forex analysis

Nepal Government considers snooping bribery allegations

2010-09-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

Nepal government is mulling investigating the bribery allegations with a possible Maoist-China link, after demands for a probe were raised by political parties and citizens groups alike.
The case involving UCPN-Maoist leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara surfaced after an audio tape was leaked to the media in which he was reportedly heard asking a Chinese official Rs50 crore, apparently for weaning away Madhesi lawmakers ahead of the seventh prime ministerial run off, and has led to an chaos in the country.

A demonstration was held in front of the Chinese deputation by youth organisation, Independent Youth Group Nepal.
The members of the group demonstrated against the reported intrusion by China in the political affairs of Nepal, and handed over a protest note to an embassy official.
Taking serious note of the allegations, the Nepalese cabinet said it is considering establishing a probe committee to look into the event."The government will ask the Constituent Assembly chairman Nemwang and the Attorney General on the issue of forming a probe pane to look into on the audio tape scandal," said government orator Shanker Pokharel.
In advance, Nepali Congress (NC) members and leaders of civil society submitted letters of complaint to the chairman of the constituent assembly (CA) Subash Chandra Nemwang.
A delegation comprising NC leaders, including chief beat in the Paliament, Laxman Ghimire, and general secretary Bimalendra Nidhi submitted a memorandum to Nemwang and expressed concern over the shame.

Maoist leader Mahara was allegedly heard demanding Rs500 million from a Chinese official allegedly to buy 50 lawmakers to ensure Prachanda's victory in the prime ministerial run-off.
Ahead of the seventh round of voting in the parliament, a delegation of civil society leaders also submitted a memorandum to Nemwang demanding that the voting be postponed and the allegations be thoroughly probed.

Chinese officials involved in Daimler bribery case

2010-09-03T16:06:00.000-07:00

Daimler was charged by the US government of offering bribes worth tens of millions of dollars to foreign government officials in at least 22 countries, for contracts between 1998 and 2008.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), China's largest oil refiner, is also involved in the case.
The kickbacks of cash and gifts of luxury armored cars, golf clubs and vacations helped secure government contracts from countries including China, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Cote d'Ivoire, Latvia, Nigeria, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
According to the file released by the court, during 2001 to 2005, Daimler Chrysler paid at least 4.1 million euros (37.31 million yuan) in "commissions," "gifts" and lavish vacation to Chinese government officials and in return the car company received contracts worth 112 million euros from Chinese firms.
Many of these payments were made through "third-party accounts" that were supervised by the most senior management of Daimler's sales operations. The file showed that Daimler and Daimler Chrysler China had a bank account named "special commission" with an account number that ended with "819". The money in this account was used to bribe Chinese officials.
The file also showed that during 2001 to 2004, Daimler and Daimler Chrysler China employees offered graft of at least 188,800 euros through the "third-party account" to obtain contracts worth 5.53 million euros.
On February 28, 2002, Daimler offered 18,000 euros in bribes through Texas-based firm Shores International to the wife of a Chinese government official as commission. The money was used in a transaction involving a car worth 1.01 million euros to Sinopec.
Almost a year later on February 21, 2003, Texas-based company Lily Energy Service gave 15,000 euros to Changqing Petroleum Exploration Bureau to sell six trucks worth 492,000 euros each.
Also, the file claimed that Daimler gave about 2.6 million euros to Chinese government officials to ensure receiving contracts worth 71.56 million euros from Sinopec and BGP. The money was given to senior managers of Sinopec and BGP as well as their families.
Daimler admitted previously that it made hundreds of improper payments, but said that the company would cooperate with the investigation.
Sources disclosed that Daimler has reached an agreement with the US government to pay $185 million in fines to end the long-running investigatio

Who to Bribe in China and How Much

2010-08-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

Kickback. Carrot. Sweetener. Inducement. Backhander. They’re all synonyms for “bribe.”
Whatever you call it, bribery’s just a normal part of doing business in certain corners of the world. China, for example. For all its pre-Olympics tightening-up, business in China is still fueled by bribery. At least that’s what TRACE International has found. TRACE – a U.S.-based, non-profit association that counsels international companies on bribery – says that 148 reports detailing bribery demands in China were filed through its anonymous reporting system between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008.

How did it break down? Who requested the bribes, what did they request, and how much did they want?

* Major requestors included government officials (38 percent), government employees (14 percent), police, judiciary, and communist party officials (33 percent), with NGO reps, private companies and others taking up the remainder.

* What were they asking for? Cash or its equivalent made up the bulk of the bribery requests (77 percent). Nine percent requested hospitality and/or entertainment. The rest wanted things like “gifts,” “travel,” and “sexual favors.”

* The amount of bribes ranged from $20 to more than $500,000, with most requests coming in between $101 and $10,000.

Bribery

2010-08-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

Bribery Act 2010

The Bribery Act reforms the illegal law to offer a new, modern and complete scheme of bribery offences that will enable courts and prosecutors to respond more effectively to bribery at home or abroad.

The Act will:

* provide a more effective legal framework to battle bribery in the public or private sectors

* replace the fragmented and complex offences at common law and in the Prevention of Corruption Acts 1889-1916

* create two general offences covering the offering, promising or giving of an advantage, and requesting, agreeing to receive or accepting of an advantage

* create a discrete offence of bribery of a foreign public official

* create a new offence of failure by a commercial organisation to prevent a bribe being paid for or on its behalf (it will be a defence if the organisation has adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery)

* require the Secretary of State to publish guidance about procedures that relevant commercial organisations can put in place to prevent bribery on their behalf

* help tackle the threat that bribery poses to economic progress and development around the world.

Creative skills flow for World Water Day

2009-02-25T05:07:00.000-08:00

Gold Coast prep, primary and secondary students are tapping into their creative skills in the lead up to World Water Day (March 22).

Council’s Water Management Committee Chair, Councillor Daphne McDonald said the city’s students had been asked to paint, draw and collage ‘the value of a sustainable water future’.

“This inaugural art competition coincides with World Water Day and will raise awareness of our precious water resources and how we should use them wisely,” she said.

“Gold Coast Water is asking students to put their creative skills to the test by entering the World Water Day School Art Competition.

“The exciting competition forms part of the 'Make your water mark!' Watersaver Education Program, which aims to engage students and the school community on water sustainability issues and conservation practices.

“Water conservation continues to be a priority in our daily lives and I encourage students to make their water mark and encourage others to do the same.”

Gear

2009-01-22T05:00:00.001-08:00

A gear is a wheel with teeth around its circumference, the purpose of the teeth being to mesh with similar teeth on another mechanical device possibly another gear wheel so that force can be transmitted between the two strategies in a direction tangential to their surfaces. A non-toothed wheel can transmit some tangential force but will slip if the force is large; teeth put off slippage and permit the transmission of large forces.

A gear can mesh with any device having teeth friendly with the gear's teeth. Such devices include racks and other non-rotating policy; however, the most common condition is for a gear to be in mesh with another gear. In this case revolution of one of the gears necessarily causes the other gear to rotate. In this way, rotational motion can be transferred from one position to another. While gears are sometimes used simply for this reason to transmit rotation to another shaft perhaps their most significant feature is that, if the gears are of asymmetrical sizes, a mechanical advantage is also achieved, so that the rotational speed, and torque, of the second gear are dissimilar from that of the first. In this way, gears provide a means of increasing or decreasing a turning speed, or a torque.

Wilderness

2008-12-11T04:48:00.001-08:00

Wilderness is generally defined as a natural environment on Earth that has not been directly modified by human activity. Ecologists consider wilderness areas to be an integral part of the planet's self-sustaining natural ecosystem.

The word, wilderness, derives from the notion of wildness; in other words that which is not controllable by humans. The word's etymology is from the Old English wilderness, which in turn derives from wilder meaning wild beast (wild + deor = beast, deer). From this point of view, it is the wildness of a place that makes it a wilderness. The mere presence or activity of people does not disqualify an area from being wilderness. Many ecosystems that are, or have been, inhabited or influenced by activities of people may still be considered wild. This way of looking at wilderness includes areas within which natural processes operate without very noticeable human interference.

Looked at through the lens of the visual arts, nature and wildness have been important subjects in various epochs of world history. An early tradition of landscape art occurred in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The tradition of representing nature as it is became one of the aims of Chinese painting and was a significant influence in Asian art. Artists learned to depict mountains and rivers from the perspective of nature as a whole and on the basis of their understanding of the laws of nature … as if seen through the eyes of a bird. In the 13th century, Shih Erh Chi listed scenes lacking any places made inaccessible by nature, as one of the 12 things to avoid in painting.

Hockey

2008-10-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

Hockey is any of a family of sports in which two teams struggle by trying to maneuver a ball, or a hard, surrounding disc called a puck, into the opponent's net or goal, using a hockey stick. Field hockey is played on nettle, natural grass, sand-based or water-based artificial turfs, with a small, hard ball. The game is popular among both males and females in many countries of the world, mostly in Europe, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South Asia. In most countries, the game is played between single-sex sides, even though it can be played by mixed-sex sides. In the United States and Canada it is played mostly by women.

Ball hockey is played in a gym using sticks and a ball, often a tennis ball with the hair removed.
There are early representations and reports of hockey-type games being played on ice in the Netherlands, and reports from Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century, but the modern game was initially planned by students at McGill University, Montreal in 1875 who, by two years later, codified the first set of ice hockey rules and organized the first teams.

Computers

2008-09-17T05:53:00.001-07:00

Computers take numerous physical forms. The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century, although the computer concept and various machines similar to computers existed prior. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers. Modern computers are based on comparatively tiny integrated circuits and are millions to billions of times more capable while occupying a fraction of the space. Today, simple computers may be made small enough to fit into a wrist watch and be powered from a watch battery. Personal computers in various forms are icons of the information age and are what most people think of as "a computer". However, the most common form of computer in use today is by far the embedded computer. Embedded computers are small, simple devices that are often used to control other devices-for example, they may be found in machines ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, and even children's toys.

The ability to store and execute lists of instructions called programs makes computers extremely versatile and distinguishes them from calculators. The Church-Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: Any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore, computers with capability and complexity ranging from that of a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks given enough time and storage capacity.

Hobbies

2008-07-11T09:36:00.001-07:00

A hobby-horse was a wood or wickerwork toy made to be ride just like the actual hobby. From this game the appearance to ride one's hobby-horse, meaning to follow a favourite pastime, and in turn, hobby in the modern sense of recreation. Hobbies are practised for interest and satisfaction, rather than financial reward. Examples include collecting, creative and artistic pursuits, building, tinkering, sports and adult education. Engaging in a hobby can lead to acquiring significant skill, knowledge, and experience.

However, personal realization is the aim. What are hobbies for some people are professions for others, a game tester may enjoy cooking as a hobby, while a qualified cheif might enjoy playing computer games. Generally speaking, the person who does something for fun, not remuneration, is called an recreational as distinct from a professional. An important determinant of what is considered a hobby, as individual from a profession is probably.

Birds

2008-05-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

Many species of bird undertake long distance annual migrations, and many more perform shorter irregular movements. Birds are social and communicate using visual signals and through calls and song, and participate in social behaviors including cooperative hunting, cooperative breeding, flocking and mobbing of predators. Birds are primarily socially monogamous, with engagement in extra-pair copulations being common in some species-other species have polygamous or polyandrous breeding systems. Eggs are regularly laid in a nest and incubated and most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching.

Birds are economically important to humans: many are important sources of food, acquired either through hunting or farming, and they provide other products. Some species, particularly songbirds and parrots, are popular as pets. Birds figure prominently in all aspects of human culture from religion to poetry and popular music. About 120-130 species have become extinct as a result of human activity since 1600, and hundreds more before this. Currently around 1,200 species of birds are threatened with extinction by human activities and efforts are underway to protect them.

Christopher Columbus

2008-03-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

Christopher Columbus (bt. August and October 1451 – May 20, 1506) was a route-finder, conqueror, and explorer who was helpful in Spanish colonization of the Americas. Though not the first to reach the Americas from Europe, Columbus' voyages led to general European consciousness of the hemisphere and the successful establishment of European cultures in the New World. Historical compromise claims that he was born in Genoa, although other minor theories exist. The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Also well known are his name's rendering in modern Italian as Cristoforo Colombo, in Portuguese as Cristóvão Colombo, and in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón.

