This article is about the VCR ('Video Cassette Recording') videocassette format from Philips. This should not be confused with the later (and incompatible) VCC format ('Video Compact Cassette', more commonly known as Video 2000). For the generic article covering all videocassette recorders (VCRs), see Videocassette recorder.
Video Cassette Recording (VCR) was an early domestic video format designed by Philips. It was the first successful home videocassette recorder system. Later variants included the VCR-LP and Super Video (SVR) formats.
The VCR format was introduced in 1972, just after the Sony U-matic format in 1971. Although at first glance the two might appear to have been competing formats, they were aimed at very different markets. U-matic was introduced as a professional format, whilst VCR was targeted particularly at educational but also domestic users.
Home video systems had previously been available, but they were open reel systems (most notably made by Sony) and were expensive to both buy and operate. They were also unreliable and often only recorded in black and white. The VCR system was easy to use and recorded in colour but was still expensive: the N1500 recorder cost nearly £600 in the United Kingdom when it was introduced in 1972, the equivalent of more than £4500 today.
The VCR format used large square cassettes with 2 co-axial reels, one on top of the other, containing half inch wide chrome dioxide magnetic tape. Three playing times were available: 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The 60-minute cassettes proved very unreliable, suffering numerous snags and breakages due to the very thin tape. The mechanically complicated recorders themselves also proved somewhat unreliable. One particularly common failing occurred should tape slack develop within the cassette; the tape from the top (takeup) spool may droop into the path of the bottom (supply) spool and become entangled in it if rewind was selected. The cassette would then completely jam and require dismantling to clear the problem, and the tape would then be creased and damaged.
The system predated the development of the slant azimuth technique to prevent crosstalk between adjacent video tracks, so had to use an unrecorded guard band between tracks. This required the system to run at a high tape speed of around 11.5 inches per second.
Despite its limitations, the Philips VCR system was groundbreaking and brought together many advances in video recording technology to produce the first truly practical home video cassette system.

Model Numbers
In the late 1970s, the VCR formats were superseded altogether by Video 2000 (also known as 'Video Compact Cassette' or VCC). Due to the similar initialisms, and the fact that both were designed by Philips, the 'VCC' and 'VCR' formats are often confused. However, the two systems are incompatible, and there are significant differences between them. Some Video 2000 machines carry the same "VCR" logo as N1500 and N1700 machines, adding further to this confusion.

Sursum Corda Cooperative is a small neighborhood located in Washington, D.C., bounded by North Capitol Street on the east, First Street NW to the west, K Street NW to the south, and New York Avenue NW to the north. It consists of 199 housing units constructed as an experiment in cooperatively managed low-income housing in 1968. Managed by the District of Columbia Housing Authority, it became a notorious open air drug market plagued by violence and poverty in the 1980s. In 2005 the District of Columbia offered to purchase the complex as part of its "New Communities" plan for neighborhood rehabilitation.

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (April 17, 1854 – June 22, 1939) was the leading proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century.

The Four Monopolies
Tucker did not have a utopian vision of anarchy where individuals would not coerce others.

Private Defense
Tucker's periodical also served as the main conduit of Stirnerite Egoism, of which Tucker became a proponent. This led to a split in American Individualism between the growing number of Egoists and the contemporary Spoonerian "Natural Lawyers". Both Egoists and Natural Law theorists rejected coercive authority, involuntary legislation, and the notion of a "social contract." However, they differed over the philosophical basis for their individualism: Natural Law theory derived it from a conception of a natural individual right to be free from coercion, whereas Egoism defended anarchism as a pragmatic compromise in a system where each individual sought only self-interest and where nothing was immoral. As a result of Tucker's egoist foundation, he began to favor consequentialism over deontological rules. For example, he believed that aggressing against other was justifiable if doing so led to a greater decrease in "aggregate pain" than refraining from doing so. He said:
the ultimate end of human endeavor is the minimum of pain. We aim to decrease invasion only because, as a rule, invasion increases the total of pain (meaning, of course, pain suffered by the ego, whether directly or through sympathy with others). But it is precisely my contention that this rule, despite the immense importance which I place upon it, is not absolute; that, on the contrary, there are exceptional cases where invasion--that is, coercion of the non-invasive--lessens the aggregate pain. Therefore coercion of the non-invasive, when justifiable at all, is to be justified on the ground that it secures, not a minimum of invasion, but a minimum of pain. . . . [T]o me [it is] axiomatic--that the ultimate end is the minimum of pain

