text:
Providing a resource for arms control treaty
implementers to assist them with keeping
up-to-date on the issues and events critical to understanding and eliminating chemical
and biological weapons.
Features news, articles, think-pieces and documents of relevance to the CWC or the BWC produced by non-government sources. Such sources include foreign government statements, news media, academic institutions, non-profit organizations and other institutions.
Botswanan Justice Minister Tables CW Prohibition Bill in Parliament
The Botswana Guardian in English, 11 July 2014; accessed via Open Source Center
Botswana's anti-chemical weapons Bill has reached parliament and the penalties are stiff including life imprisonment. The piece of legislation known as the Chemical Weapons (Prohibition) Bill (Bill No.12 of 2014) is for the national implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention focusing on among others, preventing the creation, manufacture, and transit of chemical warfare materials and their precursors.
Defence, justice and security minister Ndelu Seretse on Wednesday tabled the Bill in parliament, which imposes a maximum penalty of P25 million [pula] on individuals for a single contravention and life imprisonment. Section 12 (1) of the Bill prohibits any person (unless authorised) from producing, using, acquiring, possessing, transferring and importing or exporting a Schedule 1 chemical or its precursor. According to the Bill, Schedule 1 lists toxic chemicals that include sulfur mustards and lewisite.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes lewisite as an extremely toxic, arsenic-containing blister agent (vesicant) that affects the lungs and causes whole-body (systemic) effects.
It was developed as a potential chemical warfare agent (military designation), but has not been used on the battlefield. Exposure to large amounts can be fatal. Contravention of Section 12 of the Chemical Weapons Act draws a steep penalty of P25 million or life imprisonment, or both.
Other stiff penalties are found at Section 13 (3) where anyone contravening the section commits an offence and is liable to a fine of P3 million or to imprisonment for a term of 20 years, or to both. The Act under Section 14 prohibits any person (except one authorised by the Act) from receiving, transferring, importing or exporting Schedule 3 chemicals without first notifying the Authority.
A person who contravenes this section is liable to a fine of P1.5 million or to imprisonment for a term of 10 years, or to both. The Act provides for the establishment of a Chemical Weapons Management Authority led by a director.
Also a Board to be chaired by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security will be formed. Other members of the Board will include nominees from the ministry of agriculture, ministry of health, Attorney General Chambers, Botswana Police Service and the Botswana Defence Force.
The director will be empowered to appoint inspectors who will in turn have powers at any reasonable time to enter any place with reasonable force if necessary and as may be permitted by a warrant and inspect the place. The inspectors will also at any given time, "request any person in, at or on the place to give to the inspector access to any area, container or thing in, at or on the place." Under this law an inspector shall not be liable to be sued in any civil court in respect of anything done or omitted to be done by such inspector, if the thing is done or omitted to be done "bona fide in the course of the operations of the Authority, render that inspector personally liable to an action, claim, demand."
Soligenix Announces Combination Ricin, Anthrax Vaccine
Bryan Cohen, BioPrepWatch, 11 July 2014; bioprepwatch.com
Soligenix, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced on Wednesday that its combination ricin and anthrax vaccine induces protective immunity to both ricin toxin and anthrax toxin exposure.
Soligenix, which conducted the studies under a $9.4 million cooperative grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, found that its RiVax candidate ricin vaccine and VeloThrax candidate anthrax vaccine each induced antibodies when administered as a single vaccine. When combined, the dual vaccine induced antibodies that were reactive against both toxins and detected until at least 200 days after the immunization regimens.
The combined vaccine provided protection from exposure to both ricin toxin and anthrax toxin for at least six months after two vaccinations. The results suggest that long-term immunity can be achieved through simultaneous vaccination.
"We are pleased that we have been able to show that the combination of vaccines for these two very important biothreats can be accomplished," Christopher Schaber, the president and CEO of Soligenix, said. "The demonstration of simultaneous immunity to ricin toxin and anthrax is a step towards multivalent vaccines that can be used in the event of a national emergency. Both of these vaccines are being developed for military personnel and emergency first responders, and thus it would be extremely useful if the vaccines could be administered simultaneously without compromising the response to either vaccine, while still providing protection against whichever toxin might be encountered."
Soligenix collaborated on the studies with the Wadsworth Institute of the New York State Department of Health. Preclinical studies evaluating the production of antibody levels and survival after toxin challenge demonstrated the potency of the vaccine combination.
"Multivalent vaccines will achieve more efficient vaccination with fewer injections; this has the potential to be a distinct advantage in deployment of vaccines if any biothreat agent is actually used as a weapon and will be more useful for vaccination of military personnel and first responders," Schaber said. "We intend to develop the combination vaccine using ThermoVax, our proprietary system for stabilizing vaccines for stockpiling and for distribution of vaccines outside of normal cold chain requirements."
Soligenix develops biodefense vaccines and therapeutics, as well as products that treat serious inflammatory diseases where there remains an unmet medical need.
Syrian Chemical Factories May Be Saved Under Global "Compromise"
Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire, 09 July 2014; www.nti.org/gsn
Syria's regime may be able to retain parts of its shuttered chemical-arms factories under "compromise" terms devised by [the (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)] a global watchdog agency.
The United States could endorse the concept in order to finalize a plan this week for dealing with the dozen contested sites, even though doing so would require making "serious" concessions to President Bashar Assad's government, said Robert Mikulak, Washington's envoy to the OPCW. "We are not, however, prepared to go further or engage in further haggling," Mikulak told the agency's 41-nation governing board [the OPCW Executive Council] on Tuesday.
He indicated that the plan from the agency's Netherlands-based staff would impose new "tunnel perimeters" and "more effective monitoring measures" for at least some of Syria's five underground facilities, while demolishing seven fortified hangars. Mikulak did not elaborate further on the proposal. Additional details were not immediately available.
Washington previously rejected proposals by Assad's regime to neutralize the 12 sites through measures short of full demolition. International authorities last year called for destruction of the sites by March, as part of a global effort to dismantle the Syrian government's chemical-weapons arsenal.
"From the start, Syria has engaged in a concerted effort to retain these 12 former chemical weapons production facilities," Mikulak said. "If Syria rejects this compromise proposal and continues its intransigence, there must be consequences."
Assad's regime last month finished handing over hundreds of tons of warfare agents as part of the international disarmament operation. The government agreed to relinquish its chemical stockpile in the wake of a 2013 nerve-agent attack that killed more than 1,400 people, according to U.S. estimates.
Chemical Security Bill Passes House; Democrats Eye Changes in Senate
Douglas P. Guarino, Global Security Newswire, 09 July 2014; www.nti.org/gsn
The House passed a bill that would extend the life of a controversial chemical security program on Tuesday, but some Democrats are hoping a Senate version expected later this month will enable tougher rules.
The House bill, H.R. 4007, would authorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards of the Homeland Security Department for three years. The program, which is meant to prevent terrorists from using industrial sites in the United States for creating massive explosions, has previously been renewed annually through the congressional appropriations process.
Proponents of the bill - including DHS officials, industry leaders and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle - say the legislation is needed in order to provide the program with stability that they say will make it more effective and provide companies with regulatory certainty.
Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said on the House floor Tuesday that the bill, which the lower chamber ultimately approved by voice vote, was a "good start." There is "more work to be done," however, Thompson said.
Before final legislation reaches the president's desk, lawmakers should add provisions to protect whistleblowers raising chemical-security concerns, along with language that would mandate consulting with workers during the development of site-protection plans, Thompson said.
Lawmakers also must address the fact that the current bill does not include so-called inherently safer technology provisions that would give DHS officials the authority to require specific safety and security upgrades in certain cases, said Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Industry opposes such provisions, but they are favored by labor unions and environmentalists. Thompson also expressed disappointment that an exemption for water treatment facilities would continue under the current bill, but said the legislation's requirement that the department conduct an assessment of the chemical security risks that such facilities pose was a step in the right direction.
Along with other Democrats, Thompson said he would try work with senators to make changes to the bill. Representative Patrick Meehan (R-Penn.), said he expected that the Senate Homeland Security could mark up a companion bill this month. Meehan is chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies that initially approved the House bill.
WWI - When Chemical Weapons Killed 90,000 (Opinion)
Paul Schulte, CNN (via ABC KSPR 33 News), 09 July 2014; www.kspr.com
[Editor's Note: As is the case with all commercial news articles contained on this website, the following article is provided solely as an item of potential interest. Some information may be inaccurate or incomplete and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S Department of Defense.]
