text:
- Report: #133216
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Fundament Consumer Strategies
Fundament Consumer Strategies8721 Santa Monica Blve Ste 1238 Los Angeles, California U.S.A.
Fundament Consumer Strategies ripoff Los Angeles California
*Consumer Suggestion: Wrong answer. Make that d**n bank get your money back! No ifs, ands, or buts about it. bank is giving you the runaround because they think you're stupid.
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This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 02/28/2005 07:03 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Fundament-Consumer-Strategies/Los-Angeles-California-90069/Fundament-Consumer-Strategies-ripoff-Los-Angeles-California-133216. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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#1 Consumer Suggestion
Wrong answer. Make that d**n bank get your money back! No ifs, ands, or buts about it. bank is giving you the runaround because they think you're stupid.
AUTHOR: Paul - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Tuesday, March 01, 2005POSTED: Tuesday, March 01, 2005
No REAL credit card company ever charges a fee in advance. If they want money first, it's FRAUD.
Now, you need to work some more on your bank. First, click on the link below your complaint. Read the whole page. When you go back to your bank next time, you'll know what to say.
The god d**n bank is giving you the runaround because they think you're stupid. The fact is, they are required to help you. There's even a form for this.
You can even print out the page and show it to the bank. That way they can read for themselves what needs to be done.
Don't take no for an answer.
If those losers still want to screw around with you, mention the OCC. Here's the link.
Read the whole site. You can make a complaint about the bank if they refuse to get your money back.
Write this number down and take it into the bank with you.
You can reach one of the OCC Customer Assistance Specialists by calling our toll free number, 1-800-613-6743, Monday - Thursday, 9:00a.m. to 4:00p.m., Central Time, and on Friday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Central Time.
If this site doesn't show the phone number, find it on the OCC site for yourself. It's listed under consumer complaints and assistance.
Once you get your money back, make a donation here.
Then, always check s**t out before you send your money! There are millions of frauds out there. If every one of them gets a few bucks from you, you'll be broke for life.
You got to learn how to spot this nonsense before you step in it.
Good luck!
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text:
Catalogue entry
Inscr. 'Cayley Robinson' b.r.
Canvas, 35 1/2×46 (90×117).
Chantrey Purchase from the artist 1924.
Exh: R.A., 1924 (111); R.A., Late Members, winter 1928 (602).
Repr: Royal Academy Illustrated, 1924, p.74.
A watercolour entitled 'Pastoral' and dated 1923 was lent to the R.A. Winter Exhibition, 1928 (136), by Philip Cohen. This was probably the one first exhibited at the R.W.S., summer 1923 (20), and reproduced in The Old Water-Colour Society's Club, 1, 1923–4, pl.22. It resembles N03954 in composition but is in reverse.
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I am confused by what this means when you mommas say.. my LO signs.
is this sign language? or something else?
Why do you mommas teach this to your LO? (if this is sign language) I am just curious.. I have never known anyone that taught this to their child.


text:
Source: Defense News
quote: I guess the real question is: Is the United States willing to undergo the costs of keeping the world from WWIII for the foreseeable future? So far, the US has said "yes", and has kept the world from the horror of yet another World War and allowed the incredible growth seen since WW II. But, is that dedication still needed or required? If yes, then we NEED a new bomber, desperately. If not, then it's time to revert back to a National Guard and let the world go it's way.


text:
Definition of rickrack in English:
Braided trimming in a zigzag pattern, used especially as decoration on clothes.
Example sentences
- Once the main parts of the figure were completed in felt, an assortment of ribbons, lace trim, rickrack, buttons, sequins and feathers were added to decorate the circus performers.
- They now use ready-made rickrack and shiny synthetic trimmings to adorn their garments.
- Decorate the basket with craft paint or rickrack, as pictured here.
Late 19th century: of unknown origin.
For editors and proofreaders
Syllabification: rick·rack
Definition of rickrack in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
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= trending


text:
- Report: #706531
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Sun Gas Station
Sun Gas Station5600 Butler National (across from old Hertz) Orlando, Florida United States of America
Sun Gas Station Ripped off at Gas Station located across the street from the old Hertz car rental location near Orlando airport Orlando, Florida
*Consumer Comment: No ripoff here
*Consumer Comment: It's called Free Market
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They got me once tonight; however I will never enter their store again. I travel on business weekly and this week, I was in Orlando.
When returning a rental car, GPS directed me to this station to re-fuel my rental car. As always, I scanned my credit card and began to pump gas. It was not until I placed the handle back on the pump that I noticed I was charged $28.21 for 5.2 gallons of gas! Unbelievable!!!
I immediately thought it was a pump error; however learned that I was wrong and that was their price. All other stations I had passed were ~$3.40 per gallon and I had no idea about the history of this store.
Obviously, I have learned from my hotel and rental car return that this has been a long standing issue with this store. They warn their guests, if they have not already been ripped off!
This is out rageous and violates both customers and the companies that we are traveling for on business. Something must be done to this greedy and abusive owner.
I will make it my mission to spread the word regarding this abusive practice at this station. I hope that business with drop to the store, as well as at their pumps, and they will have to close down.
I feel violated and am very angry about this parting experience from such a great city. Something must be done!!! Maybe it is time to write a new law to prohibit this practice.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 03/15/2011 09:08 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Sun-Gas-Station/Orlando-Florida-/Sun-Gas-Station-Ripped-off-at-Gas-Station-located-across-the-street-from-the-old-Hertz-ca-706531. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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#1 Consumer Comment
No ripoff here
AUTHOR: Brian - (United States of America)
SUBMITTED: Wednesday, March 16, 2011POSTED: Wednesday, March 16, 2011
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#2 Consumer Comment
It's called Free Market
AUTHOR: coast - (USA)
SUBMITTED: Wednesday, March 16, 2011POSTED: Wednesday, March 16, 2011
"Maybe it is time to write a new law to prohibit this practice."
Not in America.
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text:
we're 3th party contributors and noticed that the RPC server throws an error "Sorry, you must be able to edit posts on this site in order to view categories."
Investigating this turned out that there are pretty brutal things done in the XML-RPC code :
if ( !current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) )
return new IXR_Error( 401, __( 'Sorry, you must be able to edit posts on this site in order to view categories.' ) );
This seems a kind of lazy and inappropriate in this matter.
Now the question is, is this really on purpose and what are the impacts when we remove the "if ( !current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) )"
- check for read-only access ?
Thank you,


