Free Online Home School Resources For Young Minds

Children between four to six years of age are referred to as kindergarten and preschoolers. During this stage of development, children learn and absorb information quickly. In fact this is the time when your child loves to explore the world around her. They enjoy communicating their interest and attraction in every new discovery. Notice a kid that sees the rainbow in the sky for the first time. Notice how her expression changes. Since this is something new to her, she easily gets fascinated by the wonderful colors of the rainbow. What parents can do is to encourage the child to express her feelings. Talk to the child in a normal manner. Explain to the child the wonderful thing that she sees in a simple and understandable manner. That is actually how parents should teach their children. Introduce the world to the child slowly so that the child would better appreciate the world they are living in.Homeschooling Education for Preschool and Kindergarten Homeschooling education has been accepted and adapted by many families across the globe. Our home is actually a good training ground to start teaching kids principles that they will certainly use in life. Parents choose to teach their young child at home because they believe that with homeschool programs, they can supervise their child better.The good thing about homeschooling education, the curriculum focuses on the individual learning Rosetta Stone Greek needs of a child. The good thing about home school curriculum is the flexibility of the schedule. It allows the child to spend more time with their family. Furthermore, in homeschooling curriculum, basic principles and foundation are being taught to a child in a fun and loving manner.Free Online Home School Resources At home, there are many ways to teach a young child. Parents should bear in mind that kindergarten is an enjoyable time. It should be an unforgettable time for both parent and the child. They may use education resources at home which include text books or activity books, coloring materials, clay, colorful paper and many more. Nevertheless, since parents are becoming more innovative and creative in teaching their preschooler, they can use a wide array of home school resources from various websites that offers homeschool curriculum. These online educational activity worksheets and kindergarten programs are specifically designed to help parents impart knowledge and skills to their children.The following are the core values found in Preschool Home school Resources:- Communication skills - which includes learning the ABC's, sign language, talking and listening development - Knowledge and basic concept of the world - Creativity : Colors and Drawings - Simple Mathematics : Counting and Shapes - Physical development : Exercise and Games - Self-help skills : Learning the basic how to's like dressing, eating and bathing - Children Bible Books : Stories about Creation, Jesus' miracles, salvation In summary, there are lots of enjoyable web pages that provide remarkable learning activity ideas appropriate for young children. On the other hand, parents should not limit their teachings and depend only with online education resources. In teaching young minds, parents should be creative and innovative. It is a God-given responsibility that they attend to the physical, intellectual and spiritual needs of their children. For parents, do not over stress yourselves; make the learning enjoyable for you and your kids!

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The most important thing is being consistent

This way they aren't waiting for mom to start. By having their calendar they know where they are at, if they have things that need to be caught up or if they have missed anything. This is always checked at the end of the school day by mom/teacher.This also helps the child to be self directed when they get in the routine or when they get older.Home/School Organization:Designate an area for school. This can be as simple as a table set up in some room in the house. This helps them to focus and "separates" them from just being at home and feeling free to do what they want. It also keeps everything {supplies and books} in one spot. There is no searching to find it. When school is over it is easy to pick up and put away. Keeping the house organized keeps the mom/teacher from leaving the room during school to 'deal' with another area. Clutter can distract the mom/teacher, and that distracts the children. Becky finds when she leaves the room there is a bit of whispering and chatter being done. You know how it is in public scho...when the teacher leaves the room for the first 30 seconds there is silence and then they start to whisper and chatter when there is no teacher present.In the evening, doing a quick pick up throughout the home helps the next day to be distraction free. Don't do it alone, unless you really want to, teach your family to help."Being home with the kids all day long does Rosetta Stone Software bring in a more 'used' home. There are more dishes, more wear on the floors, spills, crumbs, and projects. Assigning chores to be completed before play time is helpful. Keep the chores brief and age appropriate. The chore could also be printed on their school list so they are aware of what needs to be done that day.Make the children responsible for cleaning up their school area. Homeschooling can be a joy, but it can also bring a cluttered home! The most important thing is being consistent. Know the conditions that you expect your home to be in and prepare for it. Allow the children to participate in helping you keep it up. It can sometimes become a little overwhelming, but that usually comes because of lack of organizing. When you aren't prepared, can't find what you need, and feel like there is a mess everywhere it distracts from homeschooling. Keeping on top of these things is key".--- Becky Jorgenson, Mother who home schools four children ages 7 through 14.If something isn't working for you then try something different. Experiment with different solutions---be flexible. This will help you and your children have a happy and successful home schooling experience.Marilyn Bohn is the owner of Get it Together Organizing, a business dedicated to developing practical organizing solutions that help individuals and business professionals live clutter-free and productive lives. She is the author of "Go Organize!

