Saying that the country was passing through a deep economic crisis for the first time since Independence, BJP president Rajnath Singh on Monday said that the country needed a 'realistic' prime minister and not an economist like Manmohan Singh.
Singh, an MP, said, "The prime minister is on the silent mode and soch raha hai (thinking what to do). The prime minister is a big economist. Vajpayee was not an economist but a realist. You compare the economy during the NDA and UPA regimes."
"After the UPA came to power in 2004, the rupee went to the ventilator, the dollar is climbing the escalator and the domestic investors are on the runway ready to invest overseas and the educated youth is on the runway," Singh said at an interactive session organised by ICC and MCC Chamber.
Singh noted that during the NDA regime from 1998 to 2004, India was a current account surplus nation, but turned into a current account deficit country during the UPA rule.
Pointing out that the UPA government had made a deadly combination of high external debt and high current account deficit, Singh said, "The present problems are beyond the control of the UPA government and India needs a change."
The BJP had repeatedly asked the government in both houses of Parliament to take steps to control the CAD, but nothing had been done.
"All this happened due to wrong policies and planning of the government as well as rampant corruption. I am saying that the success story is not over, but waiting for the return of the BJP," he said.
Singh also criticised the government for having no conviction or vision.
"There is no conviction or vision of the government which was the result of an all-round deterioration in all the sectors. The bureaucratic hurdles can be done away in a whiff. But it depends on political leadership," he said.
Singh said that blindly aping the western model of development had spelt doom for the country.
"There is a need to rethink on the country's development model. In this regard, he said that the BJP would present a vision document on an alternative economic model for the country which was already in an advanced stage of preparation. It would be announced in two months," he said.
Singh said that the model envisages higher purchasing power for villagers as 74 per cent of the population of the country was living in villages.
"It will embrace the Gandhian economic model where Gandhi talked of gram swaraj. If we don't do that, then a civil unrest will be knocking at the door," he felt.
Referring to China, he said that leaving aside the cities, most people of the country was extremely aggrieved at the Chinese government's economic policies and expressing their unhappiness.
"Nakal karke akal barhane se shakal bigar jate hai (increasing brainpower after imitating some will lead to ugly looks), he said. "There is no need to follow others," he said.?
A major contender for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP said that it would take the credibility crisis of the politicians as a challenge.
Asked to comment on the Ranchi court's conviction on RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Monday on multi-crore fodder scam, BJP president Rajnath Singh said, "I will not comment on the court judgement."
"This will lead to the crisis of credibility of the politicians of the country and people want corruption-free politics," he told reporters at an interactive session organised by the ICC and MMC Chamber.
"BJP will take this up as a challenge," he said.?
? Copyright 2013 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.
An accountant who scoped out the New York Stock Exchange as a potential target for al Qaeda was sentenced on Monday to 18 years in prison.?
Sabirhan Hasanoff, a dual U.S. and Australian citizen living in New York, provided financial support to al Qaeda and conducted surveillance of the New York Stock Exchange in 2008, prosecutors said. He also sought to travel overseas to receive military training to fight Americans, they said.?
U.S. intelligence officials said in June that Hasanoff's arrest was indirectly the result of monitoring by the U.S. National Security Agency of a "known extremist in Yemen."?
Hasanoff, who had previously worked at accounting firms including KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, pleaded guilty in June 2012, nearly two years after he was arrested on charges of conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda.?
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood said on Monday that Hasanoff appeared to be "a charitable, loving, good family man" before he became radicalized.?
"None of that, however, deterred him from planning to leave his family and die fighting jihad against Americans," Wood said.? Wood also ordered Hasanoff to forfeit $70,000.?
Hasanoff's lawyer, Joshua Dratel, portrayed his client as a family man who was "psychologically lured" into extremism. Like some Muslims in the West, Dratel said, Hasanoff was "guilt-tripped" into his crimes.?
Hasanoff, 37, apologized to the court and his friends and family, many of whom were present.?
"I'm very sorry for my conduct," Hasanoff said. "I should have known better and I don't have any excuse."?
Prosecutors said Hasanoff cased the NYSE in 2008 and sent a one-page report back to a co-conspirator in Yemen. Hasanoff additionally acquired items at al Qaeda's request, including a device that could be used to remotely detonate explosives, prosecutors said.?
"There is simply no aspect of this case that calls for any leniency," said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Cronan, who asked that Hasanoff be sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in prison. "He agreed to support al Qaeda."?
New York-born Wesam El-Hanafi, who was arrested along with Hasanoff in April 2010, is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 18, after also pleading guilty last year.?
In a letter to the court filed June 17, Hasanoff said he had been trying to connect with his Muslim faith in 2007 "and reconcile that faith with what I saw as atrocities committed against Muslims around the world."?
Hasanoff, who was born in China, said he was a member of the Islamic ethnic minority group called Uighurs. His family moved to Australia when he was a child in 1980 as part of a refugee program.?
Entering into a business agreement is a major decision ? one that should not be entered into without a bit of due diligence and a healthy amount of skepticism where future associates are concerned. Part of online reputation management means performing thorough research. The Internet has made it easier than ever to get a fairly accurate overview of potential partners prior to signing an agreement.
Here are five reasons to take a look at someone?s online reputation before establishing a business relationship.
1. Criminal history
Most states offer the opportunity to download a complete criminal activity record online. This is absolutely vital to ensure that any future business partner isn?t hiding a slew of felony offenses. Owners and managers would obviously hate to find out that their operations were being handled by a less-than-upstanding citizen.
This advice also holds true to those looking to franchise a business or intake independent sales representatives. One prime example: Nashville, Tennessee-based ?homeless newspaper?, The Contributor, was flung into the spotlight in March of 2013 not for its supposed business opportunity for the city?s downtrodden, but for allowing a known sex offender to register as a representative and distribute papers across the street from a middle school. When the 50-year-old Independent contractor was arrested for sexual battery, a 25-year-long criminal record was uncovered by the press. Had the newspaper performed a simple background check on this individual, this bad publicity could?ve been avoided.