World War I ushered in an era of chemical weapons use that lingers, lethally, into the present day. The German chlorine attacks against French, Algerian, British and Canadian troops around Ypres - site of the war's most relentless fighting - in April 1915 presaged a world in which weapons of mass destruction [WMD] became at least a permanent background anxiety and often a source of intense terror.
World War I, which began nearly 100 years ago, linked science with mass killing and, despite preventative treaties such as the 1900 Hague Convention, created a lasting precedent. Scientific progress now brought new fears as well as hope.
Other combatant nations responded to their maximum extent, with rapidly developed mixtures of retaliation-in-kind and protective technologies and procedures. Perhaps 1 million chemical casualties were inflicted, to little overall military advantage. Although fatalities were eventually kept relatively low, at about 90,000 in total, there was, and remains, deep revulsion at slow, agonizing deaths from tissue damage through blistering of the skin caused by innovations such as mustard gas or drowning through destruction of the lungs.
Many survivors were left blind or permanently disabled. Human distress, dread, "gas fright" and their long-term psychiatric consequences are impossible to calculate. They may have fatefully helped intensify Hitler's psychopathology as he lay brooding upon the Armistice in a military hospital, temporarily blinded by British mustard gas.
Later, in the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925, the world tried to address its WMD problem through a collective promise of "no first chemical or bacteriological use," backed by uncontrolled arsenals, which it was hoped would deter treaty breach by the hideously plausible and familiar threat of retaliation.
That gamble held precariously in World War II but not in hidden, or conveniently overlooked, one-sided campaigns conducted in remote theaters. Continued secret research created still more efficient nerve gases, blatantly employed by Saddam Hussein's forces in the 1980s against Iranians and Kurds. Then the "international honeymoon" period following the end of the Cold War allowed the negotiation of total, monitored and inspected elimination of all chemical weapons stocks and production facilities under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
But World War I and its aftermath have left discouraging precedents.
Although banned, in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, from keeping any chemical weapons, Germany secretly maintained formidable capacities. Its specialists went on to set up joint trials and research facilities in the USSR and to pioneer the whole class of nerve agents. Cheating in arms-control treaties, especially with the assistance of third parties, has remained a lasting political anxiety and an intelligence priority ever since.
We now also know that during World War I, German agents tried systematically to infect Allied livestock with glanders (a serious bacterial disease, transmissible to humans but mainly affecting horses and mules). This was the insidious, but fortunately not then very successful, birth of covert scientific biological warfare - which, despite the unverifiable and evidently broken Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1971, now persists as an uneliminable security nightmare.
So we are all still partially breathing the yellow-green poison cloud that Nobel laureate Fritz Haber determinedly developed and the generals of the German High Command, locked into the first scientific Total War, reluctantly authorized. (The suicides, apparently through shame and disgust, of both Haber's wife, Clara, and Hermann, one of his sons, seem to add further intimate casualties to his innovation.)
Haber's weaponization of chlorine for the second Battle of Ypres heralded a period of destructive technological dynamism in which we still live, when, repeatedly, as Bertolt Brecht observed:
"Out of the libraries come the killers.
Mothers stand despondently waiting,
Hugging their children and searching the sky,
Looking for the latest inventions of the professors."
And today, the news remains bad. Mothers still scan the sky for incoming chemicals. Chlorine is back.
After 1,400 people were killed with highly efficient sarin nerve agent in the rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus in August, the Syrian government agreed to join the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention and cooperate in its own chemical disarmament, as an alternative to U.S. punitive strikes.
Before completion of that process, reports repeatedly emerged in early 2014 of new attacks using chlorine, which as an industrial chemical used in water purification cannot be removed from the country, although employing it against humans is unquestionably forbidden. Chlorine's lethality, even against unprotected civilians, may be unimpressively low by modern standards, but it reliably continues to terrify.
And while German culpability in the gas attacks in Flanders 100 years ago was clear, the United Nations is still unable to agree, or even yet formally investigate, which side has been conducting chemical attacks of any kind in the long Syrian civil war.
Chemical warfare was universally criminalized in September under UN Security Council Resolution 2118. But finally eliminating or even punishing the homicidal employment of chemicals in organized violence is a diplomatic as much as a legal, technical or military problem. It turns out that some international behavior over chemical killing remains as toxic as in 1915.
U.S. Ambassador Robert Mikulak to Receive 2014 MRIGlobal Citation Award
Digital Journal, 08 July 2014; www.digitaljournal.com
MRIGlobal today announced that Robert Mikulak, Ph.D., U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, will be recognized with the MRIGlobal Board of Directors and Trustees 2014 Citation Award. The award is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies leadership in science, business, academia, or the humanities. The award will be presented to Ambassador Mikulak at the MRIGlobal Annual Dinner, which will be held October 14 at the Westin Crown Center Hotel in Kansas City.
Ambassador Mikulak has dedicated more than 40 years of personal and professional leadership to the global reduction and prohibition of chemical and biological weapons.
In 2010, the U.S. Senate named Dr. Mikulak as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. His work focuses on making the world safer and building international controls to prevent chemical weapons threats. Most recently, Ambassador Mikulak has played a key role in the unprecedented international effort to require Syria to eliminate its entire chemical weapons program.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is located in The Hague, Netherlands, received the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize for its "extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons." The organization announced on June 23, 2014, the removal of the last remaining chemical stockpile from Syria, one key step in ensuring that Syria no longer poses a chemical weapons threat.
"At MRIGlobal, we have been privileged to contribute research that supports our Nation's work to eliminate the threat of chemical weapons," said Thomas M. Sack, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer. "We strongly support a goal of nonproliferation of chemical and biological weapons and we recognize Ambassador Mikulak's life-long commitment and leadership toward an international policy to rid the world of chemical weapons."
Prior to his appointment as Ambassador, Dr. Mikulak was the Director of the Office of Chemical and Biological Weapons Affairs in the U.S. Department of State. In this position, he led the development of policy relating to prohibition of chemical and biological weapons, including negotiation and implementation of international agreements.
Earlier, from 1993 to 1996, Dr. Mikulak served as the Deputy Head of the United States Delegation to the Chemical Weapons Convention Preparatory Commission in The Hague, Netherlands. Before this, he served in the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency for 22 years, holding a series of increasingly responsible positions related to prohibition of chemical and biological weapons.
He was a senior U.S. negotiator during the U.S.-Soviet negotiations of 1989 and 1990, which led to reduction agreements and the multilateral 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans chemical weapons globally. Ambassador Mikulak holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry.
About MRIGlobal
MRIGlobal, a not-for-profit research and development organization, delivers solutions in global health, national security and defense, and energy and the environment. The organization performs scientific research, advanced engineering, and program integration and management for clients in government, industry, and academia. Established in 1944 as Midwest Research Institute, MRIGlobal is based in Kansas City, Missouri, operates in nine states and Washington, D.C. MRIGlobal employs more than 500 and manages 2,600-plus workers through management and operations programs with government clients.
MRIGlobal is one of two partners in the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC, which manages and operates the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, for the U.S. Department of Energy.
UK Memo Details Chemical, Biological and Radiological Program
Lisa Sievers, BioPrepWatch, 07 July 2014; bioprepwatch.com
The United Kingdom's [UK's] Defence Science and Technology Laboratory [DSTL] released a memo on Tuesday detailing its chemical, biological and radiological [CBR] program. The UK CBR program covers both capabilities and facilities in responding to and countering threats. The program provides decision makers with timely information relating to an attack from a weapon of mass destruction.
The CBR program conducts research into chemical and biological agents to develop protective measures. The research includes the development of medical countermeasures, vaccines and post exposure treatments. The program also develops physical protection products, including CBR suits, respirators and collective protection, as well as tools for the decontamination of personnel, equipment and infrastructure.
The ultimate goal of the CBR program is to maintain the UK's sovereign capability to assess and respond to current and emerging threats to the country and its wider interests. That capability includes skills and techniques to handle CBR agents and analytical techniques to identify and quantify their toxicity.
The policy of the British government is to maintain political and military freedom of action despite the threat or use of CBR weapons. The projected budget for the UK's CBR program for 2014-2015 is approximately $136 million. A quarter of the funding for the CBR program is delivered externally.
On Foreign Policy, Obama Is Succeeding (Opinion)
Boston Globe, 07 July 2014; www.bostonglobe.com
American disapproval of President Obama's foreign policy has shot up recently, especially as the situation in Iraq worsens. Democrats and Republicans are increasingly alike in their unhappiness, with former Obama administration officials like Anne-Marie Slaughter bitterly denouncing the White House as "blind" and Hillary Clinton "getting distance" from the president's decisions. But here is a question for all those deriding Obama's failures: What if the nihilists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria were armed with chemical weapons?
