The concept of property ownership

The concept of property or ownership has no single or universally accepted definition. Like other foundational concepts which have great weight in public discourse, popular usage varies broadly. Various scholarly communities (e.g., law, economics, anthropology, sociology) may treat the concept more systematically, but their definitions likewise vary within and between fields.
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In common use, property is simply 'one's own thing' and refers to the relationship between individuals and the objects which they see as being their own to dispense with as they see fit. Scholars in the social sciences frequently conceive of property as a 'bundle of rights and obligations.' They stress that property is not a relationship between people and things, but a relationship between people with regard to things. Property is often conceptualized as the rights of 'ownership' as defined in law.
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Modern property rights conceive of ownership and possession as belonging to legal individuals, even if the legal individual is not a real person. Thus, corporations, governments and other collective forms of ownership are framed in terms of individual ownership. Exceptions to this pattern include the "commons", which belong to a defined community, and the "public domain", to which access is unlimited. Property rights are found in the oldest laws written down, and equate the expectation of use or profit to some payment from the very beginning. Modern property rights can be said to begin with the transition from ownership by entities as being the primary form of property right, to the theory that property rights are to promote the general good, and specifically encourage economic development and utilization of property.
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Property is usually thought of in terms of a bundle of rights as defined and protected by the local sovereignty which itself, by definition, has "exclusive right to exercise supreme authority" concerning that property. If ownership gave supreme authority it would be sovereignty not ownership. They are two different concepts. In other words, "I own this so I can do what I want with it" is not how the concepts of ownership or property work.
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Legal systems have evolved to cover the transactions and disputes which arise over the possession, use, transfer and disposal of property, most particularly involving contracts. Positive law defines such rights, and a judiciary is used to adjudicate and to enforce.
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In his classic text, "The Common Law", Oliver Wendell Holmes describes property as having two fundamental aspects. The first is possession, which can be defined as control over a resource based on the practical inability of another to contradict the ends of the possessor. The second is title, which is the expectation that others will recognize rights to control resource, even when it is not in possession. He elaborates the differences between these two concepts, and proposes a history of how they came to be attached to individuals, as opposed to families or entities such as the church.
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According to Adam Smith, the expectation of profit from "improving one's stock of capital" rests on private property rights, and the belief that property rights encourage the property holders to develop the property, generate wealth, and efficiently allocate resources based on the operation of the market is central to capitalism. From this evolved the modern conception of property as a right which is enforced by positive law, in the expectation that this would produce more wealth and better standards of living.
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Socialism's fundamental principles are centered on a critique of this concept, stating, among other things, that the cost of defending property is higher than the returns from private property ownership, and that even when property rights encourage the property-holder to develop his property, generate wealth, etc., he will only do so for his own benefit, which may not coincide with the benefit of other people or society at large (and which often goes directly against the interests of non-property-holders). This is still a modern theory of property, however, in that it argues based on superior utility of result.
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Communism argues that only collective ownership through a polity, though not necessarily a state, will assure the minimization of unequal or unjust outcomes and the maximization of benefits, and that therefore all, or almost all, private property should be abolished.
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Both communism and (sometimes) socialism have also upheld the notion that private property is inherently illegitimate. This argument is centered mainly on the fact that the creation of property involves the use of natural resources, therefore private property in general necessarily involves private property over land. If private property over land is illegitimate (for example, due to the fact that it was first instituted by force), then it follows that private property in general is illegitimate.
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Not every person, or entity, with an interest in a given piece of property may be able to exercise all of the rights mentioned a few paragraphs above. For example, as a lessee of a particular piece of property, you may not sell the property, because the tenant is only in possession, and does not have title to transfer. Similarly, while you are a lessee the owner cannot use his or her right to exclude to keep you from the property. (Or, if he or she does you may perhaps be entitled to stop paying rent or perhaps sue to regain access.)
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Further, property may be held in a number of forms, e.g. joint ownership, community property, sole ownership, lease, etc. These different types of ownership may complicate an owner's ability to exercise his or her rights unilaterally. For example if two people own a single piece of land as joint tenants, then depending on the law in the jurisdiction, each may have limited recourse for the actions of the other. For example, one of the owners might sell his or her interest in the property to a stranger that the other owner does not particularly like.
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Communal Property systems describe ownership as belonging to the entire social and political unit, while corporate systems describe ownership as being attached to an identifiable group with an identifiable responsible individual: generally a family. The Roman property law was based on such a corporate system, for example.
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Different societies may have different theories of property for differing types of ownership, as the above paragraph makes clear: land is collectively owned, improvements are individually owned, but may not be transferred outside of the community. Currently, anthropological theory relates the kind of kinship system - whether through one or both parents - with certain property theories, though this idea is in dispute. Essentially, it is very common among property systems to have the community own property where kinship is reckoned both through patrilineal and matrilineal systems, but property is owned by the family if only one method of reckoning is used. Exceptions to this rule have been documented, but it remains the prevailing assumption of tribal ownership.
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Pauline Peters argued that property systems are not isolable from the social fabric, and notions of property may not be stated as such, but instead may be framed in negative terms: for example the taboo system among Polynesian peoples.