2. Professional/personal maturity
In order for a business to succeed it must emanate professionalism and respectability at all times. Social-media sites like Facebook ? where online reputation management disasters are found every day ? make it easy to see how an individual portrays themselves when not dressed in a business suit. While no one should be expected to be perfect all the time, either on or off-line, is probably a good bet to stay away from partnering with someone whose college frat party photos are easily accessible and proudly displayed.
3. Honesty
Honesty and integrity are key traits in a business partner. The Internet ? specifically social media outlets ? can help pinpoint whether or not the intended entrepreneur is one worthy of a partnership. Status updates, tweets, and even forum posts and comments may show conflicting information than presented in person. Facts about people?s political views, religious affiliations, and even family circumstances can be found online with little effort.
4. Reliability
A quick investigation into a future partner?s online habits can reveal whether or not they?re reliable, dependable, and trustworthy. This information may come in the form of photographs posted online, location updates, or even affiliations with community service organizations.
5. Personality
The Internet can often make it difficult to gauge someone?s tone in a conversation. However, the way the person interacts with current and former employees, employers, friends, relatives, and other business associates can offer clues to their real-world personality. Finding negative or belittling remarks or hostile online exchanges is a major red flag that the individual posting them may not be the person they say they are.
A business?s online reputation management strategy must absolutely begin and end with honest and forthright information. If the partnership is launched with the wrong skeletons in the closet, it may fail long before given the opportunity to prove its professional merit.
Despite the best efforts, it may not always be possible to find out everything there is to know about a business partner before it?s too late. Many a business has fallen for previous indiscretions of their owners. Those looking to regain their reputation can halt some of the damage by blogging, updating social media regularly, or using the services of a professional online reputation management services provider.
About the author
Blake Jonathan Boldt is a content strategist for Reputation Advocate. He provides writing, editing, social media and content strategy services for both domestic and international clients. His articles have been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers and digital media outlets.
WAREHAM ? There's more to Wareham High School athletics than the triumphant boys basketball team, which has won 11 South Coast Conference championships, three MIAA South Sectionals and one MIAA state title since 2000.
The success of the basketball team is, unfortunately, the exception and not the rule for the Vikings.
Since claiming the state championship in March 2010, the school has seen its enrollment decrease by a quarter and its once lofty athletic ambitions collide with reality.
Since the fall season began almost a month ago, the Wareham High School football, boys and girls soccer, field hockey, volleyball and golf teams have combined to win a total of one varsity game going into the past weekend.
Ed Rodrigues began this month as the fourth athletic director in the last four years. He comes to Wareham after a Hall of Fame basketball coaching career in New Bedford High School that included two state championships. He has been the sports director of the middle schools in New Bedford for the past five years.
"Being the fourth athletic director in four years hasn't helped things, but I plan on staying around," Rodrigues said. "The people I've dealt with are very nice and we're all on the same page to make this a better situation.
"The coaches work hard and the players are trying their best. The administration has been really good. Hopefully, we can turn it around in a couple of years."
Less than a month since school started, Rodrigues is sifting through the daily minutia of the fall sports season while searching for the right plan to return the Wareham High teams to prominence. He has some ideas from his past associations at New Bedford High and UMass Dartmouth.
"My goal is to hire coaches that believe their sport is the most important thing to them outside of family," he said. "They'll have passion for their sport and get people involved in a yearly basis, not just seasonal. I want to promote the attitude to be part of something good. Kids don't want to play on losing teams.
"We have a lot of coaches who have passion for their sport and, hopefully, that will be passed on to the students. I still believe you have to build from within. I want to invite middle school students to our games, hold clinics in the elementary and middle schools and promote Wareham High sports. I want those kids to want to be a Wareham Viking."
This is the second year that Wareham has received a waiver to allow eighth graders to play on high school teams. In some cases, that has provided depth. In others, it has enabled teams to survive.
Wareham High principal Scott Palladino has seen his school's enrollment dwindle from a high near 1,000 in the mid-2000s to the low 600s, dropping from 817 as late as 2009-2010 to 626 last year.
"We're in a tough conference and we're one of the smallest schools," Palladino said. "We've lost students to Upper Cape Regional and it's tough to replace that population."
Neighboring schools, such as Old Rochester Regional in Mattapoisett, have added school choice, which allows students living outside its district to apply to attend its schools.
Wareham also offers school choice and last year the net loss to choice students was 10, however, those numbers are not true for the high school.
"School choice has affected the high school more than the elementary schools," Janice Rotella, director of curriculum for the town's schools, said. "We're pretty much neutral, looking at school choice overall, but not by any particular school. Most of the kids coming into Wareham are at lower grade levels and more are going out at the secondary level."
The options of school choice, private, parochial or vocational education all factor into the decrease in enrollment, but there's more to it than that.
"I think it's an array of factors," Rotella said. "To say there's only one would be a misnomer. You can't pin it on one thing.
"We had received notice that Upper Cape had accepted in excess of 80 freshmen from Wareham. The increased number of students going to Upper Cape is a huge factor as is the shift in population here in Wareham. We were hit very hard by the economic downturn. We know people lost homes and were forced to move and that has affected the high school. Put those factors together and that accounts for most of it."
According to numbers provided by Upper Cape Regional in Bourne, the number of Wareham students attending has risen from 191 in 2008-2009 to 234 the last school year. The percentage of students from Wareham in the school has increased from 31 percent to 36 percent.
Each school's enrollment is based on students enrolled on Oct. 1 each year. The 2013-2014 numbers won't be finalized until Tuesday. The freshmen class at Wareham High has been around 200 each year, but if 80 students who are accepted actually attend the vocational school, it would have a major impact on the high school.
"In my eight years, I think there has been a perception that because of budget constraints, Wareham High School is not able to offer students the breadth of education that other schools have been able to," Rotella said. "We needed more technology and updated materials and the parents' perception was the budget was impeding that from happening. Maybe there was a better education elsewhere.
"Our students do well in 4-year colleges and overwhelming numbers of students go to some college, but perception got in the way. Our new superintendent of schools is committed to changing that perception. The focus is on public relations.