Columbus' voyages across the Atlantic Ocean began a European effort at investigation and colonization of the Western Hemisphere. While history places great consequence on his first voyage of 1492, he did not actually reach the American mainland until his third voyage in 1498. Instead, he made landfall on an island in the Bahamas Archipelago that he named San Salvador while trying to find a sea route to India, hence the aboriginal populace being called "Indians". Likewise, he was not the earliest European explorer to reach the Americas, and there are accounts of European transatlantic contact prior to 1492. Nevertheless, Columbus's expedition came at a critical time of growing national imperialism and economic competition between developing nation states seeking wealth from the establishment of trade routes and colonies. The term Pre-Columbian is sometimes used to refer to the people and cultures of the Americas before the influx of Columbus and further European persuade.

Beauty

2008-02-11T03:58:00.000-08:00

Beauty is commonly defined as a distinctive present in a person, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of delight, meaning or satisfaction to the mind or to the eyes, arising from sensory manifestations such as a shape, color, persona, sound, design or rhythm. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology and culture. Beauty, as a cultural creation, is also tremendously commercialized.

The subjective experience of "beauty" often involves the elucidation of some entity as being in balance and concord with nature, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a common idiom attributed to this concept.

In its most profound sense, beauty may provoke a relevant experience of positive reflection about the meaning of one's own existence. An "object of beauty" is anything that reveals or resonates with personal meaning. Hence sacred and moral teachings often focus on the religion and virtue of beauty, and to assert natural beauty as an aspect of a mysticism and truth.

Beach volleybal

2008-01-11T20:08:00.001-08:00

Beach volleyball is an Olympic group sport played on sand. Two teams, positioned on either side of a net which divides rectangular court, hit volleyball, usually using the hands or arms.

It is evolved from indoor volleyball, and the two sports remain very similar: a team scores points by foundation the ball on the opponents' court, or when the opposing team commits a fault teams can contact the ball no more than three times before the ball crosses the net; and consecutive contacts must be made by unlike players. The most important differences between beach and indoor volleyball are the playing surface, and the team size. There are many minor differences as well, including each half of the court actions 8 by 8 meters.

If a jamming player touches the ball, but it continues onto his side of the net, the block counts as the first contact. Open-hand dinks, where a player uses his or her finger tips to redirect the ball into the opponent's court, are banned. It is legal to cross under the net as long as doing so does not hamper with the opponents' attempt to play the ball. Players are not necessary to rotate positions; they must alternate check, but there are no rotation errors.

LED

2007-12-27T03:17:00.001-08:00

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits incoherent narrow-spectrum light when electrically prejudiced in the forward direction of the p-n junction. This effect is a structure of electroluminescence. An LED is usually a small area source, often with extra optics added to the chip that shapes its energy pattern. The color of the emitted light depends on the composition and situation of the semi conducting material used, and can be infrared, noticeable, or near-ultraviolet.

LEDs produce more light per watt than do luminous bulbs; this is useful in battery powered or energy-saving devices. It can emit light of an proposed color without the use of color filters that traditional lighting methods require. This is more proficient and can lower initial costs. The solid put together of an LED can be designed to focus its light. Incandescent and fluorescent sources often need an external reflector to collect light and direct it in a usable manner. When used in applications where dimming is required, LEDs do not change their color tint as the current transient through them is lowered, unlike incandescent lamps, which turn yellow. They are ideal for use in applications that are subject to common on-off cycling, unlike fluorescent lamps that burn out more rapidly when cycled frequently, or HID lamps that require a long time before restarting.

Hardware

2007-12-18T02:22:00.000-08:00

Hardware is a general term that refers to the physical artifacts of a technology. It may also mean the physical components of a computer system.

Hardware historically meant the metal parts and fittings that were used to make wooden products stronger, more functional, longer lasting and easier to fabricate or assemble. In modern usage it includes equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, corners, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts, especially when they are made of metal. In the United States, this type of hardware has been traditionally sold in hardware stores, a term also used to a lesser extent in the UK.

In the electronics and especially computer industries, computer hardware specifically means the physical or tangible parts of the equipment, such as circuit boards, keyboards, monitors etc., in contrast to non-physical software running on the computer or other device.

In a more colloquial sense, hardware can refer to major items of military equipment, such as tanks, aircraft or ships.

LCD

2007-11-30T08:50:00.001-08:00

A liquid crystal display (LCD) is a thin, flat display appliance made up of any number of color or monochrome pixels arrayed in front of a light source or reflector. It is prized by engineers because it uses very little amounts of electric power, and is therefore suitable for use in battery-powered electronic devices. In color LCDs each individual pixel is separated into three cells, or subpixels, which are coloured red, green, and blue, respectively, by additional filters. Each subpixel can be controlled independently to defer thousands or millions of possible colors for each pixel. Older CRT monitors employ a similar sub pixel structures via the use of phosphors, although the analog electron beam employed in CRTs do not hit correct subpixels.

Color components may be arrayed in a range of pixel geometries, depending on the monitor's usage. If software knows which type of geometry is being used in a given LCD, this can be used to increase the evident resolution of the monitor through subpixel rendering.

River

2007-11-26T03:06:00.000-08:00

A river is a natural waterway that transits water through a setting from higher to lower elevations. A river may have its basis in a spring, lake, from damp, boggy landscapes where the soil is waterlogged, from glacial melt, or from surface runoff of precipitation. Almost each and every one river is joined by other rivers and streams termed tributaries the highest of which are known as headwaters. Water may also begin from groundwater sources. Throughout the course of the river, the total volume transported downstream will often be a combination of the free water flow together with a important contribution flowing through sub-surface rocks and gravels that underlie the river and its floodplain. For many rivers in large valleys, this unseen component of flow may greatly go above the visible flow.

From their source, all rivers flow downhill, typically terminating in the sea or in a lake, through a confluence. In arid areas rivers sometimes end by losing water to desertion. River water may also infiltrate into the soil or pervious rock, where it becomes groundwater. Excessive abstraction of water for use in commerce, irrigation, etc., can also cause a river to dry before success its natural terminus.

Cloud

2007-10-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

The color of a cloud tells much about what is going on in the interior of the cloud. Clouds form when relatively warm air containing water vapor is lighter than its nearby air and this causes it to rise. As it rises it cools and the vapor condenses out of the air as micro-droplets. These minute particles of water are fairly densely packed, and sunlight cannot go through far into the cloud before it is reflected out, giving a cloud its attribute white color. As a cloud matures, the droplets may join to produce larger droplets, which may themselves merge to form droplets large enough to fall as rain. In this process of accretion, the space between droplets becomes larger and larger, permitting light to enter much farther into the cloud.

If the cloud is satisfactorily large, and the droplets within are spaced far enough apart, it may be that a percentage of the light which enters the cloud is not reflected back out before it is absorbed .This process of reflection/absorption is what leads to the range of cloud color from white through grey through black. For the same reason, the undersides of large clouds and heavy overcasts appear various degrees of grey; little light is being reflected or transmitted back to the observer.

Entertainment

2007-10-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

Entertainment is an occasion, piece, or movement designed to give enjoyment or leisure to an audience. The audience may join in the entertainment passively as in actively as in computer games. The playing of sports and reading of journalism are usually included in entertainment, but these are regularly called activity more specifically, because they involve some energetic participation past mere leisure. While people have laughing themselves since the beginning of time, the entertainment industry first became a leading force in culture in the 20th century with the development of latest electronic technologies of recording and spreading.

Western peoples, tired of serious purposes and gathering massacre, turned to popular culture following the two world wars. The financial basis of this new culture was advertising of free or inexpensive entertainment program. In their peak, television networks were great selling machines which, besides entertaining people, prohibited both commercial and political markets by providing direct access to the group of customers. This "territory" is now in danger by the explosion and segmentation of media and especially by the growing importance of communication by computer which allows the consumer to look for out the informational message as an alternative of having it broadcast to him or her. A new system of world history sees Americans in changeover between a fourth, entertainment-based "society" and a future fifth evolution based on computer communication.

Computer

2007-10-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

A computer is a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions. Computers take plentiful physical forms. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, overriding as much power as several hundred modern personal computers. Today, computers can be made small enough to fit into a wrist watch and be powered from a watch battery. Society has come to distinguish personal computers and their portable equivalent, the laptop computer, as icons of the information age; they are what most people think of as a computer. However, the most general form of computer in use today is by far the embedded computer. Embedded computers are small, simple devices that are often used to organize other devices—for example; they may be found in machines ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, and even children's toys.
The ability to store and implement programs makes computers extremely versatile and distinguishes them from calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this flexibility: Any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore, computers with capability and complexity ranging from that of a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks as long as time and storage capability are not considerations.

Bond

2007-10-04T06:49:00.001-07:00

In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and is grateful to repay the principal and interest at a later date, termed maturity. Other conditions may also be attached to the bond issue, such as the obligation for the issuer to provide certain information to the bond holder, or limitations on the behavior of the issuer. Bonds are generally issued for a permanent term longer than ten years. U.S Treasury securities issue debt with life of ten years. New debt between one year and ten years is a note, and new debit less than a year is a bill.
A bond is simply a loan, but in the form of a security, although expressions used is rather different. The issuer is equivalent to the borrower, the bond holder to the lender, and the voucher to the interest. Bonds enable the issuer to finance long-term investments with external funds. Certificates of deposit (CDs) or commercial paper are measured money market instruments

Resistance

2007-09-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

Electrical resistance is a compute of the degree to which an object opposes an electric current through it. The SI unit of electrical resistance is the ohm. Its reciprocal quantity is electrical conductance calculated in siemens. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with the mechanical notion of friction.
The resistance of an object determines the amount of current through the object for a known voltage across the object I=V/R, where R is the resistance of the object, measured in ohms, equivalent to J•s/C2, V is the voltage across the object, measured in volts, I is the current through the object, measured in amperes. In metals, the Fermi level lies in the conduction band giving rise to free transfer electrons. However, in semiconductors the position of the fermi level is within the band gap, closely half way between the conduction band minimum and valence band maximum for intrinsic semiconductors.

Intranet

2007-09-03T03:09:00.000-07:00

An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity to securely divide part of an organization's information or operations with its employees. Sometimes the term refers only to the most perceptible service, the internal website. The same concepts and technologies of the Internet such as clients and servers running on the Internet protocol suite are used to make an intranet. HTTP and other Internet protocols are commonly used as well, such as FTP. There is often a challenge to use Internet technologies to provide new interfaces with corporate legacy data and information systems.
Intranets can help users to locate and view information faster and use applications related to their roles and responsibilities. With the help of a web browser interface such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, users can contact data held in any database the organization wants to make available, anytime and - subject to security provisions - from anywhere within the company workstations, increasing employees' capability to perform their jobs faster, more accurately, and with confidence that they have the right information. It also helps to improve the services provided to the users.
With intranets, organizations can make more information accessible to employees on a "pull" source rather than being deluged indiscriminately by emails.
Intranets can serve as influential tools for communication within an organization, vertically and horizontally. From a communications standpoint, intranets are useful to communicate strategic initiatives that have a worldwide reach throughout the organization. The type of information that can easily be conveyed is the reason of the initiative and what the initiative is aiming to achieve, who is driving the initiative, results achieved to date, and who to speak to for more information.

Inca Rope bridge

2007-08-22T09:54:00.001-07:00

Inca Rope bridges were simple suspension bridges over canyons and gorges to present access for the Inca Empire. Bridges of this type were suitable for use since the Inca people did not use wheeled transport - traffic was incomplete to pedestrians and livestock. These bridges were an intrinsic part on the Inca road scheme and are an excellent example of Inca innovation in engineering. They were frequently used by Chasqui runners delivering messages throughout the Inca Empire.
The construction of these bridges amounted to a pair of stone anchors on each side of the canyon with immense cables of woven ichu grass linking these two pylons together. Adding to this construction, two additional cables acted as guardrails. The cables which supported the foot-path were unbreakable with plaited branches. This multi-structure system made these bridges strong enough to even carry the Spaniards while riding horses after they indoors. However, these massive bridges were so heavy that they tended to sag in the middle, and this caused them to bend in high winds.

Planet

2007-08-13T02:55:00.000-07:00

A planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remains that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion in its core, and has cleared its neighboring region of planetesimals. The term planet changed from something that stimulated across the sky, to a body that orbited the Earth. When the heliocentric model gained sway in the 16th century, it became established that a planet was actually something that directly orbited the Sun. At the end of the 17th century, when the first satellites of Saturn were exposed, the terms planet and satellite were at first used interchangeably, although satellite would gradually become more common in the following century.

The energetic impacts of the smaller planetesimals will heat up the increasing planet, causing it to at least partially melt. The interior of the planet begins to differentiate by mass, mounting a denser core. Smaller terrestrial planets lose most of their atmospheres because of this accretion, but the lost gases can be replaced by out gassing from the mantle and from the succeeding impact of comets.