A little U.S. history

The United States of America�also referred to as the United States, the USA, the U.S., America, the States (colloquially), and Columbia (poetically)�is a federal republic of 50 states, located primarily in central North America.
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The United States has land borders with Canada and Mexico, and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia and the Bahamas. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. Forty-eight of the states�often referred to as the continental, contiguous or Lower 48 states�are located in a single region between Canada and Mexico. The other two, Alaska and the archipelago of Hawaii, are not contiguous with the others. There is a federal district�the District of Columbia, comprising the capital, Washington�and a number of overseas territories and possessions.
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The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress�representing the 13 British colonies�adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the nation was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution; the date on which each of the original 13 states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States), although these states were technically already part of the first United States Republic (Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union), and on ratification entered into the Second Republic under the Constitution. Since the mid-20th century, the United States has become a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological and cultural affairs.
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American history started with the migration of people from Asia, primarily Mongols, across the Bering Sea approximately 10,000� 40,000 years ago following large animals that they preyed upon into the Americas. The Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts, it is estimated that at least ten million lived in the territory now occupied by the US before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that decimated the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest who built Chaco Canyon and the Woodland Indians who built Cahokia, located near present day St. Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in A.D. 1200.
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During the 1500s and 1600s, Spanish settlers sparsely settled parts of what are now the southwest in the founding of Santa Fe in 1607 and Florida with St. Augustine in 1565. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey, including New Amsterdam on the site of the present day New York City. This was followed by extensive English settlement of the east coast. The colonials remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France lost its land around the Great Lakes and Mississippi River in a war with the British. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the settlers as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the settlers increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule.
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In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775�1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed.
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From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid 19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis point in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments.
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During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most Native American nations. (See Trail of Tears.) This displacement of Native Americans continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas Native American populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and U.S. settlers acquired those emptied lands. Unlike European countries, the U.S. was never a colonial power (having itself been spawned from a colonial rebellion) but through various military victories, diplomacy, and outside dealings, the U.S. acquired a number of overseas possessions, from Cuba to the Philippines, though it gave up most of these over time. (See United States territorial acquisitions.)
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During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The U.S. became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation and aeronautics.
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In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929�1941). The U.S. has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in which the U.S. was allied with Britain and other states). During the Cold War, the U.S. was a major player in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the U.S. became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Gulf War to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. After terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, the U.S. and other allied nations entered a War on Terrorism and later the war against Iraq.
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The government of the United States may be accurately categorized as a republic or as a liberal democracy. Specifically, the United States is an example of a representative democracy. There are three levels of government in the United States�federal, state, and local. All of these are freely elected by the American people. Americans enjoy universal suffrage upon reaching the age of 18, however the residents of Washington, D.C.'s representation in Congress is limited.
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The Constitution of the United States sets out the powers of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government and provides for a number of rights for its citizens, including freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion, trial by jury, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
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The federal government is the national government. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, printing money, controlling trade and relations between the states, and protecting human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the government has generally extended these powers, citing the "necessary and proper clause" of the Constitution, into such areas as welfare and education. The federal government is made up of the Congress (the legislative branch), the President (the executive branch), and the Supreme Court (the judicial branch). These three branches are said to apply checks and balances on each other.
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The Congress is a bicameral law-making institution composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Traditionally, the House is considered the "lower house" and the Senate the "upper house," but Congressional publications disagree with this. The House has 435 members, called representatives or congressmen and congresswomen, who are elected by the people of a congressional district to represent that district for a term of two years. The number of districts for each state depends on the size of the population of the state, and each state has at least one representative. As of the 2000 census, the districts had an average size of about 640,000 people.
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The Senate has 100 members called senators, who are also elected by the people of a state to represent that state for a term of six years. Each state has two senators, regardless of its size. The Constitution initially gave the power to elect senators to the state legislatures; the Seventeenth Amendment transferred this ability to the people.
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At the top of the executive branch is the President of the United States, who is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The President signs laws into action, and can also issue pardons and executive orders. He has few other Constitutional duties, among them being the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress from time to time. Below the President is the Vice President, who is first in the line of succession and is the President of the Senate, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. These two posts are elected, as running mates, by the people via the Electoral College for four-year terms.
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Alcoholism statistics and facts

Alcoholism is a dependency on alcohol characterized by craving (a strong need to drink), loss of control (being unable to stop drinking despite a desire to do so), physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms, and tolerance (increasing difficulty of becoming drunk).
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Although acceptance of the "American Disease Model" of alcoholism is not entirely universal, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Hospital Association, the American Public Health Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the World Health Organization and the American College of Physicians have all classified alcoholism as a disease.
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In a 1992 JAMA article, the Joint Committee of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and the American Society of Addiction Medicine published this definition for alcoholism: "Alcoholism is a primary chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, mostly denial. Each of these symptoms may be continuous or periodic."