"The good news has to be shouted from the rooftops. Wareham High School is a Level 1 school with excellent test scores that are going up. That fact is not part of this maligned perception."
Rotella explained that town meeting voters in June passed a warrant article in excess of $300,000 to complete infrastructure for total WiFi at all the schools with increase bandwidth and online access and purchase text and online access e-books for reading and literacy in grades K-5, new math text and e-books for algebra through pre-calculus in the high school and math from grades K-8.
"We are moving to increase 1-on-1 computing with individual tablets," Rotella said. "We are increasing technology as an integral part of education and instruction, moving toward all those skills. When students graduate, they'll be going to college and careers where it's not on paper, but is all digital."
A former coach, Palladino knows that the athletic landscape has changed over the years, statewide and locally.
"Success breeds success," he acknowledged. "In my 20 years here, I've seen the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. As you build a program, those down years are few and far between. When they happen, you have to look at the feeder program. We've been spoiled. We've had a large feeder population going through the feeder program. I would suspect the feeder programs are down.
"Look at the teams that win," he pointed out. "It used to be the tough kids from the cities. Now, it's the affluent communities like Duxbury and Barnstable." Students from those communities can hone their skills in off-season programs that have a cost to them.
In addition to the number of students, there is a financial piece to this puzzle.
"We're cutting 3 percent and Upper Cape is adding 7 percent," Palladino pointed out. "That's a 10 percent difference and that's huge. We're a comprehensive high school and we'll get some of those students back. They're seeing change that being in academic classes half time is not cutting it."
Football coach Dan Nault acknowledged that some sports are cyclical.
"There are talent cycles we go through, especially at this school," Nault explained. "Last year, we had 18 seniors and 16 played a lot. This year, this is a young team that has only one player with true varsity experience. We have less kids, but the same percentage. Our enrollment has dropped, but when we had 1,000, about 100 were out for football. Now that we're at 600-plus, we have 55 out for football.
"We've been very good for a long time, but we've had 1-10 and 3-8 seasons. When we were 1-10 in 2010, we had 16 sophomores playing. Then we went 7-4 and 9-2, but we graduated those 16. We have a good product and can sell it. Now eighth graders can play. I took four eighth graders, who were too big to play Pop Warner. Kids want to play football here. Other options are not as enticing. Parents have ideas, but kids choose where they want to go."
There are external causes for a team's record, too.
"Why don't you win when you're very good?" Nault asked. "Well, Dighton-Rehoboth and Apponequet can have the same cycles and they're good, too. My goal this year is that we'll beat somebody we shouldn't and we'll find roles for everyone."
Girls soccer coach Cindy Sylvia is in her 17th year and 48th athletic season at Wareham High.
"I've seen the ups and downs," she said. "We've had championship teams and last year, my first 0-16 team. There are a lot of things in play socially and economically in town. Every program here is struggling. We had middle school sports, but that ended four years ago.
"We're struggling because top athletes from the eighth grade don't come here. We're not getting every eighth grader like we used to. We need to get the eighth-graders because, as soon as you step foot in this building, you'll want to stay.
"A lot has to do with the economics of the town. To get into an off-season program, it can cost $500-$1,000. Some families have trouble making the $100 user fee. For them to anticipate spending $1,000-$1,200 to play club soccer is tough. I have to give kids Saturday and Sunday off so they can work."
Rachael Hellyar took her volleyball team, which has the school's lone victory this fall, to the MIAA South Sectional Tournament two years ago, the first time a Wareham volleyball team qualified. She has started an intramural volleyball program for middle school girls on her own time in an effort to build the program. The results have been somewhat disappointing.
"We've lost a ton of kids, but we have to make it work," she said. "We're going to build winning teams. It takes time to build a tradition. I ran an intramural program for eight weeks, three times a week, for sixth through eighth graders, for free. I had 25 kids in this program and now all of the freshmen are playing for Upper Cape.
"I've seen our middle school intramural program numbers go up, but my experience is, I call the kids in the summer and they say, 'I'm sorry coach, I'm going to Upper Cape.' People want to be part of winning teams and it's hard to lose all your games. That holds some kids back."
John Sousa coaches the boys' soccer team and he has opened club options for those who choose to go that way and can afford it. He's also developed a relationship with the town's youth soccer program.
"Soccer has never been huge at Wareham High," Sousa said. "I'm trying to build it from the ground up. The youth soccer numbers are expanding and now, we have to get them into the high school.
"I run free clinics every Saturday in the winter from 9-to-1. I gave up all my Saturdays in trying to build that relationship with Wareham Youth Soccer."
Amanda Bobola is in her first season as the field hockey coach and she has had to dip into the eighth graders heavily this year to support the program.
"I'm disappointed we don't have the numbers of kids," Bobola said. "It's too bad there aren't more kids. There's a smaller pool to pick from and we have eight eighth graders. They haven't been given the opportunity to leave Wareham yet. They're new and developing in an awesome way, but it's hard to build when you don't know if they are coming back next year."
We reserve the right to remove any content at any time from this Community, including without limitation if it violates the Community Rules. We ask that you report content that you in good faith believe violates the above rules by clicking the Flag link next to the offending comment or fill out this form. New comments are only accepted for two weeks from the date of publication. Not sure how to add your comment? Here's howWareham athletics looking for solutions to sports woes | SouthCoastToday.com
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WAREHAM ? There's more to Wareham High School athletics than the triumphant boys basketball team, which has won 11 South Coast Conference championships, three MIAA South Sectionals and one MIAA state title since 2000.
The success of the basketball team is, unfortunately, the exception and not the rule for the Vikings.
Since claiming the state championship in March 2010, the school has seen its enrollment decrease by a quarter and its once lofty athletic ambitions collide with reality.
Since the fall season began almost a month ago, the Wareham High School football, boys and girls soccer, field hockey, volleyball and golf teams have combined to win a total of one varsity game going into the past weekend.
