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- Curate
- Curate• Literally, one who has the cure (care) or charge of souls, in which sense it is yet used by the Church of England, 'All Bishops and Curates'
Catholic Encyclopedia. Kevin Knight. 2006.
- CurateCurate† Catholic_Encyclopedia ► Curate(Lat. curatus, from cura, care)Literally, one who has the cure (care) or charge of souls, in which sense it is yet used by the Church of England, "All Bishops and Curates". In France, also, the cognate curé (Spanish, cura) is used to denote the chief priest of a parish. In English-speaking countries, however, the word curate has gradually become the title of those priests who are assistants to the rector, or parish priest, in the general parochial work of the parish or mission to which they are sent by the bishop of the diocese or his delegate. Technically speaking the curate is the one who exercises the cure of souls, and his assistants are vicars and coadjutors; but in this article the word curate is used in its accepted English sense, viz. assistant priest, and corresponds, in a general way, to the vicarius temporalis, auxiliaris presbyter, coadjutor parochi.In the first three centuries of the Church there was but one church in each diocese, located generally in the principal city, i.e. in the city where the bishop resided. To this church the faithful of the city and surroundings villages went on Sundays and feasts to assist at Mass and receive the sacraments. When the faithful became more numerous as the Church developed, the number of churches was increased not only in the city but also in the surrounding country, and services were performed in these churches by priests, who, however, were not permanently appointed; i.e. the bishop remained the only parish priest, but had a certain number of priests to assist him in the administration of the sacraments in his parochia, or diocese (Lesêtre, La Paroisse, Paris, 1906; Duchesne, The Origin of Christian Worship, London, 1906, 11-13). After the fourth century parishes began to be formed in the rural districts, but it was not until after the year 1000 that they were formed in episcopal cities (Lupi, De parochiis ante annum millesimum, Bergamo, 1788; Vering, Kirchenrecht, 3d ed., 1893, p. 598). From this it will be seen that just as the bishop found his diocese too large for individual ministrations and care, so the parish priest, in the course of time, found it necessary to secure the aid of other priests in attending to the spiritual needs of his people.In English-speaking countries, also in a number of European states, at the present day, the curate holds his faculties directly from the bishop, but exercises them according to the wish and direction of the parish priest or rector. This applies not only in the case of a true parish priest or a missionary rector (both irremovable), but also in the case of simple rector, who by the authority of the bishop governs a given area styled a mission. Curates are, in general, removal at the will of the bishop. Nevertheless, this power of the bishop ought to be exercised with prudence and charity, and in such a way that the curate shall suffer no loss of reputation, e.g. by being sent without just and reasonable cause from one mission to another, such arbitrary change being legitimately interpreted by common consent as tantamount to a punishment. In such a case, if the curate feels that he has been unfairly treated, he has (in England) the right of appeal to the Commission of Investigation, which exists in each diocese. Meanwhile he must obey the order of the bishop. The form of investigation and trial is the same for curates as for rectors and parish priests (see Wernz, op. cit. below, II, 1052). It is to be noted that the Commission of Investigation provided for the United States by a degree of Propaganda (20 July, 1878; cf. Acta et Decr. Conc. Balt. III, 292-96) was abrogated by the Propaganda Instruction of "Cum Magnopere" of 1884, which provides in each diocese for a summary, but substantially just, process in all criminal and disciplinary causes of ecclesiastics (Conc. Plen. Balt. III. Cap. III, 308-66, cf. Acta et Decreta, 287-92). This instruction obtains in Scotland, and has lately been extended to England for the larger dioceses (Taunton, p. 220).The general law of the Church with regard to curates is mainly concerned with their appointment and their right to proper support. By common ecclesiastical law the appointment of curates belongs to the parish priest and not the bishop (c. 30, X, 3, 5; Council of Trent, Sess. XXI, cap. Iv, de Ref.). But the bishop can oblige the parish priest to accept a curate when the former cannot do his work, either on account of physical or mental weakness or on account of ignorance; and it belongs to the bishop, and not to the parish priest, to judge whether one or more curates are necessary, also to provide for their examination, approbation, and the issuing of faculties to them. In English-speaking countries, also in France, Spain, Germany, and Austria, curates are appointed by the bishop (or vicar-general), who determines their salary and may remove them from one mission to another. By a particular reply of the Congregation of the Council, 14 August, 1863, it is expressly provided that this custom, derogatory to the common law, shall be observed until the Apostolic See makes other provision.The bishop can assign to the curate a salary from the income of the church. If the income of the church is not sufficient the parish priest is not to suffer; but according to the common opinion, the bishop, as far as he can, must provide from other sources for the curate. By common law the stole fees (q.v.) belong to the parish priest, therefore the bishop cannot make them part of the salary of the curate. Still, the Council of Trent says that the bishop can assign a salary from the fruits of the benefice, or otherwise provide; hence it seems to some that he might use the stole fees as part of the salary of the curate. The custom of each diocese is a sure guide on this point; in any case, there is always the opportunity of appeal to Rome in a case of more than ordinary difficulty. The authority of the curate is gathered from his letter of appointment, the diocesan statutes, and legitimate custom. Its actual limitations may also be gathered from the manuals of canon law most used in the various Catholic countries. As a general rule, curates are not moved without good reason from the churches which they serve; such a reason should be the promotion of the curate, the good of a particular parish, or the general good of the diocese. This latter is fairly comprehensive and gives the bishop a wide discretion. Bishops are advised to act as far as possible, in a manner agreeable to the parish priest or rector.In England the synods of Westminster provide that in each mission one priest is appointed to be the first (primus), with the duty of attending to the cure of souls and the administration of the church or congregation. Alms given for Masses are the property of each individual priest. Stole fees are not always dealt with in the same was in each mission. It is recommended that a course be followed which is most conducive to lightening the burdens of the mission. Curates ought to inform the head priest as often as they are absent from the presbytery, even for a day; they should not be absent for a Sunday or a Holy Day of obligation without the leave of the bishop or vicar-general, except in case of urgency, in which case the curate, on leaving home, ought as soon as possible to inform the bishop of said urgency, and should leave a suitable priest to supply his place. Curates must not consider that they are freed from work merely because they are not charged with the administration of a mission. It is their duty, under the rector, to help him by preaching, by hearing confessions, by teaching children the catechism, by visiting the sick and administering to them the sacraments, and by fulfilling all the other duties of a missionary. Rarely should curates take meals elsewhere than in the presbytery at a common table; much less should this become habitual. In Ireland the synods of Maynooth forbid any curate to incur a debt of over £20; should he do so, he is liable to censure. If disputes arise between the parish priest and the curate, the matter is to be referred to the bishop, and in the meantime the curate is to abide by the decision of the parish priest. Every week the curate is to meet the parish priest in order to receive from him instructions as to the arrangements for the coming week (it is to be noted that in some parts of Ireland the curate resides apart from the parish priest). Absence from the parish, even for one night is to be notified to the parish priest; absence for three days is to be notified to the bishop. Absence for five days requires the written permission of the bishop, as does also absence on Sunday or a Holy Day of obligation. Certain other statutes are incorporated in the synods of Maynooth which apply equally to curates and parish priests. Thus, no person is to be declared excommunicated unless the bishop has given his written authority for such proceedings. Priests are on no account to make personal remarks about their parishioners in church. All parochial moneys received are to be entered in a book which is kept by the parish priest. Sick priests, before they receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, are to hand over to the vicar forane or other responsible priest, the pyx, holy oil vessel, registers, and all other things which pertain to the church; should the priest die, his colleagues are to take the utmost care that all papers, letters, etc. are locked up and so safeguarded from the danger of falling into the hands of unauthorized lay people.The Second Council of Quebec deals in detail with the ecclesiastical status (rights and duties) of curates in French Canada (see Discipline du Diocèse de Québec, Quebec, 1895, pp. 211, 252, and Gignac, Compend. Jur. Eccl. As usum Cleri Canad., ibid., 1901, De personis, 398 sqq.). In the United States also, and in other English-speaking countries, the statutes of various dioceses and the legislation of some provincial synods (e.g. Fifth New York, 1886) regulate similar detail the duties of a curate, e.g. the continuous residence that his office calls for and other statutory priestly obligations. Apropos of the relations between parish priests and their curates, many modern diocesan and provincial synods repeat with insistence the immemorial principles that govern the exercise of ecclesiastical authority in all that pertains to the cure of souls (cura animarum), viz.: on the part of the parish priest, paternal benevolence and mildness of direction, due recognition of the priestly character of his assistants, equitable distribution of the parochial duties and burdens, good example in religious zeal and works, wise counsel of the young and inexperienced, practical guidance in all that pertains to the spiritual and even the temporal welfare of the parish; on the part of the curate, willing obedience to his superior, due consultation in all matters of importance, filial co-operation, respect for the parish priest's office and priestly reputation, a peaceful and even patient attitude when the curate seems wronged, and recourse to the diocesan authority only when charity has exhausted her suggestions (Synod of Münster, 1897, 147 sqq., in Laurentius, op. cit. below, pp. 170-71). Similar advice and suggestions are found in many modern writings on the priesthood (e.g. the works of Cardinals Manning, Gibbons, Vaughan, and those of Mach, Keating, etc.). (See COMPETENCY; CONGRUA; PARISH; PARISH PRIEST; VICAR; CHAPLAIN; PRIEST.)SMITH, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law (New York, 1887); LAURENTIUS, Institut. Juris eccl. (Freigburg, 1903), nn. 210-11; WERNZ, Jus Decretal. (Rome, 1899), II, nn. 837-39; BARGILLIAT, Praelect. Juris can. (24th ed., Paris, 1908); BOUIX, De parocho (Paris, 1855); HELFERT, Traité de vicaires paroissiaux in Analecta juris pontif. (1861), 838 sqq; DENEUBOURG, Etude canonique sur les vicaires paroissiaux (Paris, 1871); Archiv. F. kath. Kirchenrecht (1878), XXXIX, 3; (1879), XLII, 410.For the office and condition of curates in the Church of England, see PHILLIMORE, The Ecclesiastical Laws of the Church of England (London, 1873), 1876); MAKOWER, Constitution of The Church of England (London, 1896); and CRIPPS, A Practical Treatise on the Law Relating to the Church and Clergy (6th ed., London, 1886).DAVID DUNFORDTranscribed by Ted Rego
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII. — New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat. 1910.
Catholic encyclopedia.


