text:
WASHINGTON -- Soldiers are enlisting the sun's power in Afghanistan.
Ten solar generators are now providing Special Forces Soldiers in distant outposts the energy they need to accomplish their mission. And, these generators are allowing them precious more time to train Afghan forces and win the friendship of local Afghans.
The key benefit of solar is savings in fuel. Fuel makes up a significant portion of weight and volume that has to be transported great distances to remote locations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
"During World War II, we used (an average of) one gallon of fuel per day, per Soldier," said Richard G. Kidd IV, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Energy & Sustainability, with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy & Environment. "We now use (an average of) 20 gallons per day, per Soldier, and in Afghanistan, over 40 percent of that fuel is used to produce electricity.
"With solar power, we are cutting the supply of fuel needed in half, from 40 to 20 percent," he added. That is the first of at least five benefits, he said.
Because the solar generators, which are hybrid -- solar/diesel -- don't need as much fuel as traditional diesel generators, Soldiers are spending less time moving to drop zones, securing those areas so aircraft can land or airdrop and collecting and transporting the fuel back to the outpost, according to Kidd, who has been working with others in the Army's Installations, Energy & Environment Department, G3/4 and contract personnel, to field these devices.
And secondly, those air assets that would have been used to transport fuel are now available for other important missions, he added.
Each 28-kilowatt mobile solar generator system can provide power for about 30 Soldiers, according to Dennis Bohannon, a spokesman for the Army's Installations, Energy & Environment Department.
"The 10 systems now in Afghanistan can provide about 700 megawatt hours per year, saving approximately 460,000 gallons of fuel," he said. "That is equal to pulling 185 M978 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical fuel trucks out of our convoys per year. In terms of cost these systems pay for themselves in fuel savings in about two-and-a-half months."
Each solar system is completely contained in a 20-foot container -- solar panels, batteries, communications gear and generator, according to Dan Rice, president, SunDial Capital Partners, the company that makes the patented technology.
The SunDial systems proved themselves after a very successful two year Special Operations Forces-run program in Afghanistan. They were shown to reduce fuel significantly, save taxpayer dollars and increase combat capability, according an April 2012 U.S. Special Operations Command report "Mobile Smart Power Initiative," initiated by now-retired Adm. Eric T. Olson, USSOCOM commander.
A third savings, Kidd said, is in repair costs and down-time.
"The majority of our (traditional diesel) generators are 'wet stack,'" he said, "meaning they are (prone) to breaking down sooner. We're also overtaxing our generator mechanics, who are having a difficult time repairing them all."
Wet stacking is a condition where unburned fuel is discharged through the exhaust system, which happens when the engine is running at the low-end capacity of its maximum output, he explained. "Generators like to operate at 75 to 80 percent (capacity), not the 20 to 30 percent they often run at."
The new solar generators are "networked together in an intelligent manner so that one generator will service the whole load all the time," thereby utilizing greater capacity, he said.
"If more power is needed, they come on-line in a staggered manner" so each is operating at the ideal capacity that will extend the life of the generator, as well as save some of the fuel which would otherwise be discharged through the exhaust, he said.
Of course when the sun is shining, the batteries are being charged so no fuel is needed and when the sun is not shining, the batteries will continue to provide stored power until it is expended.
A fourth benefit, Kidd said, was "unintended" but, nonetheless, welcome.
Soldiers in Afghanistan are using some "sophisticated" electronic equipment such as sensors and cameras "requiring high-quality power to maintain consistency in hertz and frequency," he said.
"You don't get that (quality) when you're connected to (diesel) generators, but you do when you're connected to batteries. So, operational readiness rates of sensors and communications equipment have gone up dramatically wherever solar has been deployed."
A fifth benefit is that Soldiers who have solar generators now have not only enough power for themselves, but enough to supply local Afghan villages, he said, and "this will help Special Forces' public engagement and village stability missions."
Kidd said the Army intends to make this technology more widely available, not only to the operating forces, but eventually to the installations. These and other renewable energy sources systems are being tested and the Army's Rapid Equipping Force is working to deliver these as soon as possible, he said.
"We're on the cusp of making intelligent, informed, power management a feature on the battlefield," Kidd concluded.


text:
The Company
Residential Warranty Services ("RWS") has been a part of the real estate community since 1988. There are two divisions of Residential Warranty Services- the first division is RWS Warranty, which offers home warranties nationwide, supplying a service plan that is advantageous to both buyers and sellers, while keeping policies simple and straight forward. The second division is Inspector Services Group ("ISG"), which offers services to Home Inspectors nationwide and in Canada, helping Home Inspectors to provide a better home inspection, decrease liabilities, and increase home inspection values with a menu of optional add-on services.
Our Mission:
We make the buying and selling of Real Estate easier, more efficient and, within the transaction, we reduce or limit the liability for any and all parties.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Printer Concepts is a leader in the Laser Printer, Copier and Fax Machine repair industry. With our innovative concepts and cutting edge knowledge in technology, we service the entire San Francisco East and North bay. Specializing in providing excellent business solutions for our customers' document handling. We support businesses from individual home offices to organizations both large and small. Our clients include Federal and Local Government Agencies, Local Unions, Waste Management, Title Companies, Law Firms, Court Reporters Medical Facilities and many more. See our testimonials from some of our happy customers. Also check out our "YELP" reviews at yelp.com. If you are not familiar with our company and this is your first contact with us online, we would be pleased to hear from you! Please let us know what your needs and questions are, we will be more than happy to help. |


text:
FOSSASIA 2010 took place at the Raffles College campus in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam from November 12th to 14th. This inaugural event brought together over 350 international and local developers and users in 62 presentations and panels. An amazing crowd of 90 enthusiastic volunteers supported participants. FOSSASIA attendees came from 30 countries including Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Germany, France, England, Australia, and the US.The goal of FOSSASIA is to provide knowledge of free and open source software and to offer the community a place to meet and share ideas. The annual conference brings together members of the Asian FOSS community along with the international community, thus fostering cooperation across projects and across borders.
Special Tracks: Women in IT and Lightweight Computing
The 2010 event offered 5 tracks including the two special theme tracks "Women in IT" and "Lightweight Computing". Hong Phuc Dang from MBM Vietnam said of the Women in IT panel:
"It is fascinating to see so many girls participating. I am very happy that we have chosen 'Women in IT' as a theme as it attracted many students to join us."
Other participants of the women panel were Lilly Nguyen (UCLA, US), Van Thi Bich Ty (PCWorld, Vietnam), Mary Agnes James (Seacem), Lita Cheng (Community Cambodia) and Kounila Keo (ICT4D Cambodia).
The heated debate during the panel definitely portrayed some of the issues and challenges young female developers face. I hope that it made many of the younger women more interested in participating in the community. I am excited to see more involvement of women in IT in Asia in the near future" said Lilly Nguyen from the US.
The "Lightweight Computing" track also generated a lot of interest. Lubuntu, the lightweight version of Ubuntu, attracted the attention of local developers. Additionally, mobile solutions such as Android and Xpad/Xpud were covered in several presentations by Ping-Hsun Chen (Taiwan), Pham Huu Ngon (Vietnam) and Tan Quang Sang (Vietnam).
OpenOffice.org Asia Meet Up
FOSSASIA was particularly happy to welcome the OpenOffice.org community who sponsored the event. As head of the Vietnamese OOo localization team, Vu Do Quynh from Hanoilug presented on the various ways that people could contribute to the OOo community while Yutaka Niibe and Yukiharu Yabuki presented on OOo's use by the Japenese government in the Osaka Prefecture.
Mini-Debconf, Fedora Release Party and Mozilla
FOSSASIA 2010 was also an opportunity for the Debian community to organize a Mini-Debconf. Debian developers present included among others Jonas Smedegaard (Denmark), Paul Wise (Australia) and Thomas Goirand (France/China).
To celebrate the release of Fedora 14, Ambassador Anh Tuan Truong (Vietnam) and Pierros Papadeas (Greece) hosted the world's largest release party. The even took place at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy. Pierros--an active Mozilla contributor---had this to say about the release event:
"It was AWESOME. At first I thought most of them were there due to their teachers, but when we started a Q&A session I realized I was so wrong… they were asking about PAE kernels, broadcom drivers, dual boot and LVM etc! By the end of the party we gave out T-shirts, LiveCDs and stickers to everyone, all 134 people where there! I believe that sets a new fedora record! The local Vietnamese community was introduced and many people are already starting to send emails wanting to start translating."
The FOSS Bridge to Asia
Projects also used the event as an opportunity to showcase new tools and devices like the Freedombox project of the Freifunk community and the latest version of the Crypto-Stick. Jan Suhr (Germany/Singapore) showed the device as a combination of both open hardware and open software.
In the web track, Colin Charles (Malaysia) presented the newest improvements of MariaDB. In addition, Michael Howden (New Zealand) conducted a workshop for Sahane Eden, a platform to provide support in the case of disasters. The workshop gave students a chance understand the information needs of disaster scenarios and they were able to contribute to the localization of the software.
Several web content management systems set-up information booths at the event. These included: TYPO3 with a booth organized by Dominik Stankowski from Web Essentials Cambodia and Drupal (Virak Hor, Cambodia and Quang Thong Tran, Vietnam). The event also introduced other tools such as Zabbix, a monitoring software (Walter Heck, Netherlands). One more hot topic was the enterprise p2p search engine YaCy.net of Michael Christen (Germany). A number of more established projects had the opportunity to share their news at the event including the desktop environments KDE with a presentation about Qt (Gregory Schlomoff, France), GNOME (Kien Truc Le, Vietnam), and LXDE (Duy Hung Tran, Vietnam).
Taking a cue from previous barcamps and 'unconferences,' many attendees presented lightning talks. Preetam Rai, an Android App inventor, shared photos and tales about other barcamps throughout Southeast Asia. Mary Agnes James from Seacem spoke about todays chances to connect and share with e-media and social networks. Seacem also graciously sponsored this event.
Libre Graphics and Open Design
During the final day of the event, FOSSASIA held it's first Libre Graphics Day. Arne Goetje (Germany/Taiwan) introduced his new approach for a pan-Asian fonts library. Jon Philips (US) from Status.net and Dave Crossland (UK) from the Google Fonts project conducted an Open Design Workshop. The workshops brought curious crowds and has ultimately seeded plans for the Open Design Weeks.
See you in Vietnam
Thanks again to the amazing crowd at FOSSASIA - developers, translators, event organizers, bloggers, teachers, students, designers and lost but not least our enthusiastic volunteers! See you all in 2011!* FOSSASIA 2011 will take place in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) on November 11-12* The Open Design Weeks will be celebrated from in Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho in the Mekong Delta.
* FOSSASIA http://fossasia.org* Open Design Weeks Asia, http://opendesign.asia
The main topics of FOSSASIA 2010 are Lightweight Computing and Women in IT. We also have sessions dedicated to OpenOffice.org and will host a Debian Mini-Debconf.
The Spotted Cow Bar111 Bui Vien, dist 1. HCMC(opposite to Happy Inn, closed to Pham Ngu Lao & De Tham) Google Maps
Site under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike » Substance: Drupal


