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Excerpt: Introduction to the bride of Lammermoor. The author, on a former occasion, declined giving the real source from which he drew the tragic subject of this history, because, though occurring at a distant period, it might possibly be unpleasing to the feelings of the descendants of the parties. But as he finds an account of the circumstances given in the Notes to Law?s Memorials, by his ingenious friend, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., and also indicated in his reprint of the Rev. Mr. Symson?s poems appended to the Large Description of Galloway, as the original of the Bride of Lammermoor, the Author feels himself now at liberty to tell the tale as he had it from connexions of his own, who lived very near the period, and were closely related to the family of the bride....

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Preface: Those who have done me the honor of reading my previous writings will probably receive no strong impression of novelty from the present volume; for the principles are those to which I have been working up during the greater part of my life, and most of the practical suggestions have been anticipated by others or by myself. There is novelty, however....

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Contents Preface ........................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter I To What Extent Forms of Government are a Matter of Choice ............................................................. 5 Chapter II The Criterion of a Good Form of Government .................................................................................... 15 Chapter III That the ideally best Form of Government is Representative Government .................................... 34 Chapter IV Under what Social Conditions Representative Government is Inapplicable ................................... 51 Chapter V Of the Proper Functions of Representative Bodies............................................................................... 61 Chapter VI Of the Infirmities and Dangers to which Representative Government is Liable ............................. 76 Chapter VII Of True and False Democracy; Representation of All, and Representation of the Majority only 92 Chapter VIII Of the Extension of the Suffrage ...............................

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Excerpt: Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes, from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore, awing the earls. Since erst he lay friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him: for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve, till before him the folk, both far and near, who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate, gave him gifts: a good king he!...

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An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, published on March 9, 1776 during the Scottish Enlightenment. It is a clearly written account of political economy at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and is widely considered to be the first modern work in the field of economics. (from Wikipedia)...

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Economics/Political Economy

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Excerpt: THE SONG OF THE HAPPY SHEPHERD; THE woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed; Grey Truth is now her painted toy; Yet still she turns her restless head: But O, sick children of the world, Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good. Where are now the warring kings, Word be-mockers?--By the Rood, Where are now the watring kings? An idle word is now their glory, By the stammering schoolboy said, Reading some entangled story: The kings of the old time are dead; The wandering earth herself may be Only a sudden flaming word, In clanging space a moment heard, Troubling the endless reverie. Then nowise worship dusty deeds, Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then, No learning from the starry men, Who follow with the optic glass The whirling ways of stars that pass--Seek, then, for this is also sooth, No word of theirs--the cold star-bane Has cloven and rent ...

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Table of Contents: LYRICAL 3 -- CROSSWAYS 5 -- THE SONG OF THE HAPPY SHEPHERD, 5 -- THE SAD SHEPHERD, 6 -- THE CLOAK, THE BOAT, AND THE SHOES, 7 -- ANASHUYA AND VIJAYA, 8 -- THE INDIAN UPON GOD, 11 -- THE INDIAN TO HIS LOVE, 11 -- THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES, 12 -- EPHEMERA, 13 -- THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL, 13 -- THE STOLEN CHILD, 16 -- TO AN ISLE IN THE WATER, 17 -- DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS, 18 -- THE MEDITATION OF THE OLD FISHERMAN, 18 -- THE BALLAD OF FATHER O?HART, 19 -- THE BALLAD OF MOLL MAGEE, 20 -- THE BALLAD OF THE FOXHUNTER, 22 -- THE ROSE 26 -- TO THE ROSE UPON THE ROOD OF TIME, 26 -- FERGUS AND THE DRUID, 26 -- CUCHULAIN?S FIGHT WITH THE SEA, 28 -- THE ROSE OF THE WORLD, 31 -- THE ROSE OF PEACE, 31 -- THE ROSE OF BATTLE, 32 -- A FAERY SONG, 33 -- THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE, 34...

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Background: By the mid 1980s the Macintosh, and to some extent the PC, had made desktop publishing a mainstay in the world of publishing professional quality documents. At this point a significant shift occurred in the production of published materials. A key element in this production moved from the hands of the printer to the editor. Simply put, editors no longer needed to rely on printers to create their documents. Production began to move from the printing houses to the editor's desktop. Layout, typesetting, and image control are now fully available to the editor. As a result, it is important that those who traditionally were involved in the creation of print (and now digital) information be introduced to the tools that make this possible....

