2008年5月10日星期六
Boomers shift their eating habits for healthy living
Chicago attorney Ray Gordon looks at Hulled Sesame Seeds in a whole new way. At 59, he has taken over the responsibility of grocery shopping and cooking, a role his wife had for 30 years. "The kitchen is now my domain," he said. "I enjoy cooking. It’s like a hobby." This transformation was spurred by rising blood pressure and cholesterol levels that landed Gordon at Northwestern Memorial Wellness Institute. After identifying his “food personality,” working with a dietitian and exercising for the first time in his life, he dropped 30 pounds and lowered his blood pressure enough to scale back on medication. “I never used to think about my meals or what I was eating,” he said. “I knew I had to make changes.” Gordon is typical of other Baby Boomers who are getting their act together when it comes to what they eat. They are taking their health into their own hands and changing the American foodscape along the way. Born between the years 1946 and 1964, Baby Boomers have driven some of the most powerful cultural shifts in our nation’s history, and that includes food, said Michelle Barry, an analyst with The Hartman Group, a market research firm in Bellevue, Wash. This huge demographic is behind a majority of today’s food trends — everything from nutritionally enhanced foods and functional beverages to fresh local produce and artisanal foods. “This generation is redefining what it means to have quality food,’’ Barry said. And, she added, they’re investing the time to become more knowledgeable about food. Aging Boomers approach food with a sense of optimism and hope, and view it as a way they can help control their future, she said. Nearly 80 million strong, this generation may have grown up on meatloaf, mashed potatoes and tuna casserole, but now they’re seeking foods that can help them stay young, or at least feel young. Boomers have traded in their Tang for orange juice fortified with ingredients that can lower their cholesterol. They’ve ditched their beloved Pop-Tarts for high-fiber flaxseed cereal and said goodbye to Tab for acai berry smoothies and green tea. “The Boomers, (now between the ages of 42 and 62, more or less) do not view themselves as ‘old’ like their parents tended to at this age,’’ said Matt Thornhill, president of The Boomer Project, which collects marketing data on Boomers. But today’s Boomers are not searching for the fountain of youth; rather, they’re seeking the fountain of vitality, he said. “They accept that they’re no longer 25, but they want to be the best they can be at 50 or 60.’’ As luck would have it, there’s no shortage of advice on what Boomers should eat to stay vital and fit. In fact, an anti-aging diet movement seems to be sweeping the nation: Bookstores and grocery stores are filled with how-to tomes and foods promising to keep your mind sharp, arteries clear, bones strong and joints pain-free. A major champion of this movement is Dr. Michael Roizen, creator of the RealAge program and co-author of the new book “You Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual for Extending Your Warranty’’ (Free Press, $26). His approach is based on research suggesting that your food and lifestyle choices can add years to your life. For instance, one recent study found that people who eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, drink moderately, exercise and quit smoking live on average 14 years longer than people who adopt none of these behaviors. On the flip side, other habits can shave off years or make you age even faster. But before you throw in the kitchen towel, it’s not too late to get started. No matter what kind of life you’ve already led, aging is reversible, Roizen said. “It’s never too late until you’re 6 feet under.’’ Unlike final exams in class or free throws on the basketball court, Roizen said, we can get a “do-over’’ when it comes to our diet. Damages of indulgent, careless eating can be erased in a matter of three years. Even better, within three months of changing a behavior you can start to measure a difference in your life expectancy, Roizen said. Power foods for Boomers Boomers grew up in the era when well-marbled meat dominated the plate. Now experts suggest we fill two-thirds of our plate with colorful fruits, vegetables and whole grains, leaving only one-third for a smaller portion of lean protein. Here’s a plan for filling your plate with some of the foods Baby Boomers need most. Based on a growing body of scientific evidence, these foods are among the top sources of nutrients that have the best potential to improve health and slow down the aging process.
Get a Deep Insight into the World Herbal Supplements and Remedies Market
A new market research report related to the Health food industry is available in its catalogue. World Herbal Supplements and Garlic Granule Market This report analyzes the worldwide markets for Herbal Supplements and Remedies in Millions of US$. The Major product segments analyzed are Ginkgo Biloba, Garlic, Ginseng, Echinacea, St. John's Wort, Soy, Aloe Vera, Specialty Herbs, Multi-Herbs, and Other Herbal Supplements. The report provides separate comprehensive analytics for the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Rest of World. Annual forecasts are provided for each region for the period of 2000 through 2015. The report profiles 104 companies including many key and niche players worldwide such as Amerifit Brands, Inc., Arizona Natural Products, Arkopharma SA, Bio-Botanica, Inc., Blackmores Ltd., Himalaya Drug Company, Imperial Ginseng Products Ltd., Indfrag Ltd., Inverness Medical Nutritionals Group, MMS Pro Professional Products, Natrol Inc., Nature's Sunshine Products, NBTY, Inc., Sundown Nutrition, Nutraceutical International Corporation, Pharma Nord APS, Pharmaton Natural Health Products, Pharmavite(R) LLC, Potters Herbal Medicines, Ricola USA, TwinLab Corporation, Nature's Herbs and Zandu Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. Market data and analytics are derived from primary and secondary research. Company profiles are mostly extracted from URL research and reported select online sources.
Siege barrister served in Territorial Army
Tag：Spraying Gun
A gunman shot dead after repeatedly opening fire on police during a five-hour stand-off in an exclusive west London area has been named locally as a barrister who had served in the Territorial Army. Mark Saunders, 32, exchanged fire with marksmen from the armed CO19 unit three times from his flat in Markham Square, Chelsea, just off Kings Road. After the third bout of gunfire, police stormed the flat after apparently using stun grenades. Eyewitnesses reported seeing green flashes and hearing several loud bangs before the police went in. Saunders was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 9.30pm. It was understood he did not shoot himself but was killed by an officer. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has opened an investigation into his death. Police sources said last night they were confident it would find he had been killed lawfully. Saunders had belonged to the Territorial Army's Honourable Artillery Company for three years until 2002, military sources said. He was an expert in family law, specialising in the division of assets after divorces, and was regarded as a emerging talent in his field. Saunders was educated privately at Kings School, Macclesfield, and graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, with a law degree. He was called to the bar in 1999, and shortly after that he joined QEB chambers in Temple, London. "He was a very valued member of the chambers, and obviously we are shocked and horrified by what has happened," a QEB spokeswoman said. "We have no knowledge of the circumstances leading up to it and our thoughts are with his family." His entry in Chambers & Partners Guide to the Legal Profession said: "Mark Saunders enters the up-and-coming category after a volley of praise. "Observers note that despite his youth he has a 'maturity, unflappability and lack of hesitation in his addresses' that puts one in mind of the hoariest proponents of the law." Saunders is thought to be the first person shot dead by Metropolitan police officers since Jean Charles de Menezes was killed in July 2005 at Stockwell underground station after being mistaken for a terrorist suspect. The Independent Police Complaints Commission said in a statement released this afternoon: "The incident began just before 5pm when shots were heard. It would appear there were exchanges of fire during the course of the evening. "Metropolitan police firearms officers entered a house in Markham Square and found the man. He was taken outside and given first aid, and an ambulance called. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. "The Metropolitan police referred the incident to the IPCC immediately. Three IPCC investigators went to the scene, which has been preserved. Speaking at the scene of the siege, Ian Bynoe, IPCC deputy chair, said this afternoon: "I know a firearm was recovered at the address and I'm led to believe it was lawfully held, and legally in the possession of the person it was issued to. "Until the IPCC gets the result of the postmortem examination we have to keep an open mind on how this man came to suffer the wounds from which he died." IPCC investigators were due to begin house-to-house inquiries, he added. The postmortem was due to take place this afternoon. Saunders' father, Rodney, 64, told the Daily Telegraph: "We are not aware of anything in his work life or private life which might have made him react like this. "It is bad enough to have a bereavement in the family, but this is exceptional by any standards. You could understand it if he was a terrorist, but Mark was not a terrorist." Witnesses said the siege began after a woman, believed to be Saunders' wife, Elizabeth, also a family law barrister at the same chambers, was seen leaving the block of flats in distress. In the days leading to the shooting, Saunders had been spotted rocking back and forth outside his flat in tears, a neighbour said today. Other witnesses told how Saunders had been drinking in a nearby pub before the shooting and seemed agitated. He was also spotted in a jewellery shop, witnesses said. Saunders and his partner were trying for a baby, neighbour Paddy Renous, 48, said. He revealed that Saunders had been drinking in the Phoenix pub nearby and said he understood Saunders was "fond of the sherbet". Neighbour Steve Trainer, 42, of Bywater Street, said he saw Saunders about two weeks ago sitting outside his home in a state of distress. He said: "I saw Mark some weeks ago. He was sitting on the wall or pavement outside his flat and he was sobbing. I have no idea what about but he looked shaken. He was kicking the pavement with the toe of his foot, banging it really hard." Officers were called after Saunders reportedly began shooting from the rear of a house in Markham Square. Marksmen forced their way into properties in adjacent Bywater Street to take up vantage points on balconies and at windows backing onto Markham Square.
A gunman shot dead after repeatedly opening fire on police during a five-hour stand-off in an exclusive west London area has been named locally as a barrister who had served in the Territorial Army. Mark Saunders, 32, exchanged fire with marksmen from the armed CO19 unit three times from his flat in Markham Square, Chelsea, just off Kings Road. After the third bout of gunfire, police stormed the flat after apparently using stun grenades. Eyewitnesses reported seeing green flashes and hearing several loud bangs before the police went in. Saunders was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 9.30pm. It was understood he did not shoot himself but was killed by an officer. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has opened an investigation into his death. Police sources said last night they were confident it would find he had been killed lawfully. Saunders had belonged to the Territorial Army's Honourable Artillery Company for three years until 2002, military sources said. He was an expert in family law, specialising in the division of assets after divorces, and was regarded as a emerging talent in his field. Saunders was educated privately at Kings School, Macclesfield, and graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, with a law degree. He was called to the bar in 1999, and shortly after that he joined QEB chambers in Temple, London. "He was a very valued member of the chambers, and obviously we are shocked and horrified by what has happened," a QEB spokeswoman said. "We have no knowledge of the circumstances leading up to it and our thoughts are with his family." His entry in Chambers & Partners Guide to the Legal Profession said: "Mark Saunders enters the up-and-coming category after a volley of praise. "Observers note that despite his youth he has a 'maturity, unflappability and lack of hesitation in his addresses' that puts one in mind of the hoariest proponents of the law." Saunders is thought to be the first person shot dead by Metropolitan police officers since Jean Charles de Menezes was killed in July 2005 at Stockwell underground station after being mistaken for a terrorist suspect. The Independent Police Complaints Commission said in a statement released this afternoon: "The incident began just before 5pm when shots were heard. It would appear there were exchanges of fire during the course of the evening. "Metropolitan police firearms officers entered a house in Markham Square and found the man. He was taken outside and given first aid, and an ambulance called. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. "The Metropolitan police referred the incident to the IPCC immediately. Three IPCC investigators went to the scene, which has been preserved. Speaking at the scene of the siege, Ian Bynoe, IPCC deputy chair, said this afternoon: "I know a firearm was recovered at the address and I'm led to believe it was lawfully held, and legally in the possession of the person it was issued to. "Until the IPCC gets the result of the postmortem examination we have to keep an open mind on how this man came to suffer the wounds from which he died." IPCC investigators were due to begin house-to-house inquiries, he added. The postmortem was due to take place this afternoon. Saunders' father, Rodney, 64, told the Daily Telegraph: "We are not aware of anything in his work life or private life which might have made him react like this. "It is bad enough to have a bereavement in the family, but this is exceptional by any standards. You could understand it if he was a terrorist, but Mark was not a terrorist." Witnesses said the siege began after a woman, believed to be Saunders' wife, Elizabeth, also a family law barrister at the same chambers, was seen leaving the block of flats in distress. In the days leading to the shooting, Saunders had been spotted rocking back and forth outside his flat in tears, a neighbour said today. Other witnesses told how Saunders had been drinking in a nearby pub before the shooting and seemed agitated. He was also spotted in a jewellery shop, witnesses said. Saunders and his partner were trying for a baby, neighbour Paddy Renous, 48, said. He revealed that Saunders had been drinking in the Phoenix pub nearby and said he understood Saunders was "fond of the sherbet". Neighbour Steve Trainer, 42, of Bywater Street, said he saw Saunders about two weeks ago sitting outside his home in a state of distress. He said: "I saw Mark some weeks ago. He was sitting on the wall or pavement outside his flat and he was sobbing. I have no idea what about but he looked shaken. He was kicking the pavement with the toe of his foot, banging it really hard." Officers were called after Saunders reportedly began shooting from the rear of a house in Markham Square. Marksmen forced their way into properties in adjacent Bywater Street to take up vantage points on balconies and at windows backing onto Markham Square.
Evonik Extends Partnership with Sabinsa
Tag：Botanical Extracts
Evonik Industries and Sabinsa have elevated their exclusive marketing partnership with the Personal Care product line of Evonik on a new level. Evonik will now offer more specialized, standardized botanical actives and extracts from Sabinsa, all specifically developed for cosmeceutical use, to the personal care industry worldwide. This new agreement deepens the one-year-old partnership and enables Sabinsa to get their innovative and efficacious active ingredients into the global cosmetic and personal care market by tapping into Evonik's extensive customer base. Willy Klipp, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Evonik's business line Care Specialties, states: "Collaborating with Sabinsa has allowed us to strategically broaden our ingredients portfolio with novel nature-derived active ingredients. As these bio-active compounds exactly meet the needs of our customers, we want to offer them now another two Sabinsa cosmeceuticals for the development of innovative products and new applications." Shortly Evonik will introduce Venocin(TM) (90%), a standardized extract derived from the seeds of the Horse Chestnut tree for the cosmetic market. Horse chestnut extract is clinically proven to benefit people suffering for example from varicose or spider veins. The second "new entry" is Xymenynic Acid, obtained from Santalum album seeds. The standardized powder extract adds an anti-inflammatory effect to personal care products. These products will complement the already existing range of new plant extracts originating from the cooperation with Sabinsa: Tego(R) Galanga, obtained from the roots of Kaempferia galangal; Tego(R) Policosanol, a mixture of higher aliphatic alcohols extracted from sugar cane wax; Tego(R) Arjuna, a standardized extract from the heartwood of the Terminalia Arjuna tree; and Tego(R) Turmerone, a distilled fraction of turmeric oil from the root of Curuma longa by a supercritical carbon dioxide process. These products are produced at Sami Labs Ltd., Sabinsa's national award-winning research centre in Bangalore, India and have been tested for safety and efficacy in their biological research laboratory by advanced in vitro systems like cell lines and bioassays.