text:
Friday, August 09, 2013
Speed Blogging August 9, 2013. On Acid Attacks, Climate Change, US Politics and the Financial Markets. Sorta.
Acid attacks tend to have female victims. The numbers quoted in this article suggest that 75-80% of the victims are female.
Why that is the case might be worth thinking about. I'm not convinced with the argument made by a surgeon in the article that the aim is to destroy someone's identity alone, because then it would have larger numbers of male victims. My guess is that the aim is to destroy the public existence of the person or to destroy what the attacker feels is most important in women: their looks.
Crooks and Liars writes about the seniors leaving the Republican Party. Seems fascinating, though I have not looked into the data at all. Also on their site, a story about the starved polar bear, perhaps as a cause of global climate change. Warning: the link leads to a picture.
This is a weird story about a Russian man writing in his own amendments to a credit card agreement. It's kinda funny, except that you can guess who will ultimately pay the costs of it. Or would pay the costs in the US. I don't know if Russia is different, but the more we have rich oligarchies ruling the world the less likely it is that the members of those same oligarchies will bear the costs of much anything. Says she, bitterly.
Thursday, August 08, 2013
Fox and Friends on Feminism As Unnecessary
In case you like a bitter laugh to complete your day:
In that video Stossel tells us that there is nothing that remains undone for feminism. Indeed, the clip begins by showing girls playing princess, in a caring way, and boys turning triangles into guns to play war.
Now that we have shown clearly and decisively that the sexes ARE different, the rest of the piece argues why equality already exists. And that we shouldn't try for it because the sexes ARE different.
We are fed a list of myths, some of which Stossel convincingly proves false by not having any economics training or any understanding about how labor markets work, some of which he proves false by determining that they are false based on the outcomes. For an example of the latter, public schools discriminate against boys because fewer boys than girls go to college. Yet a similar difference, women earning less, on average, is interpreted as not discriminatory at all.
In other words, different outcomes are sometimes quite fear and natural (women earning less) and sometimes discriminatory (boys not going to college as often).
Then there's the myth about Title IX. Stossel argues that boys are keener to do college sports than girls and that this means we should abolish Title IX (which, by the way, bans sex discrimination in higher education in academics as well) but continue funding an activity which is not part of academics and only really liked by one gender.
As a conclusion, then, difference are natural when they seem to benefit men, unnatural when they seem to benefit women. Got it?
I have written on much of Stossel's supposed myths list many times, on much higher level of analysis, so I won't repeat myself here. But I'd like to pick just one of his comments for closer scrutiny:
Doocy and Stossel first attempted to tackle the gender pay gap. While admitting that it is true women are paid 77 cents for each dollar men make, Stossel claimed the discrepancy is because, "we don't work the same jobs." The reason, according to him, is that "women have their priorities in order. They often choose jobs that are less time-consuming, not so far away, and not as dangerous." He concluded that if a true pay gap existed, the market would have sorted it out.
On the market sorting the gap out: He refers to one very simplistic economic theory there, and more realistic theories (which add uncertainty, lack of information, asymmetric information and possible co-worker and customer biases into the model as well as imperfect market conditions) do not prove that the market would have "sorted it out." Note, also, that if markets sort stuff out so efficiently the collapse of the housing and financial markets should make Mr. Stossel eat his tie.
On women "choosing" jobs which are less time-consuming, not so far away, and not as dangerous: First, this is not really "choice," in the sense of you choosing coffee and me choosing tea. If women are responsible for childcare, laundry, cleaning and grocery shopping at home they will find working longer hours harder than otherwise completely identical men do. Whether women tend to work closer to their homes is something I have never seen studied, but if that is the case the reason for it is also likely to be in the need to be able to pick up the kids from daycare and then get the food for the evening dinner and to pick up the dry-cleaning etc.
Also, the "choices" men and women make are not independent of each other. A full-time breadwinner helps a stay-at-home spouse to stay at home, the latter helps the former to focus on career. When both spouses work the division of household chores may not fall equally. One solution to the disagreements this might cause is for the lower-paid spouse to cut back on her or his hours.
Second, dangerous jobs are not common enough to explain average earnings differences between men and women, and most of the highest-paying male-dominated jobs are not dangerous. Some female-dominated jobs (prostitution) are very dangerous.
And how dangerous a job is often depends on one's gender. Consider driving a taxi in a large urban area. Women can do that job but are uncommon among taxi drivers. I believe that this is mostly because a woman driving a taxicab late at night faces higher risks than a man. Both can be robbed, mugged or killed but she can also be raped and abducted for that purpose, and she is much more likely to face sexual harassment from her customers. In short, we need to view the concept of "danger" without gender-blinders on.
Third, studies do NOT show that once we DECIDE the gender differences in earning are just by choice, all differences vanish in a mildly sour-smelling puff of bad air. The studies that come up with that conclusion do not control for all relevant variables, look at only some sub-groups, such as young adults and fail to deal with the problem that men and women being in different kinds of jobs, on average, does NOT PROVE that those different types of jobs were picked without any pressure or outside discrimination or the impact of traditional gender expectations and so on. Indeed, the easiest way to discriminate against some member of a defined group is to keep that person in a job which cannot be easily compared with the jobs people of other groups hold. For example, a bigot might not promote women or members of a minority etc, mostly because she or he truly believes that those workers are not as good or that they are more likely to quit or more likely to take time off.
It's much, much more complicated than Mr. Stossel wants us to believe.
It is still true that our job expectations are gendered. Jobs which are coded as suitable for women tend to be lower-paying and sometimes (but not always or even usually) offer greater flexibility for childcare duties.
There's a sense in which deciding on one's job on the basis of gendered expectations IS a choice. If a young man believes or anticipates that he is going to be responsible for supporting a family financially one day, he is less likely to choose education which doesn't lead to well-paid jobs. In reverse, if a young woman believes or anticipates that she is going to be responsible for all childcare one day, she might be less likely to choose education which leads to well-paying but rigidly defined and time-intensive jobs.* Once these early choices are made, they, in turn, will affect future choices.
I don't know. I get hot-and-bothered on people telling untruths or telling their own opinions as truths. Only us goddesses are allowed to do the latter and nobody is allowed to do the first.
*There are also obvious rewards for both of the traditional paths. Having a home-team to take care of everything else is great for an ambitious and career-directed person, having a full-time source of funding is great if it allows for a less hectic space, more time with one's children and perhaps even time for doing something one wants to do but can't get paid for. At the same time, the negative consequences of these choices are real and painful. My interest in this is ultimately linked to the question which roles have which societal consequences, how the society changes or adapts or does not, and what this all means in fields such as misogynistic views about women's abilities to lead, the dependence of women on possibly dysfunctional family setups and also what fathers lose when their traditional roles in the family are to be the wallet or the guy with the whip.
More Media Quicksand: The "Opt-Out Revolution" Cancelled?
This bit of quicksand has to do with my frustration with so much of the debate on various political issues including feminism. The more sand someone brings into the debate in that blue or pink plastic pail, the more we all sink.
The point is that the debates don't increase clarity after a point and if they continue long enough they increase confusion. That's partly because people make emotional arguments while insisting that they are not emotional arguments.
That needs clarifying (Echidne sitting on the beach shifting sand). I don't mean that emotional arguments don't have a place, that who-wins-and-who-loses isn't important. All those are crucial aspects of many debates. But the debates I follow are mostly tugs-of-war, not attempts to find out what happened and why, and often the fight is about whose emotions matter the most. Because that depends on the eye of the beholder the discussions get nowhere very fast. Or rather, people get angry.
OK. That was a bit quicksandish, too. My thinking on this isn't clear. I just noticed that I seemed more informed during my vacation than after I started following the Twitter and the blogs more intensely, and that's because of all the side roads the debates take and the way powerful personalities or strong guilt buttons etc. are employed in them.
The example I have for today isn't strictly on these topics but it shares some similarities. It's a New York Times article titled "The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In," by Judith Warner.
The article is interesting, discussing several individual cases of highly educated women who stayed at home with children during some periods of the last decade or so. Warner's points are nuanced, and she dexterously steps around the usual bad-mother/good-mother setup the media so loves. She also avoids the usual treatment of the husbands/fathers as the neutral bystanders in these types of stories and she also points out that the whole opt-out conversation was about pretty rich couples.
So I feel bad that reading the piece made me angry. Which it did, and the reasons are dry-and-boring and immensely important.
Here's a sample of those reasons:
First, nobody has really shown me the data which proved that there ever WAS such an opt-out revolution. Or rather, some women have always opted out. Did that number greatly increase during the era when the term "opt-out revolution" was coined?
This matters. False trend stories about women are the bread-and-butter of popular media, and this has been the case for decades. The most common zombie trends (probably dead ones but shuffling out of the graves at regular intervals, slobbering bodily fluids all over the magazine and newspaper pages) are to do with a) Women Returning Home After Realizing The Horrible Error Of Working For Money, b) Educated Women Not Being Able To Find Husbands and c) The Death of Feminism.
Even during my lifetime those three have cycled in pretty reliably. By the way, the reverse stories never seem to be in fashion. Thus, during the era when women's labor market participation rates dramatically increased the magazines and newspapers did not write about Women Leaving Home fires For Employment, After Realizing What An Error They Had Earlier Made. The stories may have asked who was minding those home fires, of course.
So the first reason for my anger is that the trend of women dropping out of labor force smells so very bad to me, without good evidence, that I look for the zombie parade.
Second, and related to the first point, discussing three or four individual cases does not make a trend. ANYTHING can be made to look like a trend if all we use is anecdotal evidence. I'm sure that I could find three women who prefer to wear their clothes inside-out, if I search hard enough. I could probably find some anecdotal evidence for any faux trend you can name.
Third, even this article fails to light the background of these highly educated couples and their "choices." It doesn't say much anything about the lack of paternal leave in the US, it's pretty silent about the idea that fathers could also stay at home if one parent is necessary and it stays mum about the general assumption that Women Are Responsible For Childcare.
That keeps the problem clearly and precisely in the women's camp. It's women who have to balance work and family, it's women who "choose" something, and so on. That the society chooses not to help at all is invisible.
Fourth, Warner notes that the discussion is always about high-flyers and often about educated white women in the US. That's an important criticism. But in a bizarre way I'm not sure if we want this discussion about all women. How are poor women going to defend themselves from the bad-mother accusations because they can't stay at home?
Or in other terms: This is a true problem but there are false solutions to fixing it. The solutions that would work are federally funded parental leave, subsidized daycare and more father involvement on all levels.
Fifth, and related to the fourth point, all the zombie trends are about women who are almost in a position to grab real power. That's why the trends are about educated women, about women who have well-paid husbands and so on. If those women can be controlled then controlling other women is much, much easier. It's women-and-power and who-minds-the-kids which are the real building blocks of the zombie stories, and the reason for the popularity of these stories is real anxiety about powerful women and about the power over fertility and the future generations.
I guess my anger has to do with a certain kind of belittling of these issues which the faux trend stories create. They also direct the conversation into those familiar mommy war channels: Am I a bad mother for "choosing" one thing over the other? Is my whole life wasted or wrong? And so on.
Then we get lots of anger and lots of defenses for one choice or the other, without any of the underlying problems changing. And lots of pieces about how all this is totally up to the individual woman. Which it is, of course, in one sense, if we stay within the frames of the picture. But if we step back and see the picture and its frames and then the wall it hangs on and then the room it's in, well, the crucial take-home messages change.
I want to stress that I don't think of Warner's article as part of the parade of zombies. She gets several important points, including the frustration of many of the men with the traditional gender division of labor. But I want to stretch everything much more.
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Today's Great Joke: People Are Taking Satoshi Kanazawa Seriously
(Contents include racism and sexism and weird pseudoscience)
That guy is like Teflon. Nothing seems to stick to him, sigh.
On the other hand, this is really funny:
Satoshi Kanazawa, the LSE psychologist behind the research, discussed the findings that maternal urges drop by 25% with every extra 15 IQ points in his book The Intelligence Paradox. In the opening paragraph of the chapter titled "Why intelligent people are the ultimate losers in life", he makes his feelings about voluntary childlessness very clear:What's funny about that? Kanazawa is not a psychologist at all but a sociologist who has decided to do Evolutionary Psychology of the type which asks why "all" men prefer blonde Barbie doll women (answer: evolution) and why black women, according to Kanazawa, are ugly (answer: presumed manliness of black women). He got a slap on the fingers a few years ago but is back telling us "the truth" about complicated issues which nobody can actually study.
If any value is deeply evolutionarily familiar, it is reproductive success. If any value is truly unnatural, if there is one thing that humans (and all other species in nature) are decisively not designed for, it is voluntary childlessness. All living organisms in nature, including humans, are evolutionarily designed to reproduce. Reproductive success is the ultimate end of all biological existence.
Sigh and sigh and sigh. For more on this guy, check out my series ( part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and an addendum) on this article.
And another series on Kanazawa: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 .
I'm not gonna write on his arguments because it is a waste of time. You know, such as IQ being the same as intelligence and all that other crap, not to mention having to wade through his methodology etc.
Added later: Oh my. Lots of people are quoting Kanazawa on this topic, including in the Washington Post. Though at least the author points out that Kanazawa's earlier research was a bit "controversial."
This is really worrying. If a guy can do his utmost to be outed as something not quite savory, he still gets coverage in all the cool places.
Media Quicksand. Fox News
I've been on the beach, building sand-mountains (breast or penis symbols, perhaps) and using my bare toes as sand-shifters. Such fun.
Then I return to my kinda-job as media watcher and I'm sinking in quicksand. Here's why. On Sunday I spent about three hours in a living-room with people chatting while the Fox News told everyone what the state of the world is.
And what a state! Did you know that nothing worth reporting happens in most countries of this world, in the class of international news? International news is only about Benghazi and about terror threats and how poorly Obama is managing terror.
US domestic news are about shark attacks and how those are becoming more common. The pictures repeated often show the maws of sharks coming out of water, trying to eat you up! The interviews (most of which I couldn't hear well, what with the chatter in the room) seemed to be about how much more common shark attacks are now.
So I tried to find data on shark attacks. This site suggests that 2013 attacks in the US have caused one death among humans. The world number of 2013 deaths is eleven.
It could be that the attacks are increasing. But sharks-as-killers we should worry about instead of the human killers of various types or environmental catastrophe?
The Fox News are very biased, of course, as are probably any news from political extremes. But I never realized that the bias is more on WHAT is covered both in what is omitted completely from the coverage (anything having to do with the woes of capitalism, say) and what rubbish is covered 24/7) than in the inserted bias of the contents of specific coverage.
Though the latter abounds, too.
So I sat there, getting more and more scared. Not about sharks but about the idea that many people have a completely different idea about world events and what matters, about this quicksand of discussion on Fox News.
Non-news coverage was even more biased, naturally. A program called The Five told me that criminals exist in direct proportion to broken homes. This was somehow an obvious thing to blurt out in the coverage of three teenage boys severely battering a fourth teenage boy in a school bus, and the ethical question whether the 64-year-old bus driver should have intervened.
Several of the Fox critters told that they would have stormed in to give the boys some real lessons and that the bus driver was a wuss for just calling the police and not physically intervening. Based on the video showing the boys' muscular condition and size, my prediction is that the bus driver would have been killed had he tried to physically intervene. But never mind. At least two of the five members of the show stated that they would have stormed in. That includes the female host of the show.
How cheap talk is. But the most fascinating blurt-out was that thing about broken homes by Greg Gutfeld, given that I doubt he did research on the family backgrounds of any of the teens.
This teens-story also ran yesterday in the same program. The final odd bias at Fox is the repetition of a few stories over and over again, as if nothing else happens in the world, as if those stories are the most important news items ever.
Scary stuff.
I don't intend my criticisms to be only about Fox News, by the way. It's always a good thing to follow several news organizations and at least one foreign source. Otherwise we end up slowly sinking in the quicksand we make our sand castles of. (Now that was a neat perfect-circle essay just slightly overdone!)
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
Katha Pollitt on Abortion in Europe
First read Katha Pollitt's discussion of the newest anti-choice idea: That making abortion illegal after twenty weeks is AOK because those European countries do it.
When you have recovered from your surprise that anything those surrender monkeys in Europe do is worth quoting approvingly by the American forced-birthers (such as Ross Douthat), you might want to consider the fact that abortion is not the kind of "culture war" issue* in Europe as it is here. As Katha writes:
And just because you've read this far: there are no screaming fanatics thrusting gory photos at you as you make your way to your abortion. No one takes down your license plate in the parking lot and calls you—or your parents—later with hateful messages. Doctors who perform abortions do not wear bulletproof vests, nor are they ostracized by their communities and shunned by other doctors. The whole climate of fear that makes many doctors reluctant to perform abortions and makes some women postpone going to the clinic does not exist.And as Katha also writes, it's not that abortion is completely unavailable later in pregnancy, as is the desire of American forced-birthers:
Moreover, unlike the time limits passed in Texas and some other states, or floating around in Congress, the European limits have exceptions, variously for physical or mental health, fetal anomaly or rape. Contrast that with what anti-choicers want for the United States, where Paul Ryan memorably described a health exception to a proposed late-term abortion ban as "a loophole wide enough to drive a Mack truck through it." If a French or German or Swedish 12-year-old, or a traumatized rape victim, or a woman carrying a fetus with Tay-Sachs disease shows up after the deadline, I bet a way can often be found to quietly take care of them. If not, Britain or the Netherlands, where second trimester abortion is legal, are possibilities. (In 2011, more than 4,000 Irish women traveled to Britain for abortions.)At the same time, Europe is not one homogeneous place. It's a conglomerate of countries with different histories, languages, cultures and even religions. Different European countries have different abortion policies and different abortion rates:
Abortion is complicated, like everything that has to do with sex. Germany's abortion rate is much lower than ours, but Sweden's is almost the same. The Netherlands is almost as low as Germany, despite permitting abortion much later. In much of Italy, it's hard to find an abortion because so many doctors refuse to perform them—and yet Italy, like Germany, has one of the world's lowest fertility rates. One thing seems pretty clear, though: all these countries have plenty of abortions. But in the Western European countries with time limits, there is less need for second trimester abortion because there is far better access to abortion earlier.While the 2008 abortion rate for Sweden was 21.3 (measured as the number of abortions per 1000 women between the ages of 15 and 44), the rates for Norway, Denmark and Finland in that same year were 14.5, 15.0 and 8.9, respectively. As both Norway and Denmark allow abortion on demand in the early weeks of the pregnancy (and the same is true in practice in Finland), the difference cannot be explained by more liberal Swedish laws. The Nordic countries are very similar in economic and demographic respects, so the higher Swedish rate cannot be attributed to economic or general cultural differences either. **
What's my point here? Perhaps to remind us that international comparisons are complicated, that sex is complicated, as Katha notes, and that taking something like abortion out to be studied in complete isolation has its problems.
*I hatehatehate the term "culture wars". It sounds like arguments about tea vs. coffee or flower arranging or poetry or musical taste, like something less important than economics, even though it is about the lives of people just as seriously as are economic wars.
**I haven't been able to figure out the reason for the relatively high Swedish rate. I read somewhere that the contraceptive pill has been less popular in Sweden. If that's true it could explain the higher abortion rate as a consequence of less reliable contraception. But I was unable to find statistics on this. Other explanations are possible, of course.
Monday, August 05, 2013
Fewer and Fewer Women Are Entering the Labor Force?
That's part of the title of a Slate post by Matthew Yglesias (he probably didn't choose the title). The rest of it is "America is Leaning Out."
It's fun to parse those kinds of titles. This one uses both a link to Sheryl Sandberg's Lean-In movement and a type of exaggeration: "fewer and fewer women are entering the labor force." The doubling of "fewer" implies continuous diminution. The Sheryl Sandberg linkage implies that the women "choose" not to be in the labor force, in a manner opposite to "choosing" to do well in one's career or job.
But the research the post discusses has nothing to do with either of these suggestions.
It has to do with the rates of labor market entry and exit after an earlier recession and after the most recent one, and tells us nothing about continuous diminution of women's labor market participation rates or the reasons for the figures the researchers found.
The authors of that study use two tables to argue that it's reduced labor market entry by women in the lowest age categories which is the major cause of the falling labor market participation rate in the US. I reproduce the second table here. It shows entry rates by age groups and separately for men and women:
The caption at the bottom of the table must be wrong. It applies to the first table in the research paper, about labor market exit. The proper caption should probably be "the percentage of people in labor force who were not in it four months earlier."
The crucial data, for the purposes of the post's title, has to do with what is going on in the younger age groups (up to age 54, even). Women's entry into labor force after the most recent recession is lower than after the 2002-2003 recession, while men's entry in the younger age categories is slightly higher or the same as in 2002-2003.
This is all the data tells us, by the way. It doesn't tell us what caused those differences. To discuss them is speculation, ranging from the possibility that women are more likely to choose education at younger ages than men (thus leaving the labor force temporarily or delaying their first entry) to the possibility that women are "choosing" to stay at home with their children while men are "choosing" to enter the labor force.
The comments to the Yglesias post have the usual MRAs telling us that women naturally prefer to stay at home and that at least this gives the poor unemployed men a better chance to fulfill their god-given male role and so on. But if the reason is that women choose more education, the MRAs could tell us that women are hogging all the good spots in colleges and so on. They are a gift that keeps on giving. And yes, I know I should not read comments.
It's worth pointing out that the study (which is not given in much detail in the pdf I linked to) is a comparison of the aftermath of two recessions. It's not about the general labor market participation rates of women and men in general. In that sense the information it conveys is much more limited and cannot be used for the kind of emotional arguments the title suggests.
Because the debate abstracts away from that contest it fails to ask what might be different between the 2002-2003 recession and the most recent one. For example, could it be the case that female dominated occupations are simply not hiring as much after the most recent one, compared to the earlier one? And if that is the case (say, because of the belt-tightening of health care and education industries), could it not be the case that women are more likely to find their job search fruitless and therefore more likely not to try entry or re-entry into the labor force?
I don't know the answer to that. But focusing only on the supply side of labor is probably insufficient. The demand side matters, too, and women and men are still largely working in different types of jobs and industries.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)


