Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/287880940?client_source=feed&format=rss
puerto rico primary manning peyton florida state meghan mccain wilson chandler bristol motor speedway
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Police and firefighters at higher risk for mental disorders following traumatic events
Feb. 26, 2013 ? Police, firefighters and other protective services workers who are repeatedly exposed to traumatic events and are new to their profession are at greater risk of developing a psychiatric disorder, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The researchers also found that protective services workers do not appear to have a higher prevalence of mental health problems than workers in other occupations.
The study results are featured in the February 2013 issue of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.
"Our findings suggest that exposure to diverse types of traumatic events among protective services workers is a risk factor for new onset of psychopathology and alcohol use disorders," said Christopher N. Kaufmann, MHS, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in the Bloomberg School's Department of Mental Health. "When we examined the relationship of exposure to common traumas with the development of mood, anxiety and alcohol use disorders among protective services workers, we found that these workers were at greater risk for developing a mood or alcohol use disorder. Interestingly, this relationship was not seen in those who had been in these jobs for a longer period, but was strong and statistically significant in workers who recently joined the profession. Developing curricula in coping skills and providing timely interventions for early career protective services workers may help reduce future psychiatric morbidity in these workers."
Using data from the U.S National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions researchers compared the prevalence of mental disorders of protective services workers to that of adults in other occupations. In addition, they examined the association of exposure to common traumatic experiences with the development of new mood, anxiety and alcohol use disorders among protective services workers who recently joined the workforce and those who had been in these jobs for a longer period. Lifetime and recent trauma events most commonly reported by protective services workers included: seeing someone badly injured or killed; unexpectedly seeing a dead body; having someone close die unexpectedly and having someone close experience a serious or life-threatening illness, accident or injury.
"The association between the number of different traumatic event types and incident mood and alcohol-use disorders, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, was virtually confined to the group of early career protective services workers," said Ramin Mojtabai, MD, PhD, MPH, senior author of the study and an associate professor with the Bloomberg School's Department of Mental Health. "Future research should examine the coping skills of protective services workers who have been in these jobs for many years, which might make them less likely to develop psychiatric complications in the face of various potentially traumatic experiences."
The authors note, "Special support programs and services for these early career workers can potentially help to prevent development of chronic psychopathology and attrition from these critical jobs."
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- C. N. Kaufmann, L. Rutkow, A. P. Spira, R. Mojtabai. Mental Health of Protective Services Workers: Results From the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 2012; DOI: 10.1001/dmp.2012.55
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Meteor Hits Russia Dorner Manifesto Valentines Day Quotes cnn paczki lent la times
How To Make An Effective Website Design? ? Primediart Blog
There is one factor that is often overlooked in the field of website design. Web designers often overlook the functionality and the usability of the website. They focus on the design and in most cases develop a website that does not live up to its expectation. The success of the website depends on how user friendly it is. This is more important than the graphics as the visitor needs to find the information he/she is looking for on the internet. No matter how beautiful a website may look, if the visitor is not able to find the relevant information on the website he/she will never visit the website again.
All businesses who are looking for an online presence for increasing their brand awareness will always look for ways to enhance their business operations for growth and development. The development of a website always plays a vital role in these organizations and businesses should take note of the importance of navigation for its success.
When you are making a website for your business you should determine the needs of your user. The functionalities of the website will depend on them completely. There are some things your user will not need. This is why before you create a website it is very important for you to ascertain the needs of your existing and potential customers. This will help the designer insert functionalities to boost the appeal of the website with success. It is only when a website is user-friendly that it becomes profit oriented.
The website should be visually appealing to engage the attention of the visitor. The correct blend of graphics and text requires to be used. Posting the required and exact information in front will help the visitor get what he/she needs. If the website does not meet the expectations of the user, the visitor will close the window of the website or proceed back to where he/she began. This means you lose the visitor forever.
If you are looking for a good website with huge traffic you should take into account two things. The first is the credibility of the website and second is its quality. The internet is a huge marketplace and there are billions of sites. When it comes to credibility you will find there are only a few. A user will only keep coming back to a website that works. It is important for you to provide rich quality content along with the perfect combination of text and colors.
In conclusion, the website is the potent weapon that draws visitors. When you are looking for website designers ensure you bank on professional companies. They have skilled people and teams that understand your niche and target audience. This is why you must be smart enough to hire the right professionals for the job. In this way you get the best for your website. Your returns on investment also enhance and you get loyal customers coming back for fresh content about the nature of services and products you provide.
Posted in Web Design.
? February 27, 2013
Source: http://primediart.com/blog/?p=117
act Black Ops 2 Secede ben roethlisberger Diwali elmo Kevin Clash
Were those the bones of Cleopatra's murdered sister?
Experts doubt that the 2,000-year-old bones, unearthed?in 1904 in what is now Turkey, belonged to?Arsinoe IV, Cleopatra's younger half-sister whom she ordered killed.?
The site of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, where Cleopatra had her sister Arsinoe murdered.
Adam Carr distributed by Wikimedia under a Creative Commons License
EnlargeA Viennese archaeologist lecturing in North Carolina this week claims to have identified the bones of Cleopatra's murdered sister or half-sister. But not everyone is convinced.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
That's because the evidence linking the bones, discovered in an ancient Greek city, to?Cleopatra's sibling Arsinoe IV is largely circumstantial. A DNA test was attempted, said Hilke Thur, an archaeologist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a former director of excavations at the site where the bones were found. However, the 2,000-year-old bones had been moved and handled too many times to get uncontaminated results.
"It didn't bring the results we hoped to find," Thur?told the Charlotte News-Observer. She will lecture on her research March 1 at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.
The Ptolemy's bloody history
Arsinoe IV was Cleopatra's younger half-sister or sister, both of them fathered by Ptolemy XII Auletes, though whether they shared a mother is not clear. Ptolemic family politics were tough: When Ptolemy XII died, he made Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII joint rulers, but Ptolemy soon ousted Cleopatra. Julius Caesar took Cleopatra's side in the family fight for power, while Arsinoe joined the Egyptian army resisting Caesar and the Roman forces. [Cleopatra & Olympias: Top 12 Warrior Moms in History]
Rome won out, however, and Arsinoe was taken captive. She was allowed to live in exile in Ephesus, an ancient Greek city in what is now Turkey. However, Cleopatra saw her half-sister as a threat and had her murdered in 41 B.C.