Lost in last month's explosive news from Iraq was the United Nations announcement that "Syria has destroyed all declared production, mixing, and filling equipment and munitions, as well as many buildings associated with its declared chemical weapons program." The June 30 removal deadline set by the Security Council last September has, against all odds and most predictions, been met - a success attributable to an aggressive multinational program administered jointly by Moscow and Washington - even through Russia's provocations in Ukraine.
All of Bashar Assad's "declared" chemical arsenal is gone. Even if the Syrian dictator has somehow kept a small lethal hoard, it is necessarily remote and locked. As one expert put it, "The near elimination of one of the two largest operational chemical weapons arsenals in the world, in the midst of the chaos of a civil war no less, is remarkable." Less than a year ago, sarin gas was loosed on civilians in Syria, probably by Assad, action that horrified the world and prompted Obama's September initiatives. Now Assad is party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. If, instead of joining Russia to forge the international alliance that made this triumph possible, Obama had fired off a barrage of cruise missiles, almost certainly escalating the savage violence in Syria, who believes the horror of chemical warfare would have been contained?
And who believes the fanatics of ISIS would not have taken advantage of that deadly circumstance? Last month, those jihadists, storming through Iraq, took control of an abandoned chemical weapons site that had belonged to Saddam Hussein. Fortunately it was "a wasteland full of destroyed chemical munitions, razed structures, and unusable war-ravaged facilities," as a CIA assessment put it. Whatever is left of Hussein's gravely degraded material threatens the militants moving it more than anyone they could target, but the seizure suggests what the ISIS dream strategy includes. If, by contrast to the Hussein remnant, Syria's supremely usable chemical weapons had been rendered vulnerable to ready theft by escalated chaos over the last year, much less if they been deployed and unleashed instead of removed and destroyed, ISIS could be assumed by now to have turned Baghdad into a poisoned charnel house.
In the larger region, the elimination of Syria's chemical arsenal itself advances the entire anti-proliferation movement that Obama long ago put at the center of his purpose. Any further unleashing of chemical weapons, whether by Assad or ISIS, would have significantly increased regional pressures for the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction of all kinds, undercutting especially the delicate and ongoing process of constraining Iran's nuclear ambitions. That negotiations with Iran, which may come to climax this month, have continued through this year's bedlam is another ignored signal of Obama foreign policy prowess. Steps are being taken back from the WMD abyss.
Political leaders rarely get credit for the disasters they avert. But it is a failure of the imagination not to have in mind, as one evaluates Obama's performance, that the field on which he operates is strewn with mines - and that armed intervention is highly unlikely to make things better instead of worse. Obama is consciously attempting to change a failed international power dynamic, moving from a century of military diktat to a strategy, as he called it at West Point, of "empowering partners" to advance American interests, human rights, and the resolution of conflict.
But in order for such leadership to actually bring into being structures and networks capable of reshaping international politics, the US citizenry has a role to play - liberals as well as conservatives. We must surrender our habit of magical thinking about American power, understanding that a new world is struggling to be born. President Obama is speaking of that world. The more distressed its dangers make us, the more we should give him the benefit of our uncertainty.
James Carroll writes regularly for the Globe. His latest novel, published this month, is "Warburg in Rome."
Aberdeen Team's Possible Model for Future CW Destruction
Matthew Hay Brown, The Baltimore Sun, July 03, 2014; www.baltimoresun.com
Officials say shipboard weapons destruction could serve as a model for future missions. After months of waiting, a team of chemists and engineers from Aberdeen Proving Ground is now ready to begin the historic destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, the Pentagon said Thursday.
The work is to take place aboard a container ship specially fitted with equipment to neutralize Syrian stocks of the World War I blister agent sulfur mustard and the sarin precursor DF. The team of some 64 civilians from the Edgewood Area of Aberdeen Proving Ground sailed from Italy on Wednesday for an undisclosed location in international waters, where they plan to destroy the materials under heavy international guard.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad agreed to surrender the weapons last year amid international outrage over a chemical attack near Damascus that reportedly killed hundreds of civilians. The attack was among the bloodiest incidents in a 4-year-old conflict between the regime and rebel fighters that has left more than 100,000 dead and displaced more than a quarter of the Syrian population.
"The mission to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons program has been a major undertaking marked by an extraordinary international cooperation," said Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
"Never before has an entire arsenal of a category of weapons of mass destruction been removed from a country experiencing a state of internal armed conflict," Uzumcu said. "And this has been accomplished within very demanding and tight timeframes."
The Edgewood specialists intend to use equipment they designed and built specifically for the mission. Officials have described the first-ever shipboard destruction of chemical weapons as a potential model.
The container ship MV Cape Ray received the so-called Priority 1 chemicals this week in the Italian port of Gioia Tauro, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said. Their destruction is expected to take from 60 to 120 days.
The mustard and DF to be neutralized by the Edgewood team are the most dangerous of Syria's weapons stocks. Other materials are to be destroyed or rendered harmless at commercial facilities in the United States, Britain and Finland.
Russia and China provided security as the materials were transported from Syria to Italy aboard Danish and Norwegian ships. Representatives from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is based in The Hague, are monitoring the operation.
The Edgewood specialists have decades of experience in destroying chemical weapons - but always at highly secure and often remote facilities, on land, built for the purpose. Now, for the first time, they're planning to do the work aboard ship, on the open sea.
The system they have designed is based on the technology that they used to destroy the U.S. stock of mustard agent at Aberdeen Proving Ground under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997.
The Cape Ray has been fitted with two units of the new Field Deployable Hydrolysis System. Operators do not handle the materials directly; the chemicals and their neutralizing agents are mixed in a closed container, and the resulting effluent is to be discharged into closed containers. The operators wear masks with air hoses.
The Edgewood team was expecting 540 tons of DF and 26 tons of mustard. Both materials are neutralized in the same way: They are mixed with water.
The liquid that is produced is acidic. Team members plan to add chemicals to bring the pH level above neutral, creating a caustic material that some have likened to Drano. In that form, they say, it will be safer to store and transport to its eventual disposal site.
Officials say safety, not speed, will be their priority. They have said the operation will show that there is now a safe, environmentally responsible way to dispose of chemical weapons that can be deployed anywhere in the world.
The Edgewood specialists had been waiting since January while Syria missed several deadlines to deliver the materials. Under the initial timeline set last year by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the destruction was to have been completed by Monday.
Syrian officials blamed the delays on the challenges of transporting the chemicals out of the country amid heavy fighting.
Teams from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations began securing Syrian weapons sites in early October, and the Syrian government handed over the last of its declared stocks last week.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said this week that the chemicals were transferred from the Danish ship Ark Futura to the Cape Ray "without incident."
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GreatSchools Rating
Teacher quality
Principal leadership
Parent involvement
I am really happy with the school in general. I do hope that communication improves and currently we are not loving the earlier hours and wish it was communicated and discussed better.. I'm happy with the teachers and the day to day. Also, I like the new programs added when funding is available.
They lose their patience easily.It wasn't the principal's fault the children's fault or the presents ......Hopefully, the school got a new principal, can turn thing around.They did not treated every one same..........
We feel so lucky to have such a great neighborhood school. There is no gym in the school but they use Gantry Plaza Park and new Sports field when weather permits. Also, the School Construction Authority is working to open the 1071 seat Middle/High school by September 2013, which will be a great addition to the community.
I have two children attending PS 78 Robert Wagner and I have been very pleased and impressed with the quality of education they have received. It is a small neighborhood school and definitely has a cozy, close-knit feeling to it. The principal knows all of the students and most of the parents, and he and the teachers are friendly and approachable. The physical space is small but on the newer side with plenty of computers/Smartboards in classrooms. If you are a parent thinking about sending your child here, I would not hesitate to recommend ps 78. They do a good job at welcoming parental involvement and strive to improve upon their successes.
We love PS 78! It is small, the teachers care, and the school really serves the community. They have fabulous after-school programs as well. The location is awesome and the kids are the best. (:
The school is really good. My child has improved tremendously since starting in 1st grade here. A great leaning environment with teachers, parents and staff that really care about the kids. Also the Virtual Y after-school program has been a God-send. The only two problems that I have are that parents are not encouraged (often not allowed) to come to classes and help out. This has sometimes led to communication issues. Also, the lack of recess can be difficult for young kids with a bunch of energy. That said, the addition of a fitness after school program has been a benefit. Overall, we like the school and will probably return next year.