Populations

2007-08-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

Populations are studied, in exacting, in a branch of ecology known as population biology, and in population genetics. In population dynamics, size, age and sex structure, mortality, reproductive behavior, and development of a population are studied. In biology, an isolated population denotes a breeding group whose members breed mostly or solely among themselves, usually as a result of physical isolation, although biologically they could breed with any members of the varieties. If there are several completely or nearly completely secluded populations in the global population of a taxon, these are called subpopulations. The Metapopulation is a network of subpopulations in a given area, where the individuals of the various subpopulations are able to cross dilapidated areas of the region. Biological dispersal is one of the key elements upsetting such populations; if dispersal is sufficiently low for a prolonged period of time, speciation is likely to be a consequence.

Population growth is varying in population over time. It also can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals in a population per piece time. The term population growth can technically refer to any species, but almost always refers to humans, and it often used easily for the more specific demographic term population growth rate, and is often used to refer specifically to the expansion of the population of the world.

Indicator

2007-07-25T02:42:00.000-07:00

Dial indicators are instruments used to correctly measure a small distance. They may also be known as a Dial gauge, Dial Test Indicator, or as a clock. They are named so because the measurement results are displayed in a overstated way by means of a dial. They may be used to check the dissimilarity in tolerance during the check process of a machined part, measure the deflection of a beam or ring under laboratory conditions, as well as many other situations where a small measurement needs to be registered or indicated.

An economic indicator is a statistic concerning the economy. The lighting system of a motor vehicle consists of lighting and signaling procedure mounted or integrated to the front, sides and rear of the vehicle. The purpose of this system is to present illumination for the driver to operate the vehicle safely after dark, to increase the visibility of the vehicle, and to display information about the vehicle's presence, position, size, direction of travel, and driver's intentions concerning direction and speed of travel.

Real estate

2007-07-19T05:06:00.001-07:00

Real estate or fixed property is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings. Real estate is often considered synonymous with real property, in contrast with personal property. However, for technical purposes, some people prefer to distinguish real estate, referring to the land and fittings themselves, from real property, referring to ownership rights over real estate. The terms real estate and real property are used mainly in common law, while civil law jurisdictions refer in its place to immovable property.

In law, the word real means relating to a thing, as well-known from a person. Thus the law broadly distinguishes between real possessions and personal property. The conceptual difference was between immovable property, which would transport title along with the land, and changeable property. In most advanced economies, the main source of capital used by individuals and small companies to purchase and get enhanced land and buildings is mortgage loans, bank loans for which the real property itself constitutes collateral.

Solar wind

2007-07-13T02:45:00.000-07:00

The solar wind is a stream of charged particles which are expelled from the upper atmosphere of the sun. It consists mostly of high-energy electrons and protons that are able to get away the sun's gravity in part because of the high temperature of the corona and the high kinetic energy particles gain through a process that is not well understood at this time.

They are directly related to the solar wind, together with geomagnetic storms that can knock out power grids on Earth, auroras and the plasma tail of a comet always pointing away from the sun. While early models of the solar wind used primarily thermal energy to accelerate the material, by the 1960s it was clear that thermal hurrying alone cannot account for the high speed solar wind. Some additional acceleration mechanism is required, but is not presently known, but most likely relates to magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere. The solar wind is answerable for the overall shape of Earth's magnetosphere, and fluctuations in its speed, density, direction, and entrained magnetic field powerfully affect Earth's local space environment.

Birds

2007-07-06T03:30:00.001-07:00

Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic, and the initial known bird is the Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx, Ranging in size from tiny hummingbirds to the huge Ostrich and Emu, there are between 9,000-10,000 known living bird species in the world, making them the most diverse class of terrestrial vertebrates. Modern birds are characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a light but strong skeleton. Most birds have forelimbs customized as wings and can fly, though the ratites and several others, particularly endemic island species, have also lost the ability to fly.Many species of bird undertake long distance annual migrations, and many more perform shorter more asymmetrical movements. Birds are social and communicate using visual signals and through calls and song, and contribute in social behaviors including cooperative hunting, helpful breeding, flocking and mobbing of predators. Birds are primarily communally monogamous, with meeting in extra-pair copulations being common in some species; other species have polygamous or polyandrous breeding systems. Eggs are regularly lay in a nest and incubated and most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching.

Hybrid deer

2007-06-28T04:09:00.000-07:00

A number of deer hybrids are bred to improve animal protein yield in farmed deer. American elk and Red Deer from the Old World can produce fertile offspring in captivity, and were once measured one species. Hybrid offspring, however, must be able to escape and defend themselves against predators, and these hybrid offspring are not capable to do so in the wild state. Recent DNA, animal actions studies, and morphology and antler characteristics have shown there are not one but three varieties of Red Deer. The hybrids are about 30% more efficient in producing antler by compare velvet to body weight. Wapiti have been introduced into some European Red Deer herds to improve the Red Deer type, but not always with the proposed improvement.

Both male Mule Deer/female White-tailed Deer and male White-tailed Deer/female Mule Deer matting have formed hybrids. Hybrids have been reported in the wild but are disadvantaged because they don't correctly inherit survival strategies. Mule Deer move with bounding leap to escape predators. Slotting is so specialized that only 100% heritably pure Mule Deer seem able to do it. In captive hybrids, even a one-eighth White-tail/seven-eighths Mule Deer hybrid has erratic escape performance and would be unlikely to survive to breeding age. Hybrids do survive on game ranches where both species are kept and where predators are prohibited by man.

Honey

2007-06-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

Honey is a sweet and thick fluid produced by honey bees from the nectar of flowers. According to the United States National Honey Board and various international food system, honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance...this includes, but is not limited to, water or other sweeteners. This article refers exclusively to the honey produced by honey bees honey twisted by other bees or other insect have very different properties. Honey is significantly sweeter than table sugar and has attractive chemical properties for baking. Honey has a typical flavor which leads some people to prefer it over sugar and other sweeteners.

Most microorganisms do not grow in honey because of its low water movement of 0.6[2]. However, it is important to note that honey frequently contains dormant end spores of the bacteria Clostridium outline, which can be perilous to infants as the end spores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in the infant's immature intestinal tract, leading to disease and even death. The study of pollens and spores in raw honey can determine floral sources of honey. Because bees carry an electrostatic charge, and can attract other particles, the same techniques of melissopalynology can be used in area ecological studies of radioactive particles, sand, or particulate pollution.

Television

2007-06-07T04:24:00.000-07:00

Television is a widely used telecommunication system forbroadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term "television" may also be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight": Greek τῆλε "tele", far, and Latin vision, sight .
Since it first became commercially available from the late 1940s, the television set has become a common household communications device in homes and institutions, particularly in the first world, as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s, video recordings on VCR tapes and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs, have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.
A television system may be made up of multiple components, so a screen which lacks an internal tuner to receive the broadcast signals is called a monitor rather than a television. A television may be built to receive different broadcast or video formats, such as High-Definition television.

Aesthetics

2007-05-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

Aesthetics also spelled esthetics or asthetics is a branch of value theory which studies sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment or taste. What makes something beautiful, sublime, disgusting, fun, cute, silly, entertaining, pretentious, discordant, harmonious, boring, humorous, or tragic. Aesthetics is closely allied with, or perhaps synonymous with, the philosophy of art.

Judgments of aesthetic value seem to often involve many other kinds of issues as well. In disgust it seems clear that sensory detection is linked in instinctual ways to facial expressions, and even behaviors like the gag reflex. Yet disgust can often be a learned or cultural issue too; as Darwin pointed out, seeing a stripe of soup in a man's beard is disgusting even though soup is not itself disgusting. Aesthetic judgments may be linked to emotions or, like emotions, partially embodied in our physical reactions. Seeing a sublime view of a landscape may make us stop and softly say "wow" while our heart skips a beat and then races faster and our eyes widen. These subconscious reactions may even be partly constitutive of what makes our judgment a judgment that the landscape is sublime.

University

2007-04-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

Relative to the above definition, there is controversy as to which university is the world's oldest. The original Latin word "universitas", first used in time of renewed interest in Classical Greek and Roman tradition, tried to reflect this feature of the Academy of Plato. If we consider university simply as a higher education institution, then it could be Shang Hsiang, founded before the 21st century BC in China according to legend. Later Taixue and Guozijian serve as the highest level of educational etablishment while academies became very popular as non-governmental etablishments teaching Confucianism and Chinese literature among other things. The choice for the oldest university is usually among Nalanda, Constantinople, Al Karaouine or Al-Azhar universities. Nalanda University, founded in Bihar, India around the 5th century BC conferred academic degree titles to its graduates, while also offering post-graduate courses. Another Indian university whose ruins were only recently excavated was Ratnagiri University in Orissa. Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in the 10th century, offered a variety of post-graduate degrees, and is often regarded as the first full-fledged university. The University of Constantinople, founded in 849, by the regent Bardas of emperor Michail III, is generally considered the first institution of higher learning with the characteristics we associate today with a university (research and teaching, auto-administration, academic independence, et cetera). The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes the University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco as the oldest university in the world with its founding in 859.

Foreclosure

2007-04-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

Foreclosure is the legal proceeding in which bank or other secured creditor sells or reclaims a part of real property due to the owner's failure to comply with the agreement between the lender and borrower called a "mortgage" or "deed of trust". Usually, the abuse of the mortgage is a default in payment of a promissory note, secured by a lien on the property. When the transaction is complete, it is normally said that the lender has foreclosed its mortgage or lien.

In US, there are two kinds of foreclosure in common law states. Using a deed in lieu of foreclosure, the bank claims the title and possession of the property back in full satisfaction of a debt, usually on contract. Many states needs the latter sort of proceeding in some or all cases of foreclosure, in order to protect any equity the debtor may have in the property, in case the value of the debt being foreclosed on is significantly less than the market value of the immovable assets.

Commercial mortgage

2007-02-05T03:25:00.000-08:00

A commercial mortgage is a loan made using real estate as collateral to protecting repayment. Commercial mortgage is similar to a residential mortgage, except the collateral is a commercial building or other business real estate, not residential property.

In calculation, commercial mortgages are usually taken on by businesses as a substitute of individual borrowers. The borrower may be a partnership, incorporated business, or limited company, so assessment of the creditworthiness of the business can be more complicated than is the case with residential mortgages.

Commercial mortgages are typically non recourse i.e. that in the event of default in repayment, the creditor can only seize the collateral, but has no further claim against the borrower for any remaining deficiency. Less commonly, the mortgage is complement by a general obligation of the borrower, which makes the debt payable in full even if foreclosure on the mortgaged collateral does not satisfy the outstanding balance.

Fashion and variation

2007-01-13T02:02:00.000-08:00

The European idea of fashion as a personal statement rather than a cultural expression begins in the 16th century: ten portraits of German or Italian gentlemen may show ten totally different hats. Fashions among upper-class Europeans began to move in synchronicity in the 18th century; though colors and patterns of textiles altered from year to year, the cut of a gentleman's coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the pattern to which a lady's dress was cut altered more slowly. Men's fashions resulting from military models and changes in a European male silhouette are galvanized in theatres of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles: an example is the "Steinkirk" cravat. The rate of change picked up in the 1780s with the publication of French engravings that showed the most recent Paris styles. By 1800, all Western Europeans were dressing alike: local variation became first a sign of provincial culture, and then a badge of the conservative peasant.

Hygiene

2006-12-21T01:11:00.000-08:00

Hygiene is commonly understood as preventing infection through cleanliness. In broader call, scientific terms hygiene is the maintenance of health and healthy living. Hygiene ranges from personal hygiene, through domestic up to occupational hygiene and public health; and involves healthy diet, cleanliness, and mental health.The term hygiene originates as a reference to Hygieia, who was a daughter of Asclepius and the goddess of health, cleanliness and sanitation.Outward signs of good hygiene include the absence of visible dirt including dust and stains on clothing or of bad odor/smells. Since the development of the germ theory of disease, hygiene has come to mean any practice leading to the absence of harmful levels of bacteria.

Dog

2006-12-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

The dog is a mammal in the categorize Carnivora. Dogs were domesticated from wolves as newly as 15,000 years ago, or perhaps as early as 100,000 years ago based upon recent genetic fossil and DNA evidence. Other research suggests that dogs have only been domesticated for a much shorter amount of time. New evidence suggests that dogs were first disciplined in East Asia, possibly China, and the first peoples to enter North America took dogs with them from Asia. Genetic research has recognized 14 ancient dog breeds, with the oldest being the Chow Chow, Shar Pei, Akita Inu, Shiba Inu and Basenji. Because numerous of the 14 breeds are associated with China and Japan, the theory that the dog originated in Asia seems to be likely. Over time, the dog has developed into hundreds of breeds with a huge degree of variation. For example, heights at the withers range from just a few inches (such as the Chihuahua) to approximately three feet (such as the Irish Wolfhound), and colors range from white to black, with reds, grays (usually called blue), and browns occurring in a marvelous variation of patterns.