Ed Rodrigues began this month as the fourth athletic director in the last four years. He comes to Wareham after a Hall of Fame basketball coaching career in New Bedford High School that included two state championships. He has been the sports director of the middle schools in New Bedford for the past five years.
"Being the fourth athletic director in four years hasn't helped things, but I plan on staying around," Rodrigues said. "The people I've dealt with are very nice and we're all on the same page to make this a better situation.
"The coaches work hard and the players are trying their best. The administration has been really good. Hopefully, we can turn it around in a couple of years."
Less than a month since school started, Rodrigues is sifting through the daily minutia of the fall sports season while searching for the right plan to return the Wareham High teams to prominence. He has some ideas from his past associations at New Bedford High and UMass Dartmouth.
"My goal is to hire coaches that believe their sport is the most important thing to them outside of family," he said. "They'll have passion for their sport and get people involved in a yearly basis, not just seasonal. I want to promote the attitude to be part of something good. Kids don't want to play on losing teams.
"We have a lot of coaches who have passion for their sport and, hopefully, that will be passed on to the students. I still believe you have to build from within. I want to invite middle school students to our games, hold clinics in the elementary and middle schools and promote Wareham High sports. I want those kids to want to be a Wareham Viking."
This is the second year that Wareham has received a waiver to allow eighth graders to play on high school teams. In some cases, that has provided depth. In others, it has enabled teams to survive.
Wareham High principal Scott Palladino has seen his school's enrollment dwindle from a high near 1,000 in the mid-2000s to the low 600s, dropping from 817 as late as 2009-2010 to 626 last year.
"We're in a tough conference and we're one of the smallest schools," Palladino said. "We've lost students to Upper Cape Regional and it's tough to replace that population."
Neighboring schools, such as Old Rochester Regional in Mattapoisett, have added school choice, which allows students living outside its district to apply to attend its schools.
Wareham also offers school choice and last year the net loss to choice students was 10, however, those numbers are not true for the high school.
"School choice has affected the high school more than the elementary schools," Janice Rotella, director of curriculum for the town's schools, said. "We're pretty much neutral, looking at school choice overall, but not by any particular school. Most of the kids coming into Wareham are at lower grade levels and more are going out at the secondary level."
The options of school choice, private, parochial or vocational education all factor into the decrease in enrollment, but there's more to it than that.
"I think it's an array of factors," Rotella said. "To say there's only one would be a misnomer. You can't pin it on one thing.
"We had received notice that Upper Cape had accepted in excess of 80 freshmen from Wareham. The increased number of students going to Upper Cape is a huge factor as is the shift in population here in Wareham. We were hit very hard by the economic downturn. We know people lost homes and were forced to move and that has affected the high school. Put those factors together and that accounts for most of it."
According to numbers provided by Upper Cape Regional in Bourne, the number of Wareham students attending has risen from 191 in 2008-2009 to 234 the last school year. The percentage of students from Wareham in the school has increased from 31 percent to 36 percent.
Each school's enrollment is based on students enrolled on Oct. 1 each year. The 2013-2014 numbers won't be finalized until Tuesday. The freshmen class at Wareham High has been around 200 each year, but if 80 students who are accepted actually attend the vocational school, it would have a major impact on the high school.
"In my eight years, I think there has been a perception that because of budget constraints, Wareham High School is not able to offer students the breadth of education that other schools have been able to," Rotella said. "We needed more technology and updated materials and the parents' perception was the budget was impeding that from happening. Maybe there was a better education elsewhere.
"Our students do well in 4-year colleges and overwhelming numbers of students go to some college, but perception got in the way. Our new superintendent of schools is committed to changing that perception. The focus is on public relations.
"The good news has to be shouted from the rooftops. Wareham High School is a Level 1 school with excellent test scores that are going up. That fact is not part of this maligned perception."
Rotella explained that town meeting voters in June passed a warrant article in excess of $300,000 to complete infrastructure for total WiFi at all the schools with increase bandwidth and online access and purchase text and online access e-books for reading and literacy in grades K-5, new math text and e-books for algebra through pre-calculus in the high school and math from grades K-8.
"We are moving to increase 1-on-1 computing with individual tablets," Rotella said. "We are increasing technology as an integral part of education and instruction, moving toward all those skills. When students graduate, they'll be going to college and careers where it's not on paper, but is all digital."
A former coach, Palladino knows that the athletic landscape has changed over the years, statewide and locally.
"Success breeds success," he acknowledged. "In my 20 years here, I've seen the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. As you build a program, those down years are few and far between. When they happen, you have to look at the feeder program. We've been spoiled. We've had a large feeder population going through the feeder program. I would suspect the feeder programs are down.
"Look at the teams that win," he pointed out. "It used to be the tough kids from the cities. Now, it's the affluent communities like Duxbury and Barnstable." Students from those communities can hone their skills in off-season programs that have a cost to them.
In addition to the number of students, there is a financial piece to this puzzle.
"We're cutting 3 percent and Upper Cape is adding 7 percent," Palladino pointed out. "That's a 10 percent difference and that's huge. We're a comprehensive high school and we'll get some of those students back. They're seeing change that being in academic classes half time is not cutting it."
Football coach Dan Nault acknowledged that some sports are cyclical.
"There are talent cycles we go through, especially at this school," Nault explained. "Last year, we had 18 seniors and 16 played a lot. This year, this is a young team that has only one player with true varsity experience. We have less kids, but the same percentage. Our enrollment has dropped, but when we had 1,000, about 100 were out for football. Now that we're at 600-plus, we have 55 out for football.
"We've been very good for a long time, but we've had 1-10 and 3-8 seasons. When we were 1-10 in 2010, we had 16 sophomores playing. Then we went 7-4 and 9-2, but we graduated those 16. We have a good product and can sell it. Now eighth graders can play. I took four eighth graders, who were too big to play Pop Warner. Kids want to play football here. Other options are not as enticing. Parents have ideas, but kids choose where they want to go."
There are external causes for a team's record, too.
"Why don't you win when you're very good?" Nault asked. "Well, Dighton-Rehoboth and Apponequet can have the same cycles and they're good, too. My goal this year is that we'll beat somebody we shouldn't and we'll find roles for everyone."