Evonik Industries and Sabinsa have elevated their exclusive marketing partnership with the Personal Care product line of Evonik on a new level. Evonik will now offer more specialized, standardized botanical actives and extracts from Sabinsa, all specifically developed for cosmeceutical use, to the personal care industry worldwide. This new agreement deepens the one-year-old partnership and enables Sabinsa to get their innovative and efficacious active ingredients into the global cosmetic and personal care market by tapping into Evonik's extensive customer base. Willy Klipp, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Evonik's business line Care Specialties, states: "Collaborating with Sabinsa has allowed us to strategically broaden our ingredients portfolio with novel nature-derived active ingredients. As these bio-active compounds exactly meet the needs of our customers, we want to offer them now another two Sabinsa cosmeceuticals for the development of innovative products and new applications." Shortly Evonik will introduce Venocin(TM) (90%), a standardized extract derived from the seeds of the Horse Chestnut tree for the cosmetic market. Horse chestnut extract is clinically proven to benefit people suffering for example from varicose or spider veins. The second "new entry" is Xymenynic Acid, obtained from Santalum album seeds. The standardized powder extract adds an anti-inflammatory effect to personal care products. These products will complement the already existing range of new plant extracts originating from the cooperation with Sabinsa: Tego(R) Galanga, obtained from the roots of Kaempferia galangal; Tego(R) Policosanol, a mixture of higher aliphatic alcohols extracted from sugar cane wax; Tego(R) Arjuna, a standardized extract from the heartwood of the Terminalia Arjuna tree; and Tego(R) Turmerone, a distilled fraction of turmeric oil from the root of Curuma longa by a supercritical carbon dioxide process. These products are produced at Sami Labs Ltd., Sabinsa's national award-winning research centre in Bangalore, India and have been tested for safety and efficacy in their biological research laboratory by advanced in vitro systems like cell lines and bioassays.
Raw food restaurant makes going green a pleasure
Tag：Pine Nut Kernels
There are no smells of cooking. There is no sizzle from the kitchen. Grezzo, in the North End, is a raw food restaurant (and vegan, and mostly organic) - no ingredient here ever gets warmer than 112 degrees, the temperature at which enzymes are said to be destroyed. The raw food diet is heavy on fruits, vegetables, nuts, sprouts, and seaweed - "living" foods - and adherents claim it brings substantial benefits for health and well-being. Where the diet may once have seemed solely for hippies and Californians, it has gained traction in the mainstream. A Whole Foods display recently showcased five books on the subject; the "Today" show, "The Tyra Banks Show," and "Celebrity Fit Club" have all featured raw food guru Alissa Cohen, the author of "Living on Live Food" and the woman who opened Grezzo in February. (She also has a Bravo cooking show, "Alissa Live," in the works.) The cozy-verging-on-cramped restaurant, with pumpkin-orange walls that feature giant paintings of vegetables, is located in the former Sage space. The restaurant's name is Italian - it means "raw" - and it does serve pasta of a sort: papaya pappardelle; gnocchi made from nuts and dressed with "creamy rawmesan," a faux cheese sauce made from more nuts. Still, when Grezzo opened, it seemed a stretch for the North End, an area that draws those in search of piping hot noodle dishes topped with grated realmesan. Parking here is notoriously scant, and raw food is destination dining. (There are also raw food restaurants in Beverly and Lowell, so maybe that's where the cars go.) Nonetheless, on each visit, Grezzo is busy. Perhaps the sushi craze has opened people's minds. Maguro: the gateway raw food. Indeed, many of the diners appear to be converts. There are the two young women deep in conversation about the raw lifestyle, health, weight, and life's challenges. "Don't hate that it's bad, think about it and send love to it," one says supportively to the other. "I love that!" her friend exclaims happily. There's the woman talking to a waitress at a corner table. "I'm not even supposed to be here," she says. "I should have died, but then I started eating raw." The waitress says, "I told Alissa in the kitchen, and she started crying." (Each time I ate at Grezzo, someone was talking passionately about the diet, and someone was talking about crying - the emotions here can be as raw as the food.) The servers, too, are drinking the Kool-Aid - or, more accurately, the delicious and refreshing non-alcoholic mojito: fresh lime juice, mint, and agave over kombucha and ice (there's uninteresting organic wine offered, one red and one white, but a full list is coming soon). The staff members are excellent advertisements for their product - they exude serenity, have glowing skin, and smile unflaggingly. "She's just so happy," a cynical diner marvels each time our waitress comes by.
There are no smells of cooking. There is no sizzle from the kitchen. Grezzo, in the North End, is a raw food restaurant (and vegan, and mostly organic) - no ingredient here ever gets warmer than 112 degrees, the temperature at which enzymes are said to be destroyed. The raw food diet is heavy on fruits, vegetables, nuts, sprouts, and seaweed - "living" foods - and adherents claim it brings substantial benefits for health and well-being. Where the diet may once have seemed solely for hippies and Californians, it has gained traction in the mainstream. A Whole Foods display recently showcased five books on the subject; the "Today" show, "The Tyra Banks Show," and "Celebrity Fit Club" have all featured raw food guru Alissa Cohen, the author of "Living on Live Food" and the woman who opened Grezzo in February. (She also has a Bravo cooking show, "Alissa Live," in the works.) The cozy-verging-on-cramped restaurant, with pumpkin-orange walls that feature giant paintings of vegetables, is located in the former Sage space. The restaurant's name is Italian - it means "raw" - and it does serve pasta of a sort: papaya pappardelle; gnocchi made from nuts and dressed with "creamy rawmesan," a faux cheese sauce made from more nuts. Still, when Grezzo opened, it seemed a stretch for the North End, an area that draws those in search of piping hot noodle dishes topped with grated realmesan. Parking here is notoriously scant, and raw food is destination dining. (There are also raw food restaurants in Beverly and Lowell, so maybe that's where the cars go.) Nonetheless, on each visit, Grezzo is busy. Perhaps the sushi craze has opened people's minds. Maguro: the gateway raw food. Indeed, many of the diners appear to be converts. There are the two young women deep in conversation about the raw lifestyle, health, weight, and life's challenges. "Don't hate that it's bad, think about it and send love to it," one says supportively to the other. "I love that!" her friend exclaims happily. There's the woman talking to a waitress at a corner table. "I'm not even supposed to be here," she says. "I should have died, but then I started eating raw." The waitress says, "I told Alissa in the kitchen, and she started crying." (Each time I ate at Grezzo, someone was talking passionately about the diet, and someone was talking about crying - the emotions here can be as raw as the food.) The servers, too, are drinking the Kool-Aid - or, more accurately, the delicious and refreshing non-alcoholic mojito: fresh lime juice, mint, and agave over kombucha and ice (there's uninteresting organic wine offered, one red and one white, but a full list is coming soon). The staff members are excellent advertisements for their product - they exude serenity, have glowing skin, and smile unflaggingly. "She's just so happy," a cynical diner marvels each time our waitress comes by.
DOE goes cave hunting to pump carbon underground
Tag：Plant Extraction
The grants are subject to approval from Congress. When private money is included, the amount spent on the projects will be about $180 million over 10 years, the DOE said. The Bush Administration and many other energy experts consider carbon capture and storage an important tool in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. The DOE has identified enough underground "sinks" to store 1,000 years of storage capacity. Pumping CO2 can also aid in extraction more from oil and gas wells. However, there are a number of unanswered questions regarding the process. The latest DOE tests, part of a regional carbon sequestration research program, will put 1 million tons underground, monitor how effective underground caverns are at storing the gases, and assess how cost effectively it can be done. The California test will be in the San Joaquin Basin in Central California, where CO2 will be compressed and pumped 7,000 feet underground. The Ohio project will pump the gas 3,000 feet underneath the Mount Simon Sandstone. At the same time, the DOE is sponsoring the FutureGen project to store carbon underground at coal-fired power plants. The project was recently restructured, pushing back its planned start date to 2015, in a move that drew criticism from many coal companies. Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday where he announced FutureGen's technical requirements, DOE undersecretary Bud Albright said that the two tests in California and Ohio will be able to sequester 600 billion metric tons of CO2, the equivalent of 200 years of emissions from the U.S. Environmental groups have also started to question carbon sequestration policies. GreenPeace on Monday issued a report that called so-called clean coal "dubious technology" and inadequate. "Carbon capture and storage is a scam. It is the ultimate coal industry pipe dream," said Emily Rochon, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace International and author of the report, in a statement. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded $126.6 million in grants on Tuesday to test carbon capture and storage in underground caverns. Two sites in Ohio and California will try to verify that carbon dioxide gas can be pumped in geological formations and stored safely. The CO2 will be delivered from an ethanol plant in Ohio and a power plant in California.
The grants are subject to approval from Congress. When private money is included, the amount spent on the projects will be about $180 million over 10 years, the DOE said. The Bush Administration and many other energy experts consider carbon capture and storage an important tool in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. The DOE has identified enough underground "sinks" to store 1,000 years of storage capacity. Pumping CO2 can also aid in extraction more from oil and gas wells. However, there are a number of unanswered questions regarding the process. The latest DOE tests, part of a regional carbon sequestration research program, will put 1 million tons underground, monitor how effective underground caverns are at storing the gases, and assess how cost effectively it can be done. The California test will be in the San Joaquin Basin in Central California, where CO2 will be compressed and pumped 7,000 feet underground. The Ohio project will pump the gas 3,000 feet underneath the Mount Simon Sandstone. At the same time, the DOE is sponsoring the FutureGen project to store carbon underground at coal-fired power plants. The project was recently restructured, pushing back its planned start date to 2015, in a move that drew criticism from many coal companies. Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday where he announced FutureGen's technical requirements, DOE undersecretary Bud Albright said that the two tests in California and Ohio will be able to sequester 600 billion metric tons of CO2, the equivalent of 200 years of emissions from the U.S. Environmental groups have also started to question carbon sequestration policies. GreenPeace on Monday issued a report that called so-called clean coal "dubious technology" and inadequate. "Carbon capture and storage is a scam. It is the ultimate coal industry pipe dream," said Emily Rochon, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace International and author of the report, in a statement. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded $126.6 million in grants on Tuesday to test carbon capture and storage in underground caverns. Two sites in Ohio and California will try to verify that carbon dioxide gas can be pumped in geological formations and stored safely. The CO2 will be delivered from an ethanol plant in Ohio and a power plant in California.
2008年5月8日星期四
Mom wants attention on troops rather than T-shirts
Tag: Advertising T Shirt
Margy Bons had some "issues" with me and with a guy I wrote about who sells T-shirts reading "Bush Lied, They Died" set into a block of print listing the names of each member of the military killed in Iraq.The thing is, Margy didn't want the guy to get any more free publicity, which would preclude me from mentioning his name or business address in this column.Journalistically, going along with such an arrangement would be completely inappropriate. I agreed immediately. In part because Margy is president of Arizona's Operation Homefront chapter and spends much of her time raising awareness, money and donations for the families of military personnel.And also because she is the mother of Marine Sgt. Michael Marzano, who was killed in Iraq in May 2005. His name is on the shirt."I worked pretty hard to get the law passed in Arizona that said you couldn't put a name on a T-shirt unless it was authorized by the family," Margy said. "That was the important word: Authorized. We weren't trying to prevent free speech, but only to prevent someone from using names without a family's permission."A federal judge has kept that law from going into effect, saying that it would prohibit the T-shirt guy's protected political speech.I told Margy that I didn't particularly agree with the T-shirt guy. What he's doing isn't nice. But I agree with the judge. The thing that sets the United States apart from everyplace else is our willingness to protect an individual's right to say stuff that we find offensive. In other words, we're better than censorship.Of course, that attitude is all well and good for a newspaper writer. But Margy knows her son. She knows what he believed in. And she knows that he wouldn't want to be associated with a T-shirt like that."I have to fight for my son's beliefs," she said.At the same time, the T-shirt guy has admitted that media attention drives up sales. He told me that he has twice considered closing out the "Bush Lied, They Died" line, only to have it revived by publicity. Not long ago, a new class-action lawsuit was filed against him, giving the T-shirt guy even more free advertising and no doubt generating more sales."That's why I haven't pushed this thing," Margy said. "Besides, I have more important battles to fight. Like making sure that the families of our troops have what they need."That isn't an easy job during these days of an all-volunteer army, which allows those without a loved-one in the service to avoid thinking about the war or those who fight it. Or about the families left behind by our soldiers."I'm not going to let that happen," Margy said. "People have told me that when Michael (her son) walked out of his uniform, I walked into it. I may not be able to carry a gun, but can wield a pen and a telephone and whatever else I have to use in order to help the families of soldiers."She can't do it alone, however. The phone number for Operation Homefront's Arizona chapter is 623-465-4618. It might be something to keep in mind as we approach what is a very tough weekend for women like Margy."When my son volunteered I somehow knew it would be a one-way deployment," she said. "I would stand at the mirror and rehearse what I would say when the Marines came knocking on my door. Then they knocked and I tried to convince them that they were wrong, that Michael had promised me that he would come back. But he wasn't coming back, and I had to figure out a reason to get up every morning. And I have. Still, I will never forget that day."