Dogs, like humans, are highly social animals and this parallel in their overall behavioral pattern accounts for their trainability, playfulness, and aptitude to fit into human households and social situations. This similarity has earned dogs a sole position in the realm of interspecies relationships. The loyalty and devotion that dogs demonstrate as part of their usual instincts as pack animals closely mimics the human idea of love and friendship, leading many dog owners to view their pets as full-fledged family members. Conversely, dogs seem to observation their human companions as members of their pack, and make few, if any, distinctions between their owners and fellow dogs. Dogs fill a selection of roles in human society and are often trained as working dogs. For dogs that do not have traditional jobs, a wide range of dog sports provide the opportunity to exhibit their natural skills. In many countries, the most ordinary and perhaps most important role of dogs are as companions. Dogs have lived with and worked with humans in so many roles that their loyalty has earned them the unique sobriquet "man's best friend". Conversely, several cultures consider dogs to be unclean. In some parts of the world, dogs are raised as livestock to produce dog meat for human consumption. In many places, consumption of dog meat is disheartened by social convention or cultural taboo.

Among dog lovers, dogs are usually valued for their intelligence, and both anecdotal evidence and scientific study suggest that dogs have a reasonably high intelligence. This intelligence is expressed differently with dissimilar breeds and individuals, however. For example, Border Collies are noted for their aptitude to learn commands, while other breeds may not be so motivated towards compliance, but instead show their cleverness in devising ways to steal food or escape from a yard. Dogs are descended from wolves, and are also packing animals, making them easier than other animals to train because dogs' instincts are to obey. But most dogs rarely have to deal with complex tasks and are unlikely to learn relatively difficult activities (such as opening doors) unaided. Some dogs (such as guide dogs for the visually impaired) are particularly trained to recognize and avoid dangerous situations.

Computer

2006-11-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

A computer is a machine for manipulate data according to a list ofcommands known as a program. Computers are tremendously adaptable. Infact, they are universal information-processing machines. According tothe Church–Turing theory, a computer with a positive minimum entrancecapability is in principle capable of performing the responsibilitiesof any other computer. Therefore, computers with capability rangingfrom those of a personal digital supporter to a supercomputer may allachieve the same tasks, as long as time and memory capacity are notconsideration. Therefore, the same computer design may be modified fortasks ranging from doling out company payrolls to controlling unmanned space flights. Due to technical progression, modern electronic computers are exponentially more capable than those of preceding generations. Computers take plentiful physical forms. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, while whole modern embedded computers may be lesser than a deck of playing cards. Even today, huge computing conveniences still exist for focused scientific computation and for the transaction processing necessities of large organizations. Smaller computers designed for personage use are called personalcomputers. Along with its convenient equivalent, the laptop computer,the personal computer is the ubiquitous in order processing and communication tool, and is typically what is meant by "a computer".However, the most general form of computer in use today is theembedded computer. Embedded computers are usually comparatively simple and physically small computers used to control one more device. They may control equipment from fighter aircraft to industrial robots todigital cameras. in the beginning, the term "computer" referred to aperson who performed numerical calculations, frequently with the aidof a mechanical calculating device or analog computer. In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard made an improvement to the presented loom designs thatused a series of punched paper cards as a program to weave involved patterns. The resulting Jacquard loom is not considered a true computer but it was an essential step in the growth of modern digital computers.

Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a completely programmable computer as early as 1820, In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard made an improvement to the presented loom designs that used a series of punched paper cards as a program to weave involved patterns. The resulting Jacquard loom is not considered a true computer but it wasan essential step in the growth of modern digital computers but due to a combination of the restrictions of the technology of the time, limited finance, and an incapability to resist tinkering with his design, the device was never really constructed in his lifetime.By the end of the 19th century a number of technologies that wouldlater prove helpful in computing had appeared, out such as the punchcard and the vacuum tube, and large-scale automated data giving using punch cards was performed by tabulating equipment designed by Hermann Hollerith.During the first half of the 20th century, many technical computing wants were met by increasingly difficult special-purposeanalog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical modelof the problem as a base for subtraction (they became ever more rare after the development of the programmable digital computer). Sequenceof gradually more powerful and stretchy computing devices wereconstruct in the 1930s and 1940s.

Types of Bonded warehouses

2006-11-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

Manufacture type:

Person interested of establishing bonded warehouse of manufacture type are exempt from the payment of import duties and taxes. This bond is created for the manufactures who are importing goods for the purpose. This bond is applicable only when the goods are imported and stored for the purpose of re-exporting. In manufacturing type, goods are subject to duties and taxes, if they are released for the purpose of domestic use.

Vessel repair or construction type:

Business official create this bonding type. This bond is created for the vessel repair or for construction type. In vessel repair or construction type, when the goods are imported the taxes and duties are free. Official can arrange this bond when they are importing vessels or goods for construction purpose.

General type:

It is public bonded warehouses which provide storage services for the goods imported and for packing and repacking, loading and distributing of goods. Customs considers it is suitable to support manufacture, industrial actions and international deal for period after the importation.

Festival

2006-10-24T22:44:00.000-07:00

A festival or fest is an event, usually staged by a local community, which centers on some theme, sometimes on some unique aspect of the community.Among many religions, a feast or festival is a set of celebrations in honour of God or gods. A feast and a festival are historically interchangeable. However, the term "feast" has also entered common secular parlance as a slang term for any large or elaborate meal. When used as in the meaning of a festival, most often refers to a religious festival rather than a film or art festival.

Festivals, of many types, serve to meet specific social needs and duties, as well as to provide entertainment. These times of celebration offer a sense of belonging for religious, social, or geographical groups. Modern festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics seek to inform members of their traditions. In past times, festivals were times when the elderly shared stories and transferred certain knowledge to the next generation. Historic feasts often provided a means for unity among families and for people to find mates. Select anniversaries have annual festivals to commemorate previous significant occurrences.

Rhythm

2006-09-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

Rhythm is the difference of the accentuation of sounds or other events over time. "Rhythm involves patterns of duration that are phenomenally present in the music" with duration perceived by interonset interval. When governed by rule, it is called meter. It is intrinsic in any time-dependent medium, but it is most related with music, dance, and the majority of poetry. The study of rhythm, stress, and pitch in speech is called prosody; it is a topic in linguistics. All musicians, instrumentalists and vocalists, work with rhythm, but it is often considered the primary domain of drummers and percussionists.

In Western music, rhythms are usually arranged with respect to a time signature, partially signifying a meter. The speed of the underlying pulse, called the beat, is the tempo. The tempo is frequently measured in 'beats per minute’; 60 bpm means a speed of one beat per second. The length of the meter, or metric unit, is regularly grouped into either two or three beats, being called duple meter and triple meter, respectively. If each beat is grouped in two, it is simple meter, if in three compound meter.

a system of text to speach

2006-08-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

A text-to-speech system or engine is a collection of two parts: a front-end and a back-end. The first one which generally takes the information that is the input in forms of text. Then the next takes the symbolic linguistic representation as input and outputs the synthesized speech waveform. There are two major tasks in the front-and, one to take the raw text and convert things like numbers and abbreviations into their written-out word equivalents. This procedure is known as the text normalization, pre-processing, or tokenization. Then the next is the process of assigning phonetic transcriptions to words is called text normalization.

blue cross health insurance quotes

2006-05-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

Insurance policies can be complex and some policyholders may not understand all the fees, regulation and coverages included in a policy. As a result, people could buy policies at unfavorable terms. In response to these issues, governments often make detailed regulations that set down minimum standards for policies and govern how they may be advertised and sold.

Many individuals purchase policies through an insurance broker. The broker can counsel the policyholder on which coverage to purchase and limitations of the policy. A broker generally holds contracts with many insurers which allows the broker to "shop" the market for the best rates and coverage possible.

Presonus

2006-03-31T21:41:00.000-08:00

Prerecording tools like m-audio keyboard monitors, casio digital piano, and computer sound cards, recorder and alesis multimixer. All these pro recording tools have unique features, channel mixer analogue, digital stereo effects, analog mixers, and digital effects. One pro recording tool, Alesis MultiMix 8USB Mixer with USB Audio has features of 3band EQ per channel, analogue mixer with USB, rack mount ears available.There is also the advantage of shopping by brand like multitrack recorders, Edirol, M-Audio, Casio Privia piano, Presonus and many more. All these brands have their own unique features and affordability factors. Gigasonic has a range of keyboards and MIDI tools in different packages. MIDI Controllers, Digital Pianos, synthesizers and accessories are also included.

Advantages of debt consolidation

2006-01-29T23:30:00.001-08:00

1. Reduction of average interest rate:
Taking multiple credit interest rate (which varies from one credit card to another) in to account will have a high interest when compared to one single credit interest for the whole amount with a low interest rate. So an individual may choose this option to reduce his interest rate.

2. Reduction to one credit payment:
An individual may use many credit cards and pay his bills for all the credit cards. This may need a good management technique depending up on the number of cards in use. If you use more number of credit cards then the planning need to be done more appropriately and executed timely where as if you have one credit card your job is done in a way simple and easily executable. One hence opts to shift from multiple loan payments to one loan payment program replacing all the rest.

3. Reduction of past interest or penalty charges:
One opting for debt consolidation may go for reduction of past interest or penalty charges paid for the borrowed amount under certain options. Options include high interest rate or penalty charges placed for the credited amount, when the total amount paid in the history till date exceeds the borrowed amount, or if it is a very long duration payment program going for 5 yrs or above. Under each case stated one can reduce the past interest and penalty charges or sometimes even eliminate those and pay only the amount borrowed.

4. Obtaining a payment plan:
This payment plan is given to the consumer analyzing the capability of an individual by thoroughly going through the personal needs of an individual, his responsibilities etc after which the debt consolidator restructures the existing plans taken by the consumer.

5. Becoming debt free at a faster rate:
Taking debt consolidation program relieves a person from debts at a faster rate than the usual time, which is required to come out of the debt. Following the plans given by a debt consolidator and proper execution of the plan will surely make an individual debt free and obtain high credit scores.

Credit score

2006-01-29T23:30:00.000-08:00

The credit score is calculated using a formula provided by the Fair Isaac Corporation under the act of FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act). The three national bureaucrats dealing with credit reports are Equifax, Experian and Trans Union. The credit report can vary between these three credit bureaus since the credit reporters do not submit the reports in all three bureaus. Basically it is the procedure that one‘s credit report is the average taken from the values of these three bureaus. There may be a small difference existing between these bureaucracies credit reports which doesn’t seem to harm any of the customers credit score hence no issue has arisen till now in regards to the above.

Grisaille painting

2006-01-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

Grisaille is not a paintings type by its own but an initial step in oil painting. It is the step representing lighter shades of the image to be painted. This type grisaille grey is basically a painting in lighter grey shade (followed as per the rules of oil painting the darker painting section follows the lighter colors to be implemented in oil painting) before the whole painting is all done. This painting is executed entirely on monochrome in various shades of grey which can also be used for decorative purposes such as representing an object in relief.