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Two North Koreans Killed for Christian Faith
Two North Korean Christians have died because of their faith, a global persecution watchdog group revealed today.
Opens Doors USA confirmed the deaths of the two Christians, revealing that one was shot while he was leaving for Bible training in China, and that another one died in a labor camp in North Korea.
"He was very excited about his new faith and wanted to share the Gospel with his family," an unnamed Open Doors worker said in a statement. "He wanted to come back to China to study the Bible more so he could explain the Christian faith better to his family. It is heartbreaking that he was killed. I cannot stop thinking: 'If only he had arrived a little later at the border river, the guard would not have seen and shot him. He could still be alive today.'"
The other Christian who was killed also apparently took Bible courses in China, but returned to North Korea eight months later. Open Doors says that he was a dedicated and faithful Christian, which is a criminal offense in North Korea, punishable by prison and even death. When authorities found out about his faith, they sent him to one of their notorious prison labor camps.
"We just received an update that he was dead," Open Doors said. "He was terribly tortured because of his faith. He was also forced to do heavy labor while hardly receiving any food. Before his return to North Korea, he was baptized and willing to deal with the all the hardships he had to face. We never tell people to go back to North Korea, but he was happy to. We are devastated to hear about these murders. We know Christians die for their faith almost every day in North Korea, but it is still hard to deal with."
The watchgroup, which reports on Christian persecution around the world, has had North Korea as No. 1 on its list of most oppressive countries in the world for 11 years running.
"Nowhere else in the world is the persecution of Christians so intense. Even the possession of the Bible is enough to be killed or sent to a labor camp for life with your family," Open Doors says. The organization added that between 200,000 and 400,000 Christians may be living in North Korea, but official figures are hard to come by since profession of faith must be kept a secret. Of those believers, as many as 50,000 to 70,000 are believed to be living in concentration camps, where some face a grim death.
"There is no religious freedom whatsoever in North Korea. People are simply killed if they believe in Jesus," a North Korean refugee whose name was withheld for security reasons told Open Doors. "Kim Jong-Un is a god and there cannot be any god besides him. Yes, there are church services in North Korea, but only when foreigners are present. The state calls up some locals to be present. There is no freedom of religion, speech or press in North Korea."
In December, a U.S. citizen connected to a Protestant group was reportedly arrested in North Korea. Details of his case remain vague, but sources have said that authorities found in his possession a computer with "delicate information" about North Korea. The information in question allegedly referred to photos of orphans and the struggles people face, which the Pacific nation does not want to be spread around the world.

subset: commoncrawl


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With nearly four years having passed since their 4AD debut, My Maudlin Career, Camera Obscura's new album, Desire Lines will be released on June 4th (3rd in UK/EU). Desire Lines, was recorded last December when the band decamped to Portland to work with GRAMMY nominated producer Tucker Martine (R.E.M., Spoon, My Morning Jacket) and pleased with the progress they made there, they returned a month later to finish it.
Tracyanne Campbell from the band, "Of all our records this was pretty much the most challenging to write, partly because of the situation we found ourselves in with having to take such a long and uncertain amount of time out, but also because it would be record number five and we were getting harder and harder to please.
Working in the US with southern gentleman Tucker Martine was a positive experience. He brought a certain calmness to recording that wasn't there before. We were also delighted to have Neko Case and Jim James sing on the record too. What a treat."
Glasgow's Camera Obscura have a busy year of touring ahead of them. There will be a handful of festival dates and a run in North America with She & Him already announced, there is a UK tour around the album's release, and more shows in North America.
There are no dates available for this artist.


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- Science
- Not Exactly Rocket Science
Tobacco leaves emit warning chemicals that summon predators when mixed with caterpillar spit
When hornworm caterpillars eat tobacco plants, they doom themselves with their own spit. As they chew away, a chemical in their saliva reacts with airborne substances that are released by the beleaguered plants. This chemical reaction sends out a distress signal that is heard and answered by the predatory big-eyed bug. The bug eats hornworm caterpillars. Drawn by the chemical SOS of plants under distress, it finds plenty to devour.
Many plants release airborne chemicals to defend themselves against very hungry caterpillars. These "plant volatiles" spread far and wide, summoning reinforcements to the plant's defence. Some attract predators like the big-eyed bug; others call upon parasitic wasps that lay their eggs inside the caterpillars, which are soon devoured from the inside out.
Silke Allmann and Ian Baldwin from the Max Planck Institute studied a particular group of SOS chemicals called 'green leaf volatiles' (or GLVs), which are released almost immediately from wounded leaves. They come in two slightly different forms known as Z and E. When the duo injured tobacco leaves themselves, they released far more of the Z versions than the E ones. By contrast, leaves that were attacked by hornworms released both Z and E forms in equal amounts.
Allmann and Baldwin showed that something in the hornworm spit was causing this change. If they applied the saliva to a wound, without any caterpillar, the plant gave off the same balanced aroma of Z and E chemicals. For the moment, no one knows which of the many compounds in the caterpillar's saliva prompts this change, but whatever the mystery chemical is, it directly converts the Z form into the E one. You can see the reaction taking place in a test tube, but only when the saliva of a hornworm is added. Extracts made from tobacco leaves won't do the trick.
When Allmann and Baldwin tested the spit of other pests that eat tobacco leaves – the army beetworm and cotton leafworm – the leaves' emissions were still Z-heavy. This means that the release of Z and E volatiles in equal numbers sends out a very particular message: it says that the plant is being specifically attacked by hornworms, rather than any other type of caterpillar.
And the big-eyed bug is listening. Allmann and Baldwin tested the bug's preferences by gluing hornworm eggs to tobacco plants and dabbing artificially prepared mixtures of Z and E volatiles. They found that the predator devoured more eggs when it caught a whiff of Z and E in equal measure, over a bouquet that smelled predominantly of Z. So by the very act of eating its favourite plant, the tobacco hornworm creates a chemical reaction that summons one of its predators.
This is a brilliant defence on the part of the plant but it seems baffling that the hornworm should produce a chemical in its spit that ultimately increases its risk of being eaten. It's a mystery, but Allmann and Baldwin think that the caterpillars might benefit from the E volatiles, possibly because they protect it against infections. If that's the case, the risk of summoning a marauding big-eyed bug might be worth the price of a meal and defence against disease.
Reference: Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1191634
Images by Tozuema and Eugene van der Pijil
More on plant defences:
Tobacco plants foil very hungry caterpillars by switching pollinators to hummingbirds
The 13,000-year old tree that survives by cloning itself
Review: Royal Institution Christmas Lecture – the 300 million year war
Are red autumn leaves a warning sign to insects?
The fiery taste of chillies is a defence against a fungus


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Hillen family web site
What is it all about?
As you 'tab' your way through this morass of unfolding delights, we hope you will discover new and fascinating corners of the Hillen family archives, from distant sepia-toned history to the vignettes of the present day (plus everything in between of course).
The guiding principles of this site are to encourage fellow Hillens and their families to contribute their knowledge of our common ancestors, share photographs of family members and tell stories (tall and short) learned at the knees and ankles of our forebears (no matter how embarrassing).
All comments are welcome, and criticism positively encouraged. But remember, before you criticise someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticise them, you are a mile away AND you have their shoes.
Nigel and Simon Hillen
Last Updated (Friday, 14 December 2012 22:18)