What a great school! I would highly recommend this school to parents new to the community.
The quality of education the children at PS 78 receive is excellent. The principal believes in educating the whold child and proves this with the curriculum and programs he provides before, during, and after school. My child can be enriched before school, participate in music, art, technology, physical education, receive top notch instruction in reading, writing, and math, have a teacher who works hands on with the children in science--all during the school day. He can also be part of the Renzulli Schoolwide Enrichment Model and computer component-- My child takes virtual tours around the world. After school, my child can cook, take photography, fitness/yoga, learn another language, and also get extra academic support if needed. I commend the principal, teaching staff, and parent community for providing our children with a nurturing and exciting place to learn. This school is a gift.
PS78 was a great school. My daughter graduated from the school in 2006 and now is going to Townsend Harris. The principle was different then, but all in all it has remained the same. Ps.78 has a beautiful location and serves great to all those who live at the edge od queenes in LIC. 'I really loved the teachers and since it was a really small school most of th kids were like my best friends' my daughter says
My daughter has been at PS 78 since she was in the 2nd grade. She's now a 5th grader about to graduate and I'm so grateful that we got so lucky as to have such a terrific neighborhood school. The school has a wonderful atmosphere both physically and in terms of the warm and creative learning environment of the school. The school has strong leadership so teachers are free to do their jobs. Teachers at this school seem to really enjoy the students and there are lots of extras -- after school programs, field trips, in class projects, etc., especially considering this is such a small school. I would recommend PS 78 to any parent of a grade school age child.
I have taught at many school throughout brooklyn and queens and this school far surpasses any other school that I have worked at. It is a model school that is located in the first 2 floors of a luxury high rise. The facilities are top notch and the staff and administration are unbelievable kind. If and when i have children i wouldn't think twice about sending my children to this school.
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The Community Rating is the school's average rating from its community members (e.g., parents, students, and school staff). The highest possible rating is five stars; the lowest is one star.
48-09 Center Blvd
Long Island City, NY 11109
Phone: (718) 392-5402
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- Adam Ostrow
- New York, NY
- United States
Executive Editor, Mashable
This conversation is closed.
LIVE CHAT With Adam Ostrow: What should happen to your digital identity after you die?
The average social media user will create hundreds of thousands of pieces of content in their lifetime. Already, this is changing the way we remember our loved ones and creating a legacy that is much different than that of any previous generation.
At the same time, technology's ability to understand vast amounts of data is expanding exponentially, and in the long run, enabling the possibility of leveraging our social media footprint to create a version of us that can live on long after we're gone.
What do you want to have happen to your digital identity after you die? Would you give an AI permission to post content and interact online after your death? Why or why not?
ADMIN UPDATE: This LIVE CHAT will open on August 9, 2011 at 2PM EST/ 5PM PST.
Closing Statement from Adam Ostrow
A few thoughts in closing:
(1) There's a large interest in people assigning an executor for their digital assets after they die. A number of startups already serve this need. One issue with this though -- what happens when the services noted in the will change, close, get acquired, etc? That will create similar issues to the ambiguous wills of today.
(2) Lots of questions about whether or not the complete recreation of ones self, which I forecast towards the end of my talk, could make it more challenging to find closure. Outside of that, however, it at the very least seems like an intriguing opportunity for future generations to get to know their ancestors.
(3) In thinking about this topic, it's important to remember that the social media tools of today are incredibly primitive compared to what we'll be using in the future. The type of data we'll be capturing 5, 10 or 50 years from now is what's needed to make an AI-powered scenario realistic.
(4) Thanks to those that shared their personal stories of already dealing with these issues. It's a huge help in thinking about the topic going forward.
Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.
Aug 9 2011: I'm a brand-new TED member who is joining this chat without the benefit of having heard the talk (yet). One concern I have is about certain people's psychological health in continuing to relate to those who are no longer alive. Some people may end up spending more time "interacting" with the dead than with the living, while our population of living people continues to grow.
Aug 9 2011: I believe that for the vast majority of our society, interacting with the living will be more enjoyable than spending all of your time relating to the dead. However, having the ability to watch movies and hear stories from a deceased loved one could really help some people move past the trauma, and may even be enjoyable long after that person is gone and you have come to grips with that fact. There will always be a few outliers who cannot cope, but we see that today, in parents who keep a lost child's toys in their room, etc. Most people deal with the grief and move on.
Aug 9 2011: Probably not, I know people who lost their friends, best of friends, and they moved on with their life, and I don't think that letting a profile remain will drag them to nostalgia for ages-- time is the best medicine, and it will take care of things, and so will the necessity and inevitability to move on.
Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.


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Reports earlier this week that a Vietnamese patrol vessel had exchanged water cannon fire with Chinese ships was just the latest example of the escalating dispute between China and its neighbors over the South China Sea.
The incident followed Beijing's decision to start drilling near the Paracel Islands, a move condemned by both Vietnam and also the United States, which argued the "unilateral action appears to be part of a broader pattern of Chinese behavior to advance its claims over disputed territory in a manner that undermines peace and stability in the region."
What is behind recent Chinese moves? How are China's territorial disputes viewed in China? And what should we expect next? CNN Beijing Bureau Chief Jaime FlorCruz will be answering readers' questions on these and other recent developments.
Please leave your questions in the comments section below.
For more What in the World watch Sundays at 10 a.m. & 1 p.m. ET on CNN
By Global Public Square staff
This month, headlines declared that China could eclipse the United States as the world's biggest economy by as early as this year. But before you start lamenting the end of American dominance – the U.S's 125-year run as the world's economic leader – listen to us. America is still number one. It will be for a while. And, as it turns out, China is OK with that.
Let us explain.
A new report from the World Bank's International Comparison Program says that China is catching up to the U.S. faster than anticipated. In 2005, the ICP estimated China's economy was 43 percent the size of America's. But their latest report, which uses 2011 data, puts China's GDP at $13.5 trillion. That accounts for 87 percent of the U.S. economy, which is $15.5 trillion.
Now, given that China's economy is growing 3 times as fast, it is fair to project that China will surpass the U.S. by year end. So, are we bracing ourselves for a big power shift from West to East, for a new Pacific era?
Well, not exactly. The International Comparison Program based their rankings on a measure called purchasing power parity. PPP, as it's called, estimates the real cost of living – in other words, what money can actually buy you in each country, not how much money you have.
By Jason Miks
GPS Digital Producer Jason Miks speaks with Robert Kaplan, author of Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, and Geoff Dyer, author of Contest of the Century: The New Era of Competition with China-and How America Can Win, about territorial disputes in Asia, the threat of nationalism, and why the United States should be concerned. Watch both on "Fareed Zakaria GPS," this Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN.
The Chinese Communist Party's legitimacy has in large part rested on its ability to keep its economy delivering double-digit growth. With signs the economy might be slowing, is the government likely to be more tempted to stoke nationalism there?
Dyer: I think you've actually been seeing that since Tiananmen Square in 1989. The party lost legitimacy based on the idea of Marxism, and then particularly after Tiananmen it was facing this huge crisis of legitimacy. So really these were the two things that it had based its credibility on – economic competence and a growing economy, and nationalism.
And for a number of years, the Communist Party has been fostering this kind of victim nationalism narrative, this idea of the Century of Humiliation – foreign powers came in and victimized us for a century, and now we're standing up for ourselves. That's been really intensified for the past 20 years, and is really coming to a head now in recent years.
One of the problems is that this has really narrowed the space the government has to maneuver in on these kinds of issues. It's not necessarily that nationalism is dictating the foreign policy. But it gives them much less room to compromise and to make concessions if they ever did get into negotiations.
Kaplan: I think the biggest global question, in my opinion, is not Iran or Ukraine. It's the direction of the Chinese economy, and whether China is going to have a soft or hard landing. If it's a hard landing, then the question is how hard, and will this lead to social and political turmoil? And in such a situation, the easiest thing for a regime to do is to dial up nationalism. And if you dial up nationalism, that translates into a more aggressive policy in the South and East China Seas.
By Daniel M. Kliman, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Daniel M. Kliman is a senior advisor with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project. The views expressed are his own.
President Barack Obama's Asia trip, which has started with a visit to Japan, will send an unmistakable signal: the United States remains committed to a region that has become the world's economic and military center of gravity.