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Essentially, the causes for alcohol abuse and dependence cannot be easily explained, but the long-standing, unscientific prejudice that alcoholism is the result of moral or ethical weakness on the part of the sufferer has been largely altered, as a recent poll showed that 90% of Americans currently believe that alcoholism is, in fact, a disease.
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Today, alcohol abuse and alcoholism are a major public health problem in North America, costing that region's inhabitants US$170 billion annually. Alcoholism is a life-threatening problem that often ends in death, particularly through liver, pancreatic, or kidney disease, internal bleeding, brain deterioration, alcohol poisoning and suicide. Alcohol consumption by a pregnant mother can also lead to fetal alcohol syndrome in the unborn child, an uncurable and damaging illness.
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As well, alcoholism is a major contributing factor for head injuries, motor vehicle accidents (MVA), violence and assaults, as well as a leading cause of neurological and other medical problems (e.g., cirrhosis, etc.).
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Of the two thirds of the North American population who consume alcohol, 10% are alcoholics, and 6% consume more than half of all alcohol.
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Stereotypes of alcoholics are often found in fiction and popular culture: for example the "town drunk," or the stereotype of Russians and the Irish as alcoholics. In modern times, the recovery movement has led to more realistic portraits of alcoholics and their problems, such as in Charles Jackson's The Lost Weekend, Robert Clark Young's One of the Guys, or the films Days of Wine and Roses and My Name is Bill W.
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Alcohol dependence can be harder to break and significantly more damaging than dependence on most other addictive substances. The physical symptoms when withdrawing from alcohol are seen to be equal in severity to those experienced during withdrawal from heroin.
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Long-term abusers of alcoholic beverages can suffer delirium tremens.
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Treatments for alcoholism include detoxification programs run by medical institutions. These may involve stays for a number of weeks in specialized hospital wards where drugs may be used to avoid withdrawal symptoms, which in severe cases may lead to death.
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After detoxification, various forms of group therapy or psychotherapy can be used to deal with underlying psychological issues leading to alcohol dependence. Aversion therapies may be supported by drugs like Disulfiram, which causes a strong and prompt hangover whenever alcohol is consumed. Naltrexone may improve compliance with abstinence planning. The standard pharmocopeia of anti-depressants, anxiolytics and other psychotropic drugs treat underlying mood disorders, neuroses and psychoses associated with alcoholic symptoms.
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Another treatment program is based on nutritional therapy. Many alcoholics have insulin resistance syndrome, a metabolic disorder where the body's difficulty in processing sugars causes an unsteady supply to the blood stream. While the disorder can be treated by a hypoglycemic diet, this can affect behaviour and emotions, side-effects often seen among alcoholics in treatment. The metabolic aspects of alcoholism are often overlooked, resulting in poor treatment outcomes. See: [1]
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In the 1900s the mutual-help group-counselling approach to treatment became increasingly widespread and remains so today. Alcoholics Anonymous is possibly the best-known example of this movement.
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Some programs attempt to help problem drinkers before they become serious alcoholics. These programs focus on harm-reduction and reducing alcohol intake as opposed to cold-turkey approaches. One such program is called Moderation Management.
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The social problems arising from alcoholism can include loss of employment, financial problems, marital conflict and divorce, convictions for crimes such as drunk driving or public disorder, loss of accommodation, and loss of respect from others who may see the problem as self-inflicted and easily avoided. Exhaustive studies, including those by author Wayne Kritsberg, show that alcoholism affects not only the addicted but can profoundly impact the family members around them. Children of alcoholics can be affected even after they are grown; the behaviors commonly exhibited by such children are collectively known as Adult Children of Alcoholics Syndrome. Al-Anon/Alateen, a group modelled after Alcoholics Anonymous, offers aid to friends and family members of alcoholics.
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Many people incorrectly assume that once an alcoholic stops drinking, all is well. However, many people who have stopped drinking still refer to themselves as "alcoholics" or "recovering alcoholics." Thought patterns may also continue to be impaired as in the Dry drunk syndrome.

What is a tornado and where do they come from?

A tornado is a violent windstorm characterized by a twisting, funnel-shaped cloud. The word "tornado" comes from the Spanish or Portuguese verb tornar, meaning "to turn." Tornadoes form in storms all around the world, and though they have been recorded in all 50 states, they form most famously in a broad area of the American Midwest and South known as Tornado Alley. Although, in pure number of incidences, the United States experiences more tornadoes than any other country, the United Kingdom is the most tornado-prone country relative to land area. Some common, related slang terms are: twister, whirlwind, wedge, funnel, gustnado, landspout, willy-willy, or rope. Cyclone is also an old-fashioned term for a tornado.
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Tornadoes develop from thunderstorms, most frequently supercell thunderstorms, though they also occur within squall lines and hurricanes. They are believed to be produced when cool air overrides a layer of warm air, forcing the warm air to rise rapidly, though tornadoes over water (waterspouts) frequently are observed forming in the absence of convection or apparent strong surface temperature differences. Tornadoes, lightning, and sometimes hail are associated with thunderstorms. Many tornadoes appear at the tail end of mesocyclones. On weather radar screens, a characteristic "hook echo" marks the area where tornadoes are likely to exist.