Margy Bons had some "issues" with me and with a guy I wrote about who sells T-shirts reading "Bush Lied, They Died" set into a block of print listing the names of each member of the military killed in Iraq.The thing is, Margy didn't want the guy to get any more free publicity, which would preclude me from mentioning his name or business address in this column.Journalistically, going along with such an arrangement would be completely inappropriate. I agreed immediately. In part because Margy is president of Arizona's Operation Homefront chapter and spends much of her time raising awareness, money and donations for the families of military personnel.And also because she is the mother of Marine Sgt. Michael Marzano, who was killed in Iraq in May 2005. His name is on the shirt."I worked pretty hard to get the law passed in Arizona that said you couldn't put a name on a T-shirt unless it was authorized by the family," Margy said. "That was the important word: Authorized. We weren't trying to prevent free speech, but only to prevent someone from using names without a family's permission."A federal judge has kept that law from going into effect, saying that it would prohibit the T-shirt guy's protected political speech.I told Margy that I didn't particularly agree with the T-shirt guy. What he's doing isn't nice. But I agree with the judge. The thing that sets the United States apart from everyplace else is our willingness to protect an individual's right to say stuff that we find offensive. In other words, we're better than censorship.Of course, that attitude is all well and good for a newspaper writer. But Margy knows her son. She knows what he believed in. And she knows that he wouldn't want to be associated with a T-shirt like that."I have to fight for my son's beliefs," she said.At the same time, the T-shirt guy has admitted that media attention drives up sales. He told me that he has twice considered closing out the "Bush Lied, They Died" line, only to have it revived by publicity. Not long ago, a new class-action lawsuit was filed against him, giving the T-shirt guy even more free advertising and no doubt generating more sales."That's why I haven't pushed this thing," Margy said. "Besides, I have more important battles to fight. Like making sure that the families of our troops have what they need."That isn't an easy job during these days of an all-volunteer army, which allows those without a loved-one in the service to avoid thinking about the war or those who fight it. Or about the families left behind by our soldiers."I'm not going to let that happen," Margy said. "People have told me that when Michael (her son) walked out of his uniform, I walked into it. I may not be able to carry a gun, but can wield a pen and a telephone and whatever else I have to use in order to help the families of soldiers."She can't do it alone, however. The phone number for Operation Homefront's Arizona chapter is 623-465-4618. It might be something to keep in mind as we approach what is a very tough weekend for women like Margy."When my son volunteered I somehow knew it would be a one-way deployment," she said. "I would stand at the mirror and rehearse what I would say when the Marines came knocking on my door. Then they knocked and I tried to convince them that they were wrong, that Michael had promised me that he would come back. But he wasn't coming back, and I had to figure out a reason to get up every morning. And I have. Still, I will never forget that day."
Cathy Bishop: Expect insects to find roses in spring
Tag: Soap RosesNow
that rose fever has caught hold of most spring gardeners, it's time to get to the nitty gritty. You dug beautiful holes and amended your soil until it looked liked Iowa farmland. You drooled over all the rose varieties and chose your favorites. You gently planted and watered and are watching over your new roses like proud parents. But you go out one morning and there are tiny, but plump - and quite numerous - bright green insects all over the buds. Eek! Welcome to spring. They're just aphids and every gardener will meet them sooner or later. It doesn't mean you're a bad plant parent or that you are doing something wrong: It's just the natural world! We are very fortunate in our climate that there are few insects and diseases that affect roses. In some parts of the country, these things are a huge pain. So what are you going to do? First you are going to decide whether being an organic gardener is important to you or not. Few people eat roses, so many are amenable to using chemical remedies on these plants. There are solutions either way. Because we have thousands of people perusing our roses daily at the nursery, we use as few chemical remedies as possible. For us this means washing the roses every day. One person spends almost the whole day among the 6,000-plus roses keeping them beautiful. We wash first thing in the morning using a brisk spray from a "fogg-it" nozzle to knock off any aphids. This also removes any mildew spores that might have floated in during the night so they don't have a chance to settle on the leaves and cause any damage. Other natural options for aphid control include ladybugs, neem oil (extracted from the bark of an African tree) and soap products. If you don't have time for spraying and washing and want to go the knock-'em-out route, there are several very good systemic insecticides that will keep your plants untouched for anywhere from one to four months at a time. There are two types of insecticides - contact and systemic. The first requires making contact, coating the insect in most cases. The second is applied either foliarly or as a soil drench and the plant takes it up and sends it throughout its vascular system, where it has a dose of poison awaiting any insect that should be so foolhardy as to take a bite or a sip of your plants juices.
that rose fever has caught hold of most spring gardeners, it's time to get to the nitty gritty. You dug beautiful holes and amended your soil until it looked liked Iowa farmland. You drooled over all the rose varieties and chose your favorites. You gently planted and watered and are watching over your new roses like proud parents. But you go out one morning and there are tiny, but plump - and quite numerous - bright green insects all over the buds. Eek! Welcome to spring. They're just aphids and every gardener will meet them sooner or later. It doesn't mean you're a bad plant parent or that you are doing something wrong: It's just the natural world! We are very fortunate in our climate that there are few insects and diseases that affect roses. In some parts of the country, these things are a huge pain. So what are you going to do? First you are going to decide whether being an organic gardener is important to you or not. Few people eat roses, so many are amenable to using chemical remedies on these plants. There are solutions either way. Because we have thousands of people perusing our roses daily at the nursery, we use as few chemical remedies as possible. For us this means washing the roses every day. One person spends almost the whole day among the 6,000-plus roses keeping them beautiful. We wash first thing in the morning using a brisk spray from a "fogg-it" nozzle to knock off any aphids. This also removes any mildew spores that might have floated in during the night so they don't have a chance to settle on the leaves and cause any damage. Other natural options for aphid control include ladybugs, neem oil (extracted from the bark of an African tree) and soap products. If you don't have time for spraying and washing and want to go the knock-'em-out route, there are several very good systemic insecticides that will keep your plants untouched for anywhere from one to four months at a time. There are two types of insecticides - contact and systemic. The first requires making contact, coating the insect in most cases. The second is applied either foliarly or as a soil drench and the plant takes it up and sends it throughout its vascular system, where it has a dose of poison awaiting any insect that should be so foolhardy as to take a bite or a sip of your plants juices.
'Lotus' system turns water into natural sanitizer
Tag: Sanitizer
Five years ago, Steve Hengsperger was working as a mechanical engineer in water purification when he had an epiphany.Add an extra oxygen atom to the compound H2O -- otherwise known as water -- and you have a cleaner that is naturally greener."I just set out to make a system that made it really easy to charge water," Hengsperger said.That system is called Lotus. It charges water to make a cleaner that is more powerful and faster-acting than bleach.It kills E. coli and salmonella and removes 99.9 percent of pesticides and chemicals from food.All it takes is cold tap water, and a natural oxidant is created, Hengsperger said."Commercially there are systems out there that do the same thing but on a large scale," he said. "Hospitals sterilize medical equipment using this kind of technology.Also, hot tubs use this system. "We took this technology, miniaturized it, made it safe," he said. "Got all the approval so that it's effective."It comes with a spray bottle for surface cleaning and a bowl for cleaning produce."In four minutes or more it will remove any bacteria, viruses and pesticides from your produce," Hengsperger said. "It makes your produce taste a lot better and it makes it last up to four times as long. It smells like outside after a rain storm. Like a nice thunderstorm, just a nice fresh smell."But how do you know the Lotus works on something you can't see like bacteria?"That's one of the big questions we have, how do I know it works? We could not put the sanitizing name on the product until we passed the EPA protocol," Hengsperger said.
Five years ago, Steve Hengsperger was working as a mechanical engineer in water purification when he had an epiphany.Add an extra oxygen atom to the compound H2O -- otherwise known as water -- and you have a cleaner that is naturally greener."I just set out to make a system that made it really easy to charge water," Hengsperger said.That system is called Lotus. It charges water to make a cleaner that is more powerful and faster-acting than bleach.It kills E. coli and salmonella and removes 99.9 percent of pesticides and chemicals from food.All it takes is cold tap water, and a natural oxidant is created, Hengsperger said."Commercially there are systems out there that do the same thing but on a large scale," he said. "Hospitals sterilize medical equipment using this kind of technology.Also, hot tubs use this system. "We took this technology, miniaturized it, made it safe," he said. "Got all the approval so that it's effective."It comes with a spray bottle for surface cleaning and a bowl for cleaning produce."In four minutes or more it will remove any bacteria, viruses and pesticides from your produce," Hengsperger said. "It makes your produce taste a lot better and it makes it last up to four times as long. It smells like outside after a rain storm. Like a nice thunderstorm, just a nice fresh smell."But how do you know the Lotus works on something you can't see like bacteria?"That's one of the big questions we have, how do I know it works? We could not put the sanitizing name on the product until we passed the EPA protocol," Hengsperger said.
Bondable TPEs offer wide processing window
Tag: PC ABS
The TPE Division of specialty compounder RTP Company has introduced a new series of bondable thermoplastic elastomer compounds -- RTP 6042 Series. Standard grades in the series have been formulated to bond to a variety of rigid substrates including PC, ABS, PC/ABS, PC/PBT, PC/PMMA and RTPU resins. The new RTP 6042 Series products offer a wider processing window than the RTP 6002 Series, which they replace. Additional benefits include superior bonding performance and more consistent mechanical properties across a hardness spectrum from 50 to 75 Shore A.According to Paul Killian, Technical Marketing Manager - TPE Division, "The critical element in any over-molding process is the chemical bond between the soft elastomeric material and the rigid substrate. Our new RTP 6042 Series TPEs offer excellent bonding performance, which is essential for long application life cycles in the field.""RTP Company sees an immediate fit with consumer applications due to the products' easy coloring and a great cost to performance ratio," continued Killian. "The materials are also particularly well suited for rugged electronic devices with over-molded designs where excellent tensile and tear strength as well as abrasion resistance is required."One of the major benefits of the RTP 6042 Series products is the wider processing window it offers molders using either multi-shot or insert molding techniques. "New designs and advanced processing technology continue to push the over-molding envelope," said Killian, "It is critical to provide molders with as much process latitude as possible. One of our goals with this new series was to offer products that have the widest possible processing window for the injection molders. The RTP 6042 Series accomplishes that goal."RTP Company developed the RTP 6042 Series grades to be more competitive in a bonding arena. "We recognize that customers have a lot of material options to choose from," added Killian. "The RTP 6042 Series is a more consistent and economical product line that can be used as an off-the-shelf, go-to bonding material in a wide variety of applications."For more information call (800) 433-4787 or (507) 454-6900, or visit our website at www.rtpcompany.com.About RTP CompanyRTP Company, headquartered in Winona, Minnesota, is a global leader in specialty thermoplastic compounding. The company has eight manufacturing plants on three continents, plus sales representatives throughout North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific. RTP Company's engineers develop custom compounds in over 60 different engineering resin systems for applications requiring color, conductive, elastomeric, flame retardant, high temperature, shielding, structural, and wear resistant properties.
The TPE Division of specialty compounder RTP Company has introduced a new series of bondable thermoplastic elastomer compounds -- RTP 6042 Series. Standard grades in the series have been formulated to bond to a variety of rigid substrates including PC, ABS, PC/ABS, PC/PBT, PC/PMMA and RTPU resins. The new RTP 6042 Series products offer a wider processing window than the RTP 6002 Series, which they replace. Additional benefits include superior bonding performance and more consistent mechanical properties across a hardness spectrum from 50 to 75 Shore A.According to Paul Killian, Technical Marketing Manager - TPE Division, "The critical element in any over-molding process is the chemical bond between the soft elastomeric material and the rigid substrate. Our new RTP 6042 Series TPEs offer excellent bonding performance, which is essential for long application life cycles in the field.""RTP Company sees an immediate fit with consumer applications due to the products' easy coloring and a great cost to performance ratio," continued Killian. "The materials are also particularly well suited for rugged electronic devices with over-molded designs where excellent tensile and tear strength as well as abrasion resistance is required."One of the major benefits of the RTP 6042 Series products is the wider processing window it offers molders using either multi-shot or insert molding techniques. "New designs and advanced processing technology continue to push the over-molding envelope," said Killian, "It is critical to provide molders with as much process latitude as possible. One of our goals with this new series was to offer products that have the widest possible processing window for the injection molders. The RTP 6042 Series accomplishes that goal."RTP Company developed the RTP 6042 Series grades to be more competitive in a bonding arena. "We recognize that customers have a lot of material options to choose from," added Killian. "The RTP 6042 Series is a more consistent and economical product line that can be used as an off-the-shelf, go-to bonding material in a wide variety of applications."For more information call (800) 433-4787 or (507) 454-6900, or visit our website at www.rtpcompany.com.About RTP CompanyRTP Company, headquartered in Winona, Minnesota, is a global leader in specialty thermoplastic compounding. The company has eight manufacturing plants on three continents, plus sales representatives throughout North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific. RTP Company's engineers develop custom compounds in over 60 different engineering resin systems for applications requiring color, conductive, elastomeric, flame retardant, high temperature, shielding, structural, and wear resistant properties.
Genetic test offers clues about cardiac hypertrophy in children
Tag: Medical Testing
Apparatus mechanic uses diagnostic tests to determine why your engine is making strange sounds before lifting a wrench to fix the problem. Pediatric cardiologists would love to take a similar approach with patients experiencing cardiac hypertrophy thickening of the heart muscle. Rational treatment requires understanding the underlying causes of disease. But doctors know little about the causes of cardiac hypertrophy in children, so no diagnostic tests have yet been developed.A new studyhich appears online April 9 in the New England Journal of Medicineight change that. Working with a team of researchers, Harvard Medical School Professors Christine Seidman and Jonathan Seidman discovered that some children with unexplained cardiac hypertrophy harbor mutations in the same 10 genes responsible for the condition in many adults.abs have done work on the genetic underpinnings of cardiac hypertrophy in adults, but few thought that the research applied to children,?says Christine Seidman, who is also a member of the HMS-Partners HealthCare Center for Genetics and Genomics and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her lab is located at Brigham and Women Hospital. or years, doctors assumed the two conditions were clinically distinct.?/p> According to Christine Seidman, 3 to 4 percent of adults have cardiac hypertrophy. Data from the Framingham Heart Study suggest that mutations in 10 genesdentified by the Seidmans and othersccount for 1/5 or 1/6 of those cases. Most of the genes implicated encode arcomere?proteins, which make up the heart contractile apparatus. They literally help the muscle tighten and relax to pump blood.ardiac hypertrophy increases your risk of all types of negative cardiovascular outcomes, including heart failure and sudden death,?says Jonathan Seidman. lthough the condition is rare in children, the prognosis is even worse. Kids with cardiac hypertrophy are often candidates for heart transplantation.?/p> The Seidmans worked with Amy Roberts, assistant professor of pediatrics at Children Hospital Boston, and Jeffrey Towbin, a professor of pediatric cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine, to find children with cardiac hypertrophy. They extracted DNA from 84 individuals diagnosed with the condition before age 15. Just 33 of those children had family histories of cardiac hypertrophy.Using a novel chip technology developed by molecular geneticist Heidi Rehm and others at the Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics Laboratory for Molecular Medicine, they sequenced the 10 suspect genes. The chip allowed them to read tens of thousands of nucleotidesr letters of the DNA lphabetfor a fraction the cost of traditional technology. The team identified mutations in 25 of the 51 children without family histories and in 21 of the 33 children with family histories. think it remarkable that we found mutations in nearly 50 percent of the kids who didn have family histories,?says Christine Seidman.The team took a closer look at the genes of these patients?parents. Eleven pairs of parents agreed to participate in the study. In 7 cases, one parent harbored the same mutation as his or her child. Though these adults assumed their hearts were fine, echocardiograms revealed thickening of the muscle in some cases.e still don know why the children presented symptoms so much earlier than their parents,?says Jonathan Seidman. e suspect that other genes must influence the disease presentation.?/p> Further genetic testing of children and their parents could shed light on this and help doctors choose appropriate treatments. his study demonstrates that kids who present with sporadic cardiac hypertrophy deserve the same genetic test as adults,?says Christine Seidman.