Yet once the afterglow of the visit fades, U.S. allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific are bound once again to question American staying power. True, the Obama administration's signature foreign policy initiative – the pivot or rebalance to Asia – has achieved many of its initial objectives. Countries in the region recognize this. But they are ultimately more focused on what will come next. And with less than three years of Obama's presidency remaining, now is the moment to lay out a vision for U.S. Asia policy through 2016.
Two opposing sets of forces have long co-existed in Asia. Deepening economic interdependence, a growing constellation of regional forums, and the spread of democratic values promote peace. At the same time, rising nationalism, territorial disputes, military buildups, and the adverse impact of climate change create an undercurrent of instability.
For more What in the World watch Sundays at 10 a.m. & 1 p.m. ET on CNN
By Global Public Square staff
If Dick Cheney were arrested…and his assets seized…all in an anti-corruption effort by President Obama…you might say "What in the World," right? Well, as the New Yorker's Evan Osnos points out, that scenario is a rough analogy for what is going on in China today.
Some of you will remember that in the first week of 2014, we began the show suggesting that this would be "the year of China," meaning that the country was likely to go through enormous changes that would make or break its rise.
But even we have been surprised at how much has happened on almost all fronts. China is now being ruled by a new generation, spearheaded by President Xi Jinping who has consolidated power and appears to be the strongest and most ambitious Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping. Consider what he has been doing in just one year in office.
First and most significantly is the anti-corruption drive. And at the forefront of that is the expansive investigation into Zhou Yongkang, China's former domestic security tsar, once head of China's National Petroleum Corporation and a former member of China's "untouchable" Politburo Standing Committee. Zhou is the man who has been called China's Dick Cheney by Osnos.
By Bruce Stokes, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Bruce Stokes is the director of global economic attitudes at the Pew Research Center. The views expressed are the writer's own.
During the Cold War, the Indian government attempted to position itself between Moscow and Washington by claiming leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement. As Indians head to the polls over the next six weeks, their country again finds itself in a world with two preeminent powers: this time, China and the United States.
And the Indian public is fairly clear where its sympathies lie: with America. Of course, how such attitudes will influence the views of the next Indian government remains to be seen. But, for now at least, there appears to be no evidence of broad anti-Americanism on the sub-continent.
This might come as a surprise to some. After all, the favorable views of the United States came despite the fact that the Pew Research Center survey measuring sentiment was conducted in India in the immediate aftermath of the controversial December 2013 arrest and strip-search of India's female deputy consul general in New York on charges of visa fraud. Yet by more than three-to-one (56 percent to 15 percent), Indians express a favorable rather than unfavorable view of the United States.
Watch "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN
Fareed speaks with the New Yorker's Evan Osnos about China's response to the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Watch the video for the full interview.
What do you make of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the nationalism – people worry about the belligerence. Do you think this is part of a kind of a new China, or should we look at the Malaysian Airlines response as a one-off, a very unusual situation?
I think what we see here is an evolving toolbox that the Chinese government is using. Xi Jinping, the new president, has used it very effectively. When he feels trouble and tension at home, it's convenient for him to push it onto some of the political issues that they've identified overseas. And Southeast Asia, these territorial conflicts – with the Philippines, with Vietnam, and, of course, with Japan in the East China Sea – are hugely sensitive, and they can rally the public easily around those issues.
It's worrisome because the truth is this is a dangerous game. When you get the public mobilized around these issues, it can move in all kinds of different directions. So it may be targeted at Japan one day, but it can easily come around and start to focus on the Chinese the next day.
By Bonnie Glaser and Ely Ratner, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Bonnie Glaser is senior adviser for Asia in the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Ely Ratner is senior fellow and deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. The views expressed are their own.
With the world watching Ukraine with wary eyes, the U.S. Navy's lead admiral in the Pacific suggested Asia could face a similar crisis if the continent's other major power continues on its current path.
Since 2009, China has stepped up what Philippine officials have called a "creeping invasion" in the South China Sea. Although less dramatic than Russia's annexation of Crimea, Beijing has been bullying its neighbors to assert and advance an expansive set of territorial and maritime claims encompassed by its "nine-dash line," which skirts the coastlines of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines and gobbles up islands, rocks and resources in the process.
Seeking to make new facts on the ground (or, more literally, on the water), Beijing has permitted and encouraged its paramilitary law enforcement ships and navy to engage in persistent harassment and intimidation of non-Chinese fisherman, military vessels and energy companies seeking to go about their business in the South China Sea. Earlier this month, Chinese coast guard vessels reportedly interfered with the delivery of supplies to Filipino marines stationed on Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef near Reed Bank that is believed to be rich in oil and gas. If such incidents are allowed to continue, armed conflict could be around the corner.
But what distinguishes the contest over sovereignty in the Asia-Pacific from events unfolding more than 5,000 miles away in Eastern Europe is that hope remains for a peaceful solution that eschews coercion and force in exchange for international law and diplomacy.
For more What in the World watch Sundays at 10 a.m. & 1 p.m. ET on CNN
By Global Public Square staff
Much has been made of how China recently eased restrictions on having children. Under the old rules, if a couple wanted to have a second child, both husband and wife needed to be the only offspring of their parents.
Under the new rules, a second child could be allowed if just one of its potential parents was an only-child. The change impacts about 20 million Chinese. You'd imagine after decades of restrictions, many of them would jump at the chance to have a second child, right?
An article in The New York Times recently reports that as many as half of the families impacted by the new rules are balking at the idea of a second child. Parents quoted in the article say that children simply cost too much.
Why is this attitude surprising? And what went wrong?
By Aakanksha Tangri
GPS intern Aakanksha Tangri speaks with Robert Oxnam, President Emeritus of the Asia Society, about the Dalai Lama's recent visit to the United States, and what it could mean for relations with China.
What are the likely short-term and long-term impacts on U.S.-China relations after President Barack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama?
It's important to note that every U.S. president from Reagan onward has had meetings in the White House with the Dalai Lama. Clinton had four meetings with His Holiness during his presidency. Both Clinton and Bush have had post-presidency meetings as well. Indeed the Dalai Lama recently said "I love George Bush." So, in 2009, when President Obama did not meet with the Dalai Lama, he was breaking a well-established precedent; and thus his 2014 meeting simply reverted to an older pattern. It's worth noting that Obama has now had three meetings with the Dalai Lama.
Of course, the Chinese always protest loudly on these occasions because they have a strong interest in asserting Chinese sovereignty over what they call the Tibetan Autonomous Region. But since Obama explicitly said that neither the United States, nor even the Dalai Lama, wants full independence for Tibet, the sovereignty issue was sidestepped.
I think that Obama was quite correct in asserting his support for Tibetan human rights issues and also properly calling the Dalai Lama "an internationally respected religious and cultural leader." By contrast, the Chinese leadership calls His Holiness a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and head of the "Dalai Clique."
For more What in the World watch Sundays at 10 a.m. & 1 p.m. ET on CNN
By Global Public Square staff
There has been some surprising good news out of China. As you probably know, China's super-speed growth has produced super-high levels of pollution. Indeed, Beijing's poor air quality has popularized the word "air-pocalypse". There are days when you can barely see more than a few feet in front of you. It got so bad that the U.S. embassy in Beijing posted a real-time measure of air quality on its website; Chinese officials, of course, have disputed the American data as propaganda.
So people, mostly Chinese people, have asked for an accurate reading of pollution levels in China. In recent years, environmental groups have pressured Beijing to release official data on air pollution. But the government, notorious for being tight-lipped, secretive and unresponsive, had declined. In fact, few people actually believed that Beijing would ever accede to their demands.
Well, guess what? Beijing has ordered 15,000 factories to report details about their emissions: in public, and in real-time. The decree also calls for details on the release of pollutants like wastewater and heavy metals. This is a real first in China – an unprecedented mandate for transparency.
GPS Digital Producer Jason Miks speaks with Amy Chua, a law professor at Yale, and her husband Jed Rubenfeld, also a professor at Yale, about their new book 'The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America,' and what it means to be a Tiger Mom. Watch Fareed's interview with Chua and Rubenfeld this Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN.
Your 2011 book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, sparked an intense debate with its look at the differences between Chinese and Western parenting. What are the key characteristics of a Tiger Mom?
Chua: I would say extremely high expectations, high discipline and definitely unconditional love. And I think high expectations are absolutely consistent with unconditional love. To me, a Tiger Mom is the opposite of a Helicopter Mom – a Helicopter Mom wants to make things easier for her kids, and I think a Tiger Parent is actually thinking about strengthening the child for the future. And so it's kind of a long term project, and often it can feel like actually putting obstacles in front of your child, whereas a Helicopter Parent is someone who is wanting to do everything for their child. A Tiger Parent is basically saying "Let me put some obstacles in your way so you can train, so that when you go out into the real world, it will be easier."