text:
| View Exclusive AAUP Compensation Survey Data |
MOOC provider edX finds a powerful partner in Google for its new platform, Open edX.
When a new product is launched, particularly in technology, people often rush to be among its early adopters. The sudden explosion of users invariably reveals bugs and glitches that need to be addressed.
This is analogous to what we appear to be witnessing right now with massive open online courses. An unrelenting stream of attention-grabbing announcements is being followed by closer inspection – and the realization that, although MOOCs are a novel approach to education, they may not be a panacea.
The picture of MOOCs presented in the press is quite a paradox. The concept has been described as both a game-changer and a hyped retread. MOOCs deliver great content to faraway places, but some believe they place academic quality in peril. They are financial enigmas — offering the potential to bend the higher education cost curve, yet lacking an accepted plan for monetization. Some leaders in higher education are scrambling to get into the game; others are issuing a call to slow down.
The contradictions are rich, and the hyperbole in full bloom. Personally, I find all of the discourse to be a positive sign. The intensity of the MOOC dialogue indicates a chord has been struck. The promise of technology and access is igniting a larger discussion about the higher education paradigm. The initial rush has evolved, but what's next? Where is this train ultimately headed?
First, let's keep in mind that in the technology adoption life cycle, MOOCs are probably somewhere between innovation and early adoption; it's too early to declare victory or to reject the concept before it has been further tested, evaluated and refined. Second, colleges and universities are ground zero in the exploration of ideas. If you can't experiment here, then where?
In thinking about this issue as an engineer, I am reminded of the Wright Brothers and their pursuit of human flight. The brothers' first test glider in 1900 failed to achieve the altitude that Wilbur and Orville had anticipated. So they revisited their equations and re-analyzed the aerodynamic data obtained from the aviator, Otto Lilienthal. They increased the size of the wings and refined the sloped surface of the airfoil, but additional adjustments brought the same disappointing results. It would be another two and a half years before the Wright brothers succeeded in launching and controlling a powered aircraft.
What if their early struggles with the gliders had gotten the better of the Wrights? How much longer might humankind had to wait to fly?
The same might be asked today of MOOCs. The dawn of a new academic year seems an appropriate time to contemplate such questions and share a few observations on higher education's latest grand experiment:
1. The prospect of MOOCs replacing the physical college campus for undergraduates is dubious at best. Other target audiences are likely better-suited for MOOCs. My university, the Georgia Institute of Technology, is preparing to offer an inexpensive M.S. degree in computer science via massive (but not open) online courses beginning January 2014, with two options. The on-campus version has a research emphasis, requiring one-on-one interaction, whereas the online degree caters to professionals by focusing on applying advanced knowledge in the workplace. If successful, thousands are expected to enroll in this $7,000 MS degree program.
2. In addition to the master's level, MOOCs may also help level the playing field for precollege education. This is another area of the MOOC wilderness being explored. With a $150,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, Georgia Tech is offering MOOCs in three introductory topic areas for people who have yet to pursue a college degree. One can also easily extrapolate and imagine MOOC-like advanced placement courses available to students at high schools without their own Advanced Placement offerings.
3. Despite challenges, delivering content online could be a real asset to enhance pedagogy for undergraduates as well. The inverted classroom – in which students and faculty convene solely for discussion, and all lectures take place online – appears to have significant promise. For example, a recent comparison between a standard fluid mechanics course at Georgia Tech and its "flipped" counterpart revealed that weaker students in the flipped classroom actually outperformed stronger students who experienced traditional delivery of the material.
American higher education finds itself at a pivotal point in its great MOOC experiment. We must continue working to optimize MOOCs so that their promise and potential can be realized. While operational and execution issues remain, MOOCs still represent a tremendous opportunity for people around the world to learn and for educators to study and optimize that learning process.
A realistic time frame for evaluating the successes, failures, and unanticipated results is still likely another three to five years away. But, as Wilbur Wright said about learning to fly: "If you are looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds; but if you really wish to learn, you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial."
Gary S. May is dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Kaplan, which includes Pearson-like ed-tech offerings as well as for-profit degree programs, won't miss a beat as The Washington Post moves on.
California's controversial bill to allow third-party, online courses to count for credit at the three public systems of higher education has met an ignoble end. Or has it? On July 31, we learned that Senate Bill 520 (SB 520), authored by Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, is being moved to the two-year file, and will remain dormant for at least a year.
Is this a telling defeat for powerful state politicians who went too far in trying to advance online education options, or did the process of introducing the bill and debating it in public actually create the same goals and opportunities that drove the bill in the first place?
We believe that despite the tremendous and dramatic opposition and perceived defeat of SB 520, quite a lot has been accomplished as a direct result of the initial bill language. Despite spectacular headlines, the bill itself is not dead, but rather has simply been moved to the two-year file where it will be revived as needed.
How Did We Get Here?
As described in a position paper written by Phil Hill and Michael Feldstein for the 20 Million Minds Foundation, when the California Master Plan was adopted in 1960, the basic premise was to guarantee students a place within one of the three public systems based on their high school record. It was assumed that by having a place in a public institution, the student would have access to needed courses. As the state budget has crumbled, unemployment rates have skyrocketed and enrollment demand has surged without the resources to accommodate it, this assumption is no longer valid. Across the state, literally hundreds of thousands of students have been turned away from needed courses at the California Community Colleges (CCC), the California State University (CSU), and the University of California (UC).
In January of 2013, in an effort to address the growing public education access problem facing California, the 20 Million Minds Foundation brought together students, faculty, administrators, state leaders, and ed-tech pioneers for a one-day symposium. The "Re:Boot California Higher Education" conference promoted a robust discussion that examined not only the challenges, but also the potential technological solutions to the major issues facing California's three segments of higher education. During his opening address to the Re:Boot participants, Senator Steinberg indicated:
[Online education] is a […] revolution and possibilities abound using technology in ways that not only equal or enhance quality but also reduce the cost of higher education for struggling students and their families.
In March of this year, during an online press conference, Senator Steinberg unveiled Senate Bill 520, announcing the legislation that would "would reshape higher education, in partnership with technology we already use, to break bottlenecks that prevent students from completing education."
The newfound involvement of state government officials in this level of higher education, and the nature of the bill itself, which proposed the heretofore unheard-of use of controversial, potentially disruptive, large-scale solutions such as MOOCs for credit, generated significant resistance from faculty groups and the systems themselves. In particular, a New York Times article "broke the news" that a powerful senate leader was going to challenge the status quo without getting agreement from faculty groups first, and this publicity helped rally vocal opposition to the bill. Of course, this level of resistance should not have surprised anyone involved in higher education in California.
The nature of government is that real legislative movement most often occurs for two reasons – bad press or a crisis. Senator Steinberg sees course access as a crisis for public higher education, and he introduced a bill designed to wake up the higher education community. The bill essentially sent the message that "we need to solve these problems of access whether our colleges and universities do it themselves or whether we need outside help." This challenge to go beyond the ordinary thoughts and discussions in public policy pushed the boundaries and made many groups quite uncomfortable.
In parallel, Governor Jerry Brown added fuel to the fire by proposing additional funding to the CCC, CSU, and UC with the caveat that certain conditions be tied to the funding. The language in the proposed budget obligated the funds "to increase the number of courses available to matriculated undergraduates through the use of technology, specifically those courses that have the highest demand, fill quickly, and are prerequisites for many different degrees." This language was interpreted as telling the systems how to do their job. After CSU and UC indicated they would follow the same guidelines, but execute the solution their own way, Governor Brown used a line-item veto to remove his own proposed earmarks creating conditions for the additional funding.
The result of the intense opposition and debate during the legislative process led to significant amendments to SB 520. Originally envisioned as the gateway to public-private partnerships with a common pool of courses, the bill has been transformed into a grant program for each system to implement individually. Even with the passage of the amended bill in the Senate, the bill is currently on hold.
Movement From Systems
All three systems have proposed new programs that broadly meet the same goals outlined by SB 520, largely based on the additional funding for online initiatives, with the new emphasis being the introduction or expansion of online courses with cross-enrollment across each system.
The California Community Colleges currently enroll as much as 17 percent of their students in various types of online or distance education. The system is poised to continue to advance and expand its online programs with a strong focus on career technical education as well as workforce development programs as outlined in the CCC System Strategic Plan, updated in June of this year.
In July, the CSU introduced a new Intrasystem Concurrent Enrollment program, allowing students at each campus to sign up for one of 30 online courses offered in the program from other "host" campuses. Under the current plan, students will be limited to one course per semester.
In January, UC introduced the Innovative Learning Technology Initiative, updated in May, as "a direct response to the governor's plan to earmark $10 million from UC's FY 14 core budget to use technology to increase access to high-demand courses for UC matriculated students."
Despite the welcome news of these programs, we are already hearing widespread concerns over the pace and scale of implementation. Lieut. Governor Gavin Newsom, a noted supporter of more effective use of technology, following the online program presentation at the July meeting of the UC Regents, stated, "I don't think we're running at full speed here. We're moving extraordinarily slowly…. Californians are looking to us" for progress in online education.
What to Expect Next
Students enrolled in California public colleges and universities should be guaranteed timely access to the core courses that they are required to take in order to graduate. Given that there are a variety of ways in which the institutions could meet this obligation, the state should avoid being overly prescriptive about the method. Rather, it should supply the mandate for educational access, support institutions in meeting this mandate, and provide a safety valve to ensure the mandate's right is preserved.
--From our position paper
The focus should remain on finding effective solutions to the course-access issue -- providing students with high-quality courses they need while reducing costs. Before this year, this was not happening for a variety of reasons, and it remains to be seen just how much the institutions will do without the pressure of earmarked funding in the state budget or pending legislation such as SB 520.
We believe the best outcomes for online education occur when faculty and institutions are motivated and supported to design high-quality options for students. Ideally, colleges and universities would craft solutions, but use third-party courses as safety valves to ensure students have access to necessary classes. The hope is that the three public systems will continue their progress, find real solutions to the course access problem, and not fall into the trap of doing the same old thing again, just with online options.
At this point, one might actually suggest that a welcome policy outcome has indeed been accomplished as a direct result of the initial language in SB 520. The bill is certainly not dead. The bill itself could now be thought of as a safety valve, providing an option in case the three systems fail to show real progress in meeting the challenge of course access. We are, however, cautiously optimistic that viable and effective change is, at least for now, in the formative stages.
Phil Hill is a consultant and industry analyst covering the educational technology market primarily for higher education. He is co-publisher of the e-Literate blog and co-founder of MindWires Consulting. Follow him on Twitter at @PhilOnEdTech.
Dean Florez is the former Senate majority leader of the California State Senate and the current president and CEO of the 20 Million Minds Foundation (@20MillionMinds). Follow him on Twitter at @DeanFlorez.
Giving college credit for a massive open online course will devalue degrees, but the moment I write that, a voice in my mind asks, "Why do you believe that?"
Although I don't think colleges and universities should equate MOOCs with other courses, I'm no Luddite. I'm happy to see digital humanities breathe life into literary studies, and at one point I took an online class to prepare to teach in that format. Since then I've taught several courses entirely online, but the results discouraged me: Committed students did well, but the rest did poorly or vanished.
Although some students have problems in my face-to-face classes, I'm able to intervene and provide help earlier in that format, so far fewer disappear. Currently I use digital resources to enhance the classes I teach, but I have no desire to run a course entirely online again. Therefore I assume that instructors who favor MOOCs have taught online classes with quality equal to or better than their face-to-face classes.
My skepticism about MOOCs also comes from the size of the face-to-face classes I've taken and taught. I earned my undergraduate degree at St. John's University, a small liberal arts college in Minnesota, and I teach English at a similar institution, Aquinas College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Almost all my experience comes from classes with 25 or fewer students, but perhaps I would champion MOOCs if I had had educational triumphs while taking and teaching face-to-face courses with hundreds enrolled.
Some MOOCs feature lectures by professors at Ivy League and other top research universities. The assumption that the most-esteemed researchers give the best lectures certainly makes great advertising, but the quality standard that I set for undergrad education comes from an Intro to Philosophy class taught by Professor Robert Joyce at St. John's, who is now retired. Rather than lecture on the great speculations of the ages, Professor Joyce wanted his students to experience philosophy. To accomplish this, he plunged us into the Socratic Method. He might begin a session by asking "What do you think of capital punishment?"
I would say, "I'm against it. Taking another person's life is wrong."
Professor Joyce would reply, "Why do you believe that?"
I would say, "I don't know. It just is."
Professor Joyce would ask, "What if a criminal kills a relative of yours? Doesn't justice require that murderer to die?"
"No. An eye for an eye isn't always right."
Professor Joyce would persist. "Why do you believe that?"
"I don't know."
These exercises made me realize that I couldn't defend easily what I accepted as self-evident truths. Could students in a MOOC have a comparable experience? I have a hard time imagining it, but perhaps my pro-MOOC colleagues have found a digital substitute for Professor Joyce's one-on-one attention and cheerful intensity as he looked a person in the eye and asked repeatedly, "Why do you believe that?"
In high school I believed multiple-choice tests were great because I could guess which isolated factoids would appear on them. When the first Intro to Philosophy exam loomed on the horizon, however, I thought our in-class exercises unlikely sources for multiple-choice questions. We had read several Socratic dialogues, but would Professor Joyce ask me to match the names of befuddled Athenians with the titles of dialogues? I doubted it.
To prepare for the first test, I organized a study group that spent a couple of hours tossing around speculations about how Professor Joyce thought and what he might ask. I concede that a MOOC could provide an experience similar to my study group, especially if the thousands of enrollees were divided into close-knit groups of a couple hundred.
That first Intro to Philosophy test offered not a single multiple-choice question.
No true/false or matching, either. Instead, it required me to construct a dialogue between myself and Socrates, a dialogue asking him to reconsider a belief about forms or ideas existing in a realm separate from earthly matter. From the study group session I'd developed a Dr. Seuss-like image of pink and blue cotton-candy words such as VIRTUE and TRUTH floating in the air above Socrates and his buddies, but the test required me to argue against that image. I dreamed up something about people constructing ideas by contrasting one experience in life to another. I proposed that alternative, but because the professor admired Socrates, I let the ancient Athenian talk me out of it. That shift in direction might confound a computer program for scanning and grading 100,000 essays, but a human being judged my blue book. Fortunately, my answer connected with Professor Joyce's idea of an A.
According to Ronald Legon, executive director of the Quality Matters Program, first-generation MOOCs often rely on multiple-choice tests, but he thinks second-generation MOOCs will "incorporate many of the best practices of distance learning." I hope that MOOCs improve, but because of the sheer number of students, I fear that many second-generation MOOCs will follow the easy route mapped by the first generation. I also confess that I create exams entirely of essay questions for my own classes, but I might change if someone shows me how to make multiple-choice tests that lead students to construct knowledge involving multiple abstractions.
Legon and others wrestle with the issue of students getting meaningful guidance from an instructor. I have yet to see a proposed model that handles this issue well, especially given that real classes — not picture-perfect imaginary ones — frequently face unanticipated problems. I recall that Professor Joyce once assigned a book that assumed the reader had a large disposable income and cosmopolitan experiences far removed from my small-town Minnesotan background. These assumptions angered me so much that I threw the book against the wall of my dorm room. In class the next day other students voiced similar frustrations with the reading. Professor Joyce set aside his planned lesson and encouraged us to look beyond the specific details and find worthwhile principles behind the discourse. Because the instructor knew and understood his class, he could change the course to match our needs.
I have a hard time envisioning a MOOC designed for the millions that could respond to the needs of students in a specific class and change direction for a teachable moment. Of course, I also have a hard time imagining the algorithms the National Security Agency uses to locate the terrorist messages among the millions of private communications it spies upon, so perhaps someone has developed equally useful algorithms to identify the students among the MOOC multitudes that need to have a lesson created on the spot.
The most important lesson I learned from Intro to Philosophy surprised me. At lunch one day with friends from my study group, I asserted an opinion about some current issue. As I did so, I involuntarily imagined Professor Joyce asking, "Why do you believe that?" I told my friends and even did an imitation of the man, which got a good laugh. I discovered, however, that the professor's voice couldn't be laughed away. In fact, the voice stayed with me throughout my formal education, and to this day, about once a week I imagine my Intro to Philosophy instructor saying, "Why do you believe that?"
I associate the voice in my head so closely with the flesh-and-blood individual that I cannot imagine a MOOC having a similar lifelong effect, but I give the MOOCs a pass on this one because they haven't been around long enough for anyone to determine their long-term influence. Fortunately, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a MOOC Research Initiative.
MOOCs are becoming acceptable in higher education because people richer and more powerful than I am declare them to be good. I still expect MOOCs to devalue the worth of degrees, but having performed the Socratic self-examination that Professor Joyce taught me, I have a better understanding of why I believe what I do.
Brent Chesley is a professor of English at Aquinas College, in Michigan.
What an exciting year for distance learning! Cutting-edge communication systems allowed colleges to escape the tired confines of face-to-face education. Bold new technologies made it possible for thousands of geographically dispersed students to enroll in world-class courses. Innovative assessment mechanisms let professors supervise their pupils remotely.
All this progress was good for business, too. Private entrepreneurs leapt at the chance to compete in the new distance learning marketplace, while Ivy League universities bustled to keep pace. True, a few naysayers fretted about declining student attention spans and low course-completion rates. But who could object to the expansively democratic goal of bringing first-rate education to more people than ever before? The new pedagogical tools promised to be not only more affordable than traditional classes, but also more effective at measuring student progress.
In the words of one prominent expert, the average distance learner "knows more of the subject, and knows it better, than the student who has covered the same ground in the classroom." Indeed, "the day is coming when the work done [via distance learning] will be greater in amount than that done in the class-rooms of our colleges." The future of education was finally here.
2012, right? Think again: 1885. The commentator quoted above was Yale classicist (and future University of Chicago President) William Rainey Harper, evaluating correspondence courses. That's right: you've got (snail) mail. Journalist Nicholas Carr has chronicled the recurrent boosterism about mass mediated education over the last century: the phonograph, instructional radio, televised lectures. All were heralded as transformative educational tools in their day. This should give us pause as we consider the latest iteration of distance learning: massive open online courses (MOOCs).
In response to the "MOOC Moment," skeptical faculty have begun questioning venture capitalists eager for new markets and legislators eager to dismantle public funding for American higher education. To their credit, some people pushing for MOOCs speak from laudably egalitarian impulses to provide access for disadvantaged students. But to what are they being given access? Are broadcast lectures and online discussions the sum of an education? Or is an education something more than "content" delivery?
To state the obvious: there's a living, human element to education. We who cherish in-person instruction would benefit from a pithy phrase to defend and promote this millennia-tested practice. I propose that we begin calling it "close learning." "Close learning" evokes the laborious, time-consuming, and costly but irreplaceable proximity between teacher and student. "Close learning" exposes the stark deficiencies of mass distance learning such as MOOCs, and its haste to reduce dynamism, responsiveness, presence.
Techno-utopians seem surprised that "blended" or "flipped" classrooms – combining online media with in-person discussions – are more effective than their online-only counterparts, or that one-on-one tutoring strengthens the utility of MOOCs. In spite of all the hype about interactivity, "lecturing" a la MOOCs merely extends the cliché of the static, one-sided lecture hall, where distance learning begins after the first row.
The old-fashioned Socratic seminar is where we actually find interactive learning and open-ended inquiry. In the close learning of the live seminar, spontaneity rules. Both students and teachers are always at a crossroads, collaboratively deciding where to go and where to stop, how to navigate and how to detour, and how to close the distance between a topic and the people discussing it. For the seminar to work, certain limits are required (most centrally, a limit in size). But these finite limits enable the infinity of questioning that is close learning. MOOCs claim to abolish those limits, while they paradoxically reinstate them. Their naïve model assumes that there is always total transparency, that passively seeing (watching a lecture, or a virtual simulation) is learning.