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François-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743-1803) rose to fame in 1791 during the Haitian struggle for independence. In this revolt, he led thousands of slaves on the island of Hispañola to fight against the colonial European powers of France, Spain and England. The former slaves ultimately established the independent state of Haiti and expelled the Europeans. L’Ouverture eventually became the governor and Commander-In-Chief of Haiti before recognizing and submitting to French rule in 1801. In June of 1802, L’Ouverture was arrested by French forces and taken to France where he was imprisoned at Joux. There he penned his autobiography “. . . to render to the French government an exact account of my conduct.” L’Ouverture died in prison on April 7, 1803 from pneumonia. Although L’Ouverture died a captive of the French, the revolution he led was historically perhaps the most significant world event opposing slavery. It precipitated a re-examination--among the major European powers as well as those in the new world--of the right of all mankind to be free and self-governing. John Relly Beard, an English minister, wrote The Life of Tous...

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Adventure, Biography, History, Memoirs, Politics, War stories

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Excerpt: Proposed Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell.

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Contents INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 4 SOCIALISM, ANARCHISM AND SYNDICALISM................................................................................................... 11 PART I HISTORICAL................................................................................................................................................. 11 CHAPTER I MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE................................................................................................. 11 CHAPTER II BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM........................................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER III THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT............................................................................................................ 43 PART II PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE ................................................................................................................... 60 CHAPTER IV WORK AND PAY .......................................................................

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Predictability has come a long way. The computers of the future can tell you if you’re going to win a war before you fire a shot. Unfortunately they’re predicting perpetual standoff between the Terran and Centaurian Empires. What they need is something unpredictable, what they get is Thomas Cole, a man from the past accidently dragged forward in time. Will he fit their calculations, or is he the random variable that can break the stalemate? – The Variable Man first appeared in the September, 1953 issue of Space Science Fiction magazine. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Science fiction

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Excerpt: A Theologico-Political Treatise: Part One -- Chapters One through Five by Baruch Spinoza, translated by R.H.M. Elwes.

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Contents CHAPTER I ? Of Prophecy Definition of prophecy. Distinction between revelation to Moses and to the other prophets. Between Christ and other recipients of revelation. Ambiguity of the word ?Spirit.? The different senses in which things may be referred to God. Different senses of ?Spirit of God.? Prophets perceived revelation by imagination. CHAPTER II ? Of Prophets. A mistake to suppose that prophecy can give knowledge of phenomena Certainty of prophecy based on: (1) Vividness of imagination, (2) A Sign, (3) Goodness of the Prophet. Variation of prophecy with the temperament and opinions of the individual...

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Excerpt: My dear Walkley, you once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levity with which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probably by this time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoning has arrived: here is your play! I say your play, because qui facit per alium facit per se. Its profits, like its labor, belong to me: its morals, its manners, its philosophy, its influence on the young, are for you to justify. You were of mature age when you made the suggestion; and you knew your man. It is hardly fifteen years since, as twin pioneers of the New Journalism of that time, we two, cradled in the same new sheets, made an epoch in the criticism of the theatre and the opera house by making it a pretext for a propaganda of our own views of life. So you cannot plead ignorance of the character of the force you set in motion. Yon meant me to epater le bourgeois; and if he protests, I hereby refer him to you as the accountable party....

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Excerpt: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

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The writings listed here represent books about Soren Kierkegaard. A fragment of his work, On the Dedication to That Single Individual, has made it to the public domain. Who was Soren Kierkegaard? He was a Danish philosopher and religious author; b. Copenhagen May 6, 1813; d. there Nov. 11, 1855. His father, Michael, a clothing merchant, once cursed God when he was young. This one incident caused him so much distress that it affected him with a deep melancholy, which he transferred to poor Soren. Michael was an evil man. He tricked Soren into thinking that the whole world existed in his own living room by taking him for imaginary walks about the neighborhood, or anywhere Soren wanted to go, as long as it existed in his imagination only. Later in life, when Soren was on his own, he rarely left Copenhagen, but he did walk about the streets and greet passersby, discussing events of the day. After 6 years of “splendid inactivity” he obtained his degree in Theology from the University of Copenhagen with the submission of his thesis paper in 1841, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. Just before graduation he fell ...