Girls soccer coach Cindy Sylvia is in her 17th year and 48th athletic season at Wareham High.
"I've seen the ups and downs," she said. "We've had championship teams and last year, my first 0-16 team. There are a lot of things in play socially and economically in town. Every program here is struggling. We had middle school sports, but that ended four years ago.
"We're struggling because top athletes from the eighth grade don't come here. We're not getting every eighth grader like we used to. We need to get the eighth-graders because, as soon as you step foot in this building, you'll want to stay.
"A lot has to do with the economics of the town. To get into an off-season program, it can cost $500-$1,000. Some families have trouble making the $100 user fee. For them to anticipate spending $1,000-$1,200 to play club soccer is tough. I have to give kids Saturday and Sunday off so they can work."
Rachael Hellyar took her volleyball team, which has the school's lone victory this fall, to the MIAA South Sectional Tournament two years ago, the first time a Wareham volleyball team qualified. She has started an intramural volleyball program for middle school girls on her own time in an effort to build the program. The results have been somewhat disappointing.
"We've lost a ton of kids, but we have to make it work," she said. "We're going to build winning teams. It takes time to build a tradition. I ran an intramural program for eight weeks, three times a week, for sixth through eighth graders, for free. I had 25 kids in this program and now all of the freshmen are playing for Upper Cape.
"I've seen our middle school intramural program numbers go up, but my experience is, I call the kids in the summer and they say, 'I'm sorry coach, I'm going to Upper Cape.' People want to be part of winning teams and it's hard to lose all your games. That holds some kids back."
John Sousa coaches the boys' soccer team and he has opened club options for those who choose to go that way and can afford it. He's also developed a relationship with the town's youth soccer program.
"Soccer has never been huge at Wareham High," Sousa said. "I'm trying to build it from the ground up. The youth soccer numbers are expanding and now, we have to get them into the high school.
"I run free clinics every Saturday in the winter from 9-to-1. I gave up all my Saturdays in trying to build that relationship with Wareham Youth Soccer."
Amanda Bobola is in her first season as the field hockey coach and she has had to dip into the eighth graders heavily this year to support the program.
"I'm disappointed we don't have the numbers of kids," Bobola said. "It's too bad there aren't more kids. There's a smaller pool to pick from and we have eight eighth graders. They haven't been given the opportunity to leave Wareham yet. They're new and developing in an awesome way, but it's hard to build when you don't know if they are coming back next year."
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Source: www.donanimhaber.com --- Sunday, September 29, 2013 Sat??a ??kt??? ilk haftasonu rekor bir a??l?? yapan Apple'?n yeni iPhone modelleri, bunun yan?nda farkl? rekorlara da sebep olabiliyor. ABD'de kullan?c?lardan cep telefonlar?n? en uygun fiyattan sat?n alan Gazelle platformunun verilerine g?re, yeni iPhone modellerinin sat??a ??kt??? ilk hafta Galaxy cihazlar?n? iade eden t?keticilerin oran? y?zde 210 artt?. ?zellikle cihazlar?n sat??a ??kt??? yerel saatle 10.00-11.00 aras?nda saniyede 5 sat?? teklifi geldi. ...
Fine Gael Dublin South Central Deputy, Catherine Byrne, has today (Sunday) said the fact that more than 1,300 jobs were announced in the last week is a strong signal that confidence in the Irish economy is growing and that the policies being adopted by Government are the right ones.
?In the last week 1,329 jobs were announced by 11 different companies in Ireland, across 4 counties. These jobs are being created in a range of sectors from financial services to retail and agri-food to ICT.
?These jobs are being created in Dublin, Westmeath, Kildare and Monaghan and include 300 jobs at Dell (Dublin), 250 jobs at Dealz retailers (nationwide), 150 jobs at Qulatrics survey technology provider (Dublin), 50 permanent and 200 seasonal jobs at Stream Services call centre (Dublin), 100 jobs at Twitter (Dublin), 53 jobs at Swift Fine Foods (Monaghan), 30 jobs at Green Farm Foods (Westmeath), 55 jobs at Heatons, 50 jobs at the National Digital Research Centre (Dublin) and 40 jobs at Nando?s Restaurant (Dublin).
?While there is still a long way to go before we get to where we want to be in terms of the unemployment figures, I am very heartened by the progress the Government is making in creating an environment in which businesses can grow and prosper.
?We are now at the stage where we are creating an average of 3,000 jobs a month, with the most recent CSO figures indicating that 33,800 new jobs were created in the last year. While this is very encouraging, it is imperative that we continue to ensure that the right measures are in place to reduce red tape for businesses and to incentivise companies, both domestic and foreign, to expand and develop operations here so that we can continue to push the Live Register figures down.
?We are heading into Budget season in a few weeks? time, for the first time ever in October. I have no doubt that initiatives such as the Action Plan for Jobs and Pathways to Work will continue to focus on the most effective ways of making sure the needs of the jobs market are met and that those who are in need of work are assisted in securing available positions.
?We are starting to see strong signs of recovery in the Irish economy and are on track to regain our economic sovereignty by exiting the bailout later this year. The announcement of 1,329 jobs in one week is a clear indication that businesses are responding to the policies being implemented by Government and I look forward to that progress continuing long into the future.? ?
The "iOS Toolchain" package on the BigBoss repo provides a useful toolchain capable of developing packages on jailbroken devices using the iOS SDK (tested up to the 6.1 SDK) It contains: LLVM, Clang, and CompilerRT 3.3 LD64 134.9 Darwin CC Tools 839
When used with theos, these can produce binaries for arm, armv6, armv7, and armv7f using SDKS up to and including the iOS 6.1 SDK.
We wrote on September 27 that the media might find it difficult to develop story lines?or come up with coherent, introspective, meaningful coverage about yesterday?s?release of the Yarnell Hill Fire report?if it did not include causes and recommendations. The report provided more information about the deaths near Yarnell, Arizona on June 30 of 19 firefighters, members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
The document did not identify causes or contributing factors like we have seen in other fatality reports. It had some conclusions and recommendations, but they were fairly mild and did little toward pointing fingers at specific acts or omissions that caused the accident.
