New Ukrainian Nazi government! Ukraine is Europe! Parliament’s Committee MP on Freedom of Speech – Video

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New Ukrainian Nazi government! Ukraine is Europe! Parliament #39;s Committee MP on Freedom of Speech
Ihor Miroshnychenko - Deputy head of the Parliament #39;s Committee on Freedom of Speech (member of Parliament of Svoboda (Freedom) party of Ukraine) Ihor Mirosh...

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New Ukrainian Nazi government! Ukraine is Europe! Parliament's Committee MP on Freedom of Speech - Video

Freedom Industries finance overseer named

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The hiring of a chief restructuring officer means a "significant change in management" for Freedom Industries, a federal bankruptcy judge said Tuesday.

The company responsible for a chemical leak that fouled the drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians for days got approval to hire Mark Welch to head its finances while it winds down operations. Welch is a "turnaround consultant" with MorrisAnderson in Chicago, he said at a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charleston on Tuesday.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The hiring of a chief restructuring officer means a "significant change in management" for Freedom Industries, a federal bankruptcy judge said Tuesday.

The company responsible for a chemical leak that fouled the drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians for days got approval to hire Mark Welch to head its finances while it winds down operations. Welch is a "turnaround consultant" with MorrisAnderson in Chicago, he said at a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charleston on Tuesday.

Freedom filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 17, eight days after Crude MCHM seeped out of a tank and into the Elk River at the company's Barlow Drive location. Welch said Tuesday he's been involved with Freedom since that day.

Chapter 11 allows a company to reorganize, but Freedom plans to close. Operations will end by the end of this week, Welch said during Tuesday's hearing.

Welch believes Freedom will have between $2 million and $3 million left in June to pay creditors. A bankruptcy trustee appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to Freedom's case said the Office of the U.S. Trustee doesn't usually like a company to hire chief restructuring officers. But David Bissett, the trustee handling Freedom's case, told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald Pearson that he was OK with Welch's hiring "based on the strong support from the unsecured creditors committee."

Bissett's office appointed an official committee of unsecured creditors in the case last month. Unsecured creditors are those who are close to the bottom of the list to get paid and don't have, for example, the power to file a lien to ensure they get paid.

Pearson agreed before he approved Welch's hiring. The people who have money at risk "believe it's the best course of action to bring objectivity," the judge said.

Since the spill, dozens of lawsuits have been filed against Freedom and West Virginia American Water Co. Welch said he would focus on costs associated with the environmental cleanup, collecting money Freedom is owed and winding down the business. Environmental remediation is the biggest cost Freedom faces "by far," Welch said.

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Freedom Industries finance overseer named

Gujarat remains at No. 1 in economic freedom: Report

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Gujarat CM Narendra Modi

The Economic Freedom of the States of India report 2013 has shown that the Narendra Modi helmed Gujarat remains at number one. This is an index that measures governance, growth, citizens' rights, and labour and business regulation among the country's 20 largest states. Equally, Bihar gets a huge vote of affirmation for the work done by Nitish Kumar since he took over as chief minister (CM) in 2005.

The report states that Gujarat has widened its lead at the top of the economic freedom table with an index score of 0.65 ( on a scale from 0 to 1.0) while Tamil Nadu remains in second position with 0.54.

The three states recording the fastest improvement in economic freedom have been among the fastest- growing states.

Growth has averaged 12 per cent in Gujarat, 10.6 per cent in Chhattisgarh and 10.4 per cent in

Pradesh between 2005 and 2011.

"Gujarat is not only the freest state, but it has also registered the fastest rate of improvement in the index (from 0.46 in 2005 to 0.65 in 2013)," the report said.

This report comes at a time when the Gujarat development model continues to be questioned.

The report, co- authored by well- known economists Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, Laveesh Bhandari and Bibek Debroy, further says, " States in India which are economically more free are also doing better in terms of a higher per capita growth for its citizens; unemployment levels are lower in these states, sanitary conditions are better and the states also attract more investment."

Courtesy: Mail Today

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Gujarat remains at No. 1 in economic freedom: Report

2014 IPA economic freedom index

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This paper presents estimates for economic freedom rankings of the six Australian states.