Conversion to Egoist individualist anarchism
In 1908, a fire destroyed Tucker's uninsured printing equipment and his 30-year stock of books and pamphlets. Tucker's lover, Pearl Johnson — 25 years his junior — was pregnant with their daughter, Oriole Tucker. Six weeks after Oriole's birth, Tucker closed both Liberty and the book shop and retired with his family to France. In 1913, he came out of retirement for two years to contribute articles and letters to The New Freewoman which he called "the most important publication in existence."
Late in life, Tucker became much more pessimistic about the prospects for anarchism. In 1926, Vanguard Press published a selection of his writings entitled Individual Liberty, in which Tucker added a postscript to "State Socialism and Anarchism", which stated "Forty years ago, when the foregoing essay was written, the denial of competition had not yet effected the enormous concentration of wealth that now so gravely threatens social order. It was not yet too late to stem the current of accumulation by a reversal of the policy of monopoly. The Anarchistic remedy was still applicable." But, Tucker argued, "Today the way is not so clear. The four monopolies, unhindered, have made possible the modern development of the trust, and the trust is now a monster which I fear, even the freest banking, could it be instituted, would be unable to destroy. ... If this be true, then monopoly, which can be controlled permanently only for economic forces, has passed for the moment beyond their reach, and must be grappled with for a time solely by forces political or revolutionary. Until measures of forcible confiscation, through the State or in defiance of it, shall have abolished the concentrations that monopoly has created, the economic solution proposed by Anarchism and outlined in the forgoing pages – and there is no other solution – will remain a thing to be taught to the rising generation, that conditions may be favorable to its application after the great leveling. But education is a slow process, and may not come too quickly. Anarchists who endeavor to hasten it by joining in the propaganda of State Socialism or revolution make a sad mistake indeed. They help to so force the march of events that the people will not have time to find out, by the study of their experience, that their troubles have been due to the rejection of competition."
In private correspondence, he wrote: "Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism"

Late life
Born April 17, 1854 in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
August 1881 to April 1908 — published the periodical, Liberty, "widely considered to be the finest individualist-anarchist periodical ever issued in the English language."

1872 — While a student at M.I.T., Tucker attended a convention of the New England Labor Reform League in Boston, chaired by William B. Greene, author of Mutual Banking (1850). At the convention, Tucker purchased Mutual Banking, True Civilization, and a set of Ezra Heywood's pamphlets. Furthermore, Free-love anarchist, Ezra Heywood introduced Tucker to William B. Greene and Josiah Warren, author of True Civilization (1869). He also started a relationship with Victoria Woodhull at this time, lasting for 3 years.
1876 — Tucker's debut into radical circles: Heywood published Tucker's English translation of Proudhon's classic work What is Property?.
1877-1878 — Published his original journal, Radical Review, which lasted four issues.
1892 — moved Liberty from Boston to New York
1906 — Opened Tucker's Unique Book Shop in New York City — promoting "Egoism in Philosophy, Anarchism in Politics, Iconoclasm in Art".
1908 — A fire destroyed Tucker's uninsured printing equipment and his 30-year stock of books and pamphlets. Tucker's lover, Pearl Johnson — 25 years his junior — was pregnant with their daughter, Oriole Tucker. Six weeks after Oriole's birth, Tucker closed both Liberty and the book shop and moved his family to France.
1913 — Tucker comes out of retirement for two years to contribute articles and letters to The New Freewoman which he called "the most important publication in existence"
1939 — Tucker died in Monaco, in the company of his lover Pearl Johnson and their daughter, Oriole, who reported, "Father's attitude towards communism never changed one whit, nor about religion.... In his last months he called in the French housekeeper. 'I want her,' he said, 'to be a witness that on my death bed I'm not recanting. I do not believe in God!" See also

Instead of a Book, by a Man Too Busy to Write One (1893, 1897)
Travelling in Liberty: a complete online archive of Tucker's journal Liberty (1881–1908)
Several works by Tucker at Anarchy Archives

The election of William Linn as Chaplain of the House on May 1, 1789, continued the tradition established by the Continental Congresses of each day's proceedings opening with a prayer by a chaplain. The early Chaplains alternated duties with their Senate counterparts on a weekly basis. The two conducted Sunday services for the Washington community in the House chamber every other week.
In addition to opening proceedings with prayer, the Chaplain provides pastoral counseling to the House community, coordinates the scheduling of guest chaplains, and arranges memorial services for the House and its staff. In the past, Chaplains have performed marriage and funeral ceremonies for House members.

From 1855 to 1861 the local clergy in the District of Columbia conducted the opening prayer. Thereafter, the House has elected a Chaplain at the beginning of each Congress.

The goal of widening participation in higher education is a major component of government education policy in the United Kingdom. It consists of an attempt to increase not only the numbers of young people entering higher education, but also the proportion from so-called "under-represented groups" (those from lower income families, people with disabilities and some ethnic minorities).
In this way it is hoped to redress the inequalities in participation between social classes. Widening participation is one of the strategic objectives of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The issue of widening participation became a political hot topic after the Laura Spence Affair which hit the headlines in 2000. HEFCE is pursuing this policy through a number of measures, including the payment of financial incentives to universities, and by funding the Aimhigher programme.
This policy is linked to the Labour government's target of increasing participation in higher education to 50% by 2010, and is part of a wider drive to achieve social justice.
Action on Access is the National Co-ordination Team for HEFCE's Widening Participation Activities. Based at Edge Hill University in the North West of England, Action on Access provides an invaluable resource for widening participation practitioners in Higher Education Institutions and partnerships.

Nobunari Oda (Japanese: 織田 信成) (born on March 25, 1987) is a Japanese figure skater. He is the 2005 World Junior Champion.

Career

Civic Holiday is the name given to the public holiday declared by the provincial government in Ontario.
The holiday may be known by a variety of names in different municipalities, including Simcoe Day in Toronto and Colonel By Day in Ottawa. "Civic Holiday" is the only name that is universally recognized by all Ontarians.
The August holiday falls on the first Monday in August. It is generally a low-key celebration of John Graves Simcoe, who was the first Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario (which was then known as Upper Canada).