This made it difficult for reporters who in most cases know little about wildland fire to summarize the report in a short news article. Facts about outflow winds, rate of spread, and staying in the black, meant little.
Many of them looked for something easy to understand or measurable, like ?radio problems? which was in the headline of some stories, or the number of air tankers. A radio programming mistake, leaving out the tone guard on frequencies, at first made it impossible to use those channels for communication. Some radio systems require not only that the correct frequency be programmed, but that a brief audible tone be added. If the tone is not included when transmitting, the receiving radio will ignore the transmission. The report said crews developed ?workarounds so they could communicate using their radios?. Apparently this problem was solved or at least partially mitigated. The report did not elaborate on the ?workaround?.
Here are some of the headlines and the first points mentioned about the causes, in articles we found about the release of the report:
Washington Post: In the first paragraph mentions an ?unpredictable desert thunderstorm? and ?confusing radio communications?.
Huffington Post?s headline: ?Yarnell Fire Radio Problems Cited In Deaths Of 19 Firefighters, According To New Investigation?.
Associated Press headline at Firehouse.com: ?Video: Yarnell Hill Fire Report Indicates Radio Issues?.
AZCentral.com, at the top of the article has a short video of lead investigator Jim Karels mentioning the radio programming issue.
LA Times cites ?problems with radio communication?.
Associated Press at ABC15.com, in the first paragraph, said the report ??cites poor communication between the men and support staff, and reveals that an airtanker carrying flame retardant was hovering overhead as the men died.? (I would like to see a video of that ?hovering? air tanker, which was a DC-10.)
NPR Blog?cited ?weather reports that may have been misunderstood [and] radio communications that the investigators deem ?challenging.? ?
ABC7 news in Denver: ??poor communication between the men and support staff, and reveals that an airtanker carrying flame retardant was hovering overhead as the men died.?
New York Times: ???it outlined several problems, like radios that sometimes did not work properly, updates that did not give a precise sense of the crew?s movements, and the 33-minute period of radio silence.?
BBC:???inadequate communication played a role in their fate?The report authors describe radio communications as ?challenging throughout the incident?.?
In most of these articles citing radio issues, they are referring to the programming mistake, but some go on to discuss a failure of people to adequately communicate their thoughts to one another, which at times was an issue and led to confusion about the location of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Other related problems were too much radio traffic on some frequencies and the workload of the Air Supervision Module which resulted in them missing some incoming radio calls from the 19 trapped firefighters.
Ask DNA. Some people do just have better genes. Just how you've probably met people in high school who could bench 300 after training for a month, etc. Some people are just lucky and others aren't.
Besides that, generally hormonal issues. If you're constantly stressed you'll have messed up cortisol levels that in turn affect insulin release, appetite, give you hyper or hypoglycemia, etc. Again, luck of the draw down to your genetics who gets those, but in most cases those can be managed with supplements or medication, but the problem is you'd need an endocrinologist, and one that knows his sh** and actually cares at that.
Then lastly, some people do just consume too many calories for their activity level.
But mostly I lean with the constant stress that mess with people's hormonal profiles.
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starkid Phoenix
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1401b Phoenix
Joined: May 22, 2012 Posts: 886
Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2013 5:49 pm?? ?Post subject:
Maybe they just started being health and so they still look pudgy. or
Maybe you're over critical of other people's looks. or
Maybe you don't know their whole story about eating right and exercising. or
Maybe they're lying. or
Maybe they're incorrect or ignorant of what is healthy. or
Maybe it's not your business to judge them. or
Maybe you simply enjoy trying to find "exceptions" to "generalized rules".
One cannot live life by "the exceptions" because those are rare by definition and therefore unlikely to be a reasonable avenue to success. (of any kind)
Though it does give one gobs of excuses to remain a failure at everything. _________________ (14.01.b) Been there; Done that; and wow am I embarrassed.
Life sucks hard, the solutions may be inside your own brain box.
Our Project- https://sites.google.com/site/StabilizingAutism
IntoMobile writes, Aside from the new Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, we also expected to see Microsoft announcing the smaller Surface Mini. Alas, that hasn?t happened but that doesn?t mean the Redmond giant won?t make such a device. According to a ZDNet report, that model has been delayed and will be introduced at some point next year, boasting Windows RT rather than full-blown Windows 8.1. This means it will use an ARM-based chip (or Intel Atom) along with a 7- to 7.5-inch screen. It is said that Microsoft first wants to complete the ?Sprint 2014 GDR? update for the Windows RT and only then launch the?
Continue reading Microsoft Surface Mini coming next year? at IntoMobile
Source: forums.canadiancontent.net --- Saturday, September 28, 2013 TORONTO - At least 38 pages of e-mails containing the words ?crack cocaine? from the account of a former Mayor Rob Ford staffer won?t be made public. The City of Toronto released the first batch of e-mails Friday in response to freedom of information requests around Ford?s scandal involving crack cocaine allegations. City officials have been swamped with 29 requests from several media outlets, including the Toronto Sun, asking them to disclose the mayor?s office internal communications from the time period when Ford was under siege by the drug allegations. The Sun has requested all correspondence by several Ford staffers that includes the words ?crack cocaine.? The first e-mails ? 186 pages ? were solely from the e-mails account of Brian Johnston, a former policy adviser in the mayor?s office, who resigned back in May. City officials took out an additional 38 pages of e-mails based on freedom of information legislation that allows them to redact e-mails to and from constituents or that could be described as ?of a personal nature.? more 38 pages of Mayor Rob Ford staffer e-mails with 'crack cocaine' won't be released | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun ...
Pittsburgh offensive coordinator Todd Haley and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had trouble adjusting last season, but this year there still appears to be a divide. The Steelers are 28th in total offense, and 30th with 14 points a game after three weeks.
