text:
Since deposing the country's democratically elected government and rounding up supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's military has launched several bloody assaults on Islamist protesters and supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi. Its notorious August 14 attack on Islamist protest encampments alone left over 500 people dead.
Although some openly state that they would prefer a military dictatorship to an elected Brotherhood government, most anti-Brotherhood apologists have held out hope that the military may yet guide the country back to democracy. In light of recent events—as well ashistorical precedent—this might be wishful thinking.
Still, shortly after the coup, military-appointed Interim President Adly Mansour released a 33-article constitutional declaration ostensibly establishing basic rights and providing a roadmap back to civilian rule. As expected, it was a mixed bag. But it's worth parsing here as a baseline for what might—or might not—be possible in a democratic Egypt.
Enumerated Rights
Right from the start, the declaration states that citizens are equal before the law. It promises that the state will guarantee equal opportunity and protection from discrimination based on "sex, origin, gender, language, religion, or belief." It vows no search, detainment, or arrest without a warrant; the protection of private property; and freedom of religious belief and practice.
The private lives of citizens too, are ostensibly protected by law: "Mail correspondences, cables, telephone calls and other means of communication," the document promises, "are private, and their confidentiality is guaranteed, and may not be confiscated, viewed or monitored except by virtue of a prior judicial warrant and for a definite period of time and in accordance with the provisions of the law." In light of the latest NSA scandal, that is certainlymore than we can say for the United States.
Article 7 guarantees freedom of speech, but "within the limits of the law," a problematic modifier that will surely reflect the interests of those in power. Freedom of the press and a prohibition on censorship are also guaranteed, except "in the case of national emergency or time of war." This modification allows the already powerful military to dictate public opinion whenever it deems it necessary to national security—and as the military is free from oversight, this can occur at any point the military feels that its interests are being threatened. (Egypt is right now in an official "state of emergency," and was for two whole decades under former dictator Hosni Mubarak—many of whose cronies are now running the country again.)
Article 9 declares that there will be no forced labor, except if the state imposes it by law. Little needs to be said about why this provision is dangerous.
Article 10 protects the people's right to assemble peacefully with no need for prior notice, and prohibits security forces from attending private assemblies. It also protects the right of association with syndicates, parties, and unions, but bans associations deemed hostile to the "system of society." This clause is vague enough to allow crackdowns on groups that want to effect any change at all, as any challenge to the status quo could be interpreted as a threat to the "system of society." And needless to say, the military's massive slaughter of Islamist protesters bodes poorly for this provision as well.
The declaration does not ban religious-based political parties, but it does ban parties formed on the basis of discrimination by sex, origin, or religion. This formally leaves room for the participation of Islamist and other religious parties in the political sphere, so long as they are judged to be "inclusive."
Law and Oversight
Indeed, religion is not out of the game. In fact, Article 1 of the declaration states that Islamic Sharia is the country's main source of legislation (so the Sunni university at Al-Azhar is still an important political player). Of course, if law is to be based on principles of Sharia—presumably as interpreted by men—then this hardly squares with the equality of all citizens before the law. And that is to say nothing of what this means for Christian or secular Egyptians.
The declaration also calls for an independent judiciary. It justly states: "Any provision in the law on the immunity of any administrative action or decision from judicial supervision shall be prohibited." However, Article 19 declares that the military judiciary is an independent judicial body, insulating the military even more from any possible oversight. This official immunity from supervision contradicts the article that follows, which states that the Armed Forces are owned by the people—it seems like the opposite these days, doesn't it?
On a more hopeful note, Article 22 says that a national defense council will be established by the president to "consider issues related to means of securing the country and its safety and discussing the Armed Forces' budget. It shall be consulted in bills related to the Armed Forces." If that president is elected, not appointed, then this is an important step in establishing public oversight of the military, no longer allowing it exclusive rights to manage its own budget and make strategic decisions pertaining to the use of force.
The declaration asserts that Interim President Adly Mansour has full legislative power until a new president is elected, at which point legislative authority will be transferred to the House of Representatives. This means that the military can issue executive decisions through Mansour until elections are held, a worrying notion in light of its recent behavior.
In the mean time, the declaration lays out a map to amend the 2012 constitution. The committee tasked with doing so is composed of two members of the Supreme Constitutional Court, two judges from the State Council, two judges chosen by the Supreme Council of Judicial Bodies, and four constitutional law professors at Cairo University chosen by the Supreme Council of Universities. Fortunately, most of these drafters will not be appointed directly by the military, though the armed forces will still exercise outsized influence on the process.
This committee has 30 days to propose amendments. The members will submit their recommendations to a 50-person assembly, which will in turn have 60 days to present a constitutional draft to the president, who must submit the draft for public referendum within 30 days—meaning, unfortunately, that the military has 30 days to make its desired alterations. After approval, elections to the House of Representatives must occur, and "the call for holding a presidential election should be within a week at most of the first convening of the House of Representatives."
The committee, which allowed political parties and citizens a week to submit suggestions, hassaid that it received many proposals calling for the prohibition of religious parties (as expected) and the abolition of the upper house of parliament. Sources claim that neither the president nor the ministries of defense and the interior (who will have their go at the draft later) submitted any proposals, nor did Al-Azhar or any of the large Islamist parties. It is surprising that these latter groups did nothing, as one would imagine that they would seek to protect themselves in light of recent events.
With Egypt backsliding into what can only be described as a military dictatorship, prospects for genuine democratic rule appear more distant than ever. But with the military firmly in control for now, the next steps lie in this constitutional declaration. For the time being, these are the rules by which Egyptians must play.
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text:
December 14, 2020
TFL Joining Spree
This is a update of fun and games for the General category.
It's time for the next round of TFL's Joining Spree: Third Edition!
Please take this week to join the fanlistings for subjects in the following category that you are a fan of! (If you don't have a chance to join everything in one week, we'll be doing more 'Catch-Up' weeks later on.)
If you haven't been following along, please view the original post.
Happy joining!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
From Fedora Project Wiki
In other languages: English (en) 中文(中国大陆) (zh-cn) [edit]
Membership Service for Fedora Ambassadors
If you have any question about the Ambassdors membership service, please contact:
- fama<at>fedoraproject.org
- Inactives - Ambassadors/MembershipService/Inactives
- Old membership page - Ambassadors/MembershipService/Verification1 (redirect?)
- New membership page - Ambassadors/MembershipService/Verification2
- Stat - Ambassadors/MembershipService/VerificationStats
- Consolidated - Ambassadors/MembershipService/Verification
Ambassadors who have signed the CLA and joined the Ambassadors Group
How to request a Fedora email alias for Ambassadors
- See this announcement on fedora-ambassadors-list.
OPL and CLA Check
Ambassador unsubscribed from the mailing list
Membership Check
this will be send to the candidate with the ticket creation from https://fedorahosted.org/fama
Additional Steps
- How to search someone's gpg keys
Good Reference
Mentor's first Answer
Reject the subscription with a note
Removal Process for Ambassador's Membership
- remove Ambassadors category from personal wiki page
- remove from Country List (automated!)
- remove from 'ambassadors' group in Fedora Account System
- remove from fedora-ambassadors-list
- leave fedora-marketing-list
Ambassador Group Membership can be removed for certain reasons:
- automaticaly triggered by the Process
- Candidate selfremoval or Candidates request
- FAS Account is inactive longer than 6 month
- Mentor no longer supports his Mentee
- need approval by FAmSCo/executed by FAmA
- violation of the Ambassadors/Conduct (simple FAmSCo quorum needed)
- regional Communities can do clean up calls
- (precedent india cleanup Jan2010/Ambassadors had to answer repeated simple pings with "i am alive" This should be done in cooperation with FAmA and FAmSCo)