text:
I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays with their families and got lots of books as gifts! If you're interested in seeing which books we received this Christmas, check out my blog posts on books the kids got and books my husband and I got. Looks like 2011 will be another good reading year!
Of course, this past week was super-busy with holiday preparations, but we did read a few books, especially this weekend when things got quieter. Now we're preparing to visit my father-in-law in Oklahoma (as long as the airport reopens soon!) and getting books ready for that trip, too:
- I finished Crossing the Tracks, a new teen/YA novel by Barbara Stuber, and posted a review.
- I read Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman, a novel mostly set in Savannah, GA, that made a few "best of 2010" lists. I enjoyed it very much and posted a review at Book By Book.
- Last night, I started a middle-grade/teen novel I've been dying to read: Pendragon Book 10: the Soldiers of Halla by D.J. MacHale. The Pendragon series is one of my all-time favorites for kids and teens (and me!), and I'm both excited and sad to finally be reading the last book of the series. I thought it was a good one to take on our trip (long but lightweight paperback and very compelling!).
- My husband, Ken, finished Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (and loved it). I was hoping to post a review of Leviathan and its sequel, Behemoth, but I don't know if I'll have time to finish it before I go.
- Ken started Roastbeef's Promise by David Jerome, a hilarious road trip novel that I reviewed this past spring. He's been laughing out loud and reading passages aloud to me, so I think he's enjoying it!
- Jamie, 16, is still working on The Magician of Hoad by one of his favorite authors, Margaret Mahy (he loved her earlier novel, Madigan's Fantasia). He's been too busy playing on his new ping-pong table and in the rare snow we got yesterday to read much, but he just ran upstairs to pick out books for our trip. Jamie does not travel light when it comes to reading material! He will read through our entire 6-hour trip.
- Craig, 12, isn't currently reading anything, since school is out, but I hope to entice him with his new Christmas books.
I better get to my packing. Hope you have a wonderful and relaxing holiday week and a Happy New Year! Talk to you again in 2011!
(What are you reading Mondays is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey).