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Business expansions will generate 5,600 jobs in Minnesota
According to a report from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), 31 businesses announced expansion projects in Minnesota during the third quarter and plan to create an estimated 1,500 new jobs statewide in coming years.
During the first three quarters of 2013, businesses announced 112 expansion projects statewide. Those expansion projects will create an estimated 5,600 new jobs in Minnesota over the next two years.
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LANSING, MI (WKZO) -- A couple of hundred residents rallied on the State Capitol steps on Saturday to demonstrate for common sense solutions to reduce gun violence. The sponsors are a group called Mom's Demand Action which formed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in December. Mid-Michigan Chapter founder Linda Brundage says they aren't for or against the 2nd amendment, just for reasonable restrictions.
Their goal is to work at the state level to promote sensible gun laws. A counter demonstration organized by Michigan Open Carry was held nearby.


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This is a tumblelog, kinda like a blog but with short-form, mixed-media posts with stuff I like. Scroll down a bit to start reading, or a bit more to read more about me.
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A nice image
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Lifeblood by David Lloyd
Lifeblood by David Lloyd
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The king is watching. (by Yoel Schlaen)
The king is watching. (by Yoel Schlaen)
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A Kings Face by Insomniacus
A Kings Face by Insomniacus
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1968 BMW 2002 ti
1968 BMW 2002 ti
Super hyperlink!
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chillin with albino mantis
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Design by Marcus Olovsson / Powered by Tumblr / Here's the archive and a feed if you want.


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Now browsing: Hometown News > Rants & Raves > Brevard County
Bicycles and unsecured dogs
I've just been reading the Hometown News, and I just have to make a couple of comments on a couple of rants.
The first one is about the person who doesn't want to get killed on their bicycle.
Well, lady, you have to remember that you are riding on a street that's paved for 10-ton vehicles to use. You are just a little, small bicycle that is coming in on traffic. You should watch yourself more than we can watch you. We can't see something like that, little bicycles coming in and out.
You should put lights on your bikes and maybe ride on the sidewalk, where it is less congested.
My other rant is about the poor person who had to take her two dogs to the convenience store to get some milk.
Two unsecured dogs she is driving around when she has been incapacitated herself from her operation. Then she is blaming people for not going out into a wet, grassy field to retrieve her stubborn dog who got away because she was not watching out for her dog.
It saddens me to think that people would drive around in a car with dogs that are not secured, that they could just jump on the driver at any time and cause an accident, and someone could get killed.
So, when you are driving around, secure your dogs and that kind of thing will not happen, and you won't have to ask people to help you do something you should have done yourself.
Put me in charge
Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.
Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs, alcohol and nicotine. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol or smoke, then get a job.
Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your "home" will be subject to inspections anytime, and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.
In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22-inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the "common good."
Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self-esteem," consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self-esteem.
If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes, we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices.
The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.
And while you are on government subsistence, you no longer can vote! Yes, that is correct.
For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting, while you are receiving a government welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
A gun has never killed anyone
I'm not making light of the massacre at Sandy Hook School - just some thoughts how far down we have gotten over the years.
When I was a child about the same age these children were, my dad had a pistol on the sewing machine, and no one even touched it. I had my first gun at 12.
We were taught to respect people and their property, not to steal or mess with anyone's property.
There is no leadership being taught by parents the way we were taught. Too much computer time, games, home alone and no guidance for the most part. (It's a) sad situation.
There is no amount of laws that would stop a person, who was intending on killing, that would stop him or her. When a killer is intent on killing, he or she will get a weapon of their choice one way or another.
It seems every time there is a killing of several people, the first thing you hear is gun control. A gun has never killed anyone; it's the idiot that pulls the trigger. No law can stop them.
The only people who follow the laws are the law-abiding citizens. Banning any weapon only drives up the price and where it is purchased.
If you don't have a weapon in your home, you are a target. That's why all the shootings are soft targets: schools, churches, theaters, collages, etc. They know that this makes them big and in charge. They want to go out shooting. If they feel you have a gun, you will be left alone.
Look at all the laws that ban illegal drugs; yet, tons come across the boarders every day.
We have thousands of law enforcement officers working around the clock to stop the flow of illegal drugs into this country, and we are not winning the war. We just are slowing it down a little. As long as people are buying the drugs, dealers will make sure the demand is met.
I am not sure what kills more people every day, illegal drugs, automotive vehicles or guns.
Maybe it is the doctors in hospitals or nursing homes. Does anyone keep track? Or maybe it is the politicians, who get us in a war that they do not participate in and yet send thousands of our children into harm's way. They should lead the way.
How do you stop a serial killer, who kills for the fun of it? How do you stop an idiot, who flies airplanes into a building or blows themselves up? How do you stop people from running a red light and killing innocent people?
Just what we need, the idiots in Washington making more laws on anything. They can't even agree on anything. There is a good chance that none of them could pass a background check to carry a BB gun.
Maybe we should outlaw automobiles, airplanes, illegal drugs (oh, we have done illegal drugs already) and any other item that might kill someone in the future.
After lessoning to all these great experts who came on the TV this morning ("Face the Nation," "Meet the Press," etc.), it was a big joke and the same old crap we hear every time there is a shooting: more laws and we need to do a better background check, ban assault weapons, etc.
As stated above, you will not stop anyone, who is set on killing. They will steal whatever they want to carry out their plan.
Question is: How do you figure out who is an idiot who would kill and who would not?
I'm sure, I do not know the answer.
Gay-friendly church
I was shocked when I read Scott Elliott's article on gay-friendly church.
He writes that homosexuality, like heterosexuality, to be a part of God's very own creation and therefore good (as God has decreed, all creation good).
Perhaps he should read again that God created man in his image and then, putting man in a deep sleep, God took the rib from the man and made woman - not man to be with man, nor woman to be with woman!
He should also read 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11.
This life of being gay is totally against the design of God's plan.
If they accept Christ, then they need to do away with their immoral way of life!
For they will not be accepted into heaven as written in God's word!
This Scott Elliott is a pastor, and he should know better than myself what the word of God says.
Shame on you to go against the word of God! I hope he reads this.
Editor's note: Although Paul, in his biblical letter to the church at Corinth, (1 Corinthians, Chapter 6), warned the church members, in Verse 9-11, not to fall back into the things they used to do before joining the church; Chapter 6 was about church members judging each other and taking matters between themselves to law and to the unbelievers, instead of solving controversies and contentions with one another by church counsel, advice and forgiveness.
Stay out of the handicapped parking areas
Last Monday, my husband and I went to the Texas Roadhouse for dinner. I was lucky to find a handicap spot in front of the door. The crosshatch was on my husband's door side, which made it easy to get him out into his wheelchair. When we came out, I was unhappy to find a silver Lexus parked in the crosshatch section, making it impossible for me to push the wheelchair up to the car door. I had to wheel my husband back up to the porch. It's not easy pushing a 220-pound man!
I went inside to the restaurant to ask them to announce a need for the Lexus owner, but they did not have an audio system. So, I backed my car out and, luckily, found another handicapped spot in which to park.
I was then able to get my husband into the car.
Why are some people so thoughtless and selfish? The Lexus owner is very lucky that I didn't call the police. It would have been a costly ticket!
Please, thoughtless people, the crosshatch may look wide to you, but it is needed!
Also, I wonder if people who have a handicapped plate or hanging tag are aware that they cannot park in a handicapped spot unless the handicapped person is in the car. Don't be thoughtless and selfish. Be glad that you can walk easily!
Put the trash barrels back
I have been a visitor to lovely Merritt Island for 10 years. I love the beaches, rivers, parks and fishing areas. This is where the problem lies.
Money was spent to fix the sea walls beneath the bridges on both S.R. 520 and S.R. 528. This was needed, done well and looks good.
In 2010, before the repairs, there were rubbish barrels, so people could dispose of their waste. People did this most of the time.
Since the repairs, there are no barrels, and the areas are a disgrace to a community dependent on tourist trade. Why is this?
The area is not so pretty now. Plastics are blowing into the Banana River and harming the fish.
If you find the trash barrels, I'll bet we could get 90 percent of your good people to use them again.
Love your state.
Response to gun control lack of information
I hold no animosity toward the person who wrote supporting gun control, but feel rather sorry for his lack of information on the subject.
First, let's clear up the definition of the term "assault weapon."
