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| Saturday, 6-Nov-2010 01:11 |
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Buying Pearl Jewelry Without Being Ripped Off
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Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
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| Wednesday, 11-Nov-2009 07:15 |
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emerged in the last 20 years that challenges
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Author Francis Fukuyama spoke with Global Viewpoint editor Nathan Gardels on Tuesday, Oct. 20. Nathan Gardels: In 1989, you wrote an essay, later developed into a book, that stated your famous "end of history" thesis. You said then: "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the pearl jewelry Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." What mostly holds up in your thesis 20 years on? What doesn't? What changed? Francis Fukuyama: The basic point – that liberal democracy is the final form of government – is still basically right. Obviously there are alternatives out there, like the Islamic Republic of Iran or Chinese authoritarianism. But I don't think that all that many people are persuaded these are higher forms of civilization than what exists in Europe, the United States, Japan, or other developed democracies; societies that provide their citizens with a higher level of prosperity and personal freedom. The issue is not whether liberal democracy is a perfect system, or whether capitalism doesn't have problems. After all, we've been thrown into this huge global recession because of the failure of unregulated markets. The real question is whether any other system of governance has emerged in the last 20 years that challenges this. The answer remains no. Now, that essay was written in the winter of wholesale pearl jewelry 1988 or '89 just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I wrote it then because I thought that the pessimism about civilization that we had developed as a result of the terrible 20th century, with its genocides, gulags, and world wars, was actually not the whole picture at all. In fact, there freshwater pearl
were a lot of positive trends going on in the world, including the spread of democracy where there had been dictatorship. Sam Huntington called this "the third wave." It began in southern Europe in the 1970s with Spain and Portugal
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| Wednesday, 11-Nov-2009 07:14 |
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Unlike the student movement
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Unlike the student movement of 1989 or the more recent Charter 2008 manifesto – both of which embraced the language of Western democracy – the Tuidang movement employs distinctly Chinese language and meaning. More Confucian than humanist, it often makes its points by drawing on freshwater pearl Buddhist and Daoist spirituality. Denouncing the party is thus not simply political activism, but takes on spiritual meaning as a process of cleansing the conscience and reconnecting to traditional ethics and values. In December 2004, one month after the articles were published by the dissident newspaper, its editors starting receiving statements from readers declaring their wish to disavow membership in the Communist Party, the biwa pearl Communist Youth League, or the Young Pioneers, sometimes after their memberships had technically expired. Today, statements representing some 60 million people have been sent to the newspaper, which posts them to an online database. The authenticity of the declarations is impossible to independently verify. Most people sign them using aliases to protect their safety, and there are no provisions to prevent fraudulent postings. But the numbers are really not the point. For those who do send in their statements disavowing the party, the postings offer a rare platform to vent frustrations, discuss ideas, share stories of suffering, or find forgiveness. Many relay tales of personal victimization under the Communist Party. Take, for instance, Ding Weikun, a 74-year-old veteran party member from rural Zhejiang Province. In 2003, his town's government colluded with private developers to seize the land of local farmers. The farmers protested, Mr. Ding wrote, and armed thugs were brought in to suppress them. "I witnessed the killing and injuring of dozens of villagers, on the spot," he noted. The old man tried to pursue justice by appealing to the local government, but he was arrested and sentenced to prison by the very party that he had served for 40 years. While some write of their personal suffering, others speak of their crimes. For them, withdrawing from the party is about seeking absolution. "I have always thought that I was a good man, but looking back I realize that I had gradually lost myself," wrote Xiao Shanbo, a former party member from China's northeastern Liaoning Province. "My mind and heart slowly became corrupted. I declare invalid all the words and deeds I have done in the past. These were decisions that I made out of ignorance due to the lies and propaganda of the [Communist Party]." Mr. Xiao never specifies his crimes, but closes his posting with a plea for forgiveness: "God, please give me this chance! I have gone through much arduous soul-searching, and I intend to change my ways and make up for what I have done." The Communist Party has reacted to the phenomenon with predictable disdain. Terms related to the freshwater pearl jewelry movement are among the most vigorously censored on the Chinese Internet, and at least 71 people have been imprisoned for possessing movement literature or propagating its spread. That means that, if found, the activist who vandalized the bike rack in Jinzhou city will be in serious trouble. The party may have good reason to be anxious. For decades, its power has relied on an ability to censor information, control public memory, and suppress dissenting views. The pearl jewelry statements of participants offer a rare glimpse pearl necklace
and great insight into the sources of discontent in China. The Tuidang movement also shows the manner in which Chinese people understand human rights, civil liberties, and democracy, and how they might reconcile these ideas with a more traditional Confucian worldview.