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Making the Decision to Home School

More and more parents are pulling their children from public and private schools to educate them themselves. The reasons vary from religious values to being tired of over crowded public school system that is trying to produce cookie cutter results. The reasons are as varied as the families. For many this seemingly daunting task becomes an epiphany of self education as well. It is a life long journey of self discovery, adventure and pure joy as you watch your children blossom and develop. There are as many styles of home schooling as their families that are doing it. Many choose a traditional, classic way of teaching their children. Purchasing and or creating curriculum and setting schedules and dead lines. There are subject experts that many will use as an example to set up their educational program such Charlotte Mason. Many have chosen a realatively new method referred to as unschooling. This is a living aproach to educating your child(ren). Using their environment and world around them as the classroom. This is more of a lifestyle that allows children to explore and absorb knowledge naturally. Whatever the reason or method the growing number causes Rosetta Stone some concerns for the public school system. While some states make it realatively easy to home schools others fear releasing the education of children to their parents. One of the many arguments for homeschooling is that parents know their children better than their teachers and other education professional do. Parents can created a positive learning environment with one on one education and personalized curriculums. Colleges and universities are accomadating these larger numbers of home schoolers, realizing that many may not have sat for standard testing that they require. Children who have been home schooled tend to excel in higher education more so than children who have been through the public school system. Their education has been broader and they do not feel the need to treat college as an escape. They value their education as it has been part of their life as a whole, not just a portion of their day spent away from family and rushing from class to class.Families sometimes struggle with the decision to home school. They worry about their children learning the "right" things and socialization. Children are natural learners, every thing is new for them, and each child learns differently. Home schooling provides the atmosphere and tools for life long learning skills. Socialization does not have to be limited to a classroom of their peers.

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Home Schooling Advantages Vs. Disadvantages

Home schooling is an option that is becoming more attractive to parents as time goes on. Schools have become increasingly unstable over the past couple of decades. Children roam the hallways unchecked, textbooks are outdated, violence is prevalent, children are bullied mercilessly, and the quality of education on the whole has greatly diminished.What options do parents have to combat this downward spiral? Initially, private school was thought to be the answer. As enrollment in private schools soared many parents failed to see a difference between public and private schools. The problems were still the same.The option of home schooling has been around for a long time; however, until recently it had not been so popular. The idea of home schooling seems like a cure-all to many parents due to the advantages this type of education provides over traditional schools. Children who are home schooled can avoid many of the problems schools have become known for. For one, the environment is less threatening. Children can learn without fearing other students, aggressive or nasty teachers, and be under the constant supervision of parents. In addition, home schooling allows parents to dictate the academic course of their children. Home schooling also allows students to proceed at their own speed. If a child is weak at multiplication and division, a parent can focus lessons on those skills in favor Rosetta Stone Spanish Spain of another skill that the child might grasp rather easily.Home schooling is also advantageous because it keeps children away from other students that may be corruptive forces. There are many students in school who do not value learning. This is not any fault of the schools; however, it is still a painful reality. These students can lead to the destruction of a stable learning environment. Home schooling keeps children focused on learning and not on avoiding social pressures.It may sound like the perfect option, but there are many disadvantages of home schooling. First of all, home schooled children are usually less socialized. While schools can sometimes be the breeding ground for poor social behaviors, school is also a place where students learn to interact with others and build social skills. It seems a bit like a catch 22.In addition, another drawback to home schooling could be implementation of an educational plan. Many parents are not qualified as teachers and may not understand what is necessary to ensure a child has access to the proper curriculum.Finally, another disadvantage to home schooling is the necessity for parents to take full responsibility for their child's education. If you choose to home school your child there is no one for you to blame if your child does poorly. The responsibility falls completely on the parent.There are many advantages and disadvantages to home schooling. Before you begin a home schooling plan make sure you have evaluated your ability to properly instruct your child and provide a quality learning experience. If you do not think you can handle it, you might as well send your child to school but become more involved with his or her education.