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by John Stossel
I won 19 Emmy Awards by reporting a myth: that business constantly rips us off -- that capitalism is mostly cruel and unfair. I know that's a myth now. So I was glad to see the publication of "The 5 Big Lies About American Business" by Michael Medved. I invite him on tomorrow's Fox Business Network show to talk about that.
"You can only make a profit in this country by giving people a product or a service that they want," he says. "It's the golden rule in action."
Medved used to write about the movies, so he's familiar with the businessman as villain. I'll play a clip from the movie "Syriana," in which an oil tycoon makes this ridiculous speech: "Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the street."
"What's interesting," Medved commented, "is that in the old days, Hollywood would have businesspeople who were very positive: George Bailey, the Jimmy Stewart character, is a banker in 'It's a Wonderful Life.'"
No longer. Today's movie capitalists are criminals or playboys. Apparently, Hollywood writers think it's plausible that CEOs have lots of time to sip cocktails and chase women.
"In school, we all studied a book called "The Theory of the Leisure Class," which ... indicted the leisure class and these people who were out there exploiting other people and really had nothing to do except sit on their yachts and go to their swimming pools and their vacations."
In real life, that's nonsense. "The higher up on the income scale you go, the less leisure time you have. You make money in this country by working hard."
Medved's second myth is that when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. This is the old zero-sum fallacy, which ignores that when two people engage in free exchange, both gain -- or they wouldn't have traded. It's what I call the double thank-you phenomenon. I understand why politicians and lawyers believe it: It's true in their world. But it's not true in business.
"If you believe that when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, then you believe that creating wealth causes poverty, and you're an idiot," said Medved. "One of the things that I hate is this term 'obscene profits.' There are no obscene profits ... . (The current economic downturn shows) "that when the rich get poorer ... everybody gets poorer."
Myth No. 3: Government is more fair and reliable than business. "Remember the last time you went into Starbucks, and then remember the last time you went into the DMV to get your license," Medved said. "Where did you get better treated? And it's not because the barista is some kind of idealist or humanitarian. She wants a tip. She wants you to come back to the Starbucks ... ."
But the left doesn't get it. "This is the suspicion of the profit motive -- the idea that if somebody is selflessly serving me, they're going to treat me better than somebody who wants to make a buck," Medved said. But "(i)f you think about it in your own life, if somebody is benefiting from his interaction with you ... it's a far more reliable kind of interaction than someone who comes and says I'm in this only for you."
Myth No. 4: The current downturn means the death of capitalism. "Capitalism is alive and well," Medved said.
I'm also bugged when people argue that today's problems prove that capitalism "failed." What failed? We had a correction. A bubble popped. But from 1982 to now, the Dow rose from 800 to 11,000. Had it happened without the bubble, we'd say this is one of the great boom periods.
Medved added: "This is one of the biggest lies -- the idea that because of capitalism, we're all suffering. ... Poor people in America today, people who are officially in poverty, have a higher standard of living in terms of medical standards, in terms of the chances of going to college, in terms of the way people live, than middle-class people did 30 years ago. It's an extraordinary achievement of technology and of the profit sector."
Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here


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Installing Qemu on Windows Vista
Qemu introduction from Wikipedia
QEMU emulates a full computer system, including a processor and various peripherals. It can be used to provide virtual hosting of several virtual computers on a single computer.
Qemu author, Fabrice Bellard, also wrote a Linux kernel module (with preliminary ports to FreeBSD and Windows) named KQEMU or QEMU Accelerator, which notably speeds up i386 emulation on i386 platforms. This is accomplished by running user mode code directly on the host computer's CPU, and using processor and peripheral emulation only for kernel mode and real mode code. KQEMU also supports a kernel emulation mode in which portions of kernel mode code run on the host's CPU
Qemu official page:
Qemu ported to Windows:
First we download a zip package:
Next unzip archives to a folder.
There are some clues at file README-en.txt, and a html manual at qemu-doc.html.
Qemu is now ready to be run:
so exec qemu-win.bat and a small linux test image "linux.img" is emulated.
NOTE: When a mouse cursor is missing, type Ctrl and Alt key together. Please use Alt
and Tab on WindowsMe.
NOTE: To exit from Linux, press Ctrl-Alt-2 keys together then you will see (qemu) prompt.
Then type quit:
(qemu) quit
Running Qemu:
I have downloaded a Ubuntu iso cdrom image: ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso
First I exec C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe to open a comand line window, and then:
>cd <qemu-directory-path>
>qemu -L . -m 512 -cdrom
|bios path
|in our example actual directory "."
|available memory
|Default is 128 meg, I set it to 512
|iso cdrom image path
|Iso image to emulate a cdrom
Qemu gives this warning:
Could not open '\\.\kqemu' - QEMU acceleration layer not activated
To avoid this message, install qemu accelerator, which will improve qemu speed:
(NOTE: uninstall any previous version accelerator you have before installing this one)
Qemu accelerator Kqemu-1.3.0pre11
Right now we don't have network available. We check at this doc for some clues: HowToNetwork-en.html
I have decided to use a TAP (virtual ethernet network interface) to have full internet access: TapWin32-en.html
First we need a VPN driver for windows: OpenVPN driver download page.
Download and install this program: openvpn-2.0.9-install.exe
Once installed go to Programs menu and then
-> OpenVPN -> Add a new TAP-Win32 virtual ethernet adapter
If all has gone fine, a tap device will appear at:
Control panel -> Network and Sharing Center -> Manage networks
Remember the TAP interface name because it will be passed as an argument to qemu, i.e. in my computer is "Local area connection 2"
Now we have to establish a NETWORK SOFTWARE BRIDGE in windows vista.
Network bridge (Wikipedia)
A network bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model.
In our case the bridge will interconnect a real network interface with our TAP interface at data link layer, so both interfaces will share same IP address.
Howto set up a network bridge at windows xp and vista: Win XP network bridge set up.
Select both interfaces pressing ctrl key, and right click the mouse.
Select "Bridge connections" at the pop up menu and wait till network bridge will be completed.
After bridge completion gonna set up its network configuration:
right click at bridge icon -> properties -> Internet protocol version 4
If you have a dhcp server you can set bridge interface to automatically get its IP address.
I use a static network configuration at my LAN.
(change values to suit your network.)
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.129
To check the network at console window we can make some pings:
ping 192.168.0.5
ping 192.168.0.129 (checking gateway)
Time of truth arrives, we launch qemu:
qemu -L . -m 512 -cdrom ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso -net nic -net tap,ifname="Local area connection 2"
at ubuntu guest system I configure the network with a free IP address on my LAN:
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.129
pings work:
ping 192.168.0.10
ping 192.168.0.5
ping 192.168.0.129 (checking the gateway)
If you have Internet access through your LAN, you can now open a browser and surf on the Internet from inside your qemu guest system. :-)
More info about bridging:
Qemu HowTo Floppy Cdrom


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The Secret Beyond Matter
Loyalty Described in the Qur'an
Many live lives far removed from the moral teachings expounded in the Qur'an; though they had been shown the right way, they turn their faces away. However, such heedlessness will prevent them from attaining that superior moral character called for by Allah in the Qur'an, harming them both materially and spiritually. Anxiety, pessimism, selfishness, belligerence, hypocrisy, arrogance, greed, and other such vices now prevailing in modern societies, are the result of this distance from the true religion and the morality it commands.
However, some are not even aware that they are in such a condition, having become so habituated to such vices that they no longer regard them as negative. The reason for them finding themselves in this condition is that they have turned their backs to the true religion of Allah. He refers to this human failing in the Qur'an:
The notion of "loyalty", which we are aiming to address in this book, is one that those distanced from the moral teaching of the Qur'an completely fail to understand; or worse still, will never understand. As in all matters, a great difference exists between the way believers understand the meaning of loyalty and how non-believers do. In those societies where ignorance of the morality of the Qur'an is the norm, loyalty is understood as maintaining a bond between those who love each other, or who share some common relationship, taking full concern of one another's desires and aspirations. The loyalty of those who adopt ignorance as a way of life has emptied it of its real meaning, misrepresenting it to disguise the true nature of their actions.
Disbelievers, not having faith, for failing to appreciate His mighty power, cannot honor Allah with true loyalty. They mistakenly believe that living a life in faithfulness to Allah will rob them of all their worldly advantages. However, Allah has informed us that those who are sincerely faithful to Him will have all the pleasures they can imagine, in this world and the world to come. Disbelievers, however, are not aware of this truth.
Rather, disbelievers are faithful, but in a different way. They are faithful to their base natures, and, ultimately, to Satan. However, the reward awaiting them in the Hereafter for their devotion to their selfish desires and to Satan is eternal anguish.
On the contrary, believers employ the intelligence that Allah has given them to duly appreciate His power and infinite knowledge. They know that He alone is worthy of praise, and live their lives without compromise in their adherence to the moral teachings He has revealed in the Qur'an. They follow faithfully and without doubt the way shown by the messengers. They are patient through adversity, and always mindful of Allah in everything they do. They continually try to win His favor, not being overcome with fear and anxiety, but persistently seeking His good pleasure. Even in times of extreme duress, they are never unfaithful to Him. On the contrary, their closeness to Allah only becomes greater. Our mighty Lord has promised the believers forgiveness and a great reward in His presence for their deeds:


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It's sneak peak week for Cornish Heritage Farms. Each day the Design Team will be showcasing the new stamps that will soon be available.
Don't forget to check out all the Cornish Heritage Farms Design Team's blogs for more sneak peeks everyday!
This month we have 17 backgrounders, 3 ATC Sets, 2 individual Rummage Bin Stamps and 3 Rummage Bin Stamp sets being released.
Join us for our release Blog Hop this Thursday 19th April 10 PM EST, starting on the Cornish Heritage Farms Blog.
New Release Stamps available in the Cornish Heritage Farms Store from Thursday 19th April 10 PM EST.
"First 24 Special" - receive 15% off all orders that are placed within the first 24 hours of the release.
For my card, I used the Trees Backgrounder, inking it with Clearsnap ink. The bird is a digital imaage which is currently available in the store. After cutting it out, I mounted it on die cuts.
Cardstock: Bazzill
Stamp, digi image: Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Clearsnap
Dies: Spellbinders
Cornish Heritage Farms- Day 1
Posted by Steph Ackerman at 8:43 AM
Labels: CHF, clearsnap, spellbinders
11 comments:
Very nice, Steph!ReplyDelete
I love that bird and it goes great with the tree. Really nice card!ReplyDelete
Great pairing of the trees backgrounder with the digi bird!ReplyDelete
What a really awesome card, love the tree background stamp!ReplyDelete
What a great backgrounder, I like how you paired it with the bird.ReplyDelete
Wonderful Card.ReplyDelete
I really like the simple bird against the trees bg! Well done!ReplyDelete
love the tree background for the birdReplyDelete
Loved the way you used the stamps.ReplyDelete
So pretty! I really adore that Trees BG, don't you?ReplyDelete
It's great to be working with you on the CHF team!
Very pretty! Love the colors you chose.ReplyDelete
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Barack Obama Skips Visit to Bedside of Ailing Nelson Mandela
President Barack Obama met the family of South Africa's ailing anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela on Saturday and he praised the critically ill, retired statesman as one of history's greatest figures.
The faltering health of Mandela, 94, a figure admired globally as a symbol of struggle against injustice and racism, is dominating Obama's two-day visit to South Africa.
But Obama also faced protests by South Africans against U.S. foreign policy, especially American drone strikes.
Police fired stun grenades on Saturday to disperse several hundred protesters who had gathered outside the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg, where Obama was due to address a town hall meeting with students.
Obama, in South Africa on the second leg of a three-nation Africa tour, met Mandela relatives to deliver a message of support instead of directly visiting the former president at the hospital where he has spent the last three weeks.
The meeting took place at the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory in Johannesburg.
Obama told reporters afterwards he also spoke by telephone with Mandela's wife Graca Machel, who remained by her husband's side in the hospital in Pretoria.
"I expressed my hope that Madiba draws peace and comfort from the time that he is spending with loved ones, and also expressed my heartfelt support for the entire family as they work through this difficult time," he said, using the clan name Madiba by which Mandela is affectionately known.
Obama earlier had talks with South African President Jacob Zuma and the two held a joint news conference in which Zuma said Mandela remained in a "critical but stable condition".
Obama's visit to South Africa had stirred intense speculation that the first African-American president of the United States would look in on the first black president of South Africa in his hospital room.
But Mandela's deterioration in the last week to a critical condition forced the White House to rule out the possibility of Obama and his wife seeing the frail ex-statesman.
Speaking to reporters at Pretoria's Union Buildings, where Mandela was inaugurated as president in 1994, Obama said the prayers of millions around the world were with the Nobel Peace laureate, who lay just one km (mile) away in hospital.
Adding to his previous praise of Mandela, Obama likened him to first U.S. president George Washington because of the decision of both to step down at the peak of their power.
"What an incredible lesson that is," Obama said, calling Mandela "one of the greatest people in history".
Obama had said on Thursday he did not "need a photo op" with Mandela, whom he met in 2005 in Washington when he was a U.S. senator.
After holding talks with Obama, Zuma said Mandela's critical condition was unchanged. "We hope that very soon he will be out of hospital," he added, without giving further details.
In welcoming Obama, Zuma underscored the historical similarities between Mandela and his U.S. guest in overcoming decades of institutionalised racism and discrimination to rise to the highest political office.
"The two of you are also bound by history as the first black presidents of your respective countries," Zuma said. "You both carry the dreams of the millions of people in Africa and the diaspora."
On Sunday, Obama flies to Cape Town from which he will visit Robben Island, the windswept former penal colony in the frigid waters of the south Atlantic where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in apartheid jails.
Zuma said Mandela had told him before his latest hospitalisation that "when I go to sleep I will be very happy because I left South Africa going forward".


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Joan LeVeque
Kathleen Atwood
Joan LeVeque
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your source (this site) when using this data.


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Atari teams with Del Taco to deliver free trial-laden limited-edition Star Trek Online collector's cups, with a free Type-8 Shuttle pet for those opting to supersize to the full game.
Visitors to the nation's number 2 Mexican fast foods restaurant will be able to procure one of four Star Trek Online collector's cups with purchase of a "Macho-sized" drink. Each cup contains a promo code good for a 48-hour free trial of the game. Customers can stack up to four of the free trial codes, at which point Atari will tack on an additional 48 hours, for a grand total of 10 days of free access to the Star Trek universe.
And should players opt to continue their journey by purchasing the full game after the trial is over, they'll score a free Type-8 Shuttle pet, which will follow their starship around the galaxy like a legless Aibo.
"Early response to Star Trek Online has been tremendous," said Jim Wilson, CEO and President, Atari, Inc. "Our partnership with Del Taco brings this unique sci-fi massively open online game to an even broader mainstream audience as well as avid Star Trek fans."
You can visit http://www.startrekonline.com/deltaco for more details on the promotion.


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Animal Shelter Maxed Out, Open House This Saturday, Dec. 8
Daniel Mintz
Eye Correspondent
McKINLEYVILLE – An influx of dogs at the county's animal shelter isn't being met with adoptions and the facility is getting overbooked.
When interviewed last week, Sgt. Kym Thompson, the Sheriff's Office's animal control and shelter supervisor, said 70 dogs were at the McKinleyville-based shelter, which only has room for 50. There were 40 cats being sheltered, well below a capacity of 90 but the number is steadily increasing.
Thompson said the situation isn't unusual at this time of year, when adoptions slack due to holiday preparations and travel. Failure to spay and neuter pets results in higher abandonment rates, she continued.
Eight puppies were born at the shelter at the time of the interview. Six more puppies were recently dumped at the side of a road in the Carlotta area. Earlier in November, 13 puppies were found in a cardboard box next to a school bus stop in the Dyerville area.
Six of the puppies are up for adoption but the rest are too young and need enhanced care that volunteers are giving them. "Thank God for kind people who are willing to take puppies home and hand feed them and take care of them so they can survive," Thompson said.
"I totally understand that it can be expensive to spay and neuter pets but for people who want to and can't afford it, there are avenues for assistance," she added, as the Humboldt County Spay/Neuter Network and the Humboldt Area Foundation offer vouchers for sterilizing pets.
Sometimes abandonment of pets isn't intentional. The owners of some of the dogs at the shelter are recently homeless or destitute or have been arrested. They often don't have family members or friends to pick up their pets.
"Some go to state prison, some are arrested on warrants outside of the county and transferred to jails in other counties," said Thompson. "It's not that they're not good pet owners, it's that they have no choice," she continued.
One man came to the shelter for his dog but explained he only had 67 cents in his pocket. "We gave him his dog," Thompson said. "We try and work with people and waive or reduce fees to reunite people with their pets – it's not always a lost cause."
She suspects the shelter is holding animals that are being sought by their owners but they haven't looked there.
The facility has a website, petharbor.com, that posts photos and descriptions of incoming animals so owners can check for them online.
Thompson recommends a proactive approach – microchipping pets is inexpensive and "tags with owner information help us so much," she said. Pets that aren't reunited with their owners are eventually given to new ones, as the shelter has never euthanized an adoptable pet since it opened in 2004.
The shelter's euthanasia rate is at five or six percent, Thompson said, with unadoptable feral cats accounting for much of it. By law the shelter must offer feral cats and even vicious dogs to rescue groups but if they can't take them, they're put down.
"But our rescue groups are wonderful and take a lot of animals that otherwise would not have a chance," said Thompson.
Mara Segal volunteers with one of them, Redwood Pals Rescue, which has sent out an e-mail "rescue plea" along with the It's a Dog's Life rescue group. She was interviewed the day the plea had been launched and said there had already been an adoption response.
Segal also volunteers at the shelter, walking dogs and "working on training them to improve their quality of life." A Redwood Pals raffle event raised money for a second playpen at the shelter, which will be installed soon, she said.
The group joins others that offer additional shelter services for animals that are injured, sick or need readying for adoption. "None of us have enough space in our homes to take care of all the dogs that need rescuing." said Segal.
The spike of intakes at the shelter has emerged as it prepares for its annual open house event (see above).
The shelter is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and until 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
For information on spay/neuter vouchers, adoptions and volunteer opportunities, call the shelter at (707) 840-9132.
Open House Saturday, Dec. 8
The Humboldt County Sheriff's Animal Shelter hosts its annual Holiday Open House on Saturday, Dec. 8 from noon to 4 p.m. The public is invited to come to the shelter to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the Animal Shelter, which has housed more than 16,000 animals since it has been open. The shelter officially opened Dec. 22, 2004.
There will be cake, cookies and punch, and staff will provide tours of the shelter. Animals will, of course, be available for viewing and adoption. The shelter will again have Memorial Stars available, as well as raffle items. The Memorial Stars can be purchased and hung in the Animal Shelter in memory of a pet, past or present.
The proceeds from the stars and raffle items are applied to the shelter's emergency medical fund, which is managed by Friends for Life Animal Rescue. This fund is used for the medical treatment of shelter animals with serious medical conditions that otherwise prevent them from being adopted. Many sick and injured dogs and cats have been saved and adopted to great homes thanks to this fund.
Donations for the shelter animals are gladly accepted, and can be made to Friends for Life Animal Rescue, P.O. Box 962, Eureka CA, 95502 or dogrescuers.org.
The Humboldt County Sheriff's Animal Shelter is located at 980 Lycoming Avenue, McKinleyville, CA, 95519.