A Columbia University neuroscientist, Stuart Firestein, recently published a polemical book titled Ignorance: How It Drives Science. Discouraged by students regurgitating his lectures without internalizing the complexity of scientific inquiry, Firestein created a seminar to which he invited his colleagues to discuss what they don't know. As Firestein repeatedly emphasizes, it is informed ignorance, not information, that is the genuine "engine" of knowledge. His seminar demonstrates that mere data transmission from teacher to student doesn't produce deep learning. It's the ability to interact, to think hard thoughts alongside other people.
In a seminar, a student can ask for clarification, and challenge a teacher; a teacher can shift course when spirits are flagging; a stray thought can spark a new insight. Isn't this the kind of nonconformist "thinking outside the box" that business leaders adore? So why is there such a rush to freeze knowledge and distribute it in a frozen form? Even Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng concedes that the real value of a college education "isn't just the content.... The real value is the interactions with professors and other, equally bright students."
The corporate world recognizes the virtues of proximity in its own human resource management. Witness, for example, Yahoo's recent decision to eliminate telecommuting and require employees to be present in the office. CEO Marissa Mayer's memo reads as a mini-manifesto for close learning:
"To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together."
Why do boards of directors still go through the effort of convening in person? Why, in spite of all the fantasies about "working from anywhere," are "creative classes" still concentrating in proximity to one another: the entertainment industry in LA, information technology in the Bay Area, financial capital in New York City? The powerful and the wealthy are well aware that computers can accelerate the exchange of information, and facilitate low-level "training." But not the development of knowledge, much less wisdom.
Close learning transcends disciplines. In every field, students must incline towards their subjects: leaning into a sentence, to craft it most persuasively. Leaning into an archival document, to determine an uncertain provenance. Leaning into a musical score, to poise the body for performance. Leaning into a data set, to discern emerging patterns. Leaning into a laboratory instrument, to interpret what is viewed. MOOCs, in contrast, encourage students and faculty to lean back, not to cultivate the disciplined attention necessary to engage fully in a complex task. Low completion rates for MOOCs (hovering around 10 percent) speak for themselves.
A devotion to close learning should not be mistaken for an anti-technology stance. (Contrary to a common misperception, the original Luddites simply wanted machines that made high-quality goods, run by trained workers who were adequately compensated.) I teach Shakespeare, supposedly one of the mustiest of topics. Yet my students navigate the vast resources of the Internet; evaluate recorded performances; wrestle with facsimiles of original publications; listen to pertinent podcasts; survey decades of scholarship in digitized form; circulate their drafts electronically; explore the cultural topography of early modern London; and contemplate the historical richness of the English language. Close learning is entirely compatible with engaging in meaningful conversations outside the classroom; faculty can correspond regularly with students via e-mail, and keep in close contact via all kinds of new media. But this is all in service of close learning, and the payoff comes in the classroom.
Teachers have always employed "technology" – including the book, one of the most flexible and dynamic learning technologies ever created. But let's not fixate upon technology for technology's sake, or delude ourselves into thinking that better technology overcomes bad teaching. At no stage of education does technology, no matter how novel, ever replace human attention. Close learning can't be automated, or scaled up.
As retrograde as it might sound, gathering humans in a room with real time for dialogue still matters. As educators, we must remind ourselves – not to mention our boards, our alumni, our students, and those students' parents – of the inescapable fact that our "product" is close learning. This is why savvy parents have always invested in intensive human interaction for their children. (Tellingly, parents from Silicon Valley deliberately restrict their children's access to electronic distractions, so that they might experience the free play of mind essential to human development.) What remains to be seen is whether we value this kind of close learning at all levels of education, enough to defend it, and fund it, for a wider circle of Americans – or whether we will continue to permit the circle to contract, excluding a genuinely transformative educational experience from those without means.
Scott L. Newstok teaches in the English department at Rhodes College.
Largest provider of classroom management software removes itself from the sidelines and joins the MOOC fray.
MOOCs are supposed to democratize education, but some students may never learn the right answers to questions on assignments that they get wrong.
So many exciting and innovative efforts are under way to deliver the best educational value to as many students as possible. Since joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation a year ago, I've spent considerable time talking to college presidents, chancellors, faculty members, grantees, and other partners. We continually learn from higher education leaders and use what they tell us to assess how we can support their creative and inspiring efforts.
Their commitment to innovation is real and exciting. However, I'm also finding that some institutions are chasing innovation without exactly knowing why they are doing it, leading to a very clear rumbling of what I call "innovation exhaustion."
I encountered this at the Education Writers Association (EWA) national seminar, held recently at Stanford University. From reporters to college officials, everyone is after the next big thing, whether it's MOOCs (massive open online courses), online education, ed-tech startups, competency-based courses or e-portfolios. But to what end?
At the EWA event, speakers said that in the swirl of innovation, some parts of the higher education community have lost sight of the purpose of innovation. The purpose of innovation, it was repeatedly stated, is to achieve more affordable and better education pathways so that more young adults are able to move into sustaining careers. I could not agree more.
Why are so many coming down with an acute case of innovation exhaustion? For the presidents and chancellors I've met with, their innovation exhaustion comes out in an obvious and growing frustration with MOOCs. For them, MOOCs are a perfect storm of hype, hyperbole, and hysteria – and yet many have plunged headlong into them without a real clear sense of why or how MOOCs can help more students succeed. And that is what I see as the primary problem with innovation in higher education.
Everybody seems to be chasing something, but very few people actually know what or why, or what they'd do if they ever caught it.
For example, governors and policymakers are gushing over MOOCs because they see them as an opportunity to drive down costs. They believe MOOCs will enable institutions to deliver education to more people, more cheaply, even though we are far from knowing whether MOOCs are a viable thing or are just a passing fad. The Gates Foundation has invested in MOOCs to help determine if they have the potential to help more students earn the degrees they seek while maintaining or even improving learning outcomes.
Trustees and board members also are pushing college presidents to innovate because they don't want their colleges and universities left behind. I call this "me too"-ism, where innovation itself becomes the goal without a clear and compelling strategic purpose.
As these pressures build from above, demands are also percolating up, as faculty are beginning to dig in and ask hard questions which press on academic freedom. (Why shouldn't a professor from one university be able to offer instruction to students around the world? Why shouldn't accredited academic institutions be permitted to bestow credit on students who take such courses and pass them the way we do all the time with transferred community college and Advanced Placement credits?)
It seems to me, at least with respect to MOOCs, that we have skipped an important step. We've jumped right into the "chase" without much of a discussion about what problems they could help us to solve. We have skipped the big picture of where higher ed is going and where we want to be in 10 or 20 years.
I haven't heard many people talking about innovation in these terms. During a time of tight budgets and scarce resources, policymakers in particular are right to take on controlling costs and increasing efficiency. And they're trying to do it through technology and innovation. But I believe they're missing something important.
States and policymakers should be looking for ways to use innovation to drive up the value of a college degree while increasing the system's productivity (its ability to provide more students with credentials that lead to sustaining careers). In fact, there are many who believe that focusing only on driving down costs could break the very systems that we have spent generations, and billions of taxpayer dollars, creating. Worse, no one wants to cheapen education by diminishing its value to students.
Those of us invested in higher education's future need to align this enthusiasm for innovation with clear institutional goals so that these efforts result in more students earning the degrees and credentials they need to be successful in the workplace, in society, and in life. Working carefully and deliberately, we can showcase the different reasons why innovation is being embraced and show where they can take us as a society.
As for faculty, I know that there are many in the academic ranks — maybe even a majority — who believe strongly that their mission is to uphold the public importance of higher education and to better the lives of their students. We all want that.
To this end, there are many exciting efforts under way to improve the value of a college degree while increasing the system's productivity, often through new courseware, tools, and systems for tracking student progress. These include adaptive technologies that adjust to a student's needs and abilities, such as learning modules that tweak the type and difficulty of their material in response to a student's pace and skill level. I believe once faculty witness the power of these tools to keep students engaged and on track to graduate, once they see a clear purpose and strategy behind such innovations, they will embrace them.
It will not be easy or quick to get to a point where all sectors of higher education are delivering high value education to more students. But there are a number of institutions well on the way — Arizona State, Georgia State and Southern New Hampshire Universities, to name a few. We need to support and encourage these thoughtful innovators, and help them articulate what we know to be true: That innovation is a means of increasing the value of higher education and improving its impact and ability to improve student lives.
Like most Americans, we at the Gates Foundation support efforts to deliver the best educational value to as many students as possible. We envision a postsecondary system that drives social mobility and economic development for us all. I believe we can get there through strategic innovation that puts student success front and center.
Dan Greenstein is the director of postsecondary success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Follow him on Twitter: @dan_greenstein.
Love MOOCs or hate them, there's something to disappoint everyone in the Udacity/Georgia Tech services contract amendments that Inside Higher Ed's Ry Rivard obtained through a public records request.
Although MOOCs have monopolized definitions of higher education reform for nearly two years now, some academic managers have wondered whether they shouldn't extend online instruction on the base of their existing online programs, rather than partnering with an MOOC platform like Udacity. A consortium of Midwestern research universities recently took a major step in this direction in suggesting that their members might evolve their own "coordinated platform for the development and delivery of online or blended courses" for the whole consortium's use.
In contrast, the strongest argument to skip internal development and hire MOOC companies has been the companies' claim to bring revolutionary cost savings to colleges and their students with their revolutionary technology. Unfortunately for all concerned, there is no sign in the Udacity spreadsheets of massive online cost-cutting services. Nor can the savings that do appear be traced directly to the Udacity platform.
The contract, between Udacity and the Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC), aims to create a MOOC master's degree in computer science — described as "the first professional online master of science degree in computer science (OMS CS) that can be earned completely through the 'massive online' format." The hook is the low low price -- $6,630, according to Rivard, or one-seventh of the $40,000-plus price of a face-to-face computer science M.S. at the same institution.
But when we look for massive cost savings in the Georgia Tech-Udacity spreadsheets, what do we find? In Year 1 (Exhibit H), things don't look so cheap. The two entities together will spend about $3.1 million running a program for an estimated 200 students in the first semester. This comes to around $15,700 per year per enrolled student. The figure is close to what the University of California Office of the President says it spends educating all UC students averaged together (Display 6). In Year 1, Udacity-Georgia Tech costs look like those of a good, conventional public university program.
But wouldn't Semester 1 naturally be burdened by start-up costs and a steep learning curve? Yes, were Georgia Tech designing the platform from scratch. But Udacity is supposed to have already solved higher education's "cost disease" with its technology. We'll note that Year 1 is not plug-and-play. Years 2 and 3, when student volume increases, feature courses that are in the can, and low marginal costs of instruction could kick in.
Here's where things get disappointing.
First of all, the budgets don't fit with the enrollment plan. Each student takes "6 credit hours (2 courses) per semester" in a 12-course master's. The enrollment forecast "assumes 200 pending full standing (degree-seeking) students begin the program each semester and all 200 in semester 1 become full-standing students .... in semester 2." So in semester 6, the enrollment forecast has semester 1 students in their final term, and five more semesters of 200 new students apiece, for a total of 1,200 students. That is a lot of growth in the existing program that now admits 150 new students a year (page 2). But on the spreadsheet, year 3 revenues have increased nearly 14-fold, to over $19 million. This income requires over 2,800 student FTE in Year 3 (based on Year 1 per-student revenues), which is more than double the enrollment forecast found in the footnotes.
But in fact, the partnership is not collecting $6,630 per year but per degree, and the degree is estimated to take three years. So the typical student in any given year is paying $2,210 in tuition. At that annual price, $19 million of Year 3 revenue requires 8,700 paying student FTE. This figure is larger than the total number of computer science master's degrees granted in 2009-10 in the United States (Table 4). Even after noting an untapped global market, this Year 3 number is not credible for degree program enrollment.
At least two conflicting enrollment scenarios are supported by different parts of these documents: (1) growth to 1,200 in Semester 6, and (2) growth to 8,700 in Year 3. (1) fits with reasonable estimates of the time it takes to design and produce new classes, hire and train many "course assistants" (CAs), solve infrastructure issues, and so on, while abiding by the Georgia Tech faculty's desire to enforce the institution's high academic standards.
Scenario (2), however, fits with MOOC hype about the "digital revolution" cracking open closed universities to massive global markets by teaching at "effectively zero dollars marginal cost per additional student," in the words of Coursera's co-founder, Daphne Koller. With $14.4 million in expenses in Year 3, a OMS CS with an implausible enrollment of 8,700 students would spend about $1,655 per year per student, or under $5,000 per degree. The cost is ultra-low for a master's degree, or for any other kind.
How would the OMS CS get to this cost? The simple answer is that it wouldn't. The faculty working group expected a 30:1 student:TA ratio. The contract says 1 contact hour per student credit hour, or 104,400 contact hours per year for 8,700 students, each of whom gets a total of 12 hours of personal attention in that time, or 36 hours over the 3-year program. At the same time, the first-year co-sponsor, AT&T, expects 100 percent online instruction, which is cheap only when stripped of personal attention (whether online, via Skype, or in person). There is a big difference between 290 CAs with the 30:1 ratio, the 87 who at 40 hours a week could deliver 12 hours per student per year, and zero for the online model that eliminates personal attention. (The budget for student support suggests something close to 87.) With this slippage, Udacity can appeal to the corporate belief that the future of teaching is no teachers, while hiring quasi-teachers to suppress that belief's results.
Let's turn from price to cost. Regardless of real enrollment growth, the spreadsheets undermine two key assumptions about commercial MOOCs. The first is that MOOCs offer an automation of teaching that will allow the elimination and/or the cheapening of most teaching staff. This is how Taylorism worked in assembly-line industrialization, and how robotics has worked in manufacturing.
But in the budget, the category of "student support" grows in lockstep with revenue (up 13.8x and 13.9x respectively). One simple reason is that the Georgia Tech faculty wants the OMS CS to have "world-class quality," and that means "blended" or "hybrid" courses. Fully online courses are cheaper, but they generate the highest attrition rates in the history of higher education. Quality MOOCs are always blended MOOCs, and blended MOOCs have lots of CAs (coming mostly from Udacity), which means they aren't actually MOOCs in the sense of the imagined near-zero personnel costs that has set the business and policy worlds on fire.
This is an important admission that a MOOC is "as good or better" than hands-on instruction only through much hands-on instruction. (Coursera's recent announcement of 10 public university partnerships also focuses on blended services.) This blocks online's alleged cost revolution — although online support for instruction obviously helps with costs.
Next, there's an unpleasant surprise in the equally relentless growth of "Operations, Materials, & Supplies." This is where Udacity's proprietary technology was supposed to rescue teaching budgets from the medieval methods that currently bloat them. In fact, looking at the budget, its platform does nothing to cut operating costs. The cost of examinations is particularly large. The big savings, ironically, come by squeezing innovation — payments to course creators flatten out — and by leveraging overhead. But there's nothing novel in these practices. It's easy to reduce expenses by giving the same lecture over and over, which is what existing online courses are designed to do. The same goes for running more volume on the same equipment, which is another time-honored university tactic.
The Udacity-GTRC contract raises the question of what exactly Udacity brings to the table. First, it brings its platform. Yet its platform is not transformative — not visibly better, faster, or cheaper than what Georgia Tech's computer science department has already created or could create with new resources for this purpose.
Second, there are some net revenues. With a profit of $1,665 per degree, the program would earn $14.5 million on the untenable 8,700 graduates, or about $4.8 million per year. Sixty percent of this total (or $2.9 million) would go to GTRC. This amounts to a bit over 1 percent of GTRC's annual research revenues, even with this high number of enrollments. On top of this, GTRC would get 20 percent of gross revenues and 20 percent of gross profits for non-OMS students that use Georgia Tech courses through Udacity. But these are MOOC students who will in general not pay anything. Georgia Tech probably has better margins on its existing extension programs, and could also support its institutional needs with new, smaller programs that it runs on its own.
What Udacity does bring to the table is platform branding. The company has positioned itself as a first mover and dominant player in what it describes as a new global market. Its founder is high-status, famous, and influential. Sebastian Thrun is associated with Google's driverless car and with Stanford's artificial intelligence program. He co-signed a deal to provide three entry-level courses to San Jose State University in the presence of the governor of California.
A similar story of brand dominance can be told about Coursera and its co-founder Daphne Koller, whose access to decision makers extends to the World Economic Forum conference at Davos. The three main MOOC companies have had the clout to sign deals directly with a given institution's senior managers, over the heads of the university faculty. Since Internet and communications technologies seem always to lead to oligarchy (Google/Bing/Yahoo) or duopoly (Apple OS /Microsoft Windows), Udacity can pitch its platform as one of the very few ways for universities to stay in a global online game.
In exchange for presenting itself as an oligarch in waiting, Udacity extracts quite a bit from Georgia Tech. Udacity gets the intellectual content for a master's program of 20 courses at an upfront cost of $400,000. It borrows Georgia Tech's reputation as its own, at a huge discount (no training of graduate students, no support for labs, no decades of accumulated know-how through which Georgia Tech earned its reputation). It acquires these courses for a proprietary platform: Georgia Tech cannot offer these OMS CS courses, created by its own faculty, to a competing distributor.
Udacity expects Georgia Tech faculty members to maintain and update course material, and can use their latest version. While requiring that Georgia Tech not compete with it, it can take Georgia Tech-created courses and offer them to tens or hundreds of thousands of non-registered students — and sell a program certificate for those courses. These courses will differ from Georgia Tech's in being "minimally staffed to rely on course assistants only for student assessment," but will use Georgia Tech's content to compete with Georgia Tech's and all other masters' programs. With these courses, Udacity enters the master's certification business, selling a complete degree program without a degree's intellectual ecology, physical infrastructure, interpersonal venues, and sunk costs.
Udacity's business model requires that it become a dominant platform. With a series of Georgia Tech-style deals for entire degree programs, it could leverage university content — with sustained free-riding -- to appear to the public as a global university.
For two years, claims about the cheapness of the MOOC format overcame widespread doubts about their educational and social effects. During this time, the main MOOC companies did not release specific financial projections. Now we finally have two spreadsheets, and their claims to cheapness are not confirmed.
If these costs are typical, it will be more efficient for universities to partner directly with other universities to develop online instruction for underserved students -- and avoid taking on yet another middleman to do one of their two basic jobs.
Christopher Newfield is professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, author of Unmaking the Public University (Harvard University Press) and co-editor of Remaking the University blog.
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Patti Smith says it's tough for young musicians in modern New York – watch
Smith assesses difficulties faced by those in the creative arts in USA
Following David Byrne's concerns that New York's creative community is struggling due to the prosperity of the city, Patti Smith has told NME about her take on the financial issues facing young artists and musicians in modern New York.
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Morris + Sons, a landmark clothier in Chicago, celebrated its 60th year in business in 2012.
Our customers have been the key reason we continue to grow and evolve. Generations of families trust Morris + Sons to provide fine quality designer garments supported by expert tailoring and personal service. We are dedicated to seeking out the finest designer apparel from all over the world.
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Blood gases is a measurement of how much oxygen and carbon dioxide is in your blood. It also determines the acidity (pH) of your blood.
Alternative Names
Arterial blood gas analysis; ABG
How the test is performed
Usually, blood is taken from an artery. The blood may be collected from the radial artery in the wrist, the femoral artery in the groin, or the brachial artery in the arm.
The health care provider may test circulation to the hand before taking a sample of blood from the wrist area.
The health care provider will insert a small needle through the skin into the artery. You can choose to have numbing medicine (anesthesia) applied to the site before the test begins.
In some cases, blood from a vein may be used.
After the blood is taken, pressure is applied to the site for a few minutes to stop the bleeding. The health care provider will watch the site for signs of bleeding or circulation problems.
The sample must be quickly sent to a laboratory for analysis to ensure accurate results.
How to prepare for the test
There is no special preparation. If you are on oxygen therapy, the oxygen concentration must remain constant for 20 minutes before the test.
How the test will feel
You may feel brief cramping or throbbing at the puncture site.
Why the test is performed
The test is used to evaluate respiratory diseases and conditions that affect the lungs. It helps determine the effectiveness of oxygen therapy. The test also provides information about the body's acid/base balance, which can reveal important clues about lung and kidney function and the body's general metabolic state.
See also:
Acidosis Diabetic ketoacidosis Lactic acidosis Metabolic acidosis Respiratory acidosis Respiratory alkalosis


