The blue crane known as the Stanley crane and the paradise crane, is the national bird of South Africa. The species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN; the blue crane is a tall, ground-dwelling bird, but is small by the standards of the crane family. It is 100 -- 120 cm tall, with a wingspan of 180 -- weighs 3.6 -- 6.2 kg. Among standard measurements, the wing chord measures 51.4–59 cm, the exposed culmen measures 8–10 cm and the tarsus measures 20.5–25.2 cm. This crane is pale blue-gray in color becoming darker on the upper head and nape. From the crown to the lores, the plumage is sometimes whitish; the bill is ochre to greyish, with a pink tinge. The long wingtip feathers; the primaries are black to blackish on the secondaries. Unlike most cranes, it has a large head and a proportionately thin neck. Juveniles are similar but lighter, with tawny coloration on the head, no long wing plumes. Blue cranes are birds of the dry grassy uplands the pastured grasses of hills and plains with a few scattered trees.

They prefer areas in the nesting season that have access to both upland and wetland areas, though they feed entirely in dry areas. They are altitudinal migrants nesting in the lower grasslands of an elevation of around 1,300 to 2,000 m and moving down to lower altitudes for winter. Though found in areas of low human disturbance, the blue crane is thriving in the transformed agricultural areas of the Western Cape; this is the only portion of its range where the population is increasing, though they still face threats such as poisoning in the region. Of the 15 species of crane, the blue crane has the most restricted distribution of all. Species with lower population numbers now are found over a considerable range in their migratory movements; the blue crane is migratory altitudinal, but details are little known. The blue crane is social, less so during the breeding season. There is a strict hierarchy in groups, with the larger adult males being dominant, they overlap in range with 3 other crane species but interactions with these species and other "large wader" type birds are not known.

They are relentlessly aggressive to various other animals during the nesting season, attacking non-predatory species such as cattle, tortoises and sparrows. Humans are attacked if they approach a nest too with the aggressive male having torn clothes and drawn blood in such cases. Blue cranes feed from the ground and appear to feed near wetland areas. Most of their diet is comprised by grasses and sedges, with many types fed on based on their proximity to the nests, they are regularly insectivorous, feeding on numerous, sizeable insects such as grasshoppers. Small animals such as crabs, frogs, small lizards and snakes may supplement the diet, with such protein-rich food being broken down and fed to the young; the breeding period is seasonal, with eggs being recorded between October and March. Pair-formation amongst groups starts in October, beginning with both potential parents running in circles with each other; the male engages in a "dance" flings various objects in the air and jumps. A female from the group and the male appear to "select" each other and both engage in the dance of throwing objects and jumping.

After the dance, mating commences in around two weeks. In a great majority of known nests, two eggs are laid. Both males and females will incubate, with the male incubating at night and, during the day, defending the nest territory while the female incubates; the incubation stage lasts around 30 days. The young can swim well shortly thereafter, they are fed by their mothers, who regurgitates food into the mouths. The chicks fledge in the age of 3–5 months; the young continue to be tended to until the next breeding season, at which time they are chased off by their parents. While it remains common in parts of its historic range, approx. 26 000 individuals remain, it began a sudden population decline from around 1980 and is now classified as vulnerable. In the last two decades, the blue crane has disappeared from the Eastern Cape and Swaziland; the population in the northern Free State, Gauteng and North West Province has declined by up to 90%. The majority of the remaining population is in eastern and southern South Africa, with a small and separate population in the Etosha Pan of northern Namibia.

Isolated breeding pairs are found in five neighbouring countries. The primary causes of the sudden decline of the blue crane are human population growth, the conversion of grasslands into commercial tree plantations, poisoning: deliberate or accidental; the South African government has stepped up legal protection for the blue crane. Other conservation measures are focusing on research, habitat management and recruiting the help of private landowners; the blue crane is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds applies. The blue crane is culturally significant to the Xhosa people. Traditionally, when a man distinguished himself in battle or otherwise, he was decorated by a chief with blue crane feathers in a ceremory called ukundzabela. Men so honoured, who would wear the feathers sticking out of their hair, were known as me

George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he had served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. Bush is referred to as George W. Bush, Bush Junior, or Bush 43 to distinguish him from his father, George H. W. Bush, who served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993. Bush is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush, the second son to become the American president after his father, the first being John Quincy Adams. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. Bush married Laura Welch in 1977 and unsuccessfully ran for the U. S. House of Representatives shortly thereafter, he co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. Bush was elected president of the United States in 2000 when he defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore after a narrow and contested win that involved a Supreme Court decision to stop a recount in Florida.