Fast forward to 1904. That year, archaeologists began excavating a ruined structure in Ephesus known as the Octagon for its shape. In 1926, they revealed a burial chamber in the Octagon, holding the bones of a young woman.
Thur argues that the date of the tomb (sometime in the second half of the first century B.C.) and the illustrious within-city location of the grave, points to the occupant being Arsinoe IV herself. Thur also believes the octagonal shape may echo that of the great Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the?Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. That would make the tomb an homage to Arsinoe's hometown, Egypt's ancient capital, Alexandria. ?
Controversial claim
The skull of the possible murdered princess disappeared in Germany during World War II, but Thur found the rest of the bones in two niches in the burial chamber in 1985. The remains have been debated every step of the way. Forensic analysis revealed them to belong to a girl of 15 or 16, which would make Arsinoe surprisingly young for someone who was supposed to have played a major leadership role in a war against Rome years before her death. Thur dismisses those criticisms.
"This academic questioning is normal," she told the News-Observer. "It happens. It's a kind of jealousy."
In 2009, a BBC documentary, "Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer," trumpeted the claim that the bones are Arsinoe's. At the time, the most controversial findings centered on the body's lost skull. Measurements and photographs of the incomplete skull remain in historical records and were used to?reconstruct the dead woman's face.
From the reconstruction, Thur and her colleagues concluded that Arsinoe had an African mother (the Ptolemies were an ethnically Greek dynasty). That conclusion led to splashy headlines suggesting that Cleopatra, too, was African.
But classicists say the conclusions are shaky.
"We get this skull business and having Arsinoe's ethnicity actually being determined from a reconstructed skull based on measurements taken in the 1920s?" wrote David Meadows, a Canadian classicist and teacher, on his blog?rogueclassicism.
Not only that, but Cleopatra and Arsinoe may not have shared a mother.
"In that case, the ethnic argument goes largely out of the window," Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard wrote in the?Times Literary Supplement?in 2009.
Without more testing, the bones remain in identification limbo.
"One of my colleagues on the project told me two years ago there is currently no other method to really determine more," Thur told the News-Observer. "But he thinks there may be new methods developing. There is hope."
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter?@sipappas?or LiveScience?@livescience. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.
Copyright 2013?LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Chris Dorner 1800 Flowers walking dead The Pope bruno mars the Grammys 2013 State of the Union 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Cell scaffolding protein fascin-1 is hijacked by cancer
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
A protein involved in the internal cell scaffold is associated with increased risk of metastasis and mortality in a range of common cancers finds a meta-analysis published in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine.
The protein, fascin-1, is involved in bundling together the actin filaments which form the internal scaffolding of a cell and are involved in cell movement. Though it is absent, or only present at a low level in normal epithelial cells, several small studies have shown fascin-1 to be increased in many carcinomas, but its role in metastasis and mortality risk has been uncertain.
Researchers from the University of Bristol combined and reanalysed data from 26 studies looking at five different types of carcinomas. The meta-analysis showed that increased fascin-1 was associated with increased risk of mortality in breast, colorectal and oesophageal carcinomas but not in gastric or lung carcinoma. It was also associated with disease progression in breast and colorectal carcinoma, but not lung carcinoma. It was associated with local and distant metastasis in colorectal and gastric carcinomas but there was no involvement of fascin-1 in metastasis of oesophageal carcinomas.
These results show that the picture is not simple and that different types of cancer are affected in different ways. The story of fascin-1 not only provides a biomarker and potential avenue for research into anti-cancer therapy but also demonstrates the complexity of cancer.
Josephine Adams and Richard Martin who led this study said, "Our results show that fascin-1 is associated with several types of human carcinomas. The results will help focus further research into fascin-1 as a marker and potential target for cancer therapy to the most relevant types of carcinomas."
###
BioMed Central: http://www.biomedcentral.com
Thanks to BioMed Central for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
This press release has been viewed 26 time(s).
Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127022/Cell_scaffolding_protein_fascin___is_hijacked_by_cancer
rob gronkowski Coughing eddie murphy Stephanie Bongiovi stanford football guy fieri Jill Kelley
Billboard converts desert air into drinking water
(UTEC)
An advertising agency has created what it is calling the world's first billboard that converts air into drinking water.
The billboard?a collaboration between agency Mayo DraftFCB and Peru's University of Engineering and Technology?was placed in Peru's rain-starved desert capital, Lima.
Lima gets less than an inch of rain per year on average, but since the city's humidity hovers around 98 percent, generators attached to the structure are able to capture atmospheric moisture, filter it and produce potable water.
The harvested water is then stored in 20-liter tanks and can be retrieved from taps at the base of the billboard.
"Agua aqui," a neon display near the base reads.
According to the university, the billboard produced 9,450 liters of drinking water in three months?enough to sustain hundreds of Peruvian families per month.
Watch a short video explaining the project below.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/billboard-air-water-peru-lima-142159082.html
gallagher madmen james cameron liam hemsworth miss canada justin bieber boyfriend marianas trench
Wolverine, Hercules Share Gay Kiss In Alternate Universe (PHOTO)
Wolverine and Hercules might be superheros with a lot of world-saving on their hands, but that doesn't mean they don't have time for a steamy embrace every now and then.
Wolverine and Hercules share a gay kiss in an issue of Marvel's "X-Treme X-Men," according to comic book news blog Bleeding Cool. The "alternate universe," polyamorous characters from parallel dimensions -- and not to be confused with the much beloved Wolverine or Hercules featured in the other Marvel comics and story lines -- embrace in issue No. 10 while crusading against foes.
SCROLL FOR PHOTO
"We were our worlds' greatest heros," they say. "And the day we slew the worst monster who ever threatened the Dominion of Canada ... We revealed our love."
In September, Bleeding Cool hinted that Hercules is bisexual and had a romantic relationship with James "Logan" Howlett, or Wolverine, in another dimension.
Marvel has a great track record when it comes to LGBT content.
Marvel's Northstar married his beau in June's issue No. 51 of "Astonishing X-Men." Northstar came out as gay back in 1992. He was one of Marvel's first characters to do so, the Associated Press notes.
Since then, multiple other Marvel, DC Comics and Archie Comics characters have had same-sex relationships. Most recently, on Feb. 20, Batwoman proposed to her girlfriend, Cpt. Maggie Sawyer.
The inclusion of LGBT characters has earned various comic series the acclaim of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Some of these have been nominated for the 24th Annual GLAAD Media Awards, according to Comics Alliance. The GLAAD Media Awards "recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives."