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Qantas plans bio-fuel flight

Click to play video Return to video Video feedback Use this form to: Ask for technichal assistance in playing the multimedia available on this site, or Provide feedback to the multimedia producers. Return to video Video feedback Thank you. Your feedback was successfully sent. Video will begin in 5 seconds. Don't play Play now More video Recommended Click to play video The week ahead with Michael Pascoe Click to play video Cocaine seized in Queensland raid Click to play video Reporters look inside Fukushima nuclear plant Click to play video Obama visit sparks huge security operation Replay video Return to video Video settings What type of connection do you have? Return to video Video settings Your video format settings have been saved. Qantas workers march on terminal Qantas workers and their families march on Brisbane airport protesting against plans to move Australian jobs offshore: RAW VISION. Video feedback Video settings Qantas will run Australia's first commercial flight powered by sustainable fuel, CEO Alan Joyce has told an aviation conference in Brisbane today. "In early 2012, Qantas plans to operate a commercial flight powered by sustainable fuel," Mr Joyce said. "This is by no means the first bio-fuel flight, but it will be first flight of its kind in Australia." Advertisement: Story continues below Qantas is looking to a more environmentally friendly future. This year, Qantas signed agreements with two leading manufacturers of sustainable aircraft fuel. Solazyme is working with algae-based aviation fuels and Solena is experimenting with water-based fuels. "We want the flight to be an inspiration, a preview of a sustainable future for Australian aviation," Mr Joyce said. "This country certainly has the human capital, the finance and the resources to be a global leader in bringing new kinds of aviation fuel to market." In his keynote address to the Australian Airports Association Conference in Brisbane this morning, Mr Joyce said Qantas was improving fuel efficiency by 1.5 per cent each year. "Through a strategy that includes Rosetta Stone Language fleet renewal, new technology, fuel optimisation, and reducing resources," he said. "While these initiatives can achieve significant improvements, only the production of sustainable aviation fuel on a commercial basis can deliver a generational step in emissions reduction." In July this year, Virgin boss Richard Branson also told conference delegates in Brisbane that Virgin was exploring the use of eucalyptus oil from gum trees as an aviation fuel. Virgin's plans to have an Australian-based testing facility in place in 2013 and a "commercial" scale production facility in place by 2014. Mr Joyce's visit today to Brisbane coincided with a protest at the city's airport by Qantas workers concerned about airline's push to use contract workers. Australia's top labour tribunal, Fair Work Australia, has ordered the airline to reach an agreement with unions representing its long-haul pilots, licensed aircraft engineers, baggage handlers and catering staff. Following months of negotiations and employee industrial action, the labour dispute climaxed on October 29, when Qantas announced it would lock out workers and ground its fleet. The federal government called on Fair Work Australia to step in, which terminated workers' industrial action. The federal government supported the decision. The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association last week launched a challenge in the Federal Court against the ban, but Mr Joyce is confident they won't win. "I'm not losing any sleep," he said. "I think the government have made themselves very clear that the pilot action, they don't believe, is going to get through. "The government believes that their case is robust, that the pilots' action isn't going to make any difference."

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This process encouraged the return of kangaroos

Warrnambool Trout Farm Further along Wollaston Rd is Warrnambool Trout Farm which suppliesall necessary equipment for fishing. Fish feeding, smoked trout,pate, yabby sales (seasonal), barbecue facilities and a functionroom are available. They are open weekends and public holidays andevery day during school holidays from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Groupbookings are available after hours by appointment, (019) 943396 or, after hours, (03) 5562 7772. Cheese world, Allans ford Head east along the highway for 12 km then turn right onto the Great Ocean Road and it is 2 km to Cheeseworld which features acheese and wine cellar and restaurant. There is also an his to ricaldisplay and souvenir sales. It is open weekdays from 8.30 a.m. to6.00 p.m., Saturday from 8.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. and Sunday from10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m., (03) 5563 2127. Cheese world is located at Allansford, established as a privatetown by the Allan family who built a Presbyterian church and a piseschool house which is still in use. Dairying developed late in the19th century and the town's dairy coop was one of the state'sfirst. Cudgee Creek Wildlife Park16 km east of the Warrnambool CBD, via the Princes Highway, is asignposted turnoff on the left to Cudgee. If you take this turnoff,cross the railway line then take the first left (signposted) itleads to Cudgee Creek Wildlife Park, a sevenacre property which ishome to deer, wallabies, kangaroos, emus, monkeys, crocodiles and awalkthrough bird aviary. It is possible to feed the animals and there are free gas barbecues. Cudgee Creek is open daily from 10.00a.m. to 5.00 p.m. in December and January and from Tuesday to Sunday for the rest of the year, (03) 5567 6260. Tower Hill State Game Reserve Tower Hill State Game Reserve (614 ha) is situated in the crater ofan extinct volcano which formed thousands of years ago when aviolent eruption created the funnelshaped crater which was laterfilled by the lake with its various small islets. Aboriginal relicsfound in volcanic ash indicate Aboriginal occupation from the time when the volcano was still active. The first known Europeans tosight the hill were the party of Captain Baudin in 1802. By 1860 the original charm and integrity of the crater haddisappeared as European settlers cleared the Rosetta Stone American English land and started tograze cattle. However, five yearsearlier, the painter Eugene VonGuerard had painted Tower Hill without its desecration and thispainting was so accurate that in 1961 a regeneration program wasstarted using Von Guerard'spainting as a model. Today Von Guerard's painting is housed in the Warrnambool Regional Art Gallery. This process encouraged the return of kangaroos, many koalas, wombats,sugar gliders, possums, echidnae, numerous waterbirds (including Cape Barren geese, musk ducks, spoonbills and chestnut teals) andsome very bold emus which enjoy the picnic area (feeding isstrictly prohibited). It is located 15 km west of Warrnambool adjacent the Princes Highway. Access is via a sealed scenic oneway road which leads off the highway and past a lookout area before it proceeds over a landbridge to the main body of land which is virtually surrounded by Tower Hill Lake. It continues on past a picnic area with toiletsand barbecue facilities and the Natural History Centre whichoutlines the geology and history of Tower Hill. Rangers areoccasionally available to help with enquiries. Guided tours(nocturnal and diurnal) can be booked. The centre is open dailyfrom 9.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., (03) 5565 9202. The picnic area is the starting point for the Lava Tongue Boardwalk a 30minute wetland walk which leads to a bird hide anda second boardwalk. It also connects with the Whurrong Loop Track(one hour) which focuses on Aboriginal foods. The picnic area isalso the start of the Hat Island Habitat Loop Track (a revegetationwalk of 45 minutes), the Journey to the Last Volcano (a geologicalwalk of one hour) and the Peak Climb (for orientation andgeological purposes).