text:
Import/export of common bean germplasm
Contributors to this page: CIAT, Colombia (Maritza Cuervo, Cesar Medina, Jose Luis Ramirez, Socorro Balcazar, Josefina Martinez, Daniel Debouck).
CIAT has a plant quarantine agreement with ICA (Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario) establishing guidelines to facilitate germplasm exchange. The agreement permits the transit of seed through customs and quarantine stations, according to the level of potential risk of introducing pests and diseases not yet reported in Colombia. ICA has established quarantine procedures to regulate the introduction of plant germplasm and for issuing of Phytosanitary Certificates.
- No comments found


text:
Three people have died in B.C. so far this month likely because of the extreme cold and snow, the coroners service reports.
A 51-year-old woman living at a homeless camp near a Wal-Mart in Chilliwack died this week.
Glenda Herrling's tent collapsed because of the snow. Her sister was the one who found her.
Up in the Cariboo, a man in his 50s was found outside in the cold in Anahim Lake, about 130 kilometres east of Bella Coola.
The coroner's service is still investigating how he died. Possibilities include age, frailty, mobility or impairment.
Finally, a man in his 60s was discovered dead inside a home in a town outside Williams Lake.
"He had a lot of health problems, there was no question, but he was also in a house that was very cold at the time," said coroner Barb McLintock.
The coroner's service urges people living in more rural areas to check on elderly neighbours with a call or visit.
Environment Canada has issued arctic outflow warnings for Whistler, Howe Sound, the North Coast, and the Central Coast, with temperatures hovering around -25 and high winds, as well as extreme cold warnings for the Peace River region and Yoho and Kootenay national parks.


text:
All Products
(3 Total)
View by Size:
Synopsis: | The music of the Ramones highlights this non-stop high-energy cult classic about a high school out to thwart the principal at every turn. If it had been made in 1957, it would have been the ultimate rock 'n' roll teen movie. As it is, its 1970s' milieu works against it, but the performances are perfect for the material and the Ramones are great. Songs include "Teenage Lobotomy," "Blitzkrieg Bop," "I Wanna Be Sedated," and the title track, among others. Followed less successfully by "Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever." |
Directed by: | Allan Arkush |
Producer(s): | New World Pictures |
Cast: | P.J. Soles, Vincent Van Patten, Clint Howard, Dey Young, Mary Woronov, Alix Elias, Dick Miller, Paul Bartel, Don Steele, Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone, Marky Ramone |


text:
Vivacious Pink Lip Liner Pencil
Vivacious Pink Lip Liner Pencil
Tired of pencils that are too hard so they don't go on smoothly and it's hard to get colour? Tired of pencils that are too soft and smudge without trying? Girlee pencils are ultra smooth so they glide on evenly and are intensely pigmented for amazing colour, but, hard enough for precision application. Thanks to fabulous formulation and Made in USA quality, Girlee pencils can be used on eyes, brows, and lips.
A favourite with Australian Professionals for over 20 years, Girlee provides the finest professional quality at a realistic price. You are not paying for a fancy, environmentally unfriendly box or a huge advertising budget – just great products that work, at a great price.
Girlee has supplied Australian Beauty Professionals for more than 20 years with the biggest and most versatile range of Made in USA makeup * No Animal Testing * No Counterfeits * Non-Comedogenic * FDA Approved * Hypo-Allergenic * Talc Free * Paraben Free and now available to the public with quality "Professional Proven" products at a realistic price.
Brand | Girlee Cosmetics |
Be The First To Review This Product!
Help other Big Wig Australia users shop smarter by writing reviews for products you have purchased.