Fortunately for us, the Department of Homeland Security has done so in a recent request for bids on a large order of them. The request specifies that such weapons must have "selective fire" capability. That is the ability to fire multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger. All the weapons currently the subject of discussion do not have this capability and are not, therefore, assault weapons.
There are very few true selective fire (automatic) weapons in private hands. This has been the case for almost 70 years and continues today.
In order to obtain an automatic weapon, one must first undergo an intensive background check and pay substantial tax to the federal government. Also, in many jurisdictions, local law enforcement must approve the purchase. Crime involving such weapons is almost unheard of.
So on to the cutting a deer in half.
This statement is ignorant to the point of being laughable.
With the proper projectile, the animal would exhibit a tiny, almost imperceptible entrance wound and quite possibly, no exit wound.
Years ago, I hunted with one of the guns now classified an assault weapon and brought down several deer with this exact result. That weapon, by the way, was sold to me through the Civilian Marksmanship Program, part of our federal government, back when the citizenry was trusted to own arms.
You may keep your hunting rifle for now. But don't think this will always be the case. There are those in places of power who want to disarm all of us. Listen to what George Washington had to say on the subject: "A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
The 'Six P's'
It is too bad our school board and superintendent did not practice the "Six P's."
Now they expect hundreds of students to suffer because they made poor fiscal decisions, lacked long-range planning and just plain failed in their job performance.
Perhaps the administration should bear the burden and move themselves into portables.
The administration building would make a fantastic adult education center - close to everything.
The "Six P's" are: Prior, proper, planning, prevents, poor, performance. It is never too late to begin practicing the "Six P's."
Sandy beaches or schools?
Now $25 million for sand to spread on the beach, after $100-plus million previously spent for sand that is now right back at the bottom of the sea?
FEMA wisely refused to be any part of it, twice. Still, the county commissioners are bent on proceeding with this total waste.
Now, the commissioners have the nerve to criticize the school board over school closures?
The $25 million they are about to squander on sand in this terrible economy would pay most of the school board debt. It is $25 million tax dollars that come from our pockets. The wasted $25 million could presumably keep all three schools open, or prevent others from being closed.
Whatever it accomplishes for our schools, it has to be a far more responsible use of public tax dollars than sand, when people are losing their homes.
Give your county commissioner a call. Ask that the commission abandon this nonsense.
It is inexcusable, given that we know the ocean is rising relentlessly and will certainly wash away this sand as it has past sand.
Ask that our $25 million tax dollars the commission apparently has to spare be used to save these schools.
This is not rocket science. It is a matter of priorities.
Get back to the way it was
I came here in the 1970s from Iran to attend Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne.
What a time we had back then. Everyone was so nice and friendly and courteous; and America that we heard about, was the best to come to.
It still is, but why do we have to change that nice and pure American way of life with the new one.
We used to drive on Sundays around town, and all you would see beautiful American cars on the road.
I had '73 Chevy Vega (while I was in school). I bought it for $500. It was perfect for me, hatchback and all; and we told the world that American cars are the best in the world.
But now-a-days, all you see on the roads are cars that I can't even pronounce the name of, and the cars look like their makers: short with long-eyed headlights.
What are we trying to tell the world? Is it that "your products are better than ours?"
If I live in the U.S.A., I will spend my money where it belongs, and where I know I am helping my country where I live, work and play - not overseas.
I am hoping for the good ol' days to return, so I can see more Ford Mavericks, Chevy Novas and Dodges and Jeeps on the roads of this beautiful country, which still is home to all people from everywhere.
The end is better than the beginning
The question was asked, "What is the most terrible and horrible experience one can have?"
I suppose there are many answers, such as having cancer or poor health in general, being divorced, falling out of love with a spouse, an untimely death in the family, etc. There is a never-ending list.
What about an eternal separation from God?
Seems to me, that is a priority question.
Most times, we can find relief from the stresses mentioned above; but when it comes to being separated from God, eternally, that is another ball game.
We finite beings do not understand eternity, since we are creatures of time.
In reality, we do not need to understand, but by faith accept all that God has done for us.
He created us, loves us, provides for us and was not willing that we should perish (John 3:16) and so, redeemed us by giving his son Jesus Christ, to die for us.
It's all there in the Bible, so one need not be concerned about eternity.
It is stated very plainly ... "And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He that hath the son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (1 John: 11, 12).
It has been said that time is short and eternity is long.
Response to 'gay-friendly church'
This is in reference to last week's religion article, entitled "No one is excluded in a gay-friendly church," written by Pastor Scott Elliott.
I am sure that Pastor Scott Elliott is proud of his church and its acceptance of sinners.
True Christians do not quibble with that.
However, I don't think he represents the full message of Jesus.
Jesus came to save sinners. After all, he loved them and died for them and he taught them how to live.
In Matthew, Eighth Chapter, 11th Verse, Jesus said to the woman condemned with adultery, "I do not condemn you. Go, and sin no more."
The point is that there are sinners of all types, whether it be adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, lying, stealing or whatever, they come to church.
But, they should be taught, lovingly, not to continue in those sins, just as Jesus taught people.
Think of a church as a hospital for sinners.
You go there to live better in this life and eternally with God, not to continue in your sins.
Sins, including homosexual activity, as defined by the Bible, God's word, are to be repented of, not continued.
That is the full message of Jesus.
Transform yourself with the help of the Holy Spirit, and then you can really help transform the world into a better place, as Mr. Elliott desires.
Condoning sin is not part of Jesus' message.
Thank you.
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Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Wipe of that make up
Do you mind showing any marks she left?1 Reviews
The police ask some questions
We were lead into a plain room. It was the usual interview room. Off white walls, a table with 4 chairs, a tape player and a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
"Sit. I'm Officer Docherty and this is my colleague, PC Kamden. We would like to ask you a few questions, Kamden, can we get the tape rolling please." A young woman, looking around 25, stood up and pressed record. "The time is 10:32 am, 1st October 2011. I, Officer John Docherty and my colleauge, PC Iona Kamden are here to interview Robyn Willow Darlington about the events that have occured to her in the past year. Her friend, Michael James Way is also present." There was an awkward silence.
"When did these events start, Robyn?" Kamden smiled. I guessed it was a good cop, bad cop, seeing as Docherty had the expression of a brick on his face.
"Around when Dad and Ola got married."
"Which was when?"
"Late September"
"This year?"
Even though all of this was being saved to a computer, Kamden noted something down in her notebook. Docherty stood up. He looked angry for someone reason. "What was the first assult you experienced from Ola?"
I tried to think back. Aged 14, coming back from school. Going upstairs to my room, starting homework, Ola walking in. Asking how I was doing. Nodding to the reply. Stepping closer. Saying it wasnt good enough. Punch to the jaw.
"Is this really nessacery?" Mikey could see I was tearing up.
"Could you let the young lady answer the question?"
I took me around 5 minutes to fully explain the scenario. Knowing there would be loads more questions like this, I knew it was going to be hard.
"Was Ola acting differently before this event?", "How often would she do such things?", "Would she do things like this everytime she saw you alone?", "Why didnt you tell anyone?", "Why was your friend there when he found out?", "Where was he?"
Fumbling through these queries, I knew that there was a certain one they had left to last.
"Do you mind showing us any marks she left?"
Kamden got out a camera. She took photos off my cheek, neck, lower back, thighs, shins and ankles.
When me and Mikey left the building, we spotted Jared and Gerard waiting outside. Apparently Ray had errands to do. We all slowly walked back, not discussing what had just happened


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The Mystery of Two Dorothy/ Dorothea Dixes, both with Mental Health History Issues
From page 59-60: (in being directed by the editor of the paper to choose a pen name for her Sunday column, w/ she living in New Orleans, having left her mentally ill unstable husband who could not keep a job and had temper control issues):
"....Dorothy Dix....she liked the sound the sound of the words, and so did the Major (the editor), and that was it. Not until years passed did she hear about Dorothea Dix, the New Englander, who worked so devotedly to obtain fairer treatment for the mentally ill. The newspaper woman's sly adoption of a similar name was no sly allusion, as some thought, to her husband's illness.
Well, isn't this curious? Its as if the younger Dorothy Dix was being 'directed' by the older Dorothea Dix to move in a certain direction...the claiming of her own life, snatching it away from the untoward influence of her mentally ill husband.
And so Dorothy Dix writes:
"I stood yesterday. I can stand today. And I will not permit myself to think about what might happen tomorrow."