Marvel was nominated for "Astonishing X-Men" by Marjorie Liu.
Although DC Comics was nominated twice this year, the organization has come under fire recently for tapping anti-gay author Orson Scott Card to pen an upcoming issue of "Superman."
PHOTO:
Also on HuffPost:
"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });
titanic ii babe ruth new jersey nets nba playoff schedule rondo morris claiborne mothers day gifts
Monday, February 25, 2013
The Fed's Running the Show and Risk Keeps Going Up
Monday, February 25th, 2013
By Mitchell Clark, B.Comm. for Profit Confidential
There just isn?t enough real economic growth out there for a rising stock market?at least not much more than has already been achieved. News from the Federal Reserve of the central bank considering how to end quantitative easing sent the stock market much lower, revealing just how artificial the whole system is.
I actually think the current stock market is fairly valued, but it shouldn?t be going up in value with modest revenues and earnings growth. The Federal Reserve is the catalyst for today?s trading action, but first-quarter earnings season will be a catalyst for investor sentiment. Some companies and industries are doing better than others. The choppy recovery in the U.S. economy is now being reflected in earnings results, as corporations can no longer cut any more costs. Revenue growth is now the key.
On the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve meeting, stock markets around the world sold off, literally. All the positive action so far this year has been incredibly tenuous, and the low trading volume said it all. I think we?re now in a mini-correction, induced by recent news from the Federal Reserve, although it won?t be a market-breaking pullback.
Right now, the prospects for gold, silver, and oil are terrible, and the near-term action in resource stocks is headed downward. We also have a lot of solid, dividend paying large-caps that are trading right near their highs and are due for a break.
It?s odd that the stock market reacted so negatively to the Federal Reserve?s latest news. Investors have been complaining about all the easy money and artificially low interest rates. The predictability of the stock market?s reaction to the Federal Reserve is telling of the herd mentality of the system. Wall Street really is just a big game.
The stock market is going to be convulsing near term, and the key for investors will be to keep focusing on what corporations are saying about their businesses. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE/WMT) reduced its first-quarter guidance just slightly because of higher gas prices and increased payroll taxes, but its fourth-quarter earnings beat consensus. The company also announced an 18% increase to its quarterly dividend, which is always welcome news. (See ?Show Me the Money? Just Ask Costco.?)
Federal Reserve monetary policy is responsible for the stock market action since the financial crisis and recession of 2008/2009. Corporations and the economy have been responsible for the slow growth in revenues and earnings since then, and the stock market is appropriately valued. Therefore, the near-term fundamentals haven?t really changed.
We have seen continued recovery in the U.S. housing market and even in employment (especially employment in the private sector). The industrial economy reported continued strength in the fourth quarter of 2012, and the technology sector is holding its own. All in all, the stock market is where it should be, and economic growth will be low and slow for the near future.
It?s going to be another wacky year for stocks, thanks to the Federal Reserve. Anything is possible these days, which is why it pays to be conservative with your holdings. For me, dividend paying blue chips continue to be the only stocks to own. Everything else really is a gamble.
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Source: http://www.profitconfidential.com/stock-market/the-feds-running-the-show-and-risk-keeps-going-up/
sovereign citizen komen chrome for android hatchet leah messer freedom riders 9th circuit court of appeals
More Choices, Less Commitment ? The Gospel Coalition Blog
"If I lived in Iowa, I'd be married with four children by now." Gregg Blatt is the CEO of Match.com's parent company. He's a 40-something bachelor living in Manhattan, and it's not entirely clear whether his wry comment aims to slight Iowa or New York.
Either way, it's clear that overwhelming choice can cripple commitment. Blatt himself wonders whether the glittering promise of online dating?your perfect match is only a click away?encourages us to become never-satisfied consumers of relationships, always looking to upgrade. And if we suspect we can easily find a superior choice on the Internet, how might that knowledge negatively affect the desire to invest in our current relationship, or even marriage? Assuming we one day get tired of compulsive consumption and decide to stop playing the field, will we be able to? Might the intoxication of choice lead to the death of commitment?and contentment?
Dan Slater thinks so. His recent article in The Atlantic implies that online dating, far from making marriage easier, is actually making it harder?by making commitment less likely:
The positive aspects of online dating are clear: the Internet makes it easier for single people to meet other single people with whom they might be compatible, raising the bar for what they consider a good relationship. But what if online dating makes it too easy to meet someone new? What if it raises the bar for a good relationship too high? What if the prospect of finding an ever-more-compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, in which we keep chasing the elusive rabbit around the dating track?
Slater's dog-track metaphor is strikingly apt. The rabbit isn't real, it's never caught, yet the greyhound still obsessively chases it. And the multiplying "rabbits" (as provided by the proliferation of online dating services) deceive us into believing that the odds of catching one have improved exponentially. In reality, as our expectations of relational satisfaction have risen, so has the likelihood of disappointment?and with it, the chances that we will keep on compulsively chasing. Of course, this process suits the online dating companies. "[T]he profit models of many online-dating sites are at cross-purposes with clients who are trying to develop long-term commitments," Slater observes.?"A permanently paired-off dater, after all, means a lost revenue stream." That's why most of the users on Match.com?are return customers, coaxed back into activity by plaintive "How could you leave us?" emails, and the consumer's own relational restlessness.?
Lowering the Bar
Evidence also suggests that even if we do finally commit to someone, the multiplicity of options makes it less likely we'll stay committed. Psychologist Barry Schwarz, author of The Paradox of Choice, argues that "a large array of options may diminish the attractiveness of what people actually choose, the reason being that thinking about the attractions of some of the unchosen options detracts from the pleasure derived from the chosen one."
In 2011, Mark Brooks, a consultant to online dating companies, published the results of an industry survey titled "How Has Internet Dating Changed Society?" The survey responses, from 39 executives, produced the following conclusions:
- "Internet dating may be partly responsible for a rise in the divorce rates."
- "Above all, Internet dating has helped people of all ages realize that there's no need to settle for a mediocre relationship."
- "Low quality, unhappy, and unsatisfying marriages are being destroyed as people drift to Internet dating sites."
- "The market is hugely more efficient. . . . People expect to?and this will be increasingly the case over time?access people anywhere, anytime, based on complex search requests. . . . Such a feeling of access affects our pursuit of love. . . . [T]he whole world (versus, say, the city we live in) will, increasingly, feel like the market for our partner(s). Our pickiness will probably increase."
- "Internet dating has made people more disposable."