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| Wednesday, 11-Nov-2009 07:13 |
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The lead image on the Sept
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The lead image on the Sept. 27 edition of the Jinzhou evening newspaper was hardly unusual. In anticipation of the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China, it featured a street lined with enormous pearl jewelry red flags beating in the wind. It would have been nearly indistinguishable from any other Chinese state-run newspaper that day but for one important detail. In the bottom left corner of the photo, scrawled on a bike rack, were eight tiny but clearly visible characters: "Heaven condemns the Communist Party; denounce it and be blessed." Similar writings that dare to challenge the divine mandate of China's rulers appear regularly across China, hanging as banners in city parks, posted on Internet forums, or handwritten on paper bank notes. It is all evidence of a movement that has silently swept the nation. Called Tuidang, which translates simply as "withdraw from the party," the movement encourages people to publicly renounce their membership in Communist organizations. The implications are manifold. This is the first time since the 1980s that China has seen such a akoya pearl large, organized dissident movement – if an underground one. The day after the image ran, the Jinzhou newspaper came under investigation by the government. Its website was shut down, and the paper taken out of circulation. The incident represents a fitting analogy for the state of the Communist Party today. Beneath the pomp and power lie resentment, discontent, and questions. In 60 years of Communist rule, China has endured political and social upheaval that have left deep psychic wounds. But in the country's totalitarian climate, the people have few avenues to openly discuss their country's history or to make peace with their own role in it. Since China has not had its opportunity for truth and reconciliation, its citizens are finding their own ways to do this. Perhaps that explains the extraordinary appeal of the Tuidang movement, which organizers say has more than 60 million participants. It began in late 2004, when New York-based Chinese dissident newspaper DaJiYuan (Epoch Times, affiliated with the spiritual movement Falun Gong) ran a series of polemic editorials detailing the history of the Communist Party in China.They also proclaimed that the country would not truly be free pearl jewelry wholesale or prosperous until it was rid of the party, which, it argued was at odds with China's cultural and spiritual values. Millions of copies of the articles found their way into mainland China through e-mails, faxes, and underground printing houses. Some Chinese readers say the articles finally confirmed what they suspected all along – about the Great Leap Forward, the Tiananmen massacre, the Cultural Revolution. This offered recognition that their memories were wholesale pearl earrings real and their suffering was shared. But despite appearances, this is not a political movement in the conventional sense.
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| Wednesday, 11-Nov-2009 07:07 |
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Democrats and Republicans alike have
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Washington - The proliferation of so-called czars in the Obama White House has led to echoes of outrage on the airwaves and in the House and Senate chambers. A "shadow government," declared one pearl jewelry congressman. "Antidemocratic," asserted another senator. Not since the Russian Revolution of 1917 have "czars" been under such attack. Democrats and Republicans alike have called for hearings, and legislation has even been introduced. The Senate has already held one hearing this month, and another hearing is set for this week in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Before acting, however, Congress should consider a fundamental (and potentially uncomfortable) question: Is Congress to blame for the proliferation of White House czars? "Czar" is an ominous, yet ill-defined term. But, a czar is a nonstatutory presidential assistant who aids the president in overseeing and coordinating a particular policy area. These independent advisers are not Senate-confirmed, not subject to traditional congressional oversight, and rarely testify before Congress based on presidential assertions of executive privilege. These advisers have no legal authority to make decisions, to pearl jewelry direct departments or agencies, or to allocate resources. Unlike cabinet officials, who derive their authorities from statute, czars obtain influence from their relationship with and proximity to the president. So why would a president rely on assistants without authority? Several reasons: A policy may cut across a range of agencies requiring someone in the White House to handle coordination. A president may want someone within earshot to keep him informed about an important issue. Assistants are easy to create and can skirt arduous confirmation hearings, allowing more controversial figures to serve in an administration. Congressional estimates of czars in the Obama administration range between 18 and 34, widely touted as an increase from the past several administrations. But what explains this increase? To answer this, we should look back at 1932 when Congress authorized the president to consolidate executive branch functions and agencies in order to "reduce expenditures and increase efficiency" and to "eliminate … duplication of effort." In practice, this authority allowed the president to transfer disparate functions under a single authority. Without it, the president faced the administrative challenge of trying to coordinate disparate functions operating under equally disparate authorities, an increasingly complex task with the rise of the biwa pearl administrative state. Congress passed a similar law in 1939 called the "Reorganization Act," which again authorized the president to consolidate functions and agencies unless both chambers objected by concurrent resolution within 60 days. Congress later renewed this authority in various forms, substituting a one-house legislative veto in lieu of a concurrent resolution. The pearl jewelry wholesale result? Less than one year after the first two reorganization plans became effective, President Roosevelt concluded that he had already "found the task of coordinating the work of the executive branch less difficult." And over the next five decades, presidents went on to submit over 100 reorganization plans, streamlining the administration of the executive branch. But use of reorganization plans ceased after the Supreme Court held one-house legislative vetoes to be unconstitutional in INS v. Chadha in 1983. The following year Congress amended the Reorganization Act, requiring a joint resolution to void a president's plan. But Congress allowed that authority to expire at the close of President Reagan's first term, and it has never been reauthorized. In the wake of the Reorganization Act's expiration, presidents were left with no standing authority to consolidate akoya pearlakoya pearl functions and agencies within the executive branch. Consequently, coordination became an increasingly complex task. Absent reorganization authority, what was a president to do? The president cannot personally coordinate all disparate functions and agencies in the massive federal government. Yet, if a policy fails because of poor coordination, the president is held to account. So it is no coincidence that as the complexity of government machinery has grown, presidents have responded by increasing the number of assistants or "czars" to help with the management and coordination of the executive branch. The current White House spokesman said as much recently, "Lots of these [czars] are designed to bring many different efforts together and coordinate them in a way that is more structured and more efficient than the governmental work chart might ordinarily allow." As the "czar" issue winds its way through committee rooms on Capitol Hill, Congress should consider the effect that the absence of reorganization authority has had on the number of czars. Passing a new reorganization pearl necklace act, in a constitutional form, may not only reduce the presence of czars, but could also improve the administrative management of the executive branch while giving Congress a voice in the process. Cody M. Brown, author of "The National Security Council: A Legal History of the President's Most Powerful Advisers," and Jeffrey D. Ratner, a former legislative aide to former Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, serve as senior counsel at the Project on National Security Reform.
