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07-01-2011 21:03 JoomlArt is proud to give you an overview of Joomla! 1.7. This is the first video on the Joomla! Tutorials - Basic Level series. Your host is Robert Vining. Subscribe to our channel and stay tuned for more Joomla! 1.7 videos!
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Joomla! 1.7 Tutorial - Overview - Video
20-09-2011 13:28 desireadifference.com | In this fifth WordPress tutorial for beginners, I run you though changing your site's appearance by showing you how to install and search for themes for your WordPress website. I also show you how to customize your WordPress website menu and installing widgets. Make sure to view the rest of my "WordPress Tutorials for Beginners" video series on YouTube and subscribe to my channel. If you would like help in your business, contact me at http
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WordPress Tutorial For Beginners Part 5 - Appearance Settings, Menus and Widgets - Video
Published Thursday, February 02, 2012 12:14 AM By JONATHAN FAHEY
Associated Press
Gillie Waddington of Enfield, N.Y., raises a fist during rally last month against hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells at the Legislative Office Building in Albany, N.Y. President Barack Obama didnÕt use the F-word during his recent State of the Union speech nor did he mention the technology used to get it, known commonly as fracking. That's because the word has become a lightning rod.
NEW YORK -- A different kind of F-word is stirring a linguistic and political debate as controversial as what it defines.
The word is "fracking" -- as in hydraulic fracturing, a technique long used by the oil and gas industry to free oil and gas from rock.
It's not in the dictionary, the industry hates it, and President Barack Obama didn't use it in his State of the Union speech -- even as he praised federal subsidies for it.
The word sounds nasty, and environmental advocates have been able to use it to generate opposition -- and revulsion -- to what they say is a nasty process that threatens water supplies.
"It obviously calls to mind other less socially polite terms, and folks have been able to take advantage of that," said Kate Sinding, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who works on drilling issues.
One of the chants at an anti-drilling rally in Albany earlier this month was "No fracking way!"
Industry executives argue that the word is deliberately misspelled by environmental activists and that it has become a slur that should not be used by media outlets that strive for objectivity.
"It's a co-opted word and a co-opted spelling used to make it look as offensive as people can try to make it look," said Michael Kehs, vice president for Strategic Affairs at Chesapeake Energy, the nation's second-largest natural gas producer.
To the surviving humans of the sci-fi TV series Battlestar Galactica, it has nothing to do with oil and gas. It is used as a substitute for the very down-to-Earth curse word.
Michael Weiss, a professor of linguistics at Cornell University, says the word originated as simple industry jargon, but has taken on a negative meaning over time -- much like the word "silly" once meant "holy."
But "frack" also happens to sound like "smack" and "whack," with more violent connotations.
"When you hear the word 'fracking,' what lights up your brain is the profanity," says Deborah Mitchell, who teaches marketing at the University of Wisconsin's School of Business. "Negative things come to mind."
Obama did not use the word in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, when he said his administration will help ensure natural gas will be developed safely, suggesting it would support 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
In hydraulic fracturing, millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are pumped into wells to break up underground rock formations and create escape routes for the oil and gas. In recent years, the industry has learned to combine the practice with the ability to drill horizontally into beds of shale, layers of fine-grained rock that in some cases have trapped ancient organic matter that has cooked into oil and gas.
By doing so, drillers have unlocked natural gas deposits across the East, South and Midwest that are large enough to supply the U.S. for decades. Natural gas prices have dipped to decade-low levels, reducing customer bills and prompting manufacturers who depend on the fuel to expand operations in the U.S.
Environmentalists worry that the fluid could leak into water supplies from cracked casings in wells. They are also concerned that wastewater from the process could contaminate water supplies if not properly treated or disposed of. And they worry the method allows too much methane, the main component of natural gas and an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas, to escape.
Some want to ban the practice altogether, while others want tighter regulations.
The Environmental Protection Agency is studying the issue and may propose federal regulations. The industry prefers that states regulate the process.
Some states have banned it. A New York proposal to lift its ban drew about 40,000 public comments -- an unprecedented total -- inspired in part by slogans such as "Don't Frack With New York."
The drilling industry has generally spelled the word without a "K," using terms like "frac job" or "frac fluid."
Energy historian Daniel Yergin spells it "fraccing" in his book, The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World. The glossary maintained by the oilfield services company Schlumberger includes only "frac" and "hydraulic fracturing."
The spelling of "fracking" began appearing in the media and in oil and gas company materials long before the process became controversial. It first was used in an Associated Press story in 1981. That same year, an oil and gas company called Velvet Exploration, based in British Columbia, issued a press release that detailed its plans to complete "fracking" a well.
The word was used in trade journals throughout the 1980s. In 1990, Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher announced U.S. oil engineers would travel to the Soviet Union to share drilling technology, including fracking.
The word does not appear in The Associated Press Stylebook, a guide for news organizations. David Minthorn, deputy standards editor at the AP, says there are tentative plans to include an entry in the 2012 edition.
He said the current standard is to avoid using the word except in direct quotes, and to instead use "hydraulic fracturing."
That won't stop activists -- sometimes called "fracktivists" -- from repeating the word as often as possible.
"It was created by the industry, and the industry is going to have to live with it," says the NRDC's Sinding.
Dave McCurdy, CEO of the American Gas Association, agrees, much to his dismay: "It's Madison Avenue hell," he says.