Apparatus mechanic uses diagnostic tests to determine why your engine is making strange sounds before lifting a wrench to fix the problem. Pediatric cardiologists would love to take a similar approach with patients experiencing cardiac hypertrophy thickening of the heart muscle. Rational treatment requires understanding the underlying causes of disease. But doctors know little about the causes of cardiac hypertrophy in children, so no diagnostic tests have yet been developed.A new studyhich appears online April 9 in the New England Journal of Medicineight change that. Working with a team of researchers, Harvard Medical School Professors Christine Seidman and Jonathan Seidman discovered that some children with unexplained cardiac hypertrophy harbor mutations in the same 10 genes responsible for the condition in many adults.abs have done work on the genetic underpinnings of cardiac hypertrophy in adults, but few thought that the research applied to children,?says Christine Seidman, who is also a member of the HMS-Partners HealthCare Center for Genetics and Genomics and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her lab is located at Brigham and Women Hospital. or years, doctors assumed the two conditions were clinically distinct.?/p> According to Christine Seidman, 3 to 4 percent of adults have cardiac hypertrophy. Data from the Framingham Heart Study suggest that mutations in 10 genesdentified by the Seidmans and othersccount for 1/5 or 1/6 of those cases. Most of the genes implicated encode arcomere?proteins, which make up the heart contractile apparatus. They literally help the muscle tighten and relax to pump blood.ardiac hypertrophy increases your risk of all types of negative cardiovascular outcomes, including heart failure and sudden death,?says Jonathan Seidman. lthough the condition is rare in children, the prognosis is even worse. Kids with cardiac hypertrophy are often candidates for heart transplantation.?/p> The Seidmans worked with Amy Roberts, assistant professor of pediatrics at Children Hospital Boston, and Jeffrey Towbin, a professor of pediatric cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine, to find children with cardiac hypertrophy. They extracted DNA from 84 individuals diagnosed with the condition before age 15. Just 33 of those children had family histories of cardiac hypertrophy.Using a novel chip technology developed by molecular geneticist Heidi Rehm and others at the Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics Laboratory for Molecular Medicine, they sequenced the 10 suspect genes. The chip allowed them to read tens of thousands of nucleotidesr letters of the DNA lphabetfor a fraction the cost of traditional technology. The team identified mutations in 25 of the 51 children without family histories and in 21 of the 33 children with family histories. think it remarkable that we found mutations in nearly 50 percent of the kids who didn have family histories,?says Christine Seidman.The team took a closer look at the genes of these patients?parents. Eleven pairs of parents agreed to participate in the study. In 7 cases, one parent harbored the same mutation as his or her child. Though these adults assumed their hearts were fine, echocardiograms revealed thickening of the muscle in some cases.e still don know why the children presented symptoms so much earlier than their parents,?says Jonathan Seidman. e suspect that other genes must influence the disease presentation.?/p> Further genetic testing of children and their parents could shed light on this and help doctors choose appropriate treatments. his study demonstrates that kids who present with sporadic cardiac hypertrophy deserve the same genetic test as adults,?says Christine Seidman.
2008年5月7日星期三
5 gov't officials to be tried in Remedia affair
Tag: Soya Powder Five Health Ministry officials, including the former head of the National Food Service, will be among those indicted in the 2003 Remedia baby formula affair, in which three babies died and 20 suffered serious harm, according to a decision reached Monday by State Attorney Moshe Lador.[Remedia baby formula on...]Remedia baby formula on supermarket shelves. [file]Photo: Channel 2Slideshow: Pictures of the weekLador ratified a decision made earlier by his predecessor, Eran Shendar, after he had been asked by Health Ministry Director-General Avi Yisraeli to reconsider Shendar's decision.According to a statement issued by the Justice Ministry spokesman, "State Attorney Moshe Lador informed Health Ministry Director-General Avi Yisrael that he would not change the decision taken in the past to indict Health Ministry employees regarding the Remedia affair."Therefore, the Central District Attorney's Office is due to file the indictment in the next few days."The ministry employees who are to be indicted include Dr. Dorit Nitzan-Klosky, who was in charge of the National Food Service at the time of the affair, and four supervisors at the Ashdod and Haifa ports, whose job it was to examine food imports. Remedia is a German-based company.Three former senior Remedia officials are also included in the indictment. They are Gideon Landsberger, who was the company's director-general, Moshe Miller, a former owner of the company, and Frederick Black, the company's former food technologist.According to the Justice Ministry statement, the prosecution held hearings for all the suspects, after which Shendar decided to indict them.The deaths and serious injuries to the babies were caused by the fact that the formula did not include Vitamin B1 (Thiamine), even though the cans stated that they did. Vitamin B1 is used by the body to break down sugars, releasing energy into the cell. Vitamin B1 deficiency reduces the amount of energy available and can harm bodily systems, particularly the central nervous system.Vitamin B1 also prevents concentrations of lactic acid. Without it, too much acid accumulates in the body, which affects the baby's sense of balance. Damage to the central nervous system creates neuropathological symptoms including sleepiness, slowness, depression, lack of appetite, diarrhea and vomiting.The Remedia officials were charged with negligence resulting in death and negligence resulting in physical harm. The Health Ministry officials were charged with carrying out their duties negligently and violating their professional responsibilities.The ministry added that because of the importance of the case to the public and the large amount of evidence that that had been gathered, it would recommend that the court appoint a panel of three judges to hear it.
The Coming of Age of Copenhagen’s Nordic Cuisine
Tag: Fish Powder
THE waiter wore the kind of mad grin normally seen on movie villains as they unleash mayhem on an unsuspecting city. A silvery industrial canister dangled from his hand. It looked like something for transporting dangerous radioactive isotopes. More alarming, it was emitting thick clouds of cold white smoke through the lid. “These are frozen elder flowers,” he said, reaching into the canister with a small scoop and sprinkling tiny white nuggets into my dessert bowl. “They have been chilled in liquid nitrogen.” The frozen petals fell like hail onto the small mound of red elderberry jelly, vanilla ice cream and chocolate foam. Everyone in the restaurant, a fast-rising newcomer called Geranium turned to look at this impressively futuristic concoction. Was this really Denmark? Because my father and Danish stepmother live in Denmark, I’ve been visiting the small seafaring nation of Carlsberg beer and Lego for almost two decades. With very few exceptions, dining out has mostly been a banal, underwhelming experience. For years, the country’s staples — pork, potatoes, herring — were predictably reshuffled from restaurant to restaurant in a culinary three-card monte. In a country famous for avant-garde furnishings and sci-fi housewares, there was no food halfway worthy of gracing them. But the last five years have seen a sea change in Copenhagen kitchens. Young Danish chefs, many of whom have apprenticed in celebrated kitchens abroad, have returned to Denmark with fancy ideas and hopes of elevating their country’s cuisine. The efforts are paying off. In the 2008 Michelin guide to Europe, 11 restaurants in and around Copenhagen captured a total of 12 stars, more than Norway and Finland combined. The excellent crop of new gastronomic destinations all but guarantees Copenhagen’s continued ascent. Claus Meyer, the co-owner of this vanguard Copenhagen restaurant writes in “Noma: Nordic Cuisine” what could be called the rallying cry of the city’s new restaurants: “It was crystal clear to us that somebody had to face up to the challenge of dusting off and updating traditional Danish cuisine, so that it could be lifted out from the nationalistic stench that fills the air in bodegas and inns, so that it could be resurrected in a modernized rendition.” Barely four years old, Noma already has two Michelin stars, the most in town. Along with Mr. Meyer, the head chef, co-owner René Redzepi — a veteran of top international restaurants like El Bulli in Spain and the French Laundry in California — has scouted out unusual, distinctive regional ingredients from the forests and fjords of the remotest North Sea countries. (Many of the best new Copenhagen restaurants have enthusiastically followed suit.) It’s not uncommon to find Greenland cold-water shrimp, Faroe Island langoustines or Icelandic seaweed in their frequently changing menus. No wine is used in soups or sauces; sweet and sour flavors often involve sugar beets or herbs like wood sorrel. Food preparation, too, hearkens back to time-honored Nordic traditions like smoking, salting and pickling. The afternoon I ate there, the harborside space — a low-slung 18th-century brick warehouse with raw plank floors and exposed beams — was a tranquil hum of businessmen and couples. The four-course lunch menu (495 kroner, about $100 at 4.78 kroner to the dollar) began with not one but three successive amuse-bouches, including a peeled, pickled and poached quail egg. The preparation created an unexpected woody-toasty lushness. The first course underscored both the inventiveness and wit of Noma’s kitchen. A small plate arrived bearing a greenish gelatin tube — made from parsley — topped in a cold, white, snowlike powder made from horseradish. The verdant patch under the white powder was clearly an allusion to the winter season outside. But this was much more than a visual gimmick. Invisible inside the parsley gelatin tube were razor clams, which would have been too unsightly if placed directly on the plate. Biting into all three components at once produced the salty flavors of cold North Sea (the clams), a taste of chilly fields (the parsley) and a pleasing bite of winter frost (the horseradish snow). This culinary metaphor of the December landscape was also proof that a near-frozen dish need not be flavorless. In between bites of warm bread and some intriguing jazzed-up butter (one made with pork lard, giving it a bacon-y taste) came a bowl of smoked liquid egg yolk in a mushroom-birch sauce. To balance the heartiness of the main course, reindeer, each cut was topped with an ultra-thin slice of apple (for an iota of acidity) and dime-sized disk of jellied woodruff (for a very delicate herbal sweetness). It was excellent.
THE waiter wore the kind of mad grin normally seen on movie villains as they unleash mayhem on an unsuspecting city. A silvery industrial canister dangled from his hand. It looked like something for transporting dangerous radioactive isotopes. More alarming, it was emitting thick clouds of cold white smoke through the lid. “These are frozen elder flowers,” he said, reaching into the canister with a small scoop and sprinkling tiny white nuggets into my dessert bowl. “They have been chilled in liquid nitrogen.” The frozen petals fell like hail onto the small mound of red elderberry jelly, vanilla ice cream and chocolate foam. Everyone in the restaurant, a fast-rising newcomer called Geranium turned to look at this impressively futuristic concoction. Was this really Denmark? Because my father and Danish stepmother live in Denmark, I’ve been visiting the small seafaring nation of Carlsberg beer and Lego for almost two decades. With very few exceptions, dining out has mostly been a banal, underwhelming experience. For years, the country’s staples — pork, potatoes, herring — were predictably reshuffled from restaurant to restaurant in a culinary three-card monte. In a country famous for avant-garde furnishings and sci-fi housewares, there was no food halfway worthy of gracing them. But the last five years have seen a sea change in Copenhagen kitchens. Young Danish chefs, many of whom have apprenticed in celebrated kitchens abroad, have returned to Denmark with fancy ideas and hopes of elevating their country’s cuisine. The efforts are paying off. In the 2008 Michelin guide to Europe, 11 restaurants in and around Copenhagen captured a total of 12 stars, more than Norway and Finland combined. The excellent crop of new gastronomic destinations all but guarantees Copenhagen’s continued ascent. Claus Meyer, the co-owner of this vanguard Copenhagen restaurant writes in “Noma: Nordic Cuisine” what could be called the rallying cry of the city’s new restaurants: “It was crystal clear to us that somebody had to face up to the challenge of dusting off and updating traditional Danish cuisine, so that it could be lifted out from the nationalistic stench that fills the air in bodegas and inns, so that it could be resurrected in a modernized rendition.” Barely four years old, Noma already has two Michelin stars, the most in town. Along with Mr. Meyer, the head chef, co-owner René Redzepi — a veteran of top international restaurants like El Bulli in Spain and the French Laundry in California — has scouted out unusual, distinctive regional ingredients from the forests and fjords of the remotest North Sea countries. (Many of the best new Copenhagen restaurants have enthusiastically followed suit.) It’s not uncommon to find Greenland cold-water shrimp, Faroe Island langoustines or Icelandic seaweed in their frequently changing menus. No wine is used in soups or sauces; sweet and sour flavors often involve sugar beets or herbs like wood sorrel. Food preparation, too, hearkens back to time-honored Nordic traditions like smoking, salting and pickling. The afternoon I ate there, the harborside space — a low-slung 18th-century brick warehouse with raw plank floors and exposed beams — was a tranquil hum of businessmen and couples. The four-course lunch menu (495 kroner, about $100 at 4.78 kroner to the dollar) began with not one but three successive amuse-bouches, including a peeled, pickled and poached quail egg. The preparation created an unexpected woody-toasty lushness. The first course underscored both the inventiveness and wit of Noma’s kitchen. A small plate arrived bearing a greenish gelatin tube — made from parsley — topped in a cold, white, snowlike powder made from horseradish. The verdant patch under the white powder was clearly an allusion to the winter season outside. But this was much more than a visual gimmick. Invisible inside the parsley gelatin tube were razor clams, which would have been too unsightly if placed directly on the plate. Biting into all three components at once produced the salty flavors of cold North Sea (the clams), a taste of chilly fields (the parsley) and a pleasing bite of winter frost (the horseradish snow). This culinary metaphor of the December landscape was also proof that a near-frozen dish need not be flavorless. In between bites of warm bread and some intriguing jazzed-up butter (one made with pork lard, giving it a bacon-y taste) came a bowl of smoked liquid egg yolk in a mushroom-birch sauce. To balance the heartiness of the main course, reindeer, each cut was topped with an ultra-thin slice of apple (for an iota of acidity) and dime-sized disk of jellied woodruff (for a very delicate herbal sweetness). It was excellent.