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| Wednesday, 11-Nov-2009 06:32 |
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we should look back at 1932 when Congress
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Washington - The proliferation of so-called czars in the Obama White House has led to echoes of outrage on the airwaves and in the House and Senate chambers. A "shadow government," declared one congressman. "Antidemocratic," asserted another senator. Not since the Russian Revolution of 1917 have "czars" been under such attack. Democrats and Republicans alike have called for hearings, and legislation has even been introduced. The Senate has freshwater pearl set already held one hearing this month, and another hearing is set for this week in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Before acting, however, Congress should consider a fundamental (and potentially uncomfortable) question: Is Congress to akoya pearl blame for the proliferation of White House czars? "Czar" is an ominous, yet ill-defined term. But, a czar is a nonstatutory presidential assistant who aids the president in overseeing and coordinating a particular policy area. These independent advisers are not Senate-confirmed, not subject to traditional congressional oversight, and rarely testify before Congress based on presidential assertions of executive privilege. These advisers have no legal authority to make decisions, to direct departments or agencies, or to allocate resources. Unlike cabinet officials, who derive their authorities from statute, czars obtain influence from their relationship with and proximity to the president. So why would a president rely on assistants without authority? Several reasons: A policy may cut across a range of agencies requiring someone in the White House to handle coordination. A president may want someone within earshot to keep him informed about an important issue. Assistants are easy to create and can skirt arduous confirmation hearings, allowing more controversial figures to serve in an administration. Congressional estimates of czars in the Obama administration range between 18 and 34, widely touted as an increase from the past several administrations. But what explains this increase? To answer this, we should look back at 1932 when Congress authorized the president to consolidate executive branch functions and agencies in order to "reduce expenditures and increase efficiency" and to "eliminate … duplication of effort." In practice, this authority allowed the president to transfer disparate functions under a single authority. Without it, the president faced the administrative challenge of trying to coordinate disparate functions operating under equally disparate authorities, an increasingly complex task with the rise of the administrative state. Congress passed a similar law in 1939 called the "Reorganization Act," which again authorized the president to consolidate functions and agencies unless both chambers objected by concurrent resolution within 60 days. Congress later renewed this authority in biwa pearl various forms, substituting a one-house legislative veto in lieu of a concurrent resolution. The result? Less than one year after the first two reorganization plans became effective, President Roosevelt concluded that he had already "found the task of coordinating the work of the executive branch less style pearl necklace difficult." And over the next five decades, presidents went on to submit over 100 reorganization plans, streamlining the administration of the executive branch. But use of reorganization plans ceased after the Supreme Court held one-house legislative vetoes to be unconstitutional in INS v. Chadha in 1983. The following year Congress amended the Reorganization Act, requiring a joint resolution to void a president's plan. But Congress allowed that authority to expire at the close of President Reagan's first term, and it has never been reauthorized. In the wake of the Reorganization Act's expiration, presidents were left with no standing authority to consolidate functions and agencies within the executive branch. Consequently, coordination became an increasingly complex task. Absent reorganization authority, what was a president to do? The president cannot personally coordinate all disparate functions and agencies in the massive federal government. Yet, if a policy fails because of poor coordination, the president is held to account. So it is no coincidence that as the complexity of government machinery has grown, presidents have responded by increasing the number of assistants or "czars" to help with the akoya pearl management and coordination of the executive branch. The current White House spokesman said as much recently, "Lots of these [czars] are designed to bring many different efforts together and coordinate them in a way that is more structured and more efficient than the governmental work chart might ordinarily allow." As the "czar" issue winds its way through committee rooms on Capitol Hill, Congress should consider the effect that the absence of reorganization authority pearl pendant necklace has had on the number of czars. Passing a new reorganization act, in a constitutional form, may not only reduce the presence of czars, but could also improve the administrative management of the executive branch while giving Congress a voice in the process. Cody M. Brown, author of "The National Security Council: A Legal History of the President's Most Powerful Advisers," and Jeffrey D. Ratner, a former legislative aide to former Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, serve as senior counsel at the Project on National Security Reform.
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