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Los Angeles Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez, right, is forced out at second as San Diego Padres second baseman Logan Forsythe watches his throw to first in an attempt to get Matt Kemp at first during the fifth inning of their baseball game, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012, in Los Angeles. Kemp was safe at first. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)


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Pastor of the Week: Rev. Steven Caldwell
| 4/5/2012, 5:40 a.m.
How to forgive your past and embrace your future
At first glance, Reverend Steven Caldwells resume appears as if it could belong to two different men. One list of accomplishments would describe a Chicago-born son, whose intelligence and athleticism allowed him to go to college on a baseball scholarship the first in his family to graduate from high school. He would would earn a degree from Florida Memorial University and join a prestigious Back fraternity. However, his alternate resume would describe a young man who was frequently chastised for fighting, who later went on to do marijuana and cocaine, sell drugs and even join a ring of credit cards thieves. But the married 45-year old Caldwell realizes that the two men are one in the same. God had his hand on my life as a child and the devil has been trying to destroy my life ever since, he said. Once he managed to get away from Chicago, which has more than its share of gang life, street violence and community neglect, Caldwell was determined never to return. This was a decision that left him homeless in Miami Gardens at one point. But, going back to Chicago was like returning to Vietnam, if I went back I knew I wouldnt last long, he explained. And Im the first and only success story among my siblings, so I had to stay here. Caldwell managed to stay but continued his dangerous involvement with various criminal ventures. He knew his lifestyle was wrong but it wasnt until several years later that he received an epiphany that he had to go to church.
The challenge of putting faith into action
Seeking help from religion was not a foreign concept to Caldwell since, during his youth, his mother constantly had him attend church with her. I understood religion, said Caldwell, whose mother was a choir director, but I didnt understand my relationship with God. Regardless of his misgivings, Caldwell did understand that his own way was not working for him. And on one fateful night in March 1991, when a group of his friends were robbed and had their car stolen, he says he gave his life to Christ. A voice had told him not to get into the car. It was right then that I went home and I prayed to God, he recalled. I cried out to God for about four hours and that day on March 18th, 1991, God delivered me from all of my addictions. In 1995, he was called into ministry at New Way Fellowship Baptist Church. He would go on to serve in other ministries before being installed as the senior pastor of New Providence Missionary Baptist Church on October 2, 2011. With more than 350 active members, the church supports the traditional Women and Mens Ministry and also launched a Childrens, Young Adult and Couples Ministry. We are an eclectic mix of young and old members, Caldwell described. We have to be able to provide activities that will appeal to all generations. On many Sundays, the minister can be found behind the pulpit preaching a message of hope to everyone in the pews. I allow my sermons to take you to Jesus, Caldwell said.
By Kaila Heard
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Press releases
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The Children's Society responds to the Budget
"As a member of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, The Children's Society is disappointed the government has not prioritised the urgent needs of the 3.9 million children living in poverty in the UK
The Children's Society calls on Ministers to protect children from unfair treatment
Children's charities today accuse the Government of failing to protect children from discrimination.
Report highlights how immigration detention is 'literally putting children's lives at risk'
The Children's Society and Bail for Immigration Detainees strongly support the report published by the Children's Commissioner for England, which contains many examples of the harmful impact that i
Time4Change group wins national award
A Children's Society project has received a prestigious national award for its work in producing a DVD aimed at making schools more inclusive for disabled children.
Children losing touch with Britain's gardening roots, adults admit
Children growing up today know less about where food comes from because the new generation of parents are less likely to show them how to garden, says a survey commissioned by The Children's Societ
Maria Miller MP visits the Art Room
Maria Miller MP, the Conservative Shadow Minister for the Family, visited The Art Room, a Children's Centre run by The Children's Society, on the Lakes Estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes on 18 May
Gold for The Children's Society at Chelsea - again!
Designer Mark Gregory today celebrates winning a Gold Medal for the second year running at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2009 with a garden for The Children's Society.
97.4 Rock FM to raise money for The Children's Society Lancashire
The Children's Society has taken to the airwaves in the North West of England as part our new partnership with Bauer Media, a multi-platform UK-based media group to raise money for The Children's S
Tower to Tower - Le Tour de Rock
Our campaign to raise money for a key project has gone international with the help of Rock FM radio station
Roma children challenge ignorance by sharing their culture
A group of 7 to 14 year old Roma children will be taking to the streets of London throughout June to give out free copies of a picture book they have produced which aims to engage the general publi


