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It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Indeed, registration forms for the convention show that the party even charged a $750 fee to professional groups and outside associations, generally lobbyists, who sent representatives to observe the convention.
For such fees, the registration form also noted that payment could be made using corporate credit cards and corporate cheques.
EDMONTON - An Alberta judge has ruled that a construction company discriminated against a man when it fired him from an oilsands project after his pre-employment drug screening tested positive for marijuana.
Instead, Justice Sheilah Martin said the man -- a recreational user -- should have been treated the same way as someone with a drug addiction, which is considered a disability in a growing body of human rights case law across Canada.
It is the first time that Alberta's Court of Queen's Bench has addressed the issue of pre-employment drug testing under the province's human rights legislation.
And while the judgment is specific to one company's policy, some are calling it a significant decision.
The decision could place new legal limits on when workers can be tested for drugs.
"It is important for all workers," said Leanne Chahley, an Edmonton labour lawyer who regularly represents unions.
For one, she said, it means that a worker does not have to be disabled to challenge a policy as discriminatory. It also means that companies cannot use drug tests as a tool to automatically weed out potential employees who test positive, she said.
"No one wants to encourage impairment at work, but a drug test is an invasion of your privacy," Ms. Chahley said.
Judge Martin also said that the fact that KBR allowed Mr. Chiasson to work before receiving the results of the drug test called into question both the claim that such testing was essential and that he worked in a safety sensitive position.
"What I really want to know is, 'How do we bring 'em back?'"
A decade-long series of droughts haven't just wreaked havoc on Texas agriculture, they have also suppressed populations of the moisture-loving fire ants that have become a scourge to homeowners, landscapers, farmers and ranchers across the South. That might sound like a good thing, and, on balance, it is. But there is something to be said for the bug-chomping fire ant. It can help control other pests, including cattle-plaguing ticks, and the drought is helping to drive that home.
OppsThe findings are a "stark reminder" that legal efforts to reduce exposure to cigarette smoke in workplaces aren't protecting the group of people at greatest risk from passive smoking, young children, Drs. Mark D. Eisner of the University of California, San Francisco and Francesco Forastiere of the Rome E Health Authority in Italy write in an editorial accompanying the study.
"Children are primarily exposed to tobacco smoke in the home, where legal restrictions do not apply," they note.
And even the so called libertarian republican administration in the U.S. in now officially on the second hand smoke band wagon. Second Hand Smoke Identified by Surgeon General as Health Hazard
Simplistic moralistic reformers of the 19th Century viewed the social and public health ills as being caused by alcohol.
Today's simplistic moral reformers say the toxic environment of capitalism is caused by smoking.
That's because they can't get enough support to ban cars.
June 22, 2006 — An ancient British tomb monument contemporary with the first phase of Stonehenge’s construction suggests one prehistoric culture built the two structures to mark the summer solstice, according to archaeologists.
The tomb is called Bryn Celli Ddu, which in Welsh translates to "the mound in a dark grove." It is located on the island of Anglesey off the northwest coast of Wales. New radiocarbon dating of postholes outside of the burial monument determined the mound is over 6,000 years old. Stonehenge dates to around 2800 B.C., but some historians think it could be much older.
According to research published in the current issue of British Archaeology and the National Museum Wales Book "The Tomb Builders in Wales: 4,000-3,000 B.C.," both Bryn Celli Ddu and Stonehenge are aligned with the summer solstice.
The heel stone at Stonehenge marks this event, while a passageway and quartz-rich stone located in the back of the burial monument lights up in a dramatic sun show.
In Brazil, a tropical Stonehenge is found
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory — a find archaeologists say indicates early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed.
The 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet tall, are spaced at regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet in diameter.
On the shortest day of the year — Dec. 21 — the shadow of one of the blocks disappears when the sun is directly above it.
"It is this block's alignment with the winter solstice that leads us to believe the site was once an astronomical observatory," said Mariana Petry Cabral, an archaeologist at the Amapá State Scientific and Technical Research Institute. "We may be also looking at the remnants of a sophisticated culture."
Anthropologists have long known that local indigenous populations were acute observers of the stars and sun. But the discovery of a physical structure that appears to incorporate this knowledge suggests pre-Colombian Indians in the Amazon rainforest may have been more sophisticated than previously suspected.
"Transforming this kind of knowledge into a monument; the transformation of something ephemeral into something concrete, could indicate the existence of a larger population and of a more complex social organization," Cabral said.
Cabral has been studying the site, near the village of Calçoene, just north of the equator in Amapá state in far northern Brazil, since last year. She believes it was once inhabited by the ancestors of the Palikur Indians, and while the blocks have not been submitted to carbon dating, she says pottery shards near the site indicate they are pre-Columbian and maybe older — as much as 2,000 years old.
Last month, archaeologists working on a hillside north of Lima, Peru, announced the discovery of the oldest astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere — giant stone carvings, apparently 4,200 years old, that align with sunrise and sunset on Dec. 21The Boyne Valley contains the largest and most decorated megalithic sites in all of Ireland and has been described as "the largest and most important expression of prehistoric megalithic art in Europe."
The large megalithic sites were built over 5,000 years ago between 3800 and 3200 B.C., built before both Stonehenge in England and the great pyramids in Egypt. Within a three mile radius in the Boyne Valley are more than 30 prehistoric monuments, including the great passage tombs and their satellite structures, standing stones, barrows and other enclosures.
Neolithic communities built these sites over earlier sacred spots and it is suspected that they were used for a combination of purposes, including use as burial tombs, sacred temples and astronomical observatories.
Newgrange
The most famous of all Irish prehistoric monuments, Newgrange was built on a one-acre site around 3200 B.C. and draws more than 200,000 visitors each year. It is one of only three United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites in Ireland. It is known as a passage tomb, which is defined as a grave set in a mound of earth or stone with a passage leading to a central chamber. Passage tombs are usually found in groups and Newgrange is no exception, as it is surrounded by 40 other such sites.
The chamber inside the mound measures 21.5 feet by 17 feet and has three separate recesses (chambers) off the main chamber. The most amazing and well-known feature of Newgrange is the presence of a roof or light box over the entrance to the chamber. The roof box was specifically designed to capture the light from the sun and illuminate the chamber on the winter solstice (Dec. 21). When the sun rises over Newgrange on this day, its rays enter the roof box and penetrate 65.62 feet into the ground to illuminate the entire chamber for 17 minutes, from 8:58 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.
During the following three days, some sunlight enters the chamber, but not as much as on Dec. 21. The roof box is engraved with a series of eight lozenges that may represent the eight pagan festivals that were held each year. This box was designed so precisely with the rising of the winter solstice sun, that it has shown without doubt that these people had an extensive knowledge of astronomy.