Introduction

Economic freedom, or the ability of individuals to justly and non-coercively acquire, use and dispose of property as they each see fit, has long represented an animating principle of Western societies. The experience of history, and not to mention empirical studies, affirm the notion that greater levels of economic freedom tend to be associated with increasing economic prosperity and improved social wellbeing.

Despite these benefits, governments have long engaged in activities to restrict economic freedom through excessive taxation, public spending and debt which misallocate scarce resources; providing social security benefits which quell incentives to work and save in the productive sector; and imposing regulatory burdens restricting the exercise of entrepreneurship by private sector economic agents.

Australian governments at all levels interfere with our economic freedoms on a daily basis. In the absence of information it is difficult for taxpayers and citizens to determine which government is imposing policies more egregious to maintaining economic freedom, and the detrimental flow-on effects for long term economic and social improvements.

There is a need to fill in this information gap with an Australian economic freedom index.

This study contributes to the burgeoning economic freedom literature by providing rankings of relative economic freedom for the six Australian states in 2011. Indeed, this study is the first of its type for Australia, and follows many years of quantitative research undertaken by the likes of the Fraser Institute and Heritage Foundation comparing Australia's economic freedom ranking with that of other countries.

An economic freedom index is developed which is composed of indicators pertaining to the level of expenditure, taxation and other fiscal activities, the extent of direct dependency by the population on governments for their income, and the regulatory environment maintained by governments.

The indicators are derived from statistics of state and local government activities (where available) and, given the extensive federal involvement in Australian fiscal and regulatory affairs, the statistical information is then supplemented by data on commonwealth government activities depending on availability and applicability. The information used to construct the indicators, and ultimately the economic freedom index value, is drawn from publicly available sources and may be replicated by interested parties for their own purposes.

There already exist several sub-national economic freedom indexes for other advanced economies. Most notable are the Fraser Institutes annual Economic Freedom of North America report, and studies undertaken in recent years by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation-Liberales Institut (Germany), Centro Luigi Einaudi (Italy) and the Pacific Research Institute (United States).

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2014 IPA economic freedom index

Trenton Freedom Extreme Dance Team Announced

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March 19, 2014 - Professional Indoor Football League (PIFL) Trenton Freedom TRENTON, NJ - What type of personalities make up the Trenton Freedom Extreme Dance Team?. Just like the Freedom roster, a diverse list of personalities has been put together to form a talented unit.

Under the direction of Freedom Dance Team Coordinator Kathleen Rudolph Ross and Assistant Laura Mentzer, of Kay's Act II Dance Studio in Trevose, Pa., the team will appear at all Freedom home games and in the community..

The members of the 2014 Trenton Freedom Extreme Dance Team are:

* Carolyn Cunningham, who wanted to be a part of the team because it gives her an opportunity to use her foundation and love of dancing to get involved and be a part of a great organization. Dancing also helps her feel close to her father, who was her biggest supporter and a huge football fan. Carolyn is pursuing a Master's in Radiologic Imaging/Science Management at Thomas Jefferson University.

* Adrienne Brewster is a resident of Ewing, and wanted to be a part of the Trenton Freedom Extreme Dance Team because of the opportunity to participate in something positive for my community while doing something that I love. She is a cosmetologist who is building her own business and enjoys working with kids.

* Laura McHugh is a resident of Feasterville, Pa., who is a graduate of La Salle University and a dedicated Philadelphia Eagles fan. With 18 years of dancing experience, her motto is "Be who you are, and be that well.''

* Brianna Colwell is a native of the Jersey Shore community of Point Pleasant. Having danced at Rider University, she enjoys going to the beach, ballet, hip-Priscillhop, contemporary and Jazz. Football is her favorite sport and the New York Giants her favorite team. Her dream vacation is a trip to the Hawaiian Islands.

* Ashley Alvarez, the Administrative Assistant for the Dance Department at Rider University and a Dance Teacher and Choreographer at Jersey City Dance Academy, wanted to be part of the Trenton Extreme Dance Team to be a part of a professional dance team and to encourage our football team. She lives by, "Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion,'' a comment by Martha Graham.

* Terri Hart, who is a first-generation American. Her parents and most of her extended family is Trinidadian. She also operates a freelance journalistic operation under her business name, Terrific Woods. Her dream job would be to be a columnist discussing education or random acts of kindness. She shares her birthday with Nelson Mandela.