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We'd just chuck ideas around and he'd pick the best bits

Aboriginal singersongwriter Kev Carmody met Kelly at a Sydneyland rights concert in the late 1980s and they ended up writingFrom Little Things Big Things Grow, about the Gurindjipeople's eightyear struggle for land, around a campfire. "Hedoesn't beat you over the head with (his political views)," says Carmody, whose 2007 tribute album Cannot Buy My Soul wasproduced by Kelly. "He says, 'This is the reality I see.' He hadthat great ability and compassion and sensitivity to look overindigenous progress over 219 years and say, 'This is what Iperceive.'" A sense of social justice must run in the family: after Kelly's father died, his mother helped set up a social welfareorganisation in Brisbane's south, where she moved in the sister Anne has done aid work in East Timor and Uganda; andbrothers Tony and Martin have worked with Brisbane street kids. Although Kelly describes himself as "welloff" these days, he'sanything but flashy: he wears a black plastic Swatch and drives adented 2001 Toyota Camry; after lunch, he asks the waiter to puthis leftover pizza in a doggy bag. He didn't start making a livingfrom his music until the release of Gossip, and then the 1987 followup, Under the Sun, produced the hit singlesDumb Things and To Her Door. Since then he has solidified his reputation with a string ofalbums (22, including soundtracks) branching out into bluegrass andexperimenting with reggae and RB. He has dabbled in acting andwritten film scores, winning ARIA awards for the soundtracks of Lantana and Jindabyne, and continued to produceand compose for other Australian artists, including Renee Geyer,Archie Roach and Christine Anu. Collaboration, he says, keeps him from going stale. "I think awriter's eternal problem is not to repeat themselves becauseeveryone has their own ruts or grooves," he says. "I remembersometimes writing songs with the Messengers and one of the bandwould say, and meaning it as a compliment, 'Oh, that one's straightfrom the factory.' You could spend the rest of your life writingsongs straight from the Rosetta Stone factory but that's just too deadly. Writingwith these other people is making yourself write in new ways and,if it works, you end up coming up with something that neither of you could have done on your own ... That's religion; who needs God?" The cowriting process, says Linda Bull, begins with lunch and achat around the kitchen table: "We'd just chuck ideas around andhe'd pick the best bits. He'd take all the bluntness and crudenessout of it and make it beautiful; that's his magic ... It'sconversations that you have everyday. That's why I think his songs are so popular: everyone knows what he means." Fans sometimes approach him after shows and seriouslyask him how he knew their story. "You know a song's working," says Kelly, "when people feel that it belongs to them like that." Kelly started out as a work colleague, says Bull, but over the years has proven to be a true friend. When her daughter wasseriously ill in hospital, he was the only one in the musicindustry who called. "He just picked up the phone; it was verytelling," she says. "He called me because he was worried, and hecalled every single day to find out how she was ... That was abeautiful thing to do. He's a father. He understands." Kelly has tried to keep his children out of the spotlight, butthe proud dad can't help giving his DJ son, Declan, a plug: the 26 yearold sound designer (whose mother is Kelly's first wife,Hilary Brown) has a Triple R radio show on Sunday nights, he says,called Against the Arctic. His daughters, Madeleine, 15, and Memphis, 13, live with their mother, Kelly's second wife, Kaarin Fairfax, but he sees them on weekends. "We're all still friends,"he says of his former wives.