text:
Has the Smartphone Changed Us for the Better?
The '60s were all about the hippie movement, peace and love, the Age of Aquarius, counterculture and rock and roll. The '80s gave birth to inflation, corporate downsizing, and the personal computer. The new millennium brought us the dot-com bust, the war on terror, global warming, Gen Y and social media.
How will history characterize today's world? In all likelihood, the defining aspect of our time will be the smartphone. For better or worse, it has changed us in big ways in a very short time. If aliens were observing the human race from space, they would definitely think our lives revolve around these little hunks of aluminum and glass.
Millennials say their mobile phone is the most important thing in their daily lives – more important than TV, their car, even personal hygiene. And nearly half of adults say they couldn't last more than a day without their phone, according to a recent survey.
If you follow the tech media as I do, the gadget half of us can't live without has somehow managed to make us superhuman, usher in a golden age of journalism, change our lives (for the better), and unleash humanity's creative potential.
That last article describes this strange interrelationship as "a bond that shapes us at the deepest level—in how we express ourselves, in what we hold out as beautiful and compelling, in how we try to emotionally connect, in ways abstract and literal, with our friends and muses. Our phones are now indelibly bound up with our aesthetic souls."
I've got to say that's a tough act to follow. Such a lovely and poetic description I'm almost at a loss for words. Almost, but I'll try. Let's see. Maybe I fell through a wormhole on the way home from the Apple Store and landed on another planet or something, but I am so not feeling it. Not one bit.
Something is definitely not right when realizing you've left the house without your phone sends you into a blind panic worse than when you started to drive off with a child seat on top of your SUV … with your child in it.
Maybe it's just me, but when a car came crashing through a store window a few months back and everyone just stood there recording it for YouTube instead of helping the driver, that was not a good sign for the human race.
While I don't necessarily have a problem with people taking their phones to the bathroom, something is definitely wrong when you can't go to the bathroom without it. Literally.
It's only a matter of time before texting cracks the top ten causes of death. People are walking into poles on the street, stepping off curbs into traffic, cutting their fingers preparing food, and nearly driving into highway dividers (I admit that last one was me but I only did it once and nearly had a heart attack).
It can't be good when your phone is the last thing you look at before you go to sleep and the first thing you check when you wake up. Or that seeing you have no new notifications overnight sends you into a deep dark depression.
And no, playing a seriously engaging game of TwoDots is not the same as being in the moment.
There is another school of thought on the era-defining smartphone revolution. It is not making us more creative but dumbing us down. It is not helping us connect with each other but disconnect from each other emotionally. It is not a social tool but an antisocial tool.
Along with social media, games, videos, apps, and of course messaging, the smartphone is turning us all into disengaged, distracted, unsocialized, and often uncivilized drones that are just as addicted to tapping away at those little displays as behaviorally trained rats in a Skinner box experiment.
When we've reached the point where Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) is so concerned about our behavior – that we no longer look up from our gadgets long enough to see the sun, the stars, or each other – that it produced a video suggesting we all wear dog cones to cure our addiction, that should be a wakeup call if there ever was one.
Look, you know I'm no Luddite. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the products themselves. The technology is miraculous. But you know as well as I do that just telling people they should disconnect once in a while is not going to cut it. I'm not even sure that Coca-Cola's Social Media Guard will work. Somebody will figure out how to hack it.
And while I do think history will call this the smartphone era, the content beneath that heading has yet to be written, regardless of the self-serving prism some of the tech media view it through. History will judge us by the ultimate outcome and that depends on what each one of us does next with the precious time we have left to live.
It is a choice. Every moment of every day, remember, you do have a choice. Make it wisely.


text:
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text: The team behind HelloFlo has followed up last summer's blockbuster commercial hit with a new ad for their period starter kits. This tween is so Judy Blume-ready to get her period that she fakes it with nail polish on a pad, prompting her mother to throw her a First Moon Party as "punishment." I wish these parties were actually popular in American culture – think of the tricks a "vagician" could pull off.