That's frightening. But online dating is surely not the only cause of commitment-phobia. As Slater points out, gender may also play a role, though "researchers are divided on the question of whether men pursue more 'short-term mates' than women do." Certainly, with young women in the United States much more likely to graduate from college than their male peers, and college graduates much more likely to date other college graduates, men seem to have the luxury (or rather, the curse) of choice.
Then there is the pornography epidemic. It raises (or rather, lowers) the bar on what we expect of a prospective spouse because of its unremitting insistence on physical performance and cosmetic beauty, over and against mental and moral qualities. As Christian men, we may pray unctuously for the Lord to provide a wife of noble character (Proverbs 31:10-31), but our hearts are being continually conditioned to lust after the wife of maximal hotness. "Charm is deceitful," God protests, "and beauty is vain!" But we dismiss him like one of those impertinent pop-ups that gets in the way of what we really want to see.
Devastating Results
The devastating societal results are already being ruefully catalogued. The sexually graphic film?Shame (2011) sees a porn-addicted Michael Fassbender sloping from one brief encounter to another. Together in a hotel room with a beautiful woman who believes in monogamy, he is unable to perform. Because his only commitment is to an endless, open-ended lack of commitment, real intimacy eludes him. And by the time the film ends, we're not sure it will ever be regained.
?
Or take George Clooney in Up in the Air (2009). He plays a character whose aversion to emotional commitment means that, according to his own family, he has essentially ceased to exist. Taken in by the false promises of sexual "freedom," he has withheld commitment for years. And now that he wishes to give it, he's no longer free to do so.
Pointedly, The Velveteen Rabbit appears briefly in the film. It's a children's story about a stuffed toy rabbit who becomes real when he is loved. At one point, the rabbit asks the wise Skin Horse how the process happens.
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
It's a mesmerizing, sad story about how real love?real commitment?inevitably unmakes us. Perhaps that's partly why we're so afraid of it. But the story also explains why that "unmaking" is such a desirable thing.
It's how you become "real."
Our Undoing
Truly committing to another human being will certainly be our undoing. It requires substitutionary sacrifice: your life is subsumed in the quest for the other's contentment. In the case of marriage it means each person forsaking all others, which to the world looks like a very shabby prospect.
But this selfless giving of oneself to another human being holds unique power to make both the lover and the beloved truly beautiful. By losing their lives, they have gained them. But we can only taste this if we commit?and allow other to commit to us.
Committing to love at great cost to ourselves is the most desirable choice we can make in God's universe. He demonstrated this love for us on a tiny hill outside Jerusalem. He made the choice to love self-sacrificially. Forsaking all others, he committed himself to a particular people, at a particular time, in a particular place. Even the living God?powerful, sovereign, utterly free, whose triune nature means that he does not depend on others in order to love and be loved?nevertheless committed himself to love one bride.
Will we trade the deceptive and ever-declining thrills of choice-idolatry for the unique pleasures of commitment? We should do it, and soon. Because even if, by God's grace, our chains fall off, even if our dungeon flames with light, we may be powerless to get up and leave, because our hearts have been crippled. We put off commitment and venerate choice, idly believing that we will commit when we are ready. But when that day finally arrives, we may realize with widening eyes that we're no longer choosing sin. Sin is choosing us. We will have become imprisoned by choice.
And for those of us who have experienced this prison first-hand, isn't it strange when the world describes us as "butterflies"? That is too delicate, too lovely. Brothers and sisters, let me propose a more fitting insect: the moth. Drawn to the light but finally unable to enjoy it. Dulled. Restless. All-consuming.
Copyright ? 2013 by the author listed above. Used by permission.
Source: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/02/25/more-choices-less-commitment/
joe posnanski michael kidd gilchrist national championship calipari national archives brock lesnar kentucky
6 Superb Retro Gaming Accessories for the iPad
There are a megacrapton load of really great retro games available for the iPad, but playing them on the tablet's sophisticated touchscreen can feel a little, well, wrong.
To add an authentic dose of vintage goodness to your iPad game-playing, we've found six superb gaming accessories that will bring some arcade action to your Apple tablet.
Take a look through the options available to you in the image gallery above. Let us know in the comments below your favorite old-skool title for iOS.
Image courtesy of Flickr, GabeB
Source: http://mashable.com/2013/02/24/ipad-gaming-accessories/
4th Of July Desserts fireworks fireworks 4th of July Andy Griffith joe johnson scientology
Lawyer trapped, forgotten inside San Diego-area jail
By Tony Shin, NBCSanDiego.com
A North County lawyer is furious after being trapped and forgotten inside a local jail for hours.
Attorney Erubey Lopez spoke to NBC 7 about the ordeal for the first time Friday.
Lopez said it all began when he was trying to visit a client in jail on Tuesday. He went into a visiting room -- not knowing he would be trapped in there for hours.
Patiently waiting inside a locked visiting room, Lopez said he didn?t think anything unusual until a half hour passed and his client still hadn?t been brought down to him.
?I know it takes a while to get the people, so I?m patient,? said Lopez while recalling the ordeal. ?I don?t have my cellphone with me because the policy is you can?t use a cellphone inside the jail.?
At that point, Lopez said he tried to contact the guards through an intercom system inside the visiting room.
?So, I press the intercom button and nothing. I press it again, ?and it doesn?t work,? he explained.
A half-hour soon turns into an hour.
"At that time, I'm really mad, and I'm thinking, ?How can they forget about me?? So, I start hitting the door really loud to get someone to let me out."
Two hours go by. All the while, Lopez is screaming while pounding on the door.
He finally accepts the strong possibility that he'll be sleeping on the cold concrete floor.
"I have a sweater and a jacket, and I take off my sweater and I try to use it as a pillow," he said.
Lopez thinks about Daniel Chong, a UCSD student who was left inside a Kearny Mesa holding cell last April after being forgotten by DEA officers for five days. Chong would eventually file a claim asking for $20 million following the incident, which he called ?life-altering.?
Related stories at NBCSanDiego.com
?I can't imagine how you could last that long without going crazy," said Lopez.
Finally, after four long hours, Lopez said a guard heard him and freed him.
Lopez, who?s also a Vista Parks and Rec commissioner, said a sheriff?s official called him and apologized following the incident.
But the attorney is concerned about safety inside San Diego jails, saying a colleague later told him that the intercom he had used inside the visiting room had been broken for eight months.