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When Gabby's most difficult charge accidentally shoots her in front of a class full of students, the event exposes her carefully hidden identity. She shifts from looking like a normal teen to her secret Sary form, revealing her wings and the existence of her kind—immortals who try to keep people from committing suicide. Her incident attracts the attention of the next leader of the Sary, Jassen, who offers her an impossible bargain: she can keep her wings if she makes amends with those who know the truth. Things get more complicated when a rebel Sary, intent on exposing them to the world, starts interfering with Gabby's work. And there's no denying her attraction to Jassen, who is torn between his duties and his heart. With threats at every turn and her immortality on the line, Gabby has to find a way to save the Sary or surrender the sky forever.
Surrender the Sky is a stand alone title that follows COLORS LIKE MEMORIES and THE CHEMISTRY OF FATE, with cameos from several of the characters in the first books! It will be available May 2nd wherever ebooks are sold!
Join in the celebration for a $10 Amazon gift card! Use the rafflecopter below for entries :)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Oh, and my publisher is offering up some ARCs! Check out the super easy entry here!
And of course, the Spring Fling Blog Hop giveaway is still going on, so be sure to check out that giveaway :)


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Custom Three Decorative Letter Monogram Stamp - 1.5" X 1.5"
Dress it up - select a unique handle style on all custom wooden stamps for no additional charge!
Left top: Rustic Honey
Right top: Red Ornamental
Center bottom: Classic Chic (no handle - rounded hourglass-shape wooden mount easy & comfortable to hold)
All orders ship next business day!
Domestic shipping:
USPS First-Class Mail (4-8 days)
Express via FedEx (1-2 days)
International shipping:
USPS First-Class Mail (5-11 days)
We are certain you'll love your order, but sometimes issues arise. Life isn't always unicorns and rainbows (but it should be).
Let us know within 60 days and well make it right or refund in full!


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Decline rates are one thing, but the big question both ecologists and fishery managers ask is, how long will species take to recover from exploitation? There is a widespread assumption that fish populations can still recover even after they have declined by 95 percent or more. But that rests on hope as much as on any solid evidence. And even taking an optimistic view, most species—even fast-growing continental-shelf species—will probably need decades, not years, to make a full recovery.
For the roundnose and roughhead grenadiers, even the minimal information required to make predictions about recovery times was not gathered until two decades after the fishery began. By that time, the fishery had collapsed, and populations of both species could qualify for endangered status. My colleagues and I calculated the grenadiers' recovery times on the basis of those data; they range from decades to more than a century, assuming no more fishing—not a surprising result, given those fishes' slow growth, delayed maturity, and long lives.
We have now extended our research on grenadiers to forty species of continental-slope fishes in the northwest Atlantic. (There are about sixty species in all, but we are limited to those for which there are enough data to determine changes in abundance.) It is worth noting that ours is the world's first ecosystem-wide assessment of the effects of fishing in the deep sea—the subject is so little researched. Eight of the forty species, we discovered, have declined so precipitously that they could be considered threatened or endangered. Another ten species have also declined, though not as much.
When we began the research, we had expected to find that large, free-swimming fishes, which are most susceptible to capture by bottom trawls, had suffered the most marked declines. But that was not the case. Rather, the declines were greatest among small species, including the Arctic eelpout, Scotian snailfish, and wolf eelpout. Those species live right on the bottom, often hiding among rocks. We suspect that habitat destruction by trawling, not entrapment in nets, played the leading role in their decline. And though that decline is worrisome enough in its own right, it may portend habitat destruction on a scale that could have repercussions throughout the ecosystem.
The fragile deepwater corals that create desirable habitat for many fish species are no match for the heavy trawls, either. Recent studies have shown that the corals grow extremely slowly: a coral growing on the bow of the Titanic, photographed not long ago by a Russian submersible, is hardly two inches tall. Severely damaged deep-sea coral banks will probably take millennia to recover fully. So, in addition to the direct effect of the nets on fish populations, their unintended effect on habitats is so completely and enduringly destructive that the populations may never recover. The species are simply unlikely to survive long enough for their habitats to reestablish themselves.
Fortunately, governments are taking note of the scientific findings—both my own and those of others. Last year a resolution to ban trawling in international waters was debated in the UN General Assembly. It failed, but just barely: UN resolutions require unanimity, and a handful of nations—Iceland the most prominent among them—did not agree with the rest of the world.
Still, many countries are taking unilateral action to limit deep-sea trawling within their own exclusive economic zones (EEZs), the 200-mile-wide strip of ocean that lies just off a nation's shores. Virtually the entire Mediterranean Sea is now protected; Australia, the Azores, New Zealand, and the United States have set aside large regions where such fishing is off limits, as it is in the waters off Antarctica. Trawling bans are now in place over more than 4 million square miles.
That, of course, is a small fraction of the entire world ocean—the Pacific alone is 65 million square miles—and even then the protected regions are hard to patrol. Enforcement is all but impossible in remote areas such as Antarctica. And illegal trawling is not the only threat: poaching, misreporting of catch and bycatch, and various other destructive practices are all too common. The prospects for conservation seem dim. Indeed, fishermen are already turning away from depleted deepwater fish stocks and casting their nets and traps further down the food chain. Deepwater shrimp and crabs have become the latest targets, a familiar story with a predictable end.
Fishing-industry representatives who resist efforts to regulate deep-sea fisheries argue that too little is known to make rational decisions. Declining fish populations, they maintain, probably just reflect natural cycles. But marine biologists nowadays know more than enough about deep-sea ecology and the biology of deepwater fishes to recommend good choices.
Fisheries must balance human needs with the imperatives of the ocean. For the deep sea, in particular, short-term economics must come into alignment with long-term biology—surely a predicament whose resolution is not beyond human ingenuity. We must all learn to live with fishing practices adapted to the laws of nature in the deep sea, just as the fish living there have adapted. Evolution sets the pace of life in accord with physical conditions, and in the deep sea that pace is slow. The pace of our fishing there would do well to match it.


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Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Age of Conan: Group Play
The nature of AoC groups stems from how healing in AoC is designed. All three healer classes have the same type of spells. There are three healing spells: green, blue, and yellow.1 The green spell is a group HoT. The blue spell is a stronger HoT that affects people in a cone in front of you. The yellow spell is a direct group AoE spell, but a player can only be affected by a yellow spell once a minute.
So healing is essentially HoT-based. You put up your green and blue HoTs and then do damage until you need to refresh them.
The first consequence of this design is that one healer can heal multiple tanks just as easily as one tank, so long as the tanks are positioned correctly.
The next element in AoC group play is that mobs hit like trucks. The standard pull in AoC (so far) is two mobs. Each tank grabs a mob and tanks them next to each other. If you get more than two, the tanks try and hold them and the group uses knockdowns as much as possible. When a mob is knocked down, it doesn't do damage while it gets back up, giving the HoTs time to tick.
In WoW, this is the sort of situation in which crowd control would be used. But AoC is a PvP game, so all crowd control is short duration, on the order of a few seconds. As well, you don't deal damage to targets exactly, you deal damage to the area in front of your character. This means that there is a lot of splash damage, which would mean that crowd control would need to ignore damage.
With two tanks, boss mobs are often handled by the tanks swapping aggro. Since both of them are getting healed at the same time, one tank's health is dropping, while the other tank goes back to full. Of course, tanks don't have a threat meter or even a baseline taunt, so this can be pretty hard. A tank swap is often accomplished when the lead tank dies.
The long and short of this is that in AoC the normal group size is 6 people, and consists of 2 tanks, 2 dps, and 2 healers. Yes, that's a worse tank/healer/dps ratio than WoW. This is despite the fact that there are 3 tank classes, 3 healing classes and 6 dps classes.
Oddly enough, even though healing in AoC is fairly easy2 and tanking rather difficult, it's not that hard to find tanks. It's still hard to find healers. I think that's an interesting difference between WoW and AoC. Healers are scarce in both games, but tanks are more common in AoC than WoW.
Of course, maybe part of the reason is because I am starting late, and everyone else who rolled a DPS character rolled a tank to get into groups.
All in all, group play in AoC is different enough from WoW to be interesting, yet similar enough to be easily understandable. Now, if only forming a group didn't take several hours.
1. The spells put a colored circle around the feet of your teammates, so you can see who is affected by each spell.
2. At least healing is easy in theory. I seem to have a hard time finding healers who understand the idea of keeping the two HoTs up at all times.
2 comments:
Sounds like healing itself is pretty boring in this game, since you'll spend a lot of time twiddling your thumbs or "just" doing damage. That strikes me as a pretty obvious explanation for why people wouldn't be too fond of doing it.ReplyDelete
- Thurin of Wiccana7:38 AM, July 04, 2010
Healing in this game is anything but boring. especially compared to the whack a mole that healing has become in WOW. Also to assume there is any comparison in class roles between WOW and AOC is misleading. In AOC ALL classes are expected to perform multiple roles. If your healers are not also contributing to the dps the group will suffer. also your priest archetype have some essential buffs and debuffs. Routine raid compositions require 2 of EVERY class.ReplyDelete
Tanks should also be performing multiple roles though after playing healers and tanks in AOC I think tanks are simpler. (not easier, but simpler) Tanks need to be doing 3 things in AOC:
1. DPS, hate is very DPS dependant.
2. fight positioning. Toons are not transparent in AOC like in WOW. you must position the fight so everyone can get to the mobs or the mobs can't get the healers etc.
3. Crowd Control. all classes have some crowd control roles some more than the others, but tanks are vital here when things are sketchy and there isn't time for the tank to call for a CC.