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The Secret Beyond Matter
The Human Miracle
The Body's Transport Network:
The human body has been prepared for situations where it needs to be stronger and more resistant. External stimuli reaching the brain membrane and the lower region produce stress when they exceed a particular level (1).
At certain times, the human body needs to be stronger and more resistant, and exhibiting higher performance than normal. When danger is encountered, for instance, an individual must immediately fight or flee.
Under such exceptional circumstances, it's of course essential that the heart beat faster and pump more blood for the necessary adjustments to be made within the body.
The requisite measures have indeed been taken for such circumstances. In extraordinary situations, the adrenal glands secrete a hormone called adrenalin. This hormone molecule makes a very long journey, in comparison to the length of its own molecule, to reach the heart cells, commanding them to contract faster. (See the Chapter 4 on the hormonal system.) The glands located atop the kidneys which produce this hormone are acquainted with the heart cells and know what chemical language they will understand. At the same time, they possess the knowledge that the body must become more resistant and that therefore, the heart needs to beat faster. The heart cells obey this command and begin beating more quickly, providing the extra oxygen the body requires in urgent situations.
The heart and the technology it possesses astonish scientists. It is Allah, the praiseworthy, Who creates our hearts, with their extraordinary features that cannot be explained in terms of any evolutionary mechanism.
This electronic system located in the heart also needs electrical signals if it is to function properly. In order for electrical signals to be produced, the sodium, potassium and calcium ions need to be present in specific quantities in the blood. Since the blood levels of these substances are regulated by such organs as the kidney, intestines, stomach and lungs, it becomes even more apparent the impossibility of this system having come into being through such a fictitious mechanism as evolution.
Now, bearing in mind the features of the heart examined so far, imagine that someone has succeeded in developing a device resembling the heart—a flawless pump capable of working for 70 years without stopping for even a second, one that creates its own electricity, needs no maintenance or parts replaced, and that automatically adjusts its working speed and power thanks to a built-in electrical system. Such success could be achieved, of course, only as the result of technology, technical experience and long study. Nobody can imagine that such a device could come into being by chance. That would be totally irrational.
Nonetheless, to imagine that the heart came about by chance is even more illogical and irrational than thinking that any other product of technology—a television, for example—could come into existence by chance.
First of all, in the heart there is technology a far superior to any man-made device. Most important of all, however, the chance development of the heart is by itself of no significance. In addition to the heart, thousands of kilometers of blood vessels—as well as the blood inside them, the kidneys that filter that blood, the lungs that provide the blood with oxygen and remove the carbon dioxide it carries, the digestive system that provides nutrients for the blood, the liver that refines these nutrients, the nervous system that regulates the functioning of the heart, the brain that manages the body as a whole, the bone system that keeps the body together, the hormonal system that assists the functioning of the heart, and thousands of similar elements—would have to have come into being in a single moment, and again by a single random event. Yet each of these possesses a special creation that leaves absolutely no room for chance. It's therefore as impossible for the heart to come into being by chance as for any product of technology to do so.
We are looking at a most evident truth here. The heart was created by Allah, together with all the systems and elements that function along with it.
1. Veins
Connections have been established with every point in the body by the veins and arteries entering and leaving the heart.
The body is interpenetrated by millions of tubes, both large and small. If this venous network in a single human were spread out in a straight line, it would stretch more than 60,000 miles. 24 The venous system is so perfected that the required connections have been established to everywhere in the body. The tubes never become knotted, never open onto any unnecessary places, possess no dead ends. They extend all over the body and return to their starting point.
For a piping system to be installed in any building, a plan is necessary beforehand. The circulatory system in the human body is of a far greater perfection that any man-made plan.
In addition, the length of the blood vessels in the human body is around 100,000 kilometers (or 60,000 miles), whereas that in an average-size building will be only a few kilometers long. This plumbing, made of special metallic or vinyl compounds, give rise to problems within a few decades. Joints leak, some pipes gradually corrode, and others give rise to leaks inside the walls. All these problems arise even though the building is an immobile structure, and the plumbing never moves.
On the other hand, the capillary network inside a healthy body fulfils its function for an entire lifetime, never requiring maintenance or spare parts. But in addition, the human body is not immobile, but moves, walks, runs, sits and stands. The veins constantly stretch and compress under these actions, but so perfectly created are the veins that no problem ever arises, unless individuals make movements that damage their own health.
1. Brain
2. Lung
3. Heart
Thanks to the heart, the blood flows through the entire body, as far as the lungs.
Now consider a human body with no veins, and ask an engineer to draw up plans for placing veins inside that body. That plan must provide all the necessary connections for every cell, from the depths of the liver to the bone marrow, from the eyelids to the kidneys. In addition, depending on the function of every organ, the thickness and properties of every vein must be planned out. Clearly, one engineer could never draft such a blueprint. Even if everyone in the world were to work on it together, the result would still be the same. Neither their life spans nor their intellects would be sufficient to produce the circulatory network. It's impossible to maintain that a blueprint that billions of people together could not manage to draw up emerged as the result of blind chance. This system leaves no room for chance in even a single stage, clearly revealing that human beings were created by Allah.
The Journey Begins. . .
The chief purpose of the heart-vein system is to transport necessary substances that allow the body's cells to function, and to carry away waste materials. An adult's heart pumps 9,000 liters (or 2,380 gallons) of blood a day through a network that is 100,000 kilometers (60,000 miles) in length.25
Now, imagine that you are the size of a cell and set out on a journey through the circulatory system.
Your starting point is the heart's upper left pump—in other words the left atrium. The area you are in is full of clean, oxygen-rich blood. Around you are millions of oxygen- bearing red blood cells (erythrocytes). Immediately beneath you is a valve leading to the heart's right atrium. It can open in only one direction—down.
With the sudden contraction of the atrium, the valve cover opens. The blood with you in it begins filling the heart's lower left ventricle. You are now in the left ventricle, a very powerful pump. The valve now closes behind you to prevent your returning to the atrium where you came from.
The left ventricle is a powerful pump, capable of sending blood to the furthest point in the body. At the exit of this pump is another one-way valve leading to the aortic artery, and its function is similar: to prevent the blood you are in from returning to the heart.
The left ventricle now contracts strongly. This valve opens outwards. The blood carrying you is sent quickly toward the aorta, the largest artery.
As you approach the aortic artery wall, you encounter a most interesting structure. As if the artery's inner wall has been polished, and its smooth and oiled surface reduces friction and allows the blood to flow more easily.
Take a short break in your journey to examine the aorta and the arteries in greater detail.
Above, the stages in the embryonic cells forming the veins. Dispersed embryo cells in the mother's stomach (1). The cells begin to combine and arrange themselves side by side (2,3). The cells constitute veins by adhering tightly to one another, like a wall (4). This wall made up by the cells is strong that no blood can leak out of it. Almighty Allah gives the cells constituting the embryo the command to join together and He inspires their behavior in them.
As you've seen, the vessels that carry the blood from the heart are called arteries, and those that carry blood from the tissues to the heart are known as veins. Arteries are generally buried deep within the tissues. In some places, however—for example, in your wrists, temples, neck and ankles—they run much closer to the surface. In these regions, you can feel the passage of arterial blood with every beat of your heart putting pressure on the artery walls.
The artery's internal surface resembles large numbers of different-shaped paving stones laid out to form a regular surface. However, the "stones" here are cells.
Let us now concentrate. Cells are living things. One group of living cells have been laid out next to one another, exactly as paving slabs are, to create a smooth, regular surface. This surface, curving a full 360 degrees, forms a pipe. The venous system is formed by millions of similar pipes joining together in order.
How did this come about?
First of all the cells, must be flat and of such shapes as to fit tightly against one another. What force, then, created so many billions of cells in this interlocking form?
While the body was still in its mother's womb, these cells must have been laid out just like paving stones, side by side. Who set out these billions of cells, so smoothly and regularly?
If just one cell is missing from the arterial wall, then blood will leak out from that spot. Who is it, then, who builds this wall so accurately?
"Chance" cannot be the answer to these questions.
Furthermore, it's not a metal tube from a factory template, that we're considering here, but rather a living vessel formed by the coming-together of living cells. Why do these tiny living units spend their lives lining a tube? Who set them out in this way and gave them such a responsibility?
Again, the answer to these questions cannot be "Chance"! But evolutionists never think about details of this sort. Rather, they ignore these facts, and are unwilling even to consider them. Evolutionists make speeches and write books about circulatory tissues that include large quantities of Latin terms. Yet they never answer the question of how these cells came together in such supreme order—because the only answer they can supply is "Chance."
Since they know how demeaning such an invalid response will be, they gloss over the issue with illogical statements like, "These cells came together and formed the veins during the evolutionary process."
If a scientist offers such an explanation, then people with no great knowledge of scientific literature may think that he must have some scientific facts behind it—though since the scientist has rather glossed over the subject, people won't be able to understand it.
Nevertheless, evolutionists give no answer as to how the arteries and veins came into existence. There are many thousands of other questions to which they also give no answer. They avoid entering into such discussions and gloss over the subject with unspecific words.
In short, no evolutionist can account for the presence of the circulatory network in the human body, as you can very easily prove for yourself. Tell any evolutionist about the perfection of the veins and arteries, and how the cells are all set out in precise order. Then ask how this structure first came about. The only reply you will receive is, "By chance."
In fact, however, there is only one true answer to this question; it is Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, Who created the veins, the blood in the veins, the heart that pumps this blood, and all the other countless of systems within the human body.
The special creation in the structure of the arteries is not seen only in the flawless sequence of the cells. Immediately outside the layer formed by these cells is another layer of muscular cells that are exceedingly flexible. This is another example of creation. Elastic fibers increase the veins' resistance to the blood pressure that rises when the heart beats. In addition, the elasticity imparted to the veins allows extra blood to travel through them.
If the heart pumped blood at high pressure through a venous system that was inelastic, then an extra great burden would be placed on the heart, and blood pressure inside the arteries would be very high. All these details are another indication of the incomparable nature of Allah's creation.
As we keep on with our journey, the aortic artery bifurcates and heads in two different directions. The blood flowing upward meets the needs of the brain and arms, and that blood heading downwards fulfills the needs of the rest of the body. Imagine that your journey is proceeding toward the lower part of the body.
On this route, there are a large number of detours leading to the liver, stomach, upper and lower intestines, the kidneys and the legs. As you proceed, you see that the artery enclosing you splits into many separate branches that become increasingly narrow. These countless bifurcations carry blood to the furthest reaches of the body. As you enter one of them, you see the vessel you are in becomes ever narrower. You are now no longer in an artery, but in a capillary vessel, with a diameter of 0.0002 inch.