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We know what the problem is

The first people (nine Sri Lankans) to be forcibly removed since Labor came to power are about to be flown home. The Government hopes this will send a message, but given the small number it is a muted one. The Opposition says the Government's policy changes have sent the wrong signals and encouraged the flow. Malcolm Turnbull this week declared arrivals were ''going through the roof''. He is calling for an inquiry, but Evans says: ''What is an inquiry going to achieve? We know what the problem is.'' Evans points out the Government has boosted resources in the budget, is working with the Indonesians and Malaysians to stop people setting out, and is engaging with the Sri Lankan government. ''This is a longterm challenge that every industrialised country is dealing with,'' he says. ''We will consider and are considering any other policy initiatives. We're open to new measures that help address the problem. If we need to put more resources in we will but I don't think resources is the issue at the moment,'' he told The Age, but declined to go into detail of what more might be done. For the Government, the unnerving reality is that there do not really seem to be many options other than jawboning and returning those who don't meet the refugee criteria without going back on aspects of its reforms. Evans concedes the ''Pacific Solution'' had some deterrence value but (fortunately) that's out for good. David Manne, coordinator of the Refugee and Immigration Centre in Melbourne, argues the numbers remain very small and ''any sense of panic is unjustified''. Manne strongly contests Joyce's interpretation Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) of what he saw. ''What someone wears or their relative wealth is completely irrelevant,'' he says. ''It is important the Government doesn't go weak at the knees and compromise protection for refugees. That's the real risk.'' Manne would like to see the Government move in the opposite direction, reversing the Howard excision of Christmas Island (and other islands), which denied asylum seekers access to full Australian legal rights. That's not going to happen. But with Christmas Island near to bursting, the Government expects to have to put people in accommodation in Darwin. It can do this while still confining their legal rights by sending them via Christmas Island. If significant numbers have to be partprocessed on the mainland, the political heat will probably rise. Is the issue at risk of returning to the divisive, destructive debate of earlier years? Evans says: ''It's slightly different this time. The Government is not seeking to promote fear.'' But ''I don't underestimate the political potency of a large number of arrivals''. People want the boats stopped, Evans says, although ''I don't think they want to return to the situation of (asylum seekers) languishing in camps for a long time, children behind razor wire''. Even though we're unlikely to see a repeat of the worst of the old debate, the issue could turn nasty. The surges of boat people Australia gets from time to time are less an objective test, because they are still comparatively modest, but a political one. Let's hope lessons have been learnt, one of which is the need to keep things in proportion. Michelle Grattan is political editor.

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A health spa that's top of the drops