He became the fourth person to be elected president while receiving fewer popular votes than his opponent. In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, Bush launched a "War on Terror" that began with the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and expanded to the Iraq War in 2003. Signature legislation passed during his presidency included broad tax cuts, the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the Medicare Modernization Act, funding for the AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR. In the 2004 presidential race, Bush defeated Democratic Senator John Kerry in a close election. After his re-election, Bush received criticism from across the political spectrum for his handling of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, other challenges. Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. In December 2007, the United States entered its longest post-World War II recession referred to as the "Great Recession", prompting the Bush administration to obtain congressional approval for multiple economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system.

Bush was among the most popular, as well as unpopular, U. S. presidents in history. Bush returned to Texas. In 2010, he published Decision Points, his presidential library opened in 2013. His presidency has been rated below average in historians' polls, although his favorability ratings have improved since leaving office. George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, at Yale–New Haven Hospital in New Haven, while his father was a student at Yale, he was the first child of George Herbert Walker Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, with four siblings, Neil and Dorothy. Another younger sister, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953, his grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U. S. Senator from Connecticut, his father was Ronald Reagan's vice president from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U. S. president from 1989 to 1993. Bush has English and some German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Irish and Scottish roots. Bush attended public schools in Midland, until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade.

He spent two years at The Kinkaid School, a prep school in Piney Point Village, Texas in the Houston area. Bush attended high school at Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, where he played baseball and was the head cheerleader during his senior year, he attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968. During this time, he was a cheerleader and a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon, serving as the president of the fraternity during his senior year. Bush became a member of the Skull and Bones society as a senior. Bush was a rugby union player and was on Yale's 1st XV, he characterized himself as an average student. His GPA during his first three years at Yale was 77, he had a similar average under a nonnumeric rating system in his final year. After his application to the University of Texas School of Law was rejected, Bush entered Harvard Business School in the fall of 1973, he graduated in 1975 with an MBA degree. He is the only U. S. president to have earned an MBA. Bush was engaged to Cathryn Lee Wolfman in 1967, but the engagement fizzled out.

Bush and Wolfman remained on good terms after the end of the relationship. While Bush was at a backyard barbecue in 1977, friends introduced him to Laura Welch, a schoolteacher and librarian. After a three-month courtship, she accepted his marriage proposal and they wed on November 5 of that year; the couple settled in Texas. Bush left his family's Episcopal Church to join his wife's United Methodist Church. On November 25, 1981, Laura Bush gave birth to fraternal twin daughters and Jenna. Prior to getting married, Bush struggled with multiple episodes of alcohol abuse. In one instance on September 4, 1976, he was pulled over near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, for driving under the influence of alcohol, he was cited for DUI, fined $150, got his Maine driver's license suspended. Bush said his wife has had a stabilizing effect on his life, he attributes her influence to his 1986 decision to give up alcohol. While Governor of Texas, Bush said of his wife, "I saw an elegant, beautiful woman who turned out not only to be elegant and beautiful, but sm

Victorious Boxers: Revolution, known as Hajime no Ippo: Revolution in Japan and Victorious Boxers: Challenge in PAL Regions, is a Japanese-developed boxing video game developed by AQ Interactive for the Wii. The game is based on Hajime no Ippo. Players are able to use the Wii controller to knock out the opponent; the game was released in Japan on June 21, 2007 and in North America on October 16, 2007. The gameplay in Victorious Boxers: Revolution features arcade style boxing with 3D character models fighting each other within a boxing ring; the player controls the character via a third person view with the camera behind the transparent character. Players are able to execute offensive moves like jabs, straights and uppercuts. Defensive moves ducking and swaying are available. In between rounds, the game displays the number of punches. Unlike the previous Victorious Boxers games, Revolutions features a head ups display for the time and damage; the damage meter is used to charge up special attacks.

The game has three different modes of gameplay. Revolutions features three difficulty settings; the game has three distinct methods for the player to control characters, two of which feature motion control. The first is similar to the Wii Sports' boxing in that the player holds the remote and nunchuk in their hands and throw punches; the player is able to control the characters' upper body movement as well as the lower body movement. The second is a point and click method which involves the player using the remote to draw patterns in the air while holding down the "A" button; the third allows the player to use either a Wii Classic Controller or a GameCube controller to control the characters. Revolutions is set in Japan; the gameplay takes place in various boxing arenas and is different from its predecessors in that it features boxing venues around the world including Sydney City Arena, Las Vegas Palace and Korakuen Hall. Like previous Victorious Boxers video games, there is a wide selection of characters from the manga series.