In the Monday night game against Chicago, the Steelers opened up the offense some, but eventually fell 40-23 behind 406 yards for two touchdowns and two interceptions by Roethlisberger.?Receiver Antonio Brown had nine catches for 196 yards and those two scores, but the Pittsburgh running game failed to kickstart after the team went down 17-0 in the first quarter.?
Rookie running back LeVeon Bell should give Pittsburgh a huge boost, making his debut after a foot injury kept him out the first three weeks of the season. He?ll also try to bust through one of the NFL?s worst offensive lines already reeling from the loss of Maurkice Pouncey.
Minnesota also hopes to ride their running back, MVP Adrian Peterson, for its first victory after losing the first three matchups by an average of five points.?Peterson had 88 yards and a touchdown, while quarterback Christian Ponder rushed for two scores, but the Vikings fell to Cleveland 31-24. Among the top 10 rushers in the NFL, Peterson leads that bunch with two fumbles.
Minnesota?s secondary is now ranked 28th the league, allowing 315.7 passing yards per game.
Compounding their troubles, Ponder reportedly has a rib injury, and veteran Matt Cassel will start on Sunday. The 31-year-old was the primary passer in Kansas City for four years, and did lead them to the playoffs in 2010, but he?s failed to complete more than 59 percent of his passes since his breakout year of 2008 in New England.
The game starts at 1 p.m. ET and will be broadcast by CBS, or watch a live online stream by purchasing NFL Game Access here.
The developers at Palo Alto-based Mercedes-Benz Research and Development are constantly watching technology trends that develop around them. And they've seen a lot of trends that have faded into the abyss.
But when Senior Engineering Director Kal Mos and his team walked back from Google I/O ? the company's annual developer conference ? last year, they knew that one trend they saw was not going away: Google Glass.
"We saw (that) people started hacking those devices and developing things for them," Mos said, referring to the tech giant's latest sensation: a wearable computer that looks like glasses but is equipped with smartphone-like capabilities (such as taking a photo or browsing the Internet) that can be used hands-free.
Palo Alto developers like those at Mercedes-Benz Research and Development have begun tinkering, hacking and inventing with the device to expand the world of wearable technologies. The Bay Area Glass-buzz has convinced Mos that even if Glass is not the next big thing, wearable technology as a whole will indeed take off.
After Mos and his team decided that the hype around Google Glass was not just a fad, they immediately began brainstorming how they could incorporate this native technology into their cars.
"There is one black spot for Google and that's certainly in the vehicle experience," said Thomas Winkler, an engineer on Mos' team. "Every other part of your life, they have pretty much integrated into. The vehicle is one void."
The group brainstormed multiple ideas involving Google Glass and cars and decided to focus on one function that is fundamental to the driver: navigation.
The team calls their Google Glass prototype "door-to-door navigation." A user can speak a desired destination to Google Glass, get in his or her car, plug a phone in to the car and ? voila! ? the destination is transferred to the car's GPS. After the user parks the car and leaves, the destination is transferred back from the car to the user's Google Glass for the final stretch on foot.
"The wearable computing devices ... are extremely useful. The car itself also has a lot of capabilities," he said. "We looked into how we can have these devices talk to each other, work together to find the most comfortable user experience and non-distracting user experience."
The "non-distracting experience" is very important to Mos and his team. He said he saw that there were many concerns regarding Google Glass and potentially distracted driving, so the consistent goal for his team is to transfer any potential user distractions to the car.
"We want people to focus on the driving experience," he said. "We see this as a way for people to have it both ways. Have the Glass experience. Have the car experience."
Worldwide, people are working on Google Glass applications geared toward journalists, surgeons, the disabled and more. Palo Alto resident Stephen Balaban is one of them. He founded Lamda Labs, a wearable computing company that is developing custom software for devices like Google Glass.
Before Google released Glass, the 24-year-old tech enthusiast had been pondering facial recognition for a while. Imagine a life, he said, where you could look at someone, search through your social network on the spot and find out who that person was.
"When I was really initially thinking about this problem, I thought, 'Man, I'm going to have to make custom hardware. Nothing like this even exists,'" Balaban said. "And then when Google announced (Glass), I felt, 'Wow, maybe I don't have to do all the custom hardware and all the hard work.'"
Unfortunately, Balaban had to root (translation: re-engineer to allow unrestricted access) his Glass, since Google has decided not to support facial recognition in response to privacy concerns. Balaban, though, believes facial recognition with Google Glass has tremendous potential in business and service industries.
"(Google) really to some degree can't control what runs on their device," he said. "They can control what's on their app store certainly, but when you have root access to the device, all bets are off."
After Balaban released a Facial Recognition API (application program interface) in June, Google changed its terms of service to state that it no longer would approve facial recognition applications. Balaban said that by doing so, Google is missing out on significant opportunities.
"My reaction to that was, well, certainly it was time to root the device," Balaban said, adding that he became much more jaded towards Google Glass after that point.
Still, Balaban created a Google Glass app called MindCap, which takes a picture every few seconds, even if the screen is turned off ? a capability that would not be possible with a non-rooted device.
Balaban recently looked through all the pictures that his Google Glass took of his day, which turned out to be mostly programming at his home office. He calls it "life logging" and has considered creating a daily report out of it, with a review of the conversations he had that day and even quantitative summaries, such as the amount of time spent outside or in front of a computer. If he could run facial recognition over the live stream of his pictures, he could include a list of people he met.
"Those are the things Lambda can do: machine learning and wearable computing software," he said, "and if you can bring that all together, I think that it could be really cool."
When Google restricts this development stage, Balaban said, it cuts out a core segment of the population.
"The people who really like (Glass) are the hackers and tinkerers who like taking things apart and putting them back together and playing around with them," he said. "I think Google is making a big tactical mistake by not having that as their core demographic."
Catalin Voss, an 18-year-old Stanford University student from Germany, is a major tinkerer. He's been playing with iPhone applications since he was 12 years old, downloading Apple code and experimenting with it to create new applications. He's also the co-founder of Sension, a Mountain View-based start-up that creates visual interface technology.
Sension was originally inspired by a drive to reform online education, but with Google Glass, it's going beyond that: treating people with autism.