?[What] if I was unhealthy ? had a heart attack? What if I had diabetes and had a sugar issue?? he pondered. ?If they hadn?t heard me with the screaming and banging ? there was no other way they were going to hear me.?
At this point, Lopez said he?s not sure if he plans to file a lawsuit.
elizabeth banks battle royale key largo arnold palmer invitational ryan madson louisiana primary syracuse basketball
Friday, February 22, 2013
Pistorius bail hearing nearing decision
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) ? The fourth and likely final day of Oscar Pistorius' bail hearing opened on Friday, with the magistrate then to rule if the double-amputee athlete can be freed before trial or if he has to remain in custody over the shooting death of his girlfriend.
The prosecution is expected to complete its arguments opposing bail. The defense rested on Thursday, and Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair can issue a ruling on bail at any time after arguments finish.
Pistorius is charged with one count of premediated murder over the Feb. 14 killing of Reeva Steenkamp. He says the shooting was accidental because he thought she was a dangerous intruder inside his home.
Steenkamp's Valentine's Day killing has seized the world's attention and there was intense focus Friday on if Pistorius would be released, and if so, with what conditions.
Pistorius' hands trembled as he said "good morning, your worship" as the court session began in Pretoria Magistrate's Court, in South Africa's capital.
Pistorius' longtime coach Ampie Louw said before proceedings began that he is considering putting his runner back in training if he is granted bail to allow him to "get his mind kind of clear."
Louw said he realizes that the Olympic athlete might not be emotionally ready to give any thought to running.
"The change is that he is heartbroken, that is all," Louw said in the courtroom, surrounded by reporters and television cameras. "For me it is tough to see that. Not to be able to reach out and sit next to him and say 'sorry, man, it was a terrible accident.' But I cannot do it, I must just sit here in court and that's all.
"The sooner he can start working the better." said Louw, who was the person who convinced the double amputee to take up track as a teenager a decade ago.
Nair will decide if Pistorius is freed with conditions or if he is held until trial. Pistorius faces the sternest bail conditions in South Africa because of the seriousness of the charge, meaning his defense lawyers have to prove there is an "exceptional" reason for him to be freed.
He has been held at a police station in Pretoria since last week, but suspects who are denied bail are typically held in a prison.
Defense lawyer Barry Roux argued on Thursday that the evidence backs up Pistorius' statement that he shot through a toilet door at his home because he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder, killing her by accident.
"I think there will be a level of shock in this country if he is not released (on bail)," Roux said in court.
Opposing bail, prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued Pistorius was too willing to shoot. The prosecution says Pistorius planned to kill his 29-year-old girlfriend, a model and budding reality TV star, after an argument in the early hours of Valentine's Day.
"The reason you fire four shots is to kill," Nel said.
Louw said he might put Pistorius ? who overcame the amputation of his lower legs as a baby to compete at last year's London Olympics ? back on a morning and afternoon training routine if he is freed, believing it might help him to be able to run track again.
"You must give him space," the coach said.
___
AP Sports Writer Gerald Imray contributed to this report from Johannesburg.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oscar-pistorius-bail-hearing-nearing-decision-073333252--oly.html
juan pablo montoya free pancakes at ihop martina navratilova high school shooting ohio school shooting sean young arrested matt kenseth
High school sports: Players of the Week for Feb. 21
Riley Jernejcic
School: Kirtland; Sport: Basketball
Year: Junior; Position: Guard
On the court: In an overtime tournament victory over Independence, had 17 points, including the game-winning basket.
Off the court: Favorite subject is English. Favorite show is "Gossip Girl." Favorite movie is "The Notebook." Favorite food is crab legs. Favorite team is the Cavaliers.
Kyle Burchett
School: Fairport; Sport: Basketball
Year: Senior; Position: Forward
On the court: In four wins, had 68 points 29 rebounds, 15 assists and five steals. Shot 60 percent from the field.
Off the court: "Chetty's" favorite subject is history, and he loves cheesy potatoes; favorite movie is "The Rock;" favorite shows are "Supernatural" and "NCIS." Continued...
Brianne Goodrich
School: West Geauga; Sport: Basketball
Year: Senior; Position: Forward
On the court: In a 63-59 win over Bedford, scored 30 points and grabbed 15 rebounds.
Off the court: "Goodie" enjoys sleeping and cooking. Favorite subject is math. Favorite shows are "Hart of Dixie," "House" and "Top Gear." Favorite movie is "10 Things I Hate About You." Supports Cleveland and Ohio sports teams, but her favorite team is the Chicago Bulls.
This is the final edition of players of the week for the winter season.
Source: http://news-herald.com/articles/2013/02/20/sports/nh6564468.txt
Duck Dynasty frankie muniz today show katt williams greg mcelroy new york post bob costas
Monday, February 18, 2013
Merrick gets his first win at home
John Merrick holds the winner's trophy after his victory in the Northern Trust Open golf tournament at Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
John Merrick holds the winner's trophy after his victory in the Northern Trust Open golf tournament at Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
John Merrick, left, poses with the his wife Jody and their children Chase, 1, and Gemma, 1 month old, after his victory in the Northern Trust Open golf tournament at Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
Charlie Beljan reacts to a putt on the first hole in the final round of the Northern Trust Open golf tournament at Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
John Merrick misses an eagle putt but makes birdie on the first green watches in the final round of the Northern Trust Open golf tournament at Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
Fredrik Jacobson, of Sweden, watches the eagle putt miss and makes birdie on the first green in the final round of the Northern Trust Open golf tournament at Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? John Merrick never allowed himself to think about winning at Riviera.
Not when he was a kid attending his local PGA Tour event. Not when he was at UCLA and could play the fabled course. And certainly not late Sunday afternoon in a playoff when he faced a daunting 3-iron shot under a row of eucalyptus trees, and his opponent was in the middle of the fairway with a wedge in his hand.
No wonder Merrick was at a loss for words when he won the Northern Trust Open.
"Yeah, you dream," Merrick said, his eyes still glossy. "When you're alone sometimes, you think about different scenarios of winning tournaments. It was fun. We would always play here at UCLA and have great games out here. To be able to play the tournament was a dream of mine. But to win? I can't describe it. It's so much fun."
Merrick hit the perfect shot under the trees on the 18th to escape with par, and he followed with another flawless shot to a skinny section of the 10th green on the second playoff hole to 18 feet. He made another par, and won when Charlie Beljan missed a 5-foot par putt.