Democrats Versus Republicans, The Battle Is Almost Over

2005-12-25T22:56:00.003-08:00

Democrats Versus Republicans, The Battle Is Almost Over

The following are the opinions of the author and although I believe them to be true I am not stating them as anything other than my opinions.
Ever since the time of Abe Lincoln, Democrats and Republicans have been fighting for control of the United States Of America. In the beginning, both political parties contained liberals, moderates and conservatives. As time wore on the Democratic Party moved more to the left or 'liberal' and the Republican Party moved more to the right or 'Conservative'. This left room for fewer and fewer moderates.
Over the last several years, however, the far, far left has been taking over control of the Democratic Party and now the coup is almost completed. The far left zealots have virtually pushed most of the slightly left, the moderates and the conservatives out of the Democratic Party. Most of the moderates and conservatives left have learned to keep quiet and go with the tide in order to stay in office. Now the battle, for control of this country, has changed, it is now the far left against everyone else. People like Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Joseph Biden, Robert Byrd, Barbara Boxer, etc. (I don't include Edward Kennedy because, in my opinion, he lost touch with reality long ago and just talks in order to see and hear himself on the news.) along with their Hollywood friends, Barbara Streisand, Susan Saranden, Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, Martin Sheen, Spike Lee, etc., now run the Democratic Party and more moderate people, like Joseph Lieberman, are being ignored or vilified by the party, the party's supporters and a large part of the press. The far left only wants people, that think like they do or will do what they tell them to do, in the Democratic Party. They fear and dislike moderates, conservatives, moderate liberals and anyone that they can not control.
The far left has gone so far left that, in my opinion, they make liberals seem like hard right wingers. I don't believe that the far left cares about America, the American people or anyone else except themselves. The far left politicians want power and they will do anything to get and keep that power. They claim to support our troops in Afganistan and Iraq, yet they do everything they can do to ruin the troops moral and aid the terrorists. They use their Hollywood friends and the ultra liberal press to spread half truths, lies, rumors and ridiucule about anyone who does not agree with them. They have even taken to giving responses to President Bush's speeches before he makes the speech. They have learned from President Clinton how to take credit for anything good that happens and how to lay blame on others for anything bad that happens. They use people like President Carter, one of the kindest, most caring, most honest and most trusting men to ever hold public office, to critcize the present administration's policies.
President Carter, does not have an agenda, he is just, as always, slightly naive about and too trusting of the good will of others. He believes that there would be peace on earth if people followed the dictates of the far left, so the far left uses him as a front.
The far left uses celebrities who are not only naive but insulated from the real world. Celebrities who are surrounded by yes people telling them that they are smarter and better than the rest of us, celebrities who are wealthy, do not have to go to a supermarket to do their shopping, who fly first class, drive whatever kind of car they wish, live in expensive homes or apartments and pay people to do most everything for them. These celebrities can afford to be idealistic and fight for ideals that can't work. They can talk about raising taxes, after all, they can't spend all the money they already have, demand rehabilitation for drug addicts, after all, the only drug addicts they actually deal with are other celebrities, rage against nuclear power plants and new oil drilling, after all they can afford to pay their electric and gas bills, no matter how expensive they are, fight for the rights of criminals and gun control, after all, they have bodyguards, many of whom are armed, and expensive security systems, to protect them so why should they worry about a storeowner who has been robbed three or four times or a woman who is raped and killed in her home. Most of these celebrities mean well, they just don't know what it is like to live in the real world. Don't tell me that many of these same celebrities had bad or poor childhoods. That was then and this is now.
Celebrities that do have an idea as to what is really going on and speak out against criminals, or support the war against terrorism, or fight for cheap utilities or heaven forbid support acknowledging god or who back moderate politicians or even worse support President Bush are ridiculed and ostracized. Some, no matter how talented, even have trouble obtaining work. Michael Moore, produces a poorly made anti administration movie and is lionized by Hollywood while Mel Gibson makes a well made movie about Christ and is ridiculed and put down by Hollywood. The fact that the people greatly prefered Gibson's movie didn't matter to Hollywood.
I am a slightly conservative moderate with many slightly liberal beliefs, however the far left is pushing me more and more to the right. I used to believe that you should vote for the person not the party. Now I am forced to vote straight Republican because I can't trust any Democrat to stand up to the far left. I like Joe Lieberman but would not vote for him because the odds are that the far left will eventually push him out of office or force him to support them. I disliked and never trusted President Nixon but today I would have to vote for him rather than any Democrat. I consider President Kennedy to be one of our best modern Presidents but could not, today, vote for him.
Pleople say to me "What about Hillary Clinton? She is a moderate.". I say "baloney, as far as I can tell, Hillary Clinton does not believe in anything. She says and does whatever, she thinks, will get votes and help consolidate her power. I don't believe that she cares any more for this country or it's people than her husband did. If she believes that the far left can get her what she wants she will become one of their most rabid members.
The far left has hijacked the Democratic Party and they are at war with anyone and everyone who does not follow their dictates. They hide under the title 'Democrat' and claim to want to change America for the better. What they really want to do is to rule this country and make it over into their own image. They want us to be free to do what they think is best, not what we think is best. They believe that the end justifies the means and in order to gain their rule they will lie, cheat, support our enemies, spend whatever amount of money they have to and do anything else that may help them.
As far as the far left is concerned, their biggest enemy, at this time, is President Bush. They hate him and fear him, so they are doing everthing they can in order to ruin him. They blame him for everthing that has gone wrong in the world. Their celebrity spokespeople have people believing that the problems caused by hurricane Katrina are all his administration's fault. The fact that, both the Democratic Mayor of New Orleans and the Democratic Governor of Louisiana were extremely slow to act in calling in the Federal Government doesn't matter, the fact that it appears that several crooked politicians spent money given to them, prior to the hurricane, for levy repairs, on themselves, doesn't matter, the fact that the people of New Orleans never bothered to prepare themselves for a category 5 hurricane, doesn't matter. All that matters is if they keep telling everyone that it's the President's fault, pretty soon everyone will believe it. People like Jay Leno, David Letterman and other celebrities and comedians constantly joke about how stupid the President is. The fact that he was smart enough to earn a university and a post graduate degree, doesn't matter, thefact that he was smart enough to become Governor of Texas, doesn't matter, the fact that he was smart enough to become President of the United States doesnt matter, the fact that he was smart enough to marry Laura Bush, doesn't matter. All that matters is that Leno and Letterman joke about his being stupid, therefore he must be stupid (This country has elected many Presidents that may have done a bad job at running this country but, I don't believe that we have ever elected a stupid President, and if we did elect a stupid President, doesn't that make us stupid for doing so.). I could list numerous other examples but this article is already to long, so I won't.
The citizens of this country better wake up and start fighting back or soon we will no longer be a two party system or have a democratic republican form of government. We will have one Party, the far left, and they will rule us. They will be telling us what to think, when to think it and how to think it. I don't know about you, but I like my freedom. I want a country with liberals, moderates and conservatives. I want to have a choice in who to vote for. I want to be able to think for myself. I don't want to be ruled by the far left anymore than I want to be ruled by the far right. I want a country that represents everyone, a country that is "one country, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".