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Analysis: Optimistic India budget jars with revenue reality
Staking his credibility on meeting a deficit-cutting target, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is likely to be forced to scale back spending in the upcoming fiscal year after delivering a federal budget that makes aggressive revenue assumptions.
Cutting expenditure would pit Chidambaram against the ruling Congress party's urge to ramp up populist spending ahead of elections due in 2014, and risks exacerbating a dramatic slowdown in Asia's third-largest economy.
Instead of slashing spending, as had been expected, Thursday's budget for the financial year starting next month bets on an increase in revenue to fund a 16 percent rise in expenditure and trim the fiscal deficit to 4.8 percent of GDP.
For that to happen, India's sputtering economy must accelerate to roughly 6.5 to 7 percent growth from the current fiscal year's expected 5 percent -- a decade-low and a disappointment for a country that not long ago aspired to double-digit expansion.
The budget also assumes that India will manage to sell about $10 billion worth of government stakes in companies and generate $7.5 billion in revenue from the battered telecoms sector.
It also envisions capping subsidies at 2 percent of GDP, from 2.6 percent this year, a limit that rating agency Standard & Poor's warned could be breached.
Keeping a lid on spending, however, is where Chidambaram may be able to deliver.
Against the populist leanings of his party, Chidambaram has managed to curb expenditure in the final months of the current year, putting India's fiscal deficit on track to fall to 5.2 percent, better than its revised 5.3 percent target.
However, austerity comes at a price. The December quarter's stunningly weak growth of 4.5 percent underscores the risk of cutting back on government spending, and some economists expect growth to lag 5 percent for another quarter or more.
"Chidambaram has kept some room to cut spending by having a bigger allocation to plan expenditure," said Barclays economist Siddhartha Sanyal.
So-called plan expenditure refers mostly to capital spending that can have a multiplier effect, which is needed to help grow the economy but is politically easier to delay than subsidies.
"So, if he falls short in revenues, he can cut some of the plan expenditure, but that will again hurt growth," Sanyal said.
One way Chidambaram could reach his deficit target even if revenue falls short is to hold back on spending in the first half of the fiscal year before ramping up outlays in the run-up to federal elections due by May 2014.
In the current year, Chidambaram slashed plan expenditure by nearly 18 percent to 4.3 trillion rupees ($78.3 billion) and raised non-plan expenditure, which is consumption-based spending, by 317 billion rupees over budget estimates to 10 trillion rupees.
That has allowed him to narrow the current year's fiscal deficit to near an original 5.1 percent target that had anticipated economic growth of 7.6 percent, which in hindsight proved highly optimistic.
Trimming the deficit helps fend off the threat that India becomes the first of the BRIC economies to have its credit rating downgraded to "junk", something Chidambaram would be loath to see happen on his watch.
His new budget will prove similarly malleable.
"It has enough flexibility to deal with both upside and downside risks, as past experience has shown," Dipak Dasgupta, principal economic advisor in the finance ministry, told Reuters.
That flexibility will be necessary, because the budget makes optimistic assumptions.
Undaunted by repeated failure to meet targets for unloading its stakes in companies, India plans to sell 540 billion rupees worth of shares in the fiscal year starting in April, including 400 billion rupees worth of shares in state firms, compared with a reduced target of 240 billion rupees this fiscal year.
That equity sales target is equivalent to two-thirds of the total $15 billion raised by Indian firms in 2012. It comes as investors are being asked to digest $2-$3 billion in shares in numerous firms as controlling shareholders trim their holdings to comply with a 75 percent cap that takes effect on June 30.
"The target, 400 billion, looks very ambitious to me," said Taina Erajuuri, a Helsinki-based portfolio manager at FIM India.
"It's very hard to sell in this kind of market conditions. The market is going to be very volatile, the rupee will continue to be very weak," she said.
Similarly, the budget assumes 408.5 billion rupees from licenses and other revenue from the debt-strapped telecoms sector, a target analysts say looks tough.
Goldman Sachs, HSBC and local ratings agency Crisil expect India to miss its fiscal deficit target, saying 5 percent of GDP is more likely.
"They'll have revenue shortfalls and they'll make up for it by squeezing expenditure," said Jahangir Aziz, economist at JPMorgan, who expects full-year economic growth of about 5.6-5.7 percent in the upcoming fiscal year. ($1 = 54.9050 Indian rupees)
(Additional reporting by Manoj Kumar and Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)


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There are two restaurants in Disney World that people either love…or hate! And it's not because of the food; it's because of the service. Not that 50's Prime Time Cafe and Whispering Canyon Cafe have bad service; you simply have to know what to expect.
Disney incorporates "story" into all of its theme parks, rides, hotels, and restaurants. And in these two particular restaurants, the "story" is that you're being served in an atmosphere that calls for a little less dignity and a few more pranks.
50's Prime Time Cafe
The 50's Prime Time Cafe in Disney's Hollywood Studios has long been the place to get fried chicken, meatloaf, chicken soup, and other mom-a-rific favorites. The story here is that you're eating in Mom's kitchen, and that your server is some sort of relative — aunt, cousin, uncle, brother…you get the idea.
To make this "comforts of home" story even more real, Disney has trained its cast members at 50's Prime Time Cafe to treat their customers as family. They bring around photo albums to show the table and ask about Aunt Betty and Cousin James. But they also tell customers to keep their elbows off the table, finish their vegetables, and set the table!
Of course, if you don't decide to follow directions, punishments which range from slightly embarrassing to hilarious may ensue! Should you find yourself pinning a sugar packet to the wall with your nose, standing in the corner, or singing "I'm a Little Teapot" — with motions — in front of a restaurant full of your new best friends, don't say we didn't warn you!
Whispering Canyon Cafe
While Whispering Canyon Cafe at Disney's Wilderness Lodge doesn't have quite the same reputation for humiliation as does 50's Prime Time Cafe, you will definitely experience your fair share of pranks here!
Cast members adopt specific personalities, complete with wacky nicknames, that harken back to the old west. There's not a lot of respect for niceties around these parts. You may have napkins and straws thrown at your table, and making a cell phone call from your seat probably isn't smart — your waiter might want to have a word with the person on the other end! Of course, the last thing you want to do is ask for ketchup… unless, of course, you really like ketchup! (I won't post specifics, but if you request the info via the "contact us" button above, I'll give you the low-down.)
But the games and pranks are all in fun, and kiddos have a great time at this restaurant. There are sing-a-long songs, hobby horse races, coloring pages, and other games. And, of course, the repeat-after-me vows to "stay up as late as I can," and "never, ever go to Universal Studios."
So Go Have Some Fun!
I think that a lot of folks who dislike these restaurants simply aren't prepared for the type of service that's customary. Once you know what you're in for, you can be ready for it…and even have a few zingers ready for retorts! That said, if "interactive" service isn't for you, just let your server know that you'd rather watch the fun rather than be a part of it. Shouldn't be a problem in either restaurant. Enjoy!
Photo Credits:
Ketchup: EdenPictures via flickr
Prime Time Cafe: JoshMcConnell via flickr
Special Thanks to WildernessLodgeSite.com