It was the second straight year the Northern Trust Open was decided in a playoff on the 10th, a diabolical par 4 at 315 yards that requires skill and strategy, a hole where players are happy to walk off with par. Beljan made bogey twice on the 10th, once in a regulation and then when the tournament was on the line.
He went long and left both times, and in the playoff, his chip didn't quite reach the green and he took three putts from 70 feet.
"I think you could play here 10,000 times and still not know how to play No. 10," he said. "Eighteen is a great golf hole. I just find it tough that we go to No. 10 to play a playoff hole. I think it's a great hole, don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking it. But it's just a tough hole to have a playoff on. We might as well go and put a windmill out there and hit some putts."
Beljan, famous for having an anxiety attack when he won at Disney late last year, holed an 18-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole, similar to the theatrics provided last year by Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley, to close with a 4-under 67 and wind up in a playoff.
Merrick, who grew up in Long Beach, had a number of big breaks on the back nine. None was bigger than his second shot on the par-5 17th headed toward the trees, only to find that he had just enough of a gap to go for the green and make par. He had a 69 and finished on 11-under 273.
He also hit the trees with his tee shot on the 15th, and while it left him a hybrid to reach the green, it could have gone anywhere.
"You give me 100 balls off that tee, I'm not going to be there in that spot," Merrick said. "I just hit a bad tee shot and was able to make par there."
Such are the breaks it takes to win, and for Merrick, it was a long time coming. He won in his 169th start on the PGA Tour, earned another trip to the Masters and is virtually assured to qualifying for his first World Golf Championship next month at Doral.
Fredrik Jacobson missed a 4-foot par putt on the 18th hole that would have put the Swede in a playoff. He wound up with a 69 and tied for third with Charl Schwartzel (70) and Bill Haas (73), who also had chances to win at different stages in their rounds.
The final round contained far more drama than anyone imagined at the start of the day, when Haas had a three-shot lead. Six players were separated by one shot going into the final hour at Riviera, and it easily could have been a repeat of that six-man playoff in 2001 in the cold rain.
This pleasant day of bright sunshine brought a few cloudy moments.
Hunter Mahan was tied for the lead after a 30-foot birdie on the 14th, only to drop four shots on the last four holes. Nothing stung worse than the par-5 17th, where he three-putted from about 30 feet for bogey. He wound up with a 69. Jacobson was tied for the lead when he missed an 8-foot birdie attempt on the 17th, and then badly pulled a 4-foot par putt on the last hole and missed out on the playoff. The Swede closed with a 69, and bristled when asked about the final hole.
"You want me to touch that one, only that one? I cannot speak about something else?" he said, before eventually conceding, "The last putt wasn't very good."
No one was more disgusted than Schwartzel, the former Masters champion. One shot out of the lead, he missed a 10-foot birdie putt on the par-3 16th, and then three-putted the 17th, missing a 6-footer for birdie. He closed with a 70 and tied for third, his seventh straight finish in the top five around the world.
Haas faded much sooner. He made five bogeys in a seven-hole stretch in the middle of his round, and his birdie-birdie finish allowed him to tie for third.
"Positives to be taken, but overall, you don't get this many opportunities," Haas said. "A three-shot lead at one of the best tournaments of the year is a great opportunity that I squandered."
Haas looked to be in good position to join Mickelson, Mike Weir, Corey Pavin and Ben Hogan as the only back-to-back winners at Riviera. And when he dropped in a 30-foot birdie putt on the third hole, he looked as though he would be tough to catch.
Instead of running away from the field, he let everyone back into the tournament. Haas made back-to-back bogeys late on the front nine, and his lead was down to one when he made the turn. It all began to take shape at No. 10, the hole where a year ago Haas holed a 45-foot birdie putt to win in a playoff.
Merrick laid up on the short par 4, and his wedge was inches from tumbling into a front bunker when it checked up on the fringe. He made birdie from just inside 15 feet and tied Haas for the lead.
Haas went just through the green and rolled down a slope into the rough, and from there he pitched too strong and into the bunker. He failed to get up-and-down and made bogey to fall out of the lead for the first time all day, and he never caught up. His tee shots sailed into the trees and into the rough, and he was out of the picture.
Beljan's only bogey in the final round was on the 10th hole. He was flawless the rest of the way, until coming to the 10th hole in a playoff with the tournament on the line.
"I made every clutch putt that you would ever ask to make," Beljan said. "And then to make that putt on 18 and hear the roar was really special. Obviously, not the way I wanted to end it, but you know what? You win some, you lose some, and that's how it goes."
Associated Presssledge hammer tax day freebies madison bumgarner wnba draft tax day april 17 boston marathon
The Dangers of Testing by Monty Neill - Educational Equity, Politics ...
?February 2003 | Volume 60 | Number 5
Using Data to Improve Student Achievement Pages 43-46
An Equally Poor Outlook
If high-stakes tests have not led to improvement by now, will they ever? Two important factors suggest that even if they could in theory, they won't in practice.Socioeconomic effects. Low-income and African American and Latino students enter school substantially less prepared to do academic work than their middle-income (never mind wealthy) or white or Asian peers (Lee & Burkam, 2002). In addition, the first group attends schools that are far less prepared, in terms of teachers and physical resources, to teach them. Rothstein (2002) points out the vast disparities in housing, health care, and other supports available to children. Those who start with less get less, and as a result they either fail to catch up or fall even further behind. Without major social investments in both classroom and out-of-school supports for low-income children, it is absurd to believe that more tests will enable schools to overcome the gaps in academic learning.
Several reports over the past few years have purported to show that large numbers of schools serving low-income students have succeeded in overcoming the effects of poverty. More careful studies, however, have shown these claims to be at best wildly inflated and often completely misleading (Krashen, 2002). Simply demanding higher scores, even with rewards and sanctions attached, will not do the job.
Teaching to the test. Any exam can only sample the curriculum that students should learn. For test results to be valid measures of real learning, students must have been taught a full curriculum. If instruction narrows to focus on the limited sample covered by the test, scores become inflated and misleading. This largely explains the difference between results on state-specific tests and those on such neutral measures as the NAEP.
Many supporters of test-driven ?reform? argue that it will at least guarantee that teachers teach the basics (which the test will supposedly cover), and will thereby initiate a positive reform process. Unfortunately, test-driven schooling often fails to provide even the basics. For example, some reading teachers teach students to ?read? by looking over the answer options to questions attached to short reading passages and then searching the passage to find a clue for selecting the answer. Others drill phonics, but never get to comprehension. As a result, independent evaluators find that the students cannot explain what they have just read?meaning they actually cannot read (McNeil & Valenzuela, 2001).