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Philosophy, Religion

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Early victories by the USSR in a global nuclear war cause the United Nations government to retreat to the moon leaving behind troops and fierce autonomous robots called “Claws”, which reproduce and redesign themselves in unmanned subterranean factories. After six bloody years of conflict the Soviets call for an urgent conference and UN Major Joseph Hendricks sets out to meet them. Along the way he will discover what the Claws have been up to, and it isn’t good… - Second Variety was first published in the May 1953 edition of Space Science Fiction Magazine. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Science fiction

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Excerpt: From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty?s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed?st thy light?s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world?s fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world?s due, by the grave and thee....

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Contents 1 From fairest creatures we desire increase, ..................7 2 When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, ................8 3 Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest ........8 4 Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend ..................9 5 Those hours, that with gentle work did frame ............9 6 Then let not winter?s ragged hand deface .................10 7 Lo! in the orient when the gracious light ..................10 8 Music to hear, why hear?st thou music sadly? ..........11 9 Is it for fear to wet a widow?s eye .............................11 10 For shame! deny that thou bear?st love to any, ........12 11 As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest .....12 12 When I do count the clock that tells the time, .........13 13 O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are ..........13 14 Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck; ...........14 15 When I consider every thing that grows ..................14 16 But wherefore do not you a mightier way ...............15 17 Who will believe my verse in time to come, ...........15 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer?s day? ................16...

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Über den Zorn (De Ira) by Lucius Annaeus Seneca (etwa 4 v. Chr. - 65 n. Chr.), übersetzt von J. Moser (1782 -1871), veröffentlicht 1828. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, genannt Seneca der Jüngere, war ein römischer Philosoph, Dramatiker, Naturforscher, Staatsmann und als Stoiker einer der meistgelesenen Schriftsteller seiner Zeit. Seneca griff klassisches stoisches Gedankengut auf. Das Problem der Affektkontrolle wird hier auf vielfältige Weise lebenspraktisch, historisch-exemplarisch und politisch abgehandelt. (Zusammenfassung von Wikipedia)...

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Philosophy

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Childhood and early education it seems proper that I should prefix to the following biographical sketch some mention of the reasons which have made me think it desirable that I should leave behind me such a memorial of so uneventful a life as mine. I do not for a moment imagine that any part of what I have to relate can be interesting to the public as a narrative or as being connected with myself. But I have thought that in an age in which education and its improvement are the subject of more, if not of profounder, study than at any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable, and which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little better than wasted. It has also seemed to me that in an age of transition in opinions, there may be somewhat both of interest and of benefit in noting the successive phases of any mind which was always pressing forward, equally ready to lear...

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Terrorism could be the heading of the running chapter in human history though strife had always been its grand title. Assorted terrorist groups to espouse their parochial causes have come to target their ideological opponents with utter cynicism. At least they have an articulated grievance and identified opponents with defined terror zones that are amenable for containment and redressal and or both at some stage or the other. But what of the jihadi terrorism and how is it that the western-educated, non-conformist, Muslim youth all over, not to speak of the fresh converts from other faiths get attracted to fight for Islam and die for it? It matters little where we live in this wide world, and one being a Musalman is no guarantee either to escape being its victim. Its madness might reduce us to a statistic of the dead or injured in tomorrow's newspaper headline in today's fidayeen attack. If left unabated it might one day engulf all of us in the Third World War. And thus the significance of any exercise aimed at improving our understanding of the involved issues cannot be overemphasized. Possibly in a new non-fiction genre, this th...

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Pitfalls of Faith If the ecstasy of the Quran is the soul of Islam, the legend of Muhammad is the mind of the Musalman. The exalted sense of his pedigree could have made Muhammad fiercely honest, even in the state of deprivation. It is to be appreciated that neither his insignificance as an orphan affected his self-worth nor his poverty dented his self-esteem. While nature endowed him with a shrewd mind his destiny seems to have helped him cultivate a sense of purpose. Though unlettered, he obviously possessed native intelligence, and thus was alive to every opportunity that came his way. Above all, at some stage at least, he seems to have developed an unwavering faith in his own destiny. As can be seen, he was an uncanny man manager and mob manipulator extraordinary. His exemplary personal courage in battle enabled him lead by example, and this single character of his played no mean a part in the battles his faithful fought to raise the standard of Islam in the nations of the world. Though he grew up in an environment of sentimentality, he imbibed a balanced outlook that his stint as the Czar of Medina turned into statesmanship. ...