* Priscilla Rodriguez is a Trenton native who wanted to be part of the Trenton Freedom Extreme Dance Team to be part of a positive movement for Trenton and her love of dancing. If she ever won the lottery, she would open her own dance studio, which is a dream, and put money aside for her nieces' and nephews' college fund.

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Trenton Freedom Extreme Dance Team Announced

Ecosystem ecology – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Ecosystem ecology is the integrated study of living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) components of ecosystems and their interactions within an ecosystem framework. This science examines how ecosystems work and relates this to their components such as chemicals, bedrock, soil, plants, and animals.

Ecosystem ecology examines physical and biological structures and examines how these ecosystem characteristics interact with each other. Ultimately, this helps us understand how to maintain high quality water and economically viable commodity production. A major focus of ecosystem ecology is on functional processes, ecological mechanisms that maintain the structure and services produced by ecosystems. These include primary productivity (production of biomass), decomposition, and trophic interactions.

Studies of ecosystem function have greatly improved human understanding of sustainable production of forage, fiber, fuel, and provision of water. Functional processes are mediated by regional-to-local level climate, disturbance, and management. Thus ecosystem ecology provides a powerful framework for identifying ecological mechanisms that interact with global environmental problems, especially global warming and degradation of surface water.

This example demonstrates several important aspects of ecosystems:

These characteristics also introduce practical problems into natural resource management. Who will manage which ecosystem? Will timber cutting in the forest degrade recreational fishing in the stream? These questions are difficult for land managers to address while the boundary between ecosystems remains unclear; even though decisions in one ecosystem will affect the other. We need better understanding of the interactions and interdependencies of these ecosystems and the processes that maintain them before we can begin to address these questions.

Ecosystem ecology is an inherently interdisciplinary field of study. An individual ecosystem is composed of populations of organisms, interacting within communities, and contributing to the cycling of nutrients and the flow of energy. The ecosystem is the principal unit of study in ecosystem ecology.

Population, community, and physiological ecology provide many of the underlying biological mechanisms influencing ecosystems and the processes they maintain. Cycling of energy and matter at the ecosystem level are often examined in ecosystem ecology, but, as a whole, this science is defined more by subject matter than by scale. Ecosystem ecology approaches organisms and abiotic pools of energy and nutrients as an integrated system which distinguishes it from associated sciences such as biogeochemistry.[1]

Biogeochemistry and hydrology focus on several fundamental ecosystem processes such as biologically mediated chemical cycling of nutrients and physical-biological cycling of water. Ecosystem ecology forms the mechanistic basis for regional or global processes encompassed by landscape-to-regional hydrology, global biogeochemistry, and earth system science.[1]

Ecosystem ecology is philosophically and historically rooted in terrestrial ecology. The ecosystem concept has evolved rapidly during the last 100 years with important ideas developed by Frederic Clements, a botanist who argued for specific definitions of ecosystems and that physiological processes were responsible for their development and persistence.[2] Although most of Clements ecosystem definitions have been greatly revised, initially by Henry Gleason and Arthur Tansley, and later by contemporary ecologists, the idea that physiological processes are fundamental to ecosystem structure and function remains central to ecology.

Later work by Eugene Odum and Howard T. Odum quantified flows of energy and matter at the ecosystem level, thus documenting the general ideas proposed by Clements and his contemporary Charles Elton. See Figure 3.

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Ecosystem ecology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Snowden, Cyborg Thought Leader

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Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden appears by remote-controlled robot at a TED conference in Vancouver on March 18, 2014.

Photo by GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP/Getty Images

It wasn't the newsiest moment in Edward Snowden's address to TED, which he delivered via video that was streamed through a robot. (Check out the picture.) The news, as ever, was probably Snowden's claim that "some of the most important reporting" on his revelations "is yet to come." This is probably true. The archives of documents stolen by Snowden have been enough to support breaking news at the Washington Post, the Guardian, andPro Publica, to name a few outlets that got some access; an entirely new media company, First Look, was launched on the strength of what Glenn Greenwald, et al. could find in the archives.

So, no, not newsy, but the part of Snowden's Q&A that stuck out to me was his gleeful swipe at Dick Cheney.

