Warner's whining.
Becoming a dad is relatively easy, biologically speaking. Becoming a good dad, now that's a whole different story.
What we believe about marriage between a man and a woman has a lot to do with why so many people don't think it's a big deal to redefine it.
For a generation of singles, living life to the fullest could spell the end of life.
Pop culture's ideas about relationships are hard to escape, and counter to the very thing we so hope to find.
Paganism's not just on Buffy and Charmed; it's spreading on campus. Understanding its appeal is the key to confronting it.
The movie got rave reviews. But the best experience, says this reviewer, is reserved for those who have read the book.
You have to wonder about a worldview that justifies violence against women.
When you think of gambling, what comes to mind? Tawdry showgirls and Vegas "adventures," or your roommate's computer and Saturday's home football game? It may be time to rethink.
Helping young adults mature in Christ and prepare for marriage and family. Learn more
© Focus on the Family 1998-2018


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That said, this is total bullshit. The day somebody wants to put a tracking device in my car is the day I buy a pistol.
Buy a rifle or shotgun instead. More useful, less hassle, and generally less expensive.The day somebody wants to put a tracking device in my car is the day I buy a pistol.
It is actually the USA PATRIOT Act, which is an acronym for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism".
What they are wanting is to increase revenue ostensibly for the purpose of road maintenance. The appropriate place to do this is vehicle registrations: road wear and tear is a function of vehicle weight generally, not how many miles you travel. My vehicle grosses about 2800lbs when I'm sitting in it; that's going to do orders of magnitude less damage to the roads tha
On a side note, even in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, they have for years had a camera under a bypass mailing people a picture of their car while speeding, and the ticket for speeding.
Not as Orwellian as being id'd by Fastlane detection, but similar. So I don't see why one would scare people more than the other.
Theoretically you could design the system so that it can't be abused (by the state), but you'd end up having to make it completely abusive in order to prevent loopholes. What if your black box happens to get reset on accident (regularly)? If it's checked at the gas station, what
I'm confused as to how you track people with a GPS device. GPS is _passive_. All GPS satellites do is emit a signal. They can't track anyone - the Pentagon has zero idea of how many people are using GPS at any particular time, let alone who they are.
Simple. The GPS receiver can also be programmed with the coordinates of the state borders. As you drive, increase the milage count as long as you are within the state. The processor which does the counting would also have some sort of radio transmitter/rec
NPR [npr.org] had a story about this [npr.org] last month. First off, it's Oregon that's driving this project, not California, although California's interested in Oregon's results. Second, Oregon is currently testing a system that will work much like Mobil's SpeedPass system. Essentially, you'll have a GPS device in your car that'll keep track of where you drive. It can log your miles into zones. When you buy gas, it uploads the mileage info to the pump which then automagically adds the appropriate tax to your gas purcha
By the way, rather than a GPS unit on every car, why not just institute a smart toll system instead? Wouldn't this be cheaper, not to mention not being quite as scary from a privacy standpoint?
And would you have to have such a system to be allowed to enter California via vehicle? Illinios and various other states at least just toll you at toll booths as you use the highways, regardless of where you're from or what equipment you have. It's annoying to have to stop every so many miles, but it works. It seems like California residents would get the shaft if out of staters were tearing up their roads
After decades of pushing for more fuel efficient cars, now they want to punish you for owning them.
And the next logical step will have to be requiring drivers to have them just to drive in from out of state.
Then the Federal government will have to standardize the units so that Oregon units cross-operate with California units.
Followed by insurance companies using them to determine not only how much you drive now (which is often done by the odometer), but do you drive in more dangerous areas, and hence should be charged more.
It will never end, except the the consumer will pay and pay and pay for something they never wanted in the first place!
Don't live in California.
This is going to do so much damage to costs in business (think of anything that delivers). Why would I want to start my business in Cali when I can be far more successful in other states? I personally won't support it.
It's also hypocritical. It punishes success.
Just fit one of these [edmo.com] above the antenna. You can fake any journey or lack thereof that you choose.
A much better way to handle this problem is to simply track the number of miles that each vehicle is driven, from the moment that the vehicle has Californian license plates. California already has a system for mandatory smog checks. The technicians at the smog station transmit the results of the smog checks directly to the state computer system.
The technicians could also tranmit the odometer reading as well. Then, the state government could simply determine the number of miles that you have driven the car since the last smog check and could then send you a bill for the use of Californian roads.
I would be in favor of jacking up the gasoline tax instead. This would put more pressure on the enviromental offenders that drive SUV's and other inefficient vehicles. Afraid that this will punish businesses? Give them a tax credit or tax rebate for business vehicles that are legitimately needed for the business.
The article poster shrieked that taxing people by the mile is "punish[ing] people who aren't using enough gasoline"? Nonsense. It's switching from a gas-use tax to a road-use tax. Those of us who save gasoline the old-fashioned way (by not driving our cars hither and yon) wouldn't be punished by it at all. And since gas taxes have traditionally been justified as being necessary for road construction/repairs, switching to a road-use tax m
That's just great. I think state senators need to have "REMEMBER THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES" tattooed onto their butts.
Like this. [state.or.us]
I've got a bad feeling about this.