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Paul Ince's men made most of the running in the first half but Pool goalkeeper Matt Gilks was forced into impressive saves from Junior Stanislas and Ross Wallace, the former aided by the base of his post.
Sylvestre gave Pool the lead in their 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest last weekend and he broke the deadlock here with a superb long-range strike after 58 minutes.
Blackpool defended stoutly in the closing minutes, while Tom Ince and Sylvestre almost applied gloss on the counter attack.
The result means the teams share 1-0 home derby wins this term, along with a total of 54 points from 42 games.
Blackpool's on-loan Aston Villa forward Nathan Delfouneso spurned a seventh-minute opportunity to open the scoring, scuffing a shot into the grateful arms of Burnley goalkeeper Lee Grant after Matt Phillips picked him out inside the area.
Seasiders full-back Kirk Broadfoot raided forward to flash a shot past the far post from the right, but Burnley almost took the lead with a quarter of an hour played as Stanislas shot at the end of a driving run to be thwarted by a combination of Gilks and the inside of the upright.
Burnley once again came closest to breaking the first-half deadlock three minutes before the interval. Ross Wallace unleashed a swirling, dipping effort that Gilks did superbly well to touch beyond the crossbar.
After a quiet start to the second half, Sylvestre brought Bloomfield Road to its feet by going one better than Wallace. Little appeared to be on as the French midfielder edged in from the left and curled a wonderful strike into the top corner.
Burnley almost hit back in the 67th minute when Gilks flapped Wallace's cross partially away from the goalmouth but Chris Basham blocked Stanislas' follow-up shot. Blackpool would have been able to breathe easier had Sylvestre not headed wide after Ince's deflected effort came back off the bar.
- Sports & Recreation
- Ross Wallace
- Matt Gilks
- Junior Stanislas
- Paul Ince