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1. Preface of Strife 2. Advent of Dharma 3. God’s quid pro Quo 4. Pyramids of Wisdom 5. Ascent to Descent 6. The Zero People 7. Coming of the Christ 8. Legacy of Prophecy 9. War of Words 10. Czar of Medina 11. Angels of War 12. Privates of ‘the God’ 13. Playing to the Gallery 14. Perils of History 15. Pitfalls of Faith 16. Blinkers of Belief 17. Shackles of Sharia 18. Anatomy of Islam 19. Fight for the Souls 20. India in Coma 21. Double Jeopardy 22. Paradise of Parasites 23. The Number Game 24. Winds of Change 25. Ant Grows Wings 26. Constitutional Amnesia 27. The Stymied State 28. The Wages of God 29. Delusions of Grandeur 30. Ways of the Bigots 31. The Rift Within 32. The Way Around 33. The Hindu Rebound 34. Wait for the Savant...

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Sustainability of the environment implies both wishful thinking and ignorance – ignorance of the reality that natural systems are complex and unfathomable by scientists, and that repetition of research outputs depend on repetition of initial and all subsequent conditions. Scientific insights provide knowledge, but it is partial in most cases, and when applied is often subject to conflicting objectives, which in turn produce conditions that affect outcomes - thus our best efforts to predict natural outcomes are usually flawed. We further display our ignorance in seeking social sustainability while we behave inequitably towards groups other than ‘us’ and invoke spurious reasoning to justify further research. The effect of ignorant self-interest is played out daily in our largest intervention in the natural environment – agriculture, which is why agriculture provides perhaps the best model for consideration of the ideal of sustainability. From ancient Asian wisdom through modern global forces and technology to the central environmental issue of food production, we have identified some necessary conditions for sustainability. Yet, ou...

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Table of Contents Author and Publisher Information iii Acknowledgements ix Author’s Foreword xi Chapter 1 Stepping Back to Survey the Landscape 1 Chapter 2 The Unacknowledged Debt to Asia: A Different Agricultural and Environmental Reality 13 Agriculture’s Legacy 14 Agricultural Origins 15 Contact with the West 23 Religion, Nature and Agriculture 26 ‘Indianised’ Agriculture 31 Secular Approaches 34 Common Heritage 38 Chapter 3 Global Development Forces on Agriculture and the Environment 41 Agricultural Environments 43 Global Development Forces 51 Sustainable Development and Traditions 56 Sustainability: A Local or Foreign Influence? 59 Practical Alternatives 61 24 Sustainability: Elusive or Illusion? Wise Environmental Intervention Policy Implications 63 Chapter 4 Technology and Food Needs: GMOs for GFN: Genetically Modified Organisms and Global Food Needs 69 Global Food Needs 72 GMO Technologies 74 Revisiting the Green Revolution 76 Issues and Risks 79 Making a Decision 81 Chapter 5 Re-conceiving Food Security & Environmental Protection 87 Feeling Secure 89 The IFPRI World Food Situation 91 Conventional Consideratio...

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The answers cover such topics as: - why livestock are critical to food security - why free trade and markets can't solve food shortages - why aid shouldn't insist poor countries follow our model - how to reconcile science and commerce with popular ideals - how grass domestic happiness can be a serious topic - how more food can be produced with less land and fertilizer - why labels like Buddhist and vegetarian confuse life - what traditional wisdom is critical to development - how misrepresentation fuels fears about climate change - why small farmers and foreign agribusiness must coexist...

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Question and Answer How to reprise lost paradise, where clansmen were always content? On this we ever ask advice, not noting our command’s contempt. Replies arise if we ask right, as sages’ sayings still console, except when wished as black or white, thus missing their integral whole. Each answer’s angst makes us ask more – thus are our suspect lives sustained, supremely sure if we spark war, for our ideals are deep ingrained. We’re punished by our primal rites, wedding hubris with hoarded wealth, monopolizing basic rights, and molding ethics in our stealth. Blinded by our biased questions, we trust faith as truth we squander, never knowing our great fortune – blind in paradise we wander. ...