Trendy young guys pull from the past to create posh looks
Tag: Woven Tie
Dress like Dad in golf shirt and khakis? Not likely, if you're a trendy young guy.But borrow a few items from Granddad's closet -- an ascot, vest or pocket square? Now you're talking.For trendy young guys -- TYGs -- everything old is new again, says Scott Apgar, director of merchandising for Tandy Brands, a company that supplies private-label menswear to stores ranging from Wal-Mart to Nordstrom.This spring, TYGs are swapping their T-shirts, sweats and baseball caps for dress shirts, blazers and derbys. They also are discovering ties -- preferably narrow and patterned with stripes, plaids or neat geometrics. They may even add a tie bar, scrounged from Granddad's dresser drawer or the local vintage shop.And if not a tie, then the season's hottest accessory, a "summer scarf" -- a light, loosely-woven scarf, long or square, that is draped casually around the neck or tucked inside a shirt collar, ascot-style.TYGs never knot their ties tightly at the throat, however. Nor do they fasten the top button of their dress shirts. They probably don't iron their shirts either."They're taking the tailored look and making it more comfortable. They're doing a mix of tailored and sportswear," says Apgar.Naturally, the sportswear includes jeans -- either designer bluejeans or this spring's stylin' white jeans. Khaki cargo shorts and Madras-plaid Bermuda shorts are other top choices.But shorts with a dress shirt, tie and suit jacket? Sure thing. If Justin Timberlake can do it, or American Idol's Ryan Seacrest, or the cool dudes on The CW's hot Gossip Girl -- why not all TYGs?As for footwear, a lot of guys are sticking with sneakers or flip-flops. But the truly trendy favor the preppier look of boat shoes, fisherman's sandals or driving mocs.And here's a tip for all of you not-so-trendy guys: If you don't have the fashion savvy to pair your sport coat with Bermuda shorts, or can't quite picture how to team a dress shirt with a casual vest and summer scarf, take a trip to the mall and check out the displays in trendy stores. Notice how elements are combined and how they're styled -- with sleeves rolled, collars popped and jeans hems turned up once.Or pick up a celebrity-focused magazine such as InStyle and study the outfits of trendsetters such as Jeremy Piven, David Beckham, Jake Gyllenhaal, Johnny Depp and Hayden Christensen.Or take a few pointers from the two Orlando TYGs featured here.Jean Patteson can be reached at jpatteson@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5158.- Pocket squares.Tuck one casually into the breast pocket of a blazer, sport coat or suit jacket. Never match the pattern exactly to your tie or ascot. Instead, choose complementary or contrasting colors and designs. Never fold a pocket square into stiff points.- Driving mocs.As comfortable as regular moccasins, but the distinctive ridged or pebbled tread and wraparound heel flap make driving mocs so much cooler. Available in leather, suede or trendy patent leather. Or try boat shoes or leather sandals.- Derby hat.In cloth or straw, a derby with its narrow, rolled brim gives street cred to even a preppy outfit. A driving cap adds the air of a country gent, while a wide-brim Panama hat evokes the dash and romance of the tropics.
Dress like Dad in golf shirt and khakis? Not likely, if you're a trendy young guy.But borrow a few items from Granddad's closet -- an ascot, vest or pocket square? Now you're talking.For trendy young guys -- TYGs -- everything old is new again, says Scott Apgar, director of merchandising for Tandy Brands, a company that supplies private-label menswear to stores ranging from Wal-Mart to Nordstrom.This spring, TYGs are swapping their T-shirts, sweats and baseball caps for dress shirts, blazers and derbys. They also are discovering ties -- preferably narrow and patterned with stripes, plaids or neat geometrics. They may even add a tie bar, scrounged from Granddad's dresser drawer or the local vintage shop.And if not a tie, then the season's hottest accessory, a "summer scarf" -- a light, loosely-woven scarf, long or square, that is draped casually around the neck or tucked inside a shirt collar, ascot-style.TYGs never knot their ties tightly at the throat, however. Nor do they fasten the top button of their dress shirts. They probably don't iron their shirts either."They're taking the tailored look and making it more comfortable. They're doing a mix of tailored and sportswear," says Apgar.Naturally, the sportswear includes jeans -- either designer bluejeans or this spring's stylin' white jeans. Khaki cargo shorts and Madras-plaid Bermuda shorts are other top choices.But shorts with a dress shirt, tie and suit jacket? Sure thing. If Justin Timberlake can do it, or American Idol's Ryan Seacrest, or the cool dudes on The CW's hot Gossip Girl -- why not all TYGs?As for footwear, a lot of guys are sticking with sneakers or flip-flops. But the truly trendy favor the preppier look of boat shoes, fisherman's sandals or driving mocs.And here's a tip for all of you not-so-trendy guys: If you don't have the fashion savvy to pair your sport coat with Bermuda shorts, or can't quite picture how to team a dress shirt with a casual vest and summer scarf, take a trip to the mall and check out the displays in trendy stores. Notice how elements are combined and how they're styled -- with sleeves rolled, collars popped and jeans hems turned up once.Or pick up a celebrity-focused magazine such as InStyle and study the outfits of trendsetters such as Jeremy Piven, David Beckham, Jake Gyllenhaal, Johnny Depp and Hayden Christensen.Or take a few pointers from the two Orlando TYGs featured here.Jean Patteson can be reached at jpatteson@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5158.- Pocket squares.Tuck one casually into the breast pocket of a blazer, sport coat or suit jacket. Never match the pattern exactly to your tie or ascot. Instead, choose complementary or contrasting colors and designs. Never fold a pocket square into stiff points.- Driving mocs.As comfortable as regular moccasins, but the distinctive ridged or pebbled tread and wraparound heel flap make driving mocs so much cooler. Available in leather, suede or trendy patent leather. Or try boat shoes or leather sandals.- Derby hat.In cloth or straw, a derby with its narrow, rolled brim gives street cred to even a preppy outfit. A driving cap adds the air of a country gent, while a wide-brim Panama hat evokes the dash and romance of the tropics.
Makeup Shake Up: Mineral base all the rage
It's pure. It's natural. It's good for your skin.These claims and more have catapulted mineral makeup from a late-night infomercial buzzword to a full-fledged cosmetic phenom."What's happened in the last few years is astonishing," said Fran Fernandez, owner of Artistic Hair & Make-up in South Tampa. "Virtually every cosmetics company has a mineral makeup line."Want proof? Peruse the makeup aisle of your local drugstore or cosmetics counter. Revlon, Neutrogena, L'Oreal, Cover Girl and Physician's Formula have mineral lines. So do New York Color and wet n wild. Maybelline New York jumped on the mineral bandwagon in January. M.A.C. will make its mineral debut this year. And mineral makeup is now Avon's calling, as well.Mineral-based cosmetic launches in the United States increased from 132 in 2005 to 451 in 2007, according to Datamonitor's Productscan Online.So, what's the difference between mineral makeup and the other kinds? Mineral foundation, powder, eye shadow and blush are touted as being better for your skin than traditional makeup because they're made from crushed rocks. The products are chemical and fragrance-free, so they're supposed to be less irritating to the skin. And titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, the base ingredients in many lines, work as a natural sunblock.The application of mineral makeup is also different. A wide fluffy brush, called a kabuki brush, is used to buff the finely ground powders onto the skin. Done right, a little goes a long way, and users swear it feels as though they're not wearing makeup at all.Consumers are definitely buying into the all-natural vogue: They purchased $149 million worth of mineral-based cosmetics last year from mass-market retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target alone. That's more than double the $69 million sold by such retailers in 2006, according to trend-tracker Information Resources.Mineral makeup is no more expensive than traditional makeup. You can pay as little as $10 for a drugstore label such as Maybelline's Mineral Power foundation or as much as $50 for specialty brand Colorscience's Pressed Mineral Pigment.Mineral makeup actually has been around for decades. The term was coined by entrepreneur Diane Ranger, who pioneered the formula for Bare Escentuals and launched the line in the 1970s. She sold the company in 1990 and founded the Colorscience mineral makeup brand, which is sold at high-end resorts and spas, makeup studios and doctors' offices."Mineral makeup is an overnight sensation 30 years in the making," said Ranger, who lives in California. "More women are seeing treatments and precautions as self-preservation rather than self-indulgence. They realize they have healthy options that offer them beauty."Bare Escentuals has long been the trailblazer in the mineral makeup market. If you've ever tuned into the brand's late-night infomercial, most likely you've seen spokesperson and CEO Leslie Blodgett boasting that the line's popular powder is so pure you can sleep in it. The company recently introduced mineral acne fighters and facial cleansers."I knew we had something different. The biggest thing is how long it took people to understand you didn't need to wear heavy, waxy makeup on your face," said Staci Reilly, Bare Escentuals senior vice president of development and awareness "The consumers can feel the difference in the texture and purity. The proven clinical studies and customer testimonials speak for themselves."Lori Misner of Brandon, Fla., decided to give mineral makeup a try about five years ago with the hope of calming her acne. Liquid makeup caused frequent breakouts, she said."It always felt heavy on my face, no matter what brand I used," said Misner, 36, who works in sales. "Because of my acne, it always looked cakey and blotchy."She says using mineral makeup helped control the oiliness, left her skin smoother, and resulted in fewer breakouts. And once she got the hang of applying it, she says, it was actually easier to use than liquid makeup."You can put as little or as much on as you like. It never looks overdone. It never looks like you have a lot of makeup on," said Misner, who is loyal to Bare Escentuals. "I wish I had found this sooner, because my skin has really improved since I started using it."Debbie Perez of South Tampa finally tried mineral makeup last year, after hearing all the hype."I was tired of my foundation melting in the summer, getting oily and making me feel like I had on a mask," said Perez, 36, a nurse.With a few swirls of powder from the brush, the self-professed "beauty junkie" underwent a mineral metamorphosis.The makeup contains natural pigments , so its colors tend to be a bit deeper and longer lasting. Perez said the line she chose, Mineral Mine, conceals redness and spider veins, makes her skin smoother and gives her FDA-approved sun protection that doesn't disappear when she perspires."I feel like my skin actually breathes," she said. "But I still get the coverage I'm looking for."Still, not everyone is buying into mineral mania. Paula Begoun, the author of Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me (Beginning Press, $29.95), said manufacturers' claims that the makeup is made primarily from crushed rock is misleading.For more than two decades, Begoun has researched and written about virtually every cosmetic product on the market, and she published the findings in two best-selling books. She says in her reviews that while the products claim not to contain fragrance, oil, binders, preservatives or other problematic ingredients, "that turns out not to be the case; bismuth oxychloride is a major ingredient in all the powder formulations, and it can cause skin irritation, while the other minerals can be drying."Bismuth oxychloride, a byproduct of lead refinement, isn't a pure mineral. It's used to lend an opalescent luster."No one is getting it out of nature," Begoun writes. "The notion that there's something special or rare about mineral makeup is misleading. Only the cosmetics industry can take something ordinary and make it sound like a miracle."Fernandez agrees with Begoun. "It's marketing, plain and simple," she said. "Women like to hear it's all-natural, easy to apply and it's going to improve their skin." Fernandez said she has experienced the irritation caused by bismuth oxychloride.But Reilly defends Bare Escentuals' use of the ingredient, which she says gives the product its creaminess and sheen. "There's a small percentage in there," Reilly said. "We'd have to be using pounds of it for it to be a problem. We don't have enough proof that it's an irritant to take it out."Robert Norman, a Tampa dermatologist, said that the mineral makeups some of his patients use are "pretty safe, and people seem to like them."The makeup doesn't aggravate acne or cause flare-ups, Norman said. "But there are certain people who are going to be sensitive to it. I wouldn't sleep in it. That's not a good idea."Christy Nolan, an aesthetician in Norman's office, recommends Jane Iredale's mineral cosmetics to patients after laser and surgical procedures. The line is sold exclusively at spas and doctors' offices.Nolan is a big fan of the makeup and wears it daily. "It goes on very well; it blends and covers without damaging the skin," said Nolan, 32. "It doesn't clog the pores like other makeups can."
Two-year boost for Downs children
Tag: Top Wear A THIRD of children with Downs syndrome with special glasses to help them focus may only need to wear them for two years.New research by Cardiff School of Optometry and Vision Sciences Downs Syndrome Research Unit has found that children may only need to wear bifocals for two years before returning to ordinary glasses.Children with Downs syndrome are more likely than ordinary children to have eye and vision problems.While only 5% to 8% of primary school-aged children need spectacles, about 60% of children with Downs syndrome need them. Common defects include squints (eye-turn), poor focusing and reduced detail vision.Dr Maggie Woodhouse, who is leading the bifocal study funded by the Health Foundation, said: “Our study provides further evidence in support of more widespread use of bifocal lenses for this group of young people.“We found that before bifocal wear, Downs syndrome children have a focusing problem not because they cannot focus but because they do not focus.“More specifically, the children accommodate much more accurately through their bifocals than do the control children through their ordinary lenses.“Surprisingly, the children with bifocals also accommodate more accurately when looking over the top of their bifocals through the distance part of the lens.“This suggests that the bifocals are teaching the children to use their own focusing ability. Our research gives us important information about what to look for to explain this problem.”She added: “Much of our work has already led to children with Downs syndrome being able to reach their full visual potential. This latest research emphasises the need for bifocals to be a central part of practice protocols within healthcare.”