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On ADS-L, Fred Shapiro posted:
With the demise of the much-lamented "On Language" columns in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune [I think that modifier got displaced: "the much-lamented demise of the…"], what are remaining language columns in major newspapers or other media such as magazines, radio shows, or major blogs? Some that I know of include Boston Globe (Jan Freeman [and Erin McKean]), Visual Thesaurus (Ben Zimmer), and "A Way With Words" radio show ([Martha Barnette and] Grant Barrett).
Larry Horn added Geoff Nunberg's "Fresh Air" spots (public radio) and noted that there are many many blogs, especially Language Log.
I noted the list of blogs (in addition to Language Log) that Geoff Nunberg provides on his website:
Keywords, The Web of Language, Double-Tongued Dictionary, Michael Erard, LanguageHat, Fritinancy, Mr. Verb, Kai von Fintel, Phonoloblog, Ben Zimmer, Arnold Zwicky
to which I'd add (at least) Neal Whitman, Lynne Murphy, and John McIntyre. Plus Freeman/McKean and Barnette/Barrett, already mentioned. For the most part, writing about language in newspapers and magazines has been replaced by material on the web.
I've now assembled a huge list of web resources. Far from exhaustive, and focused almost entirely on blogs and reference resources in English, but here it is:
[last revised 6/6/13]
A Linguist Goes to Law School [last posting in 2010] (link)
A Replicated Typo [group blog on cultural evolution] (link)
A Roguish Chrestomathy (by "Q. Pheevr") (link)
A Walk in the WoRds (Laura Payne) (link)
A Way with Words (Martha Barnette & Grant Barrett) [public radio language show] (link)
Abecedaria (Suzanne McCarthy) [scripts] (link)
ADS-L archives (on American Dialect Society site) (link)
Affixes: the building blocks of English (Michael Quinion) (link)
Alex's Phonetic Thoughts (Alex Rotatori) (link)
An Individual's Concepts (Lance Nathan) (link)
Anggarrgoon (Claire Bowern) ["Australian languages on the web"] (link)
Anthro-Ling (ling)
Appalachian English (Michael Montgomery) (link)
Arnold Zwicky's Blog [mostly about language] (link)
Arnold Zwicky's Blog X ["adult content", some about language] (link)
Arrant Pedantry (by "an editor and master's student in linguistics") (link)
Association for Computational Linguistics (link)
Australian National Dictionary (link)
Babel's Dawn (Edmund Blair Bolles) [origins of speech] (link)
Bad Language (Karen Stollznow) ["language myths and mysteries"] (link)
BadLinguistics (Pauline Foster) (link)
Barbara Wallraff [Atlantic Monthly; last posting in 2009] (link)
Barry Popik [word and phrase histories] (link)
Ben Trawick-Smith's Dialect Blog (link)
Blogslot by Bill Walsh [editing] (link)
Borderless Learning [focus on bilingualism and bilingual education, blog to be launched summer 2011]
Bradshaw of the Future (by "goofy") [etymology] (link)
Brave New Words (B.J. Epstein) [translation, language, literature] (link)
Bridging the Unbridgeable (Dutch project group headed by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostande) [language usage guides] (link)
Building Rapport (Cheryl Stephens) ["advocating plain language"] (link)
BYU corpora (link)
Center for Endangered Language Technologies (Alan W. Black, Carnegie Mellon Univ.) (link)
Child's Play (Melody Dye & Jason Goldman) [cognition and language] (link)
Clinical Linguistics (Martin J. Ball) (link)
Coby Lubliner's Blog (link)
COCA: Corpus of Contemporary American English (link)
Colorless Green Ideas [author unknown] (link)
Common Errors in English Usage (Paul Brians) (link)
Computational Resources for Linguistic Research (Bill Poser) (link)
Conjugate Visits (June Casagrande) ["You know, like grammar and stuff"] (link)
Copyediting (Erin Brenner) (link)
DARE: Dictionary of American Regional English (link)
DCblog (David Crystal) (link)
Descriptively Adequate (Ed Cormany) (link)
Dialect Blog (Ben Trawick-Smith) [actor/voice coach] (link)
Dictionary Evangelist (Erin McKean) (link)
Dictionary of the Scots Language (link)
Dictionary Society of North America (link)
Double-Tongued Dictionary (Grant Barrett) ["A lexicon of fringe English"] (link)
Dr. Metablog (Vivian de St. Vrain) [language, books, politics,…] (link)
Elaine Chaika's Blog (link)
Endangered Language Alliance [languages in NYC] (link)
Endangered Languages and Cultures (Univ. of Sydney) (link)
Endangered Languages Media Watch (Paul Butcher) (link)
Endangered Languages Tweets [not a blog, but a fascinating site] (link)
English, Jack (Brett Reynolds) ["Second thoughts on English and how she's taught"] (link)
English Language and Usage [collaboratively edited] (link)
Epea Pteroenta (by "zmjezhd") ["Language, linguistics, literature, and film"] (link)
Ethnologue: Languages of the World (link)
Everything You Know About English Is Wrong (Bill Brohaugh) (link)
Evolving English II (by "Wordzguy") (link)
Found in Translation (Berkeley Language Center) (link)
Freemorpheme (Jason Fraser) (link)
Fritinancy (Nancy Friedman) [names, brands, writing, English] (link)
Fully (sic) ["Crikey's" language blog] (link)
Games with Words (Cognition and Language Lab) (link)
Geoffrey Nunberg's "Fresh Air" and other pieces (link)
Glossary of linguistic terms (link)
Glottopedia, the free encyclopedia of linguistics (link)
Gordon P. Hemsley [linguist, web developer] (link)
Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips (Mignon Fogarty) (link)
Grammar Monkeys (Lisa McLendon) [Wichita Eagle language tips] (link)
Grammarphobia (Patricia O'Conner & Stewart Kellerman) (link)
Grammar Underground (June Casagrande) (link)
Greater Blogazonia (Lev Michael) ["language and society in Greater Amazonia"] (link)
Headsup: The Blog (by "fev") (link)
Heideas (Heidi Harley) [linguistics, science, books, movies, cartoons,…] (link)
Isabella Massardo Copy & Translation (link)
Jabal al-Lughat: Climbing the Mountain of Languages (Lameen Souag) (link)
John Wells's phonetic blog (link)
Johnson (The Economist's language blog) (link)
Josh Millard [music; language and usage] (link)
Kai von Fintel [semantics etc.] (link)
Keywords (P. Kerim Friedman) (link)
La Rassegna del Traduttore ["multilingual collection of real-time translation/interpretation and language-related news resources on the web"] (link)
Langguj Gel (Australian linguist "bulanjdjan") (link)
Language Documentation and Conservation (National Foreign Language Resource Center journal) (link)
Language is the People's: Dispatches from a Grammar Wars foot soldier (by "Our Bold Hero") (link)
Language Geek (by "Josh") (link)
Language Log [group blog, managed by Mark Liberman] (link)
Language Lounge (Orin Hargraves) [Visual Thesaurus column] (link)
Language Miniatures (William Z. Shetter) [mini-essays on language] (link)
Language News [aggregation site] (link)
Language of Food (Dan Jurafsky) (link)
Language on the Move (Ingrid Pellar et al.) [multilingualism etc. in a transnational world] (link)
Language Trainers UK Blog (Wendy Wong) (link)
LanguageHat (Stephen Dodson) (link)
Languages in the News [news aggregator from Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity] (link)
Languages of the World (Asya Pereitsvaig) (link)
LAWnLinguistics (Neal Goldfarb) (link)
Lexicon Valley [Slate podcast, produced by Mike Vuolo] (link)
Lexie Kahn wants a word with you ["a blog about words and their origins"] (Judith B. Herman) (link)
LGSA Fledgelings (Linguistics Graduate Student Association of San Francisco State) (link)
Lingua Franca [Australian Broadcasting Company program] (link)
Lingua Franca [Chronicle of Higher Education group blog] (link)
Linguaphiles [Livejournal community] (link)
Linguism: Language in a Word (Graham Pointon) (link)
Linguistic Society of America (link)
Linguistics Anonymous (Cornell students) (link)
Linguistics Research Digest (British linguists) [summaries of blog items] (link)
Literal-Minded (Neal Whitman) [linguistic commentary] (link)
Living Languages: A Cyberbreath for Language Life (by "wakablogger") (link)
Logomacy: Between Logomachy and Logomancy (Joshua Macy) (link)
Logophilius: Lover of Words [author unknown] (link)
Martha Brockenbrough (link)
Master of Grammar [by Emi-Lynn; "a site for the grammatically challenged"] (link)
Matjjin-nehen (by "jangari") ["a linguist without a language"] (link)
Merriam-Webster Online (link)
Metrolingua (by "mj") (link)
Michael Erard (link)
Mighty Red Pen (by "MRP") [grammar and language, by an editor] (link)
Mot Justes (by "MJ") ["find the right words"; last posting in 2010] (link)
Motivated Grammar (Gabe Doyle) ["Prescriptivism must die!"] (link)
Mr. Verb [group blog; many postings by "Mr. Verb"] (link)
Multiple Modals database (Paul Reed, Michael Montgomery [Univ.of SC]) (link)
Naked Translations [French/English translation] (link)
Noncompositional (Russell Lee-Goldman) [last posting in 2010] (link)
North American English Dialects (Rick Aschmann) (link)
No-sword (Matt Treyvaud) [Japanese language, literature, culture, art] (link)
Omniglot (Simon Ager) [writing systems] (link)
Online Etymology Dictionary (link)
Oxford Etymologist (Anatoly Liberman) (link)
Ozarque (Suzette Haden Elgin) (link)
Paleoglot (Glen Gordon) [ancient languages and civilizations] (link)
Paperpools: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics (Helen DeWitt) (link)
Peter Harvey, Linguist (link)
Phonoloblog [group blog, managed by Eric Baković] (link)
Plain Language Matters (Center for Plain Language) (link)
Podictionary: The Podcast for Word Lovers (Charles Hodgson) [last posting in 2010] (link)
Polyglot Conspiracy (Lauren Squires) [last posting in 2010] (link)
Polyglot Vegetarian (by "MMcM") (link)
Polysyllabic (Karl Hagen) (link)
Popular Linguistics (ed. by D. S. Bigham) (link)
Proper Words in Proper Places (Jack Lynch) ["meditations on the English language"] (link)
Querbeißer [Chris Waigl on language, the internet, technology, society,…; last posting in 2010] (link)
Ryan's Linguistics Blog (Ryan Denzer-King) (link)
Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English (link)
Sauvage Noble (M. Angelo O. Mercado) [Classics and IE linguistics] (link)
Sentence First (Stan Carey) [on English] (link)
Separated by a Common Language (Lynne Murphy) [British and American English] (link)
Serendipity [Chris Waigl's bilingual blog; last posting in 2008)] (link)
Sesquiotica: Words, Words, Words (James Harbeck) (link)
Sinoglot [Chinese languages; group blog with subject-specific blogs]
Society for Linguistic Anthropology (link)
Sorosoro ["languages around the world", starting in Vanuatu] (link)
Sound Recording Library (British Library) (link)
speech talk: thoughts on english, speech & language (Geoff Lindsey, English Speech Services) (link)
Syntactic Structures of World Languages (link)
Take Our Word for It [monthly word-origin webzine] (link)
Talk the Talk (Daniel Midgley) [podcast] (link)
Talk Wordy to Me (Brian White) [writing, reading, editing] (link)
Talking Alaska (Gary Holton) [Alaskan native languages] (link)
Talking Brains (David Poeppel, Greg Hickok) [neural organization of language] (link)
Tenser, Said the Tensor (by "a graduate student in linguistics") (link)
That Munanga Linguist (by "nginarra") [work on Aboriginal languages] (link)
The Diacritics: thoughts on words (John Stokes and Sandeep Prasanna) ["about how we use language in daily life, recent socio- and psycholinguistics research, and ways we see language at work in current events"] (link)
The Eggcorn Database (Chris Waigl) (link)
The Engine Room (by "JD") [language use, journalism, media] (link)
The English Blog (Jeffrey Hill) [for learners and teachers of English] (link)
The Etyman Language Blog (speech pathologist Russell Cross) ["Adventures in Etymology and Language"] (link)
The Greenbelt (by "The Ridger") ["Language Liberalism Freethought Birds"] (link)
The Ideophone (Mark Dingemanse) [African languages, sound symbolism, expressivity] (link)
The Language Gulper (Alejandro Gutman and Beatriz Avanzati) [detailed descriptions of almost 200 ancient and modern world languages and families] (link)
The Language Guy (Michael Geis) (link)
The Lexicographer's Rules (Grant Barrett) (link)
The LingEducator Blog (author unkown) (link)
The Linguist List (link)
The Lousy Linguist (by "Chris") [linguistics and cognition] (link)
The Nasty Guide to Nice Writing (Dirk E. Oldman and Annie Wei-Yu Kan) [on "the larger principles and mechanics"] (link)
The Sic List (Dan Weber) ["literary infractions"] (link)
The Snowclones Database (Erin Stevenson O'Connor) (link)
The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (link)
The Subversive Copy Editor Blog (Carol Fisher Saller) (link)
The Virtual Linguist (Susan Harvey/Purcell) (link)
The Visual Linguist (Neil Cohn) [visual language of comics] (link)
The Web of Language (Dennis Baron) (link)
The Wonder of Whiffling (Adam Jacot de Boinod) [English words] (link)
The Word (Jan Freeman & Erin McKean) [Boston Globe] (link)
The Word Blog (Heather Martin) (link)
The Word Detective (Evan Morris) (link)
The World in Words [language segment of PRI's "The World"] (link)
The Writing Resource (Erin Brenner) [improving writing] (link)
The Zero Morpheme (James Crippen) (link)
Throw Grammar from the Train (Jan Freeman) ["Notes from a recovering nitpicker"] (link)
Transblawg (Margaret Marks) [German/English translation] (link)
Translate This! (Michael Wahlster) (link)
TV Tropes and Idioms (link)
UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (link)
Urban Dictionary [crowdsourced – "the dictionary you wrote"] (link)
Val Systems (Josef Fruewald) [language variation] (link)
Visual Thesaurus (link)
Vocalized/Vocalised (Lauren Hall-Lew) (link)
WALS: The World Atlas of Language Structures Online (link)
Wishydig (Michael Covarrubias) [mostly about language] (link)
WOLD: World Loanword Database (link)
Word Hoard (by "Daniel") (link)
Wocky Words – Where Words Collide (Larry Savage) [portmanteau invention] (link)
Word Journal [interesting words submitted by users] (link)
Word Routes (Ben Zimmer on Visual Thesaurus) (link)
Word Zeal (Lindsay Oberst) (link)
Wordlustitude (Mark Peters) (link)
Wordnik (Erin McKean) (link)
WordPorn [material supplied by users] (link)
Words Matter (Bob Ray) (link)
Word Odyssey (Britt Hanson) [etymological adventures on KBRP in Bisbee AZ] (link)
Word Origins (Dave Wilton) (link)
Word Spy (Paul McFedries) [new words] (link)
Words to the Wise (Kathy Schenck) [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel] (link)
Wordtastic (Mark Peters) [Good magazine] (link)
World Atlas of Linguistic Structures (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) (link)
World Loanword Database (Martin Haspelmath and Uri Tadmor) (link)
World Wide Words (Michael Quinion) (link)
Yale University Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America (link)
You Don't Say (John McIntyre) [on language, editing, journalism,…] (link)
You Don't Say (John McIntyre) [Baltimore Sun] (link)