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Oil and gas industry says 'fracking' a nasty slur
Officials and former employees waiting for news on whether more work is coming to Alstom will have to hold their breath for another month.
Both Mayor Shawn Hogan and Hornell IDA Executive Director Jim Griffin said they’re waiting for word on several contracts the transit giant bid on in 2011, and that they knew only what Alstom officials had told them.
Griffin is expecting to hear whether Alstom will secure a contract with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in March. He initially believed the contract would be awarded in February.
He wasn’t sure what caused the delay in awarding the contract, but said such delays are common.
“We feel confident Alstom will get it. Apparently (the contract) isn’t high on the priority list for the MBTA board,” said Griffin. “They put them off, put them off, put them off, then they get them done. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
In early October, city officials said Alstom was submitting best and final offers with the MBTA, the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York City, and the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in San Francisco. The MBTA contract is expected to last four or five years, said Griffin in October.
With the submission of best and final offers, officials expected Alstom to receive word on whether they received a contract early in 2012. So far, they’re still waiting.
Hogan said the New York City contract is expected to be awarded in late winter or early spring in 2012.
“Hopefully we’ll get some good news at the end of February or in early March,” said Hogan.
While Alstom is chasing new contracts, work on 120 Delaware River Port Authority PATCO transit fleet cars started in March 2011 at the Hornell facility. As many as 40 employees were expected to be hired to work on the PATCO cars once the project is in full swing.
That still left most of the 500 workers laid-off in 2010 from the Hornell plant without immediate employment opportunities with the transit company. In 2008, the company employed as many as 1,100 people in the Hornell area.
The last of the PATCO cars is expected to be delivered in three years. Alstom was awarded the contract in December 2010.
The PATCO contract was a bright spot for Alstom at the tail-end of 2010, after losing out on bids with the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority and Amtrak, while another bid with Societe de transport de Montreal was split between Bombardier Transportation and Alstom.
A call to Chuck Wochele, vice president for Industry and Government Relations for Alstom, wasn’t returned by press time.
In previous stories, Tim Brown, director of communications for Alstom’s North American Region, said the company wouldn’t comment until contracts have been finalized.
Continued here:
Word on Alstom bids expected in March
Brandon Sun - ONLINE EDITION
According to the Manitoba government's math, the province covers 65.2 per cent of the cost of operating our $1.96-billion public education system.
And the government further says school divisions are paying only 29.2 per cent of the cost.
Are those figures accurate? Yes and no. Depends.
If you're an accountant, yes, those figures are probably right, and it's all on the up and up.
For the rest of us, no, the figures we're more likely to come up with using a layperson's common sense and logic are a 56.7 per cent share for the province, and a 37.4 per cent share for property taxes.
The key to sorting out the confusion can be found back in 2005-06.
That's the school year when the NDP decided property-tax credits -- the annual lump sum each homeowner receives from the province to reduce the impact of property-tax bills -- would suddenly be reinvented as an education property-tax credit.
The EPTC still came off the bottom line of homeowners' property-tax bills, but at that magic moment of bookkeeping legerdemain, the property-tax credit officially became education funding.
Between the 2004-05 school year and the 2005-06 school year, the government's share of paying for the public school system thus shot up from 56 per cent to 62.3, with a proportional drop in the school divisions' share.
But the amount of property taxes collected, and the overall amount spent on public education year to year, didn't change radically.
How come? Read on.
If you go to this year's edition of the FRAME (Financial Reporting and Accounting in Manitoba Education) report, you'll find the pie chart of revenue sources on page 40 -- 65.2 per cent province, 29.2 per cent school divisions.
Before you ask, the rest of the money comes from sources such as First Nations paying tuition to place their students in public schools and various smaller revenue sources such as rentals, fees, and assorted transfers.
Then go to page 42 and 43, which show a breakdown of revenue sources.
Under the column of education property-tax credit, there's $178,258,517 shown as provincial education revenue, a pretty big chunk of serious coin.
But here's where things get fuzzy. Not a penny of that money gets spent in schools.
Let's jump to page 49, where FRAME shows the figures for the special levy -- $734,192,180 of property taxes collected for education, or 37.4 per cent of the total of $1.96 billion.
Oops. Something's wrong here.
For the explanation, double back to page 43, where FRAME shows a much smaller amount for the annual revenue from municipal sources, an amount comprising 29.2 per cent of the total.
That's because -- with some footnotes and appendices explaining how the farmland tax rebate and pensioners' assistance enter into the calculations -- the tax credit the province puts into the system as education funding on page 42, gets deducted from the tax total listed on page 49, and comes straight back out of the public education system on page 43, listed as a reduced amount of taxes collected. All done on paper, without a penny of the $178 million ever having been spent in schools.
Convoluted, eh? Complex? Confusing?
Over its years in office, the NDP has steadily chipped away at the individual's tax hit, while increasing operating grants every year by more than the growth of provincial inflation. For instance, the province phased out the residential education support levy and replaced it with provincial grants.
And certainly, the province has increased the education property-tax credit from $250 to $700. But that tax credit is not now, nor has it ever been, operating funding for the public education system -- it's a tax-mitigation strategy. And to use it as a fleeting device to pump up the province's share of funding may seem disingenuous at best.
Get the numbers
The source of all data on annual revenue and expenses in the public school system is the FRAME report, Financial Reporting and Accounting in Manitoba Education.
FRAME reports back to the late 1990s can be found at http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/finance/frame_report/index.html
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NDP's math on funding a bit tricky