The game's main protagonist is Ippo Makunouchi and features a total of 25 playable characters, many with special moves that their character in the manga series utilized in fights. There are only five available characters. Many of the main characters from the series are included. Playable characters are Ippo Makunochi, Ichiro Miyata, Yusuke Oda, Ryuichi Hayami, Ryo Mashiba, Takeshi Sendo, Takuma Saeki, Volg Zangief, Eiji Date, Kazuki Sanada, Hammer Nao, Iwao Shimabukuro, Ryuhei Sawamura, Jimmy Sisphar, Ricardo Martinez, Manabu Itagaki, Kyosuke Imai, Hiroyuki Hoshi, Arnie Gregory, Tatsuya Kimura, Masaru Aoki, Eleki Battery, Papaya Dachiu, Mamoru Takamura, Brian Hawk; the Characters that did not return are Medngern Dachboy, Che Jounbong, Akira Shigeta, Takuzo Karasawa, Keichi Take, Fumito Makino, Keigo Okita, Tetsuji Kiba, Yi Yonsu, Ponchai Chuwatana, Jason Ozuma, Lee Chonpil, Kenta Kobashi, Tadashi Nakayama, Yoshio Fujiwara, Lunsaku Paudy, Yoshio Urayasu, Haseo Baraki, Naoya Ogawa, Takeshi Ryuzaki, Armand Alegria, Nefuma Ozca, Hiroshi Nishimura, Shinji Kanzaki, Pone Marcotte, Junichi Hotta, Katsutaka Imae, Paddy Magramo, Jackal Ito, Boy Arade, Bull Ushida, Snake Thomas, Armand Garcia, Hiroshi Yamanaka, David Eagle, Takaaki Ito, Atsushi Tamaki, Rally Bernard, Ralph Anderson, Yoshiaki Yajima Revolutions' story mode follows the boxing career of the main character, Ippo Makunouchi, which unfolds via cutscenes.

Ippo is a shy high school student. The motion control system was tested on people with no boxing experience as well as professional boxers. On July 31, 2007, Xseed announced that it had acquired the rights to publish the game in North American and planned to release it Fall 2007. Prior to Revolution's overseas release, it received an initial positive reception in North America. GameSpot has stated, they have stated that the controls are the "real hook in the game". 1UP.com stated that the "fluid hand-drawn anime style is a welcome addition." Prior to the announcement of its North American release, they stated that it was a fun game that "might deserve a place in your Japanese Wii import library."After hands on previews and its release, it received mixed reviews. A common complaint was the game forcing a loss in the story mode to progress the plot. 1UP.com stated. GameSpot praised the unique blend of a story and career mode, commented how the game matched the style of the anime, they criticized the voice acting.

Game Informer commented that the difficulty was erratic and the story had been poorly trimmed down. They complimented the motion controls, but stated that players would need to "warm up to them". GameZone referred to Revolutions as a "soap opera-heavy anime game." They stated the gameplay was better than the story and rated it 7/10. They praised the number of control options and commented that it's not the next big thing, but it is a solid title. Official English website

The 1500 kilowatt capacity Nooksack Falls Hydroelectric Power Plant was constructed at Nooksack Falls on the Nooksack River in 1906 by Stone & Webster, the second oldest operating facility in western Washington. The plant operated for over 90 years and ceased operation in 1997 due to a fire which destroyed the generator; the generator was replaced in 2003 and the plant resumed operations. In 1889, an association of investors led by Pierre B. Cornwall formed the Bellingham Bay Improvement Company; the company was made up of wealthy California businessmen who were investing into Bellingham with the vision that it would one day become an important urban center for commerce and trade. The BBIC invested in several diverse enterprises such as shipping, mining, railroad construction, real estate sales and utilities. Though their dreams of turning Bellingham into a Pacific Northwest metropolis never came to fruition, the BBIC made an immense contribution to the economic development of Bellingham; the BBIC had the franchise for providing electricity to the city of Bellingham, which at that time went to street lighting and electric streetcars.