text:
seca innovations impress medical experts.
The combination of this innovative product, which delivers a fast initial diagnosis of weight, and the seca mBCA, which generates a detailed analysis of body composition, is perfect for our times. For the number of overweight people in the world population is climbing steadily. The Lancet, one of the oldest and most respected medical journals, published a study in August 2013 on the nutritional status and weight in the global populace. The results are shocking. Nearly one-third of all people are considered overweight or obese.
In 1980, 857 million of the world population of 4.45 billion, or about 19%, weighed too much. In 2013, some 2.1 billion were overweight, which corresponds to 29.6% of the 7.2 billion people in the world at the end of 2013/beginning of 2014. This is a dangerous trend, as an overweight person is more likely to develop diabetes, cancer or cardiopulmonary disease.
As the world's leader in medical measuring and weighing, seca has been paying attention to this development for several decades. The seca team makes it possible for doctors and medical staff to take precise height, weight and body composition measurements on devices equipped with user-oriented details. Then an accurate diagnosis can be made and the course of treatment can be monitored closely. MEDICA visitors' interest in the seca innovations is proof that the company is heading in the right direction.
seca at MEDICA 2014: hall 12 at stand A63.
MEDICA 2014 takes place at the Congress Center in Düsseldorf from 12th to 15th of November 2014.


text:
Tools and Settings
Acknowledgements Introduction List of Authors Author Index I. Definitions and History The Proper Way to Become an Instructional Technologist What Is This Thing Called Instructional Design? History of LIDT A Short History of the Learning Sciences LIDT Timeline Programmed Instruction Edgar Dale and the Cone of Experience Twenty Years of EdTech II. Learning and Instruction Memory Intelligence Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism Sociocultural Perspectives of Learning Learning Communities Communities of Innovation Motivation Theories and Instructional Design Motivation Theories on Learning Informal Learning Overview of Problem-Based Learning Connectivism An Instructional Theory for the Post-Industrial Age Using the First Principles of Instruction to Make Instruction Effective, Efficient, and Engaging III. Design Instructional Design Models Design Thinking and Agile Design What and how do designers design? The Development of Design-Based Research A Survey of Educational Change Models Performance Technology Defining and Differentiating the Makerspace User Experience Design IV. Technology and Media United States National Educational Technology Plan Technology Integration in Schools K-12 Technology Frameworks What Is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge? The Learner-Centered Paradigm of Education Distance Learning Old Concerns with New Distance Education Research Open Educational Resources The Value of Serious Play Video Games and the Future of Learning Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics Opportunities and Challenges with Digital Open Badges V. Becoming an LIDT Professional The Moral Dimensions of Instructional Design Creating an Intentional Web Presence Where Should Educational Technologists Publish Their Research? Rigor, Influence, and Prestige in Academic Publishing Educational Technology Conferences Networking at Conferences PIDT, the Important Unconference for Academics VI. Preparing for an LIDT Career What Are the Skills of an Instructional Designer? Careers in Academia: The Secret Handshake Careers in K-12 Education Careers in Museum Learning Careers in Consulting Final Reading Assignment Index of TopicsQuestions and Tasks
Add a note to the content. Download the content in PDF, Microsoft Word, or other format. View a summary of the content. View available translations of the content.


text:
Social (In)Justice and Mental Health
View Pricing
Social justice entails equal access to liberties, rights, and opportunities, as well as care for the least advantaged members of society. The paradigm-shifting new book Social (In)Justice and Mental Health addresses the ways in which society's failure to deliver on that humane ideal harms people with mental illness. The editors, at the forefront of the effort to make psychiatry responsive to critiques of institutional racism, argue that in the United States, a perfect storm of unfair and unjust policies and practices, bolstered by deep-seated beliefs about the inferiority of some groups, has led to a small number of people having tremendous advantages, freedoms, and opportunities, while a growing number are denied those liberties and rights. Mental health clinicians bear a special responsibility to be aware of these structural inequities, to question their own biases, to intervene on behalf of patients and their families, and to advocate for mental health equity. To that end, the book provides a framework for thinking about why these inequities exist and persist and provides clinicians with a road map to address these inequalities as they relate to racism, the criminal justice system, and other systems and diagnoses.
The book is hands-on, with topics mental health clinicians will find timely and relevant:
- The role of social injustice and specific diagnoses and conditions, including substance use disorders, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and child trauma, is covered. For example, research has shown that white psychiatrists are more likely to over diagnose schizophrenia in Black patients, and this diagnostic bias may partly account for Black men being involuntarily committed to mental institutions in higher numbers.
- The authors advocate for research that prioritizes the needs of participants and communities, rather than the needs of institutions, and focuses on structural, not individual-level, differences.
- Accompaniment, an important strategy for infusing social justice into clinical practice, is described and modeled. This process of radical empathy—of trying to minimize power dynamics in clinical relationships by listening, witnessing, and advocating with patients—is critically important in confronting mental health inequities.
- The inadequacy of current medical and mental health education and training in countering the powerful forces of social injustice in mental health is discussed in detail. The authors emphasize that change requires adopting an active practice of self-study and self-reflection, and accordingly, a list of self-study resources, consisting of books, documentaries, podcasts, and TED talks, is provided to further the reader's knowledge and awareness.
- Of further assistance are the chapter-ending Questions for Self-Reflection, which challenge mental health clinicians to examine their own attitudes and preconceived ideas about race, poverty, disabilities, and privilege.
Social (In)Justice and Mental Health addresses the context in which mental health care is delivered, strategies for raising consciousness in the mental health profession, and ways to improve treatment while redressing injustice. Clinicians owe it to themselves, their patients, and their profession to read—and heed—this important work.
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
Part I. Foundations of Social Injustice
- Chapter 1. Social (In)Justice and Mental Health
- Chapter 2. Social Injustice and the Social Determinants of Mental Health
- Chapter 3. Social Injustice and Mental Health Inequities
- Chapter 4. Social Injustice and Structural Racism
Part II. Systems and Structures
- Chapter 5. Social Injustice and the Schooling System
- Chapter 6. Social Injustice and the Child Welfare System
- Chapter 7. Social Injustice and Urban Development
- Chapter 8. Social Injustice and the Carceral System
- Chapter 9. Social Injustice and the Health Care System
Part III. Diagnoses and Conditions
- Chapter 10. Social Injustice and Substance Use Disorders
- Chapter 11. Social Injustice and Schizophrenia
- Chapter 12. Social Injustice and Personality Disorders
- Chapter 13. Social Injustice and Child Trauma
Part IV. Achieving Mental Health Equity
- Chapter 14. Social Justice and Mental Health System Reform
- Chapter 15. Social Justice and Advocacy
- Chapter 16. Social Justice and Mental Health: A Call to Action
- Index
- Seyi O. Amosu, Ph.D.
Deidre M. Anglin, Ph.D.
Belinda Bandstra, M.D., M.A.
Nicolas E. Barcelo, M.D.
Khalima A. Bolden, Ph.D.
Brennin Y. Brown, M.D.
Melissa D. Carter, J.D.
Roy Collins, M.D., M.P.H.
Michael T. Compton, M.D., M.P.H.
Nicole Cotton, M.D.
Angie Lisbeth Cruz, M.H.S.
Janet R. Cummings, Ph.D.
Kali D. Cyrus, M.D., M.P.H.
Matthew L. Edwards, M.D.
David Freedman, Ph.D.
Mindy Thompson Fullilove, M.D.
Poh Choo How, M.D., Ph.D.
Jessica Isom, M.D., M.P.H.
Jacob Michael Izenberg, M.D.
Michelle Ko, M.D., Ph.D.
Tiffani Marie, Ph.D.
Courtney L. McMickens, M.D., M.P.H., M.H.S.
Phillip Murray, M.D., M.P.H.
Swati Rao, M.D.
LeRoy E. Reese, Ph.D.
Samuel Ricardo Saenz, M.D., M.P.H.
Sonya M. Shadravan, M.D.
Ruth S. Shim, M.D., M.P.H.
Sarah Y. Vinson, M.D.
Melvin Wilson, M.B.A., L.C.S.W.
Walter E. Wilson Jr., M.D., M.H.A.
George W. Woods, M.D., LFAPA
About the Authors
Ruth S. Shim, M.D., M.P.H. is Luke and Grace Kim Professor in Cultural Psychiatry and Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, at the University of California, Davis, in Sacramento, California.
Sarah Y. Vinson, M.D. is Founder and Principal Consultant of Lorio Forensics and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
Related Products
Carousel Control - items will scroll by tabbing through them, otherwise arrows can be used to scroll one item at a time


text:
Food Ministry
March 18, 2026 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 10:00 am on Monday and Wednesday, repeating indefinitely
Volunteers for Food Ministry are welcome to help prepare free to-go meals between 10 am and noon on Mondays and Wednesday. Volunteer tasks include food preparation, cooking, packaging meals and serving to-go meals at the gate. COVID protocols are mandatory. Contact Food Ministry Leader, Bill Coburn email@example.com


text:
Schmetz Universal Needles - 100/16 - 5 pack
SCHMETZ-Universal Regular Point Sewing Machine Needles.
Schmetz quality sewing machine needles have been manufactured to exacting standards since 1851. The choice of discriminating sewers world wide; only Schmetz provides the uncompromising; consistent quality that produces the perfect stitch every time. These needles are suitable for woven fabrics and can be used with all brands and most models of sewing machines.
This package contains five 100/16 needles for heavy weight woven fabrics.


text:
90's Born Year® Sweatshirt - Choose Your Year! (90-99)
$ 48.00
Thank you for the overwhelming response to our new Born Year® sweatshirts! Being that we're a small business, we're not able to offer all years at the same time, but we hope to offer your year at some point! As we're trying to get a feel for the years people would like, please sign up below for the year that you'd love for us to make if your year is currently not available. Thanks for your understanding and support! xo, Amy + Meri
Forward Impact:
'ESPWA' means 'hope' in Haitian Creole, and each ESPWA® item spreads hope in Haiti by supporting our partners including Project Medishare. It's already been such a traumatic year for our Haitian friends, so the support is much appreciated. Your support has already been able to help maternity centers, emergency medical relief after the earthquake, education, and so much more. Thank you for helping us spread hope to a country that needs it right now. For more information on Project Medishare making an impact in Haiti, go here!
Sweatshirt Description:
Black fleece pullover unisex sweatshirt with distressed year printed on front in grey, beige, and pale pink. Sleeve detail w/ espwa.® logo in pink.
Choose your year in the '90's! If your year is not available, we hope to add it soon. If you are looking for year outside of the 90's, see all available here.
*Please note this print is meant to look worn in and faded. We hope you love it as much as we do.
Unisex standard fit, sizes S - 5XL. This is a mid-weight fleece. Most people get their normal size or size UP if like it to fit a little looser.
***** Please refer to size chart here! *****
- 50% polyester, 50% cotton
- Machine wash cold. Do not bleach. Tumble dry low.