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Question and Answer Acknowledgements Author’s Preface The 10 Questions Chapter 1 Introducing Food Security Seeing Livestock Correctly Who is Food Insecure? Animal Products in Food Security Animal Production in a Food-insecure World Animal Production Systems Future Animal Production in Food Security Answering the Question Chapter 2 The West is not the Context Defining ‘Food Insecurity’ Food Security Planning National Policy Implications for Food Security Regulations on Sustainability and Climate Change How Government Meets the Challenge Answering the Question Chapter 3 The Success of the West Balancing the Bias Aid to Do What? Facing Some Facts Famine in the West 20th Century Famine in Europe Answering the Question Chapter 4 What are we Feeding? Language in Religion, Science and Spirit Feeding the Spirit Scientia and Sapientia Answering the Question Chapter 5 The Nebulous Concept of GDH Global Fears and Small Farmers Smallholder Self-Sufficiency What is Wellbeing? Explaining the Sufficiency Economy Idea Implementing Wellbeing Answering the Question Chapter 6 ‘Sustainin...

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Excerpt: We present the narrative of this report and the recommendations that flow from it to the President of the United States, the United States Congress, and the American people for their consideration. Ten Commissioners--five Republicans and five Democrats chosen by elected leaders from our nation?s capital at a time of great partisan division--have come together to present this report without dissent....

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CONTENTS List of Illustrations and Tables ix Member List xi Staff List xiii?xiv Preface xv 1. ?WE HAVE SOME PLANES? 1 1.1 Inside the Four Flights 1 1.2 Improvising a Homeland Defense 14 1.3 National Crisis Management 35 2. THE FOUNDATION OF THE NEW TERRORISM 47 2.1 A Declaration of War 47 2.2 Bin Ladin?s Appeal in the Islamic World 48 2.3 The Rise of Bin Ladin and al Qaeda (1988?1992) 55 2.4 Building an Organization, Declaring War on the United States (1992?1996) 59 2.5 Al Qaeda?s Renewal in Afghanistan (1996?1998) 63 3. COUNTERTERRORISM EVOLVES 71 3.1 From the Old Terrorism to the New: The First World Trade Center Bombing 71 3.2 Adaptation?and Nonadaptation? . . . in the Law Enforcement Community 73 3.3 . . . and in the Federal Aviation Administration 82 3.4 . . . and in the Intelligence Community 86...

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Excerpt: Welcome to the fifth volume of Best of Four. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to you. The purpose of Best of Four is to bring the best writing produced in English 004 each fall semester to the widest audience possible. Our students have important stories to tell and powerful voices to be heard. The students who read these essays will learn that they too have permission to state what is important to them in a public voice....

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Contents How to Use This Magazine .............................................................................................................. 3 High School to College Andrew Makhoul ........................................................................................ 4 Ignoring Problems Creates More! Ashley Morris................................................................................ 5 Hang in There Brad Hart ................................................................................................................. 6 Nate Brandi Saveri ........................................................................................................................... 7 The Best Birthday Is the Sixteenth Brent Heimbach ......................................................................... 9 Sharing the Bread of Angels Christa Sist ......................................................................................... 10 Tragedy in the Night Danielle Gehman .......................................................................................... 11 My Grandfather David Smith ..............................................

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Excerpt: Reprinted from Fraser?s Magazine. The cloud which for the space of a month hung gloomily over the civilized world, black with far worse evils than those of simple war, has passed from over our heads without bursting. The fear has not been realized, that the only two first-rate Powers who are also free nations would take to tearing each other in pieces, both the one and the other in a bad and odious cause. For while, on the American side, the war would have been one of reckless persistency in wrong, on ours it would have been a war in alliance with, and, to practical purposes, in defence and propagation of, slavery. We had, indeed, been wronged....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Foreigner At Home. ?This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin? o?t.? Two recent books* one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael?s Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of...

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Contents CHAPTER I: THE FOREIGNER AT HOME ..................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER II: SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES................................................................................ 14 CHAPTER III: OLD MORTALITY .................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER IV: A COLLEGE MAGAZINE ...................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER V: AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER ............................................................................. 36 CHAPTER VI: PASTORAL .............................................................................................................. 41 CHAPTER VII: THE MANSE .......................................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER VIII: MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET .................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER IX: THOMAS STEVENSON ? CIVIL ENGINEER...................................................... 58 CHAPTER X: TALK AND TALKERS ....................