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The next IHME Festival will be held in March/April 2017.
You can watch footage from IHME Days' talks 2016 on YouTube >
Many of the speakers, e.g. Jan Verwoert, Emmanuel Pratt, Jaroslav Anděl, spoke in English.
IHME's annual themes are derived from the IHME Project's subject matter. At the heart of Kateřina Šedá's Tram Buskers' Tour were the following: communities and art, connections between art and education, especially phenomenon-centred learning, and the question of what artists do when they create art. These topics were discussed at the IHME Days on April 1-3, featuring numerous artists, art experts and members of the public.
Free admission to all events.
Please, read more about the speakers here >
Community Art – Taike Day
Friday 1.4. at 11.00-15.15 Old Student House, Great Hall
NB! This event is entirely in Finnish.
Where does community art sit on the contemporary art map these days? What kind of environments and communities are artists working with? What motivates collaborations and what is created in them? What kind of thoughts does community art awaken among funding bodies? These themes were discussed during the Community Arts (Taike) Day that has been arranged by Arts Promotion Centre Finland. The programme for the day was split into two parts. The morning concentrated on current issues in the field from the point of view of artists and funding bodies. Talks in the afternoon will addressed education and research in the community arts field as well as cooperation between different fields.
Speakers who addressed their work and methods included Arkipelag Workshop association; RaumArs artist-in-residence programme; artist Timo Tähkänen; artist duo Nutty Tarts; m-cult director Minna Tarkka; community artist Pia Bartsch from the Saari Residence maintained by the Kone Foundation; researcher Pia Hovi-Assad from Turku University Landscape Studies degree programme; and director of senior and elderly work Mona Särkelä-Kukko from the Finnish Federation of Settlement Houses. Funding bodies involved include Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Kone Foundation, The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Taike Day opened this spring's triennial of community arts, RECEPTION. The event was intended for artists, producers and everyone who is interested in the community art field.