America: Police State Incorporated

2005-12-25T22:56:00.002-08:00

America: Police State Incorporated

Dedication...
To my street crew...
Jeff Stewart, Pockets, Humble, Twitch, Stray, Skittles, Bear, Beast, and Johnny and Heather...
Introduction
Unlike many of my other works, this piece is not about theory or ideology. It does not discuss evidence, or reasoning, or logic, as to the ideas that I believe about society. Rather, it is a confession, of the things I have witnessed, as I was a homeless person. There is some discussion of ideology and beliefs in the following pages. But, it must be understood that the topic of this paper is what I had personally witnessed while being homeless. The location of this was in southern Louisiana, in and around New Orleans (other towns include Metairie and Gretna). The time frame of this is December to March, including Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday"). And now, I tell my story...
My Time on the Streets
When a person becomes homeless, their relation to society is entirely changed. I had once been siting on the sidewalk, with my friends who themselves were asking for change, and a person comes up and gives them a plastic compass, remarking, "Here, this is so you can get some direction in your life." The homeless themselves are a divided class. Among them, there are gutter punks (the class I belonged to), who were renowned for their particular taste of violence, sex, and alcohol. Gutter punks tended to be younger, but could range in age from 12 to age 50, and probably much older. Among the gutter punks, there were even more divisions, including street kids, street punks, and peace punks (sometimes called "Crass Kids," because that is one of the prominent bands of all peace punks). Street kids are just young homeless people. Street punks are street kids who like punk. And peace punks are anti-war, anti-America, Communist and Anarchist. Gutter punks typically had an image which society has portrayed as "violent." We had mohawks (often times spiked and dyed), leather jackets with studs in them, and boots that went up to our knees. Then there was the typical bum, or "home bum," who carried around an amount of property twice his own weight. That was one essential difference between the homebums and the gutter punks: the first sometimes never made the whole transition frome homed to homeless. Since we are homeless, there must be an understanding, that there is no place to put your property. Thus, those who have more property, must carry it, it becoming a burden to them. Essentially, those who have a limited amount of property, will be most comfortable in the homeless lifestyle. If we gutter punks ever carried anything more than the clothes on our own back, it was a bagpack that had a sleeping bag attached to the bottom of it.
It was walking down Gov Nicholls street in the French Quarter of New Orleans that I realized there was a true comradery among the homeless, the comradery typically being stronger among the home bums. I was walking with my friend Humble (and it must be understood, that almost all homeless people go by a nickname). After successfully shoplifting food from a Walgreens, he told me, "That's what I believe. Steal from the companies. Give to the people." And so that was our routine. I remember once, a truck came up to a restaurant, depositing two enormous bags of fresh bread and leaving it on the door. My friends and I grabbed the bags and took off. Since we had such a great surplus of subsistence, we immediately spread it out. Every homebum and gutter punk we came to, we gave them a great amount of bread. Even when we were walking through the ghettos to our squat, we gave bread to everyone we saw. The elderly African folk, sitting on their porches, their eyes probably having seen more conflict that I could imagine... they seemed old and tired, and we hoped that the bread we gave them would help give them the strength to dream again. It may seem odd to someone who is not homeless, how this may happen, how these transactions may occur. But, as we were walking down the street, one of us would notice a person living in poverty, and we would say, "Hey, you want some bread, brother?" They would smile and obligingly take some. I remember that day that we stole that bread from the restaurant. It was a good day, and food was had for the starving masses.
That was one thing about us in the ghetto though. Almost everyone in the ghetto was African in descent, and almost everyone there was working a shitty $5.35 job at some tourist store, just so that someone can take a plane to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and pay fucking $50 for a piece of shit tourist product, that initially cost $2.50 to make. And every single one of them shared a two bedroom apartment with six individuals, if they happened to be lucky. Once I was invited to an apartment, to spend the night, and I was the fifth person sharing a single bed. I have seen, on occasion, 10 to 15 individuals sharing a "sleeping room," a single room which is approximately 10 feet long by 6 feet wide. It has a bed, and maybe a cupboard, depending on the particular sleeping room. You open the door, and there's your bed. Hence the term "sleeping room." Of course, the incident of 15 people sharing one of these rooms is an exception. The rule would be closer to 4 to 6 people sharing this room, as I have seen in numerous cases, including children as young as 10 years old. For the Africans who lived in the ghetto, maybe they weren't working at the local tourist shop, convincing foreigners to fork over an unreasonable amount of money for something that has no value. Maybe they weren't in the French Market, selling wooden chopsticks for $8 a pair. Maybe the were washing dishes for $3 an hour under the table, because their employer refused to hire them otherwise. Maybe they were holding a fucking sign that said, "Buy Furniture At Joe's!" on the freeway, convincing baby boomers to take that next exit to the Furniture Heaven.
There was indeed a certain prejudice between the blacks and the whites of the south. The ghetto may have contained one white person for every one hundred blacks. This I can confirm, from the various ghettos that we traveled to and about. Sometimes Africans were hateful towards Caucasions, because they could tell that they were getting a bitter deal. On the other hand, there were many Africans who didn't care and were brotherly and fair with all they had met. But, to those Africans who were vengeful towards whites, for any past aggressions that may have been incurred, among 100 of them, fewer than 5 would still hold aggressions towards the gutter punks. The reasons for this are easy to decipher... Gutter punks were homeless. We were poor, probably a thousand times poorer than any African in the ghetto. We got fucked by the system, too. They didn't look to us suspiciously, because they knew who we were, what we wanted, and what we were looking for.
Why were we in the ghetto? For the most part, we went to the ghetto to get in a squat -- an abandoned building which we would retire to sleep in once we had become tired and drunk enough. I remember those cold nights, the wind whipping at my back, as I clenched my trench coat over my body, marching to get to that abandoned building, where I may sleep... And I remember what everyone had said about walking in the ghetto at night. "You'll get robbed, raped, and killed, and not in that order." It didn't matter to a gutter punk, ever. Because violence to us was its own reward. I never held this personal view, but it was something I had to deal with if it arrose. And, I confess, there were some instances where I would have engaged in violence, but I refused to, on account of my rationalization of Pacifism and peace. When walking through these ghettos, I could not help but remember pictures of the Warsaw Ghetto. These people have no means to leave, except to become homeless. Worse of all, probably their greatest problem may be drug addiction. Walking down the street, one is liable to see at least one syringe on the ground for every block. Crack users/dealers typically hold their $10, 2-minute piece of heaven in their mouth. There is also a tactic among crackheads on obtaining items, that involves smacking someone in the hand, and capturing what they drop -- this works typically with money or drugs. That is why crackheads hold crack in their mouth. And, if cops are to obtain them, they swallow it.
Squats... Apply whatever romantic idea to it you want that you got from literature, but there's nothing enjoyable about sleeping on shards of broken glass, because if you slept on the pavement, you would be arrested. There's nothing appealing about the idea of climbing onto the roof of a building, and smashing the window so that you can gain access, your heart pumping a thousand miles an hour, listening intently for sirens so that you can know when to run, so you can know that you failed. There's no happiness, when the temperature goes down to 17 degrees, and all you have is the clothes on your back and walls to stop the wind. I have, on occassion, laid on the wooden floor of a squat, in a ball, trying to capture that fleeting mystic hope of sleep... and I would reach to pull on my clothes, and as I touched my skin, I would feel the damp coldness of my own flesh. I would ignore it, because it didn't matter. Not to anyone else, anyway. And that is one aspect that is completely destroyed from the psychology of a street person -- you never get depressed, no matter how shitty things get, unless you have a reason to be depressed. And homelessness is certainly no reason.
There seemed to be a semi-friendly atmosphere among gutter punks. They would share among each other the location of squats, how to get into them. There also seemed to be the secret code among all gutter punks, the word "oi!" Upon entering a suspected squat, yell out "oi!" If you hear it back, then it's a squat with squatters. There are also unspoken rules among squatters. For instance, if you find an abandoned building, and someone is squatting there, and they don't want you there, you have to leave. Why is this? Because the streets tend to be a violent place. I am not denying that gutter punks could be violent. On the contrary, many of them indulged in violence, the way a person may indulge in drug use. So, there is an understanding between gutter punks. Without knowing anything about another gutter punk, you know this one fact: they could pull out a knife or a baton, and hurt you physically in a matter of 15 seconds, so to those who one is not acquianted with, they usually prefer a distance -- at least, when you're in the place that your sleeping. Plus, squat sizes are preferred to be small. No more than six people at most. The reason for this is to keep the noise to an absolute minimum. In the Diary of Anne Frank, for instance, the family that was hiding from the Jews had to keep absolutely quiet during the day. For us, there was another rule: never go to your squat until dark, and leave once the sun rises. Cops and police officers raid squats only during the day time, unless there is too much noise or disturbance at one.
That brings us to the greatest conflict of every homeless person: the law. It may have been ably stated by every writer of the past millenium, that the law exists not to end crime, but to persecute the poor and elevate the rich. There are laws, on the lawbooks of this date, which a person can be arrested for, including: Obstruction of a Public Passage, Intent to Impersonate a Sidewalk, Leaning with Intent to Fall, Obstruction of the Flight Path of a Pigeon, Begging, Vagrancy (not having photo identification on you), Transience (not having a home), Disrespecting a Police Officer, Disorderly Conduct, Disturbing the Peace, Obstruction of the Due Process of Law, the list goes on, with a law existing that prohibits almost every erroneous activity. At the height of this police state, we find the crime of Vagrancy, that it is illegal to not have either money (which will be quickly appropriated by any investigating officer) or photo ID, which shows shades of 1984 and F451. The police do not arrest people on violating these crimes. That is the popular misconception of the rule. If you walk on the sidewalk, you are fulfilling the requirements for the crime of "Obstruction of a Public Passage." I have personally seen people arrested for this crime. I have been told from a friend, that when he was walking down the street in Oklahoma City, the police stopped him and asked him if he had any sharp objects on him, before arresting him. As you can tell, any person who uses the sidewalk is effectively breaking the law. It would be too obvious if the law were to make it illegal to breath air, but that is essentially what it is implying: that they may arrest you, and imprison you, for terms of years of the aforementioned crimes. What is it then that the police do? They make "sweeps," going from street to street, sometimes with vans, arresting as many homeless people as they can, on the before mentioned charges. Those who are committing the same crimes, but are not homeless, are not questioned. The prerequisite of being homeless or homed tends to be the clothes you wear. Gutter punks and homebums stand out.
When I was arrested, it was perhaps the most horrific experience of my entire life. I can compare it with nothing else. They took me, fingerprinted me, booked me, and then threw me in a holding cell. In here, I was standing with about thirty others, at least 95% of them black, and 20% of them enduring through a psychotic episode (those who are diagnosed by a psychiatrist for mental disorders are often withheld their medication for a period of time up to months). The room itself was about twice the size of a sleeping room, and proportionately to the amount of people, it was smaller. There was not enough room for everyone to sit down -- which reminded me of the descriptions of conditions on slave ships. I was in this room for a total of 13 hours straight, of which we were once fed soggy, tunafish sandwiches. I had been accustomed to, at this point, eating dumpster food. And even this prison food was comparatively inedible. Finally, we were thrown in our cells, and awaiting to see the judge. Here, in prison, we waited, under the greatest hypocrisy known to us. INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY! Fucking tell that to my face when I was sitting in a jail cell with nothing but the accusation of a cop who likes to beat up children. In jail, I did not personally see anyone beaten by a cop. I had seen, however, a cop do an inspection of the Holding Cell, and a suspect started cussing him out. He said, "Get the fuck out of here, you motherfucking pig!" The cop responded, "Asshole... You wait until night time comes and you're behind those prison bars," waving his baton. The cop would leave. A minute would pass, and another cop would call out that same inmate. Thirty minutes would pass till we see him again. He was limping. Nobody else seemed to really notice, but it wasn't that. It was just so common, so obvious, so typical of every cop, that it's not even a shock anymore. The cops don't exist to protect and serve. They are the American gestapo, persecuting, beating, arresting, beating, raping. They spend years learning to attack and kill people, and then they are given free reign over the life and liberty of every person in society.
Why do they arrest us? The answer is obvious to any homeless person. We are arrested because we make the city ugly. Especially in such a tourist trap town as New Orleans, we are jailed up by police officers because we make the city ugly. I can easily prove this. Around Christmas (when I was arrested) and Mardi Gras, as well as New Years or any other tourist time, arrests will jump by at least 10 times. I have seen, in jail, up to four or five people, sharing a single cell that was built for only two. There have also been homeless people to freeze to death in jail. This cannot be so hard to believe. Since the walls are made of stone, there's a typical coldness to it all. And since you are never given a blanket (though there's a 50% chance you'll find something resembling a blanket in your cell), it can be easy to see how someone would freeze to death in prison. So, this one goes out to a downed comrade: RIP "Cornbread." It was too cold that night, he was in HOD (House of Detention) on the top floor, where it was the coldest, and they found him stiff the next morning.
My friend, Bear, was arrested by the police for Aggrivated Assault, because he attacked someone with a knife. I called the police department, and asked about him. He had to serve 45 to 60 days before he would see a judge. Two fucking months, with nothing but an accusation. But, only two weeks would pass, and I would see him on the street again. They had released him early, because the prison was too packed with people who had committed crimes like, "Obstruction of a Public Passage," and the "The First Amendment Doesn't Really Exist/Disrespecting a Police Officer." When I was arrested, I was not read my rights. All I heard was, "If you try to run, I will shoot and kill you." All I saw was a gun pointing in my face. Nobody saw a lawyer. In fact, the idea that you get to see a lawyer is absolute fucking bullshit. If you plead not guilty to any crime, you must automatically serve 21 days in prison, so that a trial can be set up. The crime, however, of "Criminal Trespassing," carries with it only 10 days. If you plead guilty, you serve 10 days. If you plead not guilty, you serve 21 days. If you can make bail, that's great. You don't have to serve 21 days. But what does this reconfirm? The law exists for the rich, and not for the poor. If you think that a homeless person can make a $5000, think again. And, even after those 21 days, if you fail to prove you're innocent, and you ask for "Time Served" -- which means those 21 days of waiting for trial will be deducted from your sentence -- there's a good chance you'll be denied it. So, those days you spent in prison, not convicted of anything, outweigh however long you'll spend in prison, for the actual sentence. And it is the job of the police to snatch up as many people as they can on the streets. When I was waiting to see the judge so I could give a plea, a seven day waiting period, I had seen people leave and reenter the prison system. "You were here when I was released, and you still haven't talked to the judge?" one home bum would ask me, as I saw him again on the inside. I saw one person say to the judge, "But I was never read my rights," and the judge responded, "When you had cuffs put on, you should have been able to tell you were being arrested." And finally, when before the judge, he asks you two questions, "Do you have a job or are you in school? Do you have a home?" That is all he needs to know before he gives you a sentence.
I remember after my trial, we had all been lined up. One of the guards decided it was her duty to lecture us. "You're all a garbage," she said, "You all need to get a job and learn to respect yourselves. I can't even stand to look at you. You all need to start paying taxes and stop stealing. You're just making it harder on everyone else." I didn't say anything. I "knew my place," as they might say, but this only translates to: if you voice your opinion, you won't be breathing after five minutes of their reaction. An Anarcho-Communist doesn't last long in jail, when he makes his opinions prevalent. If I said, "Maybe we wouldn't be stealing if we were paid a living wage," I could guarantee you that I would have more scars to show you than I do now. Asside from all that, the most dissapointing fact about prison was that when I asked if there was a prison library, I was given some Christian propaganda. I was hoping for some Thomas Paine at least. I remember my friend Humble getting arrested. He saw his two friends arrested, so he gave each of them a cigarette while they were in cuffs. As he was walking away, he was grabbed by a cop and arrested. But what crime could he possibly commit? Simple: Obstruction of a Public Passage, Begging, and Vagrancy. After all, giving cigarettes to your friend ought to be a felony offense. If you can't see the obvious nature of that, try telling that to the next cop you see, and then spend the next 6,000 hours in jail wishing that the First Amendment actually meant something. I had seen friends driving the most beat up pickup truck, with the words "FUCK THE POLICE" spray-painted on the side. They had been stopped three times in as many miles, until they were arrested.
Shoplifting became my trade. It was how I acquired the name "Robin Hood." It seemed to be rather romantic in itself, if everything else was wretched. Every day, I would go to a Walgreens or a grocery store, and steal, ripoff, five finger discount, shoplift, whatever the fuck you want to call it. Then I would go throughout the city, distributing food to the poor families. My attitude was, "I did it yesterday, I did it today, and I can know when I wake up tomorrow, I'll be doing it again." But sometimes, it was too hard. I remember walking out of the door of a store, and hearing the alarm, and then just bolting down the street, running as fast as I possibly could. I remember running from the cops with my street brother Pockets. It was me, him, and his dog. We ran zig-zagging blocks, the only way that you can possibly escape from the police. And we got away. I remember having to run from mounted police. The only thing I could do was run into a crowd and disappear as best as I possibly could. I remember my friend Johnny. He ran from cops when some squatters in their tents were busted. As the cops moved in, all of the squatters ran. Never in your life had you seen so many people running from cops, struggling to be free, and often times being beaten in the face with a baton, as I had seen. That is what it's like no the streets of America. Screaming "stop hitting me!" to the police officer who is smashing your face, and then getting a Disturbing the Peace charge because of it. Maybe it was because in Maine, thousands of dairy farmers dumped milk into the ground, just to raise the price of all dairy products, of which we still couldn't afford at the moment. Not to mention that my friend Pockets or Humble or Twitch may have been working at $5 a day (the going rate for a homeless person) delivering or producing that milk, only so that they can starve to the point where they have to steal food to feed themselves and their family. And then they can go to jail, and serve two months in prison, the way my friend George served for stealing two cans of soda, and you can't show the judge any records of employment, because you won't be hired unless you will be paid under the table. None of this, which, the police give a shit about, because they're making a bonus on EVERY ARREST -- legal and illegal -- that they get, so to them it's a matter of spotting someone who has no financial means of defending themselves in court, so the homeless are the primary target. Meanwhile, my other friends are paid minimum wage so they can build a statue of the mayor on the waterfront, and so that they can go home at night to an overcrowded apartment with maybe rice or peanutbutter as their only food.
Earlier, when I talked about myself and Pockets running from the cops, he told me later that he considered letting the dog loose. Why is this? Police are notorious for killing pets and dogs that belong to homeless people. There is, in actuality, no real penalty incurred upon them for doing this. Since it's not a human being, they reason, it has no rights. I have, personally, seen dogs shot by cops. It is an old pasttime of police officers to burn down squats, or to shoot up squats. I remember seeing one dog who had been shot by a police officer. There was an entry wound in the chest and an exit wound on the side. It had never seen anything so tragic, so terrible... Fortunately, there was a veterinarian in New Orleans who took care of the animals of homeless people free of charge mostly. His name was Dr. Mike, and he set up shop on North Rampart. How is it, one may inquire, that the poorest of the poor, can obtain and sustain animals? Mostly, these dogs are better fed than their masters. I remember Pockets describing the two dogs that he had owned. "It's gonna be 20 fucking degrees man, but I'll have one dog on my chest and one dog on my legs, and we'll keep each other warm," he told me. Pockets was a Humanitarian. Both of his dogs he had found running loose in the ghetto, without a collar or a leash. He had taken them to the vet, though, and registered them, and paying for shots and vaccination -- all with money that he had obtained through spanging, or asking people for spare change. I remember a middle class man threatening us to get out of the dog park, because he didn't like homeless people -- and after all, who the fuck would? He threatened to tell the police that Pockets knowingly had a dog on Rabis and that the dog had to be killed. Of course, Pockets carried the vaccination proof on him at all times. Though he seemed to lose everything else, he never lost that. But the cop would have no problem with shooting the dogs, anyway. I wouldn't be surprised for shit if that was part of the job description: "Must aid in the liquidation of all animals, human and non-human." My friend Humble had a kitten, who was adoringly named "squat," who he had found homeless in a junk yard, much like another friend had obtained a gerbil, still in its cage, in the dumpster.
Many gutter punks and homeless people, including the home bums, are all politically minded. I had heard one of them talking to another, "Yeah, I was arrested with my girlfirend for sleeping in the park," -- "Yeah, that's because it's tourist season, and you look bad for the industry," -- "And the fucked part is that I fucking live here. They throw my ass in jail so that someone from two thousand fucking miles away can spend their money." They may have lacked the language that had been used by every poet and writer of the past centuries, but what they had was what no philosopher or statesmen could possibly have discovered. Everywhere I went, I saw the words, "FIGHT WAR NOT WARS" and "DESTROY POWER NOT PEOPLE." These were slogans inscribed by peace punks. The last thing I remember writing on a wall with a sharpie in New Orleans was, "They drop fire on people, but they won't let them write 'fuck' on their airplanes, because it is obscene!" A classic quote from "Apocalypse Now," and rather fitting. I remember seeing a newspaper machine, and in thick sharpie was written the word, "PROPAGANDA!!!" I remember seeing a poster that said, "It's a bigger problem than you think," and at the bottom reading, "Premature birth." But that had been scratched out, and the word "GOVERNMENT" had been placed there. Pockets was particularly fond of poetry that dealt with meaning and purpose, and was an avid reader of Kahlil Gabrahm. My friend Beast went to the free poetry slams and read his material. He had a backpack, and the only thing he kept in it was notebooks of poetry. And I remember leaving a homeless hang out, and reading on the wall, "I made a god, out of blood, not superiority, I killed the king, of deceit, raise me up, in anarchy." And they were but lyrics to the song "Anarchy," by KMFDM.
Those were my days, among the "wretched refuse" that we may be called. I wish we didn't have to face the dangers that we did, but I'm glad that at least we had each other. So, maybe we did find something that was worth eternity, even though we're the poorest class. I tried to explain it to a friend of mine. I told her... Because we had to face the danger of street life together, our bonds were all the more stronger. We did not develop a unity by some imaginary foe, the way a government may use propaganda in a war. We created a family through working together, with the constraints that we have under the present regime. We could survive through anything together, because we were as one. Take the greatest draught, the worst famine, the most horific plague, and you will find a squatter shivering, skin tightly wrapped around bone and lack of nourishment, and a diseased body, but you will find him surviving, because if there is one thing we can do, that is it. But maybe that's not entirely true. It wasn't so much that we could survive, but with what we had found, with each other, it didn't matter if we did or not... because we had something that made each day an eternity. We refused to bargain with society. We made no compromises. Even if it kills us, we will be free. And so it has killed some of us. But they are not the martyrs of freedom, so much as they are the casualties in the battle for liberty.