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From hunters and gatherers through agro-cities, State-religious Empires infiltrated by migrating Tai persons with a wet glutinous rice technology, evolved to produce a sustainable agriculture. Rice culture determined administrative structures in a pragmatic society which regularly produced a saleable surplus. Ayutthaya’s ascendancy, continuing today, consolidated the importance of rice agriculture to national security and economic well-being, as Chinese and European influence benefited agribusiness and initiated the demand which would expand agriculture through population increase until accessible land was expended. The resulting central interest in the spoils of agriculture more than its producers pervaded decision-making until recently, and was supported by narrow economic development advocates. As agriculture declined in relative financial importance, it continued to provide the benefits of employment, crisis resilience, self-sufficiency, rural social support, and cultural custody. Technical and economic globalisation forces which assumed a cultural uniformity were eventually revealed to require modification, but had meanwhile a...

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Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Uniquely Agricultural Golden Cradle The Land of the Thai Soils Water Resources Climate Other Natural Resources Regional Origins Intensification Industrialisation National and Global Responsibilities Current Situation Ingredients of Thai Agriculture Summary Chapter 2 - Agricultural Origins From Gathering to Growing Neolithic to Iron Age Domination of Rice Early Thai Agriculturists Khmer Agriculture Pagan Agriculture Southern Thailand Summary Chapter 3 - Arrival of Tai Agriculture Chinese Tai Muang F Integrating Technologies Tai Agriculturists Migrating Farmers Tai in Thailand Tai Traits Environmental Traditions Tai and Buddhist Environments Summary Chapter 4 - Expansion of Thai Agriculture from 1200 C Agricultural Organisation Agricultural Administration Integrating Irrigation Systems Agricultural Domination Tai to Thai Agriculture 5 Agricultural Life Summary Chapter 5 - Emerging Agribusiness: Ayutthaya to the Early Twentieth Century Agriculture, Environment and Morality Export Rice Cash Crops Foreign Influence Administering the Peasants State Irrigation Development Traders and Early Agrib...

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What this Book is About There is a commonly held view that the incidence and scale of disasters is increasing in the modern world although some disagreement on whether the incidence of events, such as Tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, floods etc., that can give rise to disasters is increasing. The view is understandable, both population and their built environment are increasing so more is at risk and this trend of increased risk will continue while populations continue to rise. As the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) enumerates this: ‘Natural disasters are becoming more costly: in constant dollars, disaster costs between 1990 and 1999 were more than 15 times higher ($652 billion in material losses) than they were between 1950 and 1959 ($38 billion at 1998 values) The human cost is also high: over the 1984–2003 period, more than 4.1 billion people were affected by natural disasters. The number affected has grown, from 1.6 billion in the first half of that period (1984–93) to almost 2.6 billion in the second half (1994-2003), and has continued to increase. Although disasters caused by natural events occur throughout...

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List of figures, table & Abbreviations ix Acknowledgements x What this Book is About 1 Chapter 1 - Key Concepts 7 Disaster Risk Reduction 7 Risk 10 Fast and Slow Onset Disasters 11 Resilience 12 Systems Thinking 13 Self-organising Systems 18 A System for Disaster Risk Reduction 21 Evaluation of Natural Disasters 22 Chapter 2 –Components of Disasters and NRM 27 Economic Analysis – Five Forms of Capital 27 The Significance of Context 31 Ecosystems Functional Analysis ...

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“I like the idea of mental synthesis very much ... I quite agree that language evolved in a way that facilitates synthesis and transmission of the synthesized mental image. ... I don't think there can be much doubt, purely conceptually, that language was a late arrival. Whatever mutation provided the key to it would have had no selectional advantage at all, and would have just been a useless “organ,” if it could not have linked up to pre-existing thought systems.” —NOAM CHOMSKY, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, MIT “Boston University’s Andrey Vyshedskiy brings a neuroscientist’s perspective to the discussion of human mental history in On the Origin of the Human Mind.” —Scientific American Mind (July 2009) “I found the Mental Synthesis theory stimulating and provocative. The author puts forward an explanation for the evolution of the human mind based on predator detection that led to increased visual mental analysis which set the stage for visual mental syntheses. The author presents an impressive array of recent research on the brain with up to date references that are highly relevant to his case and the origin of mi...