2008年5月5日星期一
17 investment deals worth P1.6B signed
Tag: Biscuit Processing Machinery
Seventeen new foreign and local companies yesterday signed contracts committing fresh investments worth $40 million or about P1.64 billion within this special economic zone. Property developers, electronics manufacturers, a food processing equipment maker, metal fabricators and ship component builders were among those who have pledged to put in the money and hire workers. The new foreign direct investments generated by the Freeport zone include companies from the US, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Europe, along with two local firms that had signed separate contracts with the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). "The SBMA is mandated to create jobs by enticing more investors. We welcome the diversity of the new locators engaged in manufacturing, maritime services, property development and tourism-related businesses," said SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza. Yesterday's ceremonial mass contract signing was held at the Formosa Hall inside the administration building of the 300-hectare Subic Bay Industrial Park (SBIP). Mr. Arreza said the Subic Freeport remains attractive to both foreign direct investments and local companies and continues to be one of the top investment sites in the Asia-Pacific region. Subic Daesung Corp., a South Korean firm engaged in construction and operations of condominiums and hotels, restaurants and retail shops topped the list in terms of committed investments, at $15 million. Daesung Director Hong Yeul Kim said the company would also venture into English language education for Korean tourists, executives and their families. Filipino firm Subic Enerzone Corporation (SEZ), an Aboitiz-owned electric distribution utility managing the power distribution system of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, will be venturing into property and leisure by developing condominiums and hotels. SEZ Vice-President and General Manager Dante Pollescas said the Enerzone has committed $10.4 million in investments. Another Filipino firm, Palm Gold International Ltd., will invest $1.9 million. It will import gambling equipment and operate slot machine arcades. Meanwhile, American CEI World Wide, Inc. has pledged $2.35 million and will build a refurbishing, repair and quality-testing plant for printers, copiers and fax machines. Grace Tioaquen, CIE operations manager, said the company would import and export, and transfer cargo for forwarding or reshipment. Another US company, Cook Group and Pacific Associates, Inc., will set up a youth camp, corporate team building and recreational facilities, security academy and retirement village at the Ilanin forest district with total investments worth $1.4 million. Meanwhile, HCM Marine Corp., a Korean firm, will manage, broker, repair and maintain vessels, committing $50,000. Three other Koreans firms - Spoint Corp., SubicKor Corp. and Builenc Phil. Co. Ltd - will provide support and contracting services to shipbuilding giant Hanjin Heavy Industry Corp. (Phil.) for the manufacture of ship components. The combined investments of the three firms will be $400,000. South Korea's Dong Yang Food Machinery (Phils), Inc. has also pledged $468,000 for the manufacture of biscuit machinery and parts, food processing and trading. Two Japanese manufacturers - E'OS Sutro Technology Subic and Rings- three, Inc. have committed $280,000 and $220,000 respectively. Both will manufacture and fabricate electronic parts and board assembly. Likewise, Rayshine Photonics (Phils.) Corp., a Taiwanese firm that designs and assembles LCDs (liquid crystal display), will invest $100,000. Other companies that pledged investments were sporting goods retailer Bike Boutique with $300,000; convention center operator Global Dongsan Philippines with $1.2 million; and restaurant and spa operators Buma Subic and PhilKor Utopia, with $37,500 each.
Seventeen new foreign and local companies yesterday signed contracts committing fresh investments worth $40 million or about P1.64 billion within this special economic zone. Property developers, electronics manufacturers, a food processing equipment maker, metal fabricators and ship component builders were among those who have pledged to put in the money and hire workers. The new foreign direct investments generated by the Freeport zone include companies from the US, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Europe, along with two local firms that had signed separate contracts with the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). "The SBMA is mandated to create jobs by enticing more investors. We welcome the diversity of the new locators engaged in manufacturing, maritime services, property development and tourism-related businesses," said SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza. Yesterday's ceremonial mass contract signing was held at the Formosa Hall inside the administration building of the 300-hectare Subic Bay Industrial Park (SBIP). Mr. Arreza said the Subic Freeport remains attractive to both foreign direct investments and local companies and continues to be one of the top investment sites in the Asia-Pacific region. Subic Daesung Corp., a South Korean firm engaged in construction and operations of condominiums and hotels, restaurants and retail shops topped the list in terms of committed investments, at $15 million. Daesung Director Hong Yeul Kim said the company would also venture into English language education for Korean tourists, executives and their families. Filipino firm Subic Enerzone Corporation (SEZ), an Aboitiz-owned electric distribution utility managing the power distribution system of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, will be venturing into property and leisure by developing condominiums and hotels. SEZ Vice-President and General Manager Dante Pollescas said the Enerzone has committed $10.4 million in investments. Another Filipino firm, Palm Gold International Ltd., will invest $1.9 million. It will import gambling equipment and operate slot machine arcades. Meanwhile, American CEI World Wide, Inc. has pledged $2.35 million and will build a refurbishing, repair and quality-testing plant for printers, copiers and fax machines. Grace Tioaquen, CIE operations manager, said the company would import and export, and transfer cargo for forwarding or reshipment. Another US company, Cook Group and Pacific Associates, Inc., will set up a youth camp, corporate team building and recreational facilities, security academy and retirement village at the Ilanin forest district with total investments worth $1.4 million. Meanwhile, HCM Marine Corp., a Korean firm, will manage, broker, repair and maintain vessels, committing $50,000. Three other Koreans firms - Spoint Corp., SubicKor Corp. and Builenc Phil. Co. Ltd - will provide support and contracting services to shipbuilding giant Hanjin Heavy Industry Corp. (Phil.) for the manufacture of ship components. The combined investments of the three firms will be $400,000. South Korea's Dong Yang Food Machinery (Phils), Inc. has also pledged $468,000 for the manufacture of biscuit machinery and parts, food processing and trading. Two Japanese manufacturers - E'OS Sutro Technology Subic and Rings- three, Inc. have committed $280,000 and $220,000 respectively. Both will manufacture and fabricate electronic parts and board assembly. Likewise, Rayshine Photonics (Phils.) Corp., a Taiwanese firm that designs and assembles LCDs (liquid crystal display), will invest $100,000. Other companies that pledged investments were sporting goods retailer Bike Boutique with $300,000; convention center operator Global Dongsan Philippines with $1.2 million; and restaurant and spa operators Buma Subic and PhilKor Utopia, with $37,500 each.
Exports mark 22pc growth in Feb
The continued strong growth in demand for Bangladeshi garments helped boost the country's exports in February to US$1.199 billion, up 22 percent on the same month a year earlier.However despite February's export boom, the country missed the overall export target of July-February period by 4.21 percent, earning $8.02 billion during these first eight months of FY 2007-08.Knitwear, the largest export earner followed by woven garments, earned $3.47 billion during the time, marking a 16.43 percent growth over the same period of previous fiscal.It, however, missed the target of $ 3.51 billion for the period. woven garmentsearned $3.29 billion, a 5.63 percent growth over the same period of the previous fiscal, but 5.28 per cent below the export target.Frozen food, the country's second largest export earner, showed 5.73 percent growth over the same period of previous fiscal. During the period the sector earned $ 371.93 million.Agricultural products, vegetables, tobacco, ceramic products and footwear also marked considerable growth.On the other hand, handicrafts, computer services and engineering products such as bicycle and iron chain missed the export target.Despite positive growth during the last three months since December 2007, export is still bearing the burnt of the negative growth in the fiscal year's first five months.The government has set the export target for FY 2007-08 at $14.5 billion against the backdrop of over $ 12 billion earning in previous fiscal.“If the garment sector fails to show high growth, it will be hard to meet the target,” said Fazlul Haque, president of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
Who says the cricket sweater is dead?
We had an opening batsman that was never out. Well, this was what he thought. He was, of course. He was so out most weeks that we thought his bat might be a portal in the space-time continuum, something Doctor Who might slip through, plus the odd cricket ball.He did not appreciate such theories. To his mind, umpires were myopic sociopaths intent on his ruination and in cahoots with every fast bowler in the county. His name, like the many injustices he believed to have been committed against his sporting person, has long been lost in the memory, but his style remains familiar to all. He would play forward, groping at one that was cutting away, or failing to detect the line of one that had cut back, and there would be the inevitable diversionary click, or dull thud of ball against pad, and the fielding players would rise in confident appeal and the umpire's right index finger would join them and the slow troop to the pavilion would begin.There would then be the clatter of the bat thrown to the corner of the spartan dressing room and the bitter ruminations on the ocular capability and motives of the decision-maker. It had been, without doubt, going down leg side or, if caught by the wicketkeeper, he had not got a touch.During one game in which the unmistakable sound of ball against willow could have been identified by a deaf school camping four fields away during a flypast by the Red Arrows and the Prodigy's set at Glastonbury, the catch was taken at second slip, the ball having set off at a right angle with the velocity of a Gran guided mortar bomb. “Came off my boot,” said our hero, as he sat, quietly fuming in the clubhouse. This may not be cricket as recognised by the likes of Michael Vaughan, the England captain, but it will be instantly known to the many well-intentioned amateurs whose club season is beginning at the weekend, and will continue this summer through rain, shine and days when the two alternate at 15-minute intervals and just waste everybody's time. And there are more of us than there are cricketers like Vaughan.So the idea that the death knell has been sounded for the old-fashioned baggy, woollen jumper is as ridiculous as, well, an English Ashes victory on Australian soil.“Close of play for a fashion icon” was how The Times reported the arrival of the Clima-Cool cable-knit pullover, made from a man-made fibre and designed to push sweat away from the athlete's skin. Don't believe a word of it. Like grumpy openers, overweight spinners and the rain stopping at six o'clock and the sun coming out during the drive home, the old-fashioned cricket jumper will always be with us.“The cricket sweater has been my bugbear for many a year,” said Vaughan, which is a surprise considering his recent leadership calls have included what to do with a drunken vice-captain who has nearly drowned on a pedalo after a nightclub bender in the middle of a World Cup tournament. “I am delighted to see its end.”England's new kit is similar to every item of sports equipment these days, in that its key function is to redistribute perspiration. It is a surprising there is ever a water shortage, really, with the amount of sweat that is being redirected during modern competition. You could siphon off the undershirt of the average all-rounder and irrigate a small village in Ghana, given the technology, although, to the untrained observer, any sport that requires its participants to take two meal breaks - lunch and tea - not to mention several drinks intervals, would appear to require some form of kit with the ability to redistribute Bolognese stains rather than moisture. perhaps adidas, England's supplier, could produce Clima-Cool bibs.For those that have followed an England cricket tour to Australia, the sub-continent or Caribbean, there is a serious side to this. During Ashes Tests in places like Adelaide and Brisbane, temperatures pitch-side have been known to exceed 110F; in Sri Lanka, the humidity can reach 95 per cent, although in either of these situations why anyone would still be wearing a jumper of any description, Clima-Cool or not, is perhaps a bigger question. Those that are still concerned with layers in Karachi are probably already suffering heat-stroke.As for the rest of us, keeping cool is not the problem. Not much in the way of sun block required last Saturday when standing at square leg for the school cricket trials. One of the coaches remembered an April game at Fenners, the home of Cambridge University, when it grew so cold that Ray East, the Essex spin bowler, had borrowed the overcoat of a spectator and took to wearing it while fielding in the deep. The umpire took the hint and called the players in. One would imagine that very few were bemoaning the absence of light, efficient man-made fabrics that day. Soak a woollen sweater in brandy and somebody might have sucked it.The threat to the good old cricket jumper is painted as a serious one, considering that these days the replica shirt is king, and manufacturers of sports apparel believe everybody wishes to parade in the manner of the leanest, fittest, twentysomething footballer, all six packs and perfect BMI. Before flooding the market with figure hugging Clima-Cool cricket jumpers, however, it might be an idea to study the body shape of the average third XI second-change bowler. Not too many Cristiano Ronaldo lookalikes there. Not too many athletes that will be happy about specifically defining the contours of the upper body.I remember walking down the street at a recent World Cup tournament with a senior executive of the footballwear manufacturer Umbro. His company had just supplied the England team with its most state-of-the-art kit yet. It not only took sweat away, it reinvented it as mineral water, then some of it got together and cleaned your car while you were out. And it was tight. John Richmond tight. Saturday night at Turnmills tight. Coming towards us was an England supporter. He was not a thin man. In his newly purchased shirt he looked rather like a busted sofa. My friend, crestfallen, glanced in his direction and fell silent for several seconds. “Yes,” he said, finally, “we definitely had him in mind when we designed that.”So hold fire on the last rites for the baggy cricket jumper. I have a hunch it will be with us for many years yet.
Crop loss due to pest attack pegged at Rs 1.40 lakh cr
Tag: Agrochemical
The Agrochemicals Policy Group, an apex body of 200 crop protection companies, has said agricultural produce loss in 2007 due to pests was estimated at Rs 1.40 lakh crore and that prudent pesticide use could cut losses, besides enhancing productivity.UN’s concern Last week, the World Bank said food prices had doubled over the last three years and it could push 100 million people in the low-income countries further into poverty. The World Bank President, Mr Robert Zoellick, appealed to Governments to provide the UN World Food Programme $500 million as emergency assistance. The United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki -Moon, too, said food crisis was looming large around the world and reached emergency proportions, while calling for short-term emergency measures in many regions and long-term efforts to increase production. Mr S. Kumarasamy, Chairman, Agrochemical Policy Group, said crop loss in India was because only a fourth of the total cropped area of 180 million hectares was treated with crop protection chemicals.5-fold return He said there was an urgent need to step-up farm output and farmers could be assured of a five-fold return on the money spent on pesticides. The agrochemical industry was keen on joining hands with the agriculture department to promote safe and judicious use of pesticides. The level of pesticide use in India was 480 gm per hectare, while it was 17,000 gm in Taiwan, 17,000 gm in Japan, and 4,500 gm in the US. In Europe, it was close to 3,000 gm a hectare. Correspondingly, crop yields in India were the lowest.Overdose a bane However, even at the present level of usage, pesticides helped enhance productivity of export-oriented crops such as tea, grapes and pomegranate, besides vegetables. Reacting to concerns over pesticide use in general, he said one should liken it to a doctor’s prescription, and over-dose was a bane.Right practices However, Dr K.S.R.K. Murthy, President, Plant Protection Association of India, Hyderabad, said pesticide use can be advocated only when right agricultural practices were followed. Taiwan, Japan and other countries followed such practices.Need-based Pesticide use was need-based and application should be only when the economic threshold level was exceeded. Strict adherence to recommended dosage, besides employing the right application method and equipment were a must, else it was better to refrain from using pesticides.