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Exactly how tornadoes form is complex and not fully understood. When thunderstorms develop, an increase in wind speed and/or a large change in direction with height ("wind shear") produces a horizontal, spinning area of air. The strong updrafts within the thunderstorm can draw this area of rotation up from horizontal to vertical. Towards the end of this area of rotation (the mesocyclone) is often a lower area of rain-free cloud and can be seen as a rotating "wall cloud". If the rotation intensifies, funnel clouds can develop within this area and form tornadoes when they reach the ground. Why the rotation can intensify and form tornadoes is not understood.
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Tornadoes normally rotate in a cyclonic direction as the warm air thunderstorms usually form in sweeps north and jet streams come from the west, creating a situation in which the storms rotate. In the northern hemisphere, this rotation is counterclockwise, and in the southern hemisphere, clockwise. The tornadoes usually rotate the same way. Sometimes opposite direction swirls develop under a thunderstorm. And about 1 in 100 tornadoes rotate in an anticyclonic direction.
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Tornado damage to man-made structures is the result of high wind velocity and the associated windblown debris. Tornadic winds have been measured well in excess of 300 mph (480 km/h). Tornado season in North America is generally March through October, although tornadoes can occur at any time of year. They tend to occur in the afternoons and evenings: over 80 percent of all tornadoes strike between noon and midnight.
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Tornadoes can be nearly invisible, marked only by swirling debris at the base of the funnel. While tornadoes are invisible at night, some nocturnal tornadoes have been observed glowing diffusely due to lightning activity. Verified observations by Hall and others suggest a cellular structure inside tornadoes. Some tornadoes are composed of several mini-funnels. A tornado must by definition have both ground and cloud contact.
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A waterspout is a tornado that occurs over water, usually not in association with a supercell thunderstorm. Although waterspouts are always tornadoes by definition, they are not counted in official tornado records unless they hit land. They are smaller and weaker than the most intense Great Plains tornadoes, but still can be quite dangerous. Waterspouts can overturn small boats, damage ships, and cause fatalities and significant damage when hitting land.
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The United States experiences by far the most tornadoes of any country, and has also suffered the most intense ones. Tornadoes are common in most states in spring and summer, especially those east of the Rocky Mountains. However, tornadoes can occur in the West as well, although they are usually very small and relatively weak. Recently tornadoes have struck the Pacific coast town of Lincoln City, Oregon, in 1996 and downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1999 (see Salt Lake City Tornado). Tornadoes do occur throughout the world as well; the most tornado-prone region of the world, as measured by number of tornadoes per unit area, is the United Kingdom, especially England [2]. New Zealand, Bangladesh and portions of Uruguay also have pockets of strong tornadic activity. Tornadoes have recently hit parts of Germany in 2003 and Pakistan in 2001 as well. The U.S. state which has the highest number of tornadoes per unit area is Florida, although most of the tornadoes in Florida are either F0, F1, or waterspouts.
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In Canada, an average of 80 tornadoes occur annually, killing 2, injuring 20 and causing tens of millions of dollars in damage. The last killer tornado in Canada struck Pine Lake, Alberta, on July 14, 2000, killing 11.
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On average, the United States experiences 100,000 thunderstorms each year, resulting in more than 1,000 tornadoes and approximately 50 deaths per year. The deadliest U.S. tornado on record is the March 18, 1925, Tri-State Tornado that went across southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southern Indiana, killing 695 people. More than six tornadoes in one day is considered a tornado outbreak. The biggest tornado outbreak on record�with 148 tornadoes, including six F5 and 23 F4 tornadoes�occurred on April 3, 1974. It is dubbed the Super Outbreak. Another such significant storm system was the Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak, which affected the United States Midwest on April 11, 1965.
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The intensity of tornadoes is given by the Fujita-Pearson Tornado Scale (also known simply as Fujita scale). The intensity can be derived directly with high resolution Doppler radar wind speed data, or empirically derived from structural damage compared to engineering data. Also, note that intensity does not refer in any way to the size or width of a tornado.
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Trained weather spotters are often on alert to look for tornadoes and notify local weather agencies when severe weather is occurring or predicted to be imminent. In the United States, skywarn spotters, often local sheriff's deputies, fulfill this role. Additionally, some individuals, known as storm chasers, enjoy pursuing thunderstorms and tornadoes to explore their many visual and scientific aspects.
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Attempts have been made by storm chasers to drop probes in the path of oncoming tornadoes in an effort to analyze the interior of the storms, but only about five drops have been successful since around 1990.
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No two tornadoes look exactly alike. Nor have any two tornadoes behaved exactly the same. There are true incidents of tornadoes repeatedly hitting the same town several years in a row. But forecasting the exact position a tornado will strike at a certain time is nearly impossible.
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Not every thunderstorm, supercell, squall line, or hurricane will produce a tornado. Luckily, it takes exactly the right combination of atmospheric variables (wind, temperature, pressure, humidity, etc.) to spawn even a weak tornado. On the other hand, roughly 1,000 tornadoes a year are reported in the contiguous U.S.