1. Heart
3. Artery
One can obtain a better idea of the volume taken up by the blood vessels in the body, shown magnified in the above picture, by means of a comparison. If all the vessels were laid out flat, that area would cover 6,000 square meters (7,176 square yards). The diagram at left shows the interconnections between and structures of the heart, arteries, veins and blood vessels.
Soon the vessel becomes so narrow that there is room for only a single erythrocyte to pass through—with difficulty. In this portion of your journey, you realize that there is a rapid exchange in the cells around you. The erythrocyte cells begin delivering the valuable cargoes of oxygen molecules they have carried on their long journeys, releasing them to cells in need of oxygen and taking up the carbon dioxide these cells have produced. In the same way, nutrient molecules carried in the blood are taken up by cells that need them.
The time has now come to head back.
When the erythrocytes give up their oxygen, their bright red color changes to a dark red. As your journey goes on, the veins become increasingly wide again. Other erythrocytes loaded with carbon dioxide from other blood vessels join in, and the blood volume increases. You shall now leave the capillary vessels and proceed on our way in the veins.
1. Fibrocollagenous tissue
5. Endothelium
The cross-section to the side shows the very detailed creation in the arteries. It is evident that such a detailed creation could never come into existence by chance.
Blood flows in the arteries thanks to the heart's pumping pressure. The effect of this pressure decreases in the blood vessels, however, and by the time it reaches the veins, the distant heart's pumping power has declined considerably.
So how will the blood complete its return journey?
Imagine that you are in one of these veins, with a long journey back to the heart lying before you. You have to pass the regions of the legs, stomach and chest and climb upward for a long distance, overcoming the force of gravity all the same while. There is a need for a system such that every day, thousands of liters of fluid are able to travel back up from the toes to the heart.
The veins have been located with special planning, and surrounded by skeletal muscles. Every time you take a step, for example, the leg muscles that contract force blood upward at the same time. Thanks to this planning, the veins have their very own pumping system.
Toward the end of the 1.5-meter (4.92-foot) journey between the feet and the heart, another problem is encountered. When the main veins reach the body's central region, they are no longer surrounded by skeletal muscles. Here, the respiratory muscles support the veins. The main vein immediately beneath the lung contracts every time you take a breath. The negative pressure that forms in the expanding chest therefore, helps blood to return to the heart.
One feature in the veins represents one of the finest examples of the flawless features in the body. Within the veins are located a number of valves that open solely in the direction of the heart. In this way, blood never flows back under the effect of gravity, but keeps on toward the heart.
1. Direction of blood flow in the vein
3. Skeletal muscle
The arteries have their own unique pumping systems. As the skeletal muscles contract and put pressure on the arteries, valves in the contracting region are forced open, and the blood heads directly to the heart.
A great many valves have been located within the veins, each of them possessing a very special creation. Each one has hinges, again composed of tissue, so created as to permit the valve to open in one direction only. We are looking at an engineering miracle here when we consider how this perfect system came about. The workers on the world's longest pipeline have assumed three major duties, serving as engineers, as workers, and also the actual construction material.
The blueprints and projects for this construction are found in the data banks in the cell nuclei. Each cell "reads" and interprets the plans for the project just like an engineer—by itself without doubt a great miracle. People feel great admiration and respect for a professor who devotes many years to academic studies, but are unaware that their own cells are able to read, understand and put into operation projects far more complex—or else they simply ignore this fact.
Depending on the plan they interpret, cells know where they have to serve in the pipeline's construction. They also know which of the millions of cells working on this construction project they must combine with. When they find the place where they belong, they start working like laborers to construct their individual part of the pipeline. Yet for construction material, they use themselves. Every cell working on this project devotes itself to being a tiny part of the pipeline for the rest of its life.
In the walls of the veins so constructed, no protrusions or cavities are to be found. Their inner surfaces are just as smooth as if they had been polished by a marble craftsman—with one small difference, however; these surfaces consist of living cells.
Movement of the skeletal muscles as the blood moves through the arteries 1) At rest. 2) The muscles contract, compress the arteries and force the blood towards the heart. The valve beneath prevents any back-flow. 3) The muscles relax and the arteries widen and fill with the blood below. The valve above prevents any back-flow.
As the construction work proceeds, some cells make a different decision according to the plan they have read and decide to form a valve inside the vein. Thousands of cells combine and cling to the inner wall. Other cells constitute the hinges of these valves—again, by identifying just where they need to be according to the project's requirements. The way that the hinge opens only in one direction is, again, the result of cells being able to interpret the overall plan and of their construction ability. These cells act in the knowledge that a liquid will flow through the vessel they are in, in which direction it needs to flow, and what measures they need to take to ensure that the flow is constant.
A few millimeters on from this valve, the same miracle takes place. Here, other cells with a similar consciousness form another valve. As if in agreement with the cells that constructed the former valve, theirs too opens in the same direction. If the cells which constructed a few of these valves were to make them in such a way as to open in the opposite direction, then blood could not flow through the veins, and life would immediately come to an end. The thousansds of valves that exist right throughout the venous system are all constructed to work in harmony with one another.
This system is indisputably the work of a most superior Creator, and the cells can exhibit such consciousness, reason, and self-sacrifice thanks only to the Superior Force that creates them. It is Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, Who locates the projects for the world's longest pipeline and thousands of other systems in the human body within the cell nuclei, and Who gives the cells the ability to read, interpret and act upon these instructions.
O man! What has deluded you in respect of your Noble Lord? He Who created you and formed you and proportioned you and assembled you in whatever way He willed. (Surat al-Infitar: 6-8)
Now let's return to our journey through the human veins. Thanks to the small one-way valves in the arteries which we have just examined in some detail, we can now head directly towards the heart—returning there some 40 seconds after we set out.
The first part of our journey began in the heart's upper left chamber, and ends in the upper right chamber. As that journey began, we set out in bright red blood, and the first part of the sojourn ends in blood that is darker red. It is now time to set out on another journey, for the blood needs to be cleansed of its carbon dioxide and replenished with carbon dioxide.
You shall be remaining in the right ventricle, but for only a very short time. As the right ventricle contracts, another valve opens and blood is expelled toward the lungs. The valve behind you is the last safety precaution preventing deoxygenated blood from returning back to the heart. You now speed rapidly towards the lungs inside blood loaded with carbon dioxide.
The journey from the heart to the lungs is another brief one, for which reason it is known as the "small circulation." On arriving in the lung, the red blood cells around you release the carbon dioxide they carry—whose transportation comes about through a great many complex chemical processes—and begin to take up oxygen. This exchange occurs at a breathtaking speed.
Every minute 56,000,000,000,000,000,000,000—that is, 56 x 1021 (56 septillion) oxygen atoms reach the cells in the lung.26 A great many micro-systems work together to enable just one oxygen atom to pass to the erythrocytes. Each unit works in total harmony with the one before it, allowing the oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange to take place without halting for even an instant.
At the end of this breathtakingly rapid exchange, the erythrocytes around you become loaded with oxygen. Now, together with these cells, inside the veins of the lung, you set out for the heart. Eventually your journey ends back where it started from. The oxygen-rich clean blood is ready for another circuit around the body.
There is another very interesting and significant feature of the circulatory system. It does not simply forward the blood like an ordinary pipeline system, but also regulates how much blood needs to go to which organ when necessary.
This is most astonishing, for a piping system to determine how much of the liquid it carries needs to go to which organ, and by itself to make the requisite adjustments. Arteries are able to alter the flow of blood by contracting and expanding.
Take the brain's needs as an example. The brain is an organ that requires a steady, dependable supply of abundant blood, since it controls all the functions inside the body. Blood flow to the brain must continue at any cost. Even if blood flow to all other organs is cut off as the result of hemorrhage, a great many nerves act together so that blood can be keep being sent to the brain, and the diameters of the arteries are adjusted accordingly. Some veins leading to other organs are temporarily short-circuited, and the flow of blood is directed to the veins leading to the brain.
In her book The Incredible Machine, the evolutionist Susan Schiefbein compares the venous system to a computer:
The heart and blood vessels do more than speed or slow our blood flow to meet the body's needs. They carry the scarlet stream to different tissues under differing pressures to fuel different actions. Blood rushes to the stomach when we eat, to the lungs and muscles when we swim, to the brain when we read. To satisfy these changing metabolic needs, the cardiovascular system integrates information as well as any computer, then responds as no computer can.27
This system, comparable to computer circuitry, without doubt came into being as the result of Allah's creation, rather than by chance, as evolutionists would have us believe.
Allah has created humans with such great artistry that every system in your body is connected to others. Any flaw in the functioning of one system causes a fault in the working of another. To understand this more clearly, examine the relationship between the circulatory and other systems.
Nutrients assimilated through digestion are carried to the cells of the body by the circulatory system. Therefore, the digestive and circulatory systems must have been created at the same time.
Chemical signals produced by the hormonal glands are carried to the relevant organs by the circulatory system. Therefore, the circulatory and hormonal systems must have been created at the same time.
Carbon dioxide in the blood is eliminated by the respiratory system. Therefore, the circulatory and respiratory systems must have been created at the same time.
Blood must constantly be cleansed in the kidneys, so the circulatory and excretory systems must have been created at the same time.
Blood cannot move through the veins unless the skeletal muscles contract, and so the circulatory and skeletal systems must have been created at the same time.
Blood cells are created in the bone marrow, so the circulatory and skeletal systems must have been created at the same time.
These examples refer only to the effects of other systems on circulation. A great number of similar examples could be cited. And another point not to be forgotten is that the circulatory system nourishes the organs in all the other systems. The tongue, saliva glands, esophagus, stomach, intestines, liver and other organs, which are all part of the digestive system—all are nourished by blood vessels. To give some further examples:
The hormone glands in the endocrine system.
Organs of the excretory system, the kidneys for example.
Components of the respiratory system, such as the lungs.
The muscles that constitute the smooth and voluntary muscular systems, and the bones constituting the skeletal system.
None of the organs in the body could survive in the absence of the circulatory system. All these connections and inter-connected systems, taken together, are some of the strongest proofs invalidating the theory of evolution. There is flawless harmony and cooperation among the systems within the human body. In order for them to serve any purpose at all, they all must have been present at the exact same time.
This leads us back to the same truth. All the features of the human body were created by Allah in a single moment.
24.Lionel Bender, Science Facts, Human Body, New York and New Jersey: Crescent Books, 1992, p. 32.
25. Marshall Cavendish, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of The Human Body, p. 53.
26.Regina Avraham, The Circulatory System, The Encyclopedia of Health, p. 43
27.Susan Schiefelbein, The Incredible Machine, Washington, D.C., National Geographic Society, 1986.