A Flawed Concept
Testing proponents believe that focusing on a limited set of skills and facts will prepare students for further education?a theory based on profound misunderstandings of how humans learn. Shepard (2000) has demonstrated the mismatch between tests and learning, a point also developed in rich detail in several books from the National Academy of Sciences (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001). In short, humans learn best through active thinking. ?Learning? while not thinking is like remembering lists of phone numbers one will never call. Memorization of facts and procedures has its place, but deep learning must engage the brain and spur thinking. Teaching to the test rarely accomplishes either.Overall, state tests do not do a good job of measuring state standards, particularly higher-level thinking. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that state exams poorly matched state standards and measured mostly lower-level thinking (Wisconsin Center for Educational Research, 1999).
In a high-quality education, students conduct science experiments, solve real-world math problems, write research papers, read and analyze books, make oral presentations, evaluate and synthesize information from a variety of fields, and apply their learning to new and ill-defined situations. This work provides them with both deeper substantive knowledge and higher-level thinking skills. Standardized paper-and-pencil tests are poor tools for evaluating these important kinds of learning. If instruction focuses on the test, students will not learn the skills that they need for success in college and beyond.
What's the Alternative?
If focusing instruction on large-scale, high-stakes tests will not lead to genuine improvements in our nation's schools, what should schools do in response to high-stakes testing mandates?Educators can take some comfort from the knowledge that employing richer curriculum and instruction is likely to somewhat improve standardized test scores (Center for Collaborative Education, 2001; Institute for Education and Social Policy, 2001). In Chicago, students of teachers who used more interactive rather than exclusively didactic instructional approaches gained more than their peers on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (Newmann, Bryk, & Nagaoka, 2001; Smith, Lee, & Newmann, 2001).
One can also assess higher-level attributes. Teachers do it all the time. Studies of a group of small schools in New York City and similar schools in Boston described these successful schools as having high standards and rigorous assessments (Center for Collaborative Education, 2001; Institute for Education and Social Policy, 2001). The high schools often require students to present and defend their work in a number of subject areas to earn a diploma. A committee that typically includes outside experts reviews the work. As Meier (2002) says, these high standards do not entail the standardization or drill-and-kill imposed through high-stakes exams.
These high-quality schools in New York and Boston generally do not focus on teaching to the test; indeed, many are struggling to avoid being coerced into becoming test-prep programs. They demonstrate their success by far more than test scores. Deborah Meier's Central Park East Secondary School, for example, prepares low-income students not only to enroll in college but also to succeed there?a far more important goal than merely increasing their test scores (Meier, 1995). Indeed, Meier has often pointed out that although her students learned to succeed, their standardized test scores did not necessarily show substantial gains. These schools succeed not by teaching to standardized tests but by teaching for deeper, important learning.
Some have argued that such schools cannot be replicated. They presume that test-driven improvements can be. However, researchers from the Dana Center went hunting for successful Texas school districts that had improved scores and closed racial score gaps (Skrla, Scheurich, & Johnson, 2000). Using modest criteria that were overly dependent on TAAS scores?enrollment of 5,000 or more students; high poverty levels; and 50 percent of the high- poverty schools in the district categorized as Recognized or Exemplary on the basis of their state test scores?they studied data from all Texas districts. They found only 11 districts to examine closely, which they reduced in the end to 4 successful districts. In other words, after nearly a decade in which the state had focused on high-stakes testing, sympathetic researchers found only a few districts in the state to meet their narrow criteria for success.
Unlike high-stakes testing, which undermines good schools and prevents real improvement, better forms of assessment can play a powerful role in improving schools. Most important is assessment that provides meaningful, usable feedback to students and engages them in self-evaluation. A research summary of more than 250 articles and chapters by Black and Wiliam (1998) found that formative assessment can contribute more to improving outcomes (primarily as measured by test scores) than any other school-based factor, benefiting low achievers more than high achievers. In other words, formative assessment helps raise everyone's achievement while also closing the gaps?which test-driven reform has not done. This approach, however, requires treating teachers as professionals, improving professional development, and spending more money.
Rather than chasing the illusion that test-driven change will produce significantly improved learning, policymakers need to shift attention to practices and models that emphasize serious thinking and skilled teaching. If we do less, we consign far too many students to a continued second-class education. At the moment, few policymakers recognize this. It appears that to get on the path of genuine improvement, educators and parents will have to join together to beat back test-based ?reform.?
References
Amrein, A., & Berliner, D. (2002). High-stakes testing, uncertainty, and student learning. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(18). [Online]. Available: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n18Barton, P. E. (2002, January). Raising achievement and reducing gaps. Washington, DC: National Education Goals Panel.
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998, October). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 139?148.
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school, expanded edition. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Center for Collaborative Education (CCE). (2001). How are Boston pilot schools faring? An analysis of student demographics, engagement, and performance [Online]. Available: www.ccebos.org/quant_report_final.pdf Haney, W. (2000). The myth of the Texas miracle in education. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8(41). [Online]. Available: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n41 Haney, W. (2001). Revisiting the myth of the Texas miracle in education: Lessons about dropout research and dropout prevention. Paper prepared for the ?Dropout Research: Accurate Counts and Positive Interventions? conference sponsored by Achieve and the Harvard Civil Rights Project, January 13, 2001, Cambridge, MA. [Online]. Available: www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/dropouts/haney.pdfInstitute for Education and Social Policy. (2001, December). Final report of the evaluation for New York Networks for School Renewal. New York: Author.
Jacob, B. (2001). Getting tough? The impact of high school graduation exams. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(2), 99?121.
Lee, V. E., & Burkham, D. T. (2002). Inequality at the starting gate. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
McNeil, L., & Valenzuela, A. (2001). The harmful impact of the TAAS system of testing in Texas: Beneath the accountability rhetoric. In G. Orfield & M. L. Kornhaber (Eds.), Raising standards or raising barriers? Inequality and high-stakes testing in public education (pp. 127?150). New York: Century Foundation Press.
Meier, D. (1995). The power of their ideas. Boston: Beacon Press.
Meier, D. (2002). In schools we trust. Boston: Beacon Press.
Neill, M., & Gaylor, K. (2001). Do high-stakes graduation tests improve learning outcomes? Using state-level NAEP data to evaluate the effects of mandatory graduation tests. In G. Orfield & M. L. Kornhaber (Eds.), Raising standards or raising barriers? Inequality and high-stakes testing in public education (pp. 107?126). New York: Century Foundation Press.