Amy Cooper prefers her algae to come with a glass of wine. I'VE always been a spa commitmentphobe. Anything longer than aday treatment is too daunting. Tried it once, got caught with abottle of wine behind a tree on the second day, was made an exampleof by an angry naturopath and that was that. The French think similarly, so they tend to combine their spaswith luxury hotels. This way, you can detox within your comfortzone, knowing the safety of your room and the wine list are closeby. Meanwhile, everyone on the outside believes you're suffering ina fulltime health farm. Genius. Advertisement: Story continues below At the Sebel Resort and Spa in Windsor, the reassuring bulk ofthe 41/2star hotel snuggles close to the pretty, colonnaded VillaThalgo, home to a host of Thalgo French hydrotherapy treatments.The villa was Australia's first purposebuilt day spa and you cantreat yourself to as much time as you like there while staying inthe hotel. I'm shown to a balcony suite overlooking the spa entrance, andfrom here I can watch the stressed, scrunchedup new arrivals enterthe spa below before floating out again later. Right now, I preferto enjoy the peace and privacy of the room, a generous space (about 47 square metres) full of reclining options: big, multipillowedbed; sofa with squishy cushions; leather armchair in a corner justmade for curling up with a book. There's a writing desk, too, but I won't be using that asenthusiastically as the spa in the en suite bathroom. The view is an expanse of green rural idyll part fields, partgolf course stretching into the distance. I'm only an hour out of Sydney, but feel much further away. The Hawkesbury region, with its historical villages, picturesquecountryside (70 per cent of it is national park) and five rivers isan antidote to big city malaise. The Sebel itself, beside Rosetta Stone Spanish (Spain) Windsorin the valley's south, has sanctuaries aplenty shady trees,pretty courtyards, a lake with secluded benches around it and ofcourse, Villa Thalgo. I'm booked in for a body scrub and marine algae wrap and firsttake a dip in the villa's generous pool. There's another pool withsix hydrotherapy exercise stations. You stand chesthigh in water,grip the handrails, press a button and jets pummel you all over.This is called an "analytic pool", which makes me feel a bit like alab sample, but that's the language of French spas. Here, staffwear white coats and rooms have intriguing names on the doors:Blitz hose room, Hydrobath, Rain massage. Not that it isn't decadent. Jessica, my therapist, explains thebody scrub feels particularly good because the beads are roundedfor extra comfort. Towels are huge and impossibly soft, and the affusion showerwith which I rinse off the scrub is an eightjet, toptotoedelight. Next, Jessica mixes up marine algae from powder into warm goo.This isn't a cosmetic, chemically created "marine" fragrance it'sthe salty, seaweedy real deal, almost overpowering. I'm smotheredin it and wrapped in foil so the algae's detoxifying properties canbegin their work. Twenty minutes later, I step into the affusionshower again and rinse off my dark green coating. Underneath is ashinier, smoother me. Then it's time to boost my healthy glow in the hotel's HarvestRestaurant. The wine list has plenty of delicate drops tocomplement a newly cleansed system, and the menu's hearty dishesmake good use of fresh local produce. Once I'm up in my room only the odd peal of laughter from belowdents the peace. The combined effects of pinot and algae kick insurprisingly early and I have no trouble sinking into a deep,delicious sleep.

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Light came dappled through the overhanging trees

These displays of medieval pageantry are taken extremely seriously by skilled riders; areas slightly further afield, such as the Camargue and Pau, are famed for their equestrian excellence. My most recent visit to Carcassonne is in spring and everything is stirring: the fresh leaves on the trees; the tender, curling grapevines; the residents springcleaning their shops and restaurants in preparation for the summer invasion. No one yet has frayed tempers and the bus driver who takes me and other passengers from Carcassonne's Salvaza Airport to the old monastery where I'm staying chats goodnaturedly the whole way, making sure I know exactly where I'm headed when I get off. Later that day, trying to catch another bus to a nearby wildlife park, Le Parc Australien (see story opposite), and discovering that I have inadvertently discarded my allday travel ticket, the same airport bus driver happens to pull up in his bus. He vouches for me; the new driver lets me on without a ticket and I am on my way. That's the kind of place Carcassonne is: small, friendly, with bus and taxi drivers who like to stop and chat. The taxi driver who drives me back from Le Parc Australien has moved here from Paris because it is a happier place to live. He admits there are poor employment prospects for the town's young people and problems with strikes in the French education system but Carcassonne has good food, good people and good weather. That evening, the sun still hot at seven o'clock, I sit beneath the plane trees and have a pastis in Place Carnot, the square of Carcassonne. The lively centre of the Bastide SaintLouis (the "new" part from the 19th century), Place Carnot has dozens of cafes and bars and wonderful thriceweekly food markets. Traffic is restricted in the square (although Carcassonne's youth enjoy nothing better than whizzing around the surrounding streets on those flybuzzing scooters famous throughout France, Italy and Greece for annoying the elderly). Families are out with their children; young lovers canoodle and longmarried couples drink aperitifs in Rosetta Stone Software companionable silence. The Bar Felix might be supposed to be a tourist trap but I find it full of locals, les vrais francais. Just weeks before, when spring was still trembling on the lip of winter, I had stayed with my family in a beautifully renovated baker's shop that is now a gite, in a tiny village named Plaigne, not far from Carcassonne. This part of Languedoc looks not unlike Tuscany, with burnt sienna colours, vineyards and darkgreen pines. The first asparagus of the season were out, fat, creamylooking, and every day we ate some with meals, with ripe cheese and fruity wines almost as cheap as bottled water. We hired a boat and puttered down the Canal du Midi, the famed canal built in the 17th century to link the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. Light came dappled through the overhanging trees, the sun not yet strong enough to wish to hide from it. On other days, we climbed to the hearts of ruined Cathar castles or went to fetes, once arriving in time to watch a parade of local tractors, some from the early years of last century. No one but a few scattered Britons who have retired here spoke English. One local Englishwoman helped me out, in flawless French, when I was talking to the butcher in Belpech, who was explaining some complicated arrangements for tickets to the fete. It was right out of a Balzac short story, perhaps one about a local butcher who knows everything, who is the point at which a gossipy village meets a butcher who is passionate about meat, cradling each carefully cut portion as gently as he might a newborn child. But now I am in Carcassonne sans famille and, after deciding against a second pastis, I wander back from the Place Carnot, across the beautiful stonearched Pont Vieux bridge and down through the cobbled medieval streets of the Quartier Barbacane, where I'm staying.