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Introduction While studying the neuroscience of consciousness, I was struck with certain facts about mental imagery that seemed to shed some light on the process of the evolution of the human mind. The origin of the human mind remains one of the greatest mysteries of all times. The last 150 years, since Charles Darwin proposed that species evolve under the influence of natural selection (Darwin C, 1859), have been marked by great discoveries. Molecular biology described the genetic principles underlying species evolution and identified specific changes in the human genome since our lineage split off from the chimpanzee line about six million years ago (Somel M, 2013). Great paleontological discoveries have filled that span of six million years of human evolution with a number of intermediate species that display both human- and ape-like characteristics. However, the discussion of the evolution of the human intellect and specific forces that shaped the underlying brain evolution is as vigorous today as it was in Darwin’s times. At the center of the predicament about the origin of the human mind lies the question of human uniqu...

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Introduction 1 Part 1. Neuroscience of imagination 5 Chapter 1. Object encoding in the brain 6 Chapter 2. Neuronal synchronization 26 Chapter 3. Imagining new objects 32 Chapter 4. External manifestations of mental synthesis 39 Chapter 5. Humans versus animals 80 Chapter 6: Overall Discussion of Part 1 108 Part 2. Evolution of the Human Mind 135 Chapter 7. Introduction: a quick guide to paleoanthropology 136 Chapter 8. Cognitive evolution through the prism of paleontological evidence 160 Chapter 9. Evolutionary pressure drives better predator detection 191 Chapter 10. Overall Discussion of Part 2 219 Part 3. The “last” mutation 254 Chapter 11. The role of the prefrontal cortex in the process of mental synthesis 256 Chapter 12. Evolution of the prefrontal cortex 277 Conclusions 327 A wish list of experiments 339 Appendix 367 Acknowledgments 400 Bibliography 401 Illustrations credits 428 About the author 430 ...

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The concept of science and the sciences. Fundamental and historical development in the sciences. Great ideas that revolutionize our scientific world. The story of the cell and Biology. The birth of modern Biology. The rise of the modern University and experimental stations. The cell as the basic building block of life. The origin of life. The development of microbiology and microscopy. The germ theory of diseases, vaccines, and antibiotics. The vector insects and infectious diseases. The virus, viral diseases, and vaccines. The principle of vegetation and the basic requirements of plants. William Harvey, the heart and the circulatory system. Carl Linneaus and the development of modern taxonomy in biology. Charles Darwin and the development of evolution in biology. Gregor Mendel and the development of genetics and the laws of heredity....

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THE GREATEST FUNDAMENTAL INVENTIONS CREATED BY MOTHER NATURE THE ATOM AND ITS CAPACITY TO STORE AND RELEASE UNIVERSAL ENERGY BY MEANS OF PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROCESSES THE CELL AND ITS CAPACITY TO SUSTAIN INDEPENDENT LIFE BY MEANS OF UNIQUE BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES THE PROCESS OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS AND ITS CAPACITY TO TRANSFORM SOLAR (LIGHT) ENERGY INTO CHEMICAL AND FOOD ENERGY BY MEANS OF BIOCHEMICAL PROCESSES LIGHT AND ITS CAPACITY TO TRANSPORT ENERGY AND CHANGE OUR UNIVERSE BY TRANSFORMING DARKNESS INTO LIGHTNESS BY THE MIRACLE OF ILLUMINATION THE PHENOMENON OF ELECTROMAGNETISM AND ITS CAPACITY TO PRODUCE THE DYNAMIC ELECTRIC CURRENT THAT ENERGIZES AND POWERS OUR UNIVERSE AND THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL OF ALL OF NATURE’S INTUITIVE CREATIONS IS THE PROCESS OF UNIVERSAL TRANSFORMATION, WHERE PHYSICAL, CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION TRANSFORM MATTER, ENERGY, SPACE, TIME AND LIFE ITSELF ...