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Of all tornadoes formed in the U.S., F0 and F1 tornadoes account for a large percentage of occurrences. On the other end of the scale, the massively destructive F5 tornado accounts for less than 1% of all tornadoes in the U.S.
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Even though no two tornadoes are exactly alike, they always have the same general characteristics that classify them as tornadoes. According to the Meteorological Glossary, a tornado is defined as "A violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground, either pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud." Tornadoes can be produced by supercellular thunderstorms, squall-line thunderstorms, and thunderstorms found in the outer bands of a hurricane. The exact definition of a tornado is still being debated in the meteorological community today.

Some background on inflation

In economics, inflation is an increase in the general level of prices of a given kind. General inflation is a fall in the market value or purchasing power of money within an economy, as compared to currency devaluation which is the fall of the market value of a currency between economies. General inflation is referred to as a rise in the general level of prices. The former applies to the value of the currency within the national region of use, whereas the latter applies to the external value on international markets. The extent to which these two phenomena are related is open to economic debate.
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Inflation is the opposite of deflation. Zero or very low positive inflation is called price stability.
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In some contexts the word "inflation" is used to mean an increase in the money supply, which is sometimes seen as the cause of price increases. Some economists (of the Austrian school) still prefer this meaning of the term, rather than to mean the price increases themselves. Thus, for example, some observers of the 1920s in the United States refer to "inflation" even though prices were not increasing at the time. Below, the word "inflation" will be used to refer to a general increase in prices unless otherwise specified.
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Inflation can be contrasted with "reflation," which is either a rise of prices from a deflated state, or alternately a reduction in the rate of deflation, that is, the general level of prices is falling, but at a decreasing rate. A related term is "disinflation", which is a reduction in the rate of inflation but not enough to cause deflation.
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Inflation is measured by observing the change in the price of a large number of goods and services in an economy (usually based on data collected by government agencies, though labor unions and business magazines have also done this job). The prices of goods and services are combined to give a price index measuring an average price level, the average price of a set of products. The inflation rate is the percentage rate of increase in this index; while the price level might be seen as measuring the size of a balloon, inflation refers to the increase in its size.
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Because each measure is based on both other measures, and a model that brings them together, economists often dispute whether there is "bias" either in measurement or in the model of inflation. For example In 1995, the Boskin Commission found the CPI produced by the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to be a biased measure, and gave a quantitative analysis of the bias, arguing that inflation was overstated because of people substituting away from expensive goods, and because of the "hedonic" improvements that technology created, these both reduced the rate of CPI-U increase. Another example from the early 1980's was the finding that the rental component of the CPI-U and CPI-W did not factor in the increase on rental units that were unoccupied, and that, when factored in, the rate of inflation was dramatically understated. This change was adopted in 1982 into the CPI calculations.
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Presently there are those who argue that even more hedonic adjustment should be factored in, including the tendency of people to move to less expensive areas when more expensive ones become out of reach, while others argue that the housing part of the index is dramatically understating the impact of home values on cost of living, and dramatically under accounting for the cost of medications in the cost of living for retirees.
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One effect of small steady inflation is that it is difficult to renegotiate some prices, and particularly wages and contracts, downwards, so that with generally increasing prices it is easier for relative prices to adjust. Many prices are "sticky downward" and tend to creep upward, so that efforts to attain a zero inflation rate (a constant price level) punish other sectors with falling prices, profits, and employment. Thus, some business executives see mild inflation as "greasing the wheels of commerce". Efforts to attain complete price stability can also lead to deflation (steadily falling prices), which can be very destructive, encouraging bankruptcy and recession (or even depression).
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Many in the financial community regard the "hidden risk" of inflation as an essential incentive to invest, rather than simply save, accumulated wealth. Inflation, from this perspective, is seen as the market expression of what the time value of money is. That is, if a dollar today is worth more to someone than a dollar a year from now, then there should be a discount in the economy as a whole for dollars in the future. From this perspective, inflation represents the uncertainty about the value of future dollars.
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Inflation, however, above relatively low levels is generally considered as having increasingly negative effects on the economy. These negative effects are the result of "discounting" previous economic activity. Since inflation is often the result of government policies to increase the money supply, the government contribution to an inflationary environment is a tax on holding currency. As inflation increases, it increases the tax on holding currency, and therefore encourages spending and borrowing, which increase the velocity of money, and therefore reinforce the inflationary environment, a "vicious circle". To extremes this can become hyperinflation.
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In an economy where some sectors are "indexed" to inflation, while others are not, inflation acts as a redistribution towards the indexed sectors away from the unindexed sectors. Again, in small amounts this is a policy choice, acting as a tax on "liquidity preference" and hoarding, rather than saving. However, beyond this amount, the effect becomes distorting, as individuals begin "investing in inflation", which, again, encourages inflationary expectations.
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Information on the history and details of a DVD

DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. DVDs resemble compact discs: their physical dimensions are the same�12cm or the mini 8cm�but they are encoded in a different format and at a much higher density. Unlike CDs, all DVDs must contain a file system. This file system is called UDF, and is an extension of the ISO 9660 Standard used for Data-CDs.