text:
Sweet, melodic, gentle commercial motivational music
Association and the pictures that emerge from this sound: work and finance, career and purpose, hard way to riches, working meeting, agreement and handshake, satisfaction of the winner, personal growth, the future technical and electronics, new innovative discoveries, the best day, deep feelings, sweet journey, good mood
Thus it can be a good background for the corresponding images, videos, slide shows, corporate contents, social and commercials, television intro and captions. Audio for media, movies, documentaries, cinema, YouTube, web.
Good luck to you in promoting your products and services!
Similar track:
Hour of Triumph
Business Dream Team
Corporate Clock
Source of Inspiration – sweet, gentle and melodic corporate track.
Freedom – romantic, inspirational sound.
Rush – passionate orchestral track.
Royal – proud, noble and majestic audio
Sentimental – beautiful, romantic and soft background.
Tears of Pride on a Pedestal – sensual, heartfelt and touching corporate music
Climbing – motivational, strong and energetic audio
Travel – inspiring, lively and melodic sound
Fashion Party – rhythmic and dancing track
Successful Business Journey – bright, melodic, uplifting background


text:
SoundCloud and Ableton
Ableton has long been the number one choice for musicians, whether for songwriting, making beats, remixing or live performances. At SoundCloud, we know that many of you depend upon it, indeed many of our team members use it on a regular basis privately (and it's even been used in a masterclass or two!). It's therefore with great pleasure to announce that SoundCloud and Ableton, two great Berlin audio companies, have teamed up to give our communities something unprecedented and very, very awesome.
The news? Ableton now comes with SoundCloud sharing baked in – yes, upload straight to SoundCloud. To celebrate, SoundCloud is offering Ableton users 5 months of SoundCloud Pro, for free. You can find the details here. So what does the SoundCloud community get? Ableton has been generous enough to offer the entire SoundCloud community a free copy of Live Lite 8 so that everyone can get started making their own sounds.
(Our free Live Lite offer was only available until the 31st of May, 2012. You can however check out Ableton's 30 day trial at http://www.ableton.com/free-trial )
And that's not all – come May there will be a competition to compose a sound with parts from M83, Junior Boys and Nosaj Thing. Of course, you'll need Ableton with SoundCloud to enter, so make sure to update your copy of Ableton to get SoundCloud sharing and if you don't have it yet, claim your copy today!


text:
New technology keeps evidence close to the vest
(PhysOrg.com) -- Each day, law enforcement officials are faced with the daunting task of investigating complex crime scenes without compromising evidence. Investigators know the slightest error could jeopardize a conviction, setting a criminal free.
Now, researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are teaming with Mnemonic Systems Inc. on an interactive system that will enable law enforcement personnel to quickly capture, store and relay vast amounts of information at crime scenes and other field scenarios. Called Team Leader, the system will bring the latest in geographical information systems together with global positioning, multi-media computing and communication technologies in a small unit that can be worn by the user. MSI, based in Washington, D.C., is a Nichols research company.
"The range of tools and on-line capability of Team Leader reduces the number of people needed initially to assess and prepare a scene for processing, therefore reducing the risk of inadvertent contamination from fingerprints, footprints, hair or fiber," said Dan Irwin, project manager at Pacific Northwest.
Team Leader, scheduled to be completed by the end of 1998, is designed to be a rugged, weatherproof vest unit that incorporates an IBM-compatible personal computer. The unit will be field tested by police departments in Baltimore, Md.; Miami (Metro-Dade), Fla.; and Los Angeles, Calif. and eventually renamed and commercialized by MSI.
Team Leader integrates sophisticated software with a number of data collection tools, including a digital video and still camera, voice recorder, barcode scanner and specialized sensors. The system can capture and use satellite images, terrain features, architectural drawings, site plans and a host of other information vital to a thorough investigation.
Team Leader also serves as a portable library, with access to volumes of stored or online information, such as maps, facility floor plans, databases, reports, forms, investigation protocols and scientific, technical and legal reference material.
Information gathered at scenes can be disseminated instantly via fax, e-mail or wireless LAN lines to a base station. For complex scenes, up to eight Team Leader systems can exchange information and communications simultaneously. And due to the modular design, each unit can be configured with different tools depending on need. Team Leader supports both voice and video conferencing and also can be used to access off-site computers, printers and fax machines.
"If Team Leader were deployed at a murder site, for example, investigators could use the unit to track their routes and create a detailed 'map' of the scene," said Irwin. "Upon discovery of the murder weapon, investigators could link the evidence to its geographical position with laser measurements and positional data, capture still and video images and record detailed audio and text notes. The digitized evidence would be transferred immediately to an evidence custodian and could be recalled months or years later during trial through its assigned barcode."
Team Leader originally was developed by Pacific Northwest and the Remote Sensing Laboratory, Las Vegas, Nev., through DOE funding in support of treaty inspections and other arms control and verification activities. Pacific Northwest and MSI, with guidance from the National Forensic Science Training Center, will customize the unit for a range of law enforcement and forensic applications, such as search and rescue, natural disasters, hazardous material incidents, fires and clandestine drug operations.
"We plan to work closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors and others to help establish the standards and criteria by which digital evidence is accepted into our criminal justice system," said Irwin. "Also, we'll team with the law enforcement and forensic communities to establish and equip Team Leader with specific directions or protocols for processing crime scenes - protocols that may set an industry standard."
Provided by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory