Sunday, September 30, 2007

John Graves Simcoe
John Graves Simcoe (February 25, 1752October 26, 1806) was the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada (modern-day southern Ontario plus the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior) from 1791-1796. He founded York (now Toronto) and was instrumental in introducing institutions such as the courts, trial by jury, English common law, freehold land tenure, and for abolishing slavery in Upper Canada long before it was abolished in the British Empire as a whole (it had disappeared from Upper Canada by 1810, but wasn't abolished throughout the Empire until 1834).

Early life
In 1770, Simcoe entered the British Army as an ensign in the 35th Regiment of Foot. His unit was dispatched to America, where he saw action in the Siege of Boston. During the siege, he purchased a captaincy in the grenadier company of the 40th Regiment of Foot.
With the 40th, he saw action in the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia campaigns. Simcoe commanded the 40th at the Battle of Brandywine, where he was also wounded.
In 1777, Simcoe sought to form a Loyalist regiment of free blacks from Boston, but instead was offered command of the Queen's Rangers, a well-trained light infantry unit. The Queen's Rangers saw extensive action during the Philadelphia campaign, including a successful surprise attack (planned and executed by Simcoe), at the Battle of Crooked Billet. In 1779, he was captured by the Americans. Simcoe was released in 1781, just in time to see action at the Siege of Yorktown. He was invalided back to England in December of that year as a Lieutenant-Colonel.
Simcoe wrote a book on his experiences with the Rangers, titled A Journal of the Operations of the Queen's Rangers from the end of the year 1777 to the conclusion of the late American War, which was published in 1787.

Military career

Political career
The Province of Upper Canada was created under the Constitutional Act of 1791. This law stipulated that the provincial government would consist of the Lieutenant-Governor, an appointed Executive Council and Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly. Simcoe was selected as the Lieutenant-Governor, and made plans to move to Upper Canada with his wife Elizabeth and daughter Sophia, leaving three other daughters behind with their aunt. They left England in September and arrived on November 11. This was too late in the year to make the trip to Upper Canada and the Simcoes spent the winter in Quebec City. The next spring they moved to Kingston and then Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake).

Appointment as Lieutenant-Governor
Simcoe's first priority was to establish a provincial government. The first meeting of the nine-member Legislative Council and sixteen-member Legislative Assembly took place at Newark on September 17, 1792. Simcoe soon realized that Newark made an unsuitable capital because it was right on the US border and subject to attack. He proposed moving the capital to a more defensible position in the middle of Upper Canada's southwestern peninsula between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. He named the new location London and renamed the river as the Thames in anticipation of the change. The Governor-General, Lord Dorchester, rejected this proposal but accepted Simcoe's second choice of Toronto. Simcoe moved the capital to Toronto in 1793 and renamed the location York after Frederick, Duke of York, George III's second son.

Legacy
Imitating the military roads the Romans built in Britain [2], Simcoe began construction of two main routes through Ontario. Yonge Street, named after the Minister of War Sir George Yonge, was built north-south along the fur trade route between Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe. Soldiers of the Queen's Rangers began cutting the road in August 1793, reaching Holland Landing in 1796.
Another road, Dundas Street named for the Colonial Secretary Henry Dundas, was built east-west between Hamilton and York. These two roads were intended to aid in the defence of Upper Canada but would also help encourage settlement and trade throughout the province.

Saturday, September 29, 2007


Kim Gandy (born January 25, 1954) is an American feminist and the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW).
Gandy was born in Bossier City, Louisiana, to Alfred Kenneth Gandy and the late Roma R. Gandy (1927-1998), a native of Pennsylvania. Her father was an officer of the former Bossier Bank and Trust Company, an institution organized during the 1920s by her grandfather, W.A. Gandy. After Roma's death, A.K. Gandy married the former Shirley S. Lacobee (1925-2004) of Shreveport. Kim Gandy had a younger sister, who, like their mother, died of cancer.
Kim Gandy graduated from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in mathematics.
Having taken a job with AT&T, Gandy became outraged that the firm required her husband's permission for employee benefits. She joined Louisiana NOW in 1973 and devoted the next several years to the campaign that overturned the state's "Head and Master" law, which gave husbands unilateral control over all property jointly owned by a married couple. She was divorced, resumed her maiden name, and inspired by her activism in NOW, studied law at Loyola University New Orleans where she was a member of the Loyola Law Review and the National Moot Court Team. She graduated in 1978.
Gandy went on to serve as a senior assistant district attorney in New Orleans, and later opened a private trial practice, litigating countless cases seeking fair treatment for women. She served as president of Louisiana NOW from 1979 through 1981, national secretary of NOW from 1987 to 1991, and executive vice president of NOW from 1991 to 2001. She was elected national NOW president in 2001 and re-elected to a second term in 2005.
Kim Gandy

Friday, September 28, 2007

Louis Eugène Cavaignac
Louis-Eugène Cavaignac (October 15, 1802 - October 28, 1857), French general, second son of Jean-Baptiste Cavaignac and brother of Éléonore Louis Godefroi Cavaignac, was born at Paris.

Louis Eugène Cavaignac The 1848 Revolutions and the Second Republic
For a more critical look at Cavaignac's actions from June 23rd to June 26th, one can find documentation in Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy from pages 157 - 159. Cavaignac's actions are described as the inspiration to the later Prussian suppression of the National Assembly in Frankfurt and it supporters.
His son, Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac was a prominent politician.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Theodore William Richards
Theodore William Richards was an American chemist.
He was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on 31 January 1868. His parents were William T. Richards, a land- and seascape painter, and Anna née Matlack, a poet.
He was educated at first by his mother, and traveled to England and France. In 1883 he entered Haverford College, Pennsylvania, graduating in science in 1885 and entering Harvard University. After getting his Ph.D. in 1888, he spent a year in Germany where he studied under Victor Meyer. Back at Harvard, he became an assistant in chemistry, then instructor, assistant professor, and finally full professor in 1901. In 1903 he became chairman of the Department of Chemistry at Harvard, and in 1912 he was appointed Erving Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory.
About half of his original work concerned atomic weights, starting in 1886 with work on oxygen and copper. He invented the nephelometer and by 1912 he had redetermined, with the highest accuracy, the atomic weights of over thirty important chemical elements and in later years he was to play his part, by his work on the determination of the atomic weight of isotopes, in the modern concept of the atom.
Professor Richards received honorary doctorates and honors from around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1914. He was married with one daughter and two sons. His favorite recreations were sketching, golf and sailing. He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 2 April, 1928.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Nur
Nur may refer to:

Nur Mountains "Mountains of Holy Light", a mountain range in Turkey
NUR Reactor, a research reactor in Algiers
An-Nur (The Light), 64 ayat, the 24th sura of the Qur'an
National University of Rwanda
National Union of Railwaymen
Ayman al-Zawahiri aka Nur
Risale-i Nur Collection, a collection of works by Islamic scholar Said Nursi
Nur ibn Mujahid, a 16th-century ruler of Harar

Tuesday, September 25, 2007


Saint Suitbert, Suidbert, Suitbertus, or Swithbert, can refer to two saints:

Saint Suitbert the Younger Suitbert the Younger
Suitbert, a holy abbot, who lived in a monastery near the River Dacore, Cumberland, England, about forty years later, and is mentioned by the Venerable Bede. His liturgical feast is on April 30

Monday, September 24, 2007


The University of Bern is a university in the Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. As one of the German-speaking universities in Switzerland its official name is Universität Bern, although it is frequently referred to in the French form, Université de Berne. The university is regulated and financed by the Canton of Berne.
University of BernUniversity of Bern

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Location
Thomas Green Clemson, the University's founder, came to the Foothills of South Carolina in 1838, when he married Anna Maria Calhoun, daughter of South Carolina statesman, John C. Calhoun. When Thomas Clemson died on April 6, 1888, he left most of his estate in his will to be used to establish a college that would teach scientific agriculture and the mechanical arts to South Carolinians. Clemson's decision was largely influenced by Benjamin Tillman. Clemson University founder Thomas Green Clemson directed in his will in 1888 that the University be modeled after Mississippi A&M (now known as Mississippi State University). Tillman strongly lobbied the state legislature to create Clemson as an agricultural institution for the state and in the end, the resolution to accept Clemson's gift and create the institution passed by only one vote.
In November 1889, Governor Richardson signed the bill accepting Thomas Clemson's gift to the state, thus establishing the Clemson A&M. The University's trustees availed the University of the available Morrill Act and Hatch Act funds made available for agricultural education and research purposes.
Clemson Military College formally opened in July 1893 with an initial enrollment of 446. From its beginning, the college was an all-male military school. Clemson remained this way until 1955 when it changed to "civilian" status for students and became a coeducational institution. In 1964, the college was renamed Clemson University as the state legislature formally recognized the school's expanded academic offerings and research pursuits.

History

^ As found at [3].
^ Not a degree granting college. Academics
Classified as more selective by the Carnegie Foundation,

Admissions
Clemson is home to a nationally recognized honors program The Calhoun Honors College, which is designed to offer academic diversity to gifted undergraduates and to provide for an atmosphere of a "higher seminary of learning" that Thomas Green Clemson outlined in his will within the large University.
Admission to the college is by application to freshman as well as to any student beyond his/her freshman year. Admission to the college is not based on just one or two requirements but on a combination of standardized test scores, high school GPA, and leadership and extracurricular activities. A GPA of at least 3.4 is required for applicants to the college after their freshman year. Members of the honors college are permitted to live in the honors-only dorm, Holmes Hall, and are granted a variety of other benefits including complementary copies of the New York Times and free tickets to on-campus cultural events.
The Clemson National Scholars Program is the institution's top academic recruiting scholarship, offering a full tuition and fees scholarship plus a laptop, 5-week study abroad in the UK, along with other learning and travel opportunities. The NSP selection process is highly competitive, with approximately 15 scholarships offered out of over 12,000 applicants to Clemson each year.

Calhoun Honors College and National Scholars Program
The University has recently undertaken an endeavor to become a "Top 20" public institution, undergoing a process of enhancing its graduate programs while continuing to place the majority of its emphasis on the quality of the undergraduate experience. The initiative has led to increased faculty compensation, higher graduation rates, and higher incoming student SAT averages. The University recently moved up from 34th in 2005 to 27th in 2007 as seen in the U.S. News and World Report's most recent College Rankings. ICAR is a 250 acre (1 km²) automotive and motorsports research campus located in nearby Greenville, South Carolina. ICAR will include a graduate school offering Master's and Doctoral degrees in automotive engineering, and offering programs focused on systems integration. The campus also includes an Information Technology Research Center being developed by BMW. BMW, Microsoft, IBM, Bosch, Timken and Michelin are all major corporate partners of the ICAR center. Private-sector companies that have committed so far to establishing offices and/or facilities on the campus include the Society of Automotive Engineers and Timken. Plans for the campus also include a full-scale, four-vehicle capacity rolling-road model wind tunnel.
Clemson also recently established the Restoration Institute whose mission is to "advance knowledge in integrative approaches to the restoration of historic, ecological, and urban infrastructure resources." The institute will be located in North Charleston and subsume the Hunley Commission that is currently undertaking the stabilization of the Hunley, the world's first submarine to sink a ship.

Top-20 Initiative and Research

Student Life

Main article: Clemson TigersClemson University Athletics
Clemson's Greek system is somewhat different from other large universities in the southern United States in that there are no Greek houses on campus. There are residence halls designated for fraternities and sororities, but there are no traditional Greek houses on Clemson's campus. The Fraternity Quad on campus (consisting of 6 fraternity halls) has recently undergone a major renovation and is certified by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Clemson is about to undertake a major central campus reconstruction program that will include all-new sorority housing. Currently, just over 20% of students participate in Greek organizations.

Greek life
Even though Clemson became a coeducational civilian institution in 1955, the university still maintains an active military presence. The university is home to detachments for Army and Air Force ROTC. In addition to students from Clemson, these detachments also serve students from Anderson University, Southern Wesleyan University, and Tri-County Technical College. The following organizations are present among the two ROTC programs: Company C-4 also does color guard at home football games.
Clemson University was selected as the #1 medium-sized AFROTC detachment in the southeast and in the nation for 2006 (the "High Flight" and "Right of Line" awards).

Company C-4 Pershing Rifles
K-7 Scabbard and Blade
Maj. Rudolph Anderson Jr. Squadron Arnold Air Society
Maj. Dennis H. Satler Chapter Silver Wings
Clemson Rangers
Tiger Platoon Military heritage
Students tend to socialize off campus in downtown Clemson. Downtown Clemson is located adjacent to the University's campus, and students on campus are within walking distance restaurants, bars, cafes, and shopping. Greenville is about 30 minutes away and is a popular destination for many students on the weekends.
Lake Hartwell and the near-by Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina and North Carolina offer students many outdoor recreational activities like boating, rafting, kayaking, skiing, rock climbing, mountain biking, and hiking and backpacking.

Recreation

Main article: Alumni of Clemson University Official Websites

The Tiger - Official Student Body Newspaper
WSBF - Clemson University Student Radio Station

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Psychic energy
This article is about the Freudian concept of mental energy; for other uses see: psychic.
In psychodynamic psychology, psychic energy, or psychological energy, is an energy by which the work of the personality is performed. The concept of mental energies moving or displacing between various adjoined, conscious and unconscious, mental systems was developed predominantly in Sigmund Freud's 1923 The Ego and the Id. In psychoanalytic theory the source of psychic energy is the id.

Overview
Presently, in psychology, the theory of psychic energy is now, in most circles, considered rather incorrect or obsolete. The term, however, is referenced or referred to quite frequently in an associative sort of way. While of course brains obey the laws of thermodynamics in their chemical processes, the modern scientific consensus has ruled against an energetic model of emotion and thought, because the 20th century's views on embodied adaptive behavior is not anymore based on early scientific mechanistic views from the 17th century with the Christiaan Huygens's invention of mechanical clock as the main metaphore, or the 19th century's steam engines (as in Freud's energetic view on psyche), but are mainly based on computers, software agents, and robots as in embodied cognitive science and its corresponding philosophy of embodiment of adaptive situated agents. Anger in current view is not getting "bottled up" like a pressurized gas as in steam engine, but is viewed rather as "pop-up" window computer users are familiar with (or more exactly a process behind the window) which is triggered by some combinations of perceived (input) data and the "internal state", and which - in stark contrast to "bottled-up" pressurized gas - can be cancelled in a split of a second by the user, or by the agent's own inner higher cybernetic level. The goal of the 21st century's affective computing in science and technology is to build software agents and robots guided by their own emotions and psychodynamics.
Essentially, the original concepts of mental energies, i.e. the work attributed to various human psychological activities, was developed and presented by Freud and Jung during the years approximately 1880 to 1950.

Psychic energy See also

^ Hall, Calvin S.; Nordby, Vernon J. (1999). A Primer of Jungian Psychology. New York: Meridian. ISBN 0-452-01186-8. 
Jung, C.G. (1960). On the Nature of the Psyche. Princeton: Princiton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01751-4. 

Friday, September 21, 2007

People's Republic of BangladeshPeople's Republic of Bangladesh
This article refers to the People's Republic of Bangladesh. For other uses of "Bangladesh", see Bangladesh (disambiguation)
Bangladesh (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ ['baŋlad̪eʃ] Bangladesh), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bengali: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ Gônoprojatontri Bangladesh), is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Myanmar to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south. Together with the Indian state of West Bengal, it makes up the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. The name Bangladesh means "Country of Bengal" in the official Bengali language.
The borders of the region that constitutes present day Bangladesh were established in the 1947 Partition of India when the region became the eastern wing of newly formed Pakistan. The pairing, based on their common religion (Islam), proved geographically awkward since an expanse of foreign Indian territory, 1 600 km (1 000 mi) wide, separated the two wings. Subjected to political and linguistic discrimination as well as economic neglect at the hands of West Pakistan, the Bengalis of East Pakistan declared independence in 1971. After a civil war, with help from India and the USSR, Bangladesh was born. In spite of its liberation narrative, Bangladesh's development has since been marred by political turmoil, with fourteen different heads of government and at least four military coups.
Bangladesh is among the most highly and densely populated countries in the world. The population is generally poor, rural and Muslim. Geographically the country straddles the fertile Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta and is subject to annual monsoon floods and cyclones. The government is a secular parliamentary democracy which has been suspended under emergency law since January 2007. Bangladesh is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, SAARC, BIMSTEC, the OIC and the D-8.

History

Main article: Politics of Bangladesh Government and politics

Main articles: Foreign Relations of Bangladesh and Military of Bangladesh Foreign policy and military

Main articles: Divisions of Bangladesh, Districts of Bangladesh, and Upazilas of Bangladesh Divisions, districts, and upazilas

Main article: Geography of Bangladesh Geography and climate

Main article: Economy of Bangladesh Economy

Main article: Demographics of Bangladesh

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Udon Thani
Udon Thani (Thai: อุดรธานี) is a city in the north-east of Thailand (Isan). It has a population of 142,670. Geographical location 17°25′N, 102°45′E and is approximately 560 km from Bangkok. Udon is also the capital of Udon Thani Province, and is a major commercial center in northern Isan. It is the site of a Voice of America relay station alleged to have been a CIA black site.
The city became a bustling support center for the nearby Udon Royal Thai Air Force Base during the Vietnam War, and so retains reminders of that time, with bars, coffee shops, and hotels. 47 km east of Udon Thani is Thailand's premier Bronze Age excavation at Ban Chiang, the world-renowned archaeological site. Although there is little attraction to see in the city for most travellers, there are a few quite interesting temples.
Asia Pacific Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of Italian-Thai Development PLC, owns the concession to the Udon Thani potash mines and plans to develop them. According to press reports, Udo Thani has enough potash to mine 2 million tonnes per year for 25 years. Potash is one of the main components in fertilizer.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007


Hitachi Maxell (日立マクセル Hitachi Makuseru) (TYO: 6810 ), or Maxell, is a Japanese company which manufactures consumer electronics. The company's most notable products are batteries and electronics -- the company's name is a contraction of "maximum capacity dry cell" -- and recording media, including audio cassettes and blank VHS tapes, and recordable optical discs like CD-R/RW and DVD±RW. The company also sells electronics accessories, like CD and DVD laser cleaners.

Hitachi Maxell Ad campaign

List of digital camera brands
Cassette demagnetizer An article with a picture of a Maxell cassette demagnetizer.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Three Soldiers
Three Soldiers is a 1920 novel by the American writer and critic John Dos Passos. It is one of the key American war novels of the First World War, and remains a classic of the realist war novel genre. H.L. Mencken, then practising primarily as an American literary critic, praised the book in the pages of the Smart Set. "Until Three Soldiers is forgotten and fancy achieves its inevitable victory over fact, no war story can be written in the United States without challenging comparison with it--and no story that is less meticulously true land of fat will stand up to it. At one blast it disposed of oceans of romance and blather. It changed the whole tone of American opinion about the war; it even changed the recollections of actual veterans of the war. They saw, no doubt, substantially what Dos Passos saw, but it took his bold realism to disentangle their recollections from the prevailing buncombe and sentimentality."
Text http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=6362



Friday, September 14, 2007

Antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a micro-organism to withstand the effects of an antibiotic. It is a specific type of drug resistance. Antibiotic resistance evolves naturally via natural selection through random mutation, but it could also be engineered. SOS response of low-fidelity polymerases can also cause mutation via a process known as programmed evolution. Once such a gene is generated, bacteria can then transfer the genetic information in a horizontal fashion (between individuals) by plasmid exchange. If a bacterium carries several resistance genes, it is called multiresistant or, informally, a superbug.
Antibiotic resistance can also be introduced artificially into a micro-organism through transformation protocols. This can be a useful way of implanting artificial genes into the micro-organism.

Causes
The four main mechanisms by which micro-organisms exhibit resistance to antimicrobials are:

Drug inactivation or modification: e.g. enzymatic deactivation of Penicillin G in some penicillin-resistant bacteria through the production of β-lactamases.
Alteration of target site : e.g. alteration of PBP—the binding target site of penicillins—in MRSA and other penicillin-resistant bacteria.
Alteration of metabolic pathway: e.g. some sulfonamide-resistant bacteria do not require para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA), an important precursor for the synthesis of folic acid and nucleic acids in bacteria inhibited by sulfonamides. Instead, like mammalian cells, they turn to utilizing preformed folic acid.
Reduced drug accumulation: by decreasing drug permeability and/or increasing active efflux on the cell surface. Mechanisms
Staphylococcus aureus (colloquially known as "Staph aureus" or a Staph infection) is one of the major resistant pathogens. Found on the mucous membranes and the skin of around a third of the population, it is extremely adaptable to antibiotic pressure. It was the first bacterium in which penicillin resistance was found—in 1947, just four years after the drug started being mass-produced. Methicillin was then the antibiotic of choice, but has since been replaced by oxacillin due to significant kidney toxicity. MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) was first detected in Britain in 1961 and is now "quite common" in hospitals. MRSA was responsible for 37% of fatal cases of blood poisoning in the UK in 1999, up from 4% in 1991. Half of all S. aureus infections in the US are resistant to penicillin, methicillin, tetracycline and erythromycin.
This left vancomycin as the only effective agent available at the time. However, VRSA (Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) was first identified in Japan in 1996, and has since been found in hospitals in England, France and the US. VRSA is also termed GISA (glycopeptide intermediate Staphylococcus aureus) or VISA (vancomycin insensitive Staphylococcus aureus), indicating resistance to all glycopeptide antibiotics.
A new class of antibiotics, oxazolidinones, became available in the 1990s, and the first commercially available oxazolidinone, linezolid, is comparable to vancomycin in effectiveness against MRSA. Linezolid-resistance in Staphylococcus aureus was reported in 2003.
CA-MRSA has now emerged as an epidemic that is responsible for rapidly progressive, fatal diseases including necrotizing pneumonia, severe sepsis and necrotizing fasciitis.

Resistant pathogens
MRSA is acknowledged to be a human commensal and pathogen. MRSA has been found in cats, dogs and horses, where it can cause the same problems as it does in humans. Owners can transfer the organism to their pets and vice-versa, and MRSA in animals is generally believed to be derived from humans.
Currently, it is estimated that greater than 50% of the antibiotics used in the US are given to food animals (e.g. chickens, pigs and cattle) in the absence of disease. Antibiotic use in food animal production has been associated with the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria including Salmonella, Campylobacter, Escherichia coli and Enterococcus, among others. There is substantial evidence from the US and European Union that these resistant bacteria cause antibiotic resistant infections in humans. The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the American Public Health Association (APHA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) have called for substantial restrictions on antibiotic use in food animal production including an end to all non-therapeutic uses. The food animal and pharmaceutical industries have fought hard to prevent new regulations that would limit the use of antibiotics in food animal production. For example, in 2000 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced their intention to rescind approval for fluoroquinolone use in poultry production because of substantial evidence linking it to the emergence of fluoroquinolone resistant Campylobacter infections in humans. The final decision to ban fluoroquinolones from use in poultry production was not made until 5 years later because of challenges from the food animal and pharmaceutical industries. Today, there are two federal bills (S.742 and H.R. 2562) aimed at phasing out non-therapeutic antibiotics in US food animal production. These bills are endorsed by many public health and medical organizations including the American Nurses Association (ANA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the American Public Health Association (APHA).
The illegal use of amantadine to medicate poultry in the South of China and other parts of southeast Asia means that although the H5N1 (avian flu) strain that appeared in Hong Kong in 1997 was amantadine sensitive, the more recent strains have all been amantadine resistant. This seriously reduces the treatment options available to doctors in the event of an influenza pandemic.

Role of animals

Alternatives
Washing hands properly reduces the chance of getting infected or spreading infection. Thoroughly washing or avoiding raw foods such as fruits, vegetables, raw eggs, and undercooked meat can also reduce the chance of an infection. High risk activities include unprotected sex, especially homosexual sex between two men,

Vaccines
Phage therapy, an approach that has been extensively researched and utilized as a therapeutic agent for over 60 years, especially in the Soviet Union, is an alternative that might help with the problem of resistance. Phage Therapy was widely used in the United States until the discovery of antibiotics, in the early 1940's. Bacteriophages or "phages" are viruses that invade bacterial cells and, in the case of lytic phages, disrupt bacterial metabolism and cause the bacterium to lyse [destruct]. Phage Therapy is the therapeutic use of lytic bacteriophages to treat pathogenic bacterial infections.

Phage therapy
Until recently, research and development (R&D) efforts have provided new drugs in time to treat bacteria that became resistant to older antibiotics. That is no longer the case. The potential crisis at hand is the result of a marked decrease in industry R&D, government inaction, and the increasing prevalence of resistant bacteria. Infectious disease physicians are alarmed by the prospect that effective antibiotics may not be available to treat seriously ill patients in the near future.
The pipeline of new antibiotics is drying up. Major pharmaceutical companies are losing interest in the antibiotics market because these drugs may not be as profitable as drugs that treat chronic (long-term) conditions and lifestyle issues..

Applications

LexA
Efflux
List of environment topics
Nosocomial infection
Tuberculosis
Bacterial conjugation
Drug of last resort

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Screen Academy Scotland
The Screen Academy Scotland is a collaboration between Napier University and Edinburgh College of Art. It opened in August 2006 and is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Both Napier and ECA already had established film making courses. The Academy offers practical, project-based, postgraduate courses.
Sir Sean Connery and Dame Judi Dench are patrons of the Academy.
The Academy is one of six centres of excellence recognised by Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for the Audio Visual Industries. See also Scottish Screen, the national body for film and television in Scotland.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007


Jonathan William Patrick Aitken (born 30 August 1942) is a former Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, and British government minister. He was convicted of perjury in 1999.

Personal details
He was elected as MP for Thanet East in the 1974 General Election; from 1983 he sat for South Thanet. A notably handsome man, he managed to offend Margaret Thatcher by ending a relationship with her daughter, Carol Thatcher, and suggesting that Thatcher "probably thinks Sinai is the plural of Sinus" to an Egyptian newspaper. He stayed on the backbenches throughout Thatcher's premiership and engaged in a number of activities, including participation in the re-launch of TV-AM (where he was involved in an incident in which broadcaster Anna Ford threw her wine at him to express her outrage at both his behaviour and the unwelcome consequent transformation of the station). He was eventually offered membership of the Hurlingham Club when he became Minister of State for Defence Procurement under John Major in 1992.

Jonathan Aitken Backbench career
He became Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 1994, a Cabinet position, but resigned in 1995, to defend himself against accusations that whilst serving as Minister of State for Defence Procurement he violated ministerial rules by allowing an Arab businessman to pay for his stay in the Paris Ritz.

Cabinet membership
On 10 April 1995, The Guardian carried a front-page report on Aitken's dealings with leading Saudis. The story was the result of a long investigation carried out by journalists from the newspaper and from Granada TV's World In Action programme. By 5 o'clock that evening, Aitken had called a press conference at the Conservative Party offices in Smith Square, London, denouncing the reports and demanding that the World In Action programme, due to be screened three hours later, withdraw them.
During this press conference, Aitken made his notorious speech: "If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it. I am ready for the fight. The fight against falsehood and those who peddle it. My fight begins today. Thank you and good afternoon."[1]
The World In Action film, Jonathan of Arabia, went ahead and Aitken carried out his threat to sue. The action collapsed in June 1997 (a month after he had lost his seat in the 1997 General Election) when the Guardian and Granada produced evidence countering his claim that his wife, Lolicia Aitken, paid for the hotel stay. The evidence consisted of airline vouchers and other documents showing that his wife had, in fact, been in Switzerland at the time when she had allegedly been at the Ritz in Paris. The joint Guardian/Granada investigation indicated an arms deal scam involving Aitken's friend and business partner, the Lebanese businessman Mohammed Said Ayas, a close associate of Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia. It was alleged that Aitken had been prepared to have his teenage daughter Victoria lie under oath to support his version of events had the case continued.[2]
A few days after the libel case collapsed, World In Action broadcast a special edition, which echoed Aitken's "sword of truth" speech. It was entitled The Dagger of Deceit.

Jonathan Aitken Libel action
Aitken was charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice, and in 1999 was jailed for 18 months, of which he served seven. During the trial, his wife Lolicia, who later left him, was called as a witness to sign a supportive affidavit to the effect that she had paid his Paris hotel bill, but did not appear. In the end, with the case already in court, investigative work by Guardian reporters into Swiss hotel and British Airways records showed that neither Victoria nor Lolicia had been in Paris at the time in question.
Aitken was unable to cover the legal costs of his trial and was declared bankrupt. As part of the bankruptcy, his trustees settled legal actions against the magazine Private Eye, over the various claims it had made that Aitken was a "serial liar". He also became one of the few people to resign from the Privy Council (another such person was John Stonehouse).
Aitken's wife and three daughters -- Victoria and Alexandra Aitken, and Petrina Khashoggi -- turned up to support him when he was sentenced. Petrina was a previously unacknowledged daughter by Soraya Khashoggi, ex-wife of arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. On DNA testing at the age of 18, she had turned out to be Aitken's, though Mr Khashoggi had previously accepted her as his own.
Ironically, in view of his later conviction for perjury, in 1993 Aitken published a favourable biography, Nixon: A Life, of former US President Richard Nixon. Although his was not an authorised biography, Aitken was one of the few biographers from whom Nixon accepted questions and to whom he granted interviews.

Have I Got News For You
In 2004, his proposed return to British politics, in which he was supported by his former constituents, was vetoed by Conservative Party leader Michael Howard. Aitken later confirmed that he would not attempt a return to Parliament. He is quoted as saying: "The leader has spoken. I accept his judgement with good grace." He denied rumours he was to stand as an independent candidate insisting that he was not a "spoiler". Consequently a return to full time politics looked unlikely. However, on October 2, 2004, he attended the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) conference and announced his support for the party.
Ashley Merry, Veritas Party Defence spokesman, is public relations advisor to Aitken.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007


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Anabaptists (Greek ανα (again) +βαπτιζω (baptize), thus, "re-baptizers"[1], German: Wiedertäufer) are Christians of the Radical Reformation. Various groups at various times have been called Anabaptist, but this article focuses primarily on the Anabaptists of 16th century Europe.
The term "anabaptist" comes from the practice of baptizing individuals who had been baptized previously, often as infants. Anabaptists believe infant baptism is not valid, because a child cannot commit to a religious faith, and they instead support what is called believer's baptism.
The word anabaptism is used in this article to describe any of the 16th century "radical" dissenters, and the denominations descending from the followers of Menno Simons. Today the descendants of the 16th century European movement (particularly the Baptists, Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Brethren in Christ) are the most common bodies referred to as Anabaptist.

Anabaptist origins
Though the majority opinion is that Anabaptists began with the Radical Reformers in the 16th century, certain people and groups may still legitimately be considered their forerunners. Peter Chelcicky, 15th century Bohemian Reformer, taught most of the beliefs considered integral to Anabaptist theology. Medieval antecedents may include the Brethren of the Common Life, the Hussites, Dutch Sacramentists for Bishop Longland in England condemned an Anabaptist for repeating one of its maxims "that alms should not be given before they did sweat in a man's hand." This was between 1518 and 1521.