text:
Confederate Railroad's Wayne Secrest Dead at 68
Wayne Secrest, one of the founding members of country-rock band Confederate Railroad, has died. He was 68 years old.
Confederate Railroad shared the news of Secrest's death on Facebook late Saturday night (June 2). According to the band, he had been battling an illness for a long period of time; his health had forced him off the road with the group late in 2017.
"We shared millions of miles, thousands of concerts and a lifetime of memories," the band writes. "Wayne's memory will live on in every note we play for as long as you allow us to continue."
Secrest was born in April of 1950. He founded Confederate Railroad with Danny Shirley, Michael Lamb, Gates Nichols, Chris McDaniel and Mark Dufresne in 1987, in the Atlanta, Ga., area. The band played bars and clubs in that area, and worked as the backing band for both David Allan Coe's and Johnny Paycheck, before signing with Atlantic Records in 1992.
Confederate Railroad's self-titled debut album includes six Top 40 singles, including the Top 5s "Jesus and Mama" and "Queen of Memphis." That record has been certified double platinum, and their sophomore disc, 1994's Notorious, has been certified platinum. Confederate Railroad earned Best New Group at the 1993 ACM Awards.
Confederate Railroad's fourth and final album with Atlantic, Keep on Rockin', debuted in 1998. They signed to the Audium/Koch for 2001's Unleashed, then did not record another project together until 2007, when they released Cheap Thrills. Their most recent album, Lucky to Be Alive, was released in 2016.


text:
Our rental house in Vermont has plenty of room to spread out, and frequently, our extra-large dining table is surrounded by Dave's classmates from the Center for...
Read MoreOlympics Opening Ceremonies: The Paleo Menu
On Friday evening, at 6:30 p.m. Central time, I will be parked in front of the TV — with Dave, Smudge, a handful of tissues for the inevitable tears of Olympics love, and our British feast — to watch the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics.
OMG. THE OLYMPICS ARE COMING! (In case you missed my previous exclamation-filled posts, you can read all my Olympics stuff here.)
You know I love theme dinners, so I've planned a paleo, British-inspired menu for our Olympics party so we can pretend we're in a pub in London. I've shared the recipes below, in case you want to play along.
Bonus fun: Don't miss this list of 10 Things to Know About British Food from my pal Addie Broyles at the Austin-American Statesman.
Faux-Pub, Viewing-Party Menu
Crudité with Chutney Mayo
Scotch Eggs
Mashed Cauliflower
Cumin-Roasted Carrots
Raspberries and Cream
Crudité with Curry Mayo
Serves 2-4 | Prep 5 min | Cook 5 min
red bell peppers
1 teaspoon coconut oil
1 clove garlic
1 medium apricot, finely diced
1/4 teaspoon garam masala
1 1/2 tablespoons white or red wine vinegar
1/4 cup homemade mayo
Wash all the veggies, cut into appropriate shapes, and arrange on a platter.
Heat the coconut oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the apricot and cook until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in the vinegar and garam masala and cook 3-4 minutes more, mashing the apricot with the back of a wooden spoon to make "jam." Place the apricots in a medium bowl and set aside until cool.
When the apricots have cooled, add the mayo to the bowl and fold gently until combined. Chill at least 30 minutes before serving. If you find it's too thick for proper dipping, you can thin it with a little water or vinegar.
2 pounds ground pork
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch cinnamon
pinch cloves
1 teaspoon dried tarragon leaves
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves, minced (about 1 tablespoon)
1 tablespoon dried chives
2 cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons)
8 large eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
1 bag (2 ounces) fried pork rinds (optional)
2 large eggs, raw (optional)
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place the ground pork in a large mixing bowl. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, tarragon, parsley, chives, and garlic. Knead with your hands until well mixed.
Divide the pork mixture into 8 equal servings. Roll each piece into a ball, then flatten it in your palm into a pancake shape. Wrap the meat around a hard-boiled egg, rolling it between your palms until the egg is evenly covered. This is much easier than it sounds. If the meat sticks to your hands, moisten them with a little water. Place the meat wrapped eggs on the baking sheet.
If using the pork rinds, place them in the bowl of the food processor and process until they resemble bread crumbs; pour them onto a plate or in a shallow bowl. In another shallow bowl, beat the raw eggs. Gently roll each meatball in pork rind crumbs; you want just a thin dusting. Then roll each meatball in the raw egg and roll a second time in the crushed pork rinds to evenly coat. Place on the baking sheet.
Bake for 25 minutes, then increase the temperature to 400 F and bake an additional 5-10 minutes, until the eggs are golden brown and crisp.
Note: You would not be wrong to dollop a little chutney mayo on your Scotch Egg… just sayin'…
Mashed Cauliflower
Serves 2-4 | Prep 5 min | Cook 10 min
1 bag (16 ounces) frozen cauliflower florets
1 garlic clove, crushed (about 1 teaspoon)
1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 cup coconut milk
salt and black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons dried chopped chives
Cook the cauliflower according to the package directions until it's very soft, but not waterlogged.
In a microwave-safe bowl or small saucepan, heat the garlic, coconut oil, coconut milk, salt, and pepper, about 1 minute.
Meanwhile, purée the cauliflower in the bowl of a food processor, scraping down the sides. Add the coconut milk to the processor, along with 1 tablespoon of chives. Process about 10 seconds. Taste and adjust seasonings. Sprinkle with remaining chives before serving.
1 pound fresh carrots (about 10)
1/2 tablespoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 fresh lemon (optional)
a few leaves of fresh parsley and mint, minced, for garnish (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Wash and peel the carrots, then cut them lengthwise into thin strips, about 1/4-inch wide. Toss them into a large bowl.
With a fork, mix the cumin, cinnamon, salt, and pepper in a small microwave-safe bowl. Add the coconut oil and microwave until melted, about 15-20 seconds.
Pour the seasoned coconut oil over the carrots and toss with two wooden spoons until the carrots are evenly coated. Sing a verse of your favorite song so you don't skimp on tossing time. Do a taste test and adjust the seasonings.
Spread the carrots in a single layer on the baking sheet and roast for 15-20 minutes, until tender and slightly browned. Remove from the oven and squeeze the fresh lemon juice over the top. Sprinkle with the chopped herbs.
Berries and Cream
Serves 4 | Prep 15 min. plus 3-4 hours or overnight to chill the coconut milk
This is based on a raspberry brulée recipe which is basically berries and cream with caramelized sugar on top. As you can probably guess, we're skipping the sugar.
1 can (14.5 ounces) coconut milk
2 cups fresh raspberries
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
This requires a bit of forethought: place a can of coconut milk in the refrigerator, ideally overnight, but 3-4 hours will do.
When you're ready to eat, put the can, a metal mixing bowl, and beaters from the mixer in the freezer for 15 minutes. While the coconut milk is chilling out in the freezer, gently wash the raspberries and pat dry with paper towels.
When the coconut milk is cold, turn the can upside down, open it with a can opener, and pour off the watery liquid. Scoop the thickened coconut milk that remains into the chilled mixing bowl and add the almond extract. Whip on your mixer's highest setting until the milk is fluffy and has taken on the texture of whipped cream, about 5-7 minutes.
Place the raspberries in a large bowl, then add half the the whipped cream and gently fold until combined. Add more whipped cream, if you need want it. The idea is to encase the berries in the cream but not make it gloopy. (Leftover whipped cream can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for about 3 days.)
Divide the berries into four bowls. Eat with a spoon, lick bowl, as necessary.
Other Options
It's tricky. Much of the traditional British comfort food — cheese and onion tart, pasties, all manner of sweet desserts — is almost impossible to make truly paleo. But in addition to the recipes above, you might also like to try these…
Dave is not a fan of sardines or paté so they're not on our menu, but if you like them, both would make lovely starters when added to the crudité plate.
Roast Lamb with Currant Sauce from Lava Lake Lamb
Paleo Shepherd's Pie (my recipe!)
Or try a classic Fry Up and have breakfast-for-dinner! The traditional Fry Up includes a fried eggs, bacon, sausage, a fried tomato, and fried mushrooms (and toast and baked beans, which you'll be skipping, of course.)
Happy Olympics and British dining to you!
Still hungry? Try these
It's snowing — like, really snowing — here in Vermont. I've kept my commitment to 10,000 steps per day, so I've been enthusiastically enjoying my...
Read MoreComments
totally making the scotch eggs. Dan saw them on a menu a few weeks ago in Fredericksburg and I told him we'd try them sometime.
I think now is the sometime!
Thanks for the great theme meal ideas! How could you look at all those totally fit people and want to eat junk anyway?
A quick pork rinds question…are there any preferred kinds that you can get in the store? I've never had them before, been dying to try them, but since no one else I know eats them either, it's hard to get a recommendation! Please and thanks!
Here's the deal: pork rinds are borderline crappy food. They're one of those things that are "technically" paleo, but unless you're making your own crispy pork rinds from wild boar or a pig from a good local farmer, pork rinds are pretty junkie. So… it really doesn't matter which brand you buy. Just make sure the ingredients are only be pork rinds and salt.
I eat them once or twice a year on my Scotch Eggs; the rest of the time, I make the Scotch Eggs "naked" and they're still really good.
Fair enough. That's sort of what I expected. I'll try them one day soon when I need a junk food fix!
sounds like my kind of party! thanks for the ideas, Mel! I can't wait for the Olympics. It's kind of like Christmas (except you're Jewish, right? so Hanukkah?). You get my drift. 😉
Only thing is Rooibos tea is South African – but Earl Grey is British. Being a South African Brit, I love your combo. Will be watching the Opening Ceremony with you at 10pm tonight.
What about fish and chips? And curry? Both quite easy to do 'paleo'! Love the look of those scotch eggs though…
this is slightly off topic, but its food related.
Have you ever made jicama slaw? I am just wondering what I would put in it? I would like that with the turkey tacos. -
I have a good addition to your list…. The Ploughman's Lunch. If you google the term you come up with a ton of descriptions and images to give you ideas. Such a great idea that is so easy to make paleo friendly.
This is a cute post. I live in London, originally American though, and am excited for the events to start tonight. Admittedly the Olympics have been stressful already for people in London with all the traffic, tube problems, etc, but trying to be positive!
I think this meal is a pretty good attempt at being English, though there are other things they eat which I think could be paleo-adapted. Every Sunday they eat a Sunday Roast — could be roast chicken with carrots and roast potatoes (could sub in parsnips) or mash, or roast beef with gravy and veg. They also love fish and chips, which could be fun to do with a nut breading and sweet potato fries. Shepherds pie is also quite English, though not necessarily in summer. Or sausage and mash with gravy. Basically all English dishes are a good piece of meat, with two veg.. and then some evil bready pudding, topping or crust 🙂
Overall I think your ideas are a creative take on british cuisine!
Pingback: Fantastic Reading Around the Net
Oh wow, when I saw the Scotch Egg I did a little dance in my desk chair! Love them! Love pork rinds, too. Can't wait to try this recipe!
Pingback: Five Fun Things On Friday
Sounds wonderful!!! I haven't made Scotch eggs in forever. Time to break out the sausage!
Pingback: Pie | Cannon Crossfit
I decided to go with Indian food (chicken tikka masala is the national dish of the UK!) and am actually making your Rogan Josh recipe tonight.
…and I'm having a Pimm's Cup. The British have so many delicious drinks and I'm not made of stone. 🙂
LOVE it! I seriously considered a Pimm's Cup because I've never had one. Then I decided that if I was going to have a cocktail, it should be something I know I like… Dave and I will be enjoying a bit of Becherovka to celebrate. Na zdravi to the Czech Olmpic team!
Just made a batch of Scotch Eggs and waiting for Husband to come home to sample them. They look and smell wonderful. Plus I polished off the unused pork rinds – some people have a sweet tooth; mine prefers salt;-) Great recipe – plan to make for my Son when he visits as his doc advised a paleo diet.
I have a salt tooth, too, and I might also have polished off a handful of pork rinds while making our Scotch Eggs. Ooops!
i tried to make the scotch eggs with "soft boiled" eggs…YIKES! i think it would have worked had i not used farm fresh–they tore a bit in the meat-wrapping process so there's a minor explosion of egg yolk in my oven. still delicious, though!!!
Pingback: Comeback « pacificallypaleo
Pingback: Whole30 – Day 23
Pingback: Scotch Eggs | Low-Carb, High-Fat Eating
The scotch eggs are terrific! I just made them for the 1st time today for lunch. I did use the pork rind coating and it turned out crispy delicious. Thanks for another great recipe!