This is not the first time Snowden has made fun of Cheney, whose appeal to the D.C. chat circuit has not dimmed even after he helped his daughter make a spectacular hash of a U.S. Senate primary. Last year, Cheney came up on a Guardian chat and Snowden called it an "honor" to be insulted by the guy.

So Snowden, who recently turned 30, is adept at the art of insult trading with political figures. Why does it matter? Well, some of the (embryonic) discussion of whether Snowden should leave Russia and give himself up to American justice comes out of the theory that Snowden should become an advocate for his cause. He has controlled his image like ... well, like a guy who doesn't give out his contact info and lives in a country that American journalists need a visa to visit. In the last few months, he's given interviews to Bart Gellman, SXSW, and TED, all of which 1) broke the news he wanted, 2) avoided the news he didn't (no one has asked him, in a public forum, anything about Russian politics or the Crimean incursion), and 3) allowed him to describe his whistleblowing in heroic terms. In the SXSW interview, he even appeared before a screen blow-up of the Constitution.

Snowden is winning, as shown by the polls and the fumbling responses of American politicians. He's even come up with a reason for his skeptics to distrust the NSA. "If we hack Chinese business and steal its secrets, or those in Berlin, thats of less value to the American people than making sure that the Chinese cant get access to our secrets," he said at TED. "In reducing the security of our own communications, theyre putting us at risk in a fundamental way."

Snowden has outlived the D.B. Cooper mystery that defined his public debut, and is now situated for a long game in which he becomes more popular and harder to call a traitor. His revelations already won Greenwald/Poitras the Polk Award. What happens after someone wins the Pulitzer? Check the next white-hat tech conference on the schedule; we'll probably hear it there.

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Edward Snowden, Cyborg Thought Leader

Photos: 'Dr. Beach' Picks the Top 10 Beaches of 2013

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'Dr. Beach' Picks the Top 10 Beaches of 2013

1.Main Beach, East Hampton, N.Y. Main Beach is located on the east end of New York's Long Island. This idyllic beach is frequented by the rich and famous. This beach was heavily eroded by superstorm Sandy and subsequent winter storms, yet it has for the most part recovered.

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2.Kahanamoku Beach, Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii. The first of three Hawaii beaches to make Dr. Beach's 2013 list. His real name is Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman, a coastal expert and a professor at Florida International University.

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3.St. George Island State Park; Florida Panhandle. Leatherman has selected the annual Top 10 Beaches since 1991

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4.Hamoa Beach, Maui, Hawaii. Fifty criteria, which include water and sand quality as well as safety and environmental management, are used to evaluate beaches.

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5.Waimanalo Bay Beach Park Oahu, Hawaii. Leatherman is an internationally known coastal scientist who has published 16 books and hundreds of scientific articles and reports about storm impacts, coastal erosion and ways to improve beach health and safety.

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Photos: 'Dr. Beach' Picks the Top 10 Beaches of 2013

Philippines, India have best beaches in Asia: TripAdvisor

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SINGAPORE - Two pristine Philippine beaches of Boracay have been named the top beaches in Asia, according to the TripAdvisors' Travellers' Choice Awards.

Boracay's White Beach was crowned the best beach in Asia, while Yapak Beach (Puka Shell Beach) appeared in the sixth position. Secret Lagoon Beach in the Philippines took the fifth position.

Over in India, Radhanagar and Agonda Beaches were ranked second and third places in the listing, while Cavelossim Beach took the ninth spot, reported TripAdvisor.

Thailand, a popular destination in Southeast Asia known for its beaches, appeared thrice in the ranking. Nai Harn Beach, Railay Beach and Phra Nang Beach received the fifth, seventh and tenth spots respectively.

In its second edition, the awards seek to recognise over 322 beaches around the world by ranking them based on millions of travellers who submitted their reviews and opinions over a 12-month period.

The winners were determined by the number of positive reviews and ratings for the beaches on TripAdvisor, and were listed according to their regions such as Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and South America.

From the listings, TripAdvisor determined the 10 best beaches in the world with Brazil's Baia do Sancho taking the top spot. Other popular beaches in the world ranking include beaches from Australia's Whitehaven Beach to the Anse Lazio beach in Seychelles.

None of the beaches in Asia appeared in this global ranking.

wjeanne@sph.com.sg

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Philippines, India have best beaches in Asia: TripAdvisor