Some followed Menno Simons in teaching that Jesus did not take the flesh from his mother, but either brought his body from heaven or had one made for him by the Word. Some even said that he passed through his mother, as water through a pipe, into the world. In pictures and sculptures of the 15th century and earlier, we often find represented this idea, originated by Marcion in the 2nd century. The Anabaptists were accused of denying the Incarnation of Christ: a charge that Menno Simons repeatedly rejected.
They condemned oaths, and also the reference of disputes between believers to law-courts.
The believer must not bear arms or offer forcible resistance to wrongdoers, nor wield the sword. No Christian has the jus gladii.
Civil government (i.e. "Caesar") belongs to the world. The believer, who belongs to God's kingdom, must not fill any office, nor hold any rank under government, which is to be passively obeyed.
Sinners or unfaithful ones are to be excommunicated, and excluded from the sacraments and from intercourse with believers unless they repent, according to 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 and Matt.18:15 seq. But no force is to be used towards them. Forerunners
Research on the origins of the Anabaptists has been tainted both by the attempts of their enemies to slander them and the attempts of their friends to vindicate them. It was long popular to simply lump all Anabaptists as Munsterites and radicals associated with the Zwickau Prophets, Jan Matthys, John of Leiden (also Jan Bockelson van Leiden, Jan of Leyden), and Thomas Muentzer. Those desiring to correct this error tended to over-correct and deny all connections between the larger Anabaptist movement and this most radical element.
The modern era of Anabaptist historiography arose with the work of Roman Catholic scholar Carl Adolf Cornelius' publication of Die Geschichte des Münsterischen Aufruhrs in 1855. Baptist historian Albert Henry Newman (1852–1933), whom Bender said occupied "first position in the field of American Anabaptist Historiography", made a major contribution with his A History of Anti-Pedobaptism. Though a number of theories exist concerning origins, the three main ideas are that,

Anabaptists began in a single expression in Zürich and spread from there (Monogenesis),
Anabaptists began through several independent movements (polygenesis), and
Anabaptists are a continuation of New Testament Christianity (apostolic succession or church perpetuity). Views of origins
Waldensians (France/Germany/Italy) Lollards (England) Hussites (Bohemia) Anabaptism Lutheranism Calvinism Anglicanism Puritanism Pietism Baptists Revivalism Methodists Evangelicalism Restoration movement Adventism Pentecostalism A number of scholars (e.g. Bender, Estep, Friedmann) have seen all the Anabaptists as rising out of the Swiss Brethren movement of Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, et al. The older view among Mennonite historians generally held that Anabaptism had its origins in Zürich, and that the Anabaptism of the Swiss Brethren was transmitted to South Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and North Germany, where it developed into its various branches. The monogenesis theory usually rejects the Münsterites and other radicals from the category of true Anabaptists. In this view the time of origin is January 21, 1525, when Grebel baptized Georg Blaurock, and Blaurock baptized other followers. This remains the most popular single time posited for the establishment of Anabaptism. But in the last quarter of the 20th century, Deppermann, Packull, and others suggested that February 24, 1527 at Schleitheim is the proper date of the origin of Anabaptism. This correlates with the following polygenesis theory.

Monogenesis
James M. Stayer, Werner O. Packull, and Klaus Deppermann disputed the idea of a single origin of Anabaptists in a 1975 essay entitled "From Monogenesis to Polygenesis". That article, emphasizing distinctive characteristics and distinct sources, has become a widely accepted treatment of the plural origins of Anabaptism. According to these authors, South German-Austrian Anabaptism "was a diluted form of Rhineland mysticism," Swiss Anabaptism "arose out of Reformed congregationalism", and Dutch Anabaptism was formed by "Social unrest and the apocalyptic visions of Melchior Hoffman". Pilgram Marpeck's Vermanung of 1542 was deeply influenced by the Bekenntnisse of 1533 by Münster theologian Bernhard Rothmann. The Hutterites used Melchior Hoffman's commentary on the Apocalypse shortly after he wrote it. David Joris, a disciple of Hoffman, was the most important Anabaptist leader in the Netherlands before 1540. Grete Mecenseffy and Walter Klaassen established links between Thomas Müntzer and Hans Hut, and the work of Gottfried Seebaß and Werner Packull clearly showed the influence of Thomas Müntzer on the formation of South German Anabaptism. Steven Ozment's work linked Hans Denck and Hans Hut with Thomas Müntzer, Sebastian Franck, and others. Calvin Pater has shown that Andreas Karlstadt influenced Swiss Anabaptism in areas including his view of Scripture, doctrine of the church, and views on baptism.

Polygenesis
Another theory is that the 16th century Anabaptists were part of an apostolic succession of churches (or church perpetuity) from the time of Christ. According to this idea there had been a continuity of small groups outside the Roman Catholic Church from A.D. 30 to 1525 (which continues also to the present). The writings of John T. Christian, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary professor, contain perhaps the best scholarly presentation of this successionist view. Somewhat related to this is the theory that the Anabaptists are of Waldensian origin. Some hold the idea that the Waldenses are part of the apostolic succession, while others simply believe they were an independent group out of whom the Anabaptists arose. Estep asserts "the Waldenses disappeared in Switzerland a century before the rise of the Anabaptist movement." Ludwig Keller, Thomas M. Lindsay, H. C. Vedder, Delbert Grätz, and Thieleman J. van Braght all held, in varying degrees, the position that the Anabaptists were of Waldensian origin.