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Palin: Pot is a 'minimal problem'
Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday night that law enforcement should not focus its energy on the "minimal problem" of marijuana.
Palin made the comment during an appearance on the Fox Business Network with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
The libertarian Paul said enforcing marijuana restrictions specifically and the war on drugs more generally is a "useless battle," a point Palin somewhat agreed with, though she was clear that she does not support legalization.
"If we're talking about pot, I'm not for the legalization of pot," Palin said. "I think that would just encourage our young people to think that it was OK to go ahead and use it."
"However, I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts," Palin added. "If somebody's gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society."
Palin then urged law enforcement to "not concentrate on such a, relatively speaking, minimal problem we have in the country."


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Democracy's new dawn is on CCTV: the security state as infotainment
So keen are America's leaders to hear dissent they're videotaping the dissenters. Welcome to a world of total surveillance
Naomi Klein
Friday August 24, 2007
The Guardian
As protesters gathered recently outside the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit in Montebello, Quebec, to confront George Bush, Felipe Calderón, the Mexican president, and Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, Associated Press reported this surreal detail: "Leaders were not able to see the protesters in person, but they could watch the protesters on TV monitors inside the hotel ... Cameramen hired to ensure that demonstrators would be able to pass along their messages to the three leaders sat idly in a tent full of audio and video equipment ... A sign on the outside of the tent said, 'Our cameras are here today providing your right to be seen and heard. Please let us help you get your message out. Thank You.'"
Yes, it's true: like contestants on a reality TV show, protesters at the SPP meeting were invited to vent into video cameras, their rants to be beamed to "protest-trons" inside the summit enclave. It was security state as infotainment - Big Brother meets, well, Big Brother. The spokesperson for Prime Minister Harper explained that although protesters were herded into empty fields, the video link meant that their right to political speech was protected. "Under the law, they need to be seen and heard, and they will be."
It is an argument with sweeping implications. If videotaping activists meets the legal requirement that dissenting citizens have the right to be seen and heard, what else might fit the bill? How about all the other security cameras that patrolled the summit - the ones filming demonstrators as they got on and off buses and peacefully walked down the street? What about the mobile phone calls that were intercepted, the meetings that were infiltrated, the emails that were read? According to the new rules set out in Montebello, all these actions may soon be recast not as infringements on civil liberties but the opposite: proof of our leaders' commitment to direct, unmediated consultation. Elections are a crude tool for taking the public temperature - these methods allow constant, exact monitoring of our beliefs. Think of surveillance as the new participatory democracy; of wiretapping as the political equivalent of MTV's Total Request Live.
Protesters in Montebello complained that while they were locked out, chief executives from about 30 of the largest corporations in North America - from Wal-Mart to Chevron - were part of the official summit. But perhaps they had it backwards: the CEOs had only an hour and 15 minutes of face time with the leaders. The activists were being "seen and heard" around the clock. So instead of shouting about police-state tactics, maybe they should have said: "Thank you for listening." (And reading, and watching, and photographing, and data-mining.)
The Montebello "seen and heard" rule also casts the target of the protests in a new light. The SPP is described in the leaders' final statement as an "ambitious" plan to "keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade". In other words, a merger of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the homeland security complex - Nafta with spy planes. The model dates back to September 11, when Paul Cellucci, the US ambassador to Canada, pronounced that in the new era, "security will trump trade". But there was an out clause: the trade on which the economies of Canada and Mexico depend could continue uninterrupted, as long as the governments of those countries were willing to welcome the tentacles of the US war on terror. Canadian and Mexican business leaders leaped to surrender, aggressively pushing their governments to give in to US demands for "integrated" security in order to keep the goods and the tourists flowing.
Almost six years later, the business leaders at Montebello - under the banner of the North American Competitiveness Council, an official wing of the SPP - were still holding up "thickening borders" as the bogeyman. The fix? According to the SPP website, "technological solutions, improved information-sharing, and, potentially, the use of biometric identifiers". From experience we know what this means: continent-wide no-fly lists, integrated databases, as well as the $2.5bn contract to Boeing to build a "virtual fence" on the northern and southern borders of the United States, equipped with unmanned drones.
In short, under the SPP vision of the continent, "thick" borders will soon be replaced with a nearly invisible web of continental surveillance - almost all of it run for profit. Two members of the SPP advisory group - Lockheed Martin and General Electric - have already received multibillion-dollar contracts from the US government to build this web. In the Bush era, security doesn't trump big business; it may be the biggest business of all.
In the run-up to the SPP summit, a spate of surveillance scandals helped paint a fuller picture. First, Congress not only failed to curtail the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping but opened the door to snooping into bank records, phone call patterns and even physical searches - all without any onus to prove the subject is a threat.
Next, the Boston Globe reported on plans to link thousands of CCTV cameras on streets, subways, apartment buildings and businesses into networks capable of tracking suspects in real time. And on August 15 confirmation came that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - the arm of the American military that runs spy planes and satellites over enemy territory - would be fully integrated into the infrastructure of domestic intelligence gathering and local policing, becoming the "eyes" to the National Security Agency's "ears".
Add a few more hi-tech tools - biometric IDs, facial-recognition software, networked databases of "suspects", GPS bundled into ever more electronic devices - and you have something like the world of total surveillance most recently portrayed in The Bourne Ultimatum.
Which brings us back to the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Who needs clumsy old border checks when the authorities are making sure we are seen and heard at all times - in high definition, online and off, on land and from the sky? Security is the new prosperity. Surveillance is the new democracy.
· Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, is published next month; a version of this article appears in the Nation www.thenation.com


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Québec City, March 13, 2013 – As part of the Program of Chairs in Educational Leadership (CEL), Université Laval Rector Denis Brière and Executive Vice-rector, Development, Éric Bauce launched a new Chair in Educational Leadership devoted to Distance Education in computer science and software engineering - Cisco. Also in attendance were Cisco Canada President Nitin Kawale and the Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, André Darveau.
The primary goal of this CEL is to explore leading-edge technology that will allow the Faculty to offer high-calibre online courses in computer science and software engineering. The innovative proposed approach is based on identifying methods to design and maintain self-assessed computer science and software engineering training modules. The objective of these methods will be to define how to proportion and effectively use synchronous and asynchronous virtual learning. In addition they will serve to determine how professors can interact with virtual classes in accordance with their academic objectives. They will also help Faculty members understand how to set up virtual labs and better assess student knowledge, notably with distance exams. Lastly, the Chair will provide valuable expertise in the area of self-assessment and enhance the level of interactivity between professors and their distance students.
"By improving the quality and accessibility of distance learning, this new Chair will help boost our student recruitment pool. Plus, workers and people in remote areas will now have access to quality education and will help fulfill the growing workforce needs of businesses struggling to ensure their growth or succession," notes the Université Laval rector.
Research funding
This Chair in Educational Leadership (CEL) was made possible with the financial support of Cisco Canada, which has invested $325,000 in the project. The donation, combined with a matching amount from Université Laval, will help support the CEL for the next five years and create a professorship. The Chair will be subsequently funded in full by the University.
"The Internet and connectivity have changed the way we learn. New learning tools and online curricula have made it possible for students to gain access to educational and training opportunities regardless of their physical location. While the opportunities for distance learning increase, there are many challenges to ensure that virtual teaching programs provide efficient and effective knowledge transfer to students. Université Laval has long been recognized as a leader in distance education and are uniquely positioned to drive innovation in this crucial area of educational research," said Nitin Kawale, President, Cisco Canada.
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. Cisco Canada Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco, has offices across Canada dedicated to customer support, sales and service. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com/canada/.
# # #
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.


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I am the inventor of Windows - The hidden truth of Microsoft
Ronald De Herrera Barrero
The idea of the algorithm that makes the Microsoft Windows Operating System possible, was provided [...] See book
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New Book on Tour
As part of the b00k r3vi3w blog tours, I would like to introduce a new book titled "First Brush on the Canvas" by Sujata Parashar. Here is more info about it:
Graham, Daniel, their friendship, life and death.
Vampires, guardians' adventures at night. Coffee, love and a new couple. Imli and her mother in a complex web of darkness. A small town girl confused about virginity. Michael Jaikishen and his writing endeavours. Child adoption by a gay couple. Mahabharat – a modern tale in an epic form. The spine-chilling tale of Tina and Uncle Joe. A juicy love story by our guest author Sujata Parashar. These and many other unputdownable stories in this book.
First Brush on the Canvas is an anthology comprising selected stories from Melonade (2014), a nationwide writing marathon organized by Writersmelon dot com.
Goodreads :
Melonade Authors' Intro
- Uttiya Roy – Nourished with Bangla literature, he aspires to change the world someday writing in English. His days pass blending Life Science textbooks with poetry.
- Upasana Bhattacharjee – We catch 'em as young as they get! Our youngest writer is still a student, but that doesn't reflect in the matured story she's written dealing with inconclusive logics and paradoxes.
- Stuti Chandra – She writes because she's alive. This lovely lady is from Patna and has dipped her nose in English Literature at Delhi.
- Shaily Bhargava – A photographer, a logophile and an Equity Technical Analyst – all in one. She reads and writes in Noida, accompanied by beautiful clicks through her lens and lots of Coffee.
- Arunav Chowdhury – Have you met this Proletariat Axomiya before? He's a movie buff and a news junkie rolled into one, who writes wonderful modern takes on the age old Mahabharat.
- Rafaa Dalvi – A Mumbaikar, an engineer, a blogger and a prolific writer. He's already made his presence in three anthologies and likes to experiment with different genre.
- Diptee Raut – A quilter, a blogger, a quirky mom, an amazing writer and our co-winner of Melonade'4. She's one bundle of positive energy who can spin stories and weave quilts simultaneously.
- Abhishek Mukherjee – Have you read his blog posts yet? Though he likes to believe he's only a Cricket Historian, you have to read his humorous takes on Mythology to believe he's the best.
- Anwesha Ray – An amazingly sensitive writer, she lives and works in Bangalore with her family.
- Avishek Basu Mallick – He's the winner of Melonade'4. If you wish to laud him for more, he's an engineer and an MBA, working in Bangalore and a featured writer on Sportskeeda.
- Arijit Ghose – Blend Carnatic music with exceptional satire and the result is Arijit Ghose. Cheeky, expressive and vocal – we hope he becomes a great writer someday.
- Amit Nangia – For those working in MNCs for years, he's your inspiration. Amit's first novel has just released after facing many rejections but that didn't deter him from writing. Climbing the rocks, gliding in a parachute, bungee jumping or making cocktails; nothing could elevate his spirits as much as writing did.
- Tnahsin Garg – Tnahsin often exercises his freedom by convincing other folks that 'free will' does not exist. His first novel 'The Prophecy of Trivine' is a science-fiction based in India.
- Sujata Parashar – Author of the immensely popular 'In Pursuit Of' trilogy, and a wonderful poet. She contributes articles to various websites and magazines, and is a social activist. She's a guest author in the book.