The Agrochemicals Policy Group, an apex body of 200 crop protection companies, has said agricultural produce loss in 2007 due to pests was estimated at Rs 1.40 lakh crore and that prudent pesticide use could cut losses, besides enhancing productivity.UN’s concern Last week, the World Bank said food prices had doubled over the last three years and it could push 100 million people in the low-income countries further into poverty. The World Bank President, Mr Robert Zoellick, appealed to Governments to provide the UN World Food Programme $500 million as emergency assistance. The United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki -Moon, too, said food crisis was looming large around the world and reached emergency proportions, while calling for short-term emergency measures in many regions and long-term efforts to increase production. Mr S. Kumarasamy, Chairman, Agrochemical Policy Group, said crop loss in India was because only a fourth of the total cropped area of 180 million hectares was treated with crop protection chemicals.5-fold return He said there was an urgent need to step-up farm output and farmers could be assured of a five-fold return on the money spent on pesticides. The agrochemical industry was keen on joining hands with the agriculture department to promote safe and judicious use of pesticides. The level of pesticide use in India was 480 gm per hectare, while it was 17,000 gm in Taiwan, 17,000 gm in Japan, and 4,500 gm in the US. In Europe, it was close to 3,000 gm a hectare. Correspondingly, crop yields in India were the lowest.Overdose a bane However, even at the present level of usage, pesticides helped enhance productivity of export-oriented crops such as tea, grapes and pomegranate, besides vegetables. Reacting to concerns over pesticide use in general, he said one should liken it to a doctor’s prescription, and over-dose was a bane.Right practices However, Dr K.S.R.K. Murthy, President, Plant Protection Association of India, Hyderabad, said pesticide use can be advocated only when right agricultural practices were followed. Taiwan, Japan and other countries followed such practices.Need-based Pesticide use was need-based and application should be only when the economic threshold level was exceeded. Strict adherence to recommended dosage, besides employing the right application method and equipment were a must, else it was better to refrain from using pesticides.
The Birthday Cake as a Milepost
SAMUEL, my 10-year-old, told me recently that one of his earliest memories was the birthday cake I made when he was 3. It was a snowman cake, for his snow-theme party. Three single layers cut into proportionate circles and frosted in stiff, white fondant icing; black gumdrop eyes and mouth; a striped scarf made by twisting together red and black shoestring licorice and a traditional carrot nose. It was quite a cake — especially for me, an advanced-beginner baker at best. So when Samuel told me he remembered it, I was proud — for the three seconds before he explained, "I remember it was scary."Well, at least he remembers it. Clearly, so do I. And I’ve found that most of the women I know, whether infrequent bakers or those who bake at the drop of a hat, mix-users or only-from-scratch types, remember the cakes they’ve baked, vividly. You know the way clothing can function in memory, outfitting important events? Well, I think cakes we’ve baked make for equally rich, if not richer, recollection. Tastes, decorations, adventures or ordeals come flooding back, coalescing around the cakes’ reasons for being — the people they were baked for and their landmark celebrations. Especially children.Not that we don’t bake cakes for adults, too. And isn’t it a lovely thing to see your father beaming like a child as his lighted cake is borne to him? But it’s a different experience setting out not merely to please but to delight a child with a cake that only you can make, one that can find you rolling up your sleeves and becoming a cake wrangler, determined to make that firehouse, caterpillar or Pokémon concoction. Why? Or, as I’ve asked myself when half the cake sticks to the pan, What could I have been thinking?There is an irresistible charm to these flight-of-fancy cakes, and fueling children’s imaginative rides in the early years is part of a parent’s job. But I think the real reason we bake far-fetched cakes is because we hear in our children’s birthday-cake requests, whether spoken or not, this: "You can do it. You’re Mom."So we bake and risk the burning, the falling and the crumbling, trying to meet our kids’ cake expectations. I’ve seen a mother struggling over caterpillar cake segments baked in bundt pans. And another fretting terribly as the gel lettering melted off the cake, making it look like one of Dalí’s surreal desert clocks.Then there’s the weird tale my friend Stina told me about a cake that is apparently a contemporary rite of passage for mothers of pre-tween girls. It’s a Barbie cake, more specifically, a Barbie-upright-in-her-bouffant-skirt cake. Using a trademarked pan, you bake the skirt, frost it (prom-pink is good) and then decorate it with edible beading, sequins or tulle. Then you’ve got to get the damsel in the dress, lowering her into the waist of the skirt-cake. But Barbie is liable to slide down past her waist, to where the cake hits her just below the bust — Maternity Barbie! Or, she might slide further, descending into the crumbling pastel volcano that is your cake, until finally, horribly, Barbie is entombed.At least now, thanks to the blogosphere, mothers have a place to commiserate and virtually share their cake triumphs and disasters. One of my favorite online sightings is a photo of a pirate treasure chest cake, spilling over with jewels, taken seconds before the birthday boy pilfered it, sending it, plundered, to the floor. The baker couldn’t bear to post the “after” shot, but she did have one of herself, cringing.I see how this royal cake-baking treatment might be perceived as another symptom of our superindulgent, competitive parenting. It shows how the ante has been upped for birthday cakes — just as for toys, camps, tutors, clothes and college. But cake baking as event or proving ground is nothing new. It’s been going on in this country since the second half of the 19th century, at least, when superior baking powders became more widely available. Cake baking reached its lofty heights with the popularization of the cake mix after World War II. Cake mixes were, and continue to be, a godsend for anyone who doesn’t want to sift flour, measure cocoa and fold in egg whites. And boxed-cake memories for birthday boys and girls are, in the end, just as sweet. Just ask my friend Alice.Alice’s mother wasn’t much of a cook, let alone a baker. She had given up her career as a chemist in the 1950s to have a family. So for Alice’s birthday, she would take her on a ceremonious trip to the supermarket where Alice would get to pick the Duncan Hines mix of her choice. Back home, they’d prepare it together. The best part was when Alice’s mother would pour some of the batter into a doll-sized pan.Those cake-baking times are at the heart of why Alice is the passionate, expert and generous baker she is today and why she bakes with Annie, her 12-year-old, every chance she gets.Ideas of mothering are an essential part of birthday cake ingredients. (More dads are baking cakes these days, but for now, birthday-cake culture still mostly revolves around mothers.) My own mother made a lot of spice cakes when I was growing up, simple rectangles with brown cinnamon frosting and raisins spelling “Happy Birthday” and our names. These were the first kind of cakes I baked for my own children. Then I set the bar higher. Maybe it was leaving New York City, moving to the suburbs and searching for the Martha within. But when my boys started toddling, their cakes also reached developmental milestones. Henry’s Pokémon cake was one of these.As with Sam’s snowman cake, here, too, I thought I’d achieved something nifty. Henry, my oldest, turning 6, was a Pokémon fanatic having a July swim party. So I came up with a swimming pool cake surrounded by Pokémon characters. I scavenged for the hard-to-find miniature critters, even soliciting other mothers for some of their kids’ stash. I made chlorine-water-colored Jell-O and a cookie diving board, then frosted and arranged the scene. Henry was appreciative. But he let me know at the time — and has ever since — that I’d put the "earth" Pokémon in the pool and the "water" Pokémon on dry land.Nowadays, my boys don’t ask a lot from me in the birthday cake department. Pretty much anything chocolate and frosted will do. Which is a little bittersweet for me, but just a little. Because the cakes I have baked live on, preserved in family lore, and in the lingering, ever-delicious memories of my children, round-faced, candlelit and filled with wishing.
Have festivals gone middle-aged?
Tag: Pig Suede There’s a problem here, what the Americans call a category error. I was going to write a piece about what music festivals this year are, uh, cool. But the thing is, if I think they’re cool, then almost by definition they are not.I’m 47 years old. The trouble with rock festivals these days is people like me, middle-aged adolescents with guts that stretch from the botulo-burger tent to the mobile lavatories. And, of course, our partners - our babes, our chicks - who dig festivals for the vibe, but would rather stay in a nice B&B than slum it in a noisome tent. Middle-aged, middle-class couples with hampers and the kids in tow, anxious to see some band we’ve all heard on that latest building-society ad. But also that section of our younger population, with gelled hair and 52 cans of lager, who will, during the set by Kaiser Chiefs, hurl cartons of piss towards the stage.Those two groups never used to go to rock festivals. The kidults would have felt it outré or beneath them, and in any case hated the music; the younger brethren (who hated the music too) would have waited around near the festival gates to kick in the heads of the unwashed, druggy hippies in their tie-dye and tassels. Now, though, everyone is on drugs, everyone likes rock music - or, at least, is unable to avoid its relentless, bland, monotonous fugue.Last year, Charles Moore, the tweed-jacketed Tory former editor of The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph attended his first rock festival, that one put on by the young princes to honour their dead mum. Charles Moore at a rock festival: this isn’t merely the crossing of the Rubicon, it’s the paving-over of the Rubicon and turning it into a nice piazza. That good old leftie word “alternative” has long since become its antonym.Back in 1970, the first Glastonbury festival kicked off with a band called Stackridge - English psychedelia infused with a rather wearing wackiness. If, back in that era, you listened to John Peel in the small hours of the morning, or tuned into late-night television, you might just catch a brief burst of Stackridge, maybe three minutes across the whole of a year. Quintessence were on the bill, too, and you wouldn’t hear their idiosyncratic blend of jazz-raga-prog fusion broadcast ever, anywhere. Liking rock music took a certain amount of vigorous effort and dedication and tended to incur the suspicion of both one’s elders and a majority of peers.It is truly remarkable how rock has moved from this covert, minority pursuit into its present state of utter ubiquity. In 1970, a rock festival would be your only chance of hearing the likes of Quintessence, unless you bought their record on spec or via the recommendation of a review in the NME.Today, even Charles Moore probably has the latest Bloc Party release, while the prime minister pretends to like Arctic Monkeys. Rock music has become a sort of tyranny; once, if you liked it, you were considered a weirdo. Now you’re considered a weirdo if you don’t.As rock has become the incessant backdrop to our daily lives, so the music festivals no longer stress the “music” part, but try to sell you an “experience” instead.Check out the websites for some of the summer festivals and you will be surprised to find no mention of the bands playing, unless you click on a different link. The Sunrise festival, near Yeovil, for example, bills itself proudly as a celebration of “ancient wisdom, contemporary innovation, creativity and community”, and announces that it has had bestowed upon it the “Shelter Award for Social Responsibility”.I had already decided, on reading this, that I would rather boil my own penis than go anywhere near Sunrise this year - even before I discovered, via a link, that the Orb were topping the bill. Or there’s the most middle-class of all middle-class festivals, Latitude, in Britain’s most middle-class and middle-aged seaside town, Southwold, with its legions of poet sand writers and bloody jugglers and well-behaved family fun - and, sort of coincidentally, Sigur Ros and Franz Ferdinand.The average age of the main performers at most of the summer’s big festivals seems to be pushing 60. A year or so back, Michael Eavis, the boss of Glastonbury, bemoaned the fact that the festivals seemed to have been taken over by the older generation - perhaps remembering that youthful first Glasto he organised, with Stackridge and Quintessence and the then unheralded Marc Bolan topping the bill.While he was musing on this unwelcome development, his daughter, Emily, picked up the phone and booked Neil Diamond as the headline act for this year’s bash. Well, that should sort it out. The kids will come flocking. Diamond was irredeemably naff even in 1970, with his lumpen, middle-of-the-road shout-along hits Sweet Caroline and the inexplicable Cracklin’ Rosie (what does he mean, exactly, by “cracklin’” - that she’s like a roast pig?)Maybe Eavis remembered something else from that first sweet and innocent Glastonbury Fayre - that he lost £1,500 on the ticket sales, no small sum in those days. So, this year, come on down those cutting-edge musicians Neil Diamond, Jay-Z and the ever-youthful, laugh-a-minute, rock’n’rollin’ Leonard Cohen.To be fair, most of the other festivals have done similarly. The headline act at this year’s Isle of Wight festival is the Police; the equivalent booking for this famous festival, back in 1968, would have been Joe Loss and His Orchestra, or maybe Ray Conniff. Actually, I would rather listen to Joe Loss than the Police. Truth be told, I’d rather listen to the police than the Police.I suppose popular music, having lost its youthful exclusivity and aura of rebellious-ness, is no longer quite so compelling for young people. Fair enough.There are still one or two festivals around this year with bills that you could consider adventurous - for example, the Hop Farm festival, in Paddock Wood, near Tonbridge, Kent, where they want to get back to the early spirit of rock gatherings and have booked as headline act the 62-year-old Neil Young.That’s why I’m going, in my tasselled suede jacket and cuban heels and 33-year-old Tonight’s the Night tour T-shirt. But then, as I said, I’m 47; what do you expect?
iLogic Sound Hat Keeps The Tunes Thumping Through The Chill
Tag: Polyester Hat
Do I realize that the cold seasons have passed and that the heat of summer is just around the corner? Do I ever, and frankly I can’t wait! It’s understood that some of you out there are fall and winter lovers. That’s cool, I’m just not down with it. The cold seasons have that unforgiving side effect of shivering which is enough to warrant disdain from this chilly blogger.Now that the steamy seasons of summer are quickly approaching, it’s time to start planning for the chill that will start moving in around September. One of the reasons I despise winter so much is the way that winter apparel is always in the way of me fulfilling my gadget duties. Wearing clunky gloves means I can’t text message properly. Wearing a hat to cover my ears means I can’t listen to my iPod without looking awkward or feeling uncomfortable. The iLogic Sound Hat allows for an ear warming and music listening synergy.The iLogic Sound Hat allows you to plug your iPod or other portable media device directly into integrated speakers inside of the hat’s surface with a standard 3.5mm headphone port connected to a 98cm wire which is easily tucked away into the hat’s inner lining. The beanie itself has a fleecy feel on its interior, despite the hat’s composition of 100% polyester.If you’re interested in grabbing the iLogic Sound Hat a few seasons early in preparation for the inevitable winter of 2008-2009, you can snatch up your own Sound Hat from I Want One Of Those for £14.99, which is about $27. A fair price for keeping your ears cozy and frostbite-free.