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[G]iven all the hoopla over what's happened with MLB and TV, I will be running a contest starting on Monday, where Shonda and I will pick two people a day to receive the MLB.TV package, on us, for the 2007 season. Contest will run around 2 weeks or so. One entry per day, per family.Rules will be posted at 38pitches on Monday.
March 31, 2007
G38: A Good Deed
Schilling at SoSH:
by allan at 7:58 PM
4 comments:
- L-girl said...
Nice gesture.
Too bad the players and the union can't throw their weight into this one.
- March 31, 2007 at 9:59 PM
- 9casey said...
We heard alot about the the new pitching coach.........
Do you have anything on Magadan?
- March 31, 2007 at 10:42 PM
- redsock said...
I haven't seen much at all about Magadan this spring. I searched for his name at redsox.com and got next to nothing.
- March 31, 2007 at 10:51 PM
- Jere said...
Lou Piniella's his uncle, and I was under the impression that if I kept his '87 Topps Future Star card in mint condition, my children and my children's children would never have to work a day in their lives. What more do you need to know?:)
- April 1, 2007 at 1:42 AM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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By Jeff Fox
Opponents of a proposed sales tax for translational medical research came out sharply against the idea Tuesday night.
"This is venture capital for private hospitals, and it's your tax dollars," Dr. Brad Bradshaw of Citizens for Responsible Research said at a forum in Independence.
Jackson County voters will decide the issue on Nov. 5. It's a half-cent sales tax, for 20 years. It would raise about $40 million a year. The money would go chiefly to three organizations – Children's Mercy Hospital, St. Luke's Health System and the University of Missouri-Kansas City – to fund translational research, which is the link between basic research in the lab and an actual treatment.
Proponents have said the funding would transform the metro area, attracting top medical researchers and spinning off new companies and high-paying jobs, not to mention improvements in care for everything from diabetes to pediatrics.
But opponents of the ballot proposal tore into those claims Tuesday night, applifying the arguments they are making with billboards popping up around the county. They argued:
• The amount raised – $800 million over 20 years – won't be enough to do much good. Opponents pointed to a National Institutes of Health finding that the average medical cure costs $2 billion to develop and that such research has a 90 percent failure rate.
Those proposing the tax have said the money would be spread across several research projects over the years and that the money would attract other tens of millions of dollars from sources such as the NIH.
• The ballot language is too vague. An agreement among the participants – the county, the two hospitals and UMKC, the Kansas City Life Sciences Institute – Jackson County would get 20 percent of the profits from any drug, device or therapy developed, and that money would go for local health needs, among other things.
But opponents say those numbers can be fudged too easily and keep the county from getting anything, and Bradshaw said the agreement putting that in place can easily be changed.
• Sales taxes are regressive and too high already, and this sales tax could crowd out others needed in the future to maintain basic services.
Linda Vogel Smith of the League of Women Voters of Kansas City/Jackson, Clay and Platte counties, which has come out against the proposal, used this example. She got a light breakfast the other day and looked at the receipt – 23 cents in taxes on a $2 meal.
"That's 11-plus percent on my cup of coffee and my bacon biscuit," she said. Those taxes add up, and she dismissed proponents' claims that the average resident would pay about $3 a month. She put it closer to $7 or $8, potentially $96 a year.
"Now, you know, it adds up," she said.
• Jackson County shouldn't go alone on this for something that would benefit the entire metro area – 500 jobs in Jackson County and 500 homes in Johnson County is how Bradshaw put it, borrowing the phrasing of another opponent.
"It just doesn't make sense to hit one county," said Jim Fitzpatrick, treasurer of Citizens to Stop a Bad Cure.
Bradshaw favors a statewide approach and might try to get a quarter-cent or half-cent tax on the ballot in the future, raising far more money.
"That is something that will actually find cures," he said.
• Vogel Smith pointed to a five-year, $19.7 million translational research grant from the NIH that the University of Kansas Medical Center got in 2011.
"So believe it or not, one (research facility) is existing already," she said. "Problem is, it's on the other side of the state line."
• Fitzpatrick also criticized the political process that got this issue on the ballot. Proponents unveiled their plans in early August and acknowledged at the time they had much work to do to explain what translational medicine is and what their initiative could mean for the area. That gave Jackson County legislators about three weeks of public consideration before the deadline to get on the Nov. 5 ballot.
"So it landed like a meteor, hissing and smoking, on the steps of the county courthouse," Fitzpatrick said.
He said the County Legislature – a group he called "cowardly" twice – didn't give the issue the time and deliberation needed.
"They were just arm-twisted by the Civic Council ... of KC," he said, referring to one of the main backers of the proposal. Of the Civic Council, he added, "This is something they want, and they want to impose their will on us."
Backers hoped for a below-the-radar campaign, he contended, but pointed to several groups that have in recent weeks come out against it. In addition to those represented at Tuesday's meeting, those groups include Freedom Inc., a powerful Kansas City political club, as well as the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Several groups have endorsed it, including the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.
"All of a sudden there's a big wall here. ... I think we will prevail on Nov. 5," Fitzpatrick said.