Apostolic succession

Main article: Theology of Anabaptism Types of Anabaptists

Main articles: Thomas Muentzer, Zwickau prophets, and Peasants' War Zwickau prophets and the Peasants' War

Main articles: Münster Rebellion and Münster The Münster Rebellion
The first leaders of the movement in Zürich — Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, Balthasar Hübmaier — were men learned in Greek, Latin and Hebrew.
In English history frequent reference is made to the Anabaptists during the 16th and 17th centuries, but there is no evidence that any considerable number of native Englishmen ever adopted the principles of the Münster sect. Many of the followers of Müntzer and Bockelson seem to have fled from persecution in Germany and the Netherlands to be subjected to a persecution scarcely less severe in England. The mildest measure adopted towards these refugees was banishment from the kingdom, and a large number suffered at the stake. Their Christology and negative attitude towards the state rather indicate, as in the case of John Wycliffe, Jan Hus and the Fraticelli (Brethren), an affinity to the Cathars and other medieval sects. But this affiliation is hard to establish.
The earliest Anabaptists of Zürich allowed that the Picardi or Waldensians had, in contrast with Rome and the Reformers, truth on their side, yet did not claim to be in their succession; nor can it be shown that their adult baptism derived from any of the older Baptist sects, which undoubtedly lingered in parts of Europe. Later on, Hermann Schyn claimed descent for the peaceful Baptists from the Waldensians, who certainly, as the records of the Flemish inquisition, collected by P. Fredericq, prove, were widespread during the 15th century over north France and Flanders. It would appear from the way in which Anabaptism sprang up everywhere independently that more than one ancient sect took in and through it a new lease of life. Ritschl discerned in it the leaven of the Fraticelli or Franciscan Tertiaries.
In Moravia— if what Alexander Rost related be true, namely that they called themselves Apostolici and went barefoot healing the sick—they must have at least absorbed into themselves a sect of whom we hear in the 12th century in the north of Europe as deferring baptism to the age of 30, and rejecting oaths, prayers for the dead, relics and invocation of saints.
The Moravian Anabaptists, says Rost, went barefoot, washed each other's feet (like the Fraticelli), held all goods in common, had everyone working at a handicraft, had a spiritual father who prayed with them every morning and taught them, dressed in black and recited long graces before and after meals. Zeiler also in his German Itinerary (1618) describes their way of life. The Lord's Supper, or bread-breaking, was a commemoration of the Passion, held once a year. They sat at long tables, at which the elders read the words of institution and prayed. The members passed round a loaf from which each broke off a bit and ate, and they handed round the wine in flagons. Children in their colonies were separated from the parents and lived in the school, each with his own bed and blanket. They were taught reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as cleanliness, truthfulness and industry. The females married the men chosen for them.
On April 12, 1549, certain London Anabaptists brought before a commission of bishops asserted:
"That a man regenerate could not sin; that though the outward man sinned, the inward man sinned not; that there was no Trinity of Persons; that Christ was only a holy prophet and not at all God; that all we had by Christ was that he taught us the way to heaven; that he took no flesh of the Virgin, and that the baptism of infants was not profitable."
One of the most notable features of the early Anabaptists is that they regarded any true religious reform as involving social amelioration. The socialism of the 16th century was necessarily Christian and Anabaptist. Lutheranism was more attractive to grand-ducal patriots and well-to-do burghers than to the poor and oppressed and disinherited. The Lutherans and Zwinglians never converted the Anabaptists. In Austrian-controlled territories, the Jesuits had somewhat better success in persuading or coercing many Hutterites to rejoin the Roman Catholic Church.

Miscellany
Much of the historic Roman Catholic and Protestant literature has represented the Anabaptists as groups who preached false doctrine and led people into apostasy. That negative historiography remained popular for about four centuries. The Roman Catholics and Protestants alike persecuted the Anabaptists, resorted to torture and other types of physical abuse, in attempts both to curb the growth of the movement and bring about the salvation of the heretics (through recantation). The Protestants under Zwingli were the first to persecute the Anabaptists. Felix Manz became the first martyr in 1527. On May 20 1527, Roman Catholic authorities executed Michael Sattler. King Ferdinand declared drowning (called the third baptism) "the best antidote to Anabaptism". It has been said that a "16th century man who did not drink to excess, curse, or abuse his workmen or family could be suspected of being an Anabaptist and thus persecuted."[2] Estep estimates that thousands died in Europe in the sixteenth century. The Tudor regime, even those that were Protestant (Edward VI and Elizabeth I) persecuted Anabaptists as they were deemed too radical and therefore a danger to religious stability. This occurred particularly under Elizabeth, who desired moderate religion and disliked Catholics, Puritans and Anabaptists.
Thieleman J. van Braght's Martyrs Mirror describes the persecution and execution of thousands of Anabaptists, such as Dirk Willems, in Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe between 1525 and 1660. Continuing persecution in Europe was largely responsible for the mass immigrations to North America by Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites.
Anabaptist women have faced horrifying human barriers to serving in ministry, including martyrdom. An estimated 525 Anabaptist women were martyred; the first was Madelyn Wens, who was burned at the stake for preaching.

Anabaptists today
The Anabaptists were early promoters of a free church and freedom of religion (sometimes called separation of church and state).
"Where men believe in the freedom of religion, supported by a guarantee of separation of church and state, they have entered into that heritage. Where men have caught the Anabaptist vision of discipleship, they have become worthy of that heritage. Where corporate discipleship submits itself to the New Testament pattern of the church, the heir has then entered full possession of his legacy."

Freedom of religion
Priesthood of all believers
Bible as the sole rule of faith and practice
Pacifism See also