Do I realize that the cold seasons have passed and that the heat of summer is just around the corner? Do I ever, and frankly I can’t wait! It’s understood that some of you out there are fall and winter lovers. That’s cool, I’m just not down with it. The cold seasons have that unforgiving side effect of shivering which is enough to warrant disdain from this chilly blogger.Now that the steamy seasons of summer are quickly approaching, it’s time to start planning for the chill that will start moving in around September. One of the reasons I despise winter so much is the way that winter apparel is always in the way of me fulfilling my gadget duties. Wearing clunky gloves means I can’t text message properly. Wearing a hat to cover my ears means I can’t listen to my iPod without looking awkward or feeling uncomfortable. The iLogic Sound Hat allows for an ear warming and music listening synergy.The iLogic Sound Hat allows you to plug your iPod or other portable media device directly into integrated speakers inside of the hat’s surface with a standard 3.5mm headphone port connected to a 98cm wire which is easily tucked away into the hat’s inner lining. The beanie itself has a fleecy feel on its interior, despite the hat’s composition of 100% polyester.If you’re interested in grabbing the iLogic Sound Hat a few seasons early in preparation for the inevitable winter of 2008-2009, you can snatch up your own Sound Hat from I Want One Of Those for £14.99, which is about $27. A fair price for keeping your ears cozy and frostbite-free.
Nutritious and Delicious Ways to Procrastinate
Tag: Coated Peanuts With exams approaching and stress mounting, what better way to ease your nerves than a little snack break? After all, just about every teacher I've had has emphasized the importance of "brain food." Instead of making the trip to a vending machine, why not take a few minutes to create something of your own? It will be healthier and more satisfying than anything found in a package, not to mention, easy to share with your equally stressed friends. These snacks may give you that much needed study break, so you are all the more prepared to hit the books and ace all your finals. Here are a few suggestions, all of which even the least kitchen-adept can accomplish without burning down the dorm. Trail Mix Collect any ingredients you see fit, for example, granola, dried fruits (bananas, apricots, raisins, craisins, apples, etc.), nuts (peanuts, cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, etc.), and a little something sweet (M&Ms, chocolate chips, yogurt/chocolate raisins, etc.). Combine any of the endless mixtures and enjoy Coated Peanuts. Garlic Cheese Toast Turn the oven knob to "broil," which may take a few minutes, so be patient. Toast a few pieces of bread in a toaster. Either sprinkle with garlic powder, or, if you have one, take a clove of garlic and rub the toast. Liberally apply shredded mozzarella cheese. Place under the broiler (on the top rack of the oven) until the cheese melts, which should not take very long. Remove from the oven, and enjoy! Optional: add freshly sliced tomatoes to the toast before sprinkling with cheese, or use tomato sauce to dip. Nachos Mash an avocado or two in a bowl, adding salt and pepper to taste. Add a drizzle of limejuice and a few spoonfuls of pico de gallo (really delicious and mild salsa made of tomato chunks, onion, a few chiles and lime juice). Set aside. Spoon a can of refried beans into a bowl, heat in 30-second intervals, stirring in between, until warm. On a plate, place several handfuls of tortilla chips evenly on the surface; sprinkle with shredded cheese (cheddar, jack or "Mexican mix" all work quite well) and refried beans. Put in the microwave-or under the broiler if you're being adventurous-until the cheese is melted. Pile on pico de gallo, your homemade guacamole, some salt and pepper, and you're good to go. Some other delicious additions: sour cream, cilantro, and ground beef or chicken (cooked with a little bit of taco seasoning). Quesadillas Using pretty much the same ingredients as the nachos, make something more substantial: Heat up a skillet on the stove; add a tortilla. Sprinkle cheese and any other fillings (refried beans, meat, pico de gallo are all good), add a touch of taco seasoning (if you have it; it's not the end of the world if you don't) and place a second tortilla on top. After a minute or two, carefully flip the quesadilla. Cook for another minute or two. To see if the cheese is melted, carefully peak under the top tortilla. If it is, your snack is done. Top with pico de gallo, guacamole, or sour cream, or just eat it plain. Pizza Bagels Toast bagels. Spread with a spoonful of tomato sauce, and sprinkle with cheese. Top with pepperoni, sliced tomato, basil, sausage, or whatever else sounds good. Place in the over under the broiler until the cheese is melted. Get adventurous: instead of tomato, try pesto sauce for a salty, herby variation. Puppy Chow In a saucepan, melt 2 Tbsp of butter. Add 1 cup of chocolate chips and a half cup of peanut butter, and allow to melt. Feel free to eyeball the measurements; they don't need to be exact. Put 6 cups of cereal (Chex Mix is the classic) into a large bowl; cover with the melted chocolate-peanut butter concoction. Stir until all pieces of cereal are sufficiently covered. Place in a plastic bag with some powdered sugar and shake until coated. So, if you want to have the best study party on campus, try one of the above recipes. None of them takes more than twenty minutes, so even the most studious of Hoyas can make an attempt. None of them involves any complicated kitchen appliances or a lot of measuring. Nearly all of the ingredients can be found on campus, either at Vittles or Leo's. Good luck on finals, and happy snacking!
Study finds no chemical threat
Tag: Printing Glaze A health assessment of a chemical used by a township sand and gravel operation has found the chemical poses no public health risk, although water monitoring is being recommended.But the resident who petitioned the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to conduct the study disagrees with the conclusion and says it justifies new mining regulations. Victor "Bud" Allen is concerned that the chemical, polyacrylamide, degrades into Printing Glaze, a possible carcinogen that can leach into groundwater and soil.According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, there is no acceptable way to detect acrylamide in drinking water."The biggest problem I have is that they say we are going to be protected by monitoring," Allen said. "It can't be done."Allen requested a public health assessment be completed in October 2006 because he was concerned about the health risks of polyacrylamide. Belvidere Sand & Gravel uses the chemical to remove fine sand particles from water used to process its sand and gravel.The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services also participated in the study.The public can hear the results and decide for themselves at a 6:30 p.m. public meeting Tuesday at the county administration building on Route 519.Health department spokeswoman Linda Nasta declined to answer questions on the report, saying they will be answered at the public meeting. Comments are being accepted until April 26.The report concluded polyacrylamide is not toxic. The study of Belvidere Sand & Gravel's mining operation looked at all potential exposures routes: soil, air, surface water and groundwater. It found residents are not exposed to the chemical through soil or air.
Traffic to be limited in central Moscow due to May 9 parade rehearsal
Tag: Military Dress
MOSCOW, May 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Traffic will be limited in central Moscow on sty on Saturday due to a rehearsal of the military parade Moscow’s Red Square on the occasion of VE-Day that is traditionally celebrated in Russia on May 9.Traffic police have asked car owners to be careful, use alternative routes and follow road signs and traffic policemen’s instructions.Over 8,000 soldiers and officers from the Moscow military garrison will be involved in the rehearsal, the press service of the Moscow Military District said.The rehearsal will include infantry and motorised units. Young drummers from military schools will be the first to enter the square. They will set the rhyme for servicemen from military academies and other higher educational institutions, and several battalions of paratroopers, mariners and Interior Troops.Army and Navy school cadets and a combined military orchestra will bring up the rear.They will be followed by about 200 pieces of military hardware, including 90 wheeled vehicles. Caterpillar vehicles will be provided with special caterpillars that do not damage the roads.The Army will provide T-90 tanks, BMP-3 personnel carriers, BTR-80 armoured fighting vehicles, self-propelled Iskander missile systems, Smerch multiple launchers, Msta self-propelled systems, and truck-mounted Buk air defence systems.The Strategic Rocket Forces will be represented by four Topol mobile ground-based launch systems.The Airborne Troops will contribute BMD-4 landing vehicles and Sprut self-propelled systems. Fighting vehicles will drive in two columns from the building of the History Museum through the square and onto Vasileyvsky Spusk Street, then turn right and go back to their base.Preparations for the parade started on March 11. The dress rehearsal is scheduled for May 5.The Air Force has one more rehearsal to hold too. The previous rehearsal on April 29 was successful. Air Force Commander Colonel-General Alexander Zelin, who supervised the rehearsal, said he was satisfied with the piloting and expected further rehearsals to be equally successful.“Air Force pilots last took part in the parade on May 9, 1995,” long-range aviation chief of staff, Major-General Anatoly Zhikharev said.“This year’s air force parade will involve all types of planes used by long-range aviation, including Tu-160 and Tu-95MS … They will demonstrate refuelling from an Il-76 tanker plane in midair,” Zhikharev said.In his words, long-range aviation planes will fly over the city escorted by fighter planes. “There will be no aerobatics over Red Square because they are is prohibited,” he said.The world’s largest military transport plane An124 Ruslan will also take part in the parade.“The An-124 Ruslan plane from the 566th Air Transport Regiment will represent transport aviation at the May 9 parade,” Air Force Assistant Commander, Cololenl Alexander Drobyshevsky said.“An-124 is the heaviest strategic military transport plane in the world that can perform complex missions and carry bulky combat hardware for big distances. In the future it will also be involved in a number of space programmes as an aerial launching pad for carrier rockets,” Drobyshevsky said.An-124 Ruslan has a takeoff mass of 405 tonnes. Its range is 4,500 kilometres, maximum speed 865 kilometres per hour, operating ceiling 9,500 metres, payload up to 150 tonnes.Drobyshevsky also said earlier that the Air Force would be represented on the ground, by mechanised units, and in the air.“On the ground, there will be two formations consisting of officers from the Gagarin Air Force Academy and the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy,” Drobyshevsky said.Mechanised units will include four S-300 air defence systems.Besides, over 30 planes and helicopters will fly over Red Square, including Russian Knights and Swifts aerobatics groups.“Due to objective reasons, new pilots have joined the groups. Three left and three new were taken on to replace them. Two more have changed their place in the formation,” the commander of the 316th Air Force Army, Major-General Alexander Belevich said.In his words, the pilots are 70-80 percent prepared for the parade.Air Force Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsin said a Su-25 attack plane would take part in the parade as well.“Thirty-two aircraft belonging to the Air Force, including a Su-25 attack plane, will fly over Red Square during the parade,” he said.
MOSCOW, May 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Traffic will be limited in central Moscow on sty on Saturday due to a rehearsal of the military parade Moscow’s Red Square on the occasion of VE-Day that is traditionally celebrated in Russia on May 9.Traffic police have asked car owners to be careful, use alternative routes and follow road signs and traffic policemen’s instructions.Over 8,000 soldiers and officers from the Moscow military garrison will be involved in the rehearsal, the press service of the Moscow Military District said.The rehearsal will include infantry and motorised units. Young drummers from military schools will be the first to enter the square. They will set the rhyme for servicemen from military academies and other higher educational institutions, and several battalions of paratroopers, mariners and Interior Troops.Army and Navy school cadets and a combined military orchestra will bring up the rear.They will be followed by about 200 pieces of military hardware, including 90 wheeled vehicles. Caterpillar vehicles will be provided with special caterpillars that do not damage the roads.The Army will provide T-90 tanks, BMP-3 personnel carriers, BTR-80 armoured fighting vehicles, self-propelled Iskander missile systems, Smerch multiple launchers, Msta self-propelled systems, and truck-mounted Buk air defence systems.The Strategic Rocket Forces will be represented by four Topol mobile ground-based launch systems.The Airborne Troops will contribute BMD-4 landing vehicles and Sprut self-propelled systems. Fighting vehicles will drive in two columns from the building of the History Museum through the square and onto Vasileyvsky Spusk Street, then turn right and go back to their base.Preparations for the parade started on March 11. The dress rehearsal is scheduled for May 5.The Air Force has one more rehearsal to hold too. The previous rehearsal on April 29 was successful. Air Force Commander Colonel-General Alexander Zelin, who supervised the rehearsal, said he was satisfied with the piloting and expected further rehearsals to be equally successful.“Air Force pilots last took part in the parade on May 9, 1995,” long-range aviation chief of staff, Major-General Anatoly Zhikharev said.“This year’s air force parade will involve all types of planes used by long-range aviation, including Tu-160 and Tu-95MS … They will demonstrate refuelling from an Il-76 tanker plane in midair,” Zhikharev said.In his words, long-range aviation planes will fly over the city escorted by fighter planes. “There will be no aerobatics over Red Square because they are is prohibited,” he said.The world’s largest military transport plane An124 Ruslan will also take part in the parade.“The An-124 Ruslan plane from the 566th Air Transport Regiment will represent transport aviation at the May 9 parade,” Air Force Assistant Commander, Cololenl Alexander Drobyshevsky said.“An-124 is the heaviest strategic military transport plane in the world that can perform complex missions and carry bulky combat hardware for big distances. In the future it will also be involved in a number of space programmes as an aerial launching pad for carrier rockets,” Drobyshevsky said.An-124 Ruslan has a takeoff mass of 405 tonnes. Its range is 4,500 kilometres, maximum speed 865 kilometres per hour, operating ceiling 9,500 metres, payload up to 150 tonnes.Drobyshevsky also said earlier that the Air Force would be represented on the ground, by mechanised units, and in the air.“On the ground, there will be two formations consisting of officers from the Gagarin Air Force Academy and the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy,” Drobyshevsky said.Mechanised units will include four S-300 air defence systems.Besides, over 30 planes and helicopters will fly over Red Square, including Russian Knights and Swifts aerobatics groups.“Due to objective reasons, new pilots have joined the groups. Three left and three new were taken on to replace them. Two more have changed their place in the formation,” the commander of the 316th Air Force Army, Major-General Alexander Belevich said.In his words, the pilots are 70-80 percent prepared for the parade.Air Force Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsin said a Su-25 attack plane would take part in the parade as well.“Thirty-two aircraft belonging to the Air Force, including a Su-25 attack plane, will fly over Red Square during the parade,” he said.
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