Voss, who has a cousin with autism, has built face-tracking technology for Glass that allows the user to recognize another person's emotion. A person can put on Glass, look at someone he or she is talking to and, if they smile, "Happy" pops up on the Glass screen. It can also recognize sadness, anger and fearfulness. The facial recognition tool works geometrically, by analyzing the movement of various points on a person's face. There are 78 total possible points, such as the corners of the mouth or each eye.
"Right now the way autistic children learn emotions, if they have, say, Asperger's, is they sit in a room like this one," Voss said on a recent afternoon, motioning to the conference room he was sitting in. "And basically there's a doctor or a behavioral psychologist or somebody like that in the room with them and they do flashcards. They look at people smiling, they look at images, they look at cartoons, they look at smileys. Sometimes they bring relatives in. But the way I smile and the way you smile is very different, at least to my cousin it is. The problem is, they don't learn the sort of data about the people they interact with. It's not real-life data, and they can't learn it on the people they most care about, which is who they encounter in school, in college, at work."
But with Sension technology, autistic people could wear Glass for a month or two (or however long is necessary) so they become familiarized, in real-time, with real people.
"And then eventually are able to take it off and start recognizing emotions on the people that they learned it on," Voss said.
Using Glass in this way is part of Voss' long-term vision for emotion recognition technologies, which is that devices should respond to and interact with their users. But he said that long-term vision, however far off, has been difficult to reach due to certain constraints with Google and Glass.
Sension only has two units, and Voss said he has "struggled" to get their hands on more.
His company receives many requests from people who want to try out the new technology, including a mother from Berkeley with an autistic son. Sension can't accommodate these kind of requests with only two units, Voss said.
But, "We're playing by Google's rules," Voss said. "I don't know beyond that."
David Grieshaber, founder and CEO of TechGolf, said he missed the mobile transformation. He doesn't want to make that mistake again. That's why his next focus is wearable technology.
Since two years ago, Grieshaber ? based in Brisbane, Calif. ? has been working to integrate technology and golf in his company TechGolf, with high-tech driving ranges and, now, a Google Glass app called iCaddy.
"Google Glass ... is perfect for golf," he said. "Golf is nonviolent and slow moving, and it is simple to connect to a network on a golf course."
The app displays yardage, elevation, temperature, wind direction, suggested clubs and past scores while the golfer is playing.
"Our goal is to lower the score of every player," Grieshaber said. "Our goal is to make it as simple as possible so you don't have to think about all those numbers."
Grieshaber said that he is surprised at the rate at which Google Glass has gained steam in Silicon Valley and that he doesn't see this product tanking.
"The amount of money that is being poured into the technology now will make it have some sort of success no matter what," he said. "Once it becomes socially acceptable, just like the smartphone, with three or four or five iterations down the road, they could sell 100 million or 200 million."
With the Glass technology as nascent as it is, hackers agree no one's yet developed the "killer app."
William Hurley, who goes by Whurley and is the co-founder of the mobile software studio Chaotic Moon Studios, said there are many great ideas milling about, but not the big one.
"I've seen ideas in every vertical," he wrote in an email. "From medical to aerospace, even law enforcement. All of them show promise, but I'm not ready to award any of them the 'cool' title yet. Simply put, no one has nailed the killer app."
Despite that, he believes wearable technology is the next smartphone and will be everywhere in five years.
"Don't believe that? Just take your time machine five years back and see what the state of today's booming smartphone market looked like. There are literally dozens of parallels," he wrote.
Barg Upender ? co-founder of the San Francisco-based Google Glass application developer dSky9 ? is a little more skeptical about how mainstream the device can become.
Even though Google has built up a red-carpet feel to the product, he said: "It's still yet to be seen how well it would be adopted by the lay person."
Nonetheless, Upender ? who has worked in the technology world for two decades ? said that the hype around Glass will provide the engine for other smaller companies working with the macro-trend of wearable technologies.
Whurley agreed that Google Glass will push the macro-trend forward.
"It almost doesn't matter if Google Glass is successful or not, as it has already put enough sunlight on the ecosystem that literally dozens of similar/competing products have received funding (or additional funding) in the last year," he wrote.
Therefore, dSky9 has poured its focus into a Google Glass app called FaveStar.
"It's bookmarks for your life," he said. The user can tell Glass to "favorite this" and their Glass will take a quick picture, which the user can tag and store away in a memory bank. Then, he or she can share it with friends, find recommendations or search for the food, music, events, scenes and people that the user likes.
DSky9 also developed three demo apps: StarFinder to show constellations, UltraRun to show a user real-time training data and PathFinder to show hidden data about the landscape around a user.
Upender said any new technology product needs early adopters and developers to risk their effort.
"It's almost like a petri dish," he said. "If the tech guys are giving the thumbs up, eventually it will move to the rest of the world."
These early adopters, he said, are there to see the vision of what this technology can do. And as they continue, they all will strive to build the next killer app.
Editorial Assistant Elena Kadvany contributed to this report
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Saying that the country was passing through a deep economic crisis for the first time since Independence, BJP president Rajnath Singh on Monday said that the country needed a 'realistic' prime minister and not an economist like Manmohan Singh.
Blake Jonathan Boldt is a content strategist for Reputation Advocate. He provides writing, editing, social media and content strategy services for both domestic and international clients. His articles have been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers and digital media outlets.
Sat??a ??kt??? ilk haftasonu rekor bir a??l?? yapan Apple'?n yeni iPhone modelleri, bunun yan?nda farkl? rekorlara da sebep olabiliyor. ABD'de kullan?c?lardan cep telefonlar?n? en uygun fiyattan sat?n alan Gazelle platformunun verilerine g?re, yeni iPhone modellerinin sat??a ??kt??? ilk hafta Galaxy cihazlar?n? iade eden t?keticilerin oran? y?zde 210 artt?. ?zellikle cihazlar?n sat??a ??kt??? yerel saatle 10.00-11.00 aras?nda saniyede 5 sat?? teklifi geldi. ...