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Climate Change

Doubts over modelling and emissions trading schemes are justified. PreCopenhagen, the global warming debate had been captured by prophets of doom and the language of apocalypse. This was particularly offputting in a discussion that depends on highquality science, cool logic, and careful argument. It raises old suspicions. The West has already experienced theories of impending environmental disaster with the Club of Rome launching a successful scare campaign in the 1970s about the world running out of food. Its book, Limits to Growth, sold 30 million copies. Hardly a decade had passed before its predictions were proved wrong. Of course, the objective case for global warming is separate from the manner in which some of its proponents have publicised it. And, it should be judged on its own merits. Nevertheless, I must confess to being wary of causes that attract pseudoreligious enthusiasm and intellectual fanaticism. Advertisement: Story continues below Current predictions of global warming and its longterm effects depend on computergenerated mathematical models. There are two major problems with such models. First, their relationship to reality is compromised by the simplifying assumptions they have to make in order to reduce the number of variables they can take into account to a workable number. In economics this means they are next to useless for longterm prophecy. We are confronted every day with how poor economic commentators are at prediction. If this is true in the domain of economics, how much more the case is it for climate, where the potential variables are vastly greater? The second problem with mathematical models is that they assume current factors will continue as they aremajor ones will stay major, minor ones minor, and no significant new ones will emerge. History is a story of the rise of the unexpected. Having said this, some predictions are better than others. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report projects greenhouse gas emissions. In the limited case of Rosetta Stone Spanish Latin carbon dioxide over the next two decades, there is some plausibility to the predictions given current dependence on coalfired power stations and the long development times needed to switch modes of electricity generation. However, when it comes to linking emissions to rising world temperatures, the models become fanciful. The New York Times, hardly an enclave of climate scepticism, featured an article on September 23, 2009, which admitted that global temperatures have been stable for the past decade, and may even drop in the next few years. Surely, this trend may be an anomaly, but its existence does raise a serious question mark, for all but true believers. Some disciplines in both the arts and the sciences are highly speculative, and that makes their theories and predictions unstable. Does climate science belong here? I have my suspicions. For instance, climatologists told us for a decade or more that climate in southeastern Australia and in particular, rainfall was determined by weather patterns and sea currents across the Pacific Ocean. Now, suddenly we are being told that it is rather the Indian Ocean that is critical. The claims made about the science have been rash, asserting dogmatic certainty about humaninduced warming when the reality is that the overall picture is quite unclear. This has now backfired, with the IPCC admitting mistakes in its 2007 report, and the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, which the IPCC has drawn heavily upon, shown to have been, at the least, devious in the results it has made public. There may be some link between the rashness of the global warming campaign and the haplessness of the politics that has followed. The best current bet is that, after Copenhagen, emission controls is dead as a serious international issue. And further, only some environmental disaster that can be convincingly linked to climate change will rekindle it. The ''sceptics'' have won the politics. The clumsy politics is international and local. An emissions trading scheme, as proposed by the Australian Government, is very bad policy.

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As if it were a marketing stunt!