text:
Quality area rugs offer excellent value in terms of beauty, durability and versatility and they are available in a variety of price ranges to meet any budget. They offer protection for your flooring, and add comfort, dimension and style to any space. Area rugs can make a room look more spacious, or create a cozier atmosphere. It can serve as a focal point or work to unify existing decor. Even in a carpeted room, an area rug can make a world of difference to a room's look and feel.
SIMPLE SEARCHSearch by brand, color, size, style, shape, pattern, or material to perfectly narrow down your selection. | SEAMLESS SHOPPINGShop from more than 30,000 high quality area rugs, all at the best prices you'll find anywhere online. | FREE SHIPPINGGet FREE shipping directly from the manufacturer to your home, plus a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. |
What you'll need to consider when shopping for your perfect area rug.
A Suitable Style Something fun and playful for a kids' room? Summery for your outdoor patio? Or more casual for your Scandinavian-style living space? A contemporary design that makes a statement? Or something more transitional for maximum versatility? Whatever it is, start by defining the style you're looking for. | |
Color Selection Color is vital to creating your desired look and feel within a space. Neutral colors create a beautiful, blended backdrop making a space feel open. Deeper hues drive a more defined, intimate feel. Subtle shades of color offer a sense of tranquility, while brighter statement hues energize a space. | |
Pattern Possibilities Like color, patterns can create spacial illusions. Stripes and geometric patterns make a space feel bigger, as can the more subdued textural solids and distressed patterns. On the contrary, patterns such as abstract, ikat, tribal, and the alike create a strong focal point drawing the eye in. | |
Shape and Size Every space in your home has a unique footprint and purpose. Finding the right shape and size rug to complement a room's specific layout and utilitarian needs is essential to creating a cohesive, well-designed space. |
Equally as important as making the right selection for your space, is properly caring for your area rug once it's home. Different materials and construction types require different care, so be sure to familiarize yourself with your rug's unique maintenance and care guidelines to ensure lasting beauty and performance. Following the manufacturer's recommendations will also keep you from accidentally voiding your warranty.
Thank you for contacting Carpet One Floor & Home. Your local flooring expert will reach out to you regarding your inquiry.


text:
You are here
Terms of Use
This Portal is designed, developed and hosted by Department of Tribal and Scheduled Caste,Government of Chhattisgarh. Though all efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy and currency of the content on this Portal, the same should not be construed as a statement of law or used for any legal purposes. Users are advised to verify/check any information with the relevant Government department(s) and/or other source(s), and to obtain any appropriate professional advice before acting on the information provided in the Portal.
Privacy Policy
Department of Tribal and Scheduled Caste,Government of Chhattisgarh Portal does not automatically capture any specific personal information from you,(like name, phone number or e-mail address), that allows us to identify you individually. If this Portal requests you to provide personal information, you will be informed for the particular purposes for which the information is gathered and adequate security measures will be taken to protect your personal information. We do not sell or share any personally identifiable information volunteered on the India Portal site to any third party (public/private). Any information provided to this Portal will be protected from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration, or destruction.We gather certain information about the User, such as Internet protocol (IP) addresses, domain name, browser type, operating system, the date and time of the visit and the pages visited. We make no attempt to link these addresses with the identity of individuals visiting our site unless an attempt to damage the site has been detected.
Linking Policy
Links to Department of Tribal and Scheduled Caste,Government of Chhattisgarh website by other websites We do not object to you linking directly to the information that is hosted on this Portal and no prior permission is required for the same. However, we would like you to inform us about any links provided to this Portal so that you can be informed of any changes or updations therein. Also, we do not permit our pages to be loaded into frames on your site. The pages belonging to this Portal must load into a newly opened browser window of the User. Links to external websites/portals
At many places in this Portal, you shall find links to other websites/portals. This links have been placed for your convenience. Department of Tribal and Scheduled Caste,Government of Chhattisgarh is not responsible for the contents and reliability of the linked websites and does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in them. Mere presence of the link or its listing on this Portal should not be assumed as endorsement of any kind. We can not guarantee that these links will work all the time and we have no control over availability of linked pages.
Copyright Policy
All copyrights are reserved with the Department of Tribal and Scheduled Caste,Government of Chhattisgarh.The material posted on the website may be reproduced without formal permission for the purposes of non-commercial research, private study, review and news reporting provided that the material is appropriately attributed. However, the material has to be reproduced accurately and not to be used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context.
The permissions to reproduce this material shall not extend to any material which is identified as being copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned.
Legal Notice Policy
All content of this site is owned or controlled by Department of Tribal and Scheduled Caste,Government of Chhattisgarh and is protected by copyright laws and international treaties. You may download content only for your personal use for non-commercial purposes but no modification or further reproduction of the content is permitted. The content may otherwise not be copied or used in any way.
We will use reasonable efforts to include up-to-date and accurate information in this site, but makes no representations, warranties or assurances as to the accuracy, currency, or completeness of the information provided. We shall not be liable for any damages or injury resulting from your access to, or inability to access, this site or from your reliance on any information provided at this site. This site may provide links or references to other sites but we have no responsibility for the content of such other sites and shall not be liable for any damages or injury arising from that content. Any links to other sites are provided as merely a convenience to the users of this site. The trademarks, service marks, trade names, trade dress and products in this site are protected in the United States and internationally. No use of any of these may be made without the prior, written authorization of the owners of this site, except to identify the products or services of the company.
Any Personally Identifiable Information in electronic communications to this site is governed by this site's Privacy Policy. We shall be free to use or copy all other information in any such communications, including any ideas, inventions, concepts, techniques or know-how disclosed therein, for any purposes. Such purposes may include disclosure to third parties and/or developing, manufacturing and/or marketing goods or services. The sender of any communications to this site or otherwise to us shall be responsible for the content and information contained therein, including its truthfulness and accuracy.
Notice Board
Orders and Circulars
- Publication of seniority list of assistant director and equivalent post (provisional)
- Publication of seniority list of assistant director and equivalent post (final)
- Primitive race Guidelines for organizing the examination for admission in class VIII and Class-09V in the Jatiya Vidyarthi Utkarsh Yojna (as amended-2016) in the year 2019-20
Governor Reports
Main Links
Copyright © 2017 - All Rights Reserved - Official Website of Department of Tribal and Scheduled Caste, Government of Chhattisgarh, India
Note: Content on this website is published and managed by Department of Tribal and Scheduled Caste, Government of Chhattisgarh,
For any query regarding this website, please contact by E-mail ID: ctd[dot]cg[at]nic[dot]in