However, by 1903 the small generator powering Bellingham was proving to be inadequate for the growing city. The BBIC began developing a hydroelectric plant on the North Fork of the Nooksack River, below Nooksack Falls. In 1904, the BBIC's electrical franchise with the city of Bellingham was up for renewal and the city council made it abundantly clear that they were not happy with BBIC's performance up to this point; the city event threatened to build a municipally owned hydroelectric plant at Whatcom Falls. After a survey showing that BBIC was supplying Bellingham with cheaper power than any of the municipal proposals, the city subsequently backed off. In addition to the hostility felt by the city council, the BBIC was encountering construction problems at Nooksack Falls. In 1903 the BBIC had bored six tunnels, yet the generator and transformers for the plant were waiting fifty miles away. Moving heavy hydroelectric equipment through the mountains to the Nooksack site proved to be a challenge.

The heaviest equipment ended up being shipped to the railhead at Glacier, loaded on a sled and pulled through the mountains. The first piece of heavy equipment to be brought in was a crane with a forty thousand pound capacity. Lighter equipment and parts were brought in by pack animals. Many local residents were paid to lease out their animals. However, all the difficulties of maintaining a generator and trying to construct the Nooksack Site took its toll on BBIC. In 1905 the board of directors announced the sale of its utility holdings. In 1905, Stone & Webster bought out the power and lighting properties that were once owned by the BBIC; these included the York Street Steam plant and the built Nooksack Falls Hydroelectric Power Plant. Stone & Webster took over construction operations and on September 21, 1906, Bellingham received power from the plant via a 47-mile-long transmission line. For much of the plant's history, it served as the center of a small community; because of its remote location, rugged landscape, primitive transportation, the only practical way to operate the plant was to have employees on site.

The utility company employed one chief-operator and two assistant operators, housed in three frame cottages. In addition, a school teacher was hired to tutor children. A two-story wood frame hotel was built around 1905 to house company officials, construction workers and other visitors. A section of the hotel was used as a classroom. Employment for the plant reached its peak between the mid-1920s. Once the plant became automated by 1978, the cottages were demolished in order to discourage squatters from living there; the Power Plant was placed on The National Register of Historic Places on December 15, 1988

Positive behavior support is a behavior management system used to understand what maintains an individual's challenging behavior. People's inappropriate behaviors are difficult to change; these behaviors are supported by reinforcement in the environment. In the case of students and children adults in a child’s environment will reinforce his or her undesired behaviors because the child will receive objects and/or attention because of his behavior. Functional behavior assessments describe behaviors, identify the contexts that predict when behavior will and will not occur, identify consequences that maintain the behavior, they summarize and create a hypothesis about the behavior, directly observe the behavior and take data to get a baseline. The positive behavior support process involves goal identification, information gathering, hypothesis development, support plan design and monitoring. In order for techniques to work in decreasing undesired behavior, they should include: feasibility and effectiveness.

Strategies are needed that teachers and parents are able and willing to use and that affect the child's ability to participate in community and school activities. Positive behavior support is being recognized as a strategy that meets these criteria. By changing stimulus and reinforcement in the environment and teaching the child to strengthen deficit skill areas the student's behavior changes in ways that allow him/her to be included in the general education setting; the three areas of deficit skills identified in the article were communication skills, social skills, self-management skills. Re-directive therapy as positive behavior support is effective in the parent–child relationship. Where other treatment plans have failed re-directive therapy allows for a positive interaction between parents and children. Positive behavior support is successful in the school setting because it is a teaching method. Schools are required to conduct functional behavioral assessment and use positive behavior support with students who are identified as disabled and are at risk for expulsion, alternative school placement, or more than 10 days of suspension.

Though FBA is required under limited circumstances it is good professional practice to use a problem-solving approach to managing problem behaviors in the school setting. The use of Positive Behavior Intervention Supports in schools is widespread in part because it is a professional skill in early special education programs; the program offers a primary and tertiary level of intervention. A basic tenet of the PBIS approach includes identifying students in one of three categories based on risk for behavior problems. Once identified, students receive services in one of three categories: primary, secondary, or tertiary. To help practitioners with differences in interventions used at each of the levels the professional literature refers to a three-tiered model Interventions are developed for each of these levels with the goal of reducing the risk for academic or social failure; these interventions may be behavioral and or academic interventions incorporating scientifically proven forms of instruction such as direct instruction.