But then this champion of ''the synthesis of disparate things''was raised to enjoy plurality. ''What you're born into is obviouslywhat's natural to you,'' she recalls. ''It was always strange to meto go round to other people's houses, and everybody seemed to bethe same colour.'' From her grudging teenage acceptance that the African Americannovelist Zora Neale Hurston had a quality of ''soul'' that couldspeak to the black-female side even of this pigeonhole-dodgingyoung Londoner, to her investigation of Kafka's lonely convictionthat ''the impossible thing was collectivity itself'', severalpieces turn on Smith's sceptical view of belonging. ''I can't sign up to any collectivity which is immediate andunthinking,'' she insists. ''There are communities of Buffylovers [for her, the Vampire Slayer embodied a peak of televisualart], there are communities of people who adore Kafka. Those arereal communities to me, which are motivated by care and interestand personal involvement. I can't assume a collectivity of feelingwith millions of people I don't know on the basis of geneticindicators.'' If Smith escapes every stifling box, she needs her readers tobreak free as well. ''It is extraordinary how difficult it is toget people who are white to see plurality in people who aren'twhite,'' she frets. She was often asked: '' 'Why do you keep on writing about allthese multi-cultural people?' As if it were a marketing stunt! It'sfascinating - the idea that if you write about non-white peopleit's an angle. You would have to be white to ask thatquestion.'' Yet she will leave the missionary work to others. ''There arepeople who devote their writing lives to banging away at that wall.I can't do it because there are too many other things I'd like todo.'' Those many other things include the appreciation of comedy:''One of the things in English life that I've loved most, and Rosetta Stone software thinkof as most English.'' This passion became personal when her youngerbrother, Ben, mutated into the stand-up ''Doc Brown''. For his proud sister, it ''made me think about what comedy hadmeant to us as children - and part of it is definitely a kind ofdefence, if there's some question mark about who you are or whereyou fit in. Being funny was for both of us a way of smoothing oversome rough edges''. For Smith, Rome meant the chance to change her mind by joiningEurope. Not only did she acquire another language, she immersedherself in current Continental writing, surrounded by a thrivingcounter-culture of artistic rebels. ''In England, you're always co-opted. In Italy, if you want tostay sane, you have to completely and utterly separateyourself.'' That move abroad as a reader of fiction confirmed her in abelief that, in recent times, ''The European tradition is sodivorced from the English - we're at cross purposes at everypoint.'' An essay that contrasts the solid humanism of JosephO'Neill's Netherland with the playful subversion ofnarrative and personality in Tom McCarthy's much more ''European''novel, Remainder, allows Smith to expand on the yawning gulfthat she perceives. ''There's a great positivism and common sense which rules theAnglo-American tradition. For myself, it's not that you abandon thetradition, but just to be mentally abroad is the most refreshingthing.'' A fear of becoming ''entrenched'' peppers her conversation. Shebows to the 92-year-old Diana Athill as open-minded proof that''calcification'' need not arrive with age. And she deplores thepost-9/11 slide into ''a decade of binaries'', as a hopeless notiontakes hold that ''Difference can't be sustained - not just inpolitics and communities, but in the arts as well''.

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Google to add Maya, Nahuatl languages to search engine

Internet giant Google is adding two native Central American languages -- Maya and Nahuatl -- to its universal search service, a company official said Thursday. "Searches in these two pre-Columbian languages and mobile satellite-linked connections to the Internet are part of Google's growth strategy," Google's Mexico marketing technology director Miguel de Alva told . "The two languages are of interest to online searchers because the first (Maya) is spoken by 1.5 million people and the second (Nahuatl), by more than one million." Advertisement: Story continues below He noted that people speaking either of the two languages also speak Spanish. Nahuatl is mostly spoken in southern Mexico and northern Central America, while Maya is spoken across Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala and Belize. De Alva said the Google language project was well underway. "We're looking to team up with some academic institutions that will validate the languages, because we want to make sure our customers are getting the real, correct language both in vocabulary and meaning, as well as the word's particular usage." The Google Translate service is fast becoming part of the California-based Internet firm's popular main search engine. As of December, searchers can use the automatic translation program to look for Web pages written in any of 51 languages. The tool displays results Rosetta Stone Spanish Spain from as many as five languages at a time. The Wubi input system -- available on some Chinese computers and backed by the government -- uses character strokes as handwriting does. But the system itself is so difficult to learn that it has failed to gain mass appeal. However, iPhones and other smartphones now offer an option in which users can input characters by drawing them onto the touch screen. And in Japan, kanji kentei -- a character quiz with 12 levels -- has become a widespread craze among schoolchildren, housewives and retirees, according to Yoshiko Nakano, associate professor of Japanese at the University of Hong Kong. Some argue that the perceived decline in character knowledge is, in fact, nothing to worry about. A survey by the southern Chinese news portal Dayang Net, found that 80 percent of respondents had forgotten how to write some characters -- but 43 percent said they used handwritten characters only for signatures and forms. "The idea that China is a country full of people who write beautiful, fluid literature in characters without a second thought is a romantic fantasy," wrote the blogger and translator C. Custer on his Chinageeks blog. "Given the social and financial pressures that exist for most people in China... (and) given that nearly everyone has a cellphone, it really isn?t a problem at all." The explosion of internet and phone technology has itself led to the creation of new words and forms of writing. In 2008 Chinese people were sending 175 billion text messages each quarter, according to the Xinhua state news agency. Still, both Li Hanwei and Zeng Ming have become so concerned about character amnesia that they keep handwritten diaries partly to ensure they don?t forget how to write. If it werent for this, would they actually need to remember how to write characters with a pen? Li is almost stumped, but says she uses one "when I have to sign the back of my new credit card". "That?s almost all," she says.

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