text:
French Spanish |
Cuban Empire offers the fun places to go and exclusive things to do in Cuba. Cuban Empire strives to uncover the most exciting and fun places, to make your visit "action packed" and truly memorable. We have united areas of special interest from rock climbing to skydiving. If you're looking for a serene stay in Cuba you will not be satisfied with these pages. Our onsite travel specialists will be pleased to make each day unforgettable, as only we know how. Click to chat with us or Email us your request and we will endeavor to make your dreams a reality. Ask us anything and we'll do our best to make your dream into a reality. Use the right hand links to find out everything you need to know about Cuba
...Cuban culture, what makes the Cubans 'tick'? Racial mixes, music, art, cultures by region, food, local drinks and much more. Find out about celebrities and how they came to be. ...Extraordinary Sportsmen. Why are Cubans such talented athletes? How many gold medals have been won? How do they train? Local sports results. Sport is Cuba's national passion, baseball is the favourite. Take a look inside Cuba's sports scene... ..Advice. It's free and current on this site, don't travel without printing these pages! You may not need a tour guide, when you have read these pages. Every morcel of 'advice' from various sources. Interactive questions answered immediately... |
email us...firstname.lastname@example.com Copyright © 2002 - 2024. Digital Panorama S.A. All rights reserved. No part of this website may be copied or reproduced without the written consent of Travelucion S.L or its subsidiaries. |
800 x 600 |


text:
In cases like this, effective rehabilitation is essential. It is important to heal wounds using the right tools and methods. Time and the type of rehabilitation play an important role. No matter what the type of therapy, it should take up as much time as necessary and take place as quickly as possible in order to ensure that you can make a swift and full recovery.
kybun shoes and the kybun mat meet both of these requirements. Each individual rehabilitation exercise you do is far more effective when using the soft, springy surface, which leads to speedy and effective results. This is due to the quality of the material. The polyurethane in kybun shoes and the kybun mat means the mat or shoe always cushions against the pressure from the weight of the body. As a result, your feet and the rest of your body are constantly moving, which exercises the deep inner muscles and releases tension.
Medical professionals are impressed with the effects of kybun products
Erika Wissman has a thing or two to say about the practice of holistic therapy methods.
"I broke three vertebrae in an accident eight years ago and I've suffered from neurological problems ever since. If I wear normal shoes, I get pain in my thoracic spine and suffer from neck tension. I get bunions sometimes too. Thanks to my kybun shoes, I now have no problems walking. It's just amazing. They're so comfortable to walk around in and I can hardly feel the bunion anymore."
Medical professionals have been impressed by the therapeutic benefits of kybun shoes and the kybun mat within the context of foot surgery.
"The extraordinary absorption properties of kybun shoes make them perfect for patients with arthritis in the legs. The shoes provide a high level of comfort to the wearer as they go about their daily activities. We are able to reduce our patients' pain medication thanks to the kybun shoes. As a result, the shoes play a key role in the therapy process," explains a delighted Dr med. Markus Müller, consultant for orthopaedic surgery certified by the Swiss Medical Association.
no news in this list.


text:
3 Beds 3 Baths 2,026 Sq.Ft.
Whether you're buying or selling, new construction, or resale, you can be confident that Marnie has the knowledge and expertise to get the job done right. She is proud to consistently be ranked in the Top 1% of Real Estate Agent Nationwide and ranked as one of the top producing Real Estate Agents in the state of Colorado.


text:
While creating the new web-server for my employers, to replace a Fedora 10 box which gets no security updates, I needed to compile some software from source, meaning I needed the kernel sources.
Since I couldn't easily obtain these I needed to install the Kernel provided by the distribution rather than the more recent kernel provided by Linode themselves.
The Linode Library provided a way of doing this for CentOS 5 but not for CentOS 6, thus I adapted the provided script for v5 into one that works with CentOS 6 et voila, distro provided kernel.
Here's the full source available as a gist on github:


text:
Information Possibly Outdated
The information presented on this page was originally released on January 11, 2019. It may not be outdated, but please search our site for more current information. If you plan to quote or reference this information in a publication, please check with the Extension specialist or author before proceeding.
Sustainability impacts agriculture's future
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Words like sustainability can become buzzwords and are often misunderstood or misused, but despite its widespread use, this term isn't going anywhere.
Sustainability is an important concept to understand, especially when it is used in the context of agricultural production and natural resource conservation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture outlines sustainable agriculture as the combination of three broad goals: long-term profitability; stewardship of land, air and water; and quality of life for farmers, ranchers and their communities.
This definition broadens agricultural goals beyond mere profitability by including environmental and community concerns. Including the environment makes practical sense, as natural resources like soil and water are fundamental components of production systems, and subsequently productivity and profitability. Beyond agricultural production, clean air, clean water, nutritious food and healthy environments are things we all need to thrive.
With less than 2 percent of the U.S. population working in farming, the general public needs to be aware of the incredible conservation capacity of agricultural lands. That's right, farms play an important role in providing critical ecosystem services (such as habitat, clean water, clean air and food), when managed properly. These services provided by farmlands benefit everyone and allow our communities to prosper.
A pilot project in the 2018 farm bill provides incentives to farmers in appropriate geographic regions to adopt practices to store carbon in soil and improve soil health. Soil carbon helps aerate soil, improve water infiltration, reduce compaction and provide suitable habitat for microorganisms. There is a bonus: When carbon is stored in soil, it helps decrease carbon in the atmosphere.
This pilot program promotes soil health and allows farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices while assuming less personal risk. Additionally, it will set a protocol for measuring soil carbon levels and storage gains. Success of the program will help to determine if it has applications in different regions and indicates the potential to create new revenue streams for farmers to sell credits through carbon markets.
Of course, carbon storage techniques need to work before we can reap these benefits. Frozen ground, heavy rains or soil properties like clay content and drainage can impede implementing practices such as reduced tillage or cover crops. In some regions, research and technological advances may be necessary to refine methods and overcome environmental challenges.
The future should bring even more incentive to improve and measure farm sustainability. A growing number of companies now report sustainability metrics associated with agricultural products. And there is a push to measure and improve sustainability throughout supply chains.
While Mississippi has some soil health conservation practices on the ground already, new conservation provisions in the farm bill serve as indicators of evolving farming approaches, incentive payments for conservation and market-based nutrient trading.
For more information about conservation, contact Beth Baker with the Research and Education to Advance Conservation and Habitat program at Mississippi State University at 662-325-7491 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Editor's Note: Extension Outdoors is a column authored by several different experts in the Mississippi State University Extension Service.


text:
There are still many questions that swirl around the U.S. drone strike that killed the leader of al-Qaida in Kabul last weekend. Ayman al-Zawahiri was Osama bin Laden's deputy, and he led al-Qaida after U.S. forces killed Bin Laden in 2011. Zawahiri's killing marks the end of a 21-year manhunt and the beginning of renewed tensions between the U.S. and the Taliban. NPR's Arezou Rezvani has been following developments from Kabul and joins us now.
Arezou, thanks so much for being with us.
AREZOU REZVANI, BYLINE: Hi. It's good to be with you.
SIMON: You were in Kabul on the day of that drone strike. What did you see? What did you hear? And what's the neighborhood and surroundings like now?
REZVANI: Yeah. So a few NPR colleagues and I were here, and a couple of us even woke up to the sound of that blast. Details at the time were very slow to trickle out at first. Many of us thought it was maybe a rocket attack that the Islamic State had launched, which is a group that's active here. So it really caught people off guard when the U.S. finally came out and said it was behind the strike and that Ayman al-Zawahiri was the target. After that announcement, we did try to visit the site. And it's important to visit scenes like this because it's a way to check if what officials are saying about civilian casualties, for example, match reality.
When we got there, it was an upscale neighborhood. The Taliban were heavily armed, and they had cordoned off the street where the strike took place. And our interaction with them was quite tense. One Taliban guard scolded us for even coming and sent us back. We did drive past the area again on Thursday. It's still heavily guarded, and they're not letting anyone near the site still.
SIMON: Was it a revelation that Zawahiri was living in Kabul?
REZVANI: It was definitely a big surprise for people here. The house that was hit where he was living and hiding was located near several government offices. The Taliban's intelligence headquarters is a short drive away. And the house is said to have belonged to the Taliban's acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani. And that raises all kinds of questions about who in the Taliban may have known about Zawahiri's whereabouts. Many people I spoke to also said it was really jarring to wake up to the sound of a huge explosion again. And that's because Kabul hasn't been experiencing attacks and bombings that were common a year ago under the old government, when the Taliban themselves were launching many of those attacks.
One Afghan woman I spoke to, Shahla Nawabi, who lives close to where the strike took place - she put it to me this way.
SHAHLA NAWABI: I just thought, oh, no. Do we want that again? We're so used to having this quiet and not feeling scared of bomb strikes and suicide bombers. And we are actually getting used to that, living in a little bit of peace and harmony. So that really shook us all.
SIMON: And what has the Taliban said so far?
REZVANI: So Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid released a statement this week claiming they had no idea that Zawahiri had been living in Kabul. He said they planned to investigate the strike. They're also accusing the U.S. of violating the agreement they signed with the Taliban in 2020. In that same statement, the Taliban also warned that if the U.S. carries out a strike again, there would be consequences. There were also anti-U.S. protests around the country Friday that appeared to be coordinated. A lot of Taliban leaders tweeted out videos and pictures of the protests. And I've also been talking to Taliban rank-and-file about the killing of Zawahiri. One Talib told me that he thinks the news that Zawahiri was killed in Afghanistan is a lie and that al-Qaida doesn't even exist in the country. So there's a sense of disbelief among them, too.
SIMON: Arezou, what's the security situation like in Kabul right now?
REZVANI: You know, it definitely feels like something shifted this week. There are many more Taliban security and intelligence agents roaming the streets. Some of that may have to do with the Shia holy month of Muharram, which is underway. The Shia minority have been the target of Islamic State attacks, so that may explain some of the heightened security. But overall, I'd say the surprise operation by the U.S. has triggered a sense of fear among people that they could again pay the price for renewed tensions.
SIMON: NPR's Arezou Rezvani speaking from Kabul. Thanks so much for being with us.
REZVANI: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.