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Common questions
When will the periodical cicadas appear in my area?
See the brood pages for upcoming emergences. Even if the maps suggest that cicadas are going to emerge be in your area, remember that cicada populations are patchy, so they may be in woods nearby, but not at your house, etc.
When do the cicadas start to come out?
In the springtime — late April or May in the warmer states and May or early June in the cooler states. (The nonperiodical "annual cicada" species emerge from late June into late summer).
How long will the cicadas be out in my yard/neighborhood/city?
About 4-6 weeks after they first start emerging. Most individual cicadas live only a few weeks, but since they emerge over a period of two weeks or so the whole event lasts longer. The serious noise will get going about a week and half after you first notice them and will last about two weeks more. After that things get a lot quieter.
How do I tell the species apart?
There are currently 7 described Magicicada species. You can see their characteristics by visiting the species pages on this site, where you will find photographs, sounds, and distribution maps. The -decim species differ in abdomen color. M. neotredecim and M. septendecim tend to be darker than M. tredecim.
Will cicadas chew up my plants?
No, cicadas do not chew — they have no chewing mouthparts, and they feed (drink, really) more like aphids. Adult and nymphal cicadas feed on plant sap called xylem fluid – the watery part of the plant sap – which they suck up through their proboscis (feeding tube). Feeding by periodical cicadas does not seem to affect trees and shrubs very much because they take only a small fraction of the water passing through.
Will cicadas hurt my perennials/annuals?
Probably not, cicadas have little interest in these plants (except if any are woody). You may see teneral (newly emerged) cicadas sitting on such plants, or emerging on them, but they will soon move up into the trees.
Will periodical cicadas hurt my young trees?
Possibly. Adult cicadas singing and flying and feeding on young trees are very unlikely to do any damage. However, females do pierce/cut small branches on woody plants to insert their eggs, and if too many cicadas do this the branches may weaken, die and/or break off. The best way to prevent this is to cover such young plants with bird netting (pictured below) or cheesecloth, but before going to this trouble wait until you see how many cicadas are out in your immediate area (female cicadas will not begin laying eggs until at least one week after they first emerge, so there is no hurry). Cicadas do not usually move more than a few hundred meters to lay their eggs.
What about fruit trees?
Periodical cicadas can damage fruit trees or woody vines, in the same way that they damage young or delicate trees. This website, from Virginia Tech, discusses the effects of periodical cicadas on vineyards. Using netting to exclude the cicadas is the best solution.
Can the cicadas hurt me?
No. Cicadas don't bite or sting defensively, and they are not toxic or poisonous.
I saw lots of cicadas emerge but they all disappeared and I can't hear any singing — where did they go?
Newly emerged cicadas (teneral cicadas) take about five days of good weather before the males start singing. Tenerals move higher into the trees when they have hardened enough to climb. Many of the early-emerging cicadas are eaten by birds as well-look for discarded wings on the ground under the trees.
I hear a loud repetitive noise at night, is this cicadas singing?
No, there are no cicadas in the U.S. that sing at night. When Magicicada populations are very dense, some individuals may utter short bursts of sound during unusually hot nights, but this behavior is not typical. Most noises at night are crickets, katydids, or frogs.
Can cicadas see (i.e., did it have to land on me)?
Yes, cicadas have very good vision. They have five eyes (two large red compound eyes on the sides of the head, and three small ocelli (simple eyes) located in a triangle on the front of the head). Periodical cicadas simply don't much care what they land on, since in natural circumstances everything they land on is a tree; don't take it personally when periodical cicadas land on your head/pet/car etc. Even the nymphs can see when they emerge from their burrows to metamorphose – they can head towards a tree (or your leg!) – anything vertical – in the near-darkness from many meters away.
How loud are periodical cicadas?
This is not an easy question to answer, since it depends where you are – even a 747 taking off sounds quiet if you are a mile away! Some of the louder choruses reach 90+ decibels as perceived while standing under the tree. Individual periodical cicadas are actually not that loud as cicadas go.
Why do I hear cicadas every year?
There are 150 or so species of cicada in the U.S. (including species of Neotibicen, Okanagana, Diceroprocta, Cicadetta, Neocicada, Cacama, Okanagodes, Magicicada and other genera). Only the seven Magicicada species have synchronized development and periodical emergences (meaning that all individuals in a population are always the same age). The rest of the species (the so-called annual cicadas) have unsynchronized development, so some individuals mature in every year and we hear them every summer.
What's the best terminology for talking aboout them?
Cicadas do not "swarm", "invade", or "overrun" (if they emerge aboveground, they have been there the whole time, just underground), nor are they a "plague" (Biblical plague locusts were grasshoppers). Cicadas do not hatch out of the ground (they hatched from eggs in tree branches 17 years ago), and they do not "hibernate" (they are underground actively feeding). When they moult to become adults, the correct term for that process is "ecdysis."
What purpose do they serve?
This question is tough to answer from a scientific point of view because biologists explain organisms as products of natural selection, the evolutionary process in which traits that increase reproductive success tend to be preserved in future generations. However, in biology we do examine the effects that cicadas and other species have on each other and on their environment, and this is related to what people often have in mind when they ask about the purpose of a given species. Periodical cicadas are exploited as a food source by a wide variety of species, but only underground or microsymbiotic organisms can evolve to specialize on them since they appear aboveground so rarely. The tunnels of nymphal cicadas aerate the soil and presumably influence soil ecology and tree growth. The twig damage caused by female oviposition actually acts like a pruning for some trees, stimulating future growth. For many people, periodical cicadas are a marvel of nature, a source of many intriguing evolutionary puzzles; or, for some, just a nuisance.


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Cherokee moves toward marijuana legalization
Cherokee took another step along the road toward legalizing medicinal marijuana with a vote last week to start drafting legislation that would let the drug be produced and prescribed on the Qualla Boundary.
Medical marijuana backers try to make their cause heard
Margaret Wakefield is not a college student nor does she sport dreadlocks and Birkenstocks while chatting about how the world should focus more on peace and love.
Wakefield has short dark hair, pink fingernails and silver heart-shaped earrings. Wearing a printed shirt and sweater, the Cherokee resident is dressed as if she was going to a nice restaurant with a friend or just coming from church.
Despite her clean-cut appearance, Wakefield is a vocal leader for, what some may find, a surprising cause — medical marijuana.
Wakefield's mother died from cancer a year ago, and the life-changing event has made her very open and passionate about allowing people suffering from chronic illnesses to use cannabis as a form of treatment.
"If I had known then what I know now … (my mother) would have had some to smoke everyday," said Wakefield, a member of the North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network, a nonprofit with the end goal of passing a medical marijuana bill. Medical cannabis is legal in 16 states and in Washington, D.C. Another 17 states have seen bills introduced.
The N.C. Cannabis Patients Network has about 700 members, most of whom range from age 30 to 60 and beyond, Wakefield said. Members are also allowed to remain anonymous.
"We are just wanting to be able to grow our own medicine," she said. "We are trying to get our rights back."
There is currently a bill in a N.C. House of Representatives committee, which NCCPN hopes will be voted on either during the upcoming short legislative session in April or when the newly elected General Assembly leaders meet next year.
House Bill 577, a.k.a. the Medical Cannabis Act, would allow people with debilitating medical conditions, including cancer, glaucoma, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis (to name a few), to receive prescriptions for medical marijuana from their doctors. Studies have shown that cannabis can increase one's appetite and offer pain relief.
The state would also profit from the legalization of medical marijuana. Within four years, the state would realize about $250 million in revenue from the production and sale of cannabis each year, according to the bill.
However, Wakefield understands that the organization is in for a tough fight in this Bible Belt state, especially since some are hesitant to sign their name in support of such a controversial bill. When asked what the biggest obstacle to the bill's passage was, Wakefield immediately spouted the Republicans.
"They tend to be a lot more conservative than Democrats," she said.
But even when the General Assembly was under a Democratic majority in previous years, similar efforts went nowhere.
While marijuana carries a stigma for its use as a recreational drug, allowing medical marijuana is not tantamount to opening the floodgates of illegal use, supporters claim. Many synthetic pharmaceutical drugs are abused in street settings but are still legal for their perceived medical benefits.
One Democratic state representative from Buncombe County has already put her support behind the Medical Cannabis Act.
Patsy Keever, who is serving her second term of office in the N.C. House of Representatives, said her husband suffered for three years before he died of cancer, and his pain medication was in pill form.
"He couldn't swallow," she said.
If medical marijuana was available, her husband could have inhaled it in a vapor form, Keever said.
"Medical marijuana has been proven to treat the pain," Keever said. "Anything that will just help somebody in pain and not harm them or anybody else seems like a no brainer to me."
The bill being considered in North Carolina is much stricter than the one in California, Wakefield said.
In California, it is widely claimed that anyone can get a medical marijuana prescription by simply walking into a doctor's office and saying you have a problem. In North Carolina, patients looking for a prescription would have to have a relationship with their physician, which includes a full medical assessment and the doctor's willingness to provide follow-up care to determine the efficacy of the drug.
People who wish to grow or sell marijuana or marijuana-infused products, such as cookies or butter, will be required to pay a $5,000 licensing fee each year. That amount could increase to $10,000, pending possible amendments to the bill, Wakefield said.
Get involved
The North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network will hold a meeting at 2 p.m. on March 10 at Tribal Grounds Coffee Shop in Cherokee. Discussions will revolve around allowing the use of medical marijuana in North Carolina and educating people about the benefits of prescription cannabis. The meeting is open to the public.