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During the early 1990s there were two high density optical storage standards in development; one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density Disc (SD), supported by Toshiba, Time-Warner, Matsushita Electric, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Thomson and JVC. IBM led an effort to unite the various companies behind a single standard, anticipating a repeat of the costly format war between VHS and Betamax in the 1980s. The result was the DVD format, announced in September of 1995. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with two modifications that are both related to the servo tracking technology. The first one was the adoption of a pit geometry that allows 'push-pull' tracking, a proprietary Philips/Sony technology. The second modification was the adoption of Philips' EFMPlus. EFMPlus is 6% less efficient than Toshiba's SD code, which resulted in a capacity of 4.7 Gbyte instead of SD's original 5 Gbyte. The great advantage of EFMPlus is its great resilience against disc damage such as scratches and fingerprints. The official DVD specification was released in Version 1.0 in September, 1996. It is maintained by the DVD Forum, formerly the DVD Consortium, consisting of the ten founding companies and over 220 additional members. The first DVD players and discs were available in November of 1996 in Japan, March of 1997 in the United States, and 1998 in Europe.
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By the spring of 1999, the price of a DVD player had dropped below the US $300 mark. At that point Wal-Mart began to offer DVD players for sale in its stores. When Wal-Mart began selling DVDs in their stores, DVDs represented only a small part of their video inventory; VHS tapes of movies made up the remainder. As of today, the situation is now completely reversed; most retail stores offer mostly DVDs for sale, while VHS copies of movies are now the minority of sales. The price of a DVD player has dropped to below the level of a typical VCR; a low-end player can be purchased for under US$30 in a number of retail stores. Most, but not all, movie "sets" or series have been released in box sets, as have some entire seasons or selected episode volumes of older and newer television programs. In June 2005, Wal-Mart and several other retailers announced plans to phase out the VHS format entirely, in favor of the more popular DVD format. [1]
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In 2000, Sony released its PlayStation 2 console in Japan. In addition to playing video games developed for the system, it was also able to play DVD movies. In Japan, this proved to be a huge selling point due to the fact that the PS2 was much cheaper than many of the DVD players available there. As a result, many electronic stores that normally did not carry video game consoles carried PS2s. Following on with this tradition Sony has decided to implement one of DVD's possible successors, Blu Ray, into their next PlayStation console currently known as the PlayStation 3. Microsoft's Xbox, released a year after the PlayStation 2, also had the capability to play DVD discs with an add-on kit, cementing the DVD's place in video game consoles.
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"DVD" was originally an initialism for "digital video disc"; some members of the DVD Forum believe that it should stand for "digital versatile disc", to indicate its potential for non-video applications. Toshiba, which maintains the official DVD Forum site, adheres to the interpretation of "digital versatile disc." The DVD Forum never reached a consensus on the matter, however, and so today the official name of the format is simply "DVD"; the letters do not "officially" stand for anything.[2]
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DVDs are made from a 0.6 mm thick disc of polycarbonate plastic coated with a much thinner (reflective) aluminium layer. Two such discs are glued together to form a 1.2 mm double-sided disc. The basic DVD disc is thinner than a CD to make it possible to use a lens with a higher numerical aperture.
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A single-layer DVD can store 4.7 Gbyte, which is around seven times as much a standard CD-ROM. By employing a read laser at 650 nm (was 780 nm) wavelength and a numerical aperture of 0.6 (was 0.45), the read-out resolution is increased by a factor 1.65. This holds for two dimensions, so that the actual physical data density increases by a factor of 3.5. DVD uses a more efficient coding method in the physical layer. CD's error correction, CIRC, is replaced by a powerful Reed-Solomon product code, RS-PC; Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation (EFM) is replaced by a more efficient version, EFMPlus, which has the same characteristics as classic EFM. The CD subcode is removed. As a result, the DVD format is 47% percent more efficient with respect to CD-ROM, which uses a 'third' error correction layer.
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The capacity of a DVD-ROM can be visually determined by noting the number of data sides, and looking at the data side(s) of the disc. Double-layered sides are sometimes gold-colored, while single-layered sides are silver-colored, like a CD. One additional way to tell if a DVD contains one or two layers is to look at the center ring on the underside of the disc. If there are two barcodes, it is a dual layer disc. If there is one barcode, there is only one layer.
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Each medium can contain any of the above content and can be any layer type. Double layer DVD+R discs are already on the market.
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The "+" (plus) and "-" (dash) are similar technical standards and are partially compatible. As of 2004, both formats are equally popular, with about half of the industry supporting "+", and the other half "-". All DVD readers are supposed to read both formats, though real-world compatibility is around 90% for both formats, with DVD-R having the best overall compatibility in independent tests. Most new DVD writers can write both formats and carry both the RW and DVD logos.
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Unlike compact discs, where sound (CDDA, Red Book) is stored in a fundamentally different fashion than data (Yellow book et al.), a properly authored DVD will always contain data in the UDF filesystem.