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INTRODUCTION 1 ABSTRACT ON THE CONCEPT OF PERSPECTIVE AND SENSE OF DUTY 4 THE CONCEPT OF SCIENCE 5 FUNDAMENTAL AND HISTORIC DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SCIENCES 7 ABSTRACT ON THE ATOM AND ITS ENERGY 11 GREAT IDEAS THAT REVOLUTIONIZED OUR SCIENTIFIC WORLD 16 DEMOCRITUS (470 - 380 BC) Greek Philosopher 16 NICHOLAS COPERNICUS (1473 - 1543) Polish Astronomer 17 GALILEO GALILEI (1564 - 1642) Italian Mathematician and Astronomer 18 RENE DESCARTES (1596 - 1650) French Mathematician and Philosopher. 19 ISAAC NEWTON (1642 - 1727) English Scientist and Mathematician 20 ANTOINE LAVOISIER (1743 - 1794) French Chemist 23 JOHN DALTON (1766 - 1844) English Chemist 24 JONS J. BERZELIUS (1779 - 1848) Swedish Chemist 25 HUMPHRY DAVY (1778 - 1829) English Chemist 25 AMEDEO AVOGADRO (1776 - 1856) Italian Physicist 26 DMITRI MENDELEEV (1834 - 1907) Russian Chemist 26 FRIEDRICH A. KEKULE (1829 - 1896) German Organic Chemist 27 JACOBUS VAN’T HOFF (1852 - 1911) Dutch Physical Chemist 28 WILLIAM H. WOLLASTON (1766 - 1828) English Chemist and Physicist 28 EDWARD FRANKLAND (1825 - 1899) English Chemist 29 SVANTE A. ARRHENIUS (1859 -...

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The 2000 year history of the atom and chemistry, from the Classic Greek Era to the present, is described in 800 pages, depicted with some 300 pictures and illustrations. This history of the atom and chemistry discusses the lives of about 180 chemists and physicists, through the evolution of several stages of development, representing the most important scientific accomplishments. The most significant discoveries in chemistry and physics are presented chronologically to illustrate their contributions to the creation of the chemical sciences during the last 21 centuries....

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INTRODUCTION It is a genuine pleasure and challenge for me to try to express the full extent of my emotions and reasons for writing this book on the STORY OF THE ATOM AND THE SCIENCES, with special reference to the CHEMICAL SCIENCES. In one sentence, I can distill the essence of the purpose for this study by simply stating that it has been a labor of love that transcended the written word because sentiments and ideas belong in the realm of the ethereal and the philosophical as well as in the domain of LITERATURE and SCIENCE. Ever since a young and impressionable student attending a country school in a community of a few hundred people, began to be introduced to the world of knowledge over 65 years ago, the sciences became to me what water is to fish, air is to birds and earth is to humanity. The introduction to the mathematical, physical, chemical and biological sciences felt like reading a beautiful poem or listening to a romantic melody. In essence, it was truly a joyful experience, full of the enigmatic, the mysterious and the fantastic, beyond my wildest imagination. The words used in the title of this book, were car...

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TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 THE STORY OF THE ATOM AND CHEMISTRY 7 THE CAVE MAN 7 ABSTRACT ON THE CONCEPT OF PERSPECTIVE AND SENSE OF DUTY 8 THE MIGRATORY AND THE SEDENTARY MAN 9 ABSTRACT ON THE ATOM AND ITS ENERGY 11 THE CLASSIC GREEK AND ROMAN PHILOSOPHERS 17 EMPEDOCLES (492-432 BC) Greek Philosopher 20 Proposed the four basic elements: earth, water, air and fire. DEMOCRITUS (470-380 BC) Greek Philosopher 22 The founder of the atomic theory of antiquity. CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY (100-170) Greek Astronomer 24 Proponent of the geocentric theory of our solar system with the Earth and not the Sun at its center. ABSTRACT ON THE GENESIS OF AN ORDERLY AND SYSTEMATIC UNIVERSE 25 THE ALCHEMY OF ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES 32 THE METAL INDUSTRY OF ANTIQUITY 33 Mercury, Copper, Bronze, Iron and Steel. GEBER (721-815) Arabian Alchemist 38 One of the first scholars and alchemists of the Islamic world. OMAR KHAYYAM (12th Century). Persian Scientist and Astronomer 38 Brilliant astronomer and alchemist of the 12th Century. BERNARDO TREVISAN (1406 -1490) Italian Alchemist 39 One of the most famous alchemists of th...