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WASHINGTON—-An alarming new study released Tuesday by the Department of Education found that nearly 70 percent of Americans are incapable of pointing out a map when presented by researchers with a map. "Not only did a majority of people just stare blankly ahead, but nearly half pointed to nearby desk lamps in their attempts to guess correctly," said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who called the findings endemic of the nation's failing school system. "In fact, 14 percent of all Americans claimed they had never 'even heard of no map,' and asked if being prompted to locate one was some kind of trick question." According to Duncan, the Department of Education has suspended all further studies and will instead be spending the next six months just screaming into a pillow.
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This Week's Most Viral News: September 29, 2023


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Brain's Filing System Uncovered
Socks in the sock drawer, shirts in the shirt drawer, the time-honored lessons of helping organize one's clothes learned in youth. But what parts of the brain are used to encode such categories as socks, shirts, or any other item, and how does such learning take place?
New research from Harvard Medical School (HMS) investigators has identified an area of the brain where such memories are found. They report in the advanced online Nature that they have identified neurons that assist in categorizing visual stimuli. They found that the activity of neurons in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex encode the category, or meaning, of familiar visual images and that brain activity patterns changed dramatically as a result of learning. Their results suggest that categories are encoded by the activity of individual neurons (brain cells) and that the parietal cortex is a part of the brain circuitry that learns and recognizes the meaning of the things that we see.
"It was previously unknown that parietal cortex activity would show such dramatic changes as a result of learning new categories," says lead author David Freedman, PhD, HMS postdoctoral research fellow in neurobiology. "Some areas of the brain, particularly the frontal and temporal lobes, have been associated with visual categorization. Since these brain areas are all interconnected, an important next step will be to determine their relative roles in the categorization process."
We are not born with a built-in ability to recognize categories like table, chair, and camera. Instead, most categories such as these are learned through experience. Categories are a cornerstone of complex behavior, because they give meaning to the sights and sounds around us. For example, if you are told that a new electronic gadget is a telephone, this instantly provides a great deal of information about its relevant parts (speaker, microphone, keypad for dialing, etc.) and functions.
While much is known about how the brain processes simple visual features such as colors, angles, and motion-directions, less is known about how the brain learns and recognizes the meaning of stimuli. The process of grouping related visual images into categories allows the brain to organize stimuli according to their meaning and makes it possible for us to quickly make sense of our surroundings.
In these experiments, monkeys were taught to play a simple computer game in which they grouped members of a set of visual motion patterns into one of two categories. Freedman and senior author John Assad, PhD, HMS associate professor of neurobiology, then monitored the activity of neurons in two interconnected brain areas, the parietal cortex and the middle temporal area, while the monkeys played the categorization game. The activity of parietal neurons mirrored the monkeys' decisions about which of the two categories each visual pattern belonged. In contrast, neurons in the middle temporal area were more sensitive to differences in the visual appearance among the set of motion patterns and did not encode their category membership.
Category representations in the parietal cortex also changed dramatically with learning and experience. Over the course of several weeks, the monkeys were retrained to group the same visual patterns into two new categories. Parietal cortex activity was completely reorganized as a result of this retraining and encoded the visual patterns according to the newly learned categories.
"This research helps to further the understanding of how the brain learns and recognizes the significance, or meaning, of visual images and demonstrates that learning new categories can cause dramatic and long-lasting changes in brain activity," says Freedman. "We are continuing this work to determine if the parietal cortex is specialized for processing motion-based categories or if it plays a more general role in categorizing other types of visual stimuli, such as shapes, as well."
Freedman is optimistic that research of this type will eventually contribute to a better understanding of neurological diseases and disorders. "Understanding how the brain learns, stores, recognizes and recalls visual information will help us overcome impairments to these functions caused from brain damage and diseases, including strokes, Alzheimer's disease, and schizophrenia," Freedman says.
Source: Harvard Medical School


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In the middle of a desert area 140 kilometers outside the oil centre Abu Dhabi, row on row of curved mirrors sparkle in the blazing sun.
SHAMS1, the first Concentrated Solar Power or CSP plant in the Middle East will soon provide up to 20,000 homes with climate-friendly power.
Oil-rich Abu Dhabi aims to cover seven percent of its energy needs with renewables by 2020. Neighbouring Dubai has a target of five percent.
Qatar, the world's biggest exporter of liquid petroleum gas (lpg) aims at 20 percent by 2030, and the oil giant Saudi Arabia aims to cover almost a third of its consumption with renewables by 2032.
The International Renewable Energies Agency (IRENA), set up two years ago, has its headquarters in Abu Dhabi. The decision to locate there was a "very significant one", Deputy Director-General Frank Wouters told Deutsche Welle. He argues that using solar power in the Gulf region makes plain economic sense. For a country like Saudi Arabia, he says, it is much cheaper than burning expensive diesel at more than 100 dollars a barrel to produce electricity.
Allan Walker agrees. The Executive Director of Masdar Investment in Abu Dhabi also insists that it is not just greenwashing when oil producers invest in renewables. "We are not doing this unless we make a return on our investments", said Walker, who has also worked in financing oil, gas and coal-fired power projects.
The Gulf states are amongst the countries with the world's highest per-capita CO2 emissions. "We are a young nation, in growth mode, and that is energy intensive", says Bader Al Lamki, Director of the "Clean Energy Business Unit" at Masdar. He also cites the very harsh climatic conditions as a cause of the country's high energy consumption for air-conditioning and the desalination of sea water.
Now, Abu Dhabi is introducing energy-saving measures and planning to broaden its energy mix to include renewables.
"This country has a legacy of being a world energy player. It has been supplying hydrocarbon resources to the world for the last four to five decades, and this is one of the cornerstones of why we are stepping into renewables", Al Lamki told Deutsche Welle during a tour of the SHAMS1 CSP plant, which is being built jointly by Masdar, Total and the Spanish company Abengoa Solar.
Abu Dhabi also believes the new sector will create jobs and education opportunities for its population, said Al Lamke.
Solar modules are still rare on the rooftops of Abu Dhabi. Photovoltaics is not yet attractive to individual consumers, according to German energy expert Simon Breuniger, who has worked with Masdar for four years. He says the authorities are now considering a feed-in-tariff along the lines of the one which helped solar power make a breakthrough in Germany, but which may be cut back due to rising costs as ever more households invest in solar modules.
Renewables are not just of interest to Abu Dhabi for domestic power generation. The expanding international market provides a promising investment opportunity. Masdar is involved in building state-of-the-art solar plants in Spain and owns 20 percent of the "London Array", the world's biggest offshore wind farm, off the coast of England.
This funding power could be the wealthy region's most important contribution to the global expansion of renewable energies, says Laurence Tubiana, head of the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI). Presenting the UN Network for Sustainable Development Solutions at Sustainability Week in Abu Dhabi in January, Tubiana said even if the transition in the region itself was a slow one, the Gulf states' willingness to invest in innovative technologies which would only make a return in the longer term would help renewables to become competitive.
Tubiana has been involved in the UN climate negotiations since 1997. She says she has observed a change in the stance of some Gulf countries, like Qatar and Abu Dhabi. She believes they have recognised the need to take action.
EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard agrees there has been progress in the region. During an energy summit in Abu Dhabi in January, she told DW that the progress was encouraging. "Due to the need to diversify their economies, due to the lack of water and the climate change are actually beginning to experience, they are not only talking about renewables. They are doing more research, demonstration projects, large-scale investments, efficiency measures."
She added that while the countries "are definitely not there yet", the region was very different to just a few years ago.