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The data transfer rate of a DVD drive is given in multiples of 1350 kB/s, which means that a drive with 16x speed designation allows a data transfer rate of 16 x 1350 = 21600 kB/s (21.09 MB/s). As CD drive speeds are given in multiples of 150 kB/s, one DVD "speed" equals nine CD "speeds", i.e. 8x DVD drive should have data transfer rate similar to a 72 x CD drive. In physical rotation terms (spins per second), one DVD "speed" equals three CD "speeds", so the amount of data that are read during one rotation is three times larger for DVD than for CD and 8x DVD drive has the same rotational speed as 24x CD drive.
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Early CD and DVD drives read data at a constant rate. The data on the disc is passed under the read head at a constant rate (Constant Linear Velocity, or CLV). As linear (meters per second) track speed grows at outer parts of the disc proportionally to the radius, the rotational speed of the disc was adjusted according to which portion of the disc was being read. Most current CD and DVD drives have a constant rotation speed (Constant Angular Velocity, or CAV). The maximum data rate specified for the drive/disc is achieved only at the end of the disc's track (discs are written from inside). The average speed of the drive therefore equals to only about 50-70% of the maximum nominated speed. While this seems a disadvantage, such drives have a lower seek time as they do not have to change the disc's speed of rotation.
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DVD-Video discs require a DVD-drive with a MPEG-2 decoder (eg. a DVD-player or a DVD computer drive with a software DVD player). Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats (often multi-channel formats as described below). Typical data rates for DVD movies range from 3-10 Mbit/s, and the bitrate is usually adaptive. A high number of audio tracks and/or lots of extra material on the disc will usually result in a lower bitrate (and image quality) for the main feature.

Gearing up for hunting season

In ancient societies, before the widespread domestication of animals, hunting was generally vital for survival as part of the hunter-gatherer way of life. For most humans before the development of agriculture, hunting would have provided an important source of protein to augment the foraged plants and vegetables that made up the majority of their diet. In addition, animal hides were used for clothing and shelters. The earliest hunting weapons would have included rocks, the Atlatl and bow and arrows.
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Even when animal domestication became relatively widespread, hunting was usually a significant contributor to the food supply available to a population. In addition, animal parts such as hides and horns were utilized in clothing and tools, and not all of these products could be provided from the domestication of animals. The importance of hunting in ancient societies is represented by religious figures such as Cernunnos, the Horned God.
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Hunter-gathering cultures existed along-side agrarian societies with whom they traded. This did not always result in a cultural transtition from hunting-gathering to agrarian domestication. Also, in chilly climates, the hides or furs of animals would be used as clothing (see trapping). The Inuit peoples in the Artic could produce complicated parkas consistingy of up to 60 stitched pieces capable of with-standing sub-zero temperatures. From the skins of sea mammals they produced, and still produce, water-proof kayaks, clothing, gloves and footwear.
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With domestication of the dog, birds of prey and the ferret, various forms of animal-aided hunting developed including venery (scent hound hunting, such as fox hunting), coursing (sight hound hunting), falconry and ferreting. These are all associated with medieval hunting.
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As hunting moved from a strictly necessary activity for survival to one of many staples of society, two trends emerged. One was that of the specialist hunter - a position previously held by just about every able-bodied male (usually) in the society. As domesticated farming and herding took hold, hunting became one of many trades to be pursued by those with the necessary training.
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The other trend was the emergence of hunting as a sport. As game became more of a luxury than a necessity, the pursuit of it could equally well be considered a luxury pursuit.
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Hunting in North America in the 1800s was done primarily as a way to supplement food supplies. The safari method of hunting was a development of sport hunting that saw elaborate travel in Africa, India and other places in pursuit of trophies. In modern times, trophy hunting persists, but is frowned upon when it involves rare or endangered species of animal. Other people also object to trophy hunting in general because it is seen as a senseless act of killing another living thing for recreation, rather than food.
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In the 1800s southern and central European hunters often pursued game only for a trophy, usually the head or pelt of an animal, to be displayed as a sign of prowess. The rest of the animal was often wasted. In contrast, in relatively scarcely populated northern Europe, hunting has remained the tradition of the common people, and still serves a purpose as a means of acquiring meat, although the standard of living does not require it; Eating game is generally considered a healthier and more ethical alternative to the exploitation of farmed animals. In the Nordic countries, hunting for trophies was, and still is frowned upon, but an impressive trophy is considered a bonus. This is perhaps the most common practice of modern hunters worldwide.
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In medieval Europe, it was common for upper-class families to claim the sole rights to hunt in certain areas of territory. Game in these areas was certainly used as a source of food and furs, often provided via professional huntsmen; but it was also expected to provide a form of recreation for the aristocracy. Furthermore, hunting provided practice in the skills of warfare. The importance of this proprietary view of game can be seen in the Robin Hood legends, in which one of the primary charges against the outlaws is that they "hunt the King's deer".