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7th > January > 2007 Archive
Chasing the holy grail: the algorithmic arms race
Column Investment banks and major brokerage firms may or may not be leading the innovation in algorithms for securities trading purposes, but they take the lead in publicising their innovations in this field.
Web stalkers to get face search plug-in
Opinion If privacy campaigners think the internet has given them stomach ulcers, they ain't seen the latest in facial recognition web search yet.
IT slave workers moan some more
Letters Since the new boss of the British Computer Society warned that the economy would wither if it didn't train some more IT bods, Register readers have started to recount the sad stories of their underpaid, unappreciated, insignificant lives.
Netgear brings media player into HD era
CES 2007 Netgear has announced the HD-ready successor to its EVA700 networked digital media player, beefing up that product's feature set with pre-standard 802.11n wireless networking and an HDMI port for easy connection to an HD TV. It also has built-in YouTube support.
LG unwraps slick Blu-ray, HD DVD player
CES 2007 LG today unveiled the dual-format HD DVD, Blu-ray Disc player that garnered it so many headlines last week. Dubbed the Super Multi Blue Player - aka the BH100 - it's due to go on sale later this quarter, the company said. So will a version for PCs.
Toshiba expands HD DVD player line-up
CES 2007 Toshiba today extended its HD DVD player line-up with an intermediate model that combines the feature set of the entry-level HD-A2 with 1080p-resolution output.


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I just updated the pugin and the inclusion of the bootstrap CSS has totally messed up my site (http://www.goawd.com). I had to deactivate the plugin, now I need to find another solution, unless you can offer me some insight.
On the Plugin page, I also get the following error.
Warning: preg_match() expects parameter 2 to be string, array given in /{path omitted for privacy}/wp-content/plugins/wp-userlogin/userlogin.php on line 83
Any ideas, I liked this plugin and it was working excellently until this update.


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Skip to comments.Orly Taitz: Obama used the SS number of a dead woman!
Posted on 03/29/2013 11:27:31 AM PDT by wesagain
There is something very fishy going on when the media supresses all the really bad things our president is doing and has done in his past. It's like he has something on them and they won't do the job that they have always done in the past about getting the facts out to We the People . Some of the brainwashed voters are now seeing the light , and it's a very bright light of warning.. take heed America! something Ain't Right here !! When he talks about having something to hide I think he is warning those who could hurt him , about the fact they have something to hide..Is this presidential blackmail ? Mayby they have just been duped . Now is that possible all the smart pple in washington duped ? like I said , something is fishy here . And its been out of the water too long ......
(Excerpt) Read more at fiscalconservatives.com ...
Wait till you hear who's number it was......wierd!!!
Why not. He used dead people's votes
-Ayn Rand
Let me guess. The social security number was assigned To deceased mother Of chief actuary Of the social security administration?
"When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt,
but protects the corrupt from you
- you know your nation is doomed."
-Ayn Rand
We're there.
The issue of 0bama's eligibility will never be allowed to come to the fore while he is president, nor for several years afterwards.
The powers that be are absolutely convinced that removing him for eligibility reasons would result in cities across America burning to the ground.
When I saw it was a dead woman I thought it might be Nancy Pelosi.
Is there a downside?
It wouldn't surprise me if every one of those clowns in Washington has something to hide. That's probably why so little gets done in Washington and what does get done gets done through blackmail.
I hate them all.
Happy Easter.
In some neighborhoods, HUNDREDS of dollars in damages could occur.
Are the PhonyCons in the media going to continue to attack Orly and support Obama?
Or is Orly/Corsi/WND still liars? Are the PhonyCon Liberals still going to protect Obama on Eligibility?
Barack Obama isn't eligible.... and you're an Obama Supporter if you continue to attack "Birthers"
Video won't play for me. Whose Ss# is it?
Good !!!! There nothing left of most of them anyway. Third world crapholes run by democRATS. No great loss and plenty of potential upside.
The issue of 0bamas eligibility will never be allowed to come to the fore while he is president, nor for several years afterwards.
Yeah, but history will tell the truth. That may happen quickly, or it may happen slowly, but it will happen. Leftist extremists are invariably profoundly ignorant of history, or they wouldn't be leftist extremists in the famous first place.
I watched the (short) video. It is as post #5 claims, e.g. the SSN of the deceased mother of chief actuary of the social security administration. Orly said she contacted the son of this individual, who said to her "dead people have no rights".
See post #5.
From the tape..."the deceased have to rights!".
Was Atlas Shrugged written 50 or more years ago or was it written 50 days ago? Either way, this country is progressing as though Atlas is a rather accurate screen-play we are watching.
I know who is playing Mr. Thompson, but where the hell is John Galt or Hank Reardon?
Not really. America has been in the process of burning to the waterline for several years now.
oops!...make that, "the deceased have NO rights".
It's the mother of recently retired Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration named Harry C. Ballantyne. Her name is Lucille T Ballantyne born 12/22/1912, deceased 09/13/1998.
Good question.
So that is the Michigan 364-03-XXXX. Ok, then good. :-)
Most of these early "supporters" of the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN CHIEF were party to the Communists "spooks".
There's a great volume of history you have to go through to understand this, and it goes back to about 1850.
Read these three articles on one of my earlier post:
It's deep, it's ugly, and most people WILL NOT ... CAN NOT ... accept the truth.
It's because he is black and has been groomed for being the puppet of some powerful people.
Hopefully, this will come out sooner rather than later. i expect him to serve his full term in office, and maybe in retirement sent off to prison, if we are lucky.
I thought the number belonged to Harrison J. Bounel?
"Ann and her newborn son flew from Nairobi to London, via BOAC Flight BA162 and then took the non-stop BOAC flight from London to Vancouver, Canada."
Have those plane manifests ever been checked to see if they were on the flight?
The really sick thing is, the stolen SS# he used is ALSO NBC INELIGIBLE!
That sure looks like a Michigan SSN.
This phony President nor his masters are for you. Maybe they are now realizing their fate will be the same as ours. Ya think Obama, Hillary and the rest of their kind aren't slaves? They are being kept and owned by the biggest slave owners of all time.
Nah. She is still walking around pretending to be among her people with a gavel in her hand.
Given the fact that it was THIS person let's me know that this was all planned.
It's the who did the planning that scares me. Especially since the FIRST SS# he was from a Russian immigrant.
I don't believe that is what they are afraid of. It is something else. Those that couldn't be blackmailed or bought were threatened with something very dreadful. They know enough about what these people have done to reach this point and they don't doubt that they would make good on their threat. We desperately need God's help because I do believe that we are up against His chief adversary. Please pray.
And that's accounting for inflation.
Unless we return to paper ballots, scrutinized vote counters, voter ID and I'd throw in some purple ink for good measure, we will never again have a fair and honest election. The only reason to be opposed to these measures is because you want to cheat.
He used two different ones.
Used as a dummy to conceal the actual SSN? Maybe.
That could explain why the woman's child isn't concerned about this.
Seems to me to be only a matter of "who" burns it down. If Obama stays in office, he burns it down; if he is removed, it will be his Marxist brothers.
The powers that be are absolutely convinced that removing him for eligibility reasons would result in cities across America burning to the ground.
How about removing him for criminal conduct?
"It's deep, it's ugly, and most people WILL NOT ... CAN NOT ... accept the truth. "
The only way one can accept the truth and retain their sanity is to trust God. Whatever happens you know you will ultimately be in a very good place.
Excellent summary, by the way.
I'm sure that after Boehner sees this video, impeachment proceedings will be instituted immediately. He's been looking for just this sort of thing.
American salvation rests on burning cities
no pain, no gain
One, in particular.
What is it about Chicago? We just found out someone from there is using my19 yo sons ss# to file income taxes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.


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Ukraine badly needs waste nuclear fuel storage facility, says Emergencies Ministry
Ukraine needs to give a serious thought to building a centralized storage facility for waste nuclear fuel since waste fuel from Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs), which is temporary stored in the Russian Federation will start to come back from 2013, the Emergencies Ministry said.
"Starting from 2013, Ukraine should be taking the processed waste nuclear fuel back from Russia. To date, there is no repository where it could be safely stored in Ukraine. We need to speed up the construction of such facility at the Vector site," Acting Head of the State Agency for Exclusion Zone Management Dmytro Bobrov said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.
He recalled that almost all waste nuclear fuel from Ukrainian nuclear power plants (with the exception of Zaporizhia NPP, which has a waste nuclear fuel storage facility) is currently sent for temporary storage to Russia. In line with Russian legislation, after recycling the waste fuel should be returned to the country of origin.
"The problem has not been solved. We have a repository for high-level radioactive waste at Chornobyl NPP, whose specifications allow it to be used temporarily for the purpose, but it is not intended for this it terms of capacity and design. We can keep it (waste nuclear fuel) for some time there, but unless we principally solve this year the issue of the construction of a special storage facility, then the problem will become acute, starting with, say, 2015. And the Energoatom National Electricity Generating Company will have to pay Russia extra money for storing this waste in Russia," Bobro said.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, on February 23, 2012 passed a law on the construction of a centralized interim storage facility for waste nuclear fuel from Water-Water Energetic Reactors (WWER) at domestic nuclear power plants. The Ukrainian president signed the law on March 2, 2012.
Energoatom brings waste nuclear fuel for storage from seven WWER-1000 reactors to Krasnoyarsk-based mining and chemical combine (Russia) and from two WWER-440 reactors to Mayak production amalgamation in Chelyabinsk, Russia.
The opening of a new waste nuclear fuel storage facility will allow National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom to save over $100 million every year, Energoatom's press service has reported. The cost of waste nuclear fuel storage services provided by Russian companies amounts to $160 million and has an upward trend, while expenses on exploitation of the waste nuclear fuel storage facility are evaluated at $20 million per year.
The Kyiv Post is hosting comments to foster lively public debate through the Disqus system. Criticism is fine, but stick to the issues. Comments that include profanity or personal attacks will be removed from the site. The Kyiv Post will ban flagrant violators. If you think that a comment or commentator should be banned, please flag the offending material.comments powered by Disqus


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Second Account: @LoveTap14
-I'm Brandy.
-I'm twenty.
-I love to write.
-I love to read.
-I type "lol" way too much. I think it's like a filler word for me. Except in text, lol.
-I love all things Disney. The Lion King being my favorite Disney movie.
-I love sappy, romance movies.
-I have a full time job. I mainly write when I get home into the night, until either I pass out or until I get distracted.
-I'm sensitive. And not afraid to admit that I'm a crybaby. lol
-I have a boyfriend, who I usually talk to while I'm writing. (Also the reason why I get easily distracted lol)
-I lived in California till I was fourteen, then I moved to Wisconsin. Then moved back to California when I graduated high school. Then moved back to Wisconsin in early 2015. I hope to stay in one place for a long while now lol.
- I'll post more facts about me when I think of them. :P Until then...
Thanks for stopping by!
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Sweetdreams31 Jul 06, 2015 01:33PM
@CookieMonster268 I'll be updating tonight:)View all conversations
Featured work.
Mickey Who?
By Sweetdreams31
Social data: 74.4K reads. 2.2K votes. 433 comments.
Description: What if you had the power to control hundreds of people's love life just by simply saying anything? And what if they didn't know it was you? Would you use that power for good? At Ana Davis' high school, there...
Other Works by Sweetdreams31.
I Spun the Bottle
"My heart skidded to a sudden halt as soon as it landed on him. He was the only person I didn't wan...
Mickey Who? [OLD VERSION]
[OLD VERSION.] PLEASE be aware that these eight chapters are not up to date. However, I did not want to...
Hot Headed
[Previously known as: I'm a Fighter and He's the Hottie] Madison Storms has a hot head and a short tempe...


text:
Welcome to the Coimbra Group
The Executive Board of the Coimbra Group would like to express its support for the statement issued by the European University Association (EUA) on 19th July 2016 about the situation faced by the higher education community in Turkey:
EUA Statement
Following Friday's coup attempt in Turkey the education sector, including the higher education sector, has been targeted, as have many other public sectors. 15,200 education staff have been suspended while Turkey's Hurriyet reports that the Higher Education Council (YÖK) has ordered the resignation of all Deans from both Turkey's Public and foundation universities, 1176 from State universities and 401 from Foundation universities.
EUA condemns strongly and unconditionally this action against universities and university staff, and expresses its heartfelt support for the higher education community in Turkey at this time. While there has been global and unanimous support for the democratically elected government of Turkey in reaction to the military coup, the measures introduced to-day go in the wrong direction.
More than ever Turkey needs freedom of speech, public and open debate, as advocated by its strong university sector, committed to internationally recognised university values, the principles of academic freedom, free expression and freedom of association.
EUA calls on all European governments, universities and scholars to speak out against these developments and to support democracy in Turkey, including institutional autonomy and academic freedom for scholars and students.
Founded in 1985 and formally constituted by Charter in 1987, the Coimbra Group is an association of long-established European multidisciplinary universities of high international standard. The Coimbra Group is committed to creating special academic and cultural ties in order to promote, for the benefit of its members, internationalisation, academic collaboration, excellence in learning and research, and service to society. It is also the purpose of the Group to influence European educational policy and to develop best practice through mutual exchange of experience.
The 2017 Coimbra Group Annual Conference will take place in Edinburgh, 7-9 June, hosted by the University of Edinburgh.
Coimbra Group at a glance Mission Statement, Aims, and Supporting Internal Structures
Governing Bodies
General Assembly History
Member universities of the Coimbra Group
Statutes (French only)
Foundation Charter 1987


text:
Property Location With a stay at Travelodge Suites East Gate Orange in Kissimmee (Disney's Maingate East), you'll be close to Falcon's Fire Golf Club and Downtown Disney® area. This family-friendly hotel is within close proximity of Old Town and Lake Buena Vista Factory Stores.
Rooms Make yourself at home in one of the 158 air-conditioned rooms featuring refrigerators and microwaves. Complimentary wireless Internet access keeps you connected, and cable programming is available for your entertainment. Private bathrooms have complimentary toiletries and hair dryers. Conveniences include desks and complimentary newspapers, and housekeeping is provided daily.
Rec, Spa, Premium Amenities Enjoy recreational amenities such as an outdoor pool and a spa tub. Additional features include complimentary wireless Internet access and an arcade/game room. Spending a day of fun is easy with the complimentary theme park shuttle.
Dining A complimentary continental breakfast is served daily.
Business, Other Amenities Featured amenities include complimentary newspapers in the lobby, a 24-hour front desk, and multilingual staff. Free self parking is available onsite.