Newmann, F. M., Bryk, A. S., & Nagaoka, J. K. (2001, January). Authentic intellectual work and standardized tests: Conflict or coexistence? Chicago: Chicago Consortium on School Research.
Pellegrino, J. W., Chudowsky, N., & Glaser, R. (Eds.). (2001). Knowing what students know: The science and design of educational assessment. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Rothstein, R. (2002). Out of balance: Our understanding of how schools affect society and how society affects schools. Chicago: Spencer Foundation.
Shepard, L. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4?14.
Skrla, L., Scheurich, J. J., & Johnson, J. H., Jr. (2000, September). Equity-driven achievement-focused school districts. Austin, TX: Charles A. Dana Center, University of Texas.
Smith, J. B., Lee, V. E., & Newmann, F. E. (2001, January). Instruction and achievement in Chicago elementary schools. Chicago: Chicago Consortium on School Research.
Wisconsin Center for Educational Research. (1999, Fall). Are state-level standards and assessments aligned? WCER Highlights, 1?3. Madison, WI: Author.
Monty Neill is Executive Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) in Cambridge, MA; monty@fairtest.org.Source: http://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-dangers-of-testing-by-monty-neill.html
steven tyler tropic thunder carnie wilson missing reese witherspoon pregnant billy joel bent
Sunday, February 17, 2013
iPhone app 'could have landed parents with ?200 bill'
In-app advertising on iPhones and iPads can leave parents with an unexpected bill. Photograph: Alamy
Parents are being urged to be vigilant with their iPhones and iPad, following warnings by parenting groups about "immoral" in-app advertisements that could see children unwittingly spending hundreds of pounds.
The adverts are another controversy for developers, who have previously been criticised for including expensive in-app purchases within popular children's apps.
The latest warning followed the launch of an iPhone app that could have resulted in children signing up to a ?208 a year subscription service.
The Talking Friends Cartoons app, available on iPhone, iPad and Android devices, is based on the Talking Friends apps from developer Outfit7, including Talking Tom Cat and Talking Lila the Fairy. It allows users to learn more about their favourite characters, download wallpapers for their phones as well as watch short cartoons co-produced with Disney.
The app itself is free, but at the bottom of every screen is an banner that, when the app was first launched, carried an advert directing users to a quiz to win a 64GB iPad, promoted by a company called Yamoja.
To take part in the competition, users had to sign up to a subscription service costing ?4 a week, for which they received four weekly texts containing content such as "funtones, wallpapers, games, celeb news & more".
App commentator Stuart Dredge, who wrote about the adverts on his Apps Playground blog, said: "What an advert that tries to sign you up to a ?4-a-week mobile content subscription was doing inside this app is genuinely beyond me."
The advert has been pulled from the app, but another new launch, this time from National Geographic, includes an costly in-app extra.
Dino Land app ? released in mid-February 2013 ? has attracted controversy for allowing users to buy extra virtual "bones" in amounts up to ?69.99. The bones, used to speed up gameplay, are particularly enticing to impatient children who wish to complete the game quicker.
Dino Land follows a succession of apps aimed at children that feature expensive in-app purchases, including Playmobil Pirates, Coin Dozer and Racing Penguin. Parenting websites are reporting increasing instances of parents being charged ?500 or more after their children have made in-app purchases while playing games ? and advise parents to ensure their devices block the purchases.
Justine Roberts, Mumsnet co-founder and CEO, said: "App-developers need to build in greater controls from the start ? it's shocking that a few click-throughs from an advert can lead to a ?200 cost for unknowing parents, and it shows just how important it is to keep an eye on your child's device settings."
Siobhan Freegard, founder of parenting site Netmums, added: "Few people mind a couple of targeted ads which are relevant to the app service, as they realise it's the price to pay for the 'free' app. But bombarding children using free apps with expensive products and services they can unwittingly sign up to a couple of clicks is immoral."
Developers regularly offer apps for free, making their money from advertising or from users making "in-app purchases" (IAPs). These buy paid-for perks that often improve a game or offer the chance to play without adverts, but are controversial in apps aimed at children and can cost parents money if the purchase itself is not password protected.
When developers create a game they often contract out the advertising within it to a specialist, which can serve adverts from hundreds of different organisations.
The adverts in the Talking Friends Cartoons app are served by Google, which allows app developers and publishers to have control over the advertising content on their apps.
Samo Login, CEO of Outfit7, said his company pulled the adverts from the app as soon as it was alerted. He explained: "We have a strict policy in place regarding what advertisements are displayed within our apps and take this issue very seriously. Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch within one of our ad networks, this advert was displayed against our advertising policy."
Outfit7 attracted controversy when it emerged in October 2012 that its Talking Ginger app featured adverts from payday loans company Wonga. Wonga later pulled its adverts from the app.
The Talking Friends series of apps have been downloaded more than 600 million times, with 120 million people a month and 10 million people a day actively using them.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/feb/15/iphone-app-parents-bill
Jason Babin Nolan Daniels angus t. jones monday night football monday night football SEC Championship Game 2012 kansas city chiefs
Antiques show draws large crowd in 53rd year - WREX.com ...
For 53 years, folks have faithfully come to the Northern Illinois Antiques Dealers Association show.
Forty dealers from throughout the Midwest offer quality antiques and collectibles.? 19th and 20th century furniture, potter and textiles are featured.
Mary Lou's Glass and China repair was also available for the show.
Dealers share their knowledge of the items showcased at the event and help you find what fits best in your collection or home.
Source: http://www.wrex.com/story/21225713/2013/02/16/antiques-show-draws-large-crowd-in-53rd-year
jimmy fallon jimmy fallon nick collins dave matthews ambien wwdc madden 13 cover
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Lindsay Lohan Now Faces Losing Her Long Island Home
Lindsay Lohan Now Faces Losing Her Long Island Home
Lindsay Lohan may be losing her home now, after her mortgage company Chase Bank served her with foreclosure paperwork yesterday. Lindsay and her mother Dina risk losing their mansion in Long Island, New York, which the troubled actress moved back into recently. A process server that delivered the documents yesterday, confirmed that the notice was ...
Lindsay Lohan Now Faces Losing Her Long Island Home Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/02/lindsay-lohan-now-faces-losing-her-long-island-home/
whale shark whale shark platypus platypus overboard east of eden weather radio
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)