The interventions become more focused and complex. Primary prevention strategies focus on interventions used on a school-wide basis for all students. PBS use for other than a designated population group has neither been approved by the professions or the public-at-large; this level of prevention is considered "primary" because all students are exposed in the same way, at the same level, to the intervention. The primary prevention level is the largest by number. 80–85% of students who are not at risk for behavior problems respond in a positive manner to this prevention level. Primary prevention strategies include, but are not limited to, using effective teaching practices and curricula, explicitly teaching behavior, acceptable within the school environment, focusing on ecological arrangement and systems within the school, consistent use of precorrection procedures, using active supervision of common areas, creating reinforcement systems that are used on a school-wide basis. Secondary prevention strategies involve students who do not respond to the primary prevention strategies and are at risk for academic failure or behavior problems but are not in need of individual support.

Interventions at the secondary level are delivered in small groups to maximize time and effort and should be developed with the unique needs of the students within the group. Examples of these interventions include social support such as social skills training or academic support. Additionally, secondary programs could include behavioral support approaches. With the heightened support within secondary level interventions, some students will need the additional assistance a

Candida Baker is an Australian author, photographer and natural horsemanship practitioner. She was born in England and moved to Australia in 1977. Baker was born into a theatrical family. Squire, was a British poet, writer and influential literary editor, her father was George Baker MBE and her mother, Julia Squire, was a costume and set designer. Baker first came to Australia as an understudy with a Royal Shakespeare Company tour of The Hollow Crown in 1976 and subsequently moved to Australia in 1977. In 1982 Baker embarked on a ten-year writing project, interviewing 36 Australian writers for her Yacker – Australian Writers Talk About Their Work series, published by Picador and based on The Paris Review interviews with writers. In 1983 she and her then-partner Robert Drewe moved to Melbourne where Baker worked at The Age newspaper for a year before she was offered the position of Arts Editor at Time Australia magazine. In 1988, The Age newspaper offered Baker a position as a features writer based in Sydney, a position she held for seven years.

Baker was subsequently deputy editor of the Good Weekend, arts editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, for five years editor of The Australian's Weekend Australian Magazine. Between 1986 and 1999 Yacker 1, 2, 3, were all published, Baker's first novel and Horses, was a runner-up in the prestigious Vogel Australian Literary Awards in 1990, it was published in Australia by Picador, in the U. S as a hardback by St. Martin's Press. In 1994 Baker's book of short stories, The Powerful Owl, was published by Picador; the title story was runner-up in The Canberra Times short story competition and has been included in numerous anthologies, including The Penguin Century of Australian Stories. In 2000 Baker's second novel, The Hidden, was published by Knopf, included Baker's own photographs – a theme she would continue in her anthologies. In 2001 Baker left News Ltd and moved out from Sydney to the Byron Bay hinterland in order to pursue an interest in natural horsemanship and from where she continues to write articles and books.

In 2017 she was appointed President of Save a Horse Australia. Baker was appointed Director of the 2011 Byron Bay Writers' Festival, director of the Northern Rivers Writers' Centre. Guests for the Festival included Louis de Bernières and Paul Kelly. In 2014 Baker started Verandah Magazine an online arts and lifestyle magazine covering the Byron Bay and Northern Rivers region, which includes numerous local contributors, she is a regular book reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald'and has reviewed for The Times Literary Supplement. Baker has edited a number of anthologies, including The Penguin Book of the Horse and with Allen & Unwin as publisher she edited and contributed to The Infinite Magic of Horses, The Wonderful World of Dogs, The Amazing Life of Cats and The Wisdom of Women, her writing has appeared in numerous other anthologies, including Fathers. She has written three children’s books, The Little Angels Counting Book, I Know That and Belinda the Ninja Ballerina published by Ford Street in 2015, she is working on her third novel.

In 2015 Baker edited and wrote an essay for arts philanthropist Pat Corrigan's book Gabori, the Pat Corrigan Collection of Paintings by Sally Gabori, published by Pan Macmillan. In 2017 she collaborated with film-maker Marie Craven, creating three film/poetry videos which have been shown around the world; the pair took part in a poetry collaboration with Chaucer Cameron and Helen Dewbery – ‘Elephant’s Footprint’. Baker has an MA in Art History from the University of Adelaide. Candida Baker is the eldest daughter of English actor George Baker MBE. Born in London and raised in the small hamlet of Rousham in Oxfordshire, Baker immigrated to Australia when she was 22 after covering the London-to-Sydney car rally, she lived with and married the respected Australian writer and journalist Robert Drewe whom she met when they were both working at Australian Consolidated Press. Baker and Drewe were together for 25 years, had two children before moving to the North Coast of New South Wales. Drewe and Baker separated in 2006.

Their son, Sam Drewe is a owner of the label Samson & Bronc. Official website