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A Great Time to Be a Husband, Parent, and a Dad
- Dan Liberto President and Co-Founder of Generation With A Name, LLC
- 2012 15 Jun
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the Fall 2011 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the trade magazine for homeschool families. Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.comor read it on the go and download the free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.
As I write this note, the paraphrased words of Mordecai in the fourth chapter of Esther ring clearly in my mind: Esther 4:14 Seems initially like pretty lofty stuff. But as husbands, parents, and dads, are we not sitting in the same position, overseeing the family's royal crest? Aren't we called to lead our families to the knowledge of Christ? Do we not have the purpose of reflecting to our family and neighbors faith, hope, and most importantly the love of Christ? These are certainly royal objectives, because they are ordained by the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ. But do we treat them as royal objectives?
In our nation and in the world, we are experiencing difficult times. But when light is willingly turned off, then there is no option other than darkness. We have willingly, if not purposely, promoted this darkness by limiting the Light of Christ in our daily expression. This daily expression, which is akin to Jesus' words to Luke 9:23, should begin in the home and radiate out from there.
As husbands we have aMalachi 2:13-15 and 1 Peter 3:7 specific to the wife of our youth. We are to guide, protect, and satisfy her emotional and spiritual needs. Marriage is quite possibly the most intense exhibition of the second greatest commandment there is, because it is a true covenant exemplifying the unity of the triune God. The marriage covenant, as exercised in a manner consistent with Ephesians 5, truly reflects a model of love and commitment to a world that has lost its way. Furthermore, we are compelled as Christian husbands to be considerate of our wives and 1 Peter 3:7 There is no better example to an ailing society than a successful marriage forged by sacrifice, commitment, and love for your spouse. Who knows but that we have come to this royal position for such a time as this, to respect and fulfill the commitment to our wedding vows and serve as a shining light to a culture of quickie divorces and prenuptial agreements. There should be no doubt in the eyes of my wife that I love her, just as there is no doubt in my eyes that Jesus Christ loves His Church.
As a parent, I am truly blessed. Jackie and I have three daughters: one adolescent, one quickly approaching adolescence, and one (6-year-old) who thinks she exceeds the older two in both knowledge and authority. Since they are all girls, the nest gets a little crowded at times with all the visiting hormones. Conversely, the owner's manual for boys presents its own set of challenges. At any rate, children in general are a blessing from God.
As parents, Jackie and I are in agreement that we are first and foremost charged with the task of Deuteronomy 4:9-10 the knowledge of God to the next generation, Psalms 78:1-8. As parents, Jackie and I are heirs of the 1 Peter 3:7. Also as parents, we stand steadfast between our children and a broken world that is aggressively making overtures for their hearts and minds.
Tedd Tripp, in his book Shepherding a Child's Heart, states, "Each child in a Christian home will at some point examine the claims of the gospel and determine whether he will embrace its truth." He goes on to point out that we as parents need to be available to help the children pursue answers to their questions with honest scrutiny. Who knows but that I have come to this royal position for such a time as this, to unite with Jackie and shine the Light of Christ in the hearts of our children by taking literally the words of the Apostle Peter to always 1 Peter 3:15 to the hope we share. This of course extends to our actions as well, given they are never far from the adoring eyes of our children. Who knows but that we have come to this royal position for such a time as this, to show true love and respect to our wives as an example to our children (Psalms 78:1-7) of God's ways. Who knows but that we have come to this royal position for such a time as this, to clothe ourselves in the Ephesians 6:10-17 and protect our children from being devoured by the devil, who prowls around 1 Peter 5:8. Who knows but that we have come to this royal position for such a time as this, to spend time with our children nurturing their love for Christ, John 4:10 their inquisitive John 7:37-39with Jeremiah 2:13 Revelation 22:17 and answering their many questions from a Christian worldview.
The book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker, M.D describes the heart of a young girl and her desire to have a relationship with her father, including actively showing your daughter that she is worth fighting for. Your daughter needs a hero, and your son needs to know that he measures up. The relationship between the daughter/son and the father is critical to show them how to focus on the Lord as their only source of hope. This is not done solely from the Paternal Pulpit. We as dads must mix in a healthy dose of humility and love. We should allow them to experience trials and the consequences that result from their choices, because it is in these challenges they will discover the true nature of God. It is in knowing God that they come to know themselves and their true worth in the eyes of God and in the eyes of their dad. But there should never be any doubt that you love them and will fight for them without hesitation and without end. As a dad, establishing a strong relationship with your daughters will facilitate her selection of a life mate who will nurture her emotionally and spiritually—just as she saw you nurture her mother.
Similarly, having a strong relationship with your son will pass down the endorsement that he is a man. This rite of passage will increase the chance that he will share your values and look to God to find his name, as John Eldredge states in his book Wild at Heart. He will choose a life of leadership similar to the blueprint you shared openly and freely with him as he grew in your love. Who knows but that we have come to this royal position for such a time as this—to turn off the TV, computer, and phone and to patiently talk with our children. Who knows but that we have come to this royal position for such a time as this, to lead our children through individual relationships to a commitment of faith in Jesus Christ. This commitment to Christ will equip our children to Matthew 24:12-13and be saved as the world grows increasingly dark and the love of most grows cold. Who knows but that we have come to this royal position for such a time as this to provide a refuge that will keep our children strong, so they canLeviticus 19:18 toMatthew 22:39 theirRomans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14 as they James 2:8, because 1 Peter 4:8.
Let us heed the call to refocus on the family as the core of society and to make it healthy once again by seeking the Lord earnestly through family prayer, praise, devotionals, and yes, even fasting. We are called to walk a path fraught with one battle after another as we swim against the cultural current. But if we Romans 5:3-4, God promises character and hope. What better objectives are there?
It truly is a great time to be a husband, parent, and dad. I thank the Lord for this royal appointment . . . at such a time as this.
Dan Liberto is President and co-founder of Generation With A Name, LLC, along with his lovely wife Jackie of nineteen years. Dan and Jackie have three daughters. Their ministry developed as a response to the secular attacks on children and the low rate of Biblical literacy in the Christian family. They sharpen the sword of the Spirit by emphasizing the promises of God through Biblical stories. Learn more about their ministry at TheFreedomGirls.com.
Publication Date: June 15, 2012


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IRS tea party hearing goes off course
A conservative group claiming it was targeted by the Internal Revenue Service stole the show at a congressional hearing on Thursday when it veered off topic and accused top panel Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings of harassment.
Catherine Engelbrecht, president of True the Vote, complained that Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee "sent letters to True the Vote, demanding much of the same information the IRS had requested" after she filed for nonprofit status and then "would appear on cable news and publicly defame me and my organization."
Democrats called it outrageous that Republicans gave the group a platform to attack a member, and even some Republicans tried to change the subject back to the IRS controversy itself.
( Also on POLITICO: How John Podesta is changing Obama's White House)
Cummings staff promptly produced copies of the five letters sent in the fall of 2012 and said the Maryland Democrat was conducting appropriate oversight of True the Vote, among the biggest organizations to crop up in recent years seeking to tighten voting rules.
Groups like True the Vote are backed by Republicans, and most Democrats call the efforts an attempt to restrict voting of minorities by challenging voter registration, curbing early voting and requiring multiple forms of identification. Republican governors and legislators have been successful in enacting many of these changes to voting in recent years.
"There is no one that I know of that cares more about the rights of our citizens than I do," Cummings, an African-American, said. "I don't care if you're tea party or Democrat or Republican — I want to make sure no one is blocked from voting," like he said his now 88-year-old mother was years ago.
The ostensible focus of the hearing was GOP outrage that a Obama donor, a career Justice government employee, is working on the FBI investigation of the targeting debacle. The entire panel was made up of tea party groups and their backers describing what they called harassment by the government. The Justice Department declined to send the official, citing the ongoing probe.
( From POLITICO Magazine: The 10 most outrageous government boondoggles)
After applying for tax-exempt status, Engelbrecht said her organization and manufacturing business received IRS audits and six separate inquiries from the FBI regarding "domestic terrorism." Atop that, her business was inspected and fined by OSHA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
She speculated that there was a type of government conspiracy aimed at her for founding a tea party organization.
"For decades, I went unnoticed but now find myself on the receiving end of interagency coordination into and against all facets of my life," she said.
She said Cummings and his staff might have inspired these audits.
"We believe that Rep. Cummings misrepresented his authority as Member of Congress to intimidate me and others associated with me, and which may be responsible for a series of incursions into my personal, organizational and business affairs by various federal agencies, agents and bureaucracies over the past four years," read Engelbrecht's official complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics.
( Also on POLITICO: James Carville joins Fox News)
Even some Republicans came to Cummings's defense and said perhaps the group was going too far in the accusations.
Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) encouraged the group to drop the complaint.
"I don't think the ranking member was attacked, but I instructed our staff to encourage [the group] not to proceed with the ethics complaint," he said.
"What is so astonishing to me is that you would give them a forum to do this," said Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). "I regret that our committee would allow [the hearing] to be used for such a blatant political stunt."
Cummings said he often will "write letters in my capacity as ranking member … to investigate serious allegations of wrongdoing" — one of the primary duties of the committee.
His letters detail examples of challenges of voter registrations made by True the Vote that turned out to be wrong and seeks information about the methodology of the group's challenges.
( Also on POLITICO: Cathy McMorris Rodgers faces possible ethics inquiry)
The group, Cummings's staff said, describes itself as "a non-profit, non-partisan, non-political charitable and educational organization" yet "has raised millions of dollars for Republican candidates" and has a policy arm to try to limit early voting.
Therein lies the link to an underlying topic of the hearing — IRS oversight of so-called 501(c)(4) groups, which are exempt from federal taxes. Many on the left say groups with clear links with political parties should not be eligible for tax exempt status in the first place.
The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights in 2012 reported that True the Vote's poll monitoring efforts in North Carolina were tailored to African-American and minority communities that traditionally vote Democrat.
Cummings had earlier provided copies of his letters to Issa, his staff said. True the Vote declined to produce any documents.
Lauren French contributed to this report.


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The High Museum of Art will be the first venue in the United States to present this major touring exhibition, which offers a fresh look at African design through a myriad of diverse works by more than 120 artists. Ranging from playful to provocative to political, the works include sculpture, prints, fashion, furniture, film, photography, apps, maps, digital comics, and more.
The exhibition offers a vision of Africa in the twenty-first century as a place of unbounded optimism, rapid growth, and massive cultural transformation and presents the continent as a hub of experimentation that generates innovative design approaches and solutions with worldwide relevance. Making Africa focuses on a generation of entrepreneurs, thinkers, and designers from and within Africa who address a global audience and provide the world with a new vantage point on their continent. The exhibition also illustrates how the artists use their work to effect significant economic, social, and political change.


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