And like myself, and this blog, referring to Dickens' character, Madame Defarge, the old crone purling away as the heads rolled off the guillotine of the French Revolution, "Nobody could spend a few hours with her without hearing something about a Dickens character." (p. 28)
"....By the time she was fifteen she was putting out her own private newspaper, making herself 'proprieter, editor, contributor, compositor, and sole subscriber..." (p. 31).
And as this Dorothy Dix recognized that she would never have any domestic stability due to her husband's mental instability, dragging them from city to city whereupon he lost job after job, she resigned herself to having no children---a woman who very much wanted children. And her father, upon seeing how she was suffering, took her to the Mississippi Gold Coast for a long holiday when she was in her early 30's. Her neighbor introduced her into the Times-Picayne as she resolved that hard work was the only antidote to her sorrow:
"The only panacea for grief is to keep so busy that you have no time to think of your sorrow, and to work so hard that you sleep at night through sheer exhaustion. I know, for I travelled the dark road for thirty-five years, and I should have gone crazy if I'd had enough time to do it."


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- Bake or Break Recipes - http://www.bakeorbreak.com/recipes -
Chocolate Monster Cookies
Posted By Jennifer On December 14, 2007 @ 9:31 pm In chocolate,cookies,peanut butter | Comments Disabled
Read and see more at Bake or Break.
|Preheat oven to 350°.
Beat butter until smooth. Add sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined. Add eggs, one a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla and beat until combined. Gradually add flour and cocoa powder until just combined. Stir in oats, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and cashews.
Drop dough by 1/4-cup portions onto lined baking sheets. Place cookies about 3 inches apart.
Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until done. Let stand for 1-2 minutes on baking sheet. Then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Makes about 24 cookies.
Article printed from Bake or Break Recipes: http://www.bakeorbreak.com/recipes
URL to article: http://www.bakeorbreak.com/recipes/2007/12/14/chocolate-monster-cookies/
Click here to print.
Copyright © 2009 Bake or Break. All rights reserved.


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For ages I've been wanting to draw a little zine about heroines/female role models. Because, you know, it wasn't until I was about 18 or 19 that I even had any. All my heroes were men, everything I wanted to do was what men did, and there were very few women who inspired me to want to be LIKE them.
Now, this was partly due to my upbringing in the middle of nowhere places, partly due to the general visibility of women in the areas of culture and pop culture which I was into at the time – and I quickly realised how wrong I was and how many women out there were being awesome and worth looking up to. And I want to make a little zine to honour these women.
And then I thought – why not open that up for contributors? I know tons of women who write/make art/will definitely have something to say on the matter.
The zine will exist eventually as a printed copy, but as that means I won't be able to say yes to all the submissions I get for that, I decided to also start this here submission-open Tumblr, so that everyone gets to have a go.
Here's some guidelines:
1. The deadline for the first printed zine will either be late September/early October because else I'm too bogged down with other projects to have time to edit this. Obviously, there's no deadlines for this Tumblr.
2. If you're just writing, you can totally ask someone else to do an illustration to go with the piece. Collaborate in general!
3. I want you all to feel as perfectly comfortable picking a rock star/actress/pop culture icon to write about as well as politicians, authors, scientists, etc. And don't worry about impressing by choosing someone REALLY obscure. It's all about what's inspired you and who you think is important and could be important for younger girls, growing up. Basically, if you want to pick someone obvious like Kathleen Hanna or Karen O, that's fine.
Now, what are you waiting for? Click the "submit" tab at the top. Go go go!


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Advanced Math/Science Research Update
by Dr. April Burch, Director of the AMSR program
January 15, 2013
Since our last update, Berkshire School hosted student researchers from Belmont Hill, and all-boys prep school outside of Boston, for a 1-day mini-symposium on Student Biomedical Research. The goal was to foster collaboration, communication and community outreach with our students. AMSR students Liza Bernstein '13, Sissi Wang '13, Lars Robinson '13, Elsie Guevara '13, Ernest Yue '13, and Nate MacKenzie '14, gave short talks about their work in the new Bellas/Dixon Math and Science lecture hall. The talks were followed up by break-out sessions where Belmont Hill students described their research projects and students discussed commonalities between the projects and future goals.
The second semester of AMSR started with some terrific news. The AMSR program was awarded a grant from The Chinchester Dupont Foundation for the purchase of an EVOS fluorescence microscope. This piece of equipment will expand the types of experiments and analyses that can be done by AMSR students this and future years. The microscope should arrive shortly, and Dr. Burch has invited everyone to stop in for a look next time they are on campus.
One new, exciting project that is underway in the winter season of AMSR in the afternoons is being spearheaded by Elif Kesaf '14. Elif is from Turkey and seeks to identify novel viruses of non-pathogenic strains of Legionella bacterium from travertines in Pamukkale. In collaboration with Dr. Sunny Shin at the Perlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, she will be working to isolate viruses of this bacterium with the hope of identifying new agents to combat Legionnaires' disease caused by a pathogenic form of Legionella.
Look for more news from Dr. Burch in the next issue!
Posted Wednesday, Oct 9, 2013
Mr. Gulotta's Con Law class is talking about this session of the Supreme Court. Read what they're focused on.
Posted Sunday, Oct 6, 2013
It started early and was jam-packed with fun! From the pie-eating contest to Edith Wharton's house and the Pep Rally to Helping Hands Day, those Bears have been busy!
Posted Friday, Oct 4, 2013
Arwen submitted her first video blog post - watch it now!
Posted Friday, Oct 4, 2013
Posted Wednesday, Oct 2, 2013
Sullivan placed First in the US National Aerobatic Championships (Primary Sequence) in Texas last weekend representing the University of North Dakota Team.
Posted Tuesday, Oct 1, 2013
Sarah Kinney's film touched the entire community with its heartfelt and uniquely-expressed message. Read what she says about it and watch the film, itself here.
Posted Thursday, Sep 26, 2013
Sam Lewis is taking part in an independent study project with Mrs. Lloyd in which he will complete six works of art while learning about his genre and writing about it, as well.
Posted Thursday, Sep 26, 2013
This is Nate's first post - follow him to class, to cross-country, and hiking up the mountain.
Posted Monday, Sep 23, 2013
Deo's story is at times hard to hear, but, in his own words, it is also "really beautiful."
Posted Sunday, Sep 22, 2013
Despite rain during the day on Saturday, it was another gorgeous fall weekend under the mountain. Read more to see what we were up to.
Posted Wednesday, Sep 18, 2013
Peter Coenen'04 - alum and son of science teacher Ms. Morgan - named Executive Chef of The Gage, on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, IL.
Posted Wednesday, Sep 18, 2013
Ms. Connell wrote the book on the Constitution - or at least A book on the Constitution.
Posted Tuesday, Sep 17, 2013
All School President, Sam Perkins, spoke to the full community on Monday morning.
Posted Thursday, Sep 12, 2013
Who are we? WE ARE BERKSHIRE!
Posted Sunday, Sep 8, 2013
What was that wonderful smell emanating from the third floor of Berkshire Hall on the first day of Saturday classes?
Posted Thursday, Sep 5, 2013
Listen to this exclusive interview, featuring Deo Niyizonkiza and Stuart Miller '97. It will also air Friday, September 6 at around 7:20 a.m.
Posted Tuesday, Sep 3, 2013
Classes started today, and the students took a moment to say hello.
Posted Monday, Sep 2, 2013
Despite the rain, it was all smiles as Berkshire's returners moved in this morning.
Posted Monday, Aug 19, 2013
Mr. Nielsen took a canoe trip that doubled as a rite of passage - he recommends it thoroughly, all but the mosquitos!
Posted Wednesday, Aug 14, 2013
Missing Berkshire Theater? Here's a look back at last fall's production - enjoy!
Posted Wednesday, Aug 7, 2013
While you were lying on the beach, reading your summer reading, Mr. MacKenzie was riding his bike through the wilds of New England checking out colleges. See what he saw!
Posted Friday, Jul 12, 2013
At the beach, in the mountains, in the quiet of our backyards, here's what Berkshire Bears of all stripes are reading this summer.
Posted Wednesday, Jul 10, 2013
Miss Hutchinson is in China from July 10 through the 27th. Follow her trip here!
Posted Wednesday, Jul 10, 2013
See which faculty were honored this spring.
Posted Wednesday, Jul 10, 2013


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No doubt you'll want to make her 50th birthday extra special. To do that you'll need to lavish her with delightful gifts. Chocolate gifts are a must together with some personalised wine to help wash it down with. Yummy! If kitchen capers is her thing then we have a great range of cookery gifts including the ingenious Apron Guides which she'll no doubt love to bits.