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In later times, this aristocratic type of hunting lost its roots as a source of food and supplies, while retaining its nature as a sport. The practice of British fox hunting is a prime example of sport hunting; the fox is not eaten, and the skin is rarely preserved afterwards. Fox hunting originally developed as a means of vermin control to protect livestock. In Victorian times it also became a popular sport of the upper classes. It now attracts followers from all walks of life. Mounted followers join in on horseback and foot-followers walk or cycle, others follow by car, stopping to view the hunt from suitable vantage points. Fox hunting attract strong feelings. Some animal right supporter feel it causes suffering to the fox and is both cruel and unnecessary. Some members of the farming and rural communities in which it takes place feel it is an integral and useful part of rural life, keeping down fox populations and providing an important contribution to social life for local people.
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In 2002 the Scottish Parliament passed an act banning fox hunting and other forms of hunting with hounds. On September 15th 2004 the British Parliament followed Scotland's lead and passed a similar ban for England and Wales under the Hunting Act 2004, which took effect from February 18, 2005. The British Government forced the ban into law using the Parliament Act. Some hunting activists have declared their intention to break the law and continue hunting with hounds.
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In the United States, hunting is a sport not associated with any particular class or culture. Today's hunters come from a broad range of economic, social, and cultural backgrounds. In 2001, over 13 million hunters averaged eighteen days hunting and spent over $20.5 billion on their sport.
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In the United States, if you are going to hunt then you will need to take a hunters safety course. There are many good courses taught by hunters and they teach morals of a good sportsman. On television there is a show on OLN called Hunters Handbook that shows hunting safety and new hunting products.

The history and origins of food

Humans are commonly believed to be omnivorous animals that can consume both plant and animal products. Evidence suggests that early Homo Sapiens employed hunting and gathering as their primary means of food collection. This involves combining stationary plant and fungal food sources (such as fruits, grains, roots, and mushrooms) with mobile animals which must be hunted and killed in order to be consumed. Additionally, it is believed that humans have used fire to prepare food prior to eating since their divergence from Homo erectus, possibly even earlier.
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As at least ten thousand years ago, humans developed agriculture, which has continually improved and altered the way in which food is obtained. This lead to a variety of important historical consequences, such increased population, the development of cities, and the wider spread of infectious diseases. The types of food consumed, and the way in which they are prepared vary widely by time, location, and culture.
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A selection of different foods, possibly complementary, eaten together comprises a meal. People often choose to eat meals together with other family members or friends and this is seen as an important social occasion. Meals also play an important role in the celebration of many key cultural and religious festivals. Food eaten in smaller quantities between meals is regarded as snack food.
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The number of meals in a day, their size, composition, when and how they are prepared and eaten varies greatly around the world. This diversity can be attributed to a number of local factors, including climate, ecology, economy, cultural traditions and industrialisation.
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In societies where the availability of food has risen above subsistence levels and beyond staple foods, food is also sold pre-prepared for immediate consumption in restaurants and other similar retail premises. In industrial societies, meals often contain a higher proportion of food of animal origin.
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Food is traditionally obtained through farming, ranching, and fishing, with hunting, foraging and other methods of subsistence locally important for some populations, but minor for others.
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In the modern era, in developed nations, food supply is increasingly dependent upon agriculture, industrial farming, aquaculture and fish farming techniques which aim to maximise the amount of food produced, whilst minimising the cost. These include a reliance on mechanised tools which have been developed, from the threshing machine, seed drill, through to the tractor and combine, etc. These have been combined with the use of pesticides to promote high crop yields and combat those insects or mammals which reduce yield.
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More recently, there has been a growing trend towards more Sustainable agricultural practices. This approach - which is partly fuelled by consumer demand - encourages biodiversity, local self-reliance and Organic farming methods.
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Major influences on food production are international policy, e.g. the World Trade Organization and Common Agricultural Policy, national government policy or law and war.
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Food for livestock is fodder and traditionally comprises hay or grain. Whilst some food can be eaten without preparation, many foods undergo some form of preparation for reasons of safety, palatability, or flavor. At the simplest level this may involve washing, cutting, trimming or adding other foods or ingredients, such as spices. It may also involve mixing, heating or cooling, pressure cooking, fermentation, or combination with other food. Most food preparation takes place in a kitchen.
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The preparation of animal-based food will usually involve slaughter, evisceration, hanging, portioning and rendering. Early food processing techniques were limited by the available food preservation, packaging and transportation. Early food processing mainly involved salting, curing, curdling, drying, pickling and smoking. An early processed food product was cheese.
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During the industrialisation era in the 19th century, food manufacturing arose. This development took advantage of new mass markets and emerging new technology, such as milling, preservation, packaging and labelling and transportation. It brought the advantages of pre-prepared time saving food to the bulk of ordinary people who did not employ domestic servants.
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At the start of the 21st century, a two-tier structure has arisen, with a few international food processing giants controlling a wide range of well known food brands; with a populous number of small local or national food processing companies.
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Food is now traded on a global basis. The variety and availability of food is no longer restricted by the diversity of locally grown food or the limitations of the local growing season. Between 1961 and 1999 there has been a 400% increase in worldwide food exports. Some countries are now economically dependent on food exports, which in some cases account for over 80% of all exports.