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Posted 5 years ago
(136 items)
This is a tremendously classy hat. Simple and classic. It has a union label inside that indicates it is from the 1950s - but it is as stylish today as it was then. In beautiful silver mink. The pelts have been put together very cleverly to form a classic turban. This is a wonderfully warm hat too - and just the thing for the -35C temperatures we have been having for the last week. Classic on its own, I sometimes wear it with this lovely pink Juliana pin (also from the 1950s) when I want to dress it up, along with a pink silk scarf under my black coat. Size 22 1/2, fully lined, very well made, and in excellent vintage condition.


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Armed man leaps counter to rob gas station in NW Harris County
Updated 9:53 am, Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Authorities have released a surveillance video of three men robbing a gas station at gunpoint late last year in northwest Harris County.
The robbery occurred about 8:50 p.m. Dec. 15 in the 9400 block of West FM 1960, officials said.
Officials said one of the men carried a handgun. While one of the robbers stood guard at the door, the other two approached the clerk and ordered him to open the cash register. The gun-toting suspect leaped over the counter and the other walked up to the victim from behind.
When the victim complied with the suspects' demands, the men grabbed the money and left.
No injuries were reported.
The surveillance video of the heist can be seen on the Crime Stoppers YouTube channel.
The robbers all wore bandanas to cover their faces. One of them wore a black hoodie, black gloves and camouflage pants. Another of the men wore a black and red jacket, a ski cap and black pants. The third man wore a gray hoodie, red gloves and black pants.
Anyone with information about the case or the suspects' identities is urged to contact Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-TIPS. All tipsters remain anonymous.


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Of the four shutouts through the first eight opening games of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs, Buffalo's Ryan Miller had to work the hardest in terms of volume of shots.
For stopping all 35 offerings Philadelphia sent his way last night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with the Sabres, Miller is TheBruinsBlog.net's Star of the Night.
Columnist Bucky Gleason of the Buffalo News appreciated Miller's efforts. After the 1-0 Sabres win he wrote:
He had talked about wrapping himself in his own little world without any distractions that come with the playoffs, and he certainly looked like he was in a comfy cocoon Thursday against the Flyers. He was calm. He was confident. He was Miller at his best from beginning to end.
The only edge the Sabres probably have in this series is in the goal. If Miller continues with his super-human play, Buffalo might make short work of the Flyers.
Honorable mention: Brian Gionta (two goals) and Scott Gomez (two assists) of Montreal; Ryan Clowe (three assists) and Joe Pavelski (game-winning overtime goal) of San Jose.
Last night's scores
Montreal 2, Boston 0
Buffalo 1, Philadelphia 0
San Jose 3, Los Angeles 2 (OT)
Tonight's games
Tampa Bay at Pittsburgh, 7
NY Rangers at Washington, 7:30
Chicago at Vancouver, 10
Nashville at Anaheim, 10:30


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Journal stratjakt's Journal: Ok, I get the game 1
So, you upmod me with one of the non-karma affecting mods, then downmod me with a troll or whatever, rinse and repeat, and that's how you take away all the karma without actually changing the numbers.
Yet, one can troll anonymously all day.
Lame. No wonder the site just steadily declines in quality.