Socialism in the United States

2005-12-25T22:56:00.001-08:00

Socialism in the United States

One of the reasons for the demise of the Soviet Union and other forms of communism, was because such governments opposed the private ownership of things. The government used socialism to try to control what a person could own or even hope to achieve throughout his or her life.
Initially capitalism was based on the idea that an individual can own what one desires if one chooses to work for it. Under capitalism, a hard worker can hope to prosper and control one's life in any way one chooses.
But instead of the capitalist ideal, it seems the United States of today is more socialist than ever before. Consider the following elements of current American life.
Hospital care is so high that most individual Americans cannot afford to pay for it. So they must depend on their employer ( Corporate America).
The price of colleges and other schools are out of range for most individual Americans. To send their kids to college average people depend on things like college insurance, loans, scholarships, and grants. Another words, the education of most Americans depends on the benevolence of some Corporate or Government Entity.
Most Americans can't afford property, they have to take out mortgages with Corporate Banks. If they pay off their mortgage, they still don't own their property. Taxes have become so high, that, in some cases, it costs more in taxes than if the equivalent property was rented. Whenever the government or some other corporation decides, they can condemn a person's property and have that person forcibly evicted. A new Supreme Court decision was handed down this year (2005) to make it easier for local Government Entities to legally confiscate your property for the common good (Kelo vs New London ).
Family Homes are being replaced by condominiums. This scheme allows you to "own" a unit, but you must pay for the upkeep of the common area where your unit is located.( The individual gives up control of the land his unit is on to some corporate entity. The unit cannot exist without the controlling entity. )
Most Americans can't afford to buy cars with cash, so they must take out a loan with a bank or the auto company's finance service. Years ago a person could save up and make a cash purchase of a new car, but today one can't even buy a decent used car without some form of credit.
Furniture is being rented by some people, because they can't afford to buy it. Practically all new furniture stores offer credit, because they realize most people can't afford cash purchases.
There are so many Federal, State, and Municipal laws (and the number grows every day), that just by being alive a person must be violating some law. If a government or corporate agency felt like it, an individual can be arrested at any time.
High tech tracking has made it hard to maintain your privacy. Soon everyone will be connected to the internet through DSL lines, Cable Modems, or other high speed connections. This type of media maintains connections continuously. Currently an individual can turn his computer off and disconnect from the internet even if he has DSL. The day is coming where it will be against the law to turn off a computer, TV, or any other monitoring device. Americans will be forced to listen to the ravings of Corporate Aliens during breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Independent small businesses will soon not exist. Large corporations are either wiping out, merging, or partnering with small business. Even such a basic business as farming is becoming corporate rather than family owned. Soon every business will be either a branch or a partner of a large corporation.
So how socialized is the United States of America? If it continues at this rate it will soon be called the United Socialist States of America (USSA). While dictators like Stalin were trying to force the population of the USSR into submission, the Corporate Aliens launched a quiet invasion, and little by little gained more and more control over the majority of the American people. Unlike the Soviet Union, US socialism is not totally government controlled, but it's a joint effort of both government and corporate entities. What's even worse, is that the entire world is being groomed based on similar principles.

An Alternative to Nazism

2005-12-25T22:56:00.000-08:00

An Alternative to Nazism

This one is for Renita...
Introduction
When speaking of Nazism, and the ranks that have existed under the ideas of anti-Semitism, one typically also includes others, such as the Ku Klux Klan, White Pride militants, the "Creativity" Movement, among other groups that are of a nationalist and racialist opinion. When I speak of Nazism, I am referring to those who have a particular anti-Semitism and have organized themselves into this movement. While the original National Socialist Party by Adolf Hitler has been expunged by a coalition of Allied forces, the ideas that formed the basis of this party still exist today. Today, the anti-Semite and Nazi thoughts, converting new individuals and dissipating from older generations, have been organized into various parties. They can be found in different chapters throughout different cities, the various collectives of individuals who hope, either through propaganda or protest, to convince the rest of the white population that they are oppressed. In this piece, I am going to offer an alternative to Nazi ideology. By this, I mean I am going to justify an opposing theory, one of tolerance, rather than one of intolerance and persecution.
The Essence of Nazism
"The Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end spying on the unsuspicious German girl he plans to seduce. He wants to contaminate her blood and remove her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew hates the white race and wants to lower its cultural level so that the Jews might dominate."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925)
The essence of Nazism is to befriend another by the color of their skin, to ostracize another because of the parents that brought them into the world; it is make allies and enemies on account of the one aspect of their life they could not control, who their parents were. The only part of life a man or woman cannot alter or change is whom their parents are, what racial background they are descended from. They may be born into the slums of poverty, the thresholds of political oppression, the bitter and unjust yolk of slavery. Yes, they may be born into some other things they cannot control, but they are still given a chance to overthrow even the most difficult obstacles; yet, as to their race, nothing they can do will change it. Asside from a man's race, how they feel about it is also what anti-Semites and Nazis will judge. A white man who befriends black or asian men and women will be called a "race traitor." Upon these two traits of character come the method of judgment: race and sentiments on the importance of race.
As to a man's intelligence, his wit, his strength, his courage, his boldness, interest in goodness and appeal to justice, Nazism offers no desire. Furthermore, it has made the statement that all good qualities can be found in the Aryan race, the white race, the "pure" race. Those desirable characteristics that have intrinsic value, the search for goodness and thoughtfulness, Nazism claims that they can be only be found within those of the Aryan race. The debased qualities, cruelty, malice, ignorance, apathy, nihilism, greed, those qualities we find in those we hate and in those who have done us wrong, Nazism has applied them to those of a different race. Those of the Jewish ethnicity, it has called them the destroyer of culture, the conspirator against equity, the enemy of the good, common people. Those who have descended from the African race have been called bruttish, ignorant, violators of women, and holding an indecent disrespect for all that is sacred. Of those whose race developed and grew in Asia, they have been called the deceivers, thieves to the good spirit of Democracy, culprits against the strength of the people. There is no doubt that these are despisable attributes; no good person will have these qualities, but will deplore them. The tenets of Nazism agree, but they have gone one step further, in accusing the non-white races of holding these attributes. The genetic characteristics are indicative of moral and personal qualities, so they have advanced.
The races of the world, as diverse as they are, representing a variety of cultures and ideas, have been targeted by the soldiers of Nazism. They have been called the ones responsible for the problems of the world. So, it is that the duty of every Nazi has been to convince the world that it is only right to fight the other races.
"The whole organization of education, and training which the People's State is to build up must take as its crowning task the work of instilling into the hearts and brains of the youth entrusted to it the racial instinct and understanding of the racial idea. No boy or girl must leave school without having attained a clear insight into the meaning of racial purity and the importance of maintaining the racial blood unadulterated. Thus the first indispensable condition for the preservation of our race will have been established and thus the future cultural progress of our people will be assured."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925)
Does the Evidence Exist?
Can the claims that have been applied by Nazi ideology be confirmed? Of the Jewish race -- are they a particularly cruel and bitter people? I can find no evidence that supports this conclusion, and as my experience in the world grows, I am constantly observing otherwise. Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Franz Kafka, all writers, philosophers, psychologists, scientists, were also all Jewish, either ethnically or culturally or religiously. I certainly cannot say that I agree with all the words spoken or written by these individuals, I understand that Spinoza genuinely sought out the truth, that Freud applied a new and innovating method of psychology, that Einstein's theories revolutionized physics, and that Kafka's contribution to literature was considerable. I have yet to discover a single source that attributed these figures with being merciless or thoughtless, and none either that would attribute them with these characteristics because of their ethnicity.
Of the African race -- are the White Supremacists justified in asserting that they are a barbaric and unrefined manner? In all my experience and observation, I have found that good qualities and bad qualities never develop out of one's racial background. In my travels across the United States, I have found depravity and cruelty in those of every descent, and I have found eternal comradery and brotherhood with people of every skin color. A strong sense of family and security existed among these friends of mine, and I felt safe among them, whatever race they happened to be. Whatever the differences we have, of culture or preference or background, I come nothing short of being confirmed that kinship is an emotion that knows no race. At times like those, I wondered how a Nazi could have developed their ideology. And the answer comes to me. It was from propaganda, from another person's writing, not from actual observation, but from another person, whose observation was either limited or non-existant. So it would be, that a man can find goodness, and cruelty, in every race, had he employed the philosophy of observation. Lewis Latimer, W.E.B. Dubois, Roland Hayes, and Dr. Charles Richard Drew are all African in descent, but have contributed towards society in remarkable ways. Latimer pioneered the electrical and lightbulb industry, working with Edison. W.E.B. Dubois was a scholar and a visionary. Roland Hayes was a composer and an artist to life. Dr. Charles Richard Drew offered the knowledge of blood preservation and tranfusions, his work saving hundreds of millions of lives. In my understanding of the character of these men, I have found nothing to persuade me that they were of a corrupt or degenerate nature, nothing to convince me that they were particularly brutal or thoughtless.
Those who have descended from the Asian peoples -- is it justified that the National Socialist Party opposed them, their culture, and their rights and liberty? The Nazi followers have argued that the races coming from the continent of Asia are greedy, brutal, and hold no consideration for others. Those with racialist attitudes will hold distrust and animosity towards others based on their appearance, and so it is, that the Nazi movement has made an enemy out of the world's peoples. As I explained before, the attitudes a Nazi develops towards these other races is because of propaganda, because social attitudes that he was imbedded with. But to these claims, are they just? Was Lao Tzu thoughtless, careless with his observations, merciless? What of Sidartha Gautama or Confucius? It was the imperative of all of these philosophers to develop a method of society and living that would minimize suffering, not only of humans, but of all life. With millions of followers for every one of these philosophies, it can hardly be argued that these people are of a debased, inhumane nature. But then again, the fact that there are millions to serve in murder and execution squads, during the revolutions and counter-revolutions across Asia, the various religious wars between the different groups -- it proves just what I have asserted: that good and bad qualities can be found in all, despite racial background. One's parents do not determine the moral qualities of the offspring. Experience, observation, and demonstration prove that beyond a doubt.
I contend this... That no civilization was brought to rubble because of the loss of a "pure race," that no person is of a heartless or mindless character because of their ethnic background; the love of a person does not change because of the color of their skin, the pain and misery of an individual are not less or more because of heritage -- a treacher, brutal act is not pardoned or explained by the criminal's background; a beautiful, merciful act is not less poetic or less sincere because of the one reason that Nazis have applied. Every person is different in all sorts of ways, but physical appearance does not determine the moral sentiments, the mental strength, the kindness or villany of a person -- only actions do.
An Alternative
There is never a vice so destructive, that alternatives can't be found -- no act so merciless, that a change of heart and ammends are impossible. To Nazism, I state that the alternative exists. To those who have sided with the Nazi regime, the White Power and White Pride movement, the Ku Klux Klan, those who have emboddied Racist ideals, I offer them an alternative: to throw off the shackles of cultural prejudice and discrimination, and to adhere to justice, goodness, and charity among all living people. To walk with the knowledge that it is an act of duty to liberate the oppressed, not to walk with the lie that the white race is superior. To understand, inspire, hope, with a passion for improving the lives of all people. To allievate poverty, to end misery, to fight hunger, to do all that can be done to help the lives of all people, no matter what skin color they have.
The Anti-War sentiment, to live with the wisdom that killing people and destorying cities is but the epitome of barbarism. To believe that war is wrong is to affirm the very basic tenet of Humanitarianism: that to live by rapine and mayhem, to make your living off the pain and misery of others, is but the greatest injustice.
The Anarchist position... To understand and act, so that everyone's personal liberty is respected, that everyone is granted their right to opinion, through speech and thought. To hold that all political decision-making ability belongs to the people and the people alone, that military suppression of the population is a violation of truth and justice -- that is Anarchism.
Among all the alternatives that one could pose to the ideology of Nazism, there is one that stands out among the rest... To stand with the strength, the boldness, the courage, and oppose all forms of Racism and Sexism. To affirm to yourself that no man is made better or worse by his race, that no person should be denied freedom or rights because of their gender, and to stand by this and fight for it is a sign of goodness in character, an personal omen of genuine affection for the condition of mankind. The alternatives exist and I have presented them. To those who hold a grudge against the races of the planet, they must now show that they are strong enough to change.
"No League of Nations, or of individuals, can avail, without a change of heart. Reformers of all classes must recognize that it is useless to preach peace by itself, or socialism by itself, or anti-vivisection by itself, or vegetarianism by itself, or kindness to animals by itself. The cause of each and all of the evils that afflict the world is the same the general lack of humanity, the lack of the knowledge that all sentient life is akin, and that he who injures a fellow-being is in fact doing injury to himself. The prospects of a happier society are wrapped up in this despised and neglected truth, the very statement of which, at the present time, must (I well know) appear ridiculous to the accepted instructors of the people."
-- Henry Stephens-Shakespeare Salt, The Savour of Salt: A Henry Salt Anthology
Ignorance never set anyone free...

Waste Water Treatment

2005-11-30T06:54:00.000-08:00

A standard wastewater treatment train would typically consist of a primary clarifier system to remove solid and floating materials, a secondary treatment system consisting of an aeration basin followed by flocculation and sedimentation or an activated sludge system and a secondary clarifiers, a tertiary biological nitrogen removal system, and a final tertiary disinfections unit. The aeration basin/activated sludge system removes organic material by growing bacteria (activated sludge). The secondary clarifier removes the activated sludge from the water. The tertiary system is becoming more prevalent to remove nitrogen and phosphorus and do final disinfections of the water prior to its discharge to a surface water stream or ocean outfall. Before reentering into a body of water, the wastewater gets treated under a multi-stage process that are stated in discountreverseosmosis then only the water gets renovated and it is used for application. The process is the removal of wastewater pollutants, organic matter, disease-causing organisms, solids and nutrients.Most wastewater is treated in industrial-scale wastewater treatment plants, which may include physical, chemical and biological treatment processes. However, the use of septic tanks is widespread in rural areas, serving up to one quarter of the homes in the U.S. The most important aerobic treatment system is the activated sludge process, based on the maintenance and recirculation of a complex biomass composed by microorganisms able to degrade the organic matter carried in the wastewater. Anaerobic processes are widely applied in the treatment of industrial wastewaters and biological sludge. Some wastewater may be highly treated and reused as reclaimed water. For some wastewaters ecological approaches using reed bed systems such as constructed wetlands may be appropriate. Modern systems include tertiary treatment by micro filtration or synthetic membranes. After membrane filtration, the treated wastewater is indistinguishable from waters of natural origin of drinking quality.

Oil Paintings

2005-11-28T00:45:00.000-08:00

One of the famous painting medium on use is oil paints famous for the look and originality that the oil paint brings in to the paintings. The oil used in painting kept on changing keeping in mind various factors of viscosity, solubility, comfort ability, the color required for the painting and the drying time. Some oils used in historical periods could be flax, walnut, Olive oil or poppyseed oil but the drying time was long for these oil paintings and in the case of olive oil it was excessively long which brought in usage of drying oil as a varnish on oil paintings.

Water -Filters:

2005-11-17T06:32:00.000-08:00

Filters are the devices that help to remove impurities from water by means of a physical separators or chemical instruments. Filters cleanse water for irrigation, drinking water, aquariums and swimming pools. They can also be bought in the shops for domestic purpose. Two major brands are PUR and Brita. These filters take away the impure contents from the water. The presence of such impure contents may cause diseases like cancer, jaundice etc and things that taste or smell bad. The composition of filters is based solely on sieving, ion exchanges and other processes.

Types of Water Filters
UV Filters:
UV Filters have the ability of killing the majority of bacteria and viruses present in the water and one, which passes through them. Chemical pollutants will not be removed from the water with UV filters. The treatment is not efficient beyond the area of treatment, so water should be used as immediate as possible after it is treated.

Sand Filters:
Sand based water filters are generally used for more than hundred years for wastewater treatment. These filters are used on a larger scale to treat a water supply for a whole community, and they are custom made. Normally any apparatus needs a constant flow of water to work properly, and hence they cannot be used for well water treatment. Recently a Canadian scientist, David Manz developed an intermittent unit. You can buy pre-built units for domestic use, which are generally used in swimming pool pumps.

Charcoal Water Filters
These are generally from coconut husk as a filter medium. This generally takes in impurities as the water passes through. This form of filter comprises possibly 95% of those in use domestically, because they are very easy to install, they are comparatively cheaper, and filter out the dreadful contaminants, Cryptosporidium and Giardia. An average charcoal filter will last a family 6-9 months. They are also enhanced by the use of activated silver, which provides extra antibacterial power of filtering. Minerals in solution can still enrich a charcoal filter. Such Minerals improvise health.

Reverse Osmosis Water Filters

They make use of a semi-permeable membrane to filter through osmotic process. They take all the impurities out of the water, leaving it pure that is stated in water filters purifiers softeners. Usually installed under-sink, it needs a person to come every few months to install a new membrane.

Intranet

2005-09-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

An intranet is a local area network (LAN) used internally in an organisation to facilitate communication and access to information that is sometimes access-restricted. Sometimes the term refers only to the most visible service, the internal web site. The same concepts and technologies of the Internet such as clients and servers running on the Internet protocol suite are used to build an intranet. HTTP and other internet protocols are commonly used as well, especially FTP and email. There is often an attempt to use internet technologies to provide new interfaces with corporate 'legacy' data and information systems.
There does not necessarily have to be any access from the organisations's internal network to the internet itself. Where there is, there will be a firewall with a gateway through which all access takes place. Traffic going through the gateway can be monitored by the organisation's security department. This means that organisations that allow their staff internet access can normally determine which internet web sites are being viewed, block access to specific sites they don't want them to see (such as pornographic sex sites), and even trace offenders who persistently attempt to view them. They can also block certain types of web content (such as objects) which they consider a particular security risk.
Where external email access is provided, known sources of spam and specific types of email attachment can be blocked by the organisation. It should also be noted that emails sent and received this way can be required to be produced by the organisation in the event of legal action against it by a third party.

Petroleum

2005-09-17T02:30:00.000-07:00

Petroleum (from Greek petra – rock and oleum – oil), crude oil, sometimes colloquially called black gold, is a thick, dark brown or greenish liquid. A widely believed myth is that the oil itself is flammable, however it is actually the gas that evaporates from the oil that is flammable. Petroleum exists in the upper strata of some areas of the Earth's crust. Another name is naphtha, from Persian naft or nafátá (to flow). It consists of a complex mixture of various hydrocarbons, largely of the alkane series, but may vary much in appearance, composition, and purity. It is an important "primary energy" source (IEA Key World Energy Statistics). Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics.

Origin of maize

2005-09-17T02:29:00.000-07:00

Maize is a direct domesticate of the teosinte Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico, with up to 12% of its genetic material obtained from Zea mays ssp. mexicana through introgression. The term teosinte describes all species in the genus Zea, excluding Zea mays ssp. mays.
Maize development is thought to have started from 7,500 to 12,000 years ago. Archaeological remains of the earliest maize cob, found at Guila Naquitz Cave in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, date back roughly 6,250 years.
As a historical note, in the late 1930s, Paul Mangelsdorf suggested that domesticated maize was the result of a hybridization event between an unknown wild maize and Tripsacum. However, the proposed role of the related genus Tripsacum in the origins of maize has been refuted by modern genetic analysis.

Maize physiology

2005-09-17T02:25:00.000-07:00

The stems look like bamboo cane and the joints are about 40–50 cm (16–20 inches) apart. Maize has a very distinct growth form, the lower leaves being like broad flags, 50–100 cm long and 5–10 cm wide (2–4 feet by 2–4 inches); the stems are erect, from 2–3 m (7–10 feet) in height, with many joints, casting off flag-leaves at every joint. Under these leaves and close to the stem grows the corn, covered over by several layers of leaves, and so closed in by them to the stem, that it does not show itself easily till there bursts out at the end of the ear a number of strings, called silk, that look like tufts of horsehair, at first green, and afterwards red or yellow. The top of the stem ends in a flower, called the tassle. For each silk on which pollen from the tassle lands, one kernel of corn is produced. Young ears can be consumed raw, cob, silk, and all; as the plant matures (usually during the summer months) the cob toughens and the silk dries to inedibility. By late August the kernels have dried out and become difficult to chew without cooking them tender first in boiling water.heloo

Biomass

2005-09-17T02:23:00.000-07:00

Biomass is organic non-fossil material, collectively. In other words, biomass comprises the mass of all biological organisms, dead or alive, excluding biological mass that has been transformed by geological processes into substances such as coal or petroleum.
The most successful animal of the earth, in terms of biomass, is the Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, with a biomass of probably over 500 million tonnes, roughly twice the total biomass of humans. The entire earth contains about 75 Billion tons of Biomass. Humans comprise about 250 million tonnes (0.33%), domesticated animals about 700 million (1.0%), and crops about 2 Billion tons or 2.7% of the Earth's biomass.
In many ways biomass can be considered as a form of stored solar energy. The energy of the sun is 'captured' through the process of photosynthesis in growing plants.
Biomass is sometimes burned as fuel for cooking and to produce electricity and heat. This is called Biofuel. Biomass used as fuel often consists of underutilized types, like chaff and animal waste. This is often considered a type of alternative energy, although it is a polluting one.

hi

2005-03-08T04:18:00.000-08:00

Overall, illiteracy has greatly decreased in recent years.
Illiteracy and the percentage of populations without any schooling have decreased in the past several decades. For example, the percentage of population without any schooling decreased from 36% in 1960 to 25% in 2000.
Among developing countries, illiteracy and percentages without schooling in 2000 stood at about half the 1970 figures. Among developed countries, illiteracy rates decreased from 6 percent to 1 percent, and percentages without schooling decreased from 5 to 2.
Illiteracy rates in less-developed countries (LDCs) surpassed those of more developed countries (MDCs) by a factor of 10 in 1970, and by a factor of about 20 in 2000. Illiteracy decreased greatly in LDCs, and virtually disappeared in MDCs. Percentages without any schooling showed similar patterns.
Percentages of the population with no schooling varied greatly among LDCs in 2000, from less than 10 percent to over 65 percent. MDCs had much less variation, ranging from less than 2 percent to 17 percent.

hi

2005-03-08T04:13:00.000-08:00